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BTN: Birmingham Telecommunications News
COPYRIGHT 1988
July 1988 Volume 1, Issue 4
Table Of Contents
-----------------
Article Title Author
Policy Statement and Disclaimer................Mark Maisel
Editorial Column...............................Mark Maisel
QuickBASIC 4.0.................................Jay Enterkin
Life In The Old Days...........................Tom Egan
The Creation of Swiss Army Shell...............Steve Lee
(or The Birth of A Monster)
From The Kitchen...............................Chez Stephan
PC-Board Short Cuts............................Michele Cahoon
Gremlin Attack & Gremlin Cure Program..........Douglas Childs
A Rebuttal To The Rebuttal.....................Paul Lyndof
A Nail In The Coffin...........................Bubba Flaval
It's Cold And It's Dark Out Here...............Gary Godsey
Gamer's Corner.................................Osman Guner
Known BBS Numbers..............................Mark Maisel
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer and Statement of Policy for BTN
We at BTN try our best to assure the accuracy of articles and
information in our publication. We assume no responsibility for
damage due to errors, ommisions, etc. The liability,if any for BTN, its
editors and writers, for damages relating to any errors or ommisions,
etc., shall be limited to the cost of a one year subscription to BTN,
even if BTN, its editors or writers have been advised of the likelihood
of such damages occurring.
With the conclusion of that nasty business, we can get on with our
policy for publication and reproduction of BTN articles. We publish
monthly with a deadline of the fifteenth of the month prior to
publication. If you wish to submit an article, you may do so at any
time but bear in mind the deadline if you wish for your work to appear
in a particular issue. It is not our purpose to slander or otherwise
harm a person or reputation and we accept no responsibility for the
content of the articles prepared by our writers. Our writers own their
work and it is protected by copyright. We allow reprinting of articles
from BTN with only a few restrictions. The author may object to a
reprint, in which case he will specify in the content of his article.
Othewise, please feel free to reproduce any article from BTN as long as
the source, BTN, is specified, and as long as the author's name and the
article's original title are retained. If you use one of our articles,
please forward a copy of your publication to:
Mark Maisel
Editor, BTN
221 Chestnut St.
BHM, AL 35210-3219
We thank you for taking the time to read our offering and we hope that
you like it. We also reserve the right to have a good time while doing
all of this and not get too serious about it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial
by Mark Maisel
Welcome to issue number 4 of BTN. Based on the responses and support we
have received, I hope that I can assume BTN is a success. Our group of
regular contributors is steadily growing and submissions from
individuals also keep coming in to us. I am glad that the concept has
borne such sweet fruit. I desire BTN and its readers to continue this
trend. As you will see from reading this issue, BTN is getting bigger
and more varied in the kind of material that it carries.
We have something for everyone this time around. Our feature this month
is an article on Microsoft QuickBASIC 4.0 by Jay Enterkin. It will
reach you in two parts and will be of great interest to BASIC
programmers. Our resident dinosaur (HA HA), Tom Egan wrote an article
about what things used to be like in micro-computing. You should find
it both informative and amusing. With a little coaxing on your parts,
he might turn it into a series. We have received an article from Steve
Lee of Anniston. Steve is the author of Swiss Army Shell, a shareware
DOS shell that handles ARCs, that has been floating around our local
BBSs. His article details the fun he had in creating SAS. Some time you
are going to have to get up from that terminal and eat. Therefore, we
have included a delicious dinner recipe for you to prepare so you can
hurry back to your computer. Hopefully, we will have an easy to prepare
recipe each issue so you can add some variety to your dining. Michele
Cahoon, our resident feminist, has come up with some great short cuts
for navigating on PC Board systems. Try them as they will save you lots
of time. Douglas Childs has provided us with some humor and it takes
the edge off of the current troubles with Trojans, Viruses, and such.
We have two articles in the never-ending war between the sexes. One is
a rebuttal of Bubba Flaval and his philosophy and the other is another
message from Bubba. We are trying else new this month with Gary Godsey.
I will leave it to you to comment and let us know what you think of
"It's Cold And Dark Out Here". Of course, we will close BTN with our
two standards, Gamer's Corner by Osman Guner, and our Known BBS List.
I trust you will enjoy this issue immensely as I have done. Please post
your comments in the new BTN conference on Channel 8250. To get there,
do the following from the prompt:
door 7 <CR>
j 6 <CR>
The <CR> means to hit "ENTER" or "RETURN" as the case may be with your
terminal. If you cannot get on 8250, as is often the case, leave your
comments on any EZ NET node. By the time you read this, there should be
at least three with more on the way. Till next month, keep writing and
reading.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
QuickBASIC 4.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------
by Jay Enterkin Part 1 of 2
Here, in part 1, we will cover some of the history of QuickBASIC as
well as what the 'experts' have to say about the new 4.0 release of
QuickBASIC and how it compares to QuickBASIC 3.0. Part 2 will be a
review of QuickBASIC 4.0 based on my own tests and experience with it.
The QuickBASIC series is descended from the Microsoft BASCOM BASIC
language compiler family, versions of which have also been marketed
over the years by IBM. BASCOM is now in its sixth release (6.0). The
current BASCOM version does offer some features and capabilities not
found in any QuickBASIC release, including OS/2 support, more string
space and the ability to create larger programs (with or without a
separate runtime library).
The story of the development of QuickBASIC by Microsoft is this:
Microsoft learned that Borland was going to introduce a new BASIC
language compiler (Turbo BASIC). Fearing that Borland would become
the dominant player in the BASIC language market with Turbo BASIC,
much as it already had with Turbo PASCAL, Microsoft brainstormed to
determine the best way to retain the lion's share of this market. One
reason for Turbo PASCAL's popularity was its' low cost compared to
Microsoft PASCAL. (Even today, Microsoft PASCAL costs about twice as
much as Borland's Turbo PASCAL and doesn't sell as well). The plan
Microsoft came up with was two-fold: 1. Set up Development Team A to
bring out a BASIC language compiler AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE to keep
Borland from gaining an insurmountable lead in the BASIC marketplace.
This team would build upon the foundation of the BASCOM compiler, but
without the high price tag that had kept BASCOM almost unknown to PC
users, most of whom were using BASICA or GWBASIC. 2. Set up a second
Development Team, B, to create a powerful new BASIC language compiler
'from the ground up'. The purpose of this team was to create a
powerful BASIC for the future that would outstrip Microsoft's own
existing products, and, more importantly, give Microsoft an edge over
Borland in the long term.
QuickBASIC, QuickBASIC 2.0 and QuickBASIC 3.0 were all developed by
Team A. The original QuickBASIC was quickly replaced by QuickBASIC
2.0, which itself only lasted a few months before being replaced by
QuickBASIC 3.0. The fact that the original QuickBASIC and QuickBASIC
2.0 did not last long was due to two reasons: a. they both had
significant 'bugs' and shortcomings. b. Borland's Turbo BASIC was
considered by most to be better by comparison than QuickBASIC or
QuickBASIC 2.0. QuickBASIC 3.0 has proved to be a very solid product
that has performed very well in the marketplace and was Microsoft's
BASIC flagship for well over a year before the release of QuickBASIC
4.0.
QuickBASIC 4.0 is an entirely new product developed by Microsoft's
BASIC Development Team B. It offers many new features and
capabilities, some of which are:
-- recursive functions and procedures
-- long integers
-- object code which can be linked with other languages
-- automatic source formatting (some love it, some hate it!)
-- threaded p-code for instant in-memory compilation (direct mode)
-- an 'improved' editor and programming environment (this is
another change that is loved by some and hated by others)
-- CodeView compatibility (but CodeView is not included in the
package, you need to have another MicroSoft language that
it is supplied with)
-- context-sensitive on-line help screens
-- allows more than one watch variable
-- multi-file/multi-window editing
-- user-definable types and record structures
-- new FUNCTION statement
-- support for the Hercules graphics card
So, how does QuickBASIC 4.0 compare in performance and utility with
the 'old standby' 3.0? Here are some opinions from people who are
well-qualified enough to be considered 'experts'.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Hanlin, the creator of both the ADVBAS and PROBAS QuickBASIC
Assembly Language Subroutine Libraries has this to say about the new
QuickBASIC 4.0:
" ...this version represents an entire rewrite of the compiler.
The result is in general much more powerful than earlier versions of
QuickBASIC, but does have its own quirks.
Problems: there is a new library format for the environment -- QLB
instead of EXE. Old assembly routines usually need to be modified to
work with QB4 whether or not the environment is used. Procedures and
functions are kept in separate areas from your main program, and it
takes several keystrokes to get at them. If you are particular about
the style of your code, you may hate the reformatter. Code produced
is about the same size or larger, but is much slower unless you have a
numeric coprocessor (8087, 80287, or 80387) installed. There is less
string space available than in QB 3.0, which may cause trouble with
large programs. Personally, I really like most of the changes. I
have been looking for some of these features for a long time, and it's
great to see them. There are a lot of drawbacks too, though, and many
people don't like the new compiler. You'll have to come to your own
conclusions on this one."
--- excerpted from the ADVBAS40 QuickBASIC library documentation
----------------------------------------------------------------------
There is something that really disturbs me in Mr. Hanlin's comments,
"Code produced is about the same size or larger, but is much slower
unless you have a numeric coprocessor (8087, 80287, 80387) installed.
There is less string space available..."
I have been using QuickBASIC 3.0 for a year now, and I am very pleased
with it for the most part. But compared to ASM, C, or even PASCAL, it
still creates programs that are larger and somewhat slower (although
it is lightning compared to interpreted BASIC). Now I don't know what
percentage of users have math coprocessors, but I sure don't, and I'd
bet the percentage is not that large. So to find out that QuickBASIC
4.0 is SLOWER than 3.0 (without the coprocessor) and creates files
that are as large or larger, well, that doesn't make me happy to say
the least! And the fact that less string space in available in 4.0
than in 3.0 means that it may be more difficult to create large
programs or programs that must handle a lot of text. I consider these
to be significant drawbacks.
On to our next 'expert' opinion from Justin Crom,
PC Tech Journal, May 1988
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"QuickBASIC 4.0 is a striking improvement ... tipping the contest in
favor of Microsoft ..." (as opposed to Borland's Turbo BASIC)
He goes on to say that he likes the direct mode support that provides
most of the conveniences of a BASIC interpreter, and the ability to
bypass the compilation step when debugging. Also noted is the fact
that QB4 is still a medium-memory model, that is, no more than 64k for
all data, including strings and static arrays. Dynamic numeric arrays
are allocated outside of the data segment and may exceed 64k.
Mr. Crom seems to be of the opinion that the advantages of QuickBASIC
4.0 outweigh it's disadvantages (as compared to QB 3.0 and Turbo
BASIC). He did note the following problems, some of which we have
already discussed:
-- In many cases, standalone .EXE programs created with QB4 are
slower than those created with QB3, especially without the math
coprocessor.
-- When loading source files, there is occasionally a bug which
requires you to 'move around' among the menu bar selections before it
allows you to select one. Apparently this only occurs from the
keyboard and if you're using a mouse this won't be a problem.
-- The results obtained when debugging (in-memory code) are not
always identical to results obtained from the resulting standalone
programs!! Microsoft says this is because in-memory variables are 8
bytes while standalone variables are 10 bytes. Imagine debugging a
program only to find out the actual results are different when you
compile to .EXE!
-- When in trace debug, there is no viewing window as in QB 3.0,
and the screen 'flips and flickers' between the trace and the program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
There are also several more QB 4.0 quirks and bugs that have been
pointed out by software vendors and users groups. Some of these, listed
by syntax, are:
CALL (asm) Effective with QB 4, assembly language subroutines must
preserve the SI and DI registers and make sure the direction flag is
cleared before returning to BASIC.
CALLS When CALLS (note the "S") is used and you compile with
"/D" (debug), the segment of of a string element descriptor does not get
passed on the stack. In other words, if you have an assembly language
subroutine that uses CALLS, you should not compile with "/d".
CHAIN Unreliable when using DOS 2.x.
CIRCLE The start and end angles must be LESS than 2*pi.
Previously they could be less than or equal to.
Compile to EXE QB issues an unusual LINK command in the form of:
LINK Prog+YourLib.Lib; This causes LINK to bring the entire library into
your program! The solution is to exit QB, and run BC and LINK yourself.
CONST Must be included in all program modules that use the
constant. Place in the file at the top, rather than inside SUB's.
DATA When a DATA statement is encountered inside a SUB...END
SUB structure, QB moves it into the "mainline" portion of the code when
you are in the environment.
FRE(-1) If a Quick Library is loaded, this value may return
incorrectly. QB 4 seems to forget that the library is loaded and thinks
that the space is available. But, QB 4 won't let you use the space for
dynamic arrays.
FRE("") Using BRUN gives approximately 4K more than BCOM.
FUNCTION Cannot be used in $Include files.
LINK When building a Quick Library, be sure to specify BQLB40
in the library field. Example: LINK /QU ObjMods,Lib,,BQLB40;
LOAD If you receive an "out of memory" error, try breaking
your program into logical pieces (using subprograms). Then use COMMON
SHARED for all variables that you need in the entire program. The exact
same COMMON SHARED declaration must appear in all the modules in the
program that need access to the variables.
LOAD If you download a QB 4 program in "fast load" format,
many modem transfer protocols pad the file out using a number of
CHR$(0)'s. This will cause QB 4 to crash when you attempt to load the
program. Use DEBUG to view the file, then write the program to disk
after changing the CX register to shorten the length of the file so that
the trailing CHR$(0)'s are not included. The other solution is to
download this type of file using an ARC program that restores the
original length of the file.
RESUME If you compile to an EXE from inside the environment, a
"/X" is generated by QB even though it's not needed. Be sure to
recompile with "/E" outside of the environment if your program doesn't
need "/X".
SAVE If you edit a new program and save it, QB defaults to
"fast load" format. The file cannot be handled by a text editor. Fix by
using "save as".
SELECT CASE Doesn't allow periods in variable names that are "plain"
variables. If using a TYPE'd record element (which does indeed use
periods), QB 4 will accept that with no problem.
SIGNAL Keyword reserved for future use.
SLEEP Keyword reserved for future use.
STATIC When used with a subprogram, makes the subprogram
faster, since local variables are not initialized on each call.
String Space Drops you out to DOS without saving Corrupt your
program. The solution is to save often! SUB...END SUB QB 4 Cannot be
used in $Include files. Cannot have the same name as a variable
(regardless of the variable type).
TYPE..END TYPE There has been an unverified problem reported in QB when
the record length is an odd number. A "FAR HEAP CORRUPT" error is
generated. The problem reportedly occurs when the record length is an
odd number of bytes. It does not seem to appear in BC, only QB. If you
have an unusual, otherwise unexplained problem, try changing the record
length to an even number.
VAL Generates an error (rather than value of 0) when "%" is
the first character in the string.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
So, while QB 4.0 obviously has great potential, my personal feeling is
that Microsoft hasn't really got it fine-tuned yet, as evidenced by the
'bugs' and other problems listed above.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Coming: Part 2, Hands-on testing and evaluation of QB4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Bibliography: ADVBAS40 by Thomas Hanlin. Product Watch, QuickBASIC
4.0, Justin Crom, PC Tech Journal, May 1988. QBQUIRK, Public Domain
Text File compiled by Mark Novisoff, MicroHelp BASIC Users Group.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Life in the Old Days
by Tom Egan
Ever wonder what it was like in the days before computers ( BC )? Or
during those Dark Ages when computers were just beginning to show up?
For all of you young'uns out there, I will try to provide a little
glimpse into the world BC.
My first computer (?) was an IMSAI 8080. This was a great machine. It
had all of the power we could possibly need. It lacked a few
peripherals, but that was okay, they could be purchased separately from
other vendors. It didn't have a keyboard, tape drive, or floppy drive.
It used the much more dependable and friendly switches on the front for
inputting instructions and data. Throw a few ( 16 ) switches, verify
that the right lights were lit, and push the enter button to put that
instruction in memory, and then go to the next one. It came as a kit,
which took me about 22 hours to build, and only cost $595, a real
bargain for a full blown computer. It also came standard with 2 k of
static ram memory, but that could be expanded, if necessary, for really
huge programs with lots of data. Of course, it took about 2 days to
toggle enough instructions in to fill up that 2 k, so most people didn't
need the expanded memory. Clock speed on this computer was a blazing
730khz.or .7 mhz to compare it with todays terminology. It was
absolutely glorious to sit back in the evening, and watch the lights on
the panel flicker as it added and subtracted numbers. Of course, like
all computer users, I was soon searching for ways make it more powerful.
First I added a board that had a set of IC's attached to it. This
provided BASIC to play with, of course, it only had two-letter commands
at that time, but was still better than toggling in machine code one
instruction at a time. Next came a keyboard. ( Actually, that and BASIC
were ordered the same day ). And for saving those mammoth programs, I
added a tape drive, so I could avoid the constant typing of programs
into memory. By the way, that's not the same tape drive you youngsters
use now-days. This was a dependable, fast, and accurate PAPER tape
drive. A roll of thin, narrow paper tape with punched holes in it
recorded the programs permanently ( unless a mouse ate them, or the
paper tore ). Just put the tape in the reader, and after a few minutes
of clackety, clackety, clack, behold, your 1.5 k program was reloaded
and ready to run. Of course, a 150k program would have taken around 29
hours to load this way, plus a couple miles of paper tape, but 1.5k was
HUGE, and nobody would need more than that, unless it was a company
processing large data bases, or customer lists. Eventually, I did have
to add more RAM, finally getting up to 8k after a few years.
This column will be a continuing feature of the newsletter, bringing
back recollections from the old days, if enough people want to see it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Creation of Swiss Army Shell (or The Birth of a Monster)
by Steve Lee 5/5/88
Swiss Army Shell is a file and archive management program which
interfaces with the PKARC and PKXARC archive creation and extraction
utilities written by Phil Katz. SAS allows you to tag files for copy,
delete, move, arc and unarc operations. It has a point and shoot
interface which provides a visual directory tree and scrollable
subdirectory listing.
Swiss Army Shell, and the reason I picked that name, are the result of
several things coming together at once. I have been close friends with
Steve Turner (Sysop of The ST [Service Technician's] BBS) for 15 years.
In late 1987 I had not seen him in over a year, and I discovered that
he, like me, had become addicted to PC's. He was trying to get The ST
BBS up and running, and I immediately gave him about 3 megabytes of
software I had downloaded from Compuserve. I also introduced him to
Directory Scanner 2.30 which I had been using for over a year.
Ever since I discovered Directory Scanner on Compuserve, I have
considered it to be the best file management program available, bar
none. I had tried numerous shell programs both Shareware and
commercial, but DS beat them all. There was only one feature missing -
archive management.
I had six 10 meg Bernoulli cartridges, 30 meg of backed up storage, with
less than 2 meg free. I was also spending a lot of time on Compuserve
and running out of room to store the downloads. I had .ARC files whose
contents were a mystery and I couldn't find files that I needed. I was
continually unarcing files just to see what was there. The continual
unarcing, copying, deleting, and rearcing of files was fragmenting my
Bernoullis like a hand grenade, and at the time I had not found a defrag
program that would work on them (I recently found Packdisk which does
work). This led to frequent sessions of recreating directory structures
on reformatted cartridges and copying files from one cartridge to
another (at least I had dual Bernoullis and DS!).
During Steve's introduction to DS I made the statement "This thing is a
regular Swiss Army Knife. I just wish I could tag and arc files with
it." One of those cartoon light bulbs exploded in my head, and there you
have it! In just such innocuous ways are monsters born.
I had already written some batch files to take care of compressing
directories, extracting archives, and listing archive directories. I
had already tried using ArcMaster, but had found the user interface
non-intuitive and harder to use than remembering PKARC command line
switches. Using Directory Scanner had been very intuitive since the
first day (I can count on one hand the number of times I have invoked
its help function), so I started considering the idea of cloning DS,
adding the archive management functions I needed.
I had just received an upgrade to Turbo Pascal 4.0 and it seemed to have
most of the tools I needed. I immediately downloaded most of the
subroutine libraries from Compuserve's BPROGA (Borland Programmers
Forum) to find some window routines (They are available on The ST BBS).
Unfortunately what I got ranged from ridiculously inept to superbly
crafted but unnecessarily complex. The good stuff didn't include source
code, so I sat down to write my own. The result was SLWindow.Pas and
MenuUnit.Pas, two TP4 units which are also available on The ST BBS
(SLWINDOW.ARC), and which I have placed in the public domain.
The idea for SAS didn't grow, it just emerged full blown as a project to
clone DS, adding the capability to tag files for submission to PKARC.
The idea for ArcView, the VIEW component came later, although the
earliest version of SAS did include piping verbose archive listings into
LIST.COM to allow perusing the contents of archives.
Although the idea for SAS emerged full blown, the program didn't. The
first routine, reading and displaying a directory listing, was written
on January 1, 1988. I then spent about a week writing and debugging the
screen saving and restoring routines in SLWindow. I proceeded to add a
bar cursor and tagging files in the directory display. Moving and
deleting files were easy features to add since Turbo Pascal 4.0 includes
those functions (You can move a file by renaming it). Copying was
originally done by shelling to DOS.
Submitting tagged files to PKARC was one of the first features added. As
soon as that was implemented I began using SAS from inside DS. I then
added scanning and sorting the directory structure of a disk. These
were recursive routines and were surprisingly easy to write. Creating
the diagram for the directory window, however, was not easy. I
originally wrote a non-recursive routine to do that, but it didn't work
correctly all of the time. It did work well enough for me to delay
fixing it for awhile, so I proceeded to start adding features.
During this period I found that I needed to be able to selectively tag
and extract files I found in archives and I decided to write ArcView to
handle this. Since it would need PKXARC to extract the files I had to
make it an external program. I literally wrote ArcView.Exe in an
afternoon. Of course I had been working on SAS for two months and all
the basic tools were already there. ArcView allows you to examine the
contents of an archive and selectively extract or delete files from it.
Since ArcView was so easy to write, I decided to make it Freeware. It
also should be good advertising for SAS on large boards such as
Compuserve.
Around the first of April I again tackled the diagram routine, and
during the next two weeks I must have rewritten it 20 times. The
biggest problem was interruptions. I was attempting to write a
recursive routine that dealt with a non-recursive structure, an array of
strings. Writing a recursive procedure requires total concentration,
and every time I would get four or five levels into a trace I would be
interrupted. (I came up with some definitely non-publishable analogies
to writing recursive routines. Just ask Steve Turner!) I finally beat
it into submission around Tax Day (I filed an extension as usual). After
that it was just tidying up loose ends and writing the docs.
Immediately after the release of SAS (4 days), despite extensive
testing, bugs began to raise their ugly heads. I don't use 123, so I
never thought of handling numbered directories. That is taken care of
now and SAS101.ARC has replaced SAS10.ARC. It was also discovered that
when SAS copies files it changes the date to the current date, something
else I just didn't think of. SAS originally shelled to DOS to copy
files, but shelling for each file copied was very slow. I wrote an
internal routine to do that which resulted in much faster copying, but
it also increased memory requirements by 64K, and introduced the
aforementioned side effect (undocumented feature?). I don't have a
quick fix for that, but I am working on it and SAS 1.02 will be out
shortly.
This monster consumed most of my free time for four months, but I intend
to continue development of SAS. Future versions will add interrogating
the environment to find COMMAND.COM, support for MDA, Hercules, EGA 43
line and VGA 50 line modes, re-configurable colors and command keys, and
user definable commands (macros if you like). If enough interest is
shown I will also add support for ARC512. I would also like to reduce
the memory requirements - SAS is somewhat of a memory hog at the present
time.
I am very interested in feedback. If you have anything to say about
SAS, either good or bad (be gentle), please leave me a message on The ST
BBS 836-9311 300/1200/2400-8-N-1. My userid is Steve Lee.
Swiss Army Shell is my first Shareware release, but hopefully not my
last. I just hope that some people find it useful enough to use it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From The Kitchen
This is a new endeavor that I wish to undertake for the purpose of
helping you all in the kitchen. I will try to get at least one recipe in
each month, plus answer any questions you might have about certain
chemical reactions that take place in cooking o r any other food related
matters. There are numerous boards around town where you can leave
questions but I would prefer that you leave them on one of the two
boards that now support EZ Net. This will allow me to gather your
queries from either board. From time to time I will also try to update a
list of where in town to get the freshest herbs, fish, meat and so
forth. I will also try to give a complete menu with each recipe so that
some of you bachelors or bachelorettes might use them for entertaining.
Well here we go with dinner #1. This will serve 2:
Salad: Endive with Stephan Dressing
Main Course: Pasta Stephan
Dessert: Peaches Frangelico
We'll start with the salad. Enough Endive for 2 salads. Don't be bashful
your date may eat a lot. Wash the endive in COLD SALTED water. Drain.
Cover and set aside in the fridge.
Stephan Dressing: 1/2 cup sour cream.
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon tarragon
1/4 teaspoon sweet basil
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
dash black pepper
1 tablespoon white wine
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
Mix all ingredients in a bowl, cover and refrigerate. This should be
made at least 4 hours before serving. It can be made the night before.
When serving salad arrange endive on plate and add dressing. Sprinkle
bread crumbs and grated romano cheese on top.
The Main Course: This may be the easiest dinner you have ever made. Take
enough pasta for two people (usually 12 to 16 ounces). Cook according to
package directions. While the pasta is cooking melt 1 stick of butter
over medium heat in a med saute pan. Add 1 large sweet (Vadilia) onion
and one large clove of garlic finely chopped. When onion is transparent
add 2 cups of peeled diced tomatoes. Add 1/4 teaspoon white pepper ,1/2
teaspoon oregano ,1/4 teaspoon black pepper , a dash of cayenne pepper,
a dash of salt. Simmer until pasta is cooked. Drain pasta and toss with
onion tomato mixture until well mixed. The main course should be served
with hard rolls and softened butter and a nice Chianti wine.(a
salesperson at one of the local wine stores will be glad to help you
with your selection)
Dessert: Take 1/2 stick of butter and melt it in a saute pan at med high
heat. Add 2 cups of fresh sliced peaches. Add 3 tablespoons of
Frangelico ( this is a liquor that is like Amaretto but made with
hazelnuts), 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon crushed cloves. Heat
thoroughly and serve over a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream.
I hope you enjoy these recipes and next month I will go over some things
you need in your kitchen and some terms.
Enjoy Chez Stephan!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PC-Board Short Cuts
by Michele Cahoon
This will demonstrate and hopefully explain the short cuts which are
available on PC-Board. I will take one step at a time from the first
prompt you receive when you logon.
***The symbol <CR> as used below refers to hitting your 'Enter' key!
FIRST PROMPT YOU SEE:
Do you want graphics? N;Q;NS <CR>
(this one is for no graphics)
Do you want graphics? Y;Q;NS <CR>
(this one is for graphics)
The 'N' and 'Y' are fairly straightforward. The 'Q' means quietly and
will bypass the opening screen of the bbs. The 'NS' means non-stop and
will bypass the system news and go straight to the logon sequence.
CHECKING FOR PERSONAL MAIL:
Main Board Command? Y;N;A;NS <CR>
(this will give you your mail all over the board)
***When you see X;X;X;X, the 'X's stand for numbers.
READING BULLETINS:
Main Board command? D;X;X;X <CR>
(this will give you, for example bulletins 1,2,3.)
DOWNLOADING AND UPLOADING:
Main Board Command? B;ALLFILES.ARC <CR>
(this will tell the system you wish to download a file called
allfiles.arc.)
ENTERING MESSAGES AND REPLIES:
When you want to enter the same message to several users you can send it
to the first receiver and when you get to the command line to save
it,use 'SC' instead of 'S' which means save the message and send a
carbon copy. The system will save the message and ask for additonal
names of users to receive the message.
When you reply to a message and wish to delete it after replying, use
'SK' to save your reply and kill the message to which you are replying.
When you reply to a message and do not wish to see the message again,
use 'SN' to save your reply and go ahead to the next message.
FILE DIRECTORIES:
If you want to look at all file directories or just a few...
Main Board Command? F;X;X;X;X <CR>
(this will give you for example directories 1,2,3,4.)
JOINING CONFERENCES:
At the main prompt you can type 'J;X' for the number of conference you
wish to join. You also do not have to abandon the conference which you
are in to join another one. Just type the same thing again but with the
number to the other conference.
OPENING DOORS:
You can type 'OPEN;X' and it will open the appropriate door.
READING MESSAGES:
This will take a little more explaining. 'R'is for read, 'S' for since
the last message you read, 'Y' for mail addressed to you, 'F' for mail
from you, 'N' for read the next higher message, and 'P' for read the
next lower message. You can combine these any way you like for
examples: 'R;S', 'R;Y', 'R;F', 'R;N', 'R;P'. You can also 'R;1000-'
(this will read all messages from 1000 back to 1). You can 'R;X+'which
will read from the value of 'X' to the newest message.
These are all of the short cuts which I can think of right off hand but
there is one small last remark to be made; you can replace all the
semicolons (;) with spaces. I hope this makes your life easier, I know
it did mine!
editor's note: These command short cuts will work on most of our local
systems. They are completely reliable on all systems running version
12.0 or higher. Some of the commands will not work on earlier versions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gremlin Attack
by Douglas Childs
I HATE these little GREMLINS THAT are jumping UP AND DOWN on my CAPS
LOCK key. Its DRIVING ME batty. !N!o!w! !T!H!E!R!E! !I!S! !o!n!e!
!j!u!m!p!i!n!g! !O!N! !M!Y! !!! !k!e!y! !$T!$h!$e!$y!$ !$A!$R!$E
!$M!$U!$L!$T!$I!$P@!$L&@!$Y%&@!$I
MESSAGE FROM GREMLIN COMMAND:We have captured your computer. We have
control of this BBS and we WILL capture the entire computing world!
Excerpt from the New Warp Times: June 20,1988
Gremlin invasion begins!
Gremlins have overtaken the Birmingham, Alabama Telecomputing community.
They used a clever system to capture all BBSes in the area. First They
would infect a host computer. They would hide in their disk library
infecting all their diskettes and hard drives. They caused a few I/O
errors but nothing major. After capturing the entire library they
announced their presence, while the host system was connected to a BBS.
They would infect that BBS traveling through telephone lines. After the
person hung up. Any callers who called the system would be infected,
starting the cycle all over again. They reproduce when an I/O error
occurs. Once a system has been infected, the only cure is to
----------|CENSORED|----------MESSAGE FROM GREMLIN COMMAND:HAHAHAHAHAHA.
We won't show you that. Your computer, along with this BBS IS infected
with gremlins! YOUR COMPUTER IS UNDER OUR CONTROL!!!!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gremlin Cure Program
Copyright (c) 1988 Douglas Childs
This program will rid your computer of pesky gremlins.
Loading
Gremcure.exe
I/O Error
MESSAGE FROM GREMLIN COMMAND:Do you think we would let you do that.
Loading
Gremcure.exe
All of a sudden, you here whispering, as gremlins go everywhere! You
look inside your computer and find a picture plastered to the disk drive
controller. It reads "Come to America Online. we have over 198 megs and
5,000 downloadable arcs."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Telecommunications and Women:
A rebuttal to the rebuttal of Bubba Flaval
By: Paul Lyndof
After reading the rebuttal of Bubba Flaval I felt as if I had been
thrown back into the 19th century. The article was the largest
collection of garbage I have seen in a long time. I don't even know
where to begin my rebuttal. Bubba, your perception of the truth is quite
distorted.
The generalizations made in the rebuttal are a sign of ignorance. Not
all women sit around thinking about Toni Perm all their lives, although
that may be true for a city like Birmingham. I have met many women who
are very knowledgeable in the field of computers. It is true that I have
met my share of women who care nothing about computers and would rather
spend their time talking about Tony Perm.. but I have also met my share
of men who would rather sit around all day bragging about their 4 X 4s
and guzzling down beer like it came out of springs.
I could not believe how foolish the rebuttal was. Bubba stated: "As far
as women on bulletin boards using a man's name; Why not! As long as
they leave sensible messages". Are all messages by men sensible? I think
not! In fact, the few messages I have read by women I found quite
interesting. The reason you don't find women on Bulletin Boards isn't
because they aren't capable of writing messages on computer related
subjects, but because they are rejected by ignorant sexists like Bubba
Flaval.
It was never written anywhere: "To the Humans: Men should be in computer
related fields, women should not." Women might be more interested in
computers if men would leave them alone. That means the 'turbo hormonal
teenagers' too; 4 years ago when I was in my 'turbo hormonal stage' I
was still able to talk to and respect a woman just as I could a man.
Individual cases are different, and making generalizations is just going
to make people angry.
Contrary to popular belief, Bubba, there are many men who are more
ignorant about computers than your average woman. Many men, if told
that DEVICE=ANSI.SYS goes into the CONFIG.SYS file, will return a vacant
stare just as any woman. I would love to have more women in the field of
computers so that when I got married it would be because we both enjoyed
programming, calling bulletin boards, or whatever.. not because she was
good in bed ( although I won't deny the fact that I believe that is also
an important quality ).
As far as I'm concerned, I would prefer if you stick to washing your 4 X
4 and stay off the bulletin boards where you corrupt young minds with
your ludicrous opinions.
I would really like to find out what others think on the subject of
women in Telecommunications. If anyone wants to voice their opinion
please leave me mail on Alley, Sperry, or Channel. If I get a good
response I will include my findings in my next article. For now, so
long.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Nail in the Coffin
By Bubba Flavel
"WHERE ARE YOU GETTING THIS STUFF!!!?????"
"It's on all the local Bulletin Boards, Bubba. I thought that since you
took such a personal interest in the last one, you'd be interested in
this one also. Especially since it seems to re-inforce your views on
the subject. Does your wife mind cleaning up the stains where you have
chewed on the carpet?"
"She's outside waxing my 4 X 4. She'll never notice it unless she steps
on it with her bare feet." I quickly scanned the printout again. "If
it's not one dippy broad its another. If this guy had just read my
article he'd be O.K. now."
With a sense of Duty, I once again fired up my system, loaded my word
processor, and prepared the Truth for the public to see; Hopefully, this
time they will listen...
Since my last article on Truth was published by the good offices of the
BTN, I had heard rumors that the Truth had offended the female
telecommunications users to whom it reached and that they planned a
rebuttal; I have but one word for this: Good! If they stick their heads
up we will know who to whack out of the Systems. This Ms. Cahoon even
had the nerve to write a reply to my reply. I had somewhat expected
this and wasn't too upset when I saw it; What wound me up was seeing the
printout of where this OTHER dippy broad from Indiana was suing a BBS
Sysop for unprotecting a message of her's (She's going for $112,300, fer
God's sake! Musta been one heck of a message!) That was what got me
wound up but it happened in another state and it is now in the hands of
the legal beagles (maybe they'll see the light and make it illegal for
women to use BBS's). At any rate I'll just try to reason with Ms.
Cahoon at the moment.
(I'm going to go point for point reply to Ms. Cahoon's message)
Ms. Cahoon, I drive my 4 X 4, my wife has seen her wifely duties and
waxes it so that I have time to reply to such nonsense as your last
article.
Yes, women apparently can do more for the public than stay barefoot and
pregnant; They can bring ridiculous suits against System Operators!
Besides, I didn't make that statement; It was attributed to my
grandfather (I could have made it though, it is true.) I pride myself on
being a modern thinker, however, not the stone age man you attribute me
to be. (And I'm not a lonely man; I have plenty of girlfriends.)
I call em' like I see em', sweety; I am not misinformed. I saw your
article and I replied; You are in the business of misinforming people,
not I. Women are at this moment infesting the BBS world and we men are
in the process of weeding them out. I would expect a message more along
the lines of "Tide suxs" from a woman (By the way, don't talk about my
man Paul 'the Bear' Bryant like that!)
Please think a little; If I could not get my word processor fired up,
you would not have gotten a reply. I will leave it to the people who
read these articles to decide whether or not I have brain cells that
need saving.
I double-checked my article and nowhere in it did I make the assertion
that women are assets; I said that young males going through
'turbo-hormonal changes' were assets. In addition, if you are referring
to my catching myself in my zipper let me assure you; It won't close on
something that large.
Hardrive.sys is not an MSDOS specified device driver so I assume that it
is either an application specified type driver or specific to your type
of machine. I suspect that it is similar to the MSDOS driver
lastdrive.sys, though. Try a question that is not 'trick'.
If I can't copy from my floppy drives to my hard disk then the 11 or 12
meg that is on there must have appeared there by magic. Yes, I composed
my own autoexec.bat and config.sys file and when I boot my system up it
first plays "Dixie", tells me if the next issue of Hustler is due yet,
opens me a Bud, and brings up my word processor. Is that enough or
should I have it tap dance to please you?
I couldn't even begin to tell you how to cook quiche nor am I
interested. You need to ask one of your female BBSer's for that.
As far as my dying out; I have 9 kids and I plan on teaching them very
well.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title #1:It's Cold and It's Dark Out Here
by Gary Godsey
Geez, it's cold. I probably wouldn't have been as miserable if I had
stayed home.
I will never understand why it has to be so hard. She seems to always be
at my throat. I just can't seem to do anything right. But who am I to
tell you about stuff like that? We've all been through it; right?
The water is as black as marble. It's the kind of black I always try to
get in my so called artistic photographs. You know what I mean; when you
buy the Kodak black and white film and decide that you are finally able
to shoot your 35mm like Ansel Addams did his 24x24. Only problem is they
always turn out like aunt Mary June shot them right after chemo therapy.
The only light is from the Bradshaws' across the slough and it is the
kind of light that plays off the green line Strentex the way your hair
used to look in the mirror after a day or two of some orange sunshine or
purple micro dot.
It always seems that after a fight (argument) that I get in one of these
moods where I have to sit here and act like I understand the Peter
Principle when I really have no earthly idea what the damn Peter
Principle is all about. But somebody's got to do it; right?
It's really to cold for catfish. Darn good fish you know. I always think
about the fact that eating catfish is a lot like eating the garbage man.
I mean who the heck wants to eat someone or something that goes around
cleaning up what everyone else has left behind? But someone has got to
do it; right?
She never seemed to get in my head about things like this before but all
of a sudden (actually our little girl is almost two now) she wants me to
stay home all the time but still bring home a hundred grand a year.
Before, she worked for the bank and traveled most of the time and I did
my thing for the local manufacturer. Together we were pulling down some
pretty good pay. We just did not have a whole lot to get rid of it on. I
mean heck you can only own so many cars and do so much travel in a year.
Now it seem that we/she have all the time in the world but no cash to
really to it with.
Holy Christ, what a bite. I can guarantee that that was grandpa. He took
it all but as I sit here with my good buddy Black Jack trying to sort it
out I still have to come out the loser. I hope the rooster that so
graciously allowed me to use his liver in the name of sport does not
hold me responsible for that loss. I feel sure his hen had given him
some trouble in his lifetime.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
GAMER'S CORNER
--------------
by Osman Guner
We are going to interrupt our routine to give an update on the on-going
"1st America Online Chess Tournament." This tourney has been going on
for quite some time now with two preliminary sections consisting of five
players in a round-robin format. The first two finishers of each
section and a wild-card player (the best of the rest) will advance to
the final round, after which the "1st A.O.L. Chess Champion" will be
determined. The games in the second section are still in progress,
while all the games in the first section are completed. Here is the
cross table:
1 2 3 4 5 Points
------------------------------------------
| 1) Osman Guner | X | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4
+---------------------+---+---+---+---+---|
| 2) Bert Pittman | 0 | X | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3
+---------------------+---+---+---+---+---|
| 3) Van Cooper | 0 | 0 | X | 1 | 1 | 2
+---------------------+---+---+---+---+---|
| 4) Kelly Heeth | 0 | 0 | 0 | X | 1 | 1
+---------------------+---+---+---+---+---|
| 5) Tom Egan | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | X | 0
-------------------------------------------
The details of the ten games played in this section are as follows:
Game 1: Guner vs Heeth; London System; Guner won in 39 moves.
Game 2: Heeth vs Pittman; Three Knights Game; Pittman won in 37 moves.
Game 3: Pittman vs Guner; Alekhine's Defense; Guner won in 83 moves.
Game 4: Guner vs Cooper; Colle System; Guner won in 30 moves.
Game 5: Cooper vs Heeth; Richter-Veresov Attack; Cooper won in 33 moves.
Game 6: Heeth vs Egan; Richter-Veresov Attack; Heeth won in 33 moves.
Game 7: Egan vs Pittman; Stonewall Attack; Pittman won in 26 moves.
Game 8: Pittman vs Cooper; Sicilian Defense; Pittman won in 26 moves.
Game 9: Cooper vs Egan; Bird's Opening; Cooper won in 33 moves.
Game 10: Egan vs Guner; Bird's Opening; Guner won in 31 moves.
The final round of this tournament will start sometime this summer.
Yours truly have withdrawn from the finals due to other commitments.
Bert Pittman and Van Cooper have earned a spot in the finals due to
their results in the first section. Kelly Heeth may also play in the
finals as a wild card player, depending on the results of the second
section. The games are continuing rigorously in the second section,
while Mark Howland and Robert Pitts are emerging as the early leaders,
and Kevin Hope and Matt Allbritton, trying to catch up... The following
game is a demonstration of a brilliant attack, executed by Bert Pittman
against Tom Egan, who suffered the consequence of a few inaccurate
moves. It is also the shortest game from the first section...
White: Tom Egan; Black: Bert Pittman (Stonewall Attack)
1) d2-d4 ; d7-d5
Classical Queens pawn opening moves, so far.
2) f2-f4
A little too early; with this move, Tom is committing himself to what is
so-called "Stonewall Opening"; however, such an early advancement of the
King-bishop pawn causes a serious weakness in the White's king side, as
well as the important central square "e4".
2) . . . ; g8-f6
Bert is developing his knight; this is quite conventional, also controls
White's weakened 'e4' square.
3) g2-g3
This causes another serious weakness in the light squares for White; Tom
should have developed his knight to 'f3'.
3) . . . ; c8-f5
A strong developing move; Bert not only overwhelms 'e4', he is also
increasing the pressure at White's light squares.
4) c2-c4
Tom should have developed his minor pieces; he is looking for trouble.
4) . . . ; c7-c6
Bert does not win a pawn by capturing the c4 pawn, because of Q-a4 check
when Tom may recapture the pawn at c4.
5) g1-f3
The knight is finally developed, but is it too late?
5) . . . ; e7-e6
Bert is opening a diagonal for his Bishop.
6) c4-c5
And Tom is closing it; however, with the expense of weakened queenside.
More: (Y), (N), (NS)? 6) . . . ; b7-b6
Bert is determined to open that diagonal.
7) b1-c3
Oops... Tom should have protected his pawn at c5 with b2-b4.
7) . . . ; b6xc5
8) d4xc5 ; f8xc5
Bert not only won a pawn, but also established full control at important
central squares.
9) f3-e5
Tom is starting an immature attack here; he should have completed his
development first.
9) . . . ; d8-b6
Queen is now supporting the g1-h7 diagonal, with a deadly thread of
c5-f2 check.
10) d1-b3
An attempt to exchange Queens, but...
10) . . . ; c5-f2 check
11) e1-d1 ; b6-d4 check
A very strong attack; Tom is in serious trouble.
12) c1-d2 ; O-O
Bert decides to provide safety to his King first; a passive move at this
stage, he should have continued his attack with f2-e3.
13) e2-e3 ; f2xe3
The pawn was not protected, because Tom's Bishop at d2 is pinned; now
there is an immediate mate thread.
14) d1-e2
A blunder; Tom finally cracked under pressure; the Bishop at d2 should
have been protected via either e5-f3, or c3-b1.
14) . . . ; d4xd2 check
The game is now over...
15) e2-f3 ; d2-f2 checkmate.
If you liked this game and like to see more, you are all welcome to join
us at the Chess Conference in America-Online. If you are interested in
participating in the next tournament, the preliminary rounds for the 2nd
A.O.L. Chess Tournament will start around August. See y'all there...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Known BBS Numbers for the Birmingham Area
NAME NUMBER BAUD
68FREE 933-7518 300, 1200
Scott's Penny Arcade 226-1841 300, 1200, 2400
America Online 324-0193 300, 1200, 2400
American BBS 674-1851 300, 1200, 2400
Amiga Alliance 631-2846 300, 1200
Apple Valley Node 1 854-9661 300, 1200, 2400
Apple Valley Node 2 854-9662 300, 1200, 2400, 9600
Birmingham BBS Node 1 251-2344 300, 1200
Birmingham BBS Node 2 251-8033 300, 1200
Birmingham Business BBS 856-0679 300, 1200, 2400
Bus System BBS 595-1627 300, 1200, 2400
Channel 8250 785-7417 300, 1200, 2400
Commodore Club-South 853-8718 300, 1200, 2400
Fear & Loathing 985-4856 300, 1200, 2400
Nouveaux BBS 871-5551 300, 1200, 2400
LZ Birmingham 870-7770 300, 1200, 2400
Magnolia BBS 854-6407 300, 1200, 2400
Misty Mountain 979-8409 1200, 2400
Point of No RETURN 664-9609 300, 1200, 2400
ST BBS 836-9311 300, 1200
Southern Regiment 647-9176 300, 1200, 2400
Sperry BBS 853-6144 300, 1200, 2400
The Connection Node 1 854-9074 1200, 2400
The Connection Node 2 854-2308 1200, 2400
Ziggy Unaxess 991-5696 300, 1200, 2400
RiverSide 663-6015 300, 1200, 2400
Misty Mountain II 969-2052 300, 1200
This is hardly a complete list of local bulletin board systems but
these are a good start. If you have any to add, please let me know.

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