Date: Sat, 04 Jun 1994 18:01:11 MDT From: Rob Slade 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 ------------------------------