The VHDL International Users' Forum Internet Standards Online Support System is now up and available for public access and use. 26 August 1993 Menlo Park, CA (USA): The VIIS has been setup to provide support for standards activities via an electronic forum. The general public can access files and other important information via Internet servers, Dial-up, or an email request / response system. See the separate access document for more details. Standards groups are able to manage their own email-based dicussion groups (reflectors, information lines, auto-archiving of discussions, etc.), file repository system of important files and documents, news discussion groups (like comp.lang.vhdl) and other important activities. Special services to be available only to VIUF (VI Technical Members) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Technical members of VIUF will receive a lot more benefits of the machine. They can have an email identity (joe.smith@vhdl.org) which can be automatically forwarded to their desktop machine in their office. They can upload files to shared areas to exchange information with other members. And they can use the access to the machine to get onto the Internet itself with its wide array of services. Technical members can use gopher, telnet or FTP to go out to other standards sites and retrieve valuable information. Sites available are ones like cfi.org, nist.gov, pdes.org, the ISO standards board, and the expected to be available DESC VHDL model repository. Soon, many of these sites will be automatically linked in or mirrored to the vhdl.org file repository tree so one-stop shopping for information is literally possible. As an example, a recent "gopher" search by a member for directories or repositories with "vhdl" in the name yielded six pages of publically available repositories / directories worldwide! And this was just on Internet computers with registered GOPHER access. Technical members also have access to the Internet / Usenet News feed so they can subscribe and submit to the over than 10,000 newsgroups worldwide -- yes, even the European Community newsgroups are available on important topics such as ESPIRIT and JESSE! All these services should be available to technical members soon. If you want to find out more about this new service or VIUF in general, email to viuf-info@vhdl.org or call VHDL International offices at 1.800.554.2550 to receive a mailer on services available. This system has been purchased and installed by the VHDL Users' Group (VUG) -- the precursor to the VHDL International Users' Forum (VIUF). It is maintained by volunteer effort of VIUF members and others concerned about access and availability of VHDL and related standards information. If you would like to help out with a little of your time and talent, send an email message to support@vhdl.org. docs/announce.txt