calling non-unix systems AND dial(3) problems....

[David Brown]

> 
> Try the "~$" command in CU: it lets you fork a subshell, and it sends
> the output of that shell to the remote system. So, depending on the
> remote system, you might be able to use something like "~$cat file"
> to send a file.
> 

Yes, I find the ~$ command extremely useful -- I can send files to almost
any system with it.  I made a modified version of cat that sends only
a carriage return at the end of a line instead of CR/LF and has a command
line option to specify delays between characters (I had to use setbuf(3)
to turn off stdio buffering) -- this does a pretty good job of emulating
a human typist.

HOWEVER!!  On 4.2BSD, the cu command has been replaced with a link to
tip, which does not have this function (though it does have something
similar in the opposite direction -- ~| pipes the output from a remote
command to a local UNIX process).  Has anyone modified tip (or kermit)
to restore this function?   Or is there some other way to achieve the
same results?

I tried compiling the v7 cu on 4.2bsd -- it worked OK to connect, but
when I tried using ~$, nothing happened.  I didn't have any time to 
explore deeper, but this is a function I dearly miss.

Besides transferring files to systems with no transfer mechanism (e.g. 
kermit), I find it useful for sending setup commands to our TriData
Oz Guardian modems (these modems have a dialback capability so I'm
always adding new passwords and phone numbers) -- I put the commands
into a file, disable logins on the modem port, use cu to talk to the
modem, and use ~$ to send the file to each modem.

-- 
	David Brown	 (415) 945-2199
	Varian Instruments 2700 Mitchell Dr.  Walnut Creek, Ca. 94598
	{zehntel,dual,amd,fortune,rtech,lll-crg}!varian!david