======================= SSC News, January, 1994 ======================= Contents: Public Terminal Room to be Closed for Prelims Please Return Any Borrowed Manuals Come Hear About DoIT's Dial Access Package Available to Faculty and Staff New SSC publications SAS has been Upgraded on VMS an VMS and SunOS ML3 2.3 Installed Across VAXCluster Office in Public Terminal Room Available for Reserve 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. --------------------------------------------- Public Terminal Room to be Closed for Prelims --------------------------------------------- The public terminal room (Soc. Sci. 2470) will be closed for students taking prelims from 8:00a.m. to 5:00p.m. on the following dates: January 10, 20, and 21. Consulting will still be available but via e-mail only. ---------------------------------- Please Return Any Borrowed Manuals ---------------------------------- If you have borrowed any software manuals from Nancy McDermott or the consulting office in 2470, please return them. We are in the process transferring our SSC manuals to the CDE Print Library in Soc.Sci. 4457 so that the manuals can be circulated from there. Details on this will be included in next month's SSCNEWS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Come Hear About DoIT's Dial Access Package Available to Faculty and Staff ------------------------------------------------------------------------- DoIT's dial-in software package which was available last fall to students will also be available to faculty and staff beginning January 10. On Wednesday, January 26 in the IRP conference room (3432) from 12:00-1:00, Tom Flory will give an overview of this software including a demonstration. The software gives you access, by phone or over an ethernet connection, to WiscWorld -- a set of computing and networking services. With this software, a high speed modem, and a WiscWorld account, you can dial in to your WiscWorld account from home and then telnet to your SSC account. With the right modem, this means a much faster communication rate than the 2400-bps that direct dial-in to SSC provides. For example, with the SupraFax Modem 144 LC that can be purchased from MACC Computer Repair, you can connect at a communication rate of 57600-bps! You may purchase the dial-in package from DoIT for the cost of the diskettes at the DoIT Customer Center at 1210 West Dayton Street. You can also download the software for free via anonymous FTP. FTP to novell.macc.wisc.edu. Enter "anonymous" for your username and enter your username for your password. Change directories (cd) to wiscworld/release1.1 and then change directories again depending on the type of floppy disk you will be downloading to. If you want to use WiscWorld from your office over your ethernet link, you need to download a software "packet driver" from MACC's anonymous ftp location. To identify the right packet driver and get the right configuration, you should contact Marcia Hazen or Kyle Gasser. DoIT's Help Desk number is 264-4357. Also, don't forget to come to Tom's overview on January 26. -------------------- New SSC publications -------------------- The following new publications are available for SSC users: Data Storage Alternatives at SSC (#2-9) How to Use gZIP and gUNZIP for File Compression (#4) How to Transfer ASCII Files between 3480 and Disk (#20) How to Transfer ASCII Files from 9-Track Tape to 3480 (#21) How to Transfer SAS and SPSS System Files between 3480 and Disk (#23) How to Transfer SAS and SPSS System Files from 9-Track Tape to 3480 (#24) How to Print SAS/GRAPH Output (#26) How to Read Compressed SAS Transport Files Directly in a SAS Program (#28) The following SSC publications have undergone major revisions: Using Worm Platters (#2-8) Using SAS on VMS (#3-11) Using SPSS on VMS (#3-12) Using SAS on UNIX (#7-4) Using LIMDEP on UNIX (#7-6) Using SPSS on UNIX (#7-7) UNIX Introductory Handbook (should be back from printers next week) SSC publications are available in the racks in the public terminal room, Soc. Sci. 2470. -------------------------------------- SAS has been Upgraded on VMS and SunOS -------------------------------------- SAS has been upgraded on VMS and SunOS. The new version number on VMS is 6.08. On SunOS the version number is 6.09. Both are maintenance releases and are basically the same release of SAS. (A description of SAS Institute's naming convention for version numbers would require its own manual!) We cannot install version 6.09 on Ultrix until we get the next version of the Ultrix operating system installed. Any changes from version 6.07 should be transparent for the most part There is a new statistical procedure called GENMOD which may be of interest to many of you. GENMOD is a generalized linear model procedure with the same capabilities as the GLIM package plus a few added perks. Changes and Enhancements are documented in SAS Technical Report P-242. This document is available for browsing in Soc. Sci. 4406. In addition to public VAX nodes SSCC, IRP2, and SOC3, SAS 6.08 is also available on SSCB. All SAS products are available on SSCB. The other nodes have the same SAS products as before. Type SOFT_LIST SAS for a list. Please send mail to CONSULTANT if you have any difficulty using the new version of SAS. ----------------------------------- ML3 2.3 Installed Across VAXCluster ----------------------------------- Version 2.3 of ML3 has been installed across the VAXcluster. ML3 carries out analyses for multilevel modelling. The program is invoked by typing ML3. This requires the following assignment in the LOGIN.COM file of anyone who wants to use the program: $ML3 :== $CLUS$PROD2:[ML3]ML The program by default will allocate a worksheet of 250,000 cells. If you want a larger worksheet you can pass a command line parameter specifying the size of the worksheet in thousands of cells. Thus "ML3 1000" would execute the program with a million cell worksheet. The program keeps attempting to grab space for the worksheet until the required size is obtained or a system limit is encountered. Because of this, it is especially important that you remember no interactive processing is allowed on public VAX nodes; only batch processing. Please note ML3 does not contain the high resolution graphics commands that are included in the PC version. However, the character plotting routines are included. Copies of the manuals for ML3 are available in the consulting office in Soc. Sci. 2470, from Nancy McDermott in 4406, and from the CDE Data Library (for CDE members only). Soon, SSC's copies of ML3 manuals (and other SSC manuals as well) will be available in the CDE Print Library. ---------------------------------------------------- Office in Public Terminal Room Available for Reserve ---------------------------------------------------- T.A.'s and instructors of classes using instructional accounts, it is time to reserve the consulting office in the public terminal room (Soc. Sci. 2470) for holding office hours. As was announced in SSCNEWS in May, the consulting office (not the entire terminal room) is now available for reserve by instructors or teaching assistants to hold office hours (during times when no consultant is on duty) to provide support to students who use the SSC computers as part of their class work. The office is available between 8-10am or 3-5pm, Monday through Friday. Please contact Nancy McDermott (send mail to mcdermott or call 262-3206) to reserve the room. 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.