---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash NetNews/CD - USENET News Available on CD-ROM SunFLASH Vol 38 #18 February 1992 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is an article from: Kent Landfield -johnj ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sterling Software is proud to announce a new service, NetNews/CD, which makes USENET News available on CD-ROM. Now, with NetNews/CD, the wealth of information available via USENET is archived and readily available when you need it, not just when it arrives. With NetNews/CD you will be able to keep years of USENET News on your shelf so that you can access and benefit from it at your convenience. With nearly 3000 active newsgroups and more being created daily, one of the major problems with USENET News has been the massive amounts of data. Most sites do not have the disk space to store it all on a daily basis, let alone a yearly basis. Those that do receive a full feed are forced to use relatively short news expire times to free up disk space for incoming daily news. Many sites have had to limit the number of groups they subscribe to due to the speeds of their modems, the costs of long distance phone calls to an upstream USENET feed or the size of the available disk space. NetNews/CD solves these problems by making nearly 600 Megabytes of USENET news available on CD-ROM each issue. The issues are currently being filled up on a 22 day average. The purpose of the NetNews series is to assure that the valuable information which passes through USENET daily is not lost, as is the case in most newsgroups today. The only restrictions on the data are those place there by the original author/submittor of the news. Yearly subscribers receive 12 months of USENET news on CD-ROM plus they also receive the yearly NetGems special issue. The current NetGems CD-ROM contains the X Window System Version 11 Release 5 sources, the Free Software Foundation's GNU software as well as the USENET comp.sources.* archives. It also contains alt.sources and vmsnet.sources archives. Besides those archives, NetGems also contains an archive of the Request For Comments (RFCs) available from the NIC which are the basis for most of the existing Internet protocols. The software and RFCs on the NetGems CD were gathered on December 29, 1991. X11R5 - X Window System Release 5, Patchlevel 8 gnu - GNU software rfcs - Request For Comments usenet - USENET News source archives alt.sources, alt.sources.amiga, alt.sources.patches, comp.archives, comp.archives.admin, comp.sources.3b1, comp.sources.amiga, comp.sources.apple2, comp.sources.atari.st, comp.sources.bugs, comp.sources.games, comp.sources.hp48, comp.sources.mac, comp.sources.misc, comp.sources.reviewed, comp.sources.sun, comp.sources.unix, comp.sources.x, news.answers, unix-pc, u3b.sources, vmsnet.sources Specifics: Initially NetNews/CD will be distributed for Sun platforms with ISO 9660 support becoming available in March. The January and February CDs will be made available in ISO 9660 format at that time. NetNews/CD is available in both a yearly subscription or monthly issue rate. Costs: Yearly subscription + NetGems - $349.95 US plus shipping. Individual monthly issues - $39.95 US plus shipping. NetGems, Best of '91 - $49.95 US plus shipping. Volume discounts are available. Phone inquiries concerning orders and technical support questions may be made between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM CST, Monday through Friday at 1-800-643-NEWS (or 1-800-643-6397). The FAX number is 1-402-291-4362. There is also an electronic mail address: cdnews@sterling.com or uunet!sparky!cdnews The US Mail address is Sterling Software NetNews/CD 1404 Fort Crook Road South Bellevue, NE 68005-2969 If you have any suggestions or comments we want to hear them. Please feel free to call, write or send email. from: Kent Landfield ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information send mail to info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Archives are on solar.nova.edu, paris.cs.miami.edu, uunet.uu.net, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. (305) 776-7770.