NS-Help Michael Purcell Kornhauser Library A problem lies waiting just around the corner for most of us. As we begin to use the newest versions of Netscape and Host Explorer, we find that the telnet (like OVID at telnet://unix1.louisville.edu) and tn3270 (like Minerva Plus at tn3270://ulkyvm.louisville.edu) links on web pages will no longer work. Let's use Minerva Plus as an example. Netscape Navigator (up to version 3.x) would open Host Explorer and pass it the host name . Newer versions of Netscape will open Host Explorer and pass it on to the complete URL . Older telnet/tn3270 programs expect a host name and do not understand URLs. I have searched the web, archives of Web4Lib, and usenet news. As a result, I found many reported problems, but no solutions other than to buy a different telnet/tn3270 application. Since the problem was that Host Explorer was not correctly interpreting what Netscape was sending, I wrote a simple program that translates what Netscape "says" into what Host Explorer expects to "hear." The result is ns-help.exe. Originally, ns-help was short for "Netscape helper." After further testing, ns-help also works with Microsoft's Internet Explorer versions 3.x through 4.x, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT, and with a number of other telnet applications. This program has been tested for over a month at selected workstations in Kornhauser Library, in Ekstrom Library by Amy Purcell, and in the Law Library by Scott Campbell. In the first week since I have made this program available through the web, the page has received 140 hits. Several university libraries are using the program, including Indiana University, Oklahoma State University, and Cornell University. The most recent version of the program, its description, and installation instructions can be found at: http://www.louisville.edu/~mopurc01/ns-help.html.