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1995-01-01
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Date: Sat, 04 Jun 1994 18:01:11 MDT
From: Rob Slade <roberts@decus.ca>
Subject: Book Review: SSC Command References
BKSSCREF.RVW 940318
Specialized Systems Consultants Inc.
P.O. Box 55549 Seattle, WA 98155
(206) 527-3385 Fax: (206) 527-2806
bel@ssc.com
"UNIX System Command Summary", 1993, 0-916151-61-1
Specialized Systems Consultants publish a series of tutorial and
reference cards and booklets. The standard "tri-fold page" size of
8.5" by 3.5" is a bit difficult to fit on a bookshelf. While a bit
awkward, it will fit in a shirt pocket or, opened, in a file folder.
It fits quite nicely in a suit jacket inside pocket for those going
out on service calls. I received an ANSI C reference card, five UNIX
(Beginning Commands, System 4 and 4.2 Command Summaries, and Bourne
and Korn shell) references, an Emacs reference, a vi tutorial and
reference, an MS-DOS Command Summary and an RS-232 reference card.
Most prices appear to range between three and ten dollars.
The material is generally well chosen and useful. For most quick
reference these will be much handier than full documentation. The
layout is good, with logical divisions between boxed groups of
commands or information tables.
Unfortunately, there are oddities, vagaries and outright errors. The
RS-232 card gives pinouts for DB25 and DB9 connectors but not the
Macintosh's DIN-8. The MS-DOS summary lists CON only as the console
screen, PRN only as LPT1 and fails to mention that a .COM file is
executable. The Bourne shell tutorial gives a brief introduction to
wild cards: it will probably surprise novice users when they find that
other UNIX documentation refers to these patterns as regular
expressions (or regexp). The UNIX references fare somewhat better,
particularly since they are primarily command listings.
The tutorials are probably a lot less intimidating for new users than
some of the bulkier texts. (And cheaper, too.) The reference cards
are handy and reasonably valuable. Likely, their list of titles is
growing fairly rapidly.
copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKSSCREF.RVW 940318. Distribution is
permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists.
Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca
Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca
Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca
User p1@CyberStore.ca
Security Canada V7K 2G6
------------------------------