What Was New

May 2001

• Webmail saw a number of changes as of May 15. Click here for more information.

April 2001

• Version 6.0, or Release 12, of the MATLAB numerical analysis package is now available on all RCS UNIX (IBM, SGI, and Sun) platforms, as well as in all Windows 98 and ME and Windows NT PC labs.
• Version 6.1 of Abaqus, a finite element solver that interfaces with other solid modelers, is now available on the IBM and SGI UNIX workstations.

November 2000

• A new application is now available for installation on private personal computers which allows you to check user statistics for your RCS Account. These statistics include information about printing charges including refunds and disk space usage.

  For the immediate future, this tool is only available on systems which give you sufficient access to download the required Java runtime and browser plugins and which also support Java 1.3.

  You must also have changed your password in the last six months.

  Start the application (Internet Explorer preferred)

September 2000

• Version 4.75 of the Netscape Communicator Web browser and communication suite is now available on the RCS UNIX platforms.

April 2000

• PSUtils, a group of utilities for manipulating PostScript documents, is now available on the RCS UNIX systems.

March 2000

• The TeX/LaTeX text processing packages, as well as many related programs, are now available for use in the VCC North lab.
• Pro/MECHANICA 2000i is now available on all SGI UNIX workstations.

November 1999

• A new Maple FAQ is now available on-line.
• AUC TeX, an environment for writing LaTeX input files using the Emacs editor, is now available on RCS UNIX systems.
• Version 5.1 of the SPlus data analysis package is now available on all IBM AIX RCS workstations.
• Version 4.7 of the Netscape Communicator browser and communication suite is now available on RCS.

October 1999

• Version 5.3 of the MATLAB numerical analysis package is now available on all RCS UNIX platforms, and in all Windows 98 and Windows NT PC labs.
• Get the latest information on the recent RCS UNIX disk quota increase.

September 1999

• Academic Computing Services will also offer a short course on the emacs text editor in October.
• CLICK HERE FOR AN IMPORTANT E-MAIL REMINDER!!
• Academic Computing Services will offer two laptop sessions on the 23rd and 30th of this month.
• Academic Computing Services will be offering several short courses during October.

August 1999

• Mark 18, the latest version of the Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) subroutine library, is now available on all RCS machines.

July 1999

• Release 5.1 of the Maple V symbolic math package is now available on the RCS system.

April 1999

• Administrative Information Services has announced that it will offer a number of short courses to Rensselaer faculty and staff over the summer.
• Version 5.8 of the Abaqus finite element solver, is now available for use on the IBM RCS workstations.

March 1999

• SecureCRT, a secure replacement for telnet that runs on Windows machines, is now available to the Rensselaer community.
• The software for LabVIEW, the industry-standard graphical programming environment used for measurement and automation, is now available.
• Some recent additions have been made to the LaTeX document preparation system.

February 1999

• If you're interested in learning how to create and publish a web page, Libraries and Information Services will be offering a series of web page authoring workshops.
• From February 3 through March 2, CIS' Libraries and Information Services department is offering a trial access period to the Institute for Scientific Information's Current Contents Connect, or CC Connect.

December 1998

• Version 20.0 of the Pro/ENGINEER computer-aided engineering package is now available on all RCS UNIX platforms.
• The version of FrameMaker available in "new" mode on the RCS UNIX systems has just gotten newer.
• The ListProc mailing list management software package was recently put in service as a replacement for LISTSERV.

November 1998

• text2pdf, a simple program that converts plain text files to PDF format, is now available on the RCS UNIX platforms.
• html2latex, a perl script that converts an HTML file into a LaTeX file, is now available on the RCS UNIX platforms.
• Version 5.5.3 of the FrameMaker desktop publishing application is now available on the RCS UNIX workstations.

October 1998

• An obscure bug in the ispell UNIX spell-checking program was recently fixed.
• Version 4.06 of the Netscape Communicator communication suite, featuring e-mail and news support, is now available on RCS.

September 1998

• Version 3.4 of the SPlus data analysis package is available on all RCS IBM AIX machines.

July 1998

• MATLAB 5.1 is now available on the RCS IBM AIX 4.2, SGI, and Sun Soloris platforms.
• Version 7.5 of the PATRAN computer-aided modeling, analysis, and optimization package is now available on the RCS IBM workstations.
• Version 5.7 of the Abaqus finite element solver is now available on the IBM RCS workstations.

June 1998

• Version 98.1, patch level 5, of the latex2html LaTeX-to-HTML conversion translator is now available on the UNIX workstations.
• Release 5 of the Maple V symbolic math package is now available on the RCS system.

May 1998

• Mark 4 of the Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) C subroutine library is now available on all RCS machines.

March 1998

• Version 19.34 of the GNU emacs text-handling environment is now available for all platforms on RCS.
• Mark 16 of the NAG subroutine library has been depermitted on RCS.
• Version 5.004 of the Practical Extraction and Report Language, or PERL, is now available on RCS.
• The makeindex program has been updated to version 2.12.

January 1998

• The previously-reported problem with xdvi has been fixed, and the new versions of TeX, xdvi, and dvips will become the default on RCS on Tuesday, February 3.
• The new RCS versions of TeX, xdvi, and dvips did not become the default on January 26 as planned, and as previously announced in this month's issue of The Kiosk.
• CIS' Server Support Services group is in the process of upgrading all versions of SunOS prior to Solaris 2.5
  (SunOS 5.5 + OpenWindows 3.5).
• Version 1.1 of the permchk permissions verification program is now available on RCS.
• Version 2.2 of the ical calendar application is now available on RCS.

December 1997

• Version 4.0 of Netscape Communicator is now available on RCS.
• Click here for an update on the RCS "finger" command.
• Version 8.0 of the Tcl tool command language is now available on RCS. Tk, the X windowing companion product to Tcl, is also available.

November 1997

• ACS will offer a three-day short course Introduction t o the Fortran Programming Language on January 7, 8, and 9. Please register early. Registration forms are available at the VCC Help Desk.
• Distiller and Exchange, both part of the Adobe Acrobat suite of programs, are now available on RCS.
• The Mark 17 version of the NAG subroutine library is now available on RCS.

October 1997

• The Secure Shell Client (ssh) remote login program is now available on RCS.
• Rensselaer's T3 Internet connection will be down for maintenance Thursday evening, October 23, from approximately 11 PM to 11:30 PM. All off-campus connectivity via the Internet will be affected.

  During this time, you will not receive electronic mail from off-campus and mail that you send off-campus will be held until the outage is over. You will be able to access RPInfo, Rensselaer`s web site, but you will not be able to access any off-campus sites.

• A scanner attached to a PC is now available in the VCC. A CD Writer for writing your own CDs is now available at the Help Desk in the VCC.
• Due to a massive spam attack, Rensselaer is no longer a relay for electronic mail sent from an alternate Internet Service Provider (ISP). If you are sending mail using mail.its.rpi.edu from your ISP, this might affect you. Click here for more details.

September 1997

• The IRIS Explorer modular visualization package is now the default on RCS.
• WordPerfect 7.0 is now available on RCS on the AIX and Solaris platforms.
• ACS will offer the short course "Introduction to UNIX" on Monday, September 15 from 4 - 6 pm in VCC South. Click here for more information.
• Version 2.7.1 of the Lynx text-based Web browser is now available on RCS.

August 1997

• An important announcement regarding the rpi.edu machine.
• Version 5.0 of the MATLAB numerical analysis package is now available on RCS.
• As of August 24, the DataExplorer modular visualization program will be removed from RCS.

July 1997

• A new File Transfer Protocol (FTP) service for both unauthenticated (anonymous) and authenticated (RCS) users is now availabe via the RCS server ftp.rpi.edu.

June 1997

• Version 18.0 of both Pro/ENGINEER and Pro/MECHANICA is now available on the RCS workstations running the Solaris 2.x and AIX 4.x operating systems.
• The Java 1.1 Development Kit is now available as the RCS system default.
• CIS' Server Support Services group is currently in the middle of operating system upgrades across campus.
• Version 4.0 of the Maple V symbolic math package is now available on RCS.
• Version 4.0.1 of Z-Mail is now available on RCS.
• Frame 5 will become the RCS system default on June 27.

May 1997

• Version 3.0 of the AcroRead PDF file viewer is now available on RCS.

April 1997

• The Netscape Gold Web browser is now available on RCS.
• Version 3.1.1h of the xess spreadsheet package is now available on RCS.
• In May, ACS will offer the following short courses: "Introduction to Fortran Programming", "Introduction to RCS", and "Introduction to UNIX". Click here for more information and course descriptions.
• The security problems that caused the talk program to be withdrawn from RCS a few months ago have been resolved, and talk is available once again. Note that the program works just as it did before; i.e., the cross-platform limitations are still present.

February 1997

• Version 2.69.7.8 of the XAnim "movie playing" utility is now available on RCS.

January 1997

• Version 3.12 of xlock -- a terminal-locking utility with screensaver capabilities -- is now available on all RCS machines, with the exception of those running SunOS.
• Version 6.0.192 of the C-Kermit communications software package is now available on all RCS platforms.
• ImageMagick 3.7.6 is now available on all RCS platforms.
• Version 3.6 of the trn newsreader is available on all RCS platforms.
• Several ACS short courses have been announced for the spring semester. Click here for more information.

December 1996

• The following packages are now available on all RCS platforms:
  • Version 3.5 of the gnuplot interactive plotting program
  • Version 2.0 of the LAPACK subroutine library
  • Version 2.5 of the xpp modeling program
• The following new documents are now available:
  • Quick Study #29: Windows95 and IBX PPP Connections
  • Quick Study #31: Using Z-Mail Remotely with the Command Line Interface
  • Quick Study #32: Using the EZ-Backup Service
  • Memo RPI.122: VersaTerm
  • Memo RPI.123: Pro/ENGINEER 16.0: An Introduction and Tutorial
• Version 3.1.4 of the xfig drawing and object manipulation tool is now available on RCS.

November 1996

• Version 1.1 of text2pdf is now available on RCS.
• Version 2.2 of GNU Common Lisp (GCL) is available on all RCS platforms.

October 1996

• Version 6.11 of SAS is now available on the RCS Silicon Graphics machines.
• Version 4.2 of the shar utilities is now available on RCS.
• ACS will again offer the short course entitled "Introduction to the New SGI Workstations." Click here for more information.
• Forty-eight new modems have been added to the modem pool.
• The la2mml LaTeX-to-FrameMaker filter is now available on RCS.
• ACS will offer the following short courses: Introduction to Pro/ENGINEER and Introduction to Parallel Processing. Click here for course descriptions, dates, and times.

August 1996

• Version 2.5 of the Lynx text-based WWW browser is now available on RCS.
• RensSearch has replaced InfoTrax as the default access item to the Rensselaer Libraries' information system on the RCS Applications menu.
• ACS will offer the following short courses during the first few weeks of September. Click on each list item for the course's time, date, and description.
  • Introduction to emacs
  • Introduction to UNIX
  • Introduction to vi
• The Kiosk, Computing & Information Services' new newsletter, replaces ITS' News Cache. You may still access back issues of News Cache from the link at the bottom of The Kiosk homepage.
• Frame 5 is now available on RCS.
• Click here to see the handout Using the New SGI Workstations in VCC South and JEC 3207.
• SAS 6.11 is now the RCS system default.
• Version 1.12 of the xxgdb debugger is now the default on RCS.
• Version 16.0 of Pro/MECHANICA is now available on RCS.
• AcroRead 2.1 is now available on RCS.
• The AutoCAD option has been removed from the RCS Applications menu.

July 1996

• The ical calendar program has replaced xcal as the default calendar application on the RCS X Utilities menu.
• Version 4.0.1 of the NEdit text editor is now available on RCS.
• The operating system on the IBM workstations in VCC North was recently upgraded to AIX 4.1.
• Version 16 of the Pro/ENGINEER computer-aided design package is now available on RCS.
• The new version of the X Command Panel will become the RCS system default on Wednesday, July 31.
• ACS will offer the following two non-credit short courses: Workstation Fortran on Tuesday, July 23 and Introduction to Parallel Processing on Tuesday, July 30. Registration forms are available at the Help Desk in the VCC. Click here for course descripti ons and registration information.

June 1996

• GNU tar 1.11.8 is now the default version on RCS.
• The NIM option will be removed from the RCS Applications menu on Monday, July 1.
• LaTeX2e will become the RCS system default on Wednesday, June 5.

May 1996

• Version 1.11.8 of the GNU tar file archive utility is now available on RCS.
• Version 2.7.2 of the gcc compiler is now available on RCS.
• New versions of a number of TeX-related programs on RCS:
  • xdvi 1.8f and dvips 5.58f available in "new" mode
  • LaTeX2e to become the default on June 4
  • New version of latex2html filter
• RCS output is now distributed in the VCC output racks once an hour, on the hour.
• Academic Computing Services has created a new moderated newsgroup to inform the Rensselaer community of the latest computing-related issues.

April 1996

• There is now a LaTeX2e thesis document cl ass on RCS. (Updated April 15)
• Version 3.0 of AUTOLEV, an advanced symbol manipulation program for analyzing the dynamics of mechanical systems, is now available on the RCS Sun platform.
• A short course, "Introduction to the Fortran Programming Language," will be offered on May 13, 14, and 15 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in CII 3045. Click here for a course description.

March 1996

• ispell 3.1.20 is now the default version on RCS.
• We have recently imposed a limit on the remote access machines' CPU usage.
• Version 5.000 of the perl scripting language is now available on RCS.
• Netscape 2.0 is now available on RCS.
• ITS takes a new form under the Computing and Information Services (CIS) reorganization. Click here to read the NewsCache article of March 6.

February 1996

• We've made some changes to the Applications menu and the X Utilities sub-menu on RCS.
• ITS has recently set a six-hour time limit on Xyplex logins.
• The short course "Using IBM's DataExplorer" has been scheduled for Thursday, February 15 from 10 am - noon in VCC South. You can register at the VCC Help Desk. Click here for a course description.

January 1996

• WordPerfect 6.0 is now available on RCS.
• The following short courses have been scheduled: Introduction to UNIX, Beginning vi, Z-Mail (RCS Electronic Mail), and Beginning emacs. wish 4.0 Tcl Interpreter is now the default on RCS.
• The permchk permissions verification program is now available on RCS.
• Microsoft has provided information on disabling password caching for both Windows for WorkGroups and Windows '95 users.

December 1995

• Abaqus 5.4 is now available on RCS.
• Version 8.04 of the CodeV optical design, ananlysis, and fabrication program is now the default on RCS.
• Version 2.1.5 of the Data Explorer data visualization system is now the default on RCS.
• xrn 7.04 became the default version of the graphical Usenet browser on RCS.
• Two ITS Short Courses on the Fortran Programming Language, "Introduction to the Fortran Programming Language" and "Workstation Fortran", will be held in January. Click here for course descriptions and the schedule.

October 1995

• A new Xyplex service is now in place when you dial-in using 276-7989. Scripts for using Trumpet Winsock and Onnet with PPP are available in the directory /campus/pc.software/Xyplex. Note that because the new service requires authentication, you must have changed your password since August 14 to use this new service.
• CodeV ("code five") Version 8.04, a program for optical design, analysis, and fabrication support, is now available on the workstations in JEC3207 and on the remote access Sun machines.
• A new program, searchdirectory, is now available for searching the Rensselaer Ph directories.
• ITS Short Courses scheduled in SAS, Z-Mail, and HTML (Put Yourself on the Web). Click here for schedule. Register at Reception Counter in the VCC.

September 1995

• Version 2.1 of the Z-Mail electronic mail package will be discontinued as of Tuesday, October 3.
• Version 7.04 of Xrn, a graphical usenet news browser built on the text-based 'rn' browser, is now available on RCS.
• Acroread, the reader portion of AcroBat (from Adobe Systems), is now available on Sun workstations.

August 1995

• Version 4.2c of MATLAB is now available on RCS.
• IconAuthor version 6.0, a powerful and flexible authoring system for cross-platform interactive multimedia, is now available on RCS and in the multimedia PC labs in Sage 2704 and CII 6208.

July 1995

• A new version of Xess, a spreadsheet editor, is now available.
• A new version of xfig, a low-level graphics editing package, is now available.

June 1995

• New versions of MSDOS Kermit and C-Kermit (RCS) are now available. Both versions now support a "resend" command which allows you to restart a failed binary file transfer from the point of failure. Keystrokes to dial the Xyplex have been added to the MSDOS Kermit initialization files.
• Clarinet news service, available via Usenet, will be discontinued at Rensselaer as of August 1, 1995. Budget constraints at both the Folsom Library and ITS no longer allow us to provide this service.
• New Version of MacSyma, a Symbolic Algebraic Manipulation Package, on RCS
• Version 1.1 of Netscape, the latest version of the Netscape browser, is now available on RCS. It has numerous bug fixes and enhancements.
• Quick Study #16, Printing From RCS has has undergone a major revision. In addition to information on costs and the standard UNIX printing commands, it contains information on printerchooser, the special options of VCLW, printing man pages, dvi files, and labels, as well as a brief discussion of printing landscape and n-up pages. All Quick Studies are available from RPInfo > Computing Services > "How-To" Information > ITS On-line Documentation > Quick Studies.
• New versions of of xmeter, xcal, and xgraph on RCS.
• Z-Mail 3.2, the latest version of Z-Mail, is now available on RCS. It has numerous bug fixes and feature enhancements.
• netpbm, a command-line image processing suite of programs, is now available as a replacement for pbmplus on RCS.
• ImageMagick, a new graphical image manipulation package, is now available on RCS.
• The RPInfo Kiosk is back in action.
• The RCS lab in JEC 3210 is closing permanently on Monday June 12.

May 1995

• There is a new version of popcorn for electronic mail. Popcorn is a program used by Z-Mail and UCB mail (mail) to retrieve mail from the POP server (mail machine) and bring it to a file (usually ~/.newmail) in a user's home directory. The new version has enhancements to better deal with situations where you don't have enough disk space (quota) left in your directory to hold all of your mail.
• The "new tex" package, which includes new versions of TeX, LaTeX, xdvi and dvips, will become the default May 9 instead of May 15 as originally planned, due to some X library problems.
• The "test" versions of TeX, LaTeX, xdvi and dvips, as well as the brand-new LaTeX2e, are now available on RCS in "new" mode. The changes are mostly internal-- bug fixes and a new internal organization. There is, however, one notable improvement to xdvi: it now provides previewing of included PostScript graphics by automatically calling ghostview.

April 1995

• New versions of the nn and trn news readers are now available on RCS. Both upgrades fix a wide variety of problems found in previous releases.
• Emacs version 19.27 will become the default emacs editor on RCS on May 15.
• Xpaint, a painting program, is now availa ble on RCS.

March 1995

• A new ITS Memo is out, RPI.120, Creating On-Line Documents in RPInfo on the World Wide Web. This memo gives basic pointers on using html (hypertext markup language), describes how to include images in your on line documents, discusses various ways to get existing files on line, and gives some tips on organizing your files. It also gives information on how to get your on line documents into RPInfo, either in a personal home page or for your department or club. It contains hypertext links to many resources, both local and off-campus.
• A new version of Lynx, a full-featured text version of a World Wide Web browser for remote users of RCS, is now available. It can be used to access information on the World Wide Web when you are logged in remotely.
• A new version of OmniPage, optical character recognition (OCR) software, is available to use with the scanners at the Help Desk in the VCC and in the Sage Mac Lab.
• NEdit, a GUI (Graphics User Interface) style plain text editor for workstations with X Windows and Motif, is now available on RCS.
• Version 4.13 of the GNU debugger gdb is now available on RCS on the Sun, RS/6000, and SGI machines.
• Students can now register their World Wide Web home pages so that they can be accessed from the campus directory in RPInfo. Using the new RCS program, personal_info, they can also update other directory information such as their electronic mail addresses

February 1995

• A new consulting section is now available. We're starting off with some basic consulting help, and we plan to continue to add to this section. There's basically a short page of help on certain topics. In the future we plan to add a search feature that will enable you to find pages by entering a topic you need information on.
• Utility Program Fixes FrameMaker 4 PostScript Files
• Select a printer to use from RCS with the new graphical printerchooser.
• Speed up your computing with ITS's public-access SP2 parallel computer service, a powerful new campuswide resource for numerically-intensive scientific and engineering calculations.

January 1995

• RPInfo will soon be available through the Netscape browser. Netscape is currently available as new software and will soon become the default RPInfo browser.
• You can now increase or decrease your RCS disk space on line, by yourself.
• Wishx, a program for writing scripts that present a Motif-like look and feel, is now available on RCS.
• Computer parts are now available at reduced prices from the Desktop Repair Group (DRG), formerly the ITS Service Center, located in the lower level of the Voorhees Computing Center.
• Free Seminar Series on Computing and Multimedia Instruction
  Do students become more involved in class using interactive multimedia? Is the road to knowledge paved with electrons? What's all the excitement about?
  Information Technology Services is offering a series of noontime seminars for faculty on integrating multimedia and computing into the curriculum
• A PostScript printer dedicated to printing labels from RCS has been installed in the VCC. A new program, based on LaTeX, enables you to prepare and print a file onto 30 labels per page. Each label has a maximum of 5 lines if you use the default type size (11 points). The cost is 25 cents per page, and output is placed in the VCC output racks. Quick Study #27, Printing Mailing Labels from RCS, is available online for more information. To access this quick study directly in future RPInfo sessions, select "How-to Information" from the ITS homepage, then ITS on-line documentation, and finally Quick Studies.
• A new version of gnu-make is now available on RCS.
• Pro/ENGINEER version 13 is now available on RCS.
• A new calendar program is now available on RCS.
• Answer Garden has been replaced with RPInfo. Answer Garden, an on-line help system on RCS is no longer available as of January 14.

December 1994

• Version 19.27 of emacs is now available on RCS.
• Version 2.01 of Data Explorer is now available on RCS.
• Version 3.71 of gnu-make is now available on RCS.
• Version 2.5.8 of the C and C++ compilers from GNU are now available on RCS.
• A tutorial for Version 13.0 of Pro/ENGINEER is now available. To access it, select "How-to Information" from the ITS homepage, then ITS on-line documentation, and finally ITS Memos.

November 1994

• A new talk program is now available on RCS.
• The Sage 3103 RCS lab is now open for classes and public use.
• ITS is offering a pilot program for users who need very large amounts of AFS disk space on a long-term basis. Leased disk space will be added to RPI's AFS cell making it an integral part of the filesystem on RCS and related systems, including CUSSP hosts, the NIC cluster, the SP/1, and the Visualization Lab.
• Version 5.3 of Abaqus, a general purpose finite element analysis program, is now available on RCS.

October 1994

• The Voorhees Computing Center is now open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• The CII machine room, CII 3226, has been closed permanently. Output will no longer be available from the printers that were in this room.
• Many RCS workstations across campus have been upgraded, including machines in the CII, Sage, JEC, and freshman residence halls.
• New Backup Policy for RCS User Files
• Multimedia Open Houses Announced
• New Printer Available -- Replaces vcx8

September 1994

• VCC Saturday hours have been extended.
• A new version of archie, a search program for locating files available via anonymous ftp, is now available on RCS. This version contains some
• New Short Courses are now available. Learn how to use text editors, basic UNIX commands, and electronic mail on RCS. No tests, no grades. Sign up now. Course descriptions are available on line.
• FrameMaker, the desktop publishing application available on the RCS Applications menu is now at Version 4.

August 1994

• Sybyl, molecular modeling software, is now available on RCS.
• A listing of ITS staff consultants and services is now available.
• News Cache, the ITS computing newsletter, is now available in RPInfo.
• Test Versions of TeX and Friends Now Available on RCS.
• Fall semester computer lab hours and consulting hours are now updated in a hypertext format on line.
• New Quick Studies are now on line.
  • Quick Study #23: Using the UNIX emacs Editor
  • Quick Study #24: Using the UNIX Visual Editor (vi)
  • Quick Study #25: Transferring Files in RCS UNIX Using ftp
  The files are also available in /campus/doc/its.memos for your use outside of RPInfo. Both on-line readable files (*.txt) and printable files (*.dvi) are in the its.memos directory. Please read the how-to-use file for details.

• New Version of Maple Available on RCS

July 1994

• New version of SAS Available on RCS
• Frame 4 Now Available on RCS
• RCS Disk Space Rental Charges Reduced

• Software News