======================== SSC News, April, 1995 ======================== This is the SSC News. This monthly electronic newsletter will keep you informed about recent changes on the SSC computer networks. We hope this information will help improve communication between the SSC computing staff and all of you computer users out there. Inside this issue... SSC Spring Training Schedule Public Terminal Room Gets New Face Changes in On-line Help How long will data on WORM platters last? ---------------------------- SSC Spring Training Schedule ---------------------------- Note: All SSC training sessions now require preregistration. If no one has preregistered for a course one week prior to its start date, the class may be cancelled. To preregister for a class, send mail to SSCCLASS indicating which class(es) you plan to attend. You will be reminded about your pre- registration through e-mail a day or two before the class begins. Date Time Topic Room Instructor ---- ---- ----- ---- ---------- 4/11,18 T 2:30-4:00 Intro to SAS/GRAPH 3432 Brown 4/12 CANCELLED Working with the PSID Data CANCELLED Dechter 4/18 T 11:00-12:00 Intro to NCD X Terminals 2470 McDermott 4/19 W 12:00-1:00 Moving ASCII Data Hither and Yonder 4452 Cooper/McD 4/21 F 12:00-1:00 Moving Binary Data Hither and Yonder 4452 Cooper/McD 4/26 W 12:00-1:30 Categorical Analyses in SAS 4452 McDermott TBA Intro to NCD X Terminals on VMS 2470 Flory TBA Intro to NCD X Terminals on UNIX 2470 McDermott TBA Extracting Data Interactively w/ BADGER 2470 Fassnacht Descriptions for each of the above training sessions is posted in SSCGOPHER. ---------------------------------- Public Terminal Room Gets New Face ---------------------------------- Have you dropped by the Public Terminal Room lately? There have been some major additions. A laser printer, a door access control system giving 24-hour access to the room, and a telephone were added last week (see bulletin for details). Today we are in the process of replacing six of the 12 vt320 terminals with X-terminals. We will schedule introductory sessions over the next couple of months. See the SSC Training Schedule in this newsletter for the fist scheduled session and how to register. --------------------------- Changes in On-line VMS Help --------------------------- The VMS help system contains several "supplemental" help libraries which have been maintained by the SSC staff. These help libraries have become out of date due to our recent focus on other ways of providing information: gopher and publications. We have decided to discontinue work on the VMS supplemental help libraries. The information currently contained in these help libraries will be reproduced elsewhere: * If the information is of use to VMS users in general, it will be placed in the SSC gopher under SSC VMS Information. * If the information is reproduced in SSC Publications, these will now be the only source of the information. This will simplify keeping the information current and correct. SSC Publications are available on paper from the Consultant and in 2470 and also on-line in the SSC gopher under SSC Publications. * If the help covers a software product provided by a commercial vendor, the information will be placed in the main VMS help library. * If the help covers an unsupported, non-commercial software product, the information in the help topic will no longer be supported or any attempts made at keeping it up-to-date. These help topics will only be available to users by using the command OLDHELP. The information supplemental help libraries has been dispersed as follows: SUPPORTED: help on programs available on the SSC VAX Cluster which are supported by the SSC Staff (meaning we purchase or wrote the program and can obtain bug fixes if they are required.) Much of the information in this help library may be found in SSC Publications or in the SSC Gopher under VMS Information. Help on commercial programs may be found in the main VMS HELP library or within the program itself. UNSUPPORTED: help on software available on the SSC VAX Cluster which is generally less thoroughly documented and supported than that described in the SUPPORTED library. Some of the programs listed here were written by users and staff for specific tasks, but are potentially useful to a wider community. These help topics will be available by using the command OLDHELP. GUIDELINES: information about some of the policies and guidelines in effect at the SSC. This information is now in the SSC gopher under SSC VMS Information. PUBLICATIONS: copies of the SSC Publications. These documents are now available in the SSC Gopher. ----------------------------------------- How long will data on WORM platters last? ----------------------------------------- -- by Anne L. Cooper, CDE Senior Data Librarian Recently I requested the purchase of a new drive to read WORM platters, to serve as a backup and eventual replacement for the the 5-year-old drive we currently have. I was told that the drives that read the 12" platters we have are no longer being made. The salesperson said "Why don't you switch to 5.25"?" That's fine but what about the 40 gigabytes of CDE data library data stored on 12" platters, as well as data users have placed on platters they have bought. We should still be able to read them for several (maybe more) years, but I just want you to know that, while they've been a wonderful addition to the data library for the last 5 years, they won't be useful for as long as I had hoped. We were able to locate and purchase a used WORM platter drive so that will provide us with some redundancy and (we hope) extend the useable life of our current WORM platters. You might wonder if there is a storage 'standard' that we should be adhering to, the sort of standard that 9-track tapes were for a number of years. The market (and marketing departments) emphasizes innovation and, while media may last a long time, the hardware to read them gets too expensive to maintain. So I believe that depending on the size of the data sets, we will be using 4 mm tape, 8 mm tape, cartridges of various types, magneto-optical PC backup devices, etc, for user backup. I anticipate serving central data access needs with disk on the Unix side, using whatever backup medium seems best at the moment. For user archiving, I'd recommend tape. We will be experimenting in the data library with 'write-your-own-CD-ROM', a technology which is getting more mature. I've said for a long time that preservation of data means recopying them again and again but I'd hoped it was on a longer (say 10 year) cycle. TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS NEWSLETTER, just reply to this mail message indicating you want to unsubscribe. We will remove you from the distribution list for future electronic mailings. If you ever change your mind, just notify the SSC Consultant or send mail to SSCNEWS asking to get back on the list.