From hungary-online-owner Fri May 5 14:44:13 1995 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id OAA22787 for hungary-online-out31415; Fri, 5 May 1995 14:44:13 -0700 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id OAA22776; Fri, 5 May 1995 14:43:48 -0700 Received: from fekete@bcuxs2.bc.edu () via =-=-=-=-=-= for hol@hungary.yak.net (22774) Received: from bcuxs2.bc.edu (bcuxs2.bc.edu [136.167.15.3]) (fnord) by nando (8.6.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id OAA22764 for ; Fri, 5 May 1995 14:42:55 -0700 Received: by bcuxs2.bc.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA08967; Fri, 5 May 1995 17:45:44 -0400 Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 17:45:43 -0400 (EDT) From: "Zoli Fekete # vote for soc.culture.hungarian!" To: hol@hungary.yak.net Cc: tbeke@mit.edu Subject: (HOL) Hungarian electronic resources FAQ - the new version (fwd) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net I thought this preview may be of interest to this list. Zoli fekete@bc.edu, finger magyar@world.std.com for the charter of s.c.h # Wallace Sayre said, "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter # form of politics, because the stakes are so low." He didn't know # Usenet: welcome to the next level. (Ron "Asbestos" Dippold) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 5 MAY 1995 21:33:58 GMT From: fekete@bcuxs2.bc.edu Newgroups: soc.culture.magyar, soc.culture.europe Subject: Hungarian electronic resources FAQ - the new version Last-modified: 1995/05/05 Version: 1.00.a This is a pre-release version of the FAQ being revamped. As you can see, there are unfinished parts (marked [...]), but at this point I though it is better to start circulating than to wait further until we'd get around completing everything. I would appreciate any comments, suggestions to add or modify parts, anything that the readers may find useful. I expect that it'll take several weeks (perhaps much of the summer) to get this ready for prime time and phase out the old one. In the meantime, version 0.99.1 will continue be posted as well (that was last modified on 1995/02/19 - not a year before as its header errenously had, in case anyone cares ;-(). Many thanks are due to all contributors (listed at the end), especially to Tibor Beke who took upon himself coordinating the collective effort. Any mistakes are still my responsibility, please let me know if errors are found! TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. News and discussion groups in English 1.1 News from the Open Media Research Institute 1.2 News from Central Europe Today 1.3 The Hungary Report 1.4 Mozaik 1.5 The USENET group soc.culture.magyar 1.6 'Hungary', the BITNET list at George Washington University 1.7 What's on CompuServe 2. News and discussion groups in Hungarian 2.1 HIX 2.2 Other discussion groups 3. Interactive services 3.1 What's available on the World Wide Web 3.2 What's available via Gopher 3.3 finger, telnet, ftp 4. The Net in Hungary 4.1 ELLA 4.2 BITNET/HUEARN 4.3 HUNGARNET 4.4 Eunet 4.5 FidoNet 4.6 Commercial providers 4.7 Finding out somebody's email address 5. Odds and ends 5.1 Traveling with a computer in Hungary 5.2 Conventions for coding Hungarian accents 5.3 Information sources about the rest of Central and Eastern Europe 6. Contributors to this FAQ 1. NEWS AND DISCUSSION GROUPS IN ENGLISH 1.1 News from the Open Media Research Institute You can get the Daily Digests of the Open Media Research Institute from LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (or simply LISTSERV@UBVM on BITNET) by sending the message SUBSCRIBE OMRI-L Yourfirstname Lastname. Note that they tend to be exceedingly long, and cover all of Central and Eastern Europe. You can get reposts of just the items related to Hungary by subscribing to Mozaik. See section 1.4. 1.2 News from Central Europe Today Central Europe Today On-Line is a free daily news service covering the important events and business news in the region. For more detailed information, send a blank email message to cet-info@eunet.cz. Included will be information on how to subscribe. Again, these exceed Hungary in scope, but you can get excerpts pertaining to Hungary in Mozaik (see 1.4). 1.3 The Hungary Report The Hungary Report is a free weekly English-language online update of news and analysis direct from Budapest each Sunday. The Report consists of briefs, one feature story and an expert political opinion column. The briefs cover the most important and interesting developments in Hungary each week, while the feature stories address variously politics, business, economics, arts and leisure. The weekly political column, Parliament Watch, is written by Tibor Vidos, director of the Budapest office of GJW, a British political lobbying and consulting firm. To subscribe, send an email message to containing (in the body of the message, not in the headers) the single word "subscribe" (no quotes). Or send the word "info" to the same address for further information. 1.4 MOZAIK This is actually one of the services of HIX, meaning there's a slight bit of Hungarian mixed in. Mozaik brings you, among other things, reposts of those news items (originating from OMRI, CET and other sources) that bear directly on Hungary. You can subscribe by sending a blank email message to subs.mozaik@hix.com and unsubscribe by sending one to unsubs.mozaik@hix.com. See section 3 about searching the HIX archives. 1.5 The USENET GROUP soc.culture.magyar This is mostly in English, sometimes bilingual, and occasionally Hungarian only. 1.6 The BITNET listserver at George Washington University HUNGARY@GWUVM is a discussion group providing rapid communication among those with interests in Hungarian issues. Subscribe by email from LISTSERV@GWUVM.BITNET using no subject and a message consisting only of SUBSCRIBE HUNGARY Yourfirstname Lastname. Once you have subscribed, any messages which you want to send to the group should be sent to the group address, HUNGARY@GWUVM.BITNET. (This pattern of two addresses is standard: you turn your mail off and on at the "listserv" address, and you send mail to the listname address. For example, to unsubscribe, send the server the message SIGNOFF HUNGARY. You can temporarily turn off you mail by sending listserv the message SET HUNGARY NOMAIL. SET HUNGARY MAIL turns mail back on.) By default the listserv sends out messages as they arrive, maybe several ones on busier days. If you prefer daily digest format, you can issue the command SET HUNGARY DIGESTS (again by sending it to the LISTSERV address); alternatively you can subscribe to HUNGARY via HIX as mentioned above, and receive the same format as the other lists by HIX. LISTSERV has many useful features, most notably database search on the list archives - to learn more about it, send commands like SEND HELP, SEND HELP DATABASE. Note that the form of addressing LISTSERV lists such as Hungary may depend a great deal on your local network configuration and mailer software. With a full-blown Internet mailer you're better off using the gwuvm.gwu.edu alias for the host (thus the listserv@gwuvm.gwu.edu and hungary@gwuvm.gwu.edu addresses), while for BITNET mailers you need GWUVM only (and figure the local gatewaying to BITNET, like BITNET% for most VAXMail installations). If you get stuck, help is much more likely available next door than across the world so ask around before posting a query on problems with sending mail! The digest form of this discussion group is mirrored by HIX. See 2.1. 1.7 What's on CompuServe Since September 1993, the US-based CompuServe, the world's largest commercial online service, has had a local dial-in node in Budapest. Subsequent to a transfer of the franchise from the bankrupt Microsystem to Middle Europe Networks, backed by Esther Dyson's EDventure Holdings, the node went down for about six months but resumed service in January, 1995. The basic connect charge for the service is relatively expensive ($8/hour by day, $12/hr by night @ 2400 bps or slower; $15/hr by day, $20/hr by night @ 9600 bps, the fastest the node supports), on top of other value-added network charges that apply. Nonetheless, the local office reports about 1,000 subscribers by May, 1995, far more than any other local online service. In addition to CompuServe's myriad online resources -- dozens of databases, news, travel reservation, shopping, games, computer customer service, and hundreds of professional and hobby discussion forums -- there are a few areas of specialized Hungarian information, as well. Chief among these is the new (February, 1995) Hungary section of the Europe Forum (GO EURFORUM). There, Magyars both in Hungary and abroad, as well as many curious non-Hungarians, engage in long-winded discussions about life in general and a few specifics. There is an attached library with a growing cache of uploaded files including financial information, news reports, specially Magyarized software utilities, maps, etc. There is also an Eastern Europe section of the same forum, though most Hungarian topics are contained to the Hungary section. The Travel Forum (GO TRAVSIG) also has an Eastern Europe section, where tourists and travel buffs exchange advice on trips through Hungary and the region. A search of the library with key-word "Hungary" yields a dozen-odd travel logs of visits to the country. For more information, contact CompuServe's Budapest at (36-1) 135-6492 or (36-1) 212-4612; fax: (36-1) 135-6493. Email: <71333.2633@compuserve.com> 2. NEWS AND DISCUSSION GROUPS IN HUNGARIAN 2.1 HIX HIX, or Hollosi Information eXchange, is a non-profit formation run and supported by several individuals and organizations. Its services, almost exclusively in Hungarian, change frequently, so it is best to obtain an up-to-date help file by sending a blank email message to help@hix.com. Here's a list of what it currently offers in email digest format: HIR -- 'Hirmondo', bi-daily news, edited in Budapest NARANCS -- The Internet edition of 'Magyar Narancs' KEP -- videotext news from Hungarian Television's Kepujsag SZALON -- moderated political discussion forum FORUM -- unmoderated political discussion forum TIPP -- politics-free questions, tips etc. HUNGARY -- the daily digest of the Hungary listserv (see 1.5) GURU -- computer-related questions RANDI -- personals; anonymous submissions possible VITA -- non-political discussion forum OTTHON -- issues around the home MOKA -- jokes, humor (Hungarian and other) MOZAIK -- semi-regular bits of news and other info, a good part in English, crossposts from the OMRI list, VoA gopher, CET and other sources To subscribe (unsubscribe) to a particular email-journal, send email to subs.NAME@hix.com (unsubs.NAME@hix.com) where NAME is one of the above. The postings for the HIX discussion lists are sent out daily in digested form. You can send your own submission to NAME@hix.com, whatever NAME is (provided it's actually a discussion list). The volume for some of these lists is becoming rather high, eg. TIPP often digests dozens of messages in hundreds of lines daily! You ought to try targeting your audience properly in order to find those who'd help with your questions; also keep in mind that readers often answer to the list rather than the individual even when personal reply is requested, so if you ask something it's a good idea to subscribe also (even though technically it's not required) instead of just addressing a list as a non-subscriber. A reminder to those who reply to a post: always remember that list messages get sent to several hundred readers, so consider personal email if the subject is not of general interest! If you answer thru a list it's courteous to send a personal copy (Cc: with most mailers) as well - this may reach the addressee considerably earlier than the post distributed thru the list. The HIX server can also send out archived files (such as this one you are reading, named 'hungarian-faq' in the 'computers' directory), see the SENDDOC function in its description. In case you have any problems or questions on the HIX services, please read through the automatic help response first. If you need human intervention you can reach supervisor@hix.com - but keep in mind that list managers have to do plenty other than answering things already laid out in the Fine Manual. You can also view the output of HIX interactively. See section 3. 2.2 Other discussion groups in Hungarian [.....] 3. INTERACTIVE SERVICES If you are using Hungarian interactive services from abroad (or vice versa): please note that interactive Internet connections like gopher may be very slow, even timing out during peak hours - try times of lower network load when the response time is usually reasonable. 3.1 What's available in the World Wide Web The Hungarian Home Page is http://www.fsz.bme.hu/hungary/homepage.html with links to all Hungarian www servers, including that of the Prime Minister's Office: http://www.meh.hu. HIX has a WWW server in the States: the URL is http://hix.mit.edu/. Besides back issues of its email journals, and a plethora of other files in Hungarian and English, it offers an on-line English-Hungarian, Hungarian- English dictionary, and various home pages and pointers to other sources. The World Wide Web server of Central Europe Today is at the URL http://www.eunet.cz/ . OMRI also has a WWW server: http://www.omri.cz/ . 3.2 What's available via Gopher HIX has a gopher in the States: hix.mit.edu. Its services form just a subset of what it offers as a WWW site. RaDir is sometimes useful for finding email- addresses, old or new friends on the Net. See also Section 4.5. HIX has a gopher in Hungary as well: hix.elte.hu. Check also gopher.elte.hu and gopher.sztaki.hu [????] for links to a growing number of gopher servers in Hungary. CET's gopher is called gopher.eunet.cz. 3.3 finger, telnet, ftp HIX documents from the archives of hix.mit.edu are available via the (Unix) 'finger' protocol. Try finger info@hix.mit.edu to see how it works. This may be the easiest and fastest access from some sites. There are Hungarian local newsgroups (see more on Usenet in the Appendix) available through telnet to ludens.elte.hu, login with username GUEST (no password), and enter NEWS to start the newsreader (you can use the VMS online help to learn about it). The guest account is set up for accessing elte.diaklap (students' journal at Eotvos U.), but other newsgroups are available as well. (But please be considerate to the strained network resources of Hungarian sites - from abroad for non-local news use other providers such as BBS.OIT.UNC.EDU, as explained in section 6.1.) For ELTE-specific questions contact hiik@ludens.elte.hu. If you telnet to hix.mit.edu, port 25700 (that's usually issued as telnet hix.mit.edu 25700 you find yourself in a real-time chat server (similar to IRC), called Arena. hix.mit.edu also serves as an anonymous ftp server. It seems to be empty at present. 4. THE NET IN HUNGARY Overview: historically, ELLA was the first home-grown X.25 email-system in Hungary. It survives till this very day (see 4.1). EARN was next, with its BITNET-like infrastructure (see 4.2). Full Internet connectivity is provided by HUNGARNET (see 4.3), which really comprises all academic, research and public non-profit sites. Here's a partial list of its domain names: bme.hu Technical University of Budapest sztaki.hu Computer and Automation Research Institute, Budapest elte.hu Eotvos Lorand University of Sciences, Budapest bke.hu Budapest University of Economic Sciences sote.hu Semmelweis University of Medical Sciences, Budapest abc.hu Agricultural Biotechnology Center, Godollo gau.hu Godollo Agricultural University, Godollo klte.hu Kossuth Lajos University of Sciences, Debrecen jpte.hu Janus Pannonius University of Sciences, Pecs u-szeged.hu Members of the Szeged University Association bgytf.hu Gyorgy Bessenyei Teachers Training College uni-miskolc.hu University of Miskolc kfki.hu Central research Inst. of Physics, Budapest vein.hu University of Veszprem, Veszprem bdtf.hu Berzsenyi College, Szombathely szif.hu Szechenyi Istvan College, Gyor blki.hu Balaton Limnological Research Institute of Hung. Acad. of Sci EuNet (4.4) is the most well-developed commercial network; other commercial providers appear in 4.6. Finally, there's FidoNet and a host of bulletin board systems, as described in section 4.5. What follows is a schematic map of the Hungarian network topology: [dudes and dudettes, check out the URL http://helka.iif.hu/hungarnet.html and pray do copy those maps here. this is somethin' i can't do -- connection keeps timing out, electricity dies, cows come home, etc. thanks, TB from boston] 4.1 ELLA This is a central mailbox system that individual users, universities and research institutions can connect to. [address syntax... bitnet vs internet from bitnet vs from internet... how fast you should expect it to be] Section 4.7 tells you how to get addresses. You can also ask the postmasters for help. ELLA's is h1006pos@huella. (Or h1006pos@ella.hu, Internet style.) 4.2 BITNET/HUEARN What follows is a listing of all EARN nodes in Hungary, with contact info. This information is also available on the following gopher: cc1.kuleuven.ac.be:70/11/nodeearn. HUBIIF11 IIF Department Budapest, Hungary IIF;Hungarian Academy of Sciences;Victor Hugo 18-22;1132 Budapest Internet address : hubiif11.sztaki.hu User Info: Sandor Aranyi;IB001ARA@HUEARN;+36 1 1497984 Fax : +36 1 1297866 HUBIIF61 IIF Department Budapest, Hungary IIF;Hungarian Academy of Sciences;Victor Hugo 18-22;1132 Budapest Internet address : mars.iif.hu User Info: Istvan Polakovics;polakovi@mars.iif.hu;+36 1 1665644 Fax : +36 1 1297866 HUBME11 Technical University of Budapest Technical University;of Budapest;Muegyetem rkp 9. R. ep;H-1111 Budapest, Hungary Internet address : atlantis.bme.hu User Info: Sandor Kovacs;postmast@HUBME11;+36 1 4632422 Fax : +36 1 1665711 HUBME51 Technical University of Budapest Technical University;Muegytem Rakpart 9;H-1111 Budapest Internet address : bmeik.eik.bme.hu User Info: Laszlo Fekete;FEKETE@HUBME51;+36 1 1812172 Phone : +36 1 1812172 ; Fax : +36 1 1166711 HUBPSZ12 Computer and Automation Institute Budapest, Hungary Computer and Automation Inst;Hungarian Academy o Sciences;Victor Hugo 18-22;1132 Budapest Internet address : hubpsz12.sztaki.hu ; User Info: Sandor Aranyi;IB001ARA@HUEARN;+36 1 1497984 Phone : +36 1 1497984 ; Fax : +36 1 1297866 HUBPSZ61 Computer and Automation Institute Budapest, Hungary Computer and Automation Inst;Hungarian Academy of Sciences;Victor Hugo 18-22;1132 Budapest Net Operator: Sandor Aranyi;IB001ARA@HUEARN;+36 1 1497986 HUBPSZ62 Computer and Automation Institute Budapest, Hungary Computer and Automation Inst;Hungarian Academy of Sciences;Lagymanyosi ut 11;1111 Budapest Net Operator: Sandor Aranyi;IB001ARA@HUEARN;+36 1 1497986 Phone : +36 1 2698283 ; Fax : +36 1 2698288 HUEARN Computer and Automation Institute Budapest, Hungary Computer and Automation Inst;Hungarian Academy of Sciences;Victor Hugo 18-22;1132 Budapest Internet address : huearn.sztaki.hu ; User Info: Miklos Pasztor;EARN@HUEARN;+36 1 2698286 Phone : +36 1 2698283 ; Fax : +36 1 2698288 HUECO University of Economic Sciences Budapest, Hungary University of Economic Sci;Computer Center;Kinizsi u 1-7;1092 Budapest Internet address : ursus.bke.hu ; User Info: Robert Vari;KSZK002@HUECO;+36 1 1175224 Phone : +36 1 1181317 ; Fax : +36 1 1175224 HUELLA Computer and Automation Institute Budapest, Hungary Computer and Automation Inst;Hungarian Academy of Sciences;Victor Hugo 18-22;1132 Budapest Node admin: Gizella Raba;h1006pos@huella;+36 1 1497986 Phone : +36 1 1497984 ; Fax : +36 1 1297866 HUGBOX Computer and Automation Institute Budapest, Hungary Computer and Automation Inst;Hungarian Academy of Sciences;Victor Hugo 18-22;1132 Budapest Internet address : hugbox.sztaki.hu ; User Info: Miklos Pasztor;PASZTOR@HUGBOX;+36 1 1497532 Phone : +36 1 1497532 ; Fax : +36 1 1297866 HUGIRK51 University of Agriculture Sciences University of Agriculture;Pater Karoly ut 1;H-2103 Godollo Internet address : vax.gau.hu ; User Info: Zoltan Toth;PYMPO@HUGIRK51;+36 28 30200 -1015 Phone : +36 28 30200 -1015 ; Fax : +36 28 20804 HUKLTEDR Kossuth Lajos University Debrecen, Hungary Internet address : dragon.klte.hu ; User Info: Robert Nemkin;buci@dragon.klte.hu HUKLTE51 Kossuth Lajos University, Debrecen Kossuth Lajos University;Egyetem Ter 1; PF. 58;H-4010 Debrecen Internet address : huni7.cic.klte.hu ; User Info: Zoltan Gal;ZGAL@HUKLTE51;+36 52 18800 Phone : +36 52 18800 ; Fax : +36 52 16783 HUSOTE51 University of Medical Science Budapest, Hungary University of Medical Science;SOTE;Ulloi u. 26.;1085 Budapest Internet address : janus.sote.hu ; User Info: Gabor Magyar;maggab@husote51;+36 1 1141705 Phone : +36 1 1141705 ; Fax : +36 1 1297866 HUSZEG11 Jozsef Attila University, Szeged, Hungary Jozsef Attila University;Computer Centre;Arpad ter 2.;H-6720 Szeged;Hungary User Info: Ferenc Scherer;J20I0SF@HUSZEG11;+36 62 321022 Miklos Csuri;J20I0CM@HUSZEG11;+36 Phone : +36 62 321022 ; Fax : +36 62 322227 4.3 HUNGARIAN ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH NETWORK (HUNGARNET) Organisational Structure: HUNGARNET is an association and also the computer network of Hungarian institutes of higher education, research and development, libraries and other public collections. HUNGARNET funding comes from the R&D Information Infrastructure Program (IIF) sponsored by the Hungarian Academy of Science, the National Committee of Technological Development, the Ministry for Culture and Education and the National Science Foundation. About 500 organizations have access to HUNGARNET services. HUNGARNET as an association represents Hungary in international networking organizations (e.g. TERENA). Generic Services: HUNGARNET provides access to the Internet and several other national network services over leased lines and the public packet switched data network. Lot of different services (e.g. gopher, ftp, WWW, data bases) provided by member organizations are available on the net. Centrally supported and coordinated services are: - e-mail (internet SMPT, EARN BSMTP, OSI X.400, UUCP, XXX ELLA) - e-mail gateways between the different e-mail systems above - distribution services (LISTSERV, news) - information services (ftp, gopher, WWW servers, data bases) - directory services (X.500) - individual accounts and login External Connectivity: HUNGARNET is subscriber to EBONE and EMPB/EuropaNET as well. There are two 64 kbps leased lines to EBONE (Vienna EBS). These two lines should be upgraded to a single 256 kbps line in the near future. HUNGARNET uses two 64 kbps interfaces on the EMPB/EuropaNET node in Budapest as well. These two interfaces should also be upgraded to a single 256 kbps interface very soon. Internal Connectivity: Internal connectivity of HUNGARNET is based partly on the public X.25 service of the Hungarian PTT and partly on the community's private IP backbone network (HBONE). The kernel of the HBONE infrastructure is in Budapest, where several important organizations are connected in different ways (64-256 kbps leased lines, 1-2 Mbps microwave links, 10 Mbps optical Ethernet, 100 Mbps FDDI). Several cities (regional centers) in the country are also connected to the network via 64 kbps leased lines (Miskolc, Nyiregyhaza, Debrecen, Kecskemet, Szeged, Pecs, Veszprem) and 2 Mbps microwave (Godollo). Now there are about 50 organizations directly connected to the backbone and about 50 others using IP over X.25. The number of the registered, connected hosts is about ten thousand. There is an ongoing development, new regional centers (Kaposvar, Keszthely, Szombathely, Sopron, Gyor) and several organizations in Budapest will be connected subsequently. Many users do not have IP connectivity yet but are connected to the public X.25 network. There are several services (e.g. individual login, mail, gopher, news) that are open for traditional XXX/X.25 access. Contact Persons: Miklos NAGY (h11nag@ella.hu) - head of the HUNGARNET/IIF coordination office Laszlo CSABA (h26csa@ella.hu) - HUNGARNET/IIF technical director Balazs MARTOS (martos@sztaki.hu) - HBONE project manager Nandor HORVATH (horvath@sztaki.hu) - Local Internet Registry, .hu top level domain contact IP address and domain administration: hostmaster@sztaki.hu Network management: net-admin@sztaki.hu 4.4 EuNet [.....] 4.5 FidoNet FidoNet connects through sztaki.hu, as indicated above. There are three FidoNet nodes: Budapest NET (2:371/0); West Hungary Net (2:372/0); and Tisza NET (2:370/0). If you want to write on the FidoNet, chances are you already know how. *PLEASE* find out what you are about to do instead of experimenting with the Hungarian net - don't add to the problems for the folks in Hungary having to deal with the underdeveloped phone system and outrageous international tolls ;-<. For further information I post a Fido-sheet separately from this FAQ, where there are also telephone numbers and further addresses, but again: try to verify that you are mailing to a valid address (the BBS situation may have changed since the copy you are reading got updated - look for current FIDO listing on the net, or better yet contact the person you want to reach by other means first)!. If you can send Internet email and have the FidoNet address, you can write to it by transforming it to appropriate .FIDONET.ORG format. Fidonet mail works with Hungarian BBS's but you have to know whom to reach. I will attempt to maintain a separate Fido posting to Usenet; please try to make sure you email to a valid address and in particular avoid using outdated sources on Hungarian BBS's (otherwise your misdirected trial will burden the Hungarian network coordinator!). 4.6 Commercial providers of on-line services If it's just a visit, the best is to get on FidoNet (see section 4.5), or to use SzTAKI's EuNet Traveler (see section 4.4). If you will be working at a university or research institute or large business, chances are you can get access to ELLA (see section 4.1), or perhaps genuine Internet access via the academic network. There are now commercial Internet providers in Hungary as well. For your information, a list of names, current prices and contact addresses follows. The list is meant to be here purely for informational purposes, not as an endorsement or recommendation for any one particular provider. (*) EUnet Method of connection: switched phone lines + 2400 -14400bps modem; leased (digital) lines; X.25; ISDN to follow soon. Services: full Internet; electronic mail; EUnet News; program library; EUnet Traveller; Emil, a Hungarian-language email program for PC's on the net. Prices: Email only: 4000 Ft/month + 1000 Ft/MB. Full Internet (SLIP/PPP): 4000 Ft/month + 500 Ft/hour. Leased lines: 10 000 Ft/ho + flat rate according to bandwidth. Contact: EuNet Hungary - MTA SZTAKI, Hollo Krisztina, 1111 Bp., Lagymanyosi u.11. tel.: (06-1) 269-8281, fax:(06-1) 269-8288, email: Hollo@sztaki.hu. (*) CompuServe Method of connection: switched phone lines + 2400-9600 bps modem. Services: Email, some 2000 databases, 60 magazines and journals, encyclopeadias, wire news, home shopping, airline and hotel reservations etc. Prices: About 10 USD membership + 8-25 USD/hour. Contact: Middle Europe Network Kft.,1022 Bp., Beg u. 3-5. tel.: (06-1) 212-4612, fax:(06-1)135-6493. See also Section 1.7. (*) ODIN Method of connection: Switched or leased phone lines + 2400-16800 bps modem; VSAT; X.25 planned. Services: Full Internet as well as email. Prices: Email only: 1200 [3500????] Ft/ho SLIP: 6000 Ft/month + 500 Ft/hour UUCP: 6000 Ft/month + 500 Ft/MB, leased line: 8000 Ft/month + 500-1000 Ft/hour. Prices do not include VAT. Contact: ODIN Informacios Szolgaltato Kft., Molnar Erzsebet, tel./fax: (06-1) 216-5609, email: mary@odin.net. (*) MagNet BBS [...] 4.7 Finding out somebody's email-address in Hungary The bigger academic domains have on-line directories: Technical University, Budapest gopher://goliat.eik.bme.hu:70/11/engl/tel-adat/hazi-tele Budapest University of Economic Sciences* gopher://URSUS.BKE.HU:71/11/kozgaz/telefon (*under construction) Semmelweis University of Medical Sciences, Budapest gopher://xenia.sote.hu:105/2 Central Research Inst. of Physics, Budapest gopher://sunserv.kfki.hu:105/2 Members of the Szeged University Association gopher://sol.cc.u-szeged.hu:105/2 Janus Pannonius University of Sciences, Pecs gopher://ipiux.jpte.hu:1051/2 ELLA (see section 4.1) also has an on-line directory: telnet hugbox.sztaki.hu 203 (ie. address a special port). Note that the opening screen uses special characters for the accented letters but the data records have combinations of vowel plus ',: or " instead (ie. searching for hollo'si would retrive a record, but hollosi won't)! If the person has registered him/herself with the RaDir database of HIX, you might try the following: - by email: send a blank message to radir@hix.com. You'll receive, in several chunks, the entire database of users, their electronic and snail-mail addresses, etc. You'll need a decent editor to search what you're looking for. - by gopher: look up hix.elte.hu (or hix.mit.edu, outside Hungary; the same service is offered by hix.mit.edu on the World Wide Web). Under RaDir, you'll find the entire database cross-indexed by search keys. Note, however, that parts of RaDir are badly out of date. If you have some idea what institution to check at, you may find an online directory service -- many are available, and could be reached through the Hungarian gophers (or WWW sites) mentioned in section 3. Try contacting the (electronic) postmaster, usually postmaster@site.domain.name, or using 'finger' to inquire about users. As a last resort, send in your query to a discussion group. Readers of Usenet's soc.culture.magyar, Bitnet's HUNGARY discussion list (section 1.5), or some HIX-list (see 2.1) may be able to help. 5. ODDS AND ENDS 5.1 Traveling with a computer in Hungary The electricity is 220 volt, 50 cycles, but in fact it fluctuates a lot. A battery driven laptop or notebook is your best bet. You can drive a printer through a simple small converter, but check plug types in advance. The Hungarian standard is two-pronged, and your computer or printer may well be three-pronged. The converter may also be three-pronged stepped down to two-pronged, but check before you leave. Just in case, take along one three-prong to two-prong plug adapter. 5.2 Conventions for coding Hungarian accents Overview: Internet mailers and Usenet hubs are set up to forward documents in the uniform format known as ASCII; many of them, sadly, in the even more primitive format known as 7-bit ASCII. This means you're limited to letters of the Latin alphabet and a few punctuation marks and special characters of English (or American English). There're still cludges you can use to denote accented vowels (see 5.2.1). These may not be necessary if extended character sets work for you (5.2.2). Alternatively, you can transmit your documents in a high-level formatting language (5.2.3), rely on microcomputer technology (5.2.4), but then may need to encode your documents to arrive at ASCII (5.2.5). 5.2.6 deals with conversions between the various formats. 5.2.1 Plain (or 7-bit) ASCII You have essentially the following choices: (*) no accent marks. Simple and sure-fire. In fact, the most common 'solution'. (*) The ~`'" coding, nicknamed _repu~lo"_. Here's a sample: O~t hu"to"ha'zbo'l ke'rtu~nk szi'nhu'st A'rvi'ztu"ro" tu~ko~rfu'ro'ge'p or, in the alternative _repu:lo"_ format: O:t hu"to"ha'zbo'l ke'rtu:nk szi'nhu'st A'rvi'ztu"ro" tu:ko:rfu'ro'ge'p Quite readable, though a bit tricky to disambiguate mechanically: remember, the " or : or ' may also serve as punctuation marks. (*) The 123 coding, officially Pro1sze1ky-ko1d. Here's the same text: O2t hu3to3ha1zbo1l ke1rtu2nk szi1nhu1st A1rvi1ztu3ro3 tu2ko2rfu1ro1ge1p The only one that's both short and unambiguous, though it takes some getting used to. 1 stands for the stroke, 2 for the short umlaut, 3 for the 'Hungarian' or long umlaut. Very easily converted to other formats. (*) Telegraphic style. For example, Oet huetoehaazbool keertuenk sziinhuust Aarviiztueroe tuekoerfuuroogeep Avoid it like the plague - it's ambiguous. (Think of Weoeres, Goethe, Oetker, Eoersi. Csooori.) Not a pleasure to read either. 5.2.2 Fancy character sets: CWI, extended ASCII... The ISO Standard Latin-1 supports the following accented vowels: [......] Note, however, that not all mailers are 8-bit clean! MIME encoding will substitute an unprintable character by its (hexadecimal) code preceded by an = sign. That's why you often see them splattered around. Under Windows... 5.2.3 Text formatting languages (*) (La)TeX. To continue with the same example, \"{O}t h\H{u}t\H{o}h\'{a}zb\'{o}l k\'{e}rt\"{u}nk sz\'{\i}nh\'{u}st \'{A}rv\'{\i}zt\H{u}r\H{o} t\"{u}k\"{o}rf\'{u}r\'{o}g\'{e}p. This is meant to be printed with TeX or previewed as a dvi file. Wholly unambiguous, can be automatically converted to/from several other formats (see 5.2.6). Also check the babel system for LaTeX with the Hungarian specific option, available from FTP sites kth.se or goya.dit.upm.es. (*) HTML Unfortunately, the HTML-2 standard still does not contain notation for Hungarumlaut (long umlaut, or two accents). We use tilde or circumflex instead. The preferred notation is o with tilde õ and u with circumflex û. In the example above, Öt hûtõházból kértünk színhúst Árvíztûrõ tükörfúrógép. [postscript?] 5.2.4 Microcomputer products: Word Perfect, Macintosh... [......] 5.2.5 Switching binary to ASCII and vice versa [uuencode, uudecode, BinHex .......] 5.2.6 Translating between various formats >From (La)TeX to a plain ASCII style: check out the programs etex.Z and hion.Z, available on the HIX archives (see section 3) 5.3 Information sources pertaining to the rest of Central Europe This section is by no means to be comprehensive. Both OMRI and CET cover the general region in their news. See Section 1.1 and 1.2, respectively. To complement the HUNGARY list (see Section 1.6), at the same listserv at Buffalo there exist the Middle European discussion list MIDEUR-L as well as POLAND-L and SLOVAK-L. Send the usual command to LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (or simply LISTSERV@UBVM on BITNET): SUBSCRIBE listname-L Yourfirstname Yourlastname. On Usenet there is soc.culture.romanian, soc.culture.czecho-slovak, soc.culture.polish, and the gatewayed misc.news.east-europe.rferl, bit.listserv.mideur-l and bit.listserv.slovak-l; bit.listserv.hungary has been established, but many sites do not have it, and some of those supposedly carrying lose some or all the posts. If you experience sporadic distribution of any of the gatewayed lists complain to your net-news administrator and/or Usenet carrier - you can always check the list traffic by subscribing to the original email lists described above. This is one of those problems where people in the know of your local situation may be able to help you, but the hundreds of list-readers scattered worldwide are most likely not! Since the gatewayed lists are primarily LISTSERV based, the surest way to receive everything is via email. If you prefer using Usenet newsreaders you find HIX's HUNGARY digests posted to soc.culture.magyar (which group does not seem to suffer the poor propagation affecting some of the bit.listserv groups). Please notice that while the listserv groups are bi-directionally gatewayed, ie. posts to them get propagated back to the original mailing list, the posts coming from HIX to soc.culture.magyar are mere copies of the mailing list messages - do not reply to the newgroups since your answer won't reach the email readers (who constitute a likely large majority). Speaking of limitations of distribution be aware that some commercial Internet connection providers (most blatantly American Online) established their own groups with topics overlapping existing Usenet hierarchy. The utility of these local groups is seriously limited since they are, unlike the open real Usenet newsgroups such as those mentioned above, are unavailable to anyone but their own subscribers (ie. a small domestic fraction of all the Internet/Usenet users worldwide). Please do not post to non-local groups saying how nice would be to use these specialized fora - we can not. Use the newsgroup soc.culture.magyar or the mailing lists! The Central European Regional Research Organization (CERRO) can be joined at LISTSERV@AEARN.BITNET with the command SUBSCRIBE CERRO-L Firstname Lastname. This is a scholarly group that deposits papers and the like in an electronic archive in Vienna. The archive is accessible with anonymous FTP at wu-wien.ac.at, or with gopher at gopher.wu-wien.ac.at. The repository for Voice of America material, accessible with gopher, gopher.voa.gov, also contains some information and news items relevant to the region. Check the NATO gopher for a great number of goodies: gopher.nato.int. The Slovakia Document Store will answer all your questions about Slovakia: on the World Wide Web, http://www.eunet.sk/ or, via gopher, gopher.eunet.sk or, via anonymous ftp, ftp.eunet.sk, in the directory slovakia or, via gophermail: send a message with Subject: HELP to GOPHERMAIL@Slovakia.EU.net. 6. CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS FAQ (the order is alphabetical by last name) Beke Tibor tbeke@mit.edu general layout, 2.1, 3, 5.3 Bruner, Rick bruner@ind.eunet.hu 1.3, 1.7 Fabian Peter fabian@icgeb.trieste.it 4.2, 4.7 Fekete Zoli fekete@bc.edu much of the rest Hollo Kriszta hollo@sztaki.hu 4.3 Umann Kornel umann@hit.bme.hu 5.2 If you have a suggestion regarding some specific section, you may want to contact its author. The FAQ as such continues to be maintained by Zoli Fekete (fekete@bc.edu). -- Zoli fekete@bc.edu, finger magyar@world.std.com for the charter of s.c.h # Wallace Sayre said, "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter # form of politics, because the stakes are so low." He didn't know # Usenet: welcome to the next level. (Ron "Asbestos" Dippold) ############# # This message to Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net # was from "Zoli Fekete # vote for soc.culture.hungarian!" # # To unsubscribe, # send "unsubscribe" to # An announcement-only subscription (less volume) is available # at # Send mail to for more information, # or to if you need human assistance. #############