About Panix Last Updated by Alexis on Friday July 2, 1993 Panix is a Public Access Internet/Unix system based in New York City. It is dedicated to providing stable and reliable Internet, mail, and netnews services, but anything legal is OK as long as it doesn't get in the way of our primary goal. This information sheet changes frequently as new services are added; please send email to "info@panix.com", or finger that address from an internet host, to receive the latest copy. You may also gopher to gopher.panix.com if you already have internet access. If you have no other access, call our computer directly and read this by typing "help" at the first prompt (see below for details such as our modem phone numbers). HOW TO GET TO US ---------------- Panix is accessible by local call from anywhere in New York City, and can be accessed via PC Pursuit from anywhere in the USA or Canada. PC Pursuit is a service (which we are not affiliated with) which provides up to 30 hours of long distance modem time per month for $30. Internet users can telnet to Panix from other Internet hosts. We are exploring a number of other options currently, and we hope to have an X.25 gateway set up within a few months. This will allow any user to call from anywhere in the U.S. for about $5/hr during the day, and $1-2/hr during the evening or at night. We may also have (800) phone service (but we would charge extra for those calls, because we'd have to pay extra to the phone company). This year we will be opening up an office in Long Island with (516) numbers. We hope that that location will be open sometime in August. Service in New Jersey will follow about two months later. Local service in White Plains, Westchester (914), and upstate will follow before the end ofthe year. We expect to open many additional sites in 1994. PANIX SERVICES -------------- For users with no knowledge of Unix (and no desire to learn it), we have written a one-keystroke menu system with built-in help. It allows users to to perform many functions, such as using mail and various Internet services, without ever seeing Unix. It's not fancy, but it _is_ easy. It also provides an optional learning mode that can help you learn Unix. Any site that can e-mail to anywhere on the Internet can mail to us. This includes Compuserve and MCI mail, America On Line, Bitnet sites, etc. No unusual addressing methods are required. Of course, Panix can mail to any of these sites just as easily as they can mail to Panix. More experienced users are provided with their choice of shell- one of sh, ksh, csh, tcsh, bash, or zsh. We have mail readers such as elm, pine, mm, and regular Mail. A large variety of programs useful for Mac and PC users are available on-line, such as archivers, unstuffers, and download protocols such as kermit, xmodem, ymodem, zmodem, and jtrans. The vi, jove, emacs, pico, and joe editors are available. We provide recent versions of the rn, trn, and nn newsreaders. We will support them all, and keep them current. We also have the GNUS newsreader, though we don't actively support it. Panix now has a local archive of popular and useful software and other files. We do not try to keep everything of interest- after all, you can reach hundreds of archives from Panix that do just that- but we keep the most frequently accessed files handy, as well as a variety of unix and telecom- related software. We are constantly adding new software. See the "upgrade" section. COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE INTERNET -------------------------------- The Internet link allows use of all standard Internet utilities, such as WWW, FTP, telnet, gopher, irc, etc. Our 56kb/s high-speed Internet connection is more than 10 times faster than our original connection. An even faster link (a "T1") will be installed in July. Getting to Panix from the Internet is easy; you can telnet to "panix.com" or "198.7.0.2". We get a very full newsfeed, including a large number of regional newsgroups. All of our electronic mail and news is sent over our internet link, so delivery of email and news to and from panix is close to instantaneous. Mail is addressed to "user@panix.com". PANIX HARDWARE -------------- All Panix users have an account on an Sparc-10/40. The main Sparc has 64MB RAM and 3400MB on two fast SCSI-2 disks. We also have another Sparc-2 which acts as our news, mail, domain, gopher, and FTP server. It has 32MB RAM and about 2200MB of disk space. We have a third Sparc-2 with 32MB RAM and a 1GB drive which is used as a testbed and backup machine. All of the Panix modems are connected to an Annex-3 terminal server on our Ethernet. 33 are Hayes 2400bps modems and 30 are ZyXEL V.32bis (14,400bps) modems. All Panix modems support MNP3-5, V.42 and V.42bis. The ZyXELs also support ZyXEL's proprietary 16,800 and 19,200 bps modes. Our Internet connection comes into a Codex 3500, connected to a Cisco IGS/R router, which is on our ethernet. Our backups run on an automated schedule to a 5GB Exabyte tape unit. Our Sparcs all run SunOS 4.1.3. They are Axil Workstations, identical in all respects to Sun Sparcstation 10/40 or Sparc-2 machines. A HISTORY OF CONTINUING UPGRADES -------------------------------- We will always upgrade our facilities to ensure adequate (or better!) service for our users. Here is a recent history: October 1992: Panix moves into an office, and all low-speed modems are replaced with Hayes modems. All high-speed modems are upgraded to support 16,800bps and 19,200bps as well as the standard 14,400 and 9600bps speeeds. Our serial-ports and terminal server are replaced with a 64-port Annex III. November: Our Cisco router is installed, along with our 56kbps high-speed internet connection. January, 1993: Panix makes a smooth migration from a Mac to a Sparc-2 with more memory, more disk space, and lots more speed. 10 more lines are added. March, 1993: We add ten more lines and modems, and a second Sparc-2 to handle news, mail-list, gopher, wais, and other server tasks. June, 1993: Panix's main host becomes a Sparc-10/40, and the Sparc-2 is used for test purposes (and as a "hot" standby). 23 more modems and lines are added. Our 2.2GB tape unit is supplemented by a 5GB unit. SCHEDULED UPGRADES ------------------ We believe that upgrades should be a continuous (but painless) process, and we will continue to add new hardware and capabilities as demand grows. In the months ahead, we will be making the following upgrades: 1) We have ordered a faster internet connection (a "T1"). Depending on the whims of NY Telephone, Sprint, and Teleport, this will happen sometime between August 1 and 15. It will be fiber direct into our office. 2) We will open up a new office in Nassau, Long Island, to enable users to call from Long Island for the price of a local call. We hope to have it set up by the end of July. A location in New Jersey (201 area code) will open 2 months later, followed by one in (914) - White Plains, Westchester, etc. The LI office will start with 8 slow and 8 fast modems. 3) We have arranged things with NY Telephone so that they will bring a 12- fiber cable right into our office and terminate it on a DLS box. This will allow us to expand into the hundreds of phone lines as we need them. 4) We will buy another 2GB disk for our Sparc, along with an additional SCSI controller, in August. 5) We will buy another sparc10 to handle the increased user load when it is warranted. Based on current growth, that will happen September or October. By then we'll also need another terminal server, and more lines & modems. 6) We will set up an X.25 gateway so that users can use Sprintnet (telenet), the world-wide network, to call Panix from anywhere. Timing is dependent on Sprint. Recently they have flipflopped on availability twice. They are now unwilling to commit to a specific date so this is unlikely to happen before August, and might take several months more. PANIX SERVICES AND PRICES ------------------------- Panix is a system created solely for the convenience of its users. If there is a program or newsgroup that you want that we don't have, let us know, and we'll try to get it. Also, we are constantly upgrading the hardware and software, and creating new services for our users. If you think of a new type of service that you'd like, which we don't currently offer, tell us- we might well decide to provide it. Currently, we can only accept payments by check or money order from new users. We do accept Visa or Mastercard from users who have already paid once. Our current prices are: 1) Basic Personal Service - $10/month or $100/year in advance This service includes either a novice's menu, which includes email, usenet news, and a few other items, or complete access to a Unix shell of your choice, at your option. The only restriction is that you may not use _interactive_ Internet services, such as telnet or FTP. Since email and news only use the Internet in a "batch" mode, you _can_ use them with this account without limitation. You may upgrade to full Internet service at any time. There is _no_ charge for connect time or disk storage. We ask users to limit disk usage to 1MB, long-term, but won't even notice (much less care) if you happen to use up 10MB for a few days. We don't currently enforce quotas. This plan is for PERSONAL use; you may never, under any circumstances, permit another person to use it. We will soon be moving to a different plan. Anyone who uses the system less than 60 hours per month will not be affected. Those who use it more than 60 hrs/mn will be billed $1/hour for usage over 60 hours of prime time. Prime time will extend from 10AM to 2AM. Non-prime usage will still be free. We will also start measuring disk usage. Use up to 2MB/day, averaged over each month, will be free. Use over that will be charged at $1.50/MB/month. Most users of our system use less than half of this free alotment. 2) Internet Service - $57/quarter + $40 startup fee, in advance This service allows complete access to the Internet from your Panix account. Services such as telnet, ftp, gopher, archie, www, and wais are included. This account includes all the features of the basic account, so the net cost is $9/month more than a basic account. You must have an internet account if you wish to access Panix _from_ the internet. Like the Basic service, this is a PERSONAL account which may never be shared. 3) Personal UUCP Feeds - free or $5/month add'l, in advance We supply _personal_ uucp mail feeds free to users on request. News feeds are available for an extra $5. You can pick which groups you want, up to 2MB/day average. V32.bis or V.32 users can have up to 3MB/day. (This means that you can pick up news batches. Reading news on-line is free- you do NOT have to pay this $5 fee just to read news.) We will probably change the way we charge for UUCP by the end of the year but we have not yet determined how. 4) High-speed access - One-time $15 To use the V.32bis lines, you'll need to pay a one-time $15 fee. After that, they cost no more than the regular lines. 5) Dial-up TCP/IP access (SLIP or PPP) - not yet available Within two months, we will be providing dial-on-demand IP connectivity to the Internet. We have not yet settled on a fee schedule or the practical arrangements like 800/900 numbers, local dialups, etc. But we will have the bandwidth and we are committed to doing this. 6) ClariNet and other for-pay news wire services - not yet available Depending on demand (which has been minimal so far) we are prepared to add one or more of the commercial news feeds to Panix. 7) Xwindows access to Panix - not yet available Depending on demand, we may offer X-based services on Panix. Contact us if you are interested in this. 8) Shared Corporate Accounts - $1/hour + $5/mailbox/month - soon At the same time that our Basic and Internet services change, we will introduce a Corporate Account. Each corporate account may have any number of IDs and any number of users. Time on-line will be billed at an hourly rate of $1. Restrictions on account sharing will not apply to these accounts. 9) Group email or BBS accounts - custom We are also willing to arrange for custom services for groups. We will be providing email-only accounts and hosting private bulletin boards. If your organization needs to run a BBS but lacks the expertise in-house, this may be just what you need. Contact us for more information. 10) Custom corporate services If your company wants to make special arrangements, contact us. We're open to any reasonable proposition. If you think you might be interested in Panix, you can join up. If you decide after two weeks that you don't like it, just tell us- we'll cancel your account and you won't owe us anything. (If you do keep your account, you pay us starting from the date you get your account.) To subscribe to Panix, you can dial in at (212) 787-3100 (or, if you already have telnet access, just telnet to panix.com), and log in as "newuser". Panix will ask you a few questions and then one of us will call you back within a day or two. If you would like to talk to one of us first, please email us at info@panix.com. ----- For general information about Panix, please write to: info@panix.com or call us at (212) 787-6160. If you can use email, PLEASE use that, not the phone. For Public Access Networks Corporation, Alexis Rosen alexis@panix.com Jim Baumbach jsb@panix.com