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• UUCP Access
• UUCP Accounts
• Mac/gnuucp
• Installation and Setup
• Basic Usage
• Special Features
• Overall Evaluation
• Administrative Details
• uupc
• Installation and Setup
• Basic Usage
• Special Features
• Overall Evaluation
• Administrative Details
• Eudora
• Installation and Setup
• Basic Usage
• Overall Evaluation
• Administrative Details
• ToadNews
• Installation and Setup
• Basic Usage
• Special Features
• Overall Evaluation
• Administrative Details
• rnMac
• Installation and Setup
• Basic Usage
• Special Features
• Overall Evaluation
• Administrative Details
• uupc Additions
• UUPC Setup
• Mail Call
• UUCPShare and UUCP Monitor
• Fernmail
• TheNews
• Robert's File Transfer
• UUCP/Connect
• Installation and Setup
• Basic Usage
• Sending Messages
• Reading Messages
• Functions Palette
• Newsgroups and Mailboxes
• Calling Out
• Special Features
• Overall Evaluation
• Administrative Details
• UUCP and You

There are a couple of programs that are designed more or less specifically for use with uupc, given its dominance in the free UUCP field. Of these, UUPC Setup attempts to simplify the otherwise irritating ResEdit-based setup in uupc, Mail Call notifies you of new mail, UUCPShare and UUCP Monitor merge the old and the new by linking UUCP and MailShare (an SMTP server for the Mac), Dave Platt's Fernmail checks in as a competent mail program, TheNews works as a decent UUCP newsreader, and finally Robert's File Transfer copies files via the UUCP protocol.

• Mark Assad and Nathan Willis's freeware UUPC Setup sets up uupc, asking the appropriate questions and providing appropriate fields to fill in. Once that's done, it goes off and creates the necessary folders and files. However, on my system, UUPC Setup crashed several times (so make sure you have work saved before trying it), and it made some fatal errors in configuration that would prevent its setup from working. The moral of the story, then, is to use UUPC Setup for what it's good for, but don't assume that the results will be perfect or even acceptable. You must check and double-check everything it does. Nonetheless, Mark and Nathan have made a nice start and I hope they clean it up a bit. I'd also greatly prefer if they used modeless dialogs instead of modal, so you can switch out to another application to copy, say, the phone number to enter, and there's currently no way to do that. You can contact Mark and Nathan at massad@alsvid.une.edu.au or nwillis@alsvid.une.edu.au if you have any questions or suggestions. You can find UUPC Setup in:

  ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/uucp/

  

• Mail Call is a small HyperCard stack that works to notify you when you have mail waiting for you in the incoming mail files used by uupc 3.1. Obviously, this is mostly useful if multiple people are using your UUCP connection to receive mail, and it may be more trouble than it's worth, but hey, if it meets your needs.... Mail Call requires a fully functional version of HyperCard 1.2.5 or later and is postcardware from Paul Bricmont, who can be reached at paul@bricmont.sbay.org. You can find Mail Call in:

  ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/uucp/

  

These two shareware programs from Chris Owen serve a very specific purpose. Chris's office uses MailShare via a SLIP account to send and receive mail out to the world, but because that SLIP account can't be shared by other users in the office, he uses UUCP internally to distribute email among the LocalTalk-connected Macs. UUCPShare acts as a bridge between Eudora (running in UUCP mode) and MailShare, enabling the users to send and receive mail in Eudora and have MailShare send the mail out via SMTP. UUCPShare monitors a folder for UUCP spool files and then processes those files for MailShare, placing them in MailShare's Incoming Mail folder. UUCP Monitor is a small background application that monitors a UUCP mailbox and posts a notification when mail arrives, informing the user that she has new mail. The programs cost $10 together, and you can get more information from chris@kagi.com, although it's probably easiest to just check them out by downloading them from:

ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/uucp/

• Dave Platt's shareware Fernmail email program is designed for use with uupc but also works with Mac/gnuucp. Like uupc, Fernmail is not for the novice. It requires ResEdit to configure and it's not as full-featured as some might like, although it does have the basic complement of features necessary for an email program. The main things missing include more shortcuts, new mail notification, abbreviated header display, an Undo capability, and locks that enable you to read email from a mailbox file even while a UUCP program is delivering mail to that mailbox. However, Fernmail can display messages longer than 32K, and it has a limited capability to create news postings. All you must do is create a message without a To line and with a Newsgroups line in the header. Although not a bad program and better than pcmail and MailReader, Fernmail doesn't compare with Eudora, which works as well with UUCP mail as it does with its native POP and SMTP mail. You can reach Dave Platt at dplatt@snulbug.mtview.ca.us. You can find the latest version of Fernmail in:

  ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/uucp/

  

• TheNews, another $25 shareware UUCP newsreader, comes from Bill Cramer. TheNews also works over a dialup link to a shell account and with MacTCP. TheNews has some neat features, such as the capability to filter your messages so that Macintosh-only 8-bit characters, such as curly quotes and the bullet, are replaced with their 7-bit universal equivalents. Recent versions have added the capability to use Eudora for email replies, as well as threading capabilities, although the threading feature isn't well supported by navigation features, so there's no shortcut for actions such as skipping to the next thread. Overall, TheNews is a fair UUCP newsreader, but it's not perfect. It has various interface problems, such as the use of modal dialog boxes where they aren't necessary. You can reach Bill Cramer via email at cramer@onramp.net, and if you want to download TheNews 2.38, it's in:

  ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/tcp/

  

• Although I've said throughout that UUCP can be used only for email and news, that's not entirely true. You can also copy files using the UUCP protocol directly with a free program called Robert's File Transfer (RFT), written by Robert Pellerin, who's at robert@rp.cam.org. RFT is extremely simple and console-based, which means it has no Macintosh interface at all. In addition, transferring files via UUCP isn't like FTP -- you must know what file you want before you get it via UUCP. Requirements include uupc 3.1, a UUCP account, and sufficient experience with UUCP. Frankly, I suspect that for most people, RFT won't be worth the effort of using it. You can find the latest version of RFT in:

  ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/uucp/