1403 lines
72 KiB
Plaintext
1403 lines
72 KiB
Plaintext
F I D O N E W S -- | Vol. 9 No. 5 (3 February 1992)
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The newsletter of the |
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FidoNet BBS community | Published by:
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_ |
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/ \ | "FidoNews" BBS
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/|oo \ | (415)-863-2739
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(_| /_) | FidoNet 1:1/1
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_`@/_ \ _ | Internet:
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| | \ \\ | fidonews@fidonews.fidonet.org
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| (*) | \ )) |
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|__U__| / \// | Editors:
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_//|| _\ / | Tom Jennings
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(_/(_|(____/ | Tim Pozar
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(jm) |
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----------------------------+---------------------------------------
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Published weekly by and for the Members of the FidoNet international
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amateur network. Copyright 1991, Fido Software. All rights reserved.
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Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes
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only. For use in other circumstances, please contact FidoNews.
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Paper price: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5.00US
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Electronic Price: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . free!
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For more information about FidoNews refer to the end of this file.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------
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Table of Contents
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1. EDITORIAL ..................................................... 1
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Editorial: Where was I ........................................ 1
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2. ARTICLES ...................................................... 3
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FOSSILs: ancient history ...................................... 3
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A day in the life of an overworked UK sysop ................... 4
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UpComing Software - Tic Zipper ................................ 7
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Country Computing ............................................. 8
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I TOLD YOU SO!!! .............................................. 9
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3. LATEST VERSIONS ............................................... 19
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Software List ................................................. 19
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4. FIDONEWS INFORMATION .......................................... 25
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FidoNews 9-05 Page 1 3 Feb 1992
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======================================================================
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EDITORIAL
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======================================================================
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Editorial: Where was I
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by Tom Jennings (1:1/1)
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It's amazing how we can take incredible things for granted.
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For the last few months I've been working for a telecomm. service
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provider, writing some sort-of fancy testing software involving bit-
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serial stuff. It turned out to be kind of interesting; I had to learn
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how to do high-precision arithmetic, high-precision division, and
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quickly. Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming" SEMI-NUMERICAL
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ALGORITHMS (dry as a desert) and all that. An as you might imagine, I
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have fairly decent serial port drivers (my integral "Fido" driver that
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later became the basis for FOSSIL) and a FOSSIL interface.
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I use Ray Gwinn's X00, run under DESQview, with my Fido BBS (Dual Std
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HST) in it's own window. I don't think too much about it. I installed it
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who-knows how long ago. Couple of years. I touched it twice in the last
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year; once when someone sent me a new version (the old one worked just
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fine) and once when I got a 16550 and second serial card. It's a nice,
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boring program. (Who wants excitement in a device driver?)
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For testing this thing I usually run it in a DESQview window, which
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works at 19,200 and below just fine; even at 1920 bytes/sec send and
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receive, it drops very few bits, and only when Fido is writing disk
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files. (Note in this case, the same X00 driver code is being accessed by
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Fido from one DV window, and my test program in another.) For high-speed
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testing I have to take DESQview down; sustained 38,400 baud halts DV
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altogether! (It's 100% busy reading bytes; when you pause the data it
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comes back to you.) So I'm testing this new program, outputting data at
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3840 bytes/sec (long-term average), into a shorting plug that loops the
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data into the receive side, and comparing the ins and outs, debugging my
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new printf(), whatever. Testing consists of a few minutes run (million
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bytes or so), and and end-of-day test (overnight, 8 hours), does 100
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million bytes. Error rate: no bad bytes. Great.
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Then I realize -- wait a minute! I'm running on the FOSSIL driver, not
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my integral driver! No changes whatsoever, and half the time, there are
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two programs using the same driver! (And it turns out my old-fashioned
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integral IBM driver is signifigantly slower than the FOSSIL!)
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Ray Gwinn's program, at least for the pclone world, has become the part
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of the bedrock upon which FidoNet sits. It is hot stuff, and also boring
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when it should be!
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The FidoNet's history of technical development is interesting, and I
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think completely unappreciated by "industry" with a few exceptions.
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FidoNet has made, and broken, some modem manufacturers -- some like U.S.
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Robotics and Telebit, actually listened to us, and made changes to their
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products and marketing that assured their niches.
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FidoNews 9-05 Page 2 3 Feb 1992
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It's safe to say that the FidoNet serial-communication technology is the
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most advanced on PCs; we have collectively pushed serial performance far
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beyond what even the hardware was considered capable of. To us, 19,200
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fixed-DCE rate and 10,000 bytes/sec, and faster, are common. Believe me,
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there are many large businesses that believe this completely, flatly
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impossible. And we do it routinely.
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I think it's time that each of us consider that maybe, we should tell
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software and hardware manufacturers that the FOSSIL interface is now a
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defacto standard, and ask, when are they going to support it directly?
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This past summer I had to hack a driver to run at 56,000 bits/sec over a
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leased telephone line, PC to PC, using KA9Q's NOS package. It was like
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going back in time. (Though NOS has it's own "generic" interface for
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serial, ether, coax drivers.) The manufacturer of the serial card
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(SEALEVEL Inc, quite nice I may add) hadn't heard of a FOSSIL driver.
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They provide the usual "sample driver code" that is the barest fragment;
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wouldn't it be nice of they could ship fully functional, high-
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performance drivers? For free? Like giving away razor blades to sell
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razors...
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If you have any contacts or influence in places that use serial
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technology for any reason (modems, printers, LANs) tell 'em about
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FOSSIL. Tell them about how our programs use a FOSSIL interface, if one
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is present. Give them code, and FSC-0015 (the FidoNet technical standard
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document covering FOSSILs).
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I think we tend to sell ourselves short in where we stand in the world
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at large. (I have a theory regarding the proportional relationship of
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head in the sand too-busy-bullying-local-sysops vs. dealing with the
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outside world, but I'l leave that untouched for now.) We have an
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incredible body of technical wizardry here. Our FidoNet technology
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doesn't make sense sometimes to more "traditional" telecomm. people,
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because FidoNet was designed in a vaccuum, developed along unique lines
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(PCs), and now, because we far outpace existing networks in some areas.
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(Social sophistication isn't one of them.)
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As much as we like to think we're so big and smart, not many people are
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actually aware of how FidoNet is put together.
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Just something to think about.
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Somehow in all of this I ended up writing a history of FOSSIL
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development; to avoid boring you I put it into a separate article.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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FidoNews 9-05 Page 3 3 Feb 1992
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======================================================================
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ARTICLES
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======================================================================
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FOSSIL drivers' ancient history
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Tom Jennings
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1:125/111
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The FOSSIL interface was originally the Fido internal serial library
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interface; the calls are fairly generic in design. I had been using it
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for a few years before Fido, in programs like Phoenix Technologies'
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TELINK (later Ptel) program. (The original TELINK program was written in
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BDS "C" for CP/M, and yes, it contained it's own internal driver of
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amazingly similar design (but no interrupts (but I digress)).) At the
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time, the "IBM PC" was brand new and expensive, and every hardware
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platform (Compupro, Tandy 2000, TI Professional, Computer Devices' DOT,
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Otrona Attache 8:16, etc) had completely different hardware. I had a
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"driver layer", and wrote simple drivers that were hardware-specific,
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and linked them into the program.
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(During those years I was writing MSDOS BIOSes, not ROMs but the hidden
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\IO.SYS that actually contains the MSDOS.SYS interface. MSDOS.SYS opens
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files etc, and passes requests to the driver, IO.SYS, which in turn gets
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the job done using whatever the hardware is. What I did was write IO.SYS
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in two layers; a very smart one that handled error checking, blocking,
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segment boundary handling (can't DMA across a 64K boundary) and all that
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really hard stuff, and was quite stable and completely hardware
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independent. The hardware drivers were stupid, did no error checking and
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talked directly to the hardware, and talked to the smart guy through a
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table. With this scheme we were able to do complete MSDOS ports to
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virgin hardware, boot ROM, IO.SYS, disk formatter, utilities, etc, in
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under a week...)
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Anyways, the original Fido used the same scheme for serial I/O. The
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driver was linked into the FIDO program using an object linker. Even
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post-IBM, there were enough non-IBM machines (DEC Rainbow, Sanyo 555,
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etc) to warrant me writing drivers and linking up Fido programs for
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them.
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Some machines weren't worth the trouble -- and I usually didn't have
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access to hardware. (The DEC Rainbow driver took 3 months, and was
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written OVER THE VOICE PHONE, as John Madill's Rainbow 100A was in
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Balto. The most painful code I have ever written.)
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For a typical Fido release in 1985, I created five versions: IBM, DEC,
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VICTOR 9000, SANYO 555, and OTRONA ATTACHE 8:16 (I had the hand-wired
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prototype (no schematics, not ROM listings!, which caught on fire two
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years later). This was getting ridiculous!
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So I decided to pass the buck: I documented the serial device functions
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(read, write, ready test, etc) and using the existing IBM ROM INT 14h as
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a model, made another Fido version, the poorly-named GENERIC Fido. Then,
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when someone called me with some wacko computer, I could finally say
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"You do it!"
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FidoNews 9-05 Page 4 3 Feb 1992
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The history from this point on is contained in document FSC-0015,
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written by Rick Moore. I'll merely summarize from it.
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While I considered myself off the hook at this point, the "Generic"
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driver was barely enough to do the job. Thom Henderson (who also had his
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own SEAdog drivers) and Bob Hartman built a driver around the GENERIC
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interface to solve some particular SEAdog problem; Vince Perriello took
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this further and under the extensive prodding of Ken Kaplan (global
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FidoNet facilitator supreme deluxe) generated a DEC Rainbow driver and
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then SEAdog ran on that now-historic hardware.
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Some guy no one ever heard of named Wynn Wagner was trying to get a
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commercial serial driver package to work for his Opus, without much
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success. Bob Hartman suggested that with a few changes, it could use the
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drivers already coded for SEAdog (and my implication, Fido). And, quote,
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"...Vince called Wynn to discuss porting Opus to the DEC Rainbow, Wynn
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called Bob, Bob called Vince, and the FOSSIL driver came into
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existence". ("FOSSIL" stands for: Fido Opus Seadog Standard Interface
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Layer.) Rick Moore, Solar Wind Computing, authored FSC-0015, the FidoNet
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FOSSIL standard.
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In 1987 I finally renamed my FIDO_GEN to FIDO_FSL, dumped my GENERIC
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drivers in favor of the FOSSIL system. (It took me that long simply
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because I'm lazy.)
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In 1992, I upgraded my own drivers. No longer will I have to link up
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separate FOSSIL and IBM versions; each program will automatically use a
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FOSSIL driver if present, or fall back to the integral driver. It's
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amazing how long it takes to get around to these things!
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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by Mike Butler
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Sysop of Manhattan Skyline, Sileby, UK (2:250/416, 2:250/417)
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A day in the life of an overworked UK sysop
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- or -
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How to survive a business, BBS and family without cracking up
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I live on the outskirts of a small village called Sileby in the middle
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of the UK. For those of you who know the UK, it's between Leicester
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and Nottingham. Nice views over open fields at the front and a long
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garden with a railway line at the bottom at the back. I always wanted
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a train set!
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The day starts at around 7:00am. Well, to be exact it started five
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minutes earlier when my son woke up, closely followed by my wife.
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The first thing I know about it is someone is pulling my hair. My son
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has decided to practice mountain climbing. Guess who is honorary
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mountain for today. Got it in one - me! One thing I should mention
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here is that my son developed cerebral palsey after being born 13
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weeks early and is disabled. The first and last time my wife has ever
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been anything but late :-). I hope she never sees this......<thwack>
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FidoNews 9-05 Page 5 3 Feb 1992
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After about ten minutes the word 'breakfast' starts to waft around the
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bedroom. Not in the 'would you like breakfast' style. More like the
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'breakfast would be a good idea if you want to live till lunch' style.
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Off I go downstairs, trying to avoid the assorted toy cars and squeaky
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dog toys we have littered around the place.
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I didn't mention the dog did I? Snuzzle is a mixture of several dogs.
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Unfortunately none of them had a brain. At least, she never inherited
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one. She is eight years old now but no-one has told her. She still
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thinks she is a pup. She sleeps on the end of the bed. Unless she
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thinks no-one is watching when she sneaks up and lies between us.
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Anyway, back to the morning.....
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I've made it to the kitchen. Fill the kettle completely full and put
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it on to boil. Get some milk and stick it in the microwave to warm for
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the kid's cereal. I now have around five minutes to dive into the
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office and check to see what the night has delived to the BBS. Not a
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lot really. No new netmail, a few files from my file host and a whole
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bunch of echomail. Wildmail is still tossing it into Wildcat. I really
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must buy a decent machine. The mail BBS runs on an original IBM AT
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which is slow at best. When tossing mail it is ssssslllloooowwww!
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Looking out of the window doesn't reveal a lot. It's still dark.
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<click> The kettle turns off. Back to the kitchen, get the milk out of
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the microwave. Make a mental note to wipe up the bit that overflowed.
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Back upstairs with breakfast. No paper yet. The newsagent said the boy
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had not turned up. I asked when they would get a reliable one. Silence
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at the other end of the phone. No sense of humour some people.
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I crawl back into bed and power down for ten minutes while Sandra
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stuffs Lee full of breakfast. I get rudely awakened by a plastic Bart
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Simpson landing on my head. This does not bode well for the day ahead.
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Sandra carts Lee off into his bedroom to get him dressed. I wake
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up and get dressed - not necessarily in that order. I get downstairs
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first and make the coffee. I may wake up yet.....
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Outside has emerged from under the darkness. It's very frosty. The
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trees and lawn are white. The wife's car is iced up. Mine is in the
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garage <hehehehehe>. The trees near the house are full of birds
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looking at an empty bird table. I stock it up with bread and get back
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inside where it's warm.
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At about 8:15 Lee gets picked up by the school bus. He goes to a
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special school about 15 miles away for four days a week. Once he is
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five he'll go full time. He is four in a couple of weeks - Feb 5th.
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The mail arrives shortly afterwards. The mail is pushed through the
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letterbox. Folded. Including a couple of diskettes. Great! Nothing of
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any interest. Unless bills interest you that is. And two bent disks.
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FidoNews 9-05 Page 6 3 Feb 1992
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I'm supposed to be at a clients site at 11am. I work as a consultant,
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programmer or whatever. I get off at around 9am. Two hours is about
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right for the 110 mile journey. It should be around 1 1/2 hours but
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what with the motorway roadworks etc I allow a bit extra. After about
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ten minutes I am rudely disturbed by the car phone. Turn down the
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stereo. It's the wife. The client phoned. They are flooded due to
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heavy rain. Can I leave it for today. Hmmmmmm........back home.
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So, I've got a day to kill. Every cloud has a silver lining. Except
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the one which flooded out my client.
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Maybe these disks should be looked at ? Some surgury is required. Take
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the actual disk bit out of the bent envelope and stick it into a new
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one. Wonderful - it loads fine. Someone has sent me some files for the
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BBS. Even more wonderful is that I've not already got them!
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I downloaded the latest beta of D'Bridge yesterday so I decide to
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install it. Back up the current stuff then install it. Everything
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seems fine so I leave it running and load up Flight Simulator. I
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bought the sound and plane addon last week so I'm flying Concorde
|
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around the place. One day I'll land it properly. The best sound effect
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so far comes when you crash. Sort of breaking glass....
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The BBS is quiet. Unusual. Hold on - why is the modem off-hook. This
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is not right. Reset the modem - whoever put the nice little switch on
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the new DS should be given a medal. The next caller got onto the BBS
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ok. When he exited D'Bridge left the modem off-hook again. After an
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hour or so of testing with a line analyser between the modem and the
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PC, several large mugs of coffee and various interruptions the cause
|
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is found totally by accident. Seems this new D'Bridge has a bug which
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causes the modem to be left off-hook if you don't scan for echomail
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when you start it. The sample batch files force netmail and echomail
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scan on startup. My batch file doesn't as I unpack externally. Ho hum.
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A few changes to the batch files and things are fine again. Send off
|
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the bug report with a request for a free "I found a bug in D'Bridge"
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sweatshirt.
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Lunchtime........down to the local restaurant for a bite to eat. Nice
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place. It was an old primary school building which was converted into a
|
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restaurant in 1979. Food is good, we know all the staff so we stay too
|
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long. Back home at 3pm.
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Quiet afternoon really. Top Gun was on the TV a few days back so
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various shoot'em'up games have been dug out. I'm sure I should
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have been a fighter pilot. They would need to make the planes a bit
|
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wider though. I'm not overweight, just short for my height. I should
|
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be around 8'6".
|
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Had a call from a local company. If they donate some money to the fund
|
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we set up to buy Lee a decent all-terrain-wheelchair would we mind if
|
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it went in the local papers to give them a little publicity. What more
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could we ask. A donation and publicity for the appeal. Good stuff!
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FidoNews 9-05 Page 7 3 Feb 1992
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|
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Around 4:30pm we hear the 'beep beep' of the school bus outside. Lee
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is back. The routine is well set up now. Sandra zooms out to the bus
|
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to collect him and have a brief chat with the escorts. I hit the
|
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'start' button om the microwave for his tea then zoom into the living
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room to put the Bart Simpson tape on. He won't eat his tea unless Bart
|
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is on. While Sandra fills him with shepherd's pie and beans I check
|
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out the school bag. He's been painting again. I thought his hair had
|
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little colored bits in it. From his notebook it seems they took the
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kids shopping today as well. All fun stuff. I remember when I was a
|
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kid........
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After tea it's "pester daddy" time. We play with his cars, his toy
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Bart and do some drawing and generally make a mess. We also play on
|
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one of the computers for a while. 2:250/417 has been consigned to
|
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games duty.
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Diversion....Why are so few games suitable for disabled kids? The
|
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only decent one is a Disney one called "Goofy's railway" or something.
|
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All Lee has to do is keep hitting keys and things keep happening.
|
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Simple but very effective. If any games writer are listening please
|
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take note. Just add a mode to any game with good sound and graphics
|
||
where it can be worked by hitting *any* key and you'll sell to
|
||
disabled kids. It may not seem fun to you but the kids love it!
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Lee goes off to bed at around 6:30pm. Tears as usual, followed by
|
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slinging *another* toy Bart around the bed then off to sleep.
|
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|
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Nothing decent on the TV again. Ten channels and nothing worth
|
||
watching on any of them. We decide to watch Total Recall again. Good
|
||
film and good sound effects with the Dolby decoder on. Halfway though
|
||
the BBS starts beeping. Forgot to turn off the page. Someone wants to
|
||
know if I have any 'adult' GIF files. Nope, but I know a BBS which
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does so I give him the number. Then turned of the page. Back to the
|
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film. Sandra wants an early night so I decide to have half an hour
|
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tinkering with the BBS. Well, it was going to be half an hour. At
|
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around 1:30 I decide to go off to bed - after checking the page keys
|
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are all disabled.
|
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So, that's an average day here in Sileby. Fun stuff huh?
|
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|
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Mike
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|
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
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|
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|
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|
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TiZZer - Tick Zipper (Tick Post Processor)
|
||
|
||
coming soon: Version 1.00b (beta)
|
||
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 8 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
(c) 1991 Robert McCullough
|
||
|
||
to be Distributed as Freeware for NonCommercial Use Only
|
||
|
||
|
||
Tizzer - Tic Outbound File Manager (Packer)
|
||
Tic, Text, & File Compressor for File Echos.
|
||
FTS Product for Hubs and File Movers.
|
||
|
||
|
||
TiZZer Packs Tics (and more if you choose via the options in
|
||
your TiZZer.Ctl) in a HexFile.TZ? (where ? is a Number from
|
||
0 thru 9). TiZZer runs in two modes (depending on your front end
|
||
mailer) Binkley (opus/fido/max/etc) and FrontDoor. TiZZer
|
||
allows the packer of your chooice. It saves money ($$) via
|
||
Transfers picking up bundled files instead of Small .Tic .SDA
|
||
.Wnt .Des .ANS etc
|
||
|
||
If you hub File Echos it is easy to set up via the TiZZer.Ctl
|
||
file. The Remote (recieving) system does not need to run TiZZer
|
||
(only a couple of simple processing lines in thier batch file).
|
||
|
||
TiZZer allows you to select tic & tic'd files by File Extension,
|
||
Size NetNode you are Sending to, and Zone (outbound). TiZZer
|
||
creates a standard log. And, there is a TiZZer Conference to
|
||
get support directly from the Author, Robert McCullough.
|
||
|
||
TiZZer will run safely on Multi-Line Hub operations. It will
|
||
create a busy file and in the other one check for that file (and
|
||
vise-versa). All this is available via the Configuration File.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Article by Kevin Snively FileEcho Hub
|
||
and TiZZer Tester and User. 1:116/29
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
|
||
by Donald Tees
|
||
Ex-Libris BBS, Windrush Farm, 1:221/192 (Ontario, Canada)
|
||
|
||
Whimsy from the Farm
|
||
|
||
Well, we are dug out and back to normal. I noted in my last
|
||
article that it was going to take a few hours with a front-end
|
||
loader to dig out ... it did not, and therein lies a story. You
|
||
see, my neighbour has a largish snow-blower (for the Californian
|
||
readers, that is not a Canadian lady of the night, but a machine
|
||
that chews up snow in front and spews it out the side by auger.)
|
||
and came over to lend a hand.
|
||
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 9 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
We have a small unit about three foot wide, but his is a
|
||
rather humungous piece of equipment that fastens to the tractor.
|
||
It will cut a swath ten feet wide through six feet of snow and
|
||
toss the snow about one hundred feet to the side.
|
||
|
||
That is what it does to snow. I have (had), however, a nice
|
||
blue plastic box with "we recycle" written on the side. It was
|
||
sitting at the side of the road for pickup before the storm,
|
||
filled with old newspapers neatly tied with string. It is now
|
||
spread over four and one half acres, chewed up into tiny blue
|
||
pieces of plastic. Intermingled are several thousand two-inch
|
||
by three-inch pieces of newsprint. It was quite entertaining to
|
||
see, sounded like a giant ridding itself of phlem, but is going
|
||
to be a swine to clean up. Maybe a baling machine ...
|
||
|
||
I mentioned in my last article that I thought Fidonews too
|
||
dry. I had hoped that what I wrote would trigger a few more
|
||
personal vignettes about the lives of our net members. I have
|
||
received lots of net mail agreeing, but seen nothing in
|
||
Fidonews. Am I alone? Ah well, when in doubt hammer away until
|
||
someone objects ...
|
||
|
||
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Jack Decker
|
||
Fidonet 1:154/8
|
||
|
||
I TOLD YOU SO!!!
|
||
|
||
Dennis McClain-Furmanski's article entitled "Who's On Top Of The 'Top
|
||
Down' Structure?" in FidoNews 9-01 was, in its own way, one of the best
|
||
commentaries I've seen in FidoNews in a long time. But at the same
|
||
time, I suspect that his complaints may seem a bit puzzling to some of
|
||
the newer members if Fidonet, who haven't been around long enough to
|
||
remember how things used to be. So for your benefit, as well as the
|
||
benefit of those who may have forgotten, here is a short, politically
|
||
incorrect history of how we got into this condition. I'll begin with a
|
||
little personal history, since my vantage point is necessarily limited
|
||
to the time I have been in Fidonet.
|
||
|
||
I joined Fidonet in about 1987 or '88, I'm not sure exactly which year
|
||
it was but the main reason I got an XT clone was to participate in
|
||
Fidonet. My old TRS-80 had handled all my computing needs quite nicely
|
||
until then, but it couldn't run Fidonet software.
|
||
|
||
A friend of mine, for reasons I won't go into here (because they aren't
|
||
relevant), wanted to set up a BBS and carry echomail. He wanted to
|
||
connect with Fidonet, but did not want to spend the time necessary to
|
||
properly maintain a BBS, so he asked if I would co-sysop his board. I
|
||
said that I would in exchange for an echomail feed. At the time, he
|
||
lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I lived in Sault Ste. Marie, as I
|
||
still do. There was one net covering most of the state of Michigan,
|
||
Net 120 out of Detroit. We set up an Opus 1.03 system on each of our
|
||
machines, and set it up so that his system would poll for echomail, and
|
||
then poll my system to deliver the mail I wanted. At the same time, we
|
||
set up a mechanism where I could update the various control files on
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 10 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
his BBS remotely.
|
||
|
||
Now, there were a few (less than ten, if I recall correctly) Fidonet
|
||
nodes in Grand Rapids at the time, and they basically weren't bringing
|
||
in more than just a handful of echomail (a couple of large echoes,
|
||
perhaps TECH and COMM, and that was about it). There were also local
|
||
echoes. A few months after we joined, some of the local nodes decided
|
||
that they wanted to form a net of their own for West Michigan (Net
|
||
228). Since by that time we were doing mail with a number of other
|
||
boards and didn't want to change addresses, we stayed in Net 120. And
|
||
you know what? Neither the folks in Net 228 nor the folks in Net 120
|
||
gave us any hassle at all about that. We weren't opposed to the
|
||
formation of a local net, but we just didn't want to have to have to
|
||
force everyone that we communicated with to change our address in their
|
||
control files. And in my case, Sault Ste. Marie is just about as far
|
||
from Detroit as it is from Grand Rapids.
|
||
|
||
Actually, in those days you could just about join any net you wished.
|
||
Net 120 had some nodes up in the Upper Peninsula (Marquette area) and
|
||
in mid-Ohio. For the most part, these nodes weren't a local call to
|
||
any existing local net, and therefore it made more sense for them to
|
||
join a large, well established net. And then there were situations
|
||
like mine, where someone was co-Sysoping a board remotely and it made
|
||
more sense for them to be in the same net as the board they were
|
||
co-Sysoping. In the first nodelist I ever saw, some midwest nets had
|
||
nodes on the west coast in their listings.
|
||
|
||
Now in those days, most echomail conferences were unmoderated, and
|
||
you'd start a new conference by announcing its existence in Fidonews or
|
||
on the ECHO_REQ (Echo Request) echo, and telling folks where they could
|
||
call to link in. If you had a good idea for an echo, you'd usually get
|
||
sysops polling your system to pick up that echo. Of course, anyone who
|
||
got the echo from you could in turn offer it to others. There were no
|
||
restrictions on where you could get echoes. If you were in Maine and
|
||
for some reason it made economic sense for you to call California to
|
||
get an echo, you could do so.
|
||
|
||
A few sysops ran large hub boards... they would carry 50 - 100 echo
|
||
conferences or more (a lot of the software limited you to 100 echoes
|
||
back then!) and would allow anyone to call in to get feeds. This also
|
||
helped echoes to get widely distributed, because if you had an echo
|
||
that you wanted to get onto as many boards as possible, you'd probably
|
||
send it up to one of the large hubs on your nickel... and of course,
|
||
you'd probably pick up a few other echoes while you were there.
|
||
|
||
Many of the larger hubs were run by folks who had access to WATS lines
|
||
and other low-cost communication links not available to the average
|
||
person. My friend in Grand Rapids was with a company that had a Dial 1
|
||
WATS service through an alternate carrier. So, the calls he made to
|
||
pick up echomail were not as expensive for him as they might have been
|
||
for others, and he was more than happy to share the echoes that he
|
||
brought in with others in the Grand Rapids area. He never reached the
|
||
status of a large hub (partly due to the use of a machine that had a
|
||
tendency to crash for no apparent reason), but I believe he was the
|
||
first sysop to bring a number of echomail conferences into the Grand
|
||
Rapids area.
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 11 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
Many of the large hub operators ran hubs for the simple reason that
|
||
they were echomail junkies, and being a large hub often meant that you
|
||
had echoes delivered to you rather than you having to go out and get
|
||
them. The folks who had started an echo would call your board and drop
|
||
off their conference, in order to gain wider distribution, and pick up
|
||
a few echoes on the same call.
|
||
|
||
At some point an echomail "backbone" developed. I wasn't privy to this
|
||
organization, so I can only speculate on how it happened, but my
|
||
suspicion is that at first it was just the large hub operators
|
||
exchanging echomail on an informal basis.
|
||
|
||
Remember, at this time you could just about join any net you wanted to
|
||
(though most sysops naturally chose to join a nearby net), and you
|
||
could get echomail from anyone who would give you a feed. You might
|
||
wonder why anyone would want to get an out-of-area feed. Well, the
|
||
main reasons were cost, reliability, and availability. That is, folks
|
||
tended to get their echomail from the least costly source that had the
|
||
echoes they wanted, and that didn't seem to crash or lose mail every
|
||
other day.
|
||
|
||
Cost was a big factor in those days... keep in mind that the prevalent
|
||
modem speed in those days was only 2400 bps, except for the lucky few
|
||
who could afford HST's, and many sysops were still using 1200 bps
|
||
modems. There were still some 300 bps modems in the nodelist, too! In
|
||
the United States, calls within your home state often cost more than a
|
||
call across the country, so sysops soon discovered that an out of state
|
||
feed was less costly than a feed within one's home state. My friend
|
||
soon realized that it was not cost-effective to pick up echoes via long
|
||
distance from Detroit, since that was an in-state call, so he obtained
|
||
PC Pursuit service from Telenet (now SprintNet) and was able to pick up
|
||
as much echomail as he wanted from any of several major cities for only
|
||
a flat rate price of $25 per month! It was no coincidence that some of
|
||
the larger echomail hubs were in PC Pursuitable cities.
|
||
|
||
Unfortunately, there were some people who wanted to limit echomail
|
||
distribution. Coincidentally(?), some of the folks who ran the large
|
||
hubs were in favor of this.
|
||
|
||
One of the main reasons given for wanting to control echomail
|
||
distribution was to limit duplicate messages... and it is a fact that
|
||
there we a lot more dupes in those days. In some loads of echomail,
|
||
you might typically see 20% - 30% dupes. Obviously, this wasn't
|
||
economical and I can fully understand the desire to stop the flow of
|
||
dupes, since it increased the cost of moving echomail.
|
||
|
||
As most of us know, dupes are caused when a node turns on the same echo
|
||
from more than one feed. And because echomail delivery was less
|
||
reliable back then (echomail software was in an earlier stage of
|
||
development), some sysops would turn on the same echo from two sources,
|
||
in the hope that if one feed lost a day's echomail, the other would
|
||
come through. Unfortunately, this caused an instant dupe loop.
|
||
Without going into technical details, I will just say that this was a
|
||
software design error. When echomail was originally designed, no one
|
||
ever envisioned that it would encompass a network of over 10,000 nodes.
|
||
I suspect that the author of the original software was a bit surprised
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 12 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
to find the first 100 nodes carrying echomail! So what you had was
|
||
software written for use by close-knit group of technically-skilled
|
||
sysops suddenly being used all over the globe, by folks who didn't
|
||
always understand how it operated. And this software, on which later
|
||
echomail software was patterned, was designed in such a way that when a
|
||
neophyte Sysop did something that would at first blush seem a perfectly
|
||
reasonable thing to do... that is, secure a redundant feed for an echo
|
||
that he really wanted... it caused an instant dupe loop.
|
||
|
||
So those who operated the large hub nodes figured that they had the
|
||
perfect reason to try and impose some restrictions on the movement of
|
||
echomail. The idea was that you had to somehow impose some controls so
|
||
that sysops could not just go out and pick up echomail from anyplace,
|
||
thereby causing dupe loops. There was an insistence by some that an
|
||
"echomail policy" was badly needed, so an echomail conference called
|
||
ECHOPOL was formed. This conference was open only to Echomail
|
||
Coordinators, not to "just plain sysops."
|
||
|
||
It soon became apparent that there were two camps... those who wanted
|
||
to impose geographic restrictions on where a sysop could get echomail,
|
||
and those who did not. The latter group tried to point out that dupes
|
||
could be controlled by requiring that a sysop get all of his echomail
|
||
feeds from one source (without requiring that the source be within a
|
||
particular geographic area), and/or by requiring that all echomail
|
||
software use and maintain the PATH line, so that dupe loops could be
|
||
traced. The former group, however, insisted on the strict geographic
|
||
hierarchy we have today, which in my opinion is like using a
|
||
sledgehammer to drive a tack... it solves the problem but it's
|
||
certainly not the best way to go about it!
|
||
|
||
At the time, I made the point that you could control the topology of
|
||
the network without overlaying it onto a map. If I had to get all my
|
||
echoes from only one source in order to control dupes, what difference
|
||
did it make if that source were in Michigan or California? No one has
|
||
ever satisfactorily answered that question. As an aside, it might be
|
||
noted that today a point system operator can get echomail from any
|
||
system that will give him a feed, and that doesn't seem to screw up
|
||
Fidonet too much. It's only the nodelisted nodes that are forced to
|
||
abide by the geographic restrictions. Strange.
|
||
|
||
Of course, some of us saw a possible other motive in the effort to
|
||
bring geographic exclusivity to echomail. Keep in mind that under the
|
||
system previously in effect, if a hub operator started acting like a
|
||
donkey's behind, you could simply switch your echomail feeds to a more
|
||
cooperative sysop's hub. However, if a group of sysops - all the
|
||
sysops in a Fidonet region, for example - were required to get their
|
||
echoes from one and ONLY one echomail feed, then the operator of that
|
||
hub could basically require everyone in the region to send all the
|
||
echomail traffic in the region through his system. His only cost would
|
||
be that of calling his feed, and if he were a monopoly source of
|
||
echomail, he might even try to force other nodes to pay his expenses
|
||
for those calls. Of course, when we suggested such things, some of the
|
||
supporters of the geographic restrictions insisted that such things
|
||
could never happen, because Fidonet sysops wouldn't stand for it.
|
||
Hmmmm....
|
||
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 13 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
The hub operators insisted that it cost them a lot of money to set up
|
||
and operate their hubs (never mind that they would eventually be
|
||
getting hundreds of echo conferences at next to no cost if they could
|
||
get this scheme in place) and that something had to be done about the
|
||
dupe problem, and besides, the people who objected to geographic
|
||
restrictions were just idiots who didn't understand the problem anyway.
|
||
And the ultimate threat... if they didn't get their way, they might
|
||
stop delivering echomail! I considered THAT an unlikely threat, since
|
||
most of these guys were echomail junkies who would no more have
|
||
discontinued their echomail participation than cut off their right arm,
|
||
but the threat sure scared a lot of other sysops.
|
||
|
||
And the strange part of it is that the Echomail Policy that emerged
|
||
from ECHOPOL was never really made official policy of Fidonet by what
|
||
the average person would consider a "legal" mechanism. For a while it
|
||
was simply the "backbone operating procedure" and all the backbone hubs
|
||
referred to it as though it WAS official policy, when it was not. Then
|
||
the ZC finally declared a modified version of it as the official
|
||
policy. I don't recall if an official vote was taken after that, but
|
||
by then many sysops were under the impression that EchoPol was the
|
||
official policy anyway. I'll leave it to the lawyer types to figure
|
||
out if EchoPol can be "legally" enforced today, but if I were on the
|
||
jury, I doubt I'd go along with that notion.
|
||
|
||
By the time that the ECHOPOL echo was in full swing, my friend the
|
||
sysop had moved to Milwaukee and had set up an echomail hub there,
|
||
still using PC Pursuit to go out and get echoes. Since I was still
|
||
basically doing the day-to-day operation of his board by "remote
|
||
control", and since we were at that point supplying the majority of the
|
||
echomail coming into Milwaukee, they made me the NEC (later my friend
|
||
moved again, but by that time I was coSysoping a second Milwaukee node
|
||
which acted as the echomail hub for a time). Since I was the NEC, I
|
||
had the right to participate in the ECHOPOL echo, which as I mentioned
|
||
was open only to Echomail Coordinators. I'm sure that if the average
|
||
sysop had been allowed to participate, there would have been much more
|
||
objection to the geographic restrictions, and a few other things that
|
||
made it into EchoPol as well. As it was, there was still a
|
||
considerable amount of objection, but those who favored geographic
|
||
restrictions seemed to hold those who opposed them in utter contempt.
|
||
A classic example, which I saved for posterity, was the "fools" message
|
||
written by Mike Ratledge to Vince Perriello... Mike was an Echomail
|
||
Coordinator (and I *THINK* he was the moderator of ECHOPOL at the time,
|
||
although my memory is a little shaky on that point), and Vince is a
|
||
Fidonet software developer and one of the authors of BinkleyTerm, and
|
||
the message read as follows (Note: This is slightly reformatted to
|
||
conform to FidoNews line lengths, but is otherwise unchanged):
|
||
|
||
From: Mike Ratledge
|
||
To: Vince Perriello 16 Nov 88 10:28:00
|
||
Subject: Slight change in timing
|
||
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 14 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
EID: c72e 1170538d
|
||
NH>> There is a clear concensus that PATH lines are required. The
|
||
NH>> messages in this conference have been overwelming in favor of
|
||
NH>> them. We did not> feel it was necessary to re-hash topics that
|
||
NH>> alreay had a majority.
|
||
|
||
-> PATH lines are NOT necessary. If you guys are going to design
|
||
-> software this way, ignoring the FTSC working group, then you can
|
||
-> damned well WRITE it too.
|
||
|
||
They aren't necessary *if* we have the topology "locked down" and *if*
|
||
we can control every one of the fools out there that thinks they're
|
||
better off ignoring the requirements like not going out-of-region, etc,
|
||
etc.
|
||
|
||
We *could* totally eliminate SEEN-BY: lines, too - *if* the above two
|
||
things were true - but I don't look for it to happen any time in the
|
||
near future.
|
||
|
||
I agree that there are a lot of things that we're talking about here
|
||
that do overlap the FTSC. I think that the FTSC should be responsible
|
||
for the basic format of the messages, the structure of the packets, etc
|
||
- but the actual message content should be more in "our ballpark" here.
|
||
I realize it's a fine line - especially when we're talking about the
|
||
kludge lines - but we've got to start somewhere - or we'll never get
|
||
there!
|
||
|
||
If the FTSC makes a decision which changes what is written in ECHOPOL,
|
||
then I think that we should ammend the policy - that's all.
|
||
--- via XRS 0.30
|
||
* Origin: That Mean ol' RatMan's "Point-Less" Point (TComm 1:372/666.1)
|
||
|
||
[End of quoted message]
|
||
|
||
That message marked a sort of "turning point" in the discussion... it
|
||
seemed that from then on, those who opposed the geographic restrictions
|
||
were treated as though they had rocks and feathers where brains should
|
||
be. The discussion reached new lows of name-calling and mud-slinging.
|
||
|
||
One other policy that somehow came into place was that the originator
|
||
of an echomail conference could not distribute it independently of the
|
||
Fidonet backbone if he wanted it on the backbone. In other words, if
|
||
you give an echomail conference to the backbone to distribute, you
|
||
effectively lose control over its distribution. In theory, you can
|
||
remove a violator of your conference rules from an echo, but actual
|
||
enforcement can be difficult and haphazard. But it also means that if
|
||
someone really wants an echomail conference but doesn't care to deal
|
||
with their "assigned" echomail hub, they can't even go to the
|
||
originator's system to get it, if that would be an out-of-region feed.
|
||
This, of course, was a complete turnaround from the previous situation.
|
||
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 15 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
When I raised my objections to the geographic restrictions, one of my
|
||
biggest fears was that sysops would be required to get their echoes
|
||
from a source that was not the least-cost source. I was assured that
|
||
ECHOPOL would provide for an exception in such cases, in that you could
|
||
get permission to go out of region for a feed by getting your NEC and
|
||
REC, and your proposed feed's NEC and REC to agree to it. When I
|
||
pointed out that any one of those four coordinators could veto the
|
||
idea, I was told that I must have an unreasonably negative attitude
|
||
toward the Fidonet coordinators, to think that any of them would turn
|
||
down a reasonable request for an out-of-region feed! (I guess it must
|
||
be your imagination, Dennis!)
|
||
|
||
Of course, the powers-that-were didn't much appreciate my outspokenness
|
||
on the geographic issue, and one coordinator at the regional level
|
||
tried his best to get me thrown out of Fidonet. Since my NC was behind
|
||
me, it didn't work, although my net in Milwaukee was out of the
|
||
nodelist for a week during the dispute. In response, I proposed the
|
||
Official Public Computer Network nodelist, a nodelist of
|
||
Fidonet-technology nodes that volunteer to be listed. Unfortunately,
|
||
the first person to take the idea and run with it decided to include
|
||
the whole Fidonet nodelist without permission, and was promptly
|
||
threatened with a lawsuit (although to this day I wonder who would have
|
||
had legal standing to sue). Anyway, he promptly dropped the project,
|
||
(and shortly thereafter, out of Fidonet completely) and Jim Grubs of
|
||
1:234/1 took it over and has published it (legally) ever since. It's
|
||
still a good list of nodes in some of the "other" Fidonet-technology
|
||
networks, and has on occasion served as a place where nets that are "in
|
||
the doghouse" in the mind of some Fidonet coordinator can still be
|
||
listed.
|
||
|
||
One of my other fears was that with geographic exclusivity, the
|
||
monopoly provider of echomail could force people to pay for echomail.
|
||
My objection to this was that the provider could then set the cost at
|
||
whatever level he wanted, since folks would not be free to go anywhere
|
||
else. In other words, you might be sitting near a regional boundary
|
||
and just across the line there's a free and reliable echomail hub with
|
||
all the echoes you want, but maybe your Regional Echomail Coordinator
|
||
wants you to pay $25 a month because he wants to buy a new '486 system
|
||
and makes all his echomail calls using AT&T long distance at standard
|
||
daytime rates, and to top it off his system isn't as reliable. Forget
|
||
it, you're still forced by "policy" to go to your guy. At the time of
|
||
the ECHOPOL conference, many participants seemed to be of the opinion
|
||
that there would never be forced cost-sharing, only "voluntary"
|
||
cost-sharing. Well, it's voluntary all right, but in some places you
|
||
either "volunteer" to pay or you don't get any echomail! It's about as
|
||
voluntary as paying for the food you take off the shelf at the local
|
||
grocer.
|
||
|
||
There were, of course, other factors that played a part in how this all
|
||
evolved. There was the Midwest Star fiasco, where the operator of a
|
||
large Fidonet hub disappeared into the night with several thousands of
|
||
dollars of other people's money and equipment, causing a few to
|
||
postulate that anyone who offered free echomail HAD to be up to no
|
||
good. There was also the change from a two-dimensional NET/NODE
|
||
addressing format, to a kludged-in three-dimensional (and later,
|
||
four-dimensional) format that "broke" much software and made PATH line
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 16 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
checking far less reliable.
|
||
|
||
But mostly, it was people who wanted to force people to deal with them,
|
||
and to have their own little "fiefdoms." One of the first indications
|
||
I had of this was how Bob Hoffman was treated by others in the net.
|
||
Bob, you see, worked for a major long distance carrier and was NC for a
|
||
net in a remote section of Arkansas (or one of the states in that
|
||
area). When he was reassigned to a job in Pennsylvania, none of the
|
||
local sysops wanted the NC hat, and since Bob had "free" long distance
|
||
as a benefit of his employment, he continued to act as NC, polling
|
||
nodes in his former location so that it didn't cost them anything.
|
||
From the reports I've heard, they were perfectly happy with the
|
||
arrangement, especially considering that they were getting netmail and
|
||
echomail for free, but this didn't set well with the
|
||
geography-is-sacrosanct crowd.
|
||
|
||
In actuality, I suspect that many of the objections were as much an
|
||
attack against some of Bob's occasionally outspoken views on theology
|
||
as anything, but the net result was that some sysops who had a generous
|
||
benefactor that was willing to deliver mail to them were deprived of
|
||
that benefit because someone else was somehow offended by this
|
||
arrangement. Not only that, but forever after Bob Hoffman could do no
|
||
right in the eyes of some... when malcontents attempted to first
|
||
destroy and then steal an echo that he moderated, the backbone turned a
|
||
blind eye and a deaf ear, and cited the fact that he had done the
|
||
terribly evil deed of acting as an out-of-town NC, as if that had
|
||
anything to do with echo conference moderation. Bob can be pretty
|
||
direct about saying what he believes, and I often don't agree with him,
|
||
but he sure didn't do anything to deserve the treatment he got at the
|
||
hands of the backbone nodes (however, as a result he left Fidonet and
|
||
formed an alternate Fidonet-technology network that is still in
|
||
operation).
|
||
|
||
There's a lot more that could be said, and a lot more examples of abuse
|
||
of authority that could be given, but I suspect I'm severely pushing
|
||
the size limit for a Fidonews article as is. I must point out that
|
||
while I have tried to be as accurate as possible, my memory sometimes
|
||
fails me so please be kind if I have managed to screw up some minor
|
||
detail.
|
||
|
||
Now, where do we go from here? Let me close with a few facts you
|
||
should think about (with my commentary thrown in for good measure):
|
||
|
||
1) Some coordinators seem to only follow Policy when it suits their
|
||
purposes, and they ignore it when it is to their benefit to do so.
|
||
Therefore, why should you feel constrained by it, especially since you
|
||
probably had little or no input into it, and no opportunity to vote on
|
||
it?
|
||
|
||
2) In an informal organization like Fidonet, Policy can only be
|
||
enforced when a majority agree to be bound by it. I think any
|
||
consensus on being bound by Policy evaporated a long time ago. Many
|
||
sysops have never even read it!
|
||
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 17 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
3) Echomail coordinators love to bitch and moan about how much it costs
|
||
them (in time and money) to be an echomail hub. My question is, WHY DO
|
||
THEY DO IT THEN? Next time they complain about their time/trouble/wear
|
||
on their system, etc., ask them what BENEFITS they're getting. The
|
||
ONLY reason someone becomes an echomail hub is because they like the
|
||
idea of having a multitude of echoes on their system, and being able to
|
||
do that while having you and everyone else pay their expenses is the
|
||
ultimate echomail junkie's dream. The bottom line is that they want to
|
||
charge everyone else for echomail so that they can have their 300 or
|
||
400 conferences for free, and you should never forget that. If an
|
||
echomail coordinator can honestly tell you that the "expenses" (in time
|
||
and effort) outweigh the benefits, and he hasn't put in his
|
||
resignation, then he's crazy... and do you really want a crazy person
|
||
as a coordinator?
|
||
|
||
4) Other networks get along just fine without geographic restrictions.
|
||
UseNet is much larger than Fidonet, and they don't have any such
|
||
restrictions. If Fidonet technical standards are so bad that we can't
|
||
control dupes without such restrictions, then we either need some new
|
||
standards, or we need to find ways to make the restrictions work
|
||
without using the "mental crutch" of a map. Besides, it's quite
|
||
possible to set up a dupe loop that is totally WITHIN a region, so
|
||
arbitrary geographic restrictions don't prevent dupe loops, they just
|
||
tend to confine them to a particular region. The point is, if control
|
||
is to be exercised, it should be over network topology, without regard
|
||
to geography. In my opinion, people who cannot understand the concept
|
||
of network topology unless they can overlay it onto a map have no
|
||
business being anywhere near a computer (unless a responsible adult is
|
||
present to put on the game disk for them)!
|
||
|
||
5) There ARE companies and individuals who would provide free echomail
|
||
service to many sysops if it were not for the restrictive policies. If
|
||
someone is going to provide a service for free, they don't want to be
|
||
hassled by petty dictators quoting some idiotic Policy provisions to
|
||
them. Many of the "free" echomail sources have gone away SOLELY
|
||
because of the hassle they were getting from the "Policy Freaks." I
|
||
suspect that some might come back, or some new ones might come into the
|
||
fold if the stupid echomail policy were declared dead.
|
||
|
||
6) I wonder what would happen if we were to start "Fidonet II"... a
|
||
second network with separate nodelist or nodelist segment (but still
|
||
officially part of Fidonet) in which nodes could affiliate with each
|
||
other on the basis of choice, not on the basis of some artificial
|
||
policy constraints? Let the marketplace decide which form of
|
||
government they prefer. Please note that in a net that does not have
|
||
geographic exclusivity, nodes COULD still choose to affiliate on a
|
||
primarily geographic basis, and I'm sure that many WOULD, but they just
|
||
wouldn't be FORCED to.
|
||
|
||
In the final analysis, what strikes me as really weird about Fidonet is
|
||
that so many of you are politically liberal, and seem to believe very
|
||
strongly in "freedom of speech" and "freedom of association", yet you
|
||
get on Fidonet and turn into ultraconservatives where Policy is
|
||
concerned. If that isn't hypocritical, I don't know what is. You'll
|
||
go after phone companies that want to charge a "data surcharge", or the
|
||
FCC because you hear a rumor that they want to impose a "modem tax",
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 18 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
but you let Fidonet coordinators get away with outrageous actions. I
|
||
just don't get it.
|
||
|
||
Anyway, it seems like all the bad things I predicted would happen if
|
||
geographic restrictions were allowed are coming to pass. I hate to say
|
||
"I told you so", but...
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 19 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
======================================================================
|
||
LATEST VERSIONS
|
||
======================================================================
|
||
|
||
Latest Greatest SoftWare Versions
|
||
Latest Update: 01/27/92
|
||
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
MS-DOS Systems
|
||
--------------
|
||
|
||
BBS Software NodeList Utilities Compression
|
||
Name Version Name Version Utilities
|
||
-------------------- -------------------- Name Version
|
||
ADTBBS 1.50@ EditNL 4.00 --------------------
|
||
Aurora 1.32b FDND 1.10 ARC 7.12
|
||
DMG 2.93 MakeNL 2.31 ARJ 2.20
|
||
DreamBBS 1.05 Parselst 1.33 LHA 2.13
|
||
Fido/FidoNet 12.21 Prune 1.40 PAK 2.51
|
||
Genesis Deluxe 3.2 SysNL 3.14 PKPak 3.61
|
||
GSBBS 3.02 XlatList 2.90 PKZip 1.10
|
||
Kitten 1.01 XlaxNode/Diff 2.53
|
||
Lynx 1.30
|
||
Maximus-CBCS 2.00
|
||
Merlin 1.39n Other Utilities(A-M) Other Utilities(N-Z)
|
||
Opus 1.73a* Name Version Name Version
|
||
Oracomm 5.M.6P@ -------------------- --------------------
|
||
Oracomm Plus 6.E@ 2DAPoint 1.50* Netsex 2.00b
|
||
PCBoard 14.5a 4Dog/4DMatrix 1.18 OFFLINE 1.35
|
||
Phoenix 1.07* ARCAsim 2.31 Oliver 1.0a
|
||
ProBoard 1.20* ARCmail 3.00* OSIRIS CBIS 3.02
|
||
QuickBBS 2.75 Areafix 1.20 PKInsert 7.10
|
||
RBBS 17.3b ConfMail 4.00 PolyXarc 2.1a
|
||
RemoteAccess 1.11* Crossnet 1.5 QM 1.00a
|
||
SimplexBBS 1.05 DOMAIN 1.42 QSort 4.04
|
||
SLBBS 2.15C* DEMM 1.06 RAD Plus 2.11
|
||
Socrates 1.11 DGMM 1.06 Raid 1.00
|
||
SuperBBS 1.12* DOMAIN 1.42 RBBSMail 18.0
|
||
SuperComm 0.99 EEngine 0.32 ScanToss 1.28
|
||
TAG 2.5g EMM 2.11* ScMail 1.00
|
||
TBBS 2.1 EZPoint 2.1 ScEdit 1.12
|
||
TComm/TCommNet 3.4 FGroup 1.00 Sirius 1.0x
|
||
Telegard 2.7* FidoPCB 1.0s@ SLMail 2.15C
|
||
TPBoard 6.1 FNPGate 2.70 SquishMail 1.00
|
||
TriTel 2.0* GateWorks 3.06e StarLink 1.01
|
||
WildCat! 3.02* GMail 2.05 TagMail 2.41
|
||
WWIV 4.20 GMD 3.10 TCOMMail 2.2
|
||
XBBS 1.77 GMM 1.21 Telemail 1.5*
|
||
GoldEd 2.31p TGroup 1.13
|
||
GROUP 2.23 TIRES 3.11
|
||
Network Mailers GUS 1.40 TMail 1.21
|
||
Name Version Harvey's Robot 4.10 TosScan 1.00
|
||
-------------------- HeadEdit 1.18 UFGATE 1.03
|
||
BinkleyTerm 2.50 HLIST 1.09 VPurge 4.09e
|
||
D'Bridge 1.30 IMAIL 1.20 WEdit 2.0@
|
||
Dreamer 1.06 InterPCB 1.31 WildMail 2.00
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 20 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
Dutchie 2.90c ISIS 5.12@ WMail 2.2
|
||
FrontDoor 2.02 Lola 1.01d WNode 2.1
|
||
InterMail 2.01 Mosaic 1.00b XRS 4.99
|
||
Milqtoast 1.00 MailBase 4.11a@ XST 2.3e
|
||
PreNM 1.48 MSG 4.5* YUPPIE! 2.00
|
||
SEAdog 4.60 MSGED 2.06 ZmailH 1.25
|
||
SEAmail 1.01 MsgLnk 1.0c ZSX 2.40
|
||
TIMS 1.0(mod8) MsgMstr 2.03a
|
||
MsgNum 4.16d
|
||
MSGTOSS 1.3
|
||
|
||
|
||
OS/2 Systems
|
||
------------
|
||
|
||
BBS Software Other Utilities(A-M Other Utilities(N-Z)
|
||
Name Version Name Version Name Version
|
||
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
|
||
Kitten 1.01 ARC 7.12 oMMM 1.52
|
||
Maximus-CBCS 2.00 ARC2 6.01 Omail 3.1
|
||
SimplexBBS 1.04.02+ ConfMail 4.00 Parselst 1.33
|
||
EchoStat 6.0 PKZip 1.02
|
||
EZPoint 2.1 PMSnoop 1.30
|
||
Network Mailers FGroup 1.00 PolyXOS2 2.1a
|
||
Name Version GROUP 2.23 QSort 2.1
|
||
-------------------- LH2 2.11 Raid 1.0
|
||
BinkleyTerm 2.50 MSG 4.2 Remapper 1.2
|
||
BinkleyTerm(S) 2.50 MsgEd 2.06c SquishMail 1.00
|
||
BinkleyTerm/2-MT MsgLink 1.0c Tick 2.0
|
||
1.40.02 MsgNum 4.16d VPurge 4.09e
|
||
SEAmail 1.01
|
||
|
||
|
||
Xenix/Unix 386
|
||
--------------
|
||
|
||
BBS Software Network Mailers Other Utilities
|
||
Name Version Name Version Name Version
|
||
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
|
||
ARC 5.21
|
||
C-LHARC 1.00
|
||
MsgEd 2.06
|
||
|Contact: Willy Paine 1:343/15,| MSGLINK 1.01
|
||
|or Eddy van Loo 2:285/406 | oMMM 1.42
|
||
Omail 1.00
|
||
ParseLst 1.32
|
||
Unzip 3.10
|
||
VPurge 4.08
|
||
Zoo 2.01
|
||
|
||
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 21 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
QNX
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
BBS Software Network Mailers Other Utilities
|
||
Name Version Name Version Name Version
|
||
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
|
||
QTach2 1.09 QMM 0.50s Kermit 2.03
|
||
QCP 1.02
|
||
NodeList Utilities Archive Utilities QSave 3.6
|
||
Name Version Name Version QTTSysop 1.07.1
|
||
-------------------- -------------------- SeaLink 1.05
|
||
QNode 2.09 Arc 6.02 XModem 1.00
|
||
LH 1.00.2 YModem 1.01
|
||
Unzip 2.01 ZModem 0.02f
|
||
Zoo 2.01
|
||
|
||
|
||
Apple II
|
||
--------
|
||
|
||
BBS Software Network Mailers Other Utilities
|
||
Name Version Name Version Name Version
|
||
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
|
||
DDBBS + 8.0* Fruity Dog 2.0 deARC2e 2.1
|
||
GBBS Pro 2.1 ProSel 8.70*
|
||
ShrinkIt 3.30*
|
||
|Contact: Dennis McClain-Furmanski 1:275/42| ShrinkIt GS 1.04
|
||
|
||
|
||
Apple CP/M
|
||
----------
|
||
|
||
BBS Software Network Mailers Other Utilities
|
||
Name Version Name Version Name Version
|
||
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
|
||
Daisy 2j Daisy Mailer 0.38 Filer 2-D
|
||
MsgUtil 2.5
|
||
Nodecomp 0.37
|
||
PackUser 4
|
||
UNARC.Com 1.20
|
||
|
||
|
||
Macintosh
|
||
---------
|
||
|
||
BBS Software Network Mailers Other Software
|
||
Name Version Name Version Name Version
|
||
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
|
||
FBBS 0.91 Copernicus 1.0 ArcMac 1.3
|
||
Hermes 1.6.1 Tabby 2.2 AreaFix 1.6
|
||
Mansion 7.15 Compact Pro 1.30
|
||
Precision Sys. 0.95b EventMeister 1.0
|
||
Red Ryder Host 2.1 Export 3.21
|
||
Telefinder Host Import 3.2
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 22 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
2.12T10 LHARC 0.41
|
||
MacArd 0.04
|
||
Mantissa 3.21
|
||
Point System Mehitable 2.0
|
||
Software OriginatorII 2.0
|
||
Name Version PreStamp 3.2
|
||
-------------------- StuffIt Classic 1.6
|
||
Copernicus 1.00 SunDial 3.2
|
||
CounterPoint 1.09 TExport 1.92
|
||
MacWoof 1.1 TimeStamp 1.6
|
||
TImport 1.92
|
||
Tset 1.3
|
||
TSort 1.0
|
||
UNZIP 1.02c
|
||
Zenith 1.5
|
||
Zip Extract 0.10
|
||
|
||
|
||
Amiga
|
||
-----
|
||
|
||
BBS Software Network Mailers Other Software
|
||
Name Version Name Version Name Version
|
||
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
|
||
4D-BBS 1.65 BinkleyTerm 1.00 Areafix 1.48
|
||
DLG Pro. 0.96b TrapDoor 1.80 AReceipt 1.5
|
||
Falcon CBCS 1.00 WelMat 0.44 ChameleonEdit 0.11
|
||
Starnet 1.0q@ ConfMail 1.12
|
||
TransAmiga 1.07 ElectricHerald 1.66
|
||
XenoLink 1.0 Compression FFRS 1.0@
|
||
Utilities FileMgr 2.08
|
||
Name Version Fozzle 1.0@
|
||
NodeList Utilities -------------------- Login 0.18
|
||
Name Version AmigArc 0.23 MessageFilter 1.52
|
||
-------------------- booz 1.01 Message View 1.12
|
||
ParseLst 1.66 LHARC 1.30 oMMM 1.50
|
||
Skyparse 2.30 LhA 1.10 PolyXAmy 2.02
|
||
TrapList 1.40 LZ 1.92 RMB 1.30
|
||
PkAX 1.00 Roof 46.15
|
||
UnZip 4.1 RoboWriter 1.02
|
||
Zippy (Unzip) 1.25 Rsh 4.07a
|
||
Zoo 2.01 Tick 0.75
|
||
TrapToss 1.20
|
||
|Contact: Maximilian Hantsch 2:310/6| Yuck! 2.02
|
||
|
||
Atari ST/TT
|
||
-----------
|
||
|
||
BBS Software Network Mailers Other Utilities
|
||
Name Version Name Version Name Version
|
||
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
|
||
FIDOdoor/ST 2.5.1 BinkleyTerm 2.40n9 ApplyList 1.00@
|
||
FiFo 2.1v The Box 1.95* Burep 1.1
|
||
LED ST 1.00 ComScan 1.04
|
||
MSGED 1.99 ConfMail 4.10
|
||
QuickBBS/ST 1.06* NodeList Utilities Echoscan 1.10
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 23 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
Name Version FDrenum 2.5.2
|
||
-------------------- FastPack 1.20
|
||
Compression ParseList 1.30 Import 1.14
|
||
Utilities EchoFix 1.20 oMMM 1.40
|
||
Name Version sTICK/Hatch 5.50 Pack 1.00
|
||
-------------------- Trenum 0.10
|
||
ARC 6.02
|
||
LHARC 2.01i
|
||
PackConvert
|
||
STZip 1.1*
|
||
UnJARST 2.00
|
||
WhatArc 2.02
|
||
|
||
|
||
Archimedes
|
||
----------
|
||
|
||
BBS Software Network Mailers Other Utilities
|
||
Name Version Name Version Name Version
|
||
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
|
||
ARCbbs 1.61 BinkleyTerm ARC 1.20
|
||
Odyssey 0.37 2.06f-wimp !AskFor 1.01
|
||
RiscBBS 0.9.85m BatchPacker 1.00
|
||
DeLZ 0.01
|
||
MailED 0.95
|
||
NetFile 1.00
|
||
ParseLst 1.30
|
||
Raul 1.01
|
||
!Spark 2.16
|
||
!SparkMail 2.08
|
||
!SparkPlug 2.14
|
||
UnArj 2.21
|
||
UnZip 3.00
|
||
Zip 1.00
|
||
|
||
|
||
Tandy Color Computer 3 (OS-9 Level II)
|
||
--------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
BBS Software Compression Utility Other Utilities
|
||
Name Version Name Version Name Version
|
||
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
|
||
RiBBS 2.02+ Ar 1.3 Ascan 1.2
|
||
DeArc 5.12 AutoFRL 2.0
|
||
OS9Arc 1.0 Bundle 2.2
|
||
UnZip 3.10 CKARC 1.1
|
||
UnLZH 3.0 EchoCheck 1.01
|
||
FReq 2.5a
|
||
LookNode 2.00
|
||
ParseLST
|
||
PReq 2.2
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 24 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
RList 1.03
|
||
RTick 2.00
|
||
UnBundle 1.4
|
||
UnSeen 1.1
|
||
|
||
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
|
||
Key: + - Netmail Capable (Doesn't Require Additional Mailer Software)
|
||
* - Recently Updated Version
|
||
@ - New Addition
|
||
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
|
||
|
||
The Complete List is Available For FReq as VERSIONS from 1:103/250
|
||
|
||
Utility Authors: Please help keep this list up to date by reporting
|
||
all new versions to 1:103/250 in this format:
|
||
|
||
1) Software Name & Version 2) FileName.Ext
|
||
3) Support Node Address 4) Support BBS Phone Number
|
||
|
||
|
||
Note: It is not our intent to list all utilities here, only those
|
||
which verge on necessity. If you want it updated in the next
|
||
FidoNews, get it to me by Thursday evening.
|
||
|
||
--David French, 1:103/250
|
||
|
||
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 25 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
======================================================================
|
||
FIDONEWS INFORMATION
|
||
======================================================================
|
||
|
||
------- FIDONEWS MASTHEAD AND CONTACT INFORMATION ----------------
|
||
|
||
Editors: Tom Jennings, Tim Pozar
|
||
Editors Emeritii: Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell, Vince Periello
|
||
Special thanks to Ken Kaplan, 1:100/22, aka Fido #22
|
||
|
||
"FidoNews" BBS
|
||
FidoNet 1:1/1
|
||
Internet fidonews@fidonews.fidonet.org
|
||
BBS (415)-863-2739 (9600 HST/V32)
|
||
|
||
(Postal Service mailing address)
|
||
FidoNews
|
||
Box 77731
|
||
San Francisco
|
||
CA 94107 USA
|
||
|
||
Published weekly by and for the Members of the FidoNet international
|
||
amateur electronic mail system. It is a compilation of individual
|
||
articles contributed by their authors or their authorized agents. The
|
||
contribution of articles to this compilation does not diminish the
|
||
rights of the authors. Opinions expressed in these articles are those
|
||
of the authors and not necessarily those of FidoNews.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
FidoNews is copyright 1991 Fido Software. All rights reserved.
|
||
Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes
|
||
only. For use in other circumstances, please contact FidoNews (we're
|
||
easy).
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
OBTAINING COPIES: FidoNews in electronic form may be obtained from
|
||
the FidoNews BBS via manual download or Wazoo FileRequest, or from
|
||
various sites in the FidoNet and via uucp. PRINTED COPIES mailed
|
||
may be obtained from Fido Software for $5.00US each PostPaid First
|
||
Class within North America, or $7.00US elsewhere, mailed Air Mail.
|
||
(US funds drawn upon a US bank only.)
|
||
|
||
Periodic subscriptions are not available at this time; if enough
|
||
people request it I will implement it.
|
||
|
||
|
||
SUBMISSIONS: You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in
|
||
FidoNews. Article submission requirements are contained in the file
|
||
ARTSPEC.DOC, available from the FidoNews BBS, or Wazoo filerequestable
|
||
from 1:1/1 as file "ARTSPEC.DOC".
|
||
|
||
FidoNews 9-05 Page 26 3 Feb 1992
|
||
|
||
|
||
"Fido", "FidoNet" and the dog-with-diskette are U.S. registered
|
||
trademarks of Tom Jennings of Fido Software, Box 77731, San Francisco
|
||
CA 94107, USA and are used with permission.
|
||
|
||
-- END
|
||
|
||
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
|