Conference 7.286::digital

    	You can subscribe to "VNS NEWS", a daily electronic newspaper.
    I'll send you my copy today and you can subscribe.  Stock info is
    current when published, which is almost every day.
    
    KMP

    There's also a VTX server (running in MKO, I believe) that accepts
    news leads from UPI, AP, TASS, etc.  One of the items there is to
    examine the NYSE info for your specified stock(s) and report the
    current prices.  Disclaimer at the bottom says that stock prices
    are delayed by 15 minutes, but if you need to know on a minute by
    minute basis, this sure helps.
    
    Jon

RE:< Note 239.2 by TIXEL::ARNOLD "Are we having fun yet?" >

How do I access the server you mentioned?

RE: 239.1
Thanks also.  I will subscribe to VNS as well.

Dale

Unless there's a VTX server I don't know about (well, I know there are some I
don't know about), .2's information is rather "made up."

There is a VTX server which you can access through your connection to your
local VTX server which contains current AP news wire information.  UPI and
TASS (except as reported by AP) is unavailable.

For DEC stock prices, how about dialing into the automatic system run by
investor services.  For a stock quote, I just did the following:

	Dialled DTN 223-1880	(617 493-1880 from the outside)

	Entered my badge number and security code.
	Entered 1# 6#

	Received the response "At 4 o'clock the price of DEC stock was 106.625."

/john

RE:< Note 239.4 by COVERT::COVERT "John Covert" >
                                     -<  >-

That's probably the best suggestion yet.  I've just joined the Stock Plan 
and I'm waiting for my security code (I assume it won't take too long to 
receive....will it?)

Dale

    re .4
    
    Made up?  Made up???  Excuse me while I take offense.
    
    Define your VTX$SERVER to be REDFSH::"""249=""" and you will be
    connected to a server.  It's a very VTX-like product called SISCOM
    thru a company of the same name in Colorado.  They take news leads
    from AP, UPI, yes even TASS, and format them into VTX-infofile format.
    I've been working with the people from SISCOM (including one of
    them at DECville '86, where this service was available to each &
    every attendee).
    
    One of the questions I had for them was why are there sometimes
    no news/weather stories?  The answer received was that the infobase
    is shared by a node in Valbonne; when that node goes down and/or
    is rebooted, it initializes the common datafile.  Apparently it's
    an operational problem the way we've got it setup.
    
    Still offended --
    Jon

	Read today's TASS stories about CIA booby-trapped toys in
	Afghanistan, detention camps in America, Gary Hart expounding
	on Tolstoy... It's fascinating to see what Soviet citizens are
	told about the West. Also, there is a Mexican news agency
	represented (articles are in Spanish), and a Taiwanese agency
	(translated).
	
	Although TASS should get a better translator: "...smear the
	government of the republic and the Soviet Union into the
	bargain."
	
	Mike

OK, so I was wrong.  (Said I might be.)

It looks pretty neat.  For AP stories, the AP service available through the
normal VTX channels is certainly better organized -- I'm not sure whether
I prefer a topic name or the first line -- it's possible for either way to
be better.  It doesn't seem to have UPI.

Where does it save your "personal portfolio" -- and how long and how many of
these will it store, or is it storing them back here on my system in something
I haven't found yet?

And is this thing registered with the VTX registry?

/john

    This is *great news*!!
    
    BTW, looks like they get TASS on shortwave RTTY - the error rate
    looks a bit high.
    

    Re: VNX
    
    	Personnaly I prefer accessing The Vogon News Servers through
    VTX at node CASEE. The fact that I am on the same ethernet may
    have influenced this preference. Ask a local VTX server to add a
    remote page to CASEE, that will give optimal performance.
    To get to the stock quote from to VNX main menu type:
    	1 - For the most recent edition.
    	2 - For the computer page. (which wasn't there for the last
    	    few days :-(.
    
    Hein.

    Could I please encourage the owner of this infobase to register
    it with the Corporate Videotex Program  -- I'm going to get a headache
    with all these people telling others to DEFINE VTX$SERVER  -- we
    in the Videotex Program are trying to encourage a Site Server concept
    and make available the Corporate VTX Library which lists all registered
    infobases thus saving network resources on your node.  Contact me
    if you require more information.
    Marian

    I believe the siscom infobase is more of a demo thing than a full
    blown for-all-DEC infobase.  That's probably why it isn't listed
    with CVP (although personally I read it every day).
    
    The personal portfolio is based on your VTX connect name, which
    is made up of your node and username, from what I can determine.
    
    john

    
    re .6
    
    Sounds interesting, but when I tried, I got 
    "remote object does not exist" type messages, then
    failover to my local server which (re .11) has VERY 
    limited offerings...
    Is it still around? has it moved, or?
    
    Kevin
    

It seems to crap out at least once a day.  I call 264-5055 and leave a message
for Tony Resavage to get it restarted.

/john

Another note:

REDFSH is among the nodes in MK due to get a new node number today.

If your database is out of sync with what REDFSH currently thinks its
number is, you won't get through.

At the moment, the server is running on REDFSH, which still has its *old*
node number.

/john

RE: last

Do you know what the node address is?

RE: Market Monitor on REDFSH:

What do the "+-=" signs mean in the ticks column?

Thanks for any info.

Dale

    +-= means previous tick was lower, higher, same, respectively.

	Anyone know why the SISCOM Infobase has been empty this week?

	Is the "demo" over? I had so much fun watching DEC's stock rise the
last few weeks, only to have it crap out this week!

I've been leaving messages all week to try to get it working again with no luck.

The manager of the group, Lee Dailing, has explained to me that his group's
function to support demos, not to run internal VTX services.  He made it clear
that if he finds out that it is not being used for demos, he would try to see
if some other group wants to pick it up and run it as a service.

/john

John,

No to be pushy, but have you heard anything from the system manager you're 
talking about.

I sure enjoyed watching DEC stock grow.

Dale

Nope.

Why don't you all contact him.  (Not the system manager, the group manager.)

/john

I've just talked to Lee Dailing (the group manager of the group running the
SISCOM server).

He tells me he's not overly concerned about the system not being running and
reiterated his position that unless it was being used for demos, it would be
going away.

It would be nice if some other group in that building would offer to pick it
up as a result of reading about its possible demise here in this conference.

(I say "in that building" because there is a receiving antenna already in
place on the roof to handle it.)

/john

Re:< Note 239.22 by COVERT::COVERT "John R. Covert" >

Since I'm out west it probably doesn't do much good for me to talk to 
anyone out here about taking it over.

Too bad.  I'm not sure I understand his position about running demos.

Dale

    re .-2: Just out of curiosity, how do they receive it?
    
    Some of the TASS stuff loked like it's originally ttapped from their
    shortwave telex service.
    

    Another vote for a permanent SISCOM. I really miss it ...
    

    Lee is a friend of mine, & I talked with him yesterday about SISCOM.
    I assured him that I knew that at least 2 other people plus myself
    were using it for demo purposes.  Seems as if the problem occurred
    somewhere around Jan 2nd and hasn't been completely kosher since.
    If you remember, that's the date of the first of the major snow
    that this area has seen this year.  The cable link between the computer
    and the receiver is thought to be the problem & is being checked.
    
    Re somebody's suggestion that "somebody else in that building take
    it over if Lee doesn't want to keep it", I'm in that same building
    and made the offer to take it if he wants to get rid of it.  For
    the present time, they're going to track down the problem and get
    it fixed.
    
    Jon

Failed after a heavy snow, eh?  Somebody should go up on the roof and check
for snow in the dish.  If the dish was not secured properly, winds may have
moved it as well.

	Looks like SISCOM is back on the air!  At least for today.

	Anyone know if this is permanent, or just another demo?

	Thanks to whoever did it for whatever reason, if it is permanent!

    Some of us like to spend our days doing our best to be sure that
    the stock keeps going up by making customers more successful using
    our systems instead of tying up resources watching the stock price.
    
    I certainly don't see why some people insist on using a demo facility
    to entertain themselves.
    
    Sorry to flame but it just seems very poor taste to be misusing
    the network in the manner described in this note.

    Don

Don,

You're way off base here.

If you want a demo facility that works when someone wants to do a demo, then
the best way to be sure it will be is to also have it in normal operation,
serving the users on the net.

The SISCOM server definitely has problems -- even when the data is coming
into the server properly, the server crashes every several hours.  If we
don't have some sort of pressure from a heavy internal user community to
get this problem fixed it isn't worth using for demos.

It's lots of fun to set up to demo something to a customer and have it
broken.

/john

Anyone know why the QUOTE_V0.EXE program is not working ?

$STOCK
%SYSTEM-F-UNREACHABLE, remote node is not currently reachable

Anyone else experiencing this problem ?

    Node DIODE moved again.  It is now at: 7.502.  You'll need a new
    version of QUOTE_V0.EXE to get your program working again.  It can be
    copied from DIODE::SYS$SYSDEVICE:[QUOTE].

$ copy  DIODE::SYS$SYSDEVICE:[QUOTE]quote_v0.exe *
%COPY-E-OPENIN, error opening DIODE::SYS$SYSDEVICE:[QUOTE]QUOTE_V0.EXE; as 
input

NCP>show node diode
Node Volatile Summary as of  8-NOV-1994 13:59:51
    Node           State      Active  Delay   Circuit     Next node
                              Links
 7.502 (DIODE)                                BNA-0        15.1008 (DASNS1)
NCP>

    
    While on the subject .. does anyone have a new source for the
    DECwindows version of Quote? That stopped working for me a few weeks
    ago, before the DCL version quit.
    
    thanks,
    	mark

The DECW_QUOTE program has an options box which allows
you to change the address of the server.

    
    >The DECW_QUOTE program has an options box which allows
    >you to change the address of the server.
    
    Hmmm ... I'll check that out - thanks!
    
    mark

>>    While on the subject .. does anyone have a new source for the
>>    DECwindows version of Quote? That stopped working for me a few weeks

and if you do want a new version - it can be found at 
HNDYMN::SYS$PUBLIC:DECW_QUOTE.A

There is a OpenVMS VAX (5.5 and up) version and OpenVMS AXP (6.1 and up)
already linked up.  (these images have high/low/change notification capability)

bjm

I had problems using the node name before...

$ copy  DIODE::SYS$SYSDEVICE:[QUOTE]quote_v0.exe *
%COPY-E-OPENIN, error opening DIODE::SYS$SYSDEVICE:[QUOTE]QUOTE_V0.EXE; as 
input

I had more success using ... 
$ copy 30296::DSA0:[QUOTE]QUOTE_V0.EXE []
       ^^^^^
       Does any one know what this new number should be ?

Never mind I got QUOTE_v0.EXE this morning...

$ copy  DIODE::SYS$SYSDEVICE:[QUOTE]quote_v0.exe *
%COPY-S-COPIED, DIODE::SYS$SYSDEVICE:[QUOTE]QUOTE_V0.EXE;11 copied 

DEC 30 7/8, change +0 7/8; DJIA 3830.74, change +21.87 at 16:00.
Report entered at Wed Nov  9 09:00:41 1994.

�                             -< fwiw, it's 7670:: >-

	Though actually that's not much use.  The new version of
	QUOTE_V0.EXE now uses the nodename DIODE::  i.e. if you
	have to use 7670:: to copy the file, it won't work when 
	you get it.

	Ian.

    Re .41:
    
    You can define the logical name DIODE to be 7670, and VMS will do the
    translation when the program attempts to connect to DIODE.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    and I had to use 7670:: in DECW_QUOTE because the network database
    is/was out of date on the cluster I was trying to set it up on...
    
    - Richard.