Fast Newsreader (FNEWS)

FNEWS is basically a mixture of NEWSRDR and ANU-NEWS, providing a somewhat different full-screen interface and quick response to all 9000 groups. FNEWS is the first newsreader which was build first on a VMS platform and then ported to Un*x! It can be found on zephyr.grace.cri.nz. Well, actually, it can't be found there any longer...:-((( It's now a shareware product, available from ftp.std.com. The actual shareware-version is 2.5, and has been ported to AXP.

The latest PD version is 1.6c, which is also installed at our site. For more information on FNEWS, try the postscript documentation, or, if you're lacking ghostview, try the VMS help. We have split the load on two machines, one (a VAX) for daily caching, and the other (AXP) for using the user-end of the software. The VAX end worked well from the beginning (one small bug in the TCP-modules was corrected by myself in February and should be also updated in the distribuation kit since). We're doing a nightly complete chash of all 9500 newsgroups at our local server, and are updating them four times a day.

The tricky bit was the port to the AXP architecture. Since Chris hasn't done it till now, I was obliged to work it out myself. (VESTing the code didn't work for the UCX part...) Till now it works great, except for some bad image exits from MX from time to time. I'd to hack on this part a bit, but it got fine automagically by upgrading to DECC 4.0 (ahhhh!)

If you urgently need the AXP port, you can mail me. I'm not going to place a version in PD, as the porting turned out to be easy and furthermore there is a AXP-version available as shareware.

Last update: 12-MAY-1995

alexander.binder@kfunigraz.ac.at