The STiK Internet Access Pack

A Triumph of Global Co-operation.

A Brief History of the WWW Pack

STiK was originally programmed by a die-hard Atari owner in Australia, Steve Adam, who was not happy with the only ways he could link his machine up to the net. That was Demon's KA9Q NOS port with Oasis, or MintNet. The first is relatively old, slow and clunky; the latter involves turning your machine into a UNIX clone.

Unfortuneatly for our Australian chum, he was not to realise his ambition to build STiK into an all encompassing internet access package. Relocation took away his internet access, but not before he had made STiK into a sound TCP/IP stack and turned it into a desk accessory, allowing it to form the basis for a wholly modular internet package.

Conversations on IRC (internet relay chat) between our Antipodean mate, Dan Ackerman in the US and Nicholas Flintham in the UK sealed STiK's fate. Dan was to take over development and Flinny formed a beta testing group to trial and perfect any modules, or clients, written for the STiK TCP/IP stack.

Meanwhile, in Germany, Alexander Clauss had coded a pleasent little HTML viewer called, rather originally, HTML Viewer. Alex had no real ambition to program his viewer to read on-line images, as he had no internet link for his Atari. His neat little utility had not gone un-noticed and it was but a matter of months before Alex made provision for an external module to be written that HTML Viewer could recognise, and would allow it to communicate to STiK and the world.

One overlay module from Dan, a beta testing period from Nick and friends and a quick name change from HTML Viewer to Crystal Atari Browser later, and the WWW package was born.

For the first time, graphical web browsing was possible on a non MiNTOS Atari.

It wasn't long before CAB's features grew and grew to near Netscape capabilities, and other programs came along to expand the capabilites of a STiK setup.

More recently a breakaway project programmed by Peter Rottinger, STiNG has come about. STiNG is 100% STiK compatible but has taken a different route to the official STiK releases. I'll admit I had expected STiK 2 to be released and superseed STiNG a long time ago, but to this day no official STiK 2 release has occured and STiNG is now almost the standard in Atari Internet Access. I can't reliably provide help in setting up STiNG, so I don't attempt to. those wanting to play with STiNG will be referred to Robert Goldsmith, I'm afriad.

The Zetpack: What's in it, then?

The Zetpack is a compilation of STiK and some of its clients specifically configured for Zetnet; it contains:

CAB 1.5. As mentioned, the Crystal Atari Browser, supporting many Netscape HTML extensions.
Finger. The basic net tool for getting user info for a unix login account. Could be useful - try fingering
```
status@status.zetnet.co.uk
```
AtariIRC. An IRC client, still jolly good fun, and informative. Many of the STiK beta testers can be found in channel #atari
. Server
```
irc.bt.net
```
port
```
6664
```
is on the right network.
CAB.OVL. This is the active online module for CAB, that talks to STiK and gets you all those groovy web pages. Or even this one. Currently only supports http, but is one of the most frequently updated pieces of the pack.
Newsie. The excellent NNTP newsreader/POP3 e-mail/FTP client. Beautifully coded and just generally wonderful.
Telnet. Telnet really. Still needs work - but logs me on to my university account just fine.
Cache_Ed. Small cache tool for CAB.
HSModem7. Modem port patches for Atari Machines.
STiK. The actual TCP/IP stack.
Everest. A shareware text editor for use with Newsie.

So Where do I get this?

The Zetpack is available, direct from Zetnet at subscription. E-mail support@zetnet.net if you haven't got it yet. (How would you be reading this, though?)
It's also now available from ftp.zetnet.co.uk and now here on my site

Please Note: This is the last version of the Zetpack and is quite out of date. It will do the job, but Robert's site should contain a newer evolution.

Where to now?

You could start with London's own Sunsite, courtesty of Imperial College, and their fabulous University of Michigan Atari Archive Mirror: ftp to

sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk

Software available on this site

NOSShell - vital for using NOS and Oasis1.35e with STiK.
68030 Compilation of CAB - for '030 machines
DSP JPEG.OVL for Falcons only
aFTP.ZIP a port from mintnet of a fully GEMmed FTP client for STiK.
HSMODEM7 English Documentaion.

So, have fun on you're adventures. If you're short for ideas, you could always spend a few seconds in my Links section, or delve around in Sid Celery's Atari Links Page.