Last Changed: Feb 3, 1996 This is for the distrat/askmap package of programs for analysis of causal maps. It is distributed freely and WITHOUT WARRANTY under the terms of the General Public License version 2 (or later) (see the file COPYING). Files: NEEDED NAME Aprx Size DESCRIPTION (see note) ? readme.txt 9K This file Yes drdist.zip 945K DOS executable, docs, sources 1 unzip.exe 44K Extract from .zip file OR Yes drdist.tgz (or drdist.tar.gz or drdist.taz) 460K Source and documentation ------- Yes: Absolutely needed for the package of programs. Take either dridist.zip (an info zipfile with DOS executables) or drdist.tgz a tar'ed gzip file without executables). ?: If you need to read this, then you need to read that. 1: A DOS executible of the info unzip program[*]. You probably already have this (or maybe pkunzip which will also work, but info (un)zip is free and available with source while pk(un)zip is shareware). Both the .zip file and the .tgz file (as well as the .exe file) need to be transfered in binary mode. If you are using ftp, make sure to specify the type as binary for all transfers involving compressed files. EXTRACTING THE FILES FROM THE ARCHIVE FILES For the .zip file ----------------- Use either unzip (InfoZip) or PKunzip to extract from the archive. If you use PKunzip then make sure to use the -d option for creating subdirectories. Assuming that you will use the unzip provided and that everything is on a floppy in drive "a:" and that you wish to install things on "c:" drive, do the following: c: cd \ a:unzip a:drdist.zip This will build a directory C:\distrat which in turn has three subdirectories. Go into the directory and read C:\distrat\doc\install.dos. Or see about printing the complete documentation below. If you use unzip on something other than DOS, be sure to use the -a option so that the ASCII files are unziped in ASCII mode with newline properly translated. For the .tgz file ----------------- For the .tgz archive, you will need the generally available programs: gzip (or gunzip), and tar. Or a version of tar which incorporates gzip. gzip is available by ftp from prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu A free version of tar is also available from the same source. The versions of gzip and tar included here are covered by the GNU General Public License agreement and you have the right not only to the executables I have included above but to the sources. tar also exists on every Unix machine, and on most other mutliuser systems. It is possible to gunzip and un-tar the files on such a machine and then transfer the files to their final destination if that destination does not have the suitable programs. With a version of tar that knows about gzip files: use tar -zxvf file.tar.gz or tar -zxvf file.tgz to extract the files from the gzip'ed archive. Such a version of tar may be called gtar on some systems. On DOS tar will not be able to call gunzip. If your tar does not understand such things (such as tradition versions of tar or on DOS), you will need to first gunzip the files and then extract with tar. One way of doing this is gunzip file.tar.gz or gunzip file.tgz which will leave you with a file called "file.tar". If you have gzip but not gunzip, use "gzip -d" in place of "gunzip". They are the same thing. Then tar -xvf file.tar DOS executables for unzip.exe, gunzip.exe, and tar.exe should be near by this file in the archive. LINE FEEDS AND CARRIAGE RETURNS Different systems deal with line feeds differently. On DOS a newline is a sequence of on Unix it is just a . This .zip file is created with ASCII files having DOS newlines, and the .tgz file has Unix linefeeds. But, if you use the -a option to unzip on Unix, you will get the correct line feeds. Please direct questions to Jeff Goldberg THE DIRECTORIES (I use "/" as the directory separator below) distrat/doc Contains documantation and a few sample files distrat/source contains everything needed to rebuild the executables distrat/bin contains DOS AT (286) executables, which run just fine on 386s and above. This directory also contains the .aml files used by askmap distrat/386 Contains 386 DOS executables and go32.exe (32bit memory extender, which must be placed in your PATH if you wish to use these versions). These 386 versions can make use of all free memory on your machine. If you wish to use these, copy of .aml files from the distrat/bin directory to the appropriate place. PRINTING THE REAL DOCUMENTATION There is a largely complete rewrite of the documentation in a much more coherent form than in the individuals .txt files in the doc directory. The new documentation is in four forms: drdoc.tex LaTeX source (not really usable since many specialized macros are not included) drdoc.dvi If you know that this is, use it, otherwise, you can very safely delete it. drdoc.ps PostScript file (300dpi) drdoc.hp PCL (HPlaserJet) file The documentation is approximately 70 pages long. Since I have received few requests for the software from North America, these documents are produced for A4 paper. North Americans can still print them out on letter paper, but the margins will be funny. To print these out you need to determine three (and slightly more) things: (1) What Operating system are you using (I will discuss only DOS and Unix below. If someone can provide information for Macs, I would be more than happy to include that here. (2) What kind of printer you have. You will need either a printer Which understands PostScript (A printer language) or which understands PCL (another printer language), which is the language used by HP LaserJets and compatibles. If you have a choice between the two, use the PostScript printer. If you only have a postscript printer, then you can remove the .hp file, and if you only have access to a PCL printer you can remove the .ps file. (3) The name of the printer. This may be something like "lpt2:". DOS users may encounter other problems which I can only half anticipate, since there are too many ways things can be set up at your end. Printing On DOS: Do NOT try to load either the .hp or .ps file into some sort of text processor or run them through a printer driver. They are already prepared to go straight to a printer without the intervention of any software. That is, the files are already in exactly the form that printers expect information to be in. If you have a PCL printer on lpt1, then get to a DOS prompt and go into the distrat/doc directory, then issue the command C:> copy/b drdoc.hp lpt1: Note the "/b"; it is needed If you have a PostScript printer (preferred) on, say, lpt2: then copy the PostScript file directly to the printer C:> copy drdoc.ps lpt2: (Note that here is there is no "/b") Special Problems with DOS. Depending on how your system is designed to talk to the printer, you may get an error message every few pages (depending on the size of the printer's memory). Keep hitting "retry" when prompted to. If this doesn't work, please ask someone local for help. Printing on Unix If you have a PostScript printer (or print queue) called "fred_ps", then just use: % lpr -Pfred_ps drdoc.ps If you have a PCL printer (or queue) called "fred_laser", % lpr -Pfred_laser drdoc.hp If you have problems printing these, take the files, and a printed out version of this "readme.txt" file to someone who knows your system for more help. If that person needs to contact me with more questions they should feel free. I may be able to help you remotely, but too much of how to print is specific to how your system is set up. ----- *The executable version of unzip.exe, tar.exe, gzip.exe are covered by the GNU General Public License Agreement (see the file COPYING among the files extracted). You have the right to the source code for that program, which, unless I provide them to you, or ensure that they appear on the same archive as the executable files, I am in minor violation of the License Agreement. I will attempt to remedy this as soon as I can. The source code is available from other archives (namely via ftp from prep.ai.mit.edu in the directory /pub/gnu).