MITVMA and Bitnet accounts

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SIPB currently sponsors MITVMA accounts to supply the community with bitnet access. This is primarily used for real time talk using the tell command on VMA. This service of providing a $50 account to whomever asks for one will hopefully soon go away and be replaced by an MITSIPB bitnet node. With this, users can send tell commands from athena workstations through the node to the Bitnet.

How to give out a VMA account

The VMA account forms are currently in the lower left drawer of the front left desk in the office. Pull out the draw and fuddle around for a hanging folder labled MITVMA. The instructions below are also included in the front page of the contents of that folder:

  1. Find a ``Person Registration - IBM System'' form, form 8. If you don't know where they are, then ask someone. You should fill out the form yourself, getting the necessary information from the user and getting his address from his student ID. If you use the second to last form, make ten or so copies of the last one as soon as possible after you give out the account.

  2. Check off VM/CMS under system required.

  3. Printed output can be mailed to users who are using the system remotely and can't get to the Information Systems Dispatch desk to pick it up. Of course, there is a charge for this service.

  4. The user should get one cylinder for CMS. The virtual address for CMS is 191.

  5. Dollar limit is $50. This should last for a while, and if it runs out, the user can come in and request more money if he wants it. If the account is for a particular project, place the end date of the project in the ``End Date'' blank. If it is just an account for general use, ask the user when he plans to graduate and use that as the end date. Write ``SIPB'' and your initials or username in the ``Approved by '' blank.

  6. The project number is M30010.

  7. To determine the userid, look in the table of already assigned numbers and use the next one sequentially, i.e. if the last number assigned is ``S20037,'' then use the number ``S20038.'' Neatly write in the userid table the new userid, your initials or username, the name of the person to whom you are giving the account, the date on which the account was assigned, and the end date.

  8. The ``Destination'' blank should be filled in with a 30. Tell the user that his printouts will be placed in bin 30 (one of the hanging bins) at the IS Dispatch Desk, unless he is having them mailed.

  9. Tell the user to take the registration form to the Information Systems User Accounts office, room 11-205, and to give it to them. User Accounts will process the application; this should take about a day.

  10. If a user who already has an account comes in to ask for more money, check to make sure that his account has not expired (Look in the userid table.). If it has not, then write a dated note to User Accounts, with the userid and permission to give the user another $50. Sign the note, print your name and write ``For SIPB'' underneath it. Send them down to User Accounts with the note, and place a hash mark next to their name in the userid table. Send the treasurer mail, telling him/her what you've done.

  11. Leave security group blank.