331 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
331 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
FIDONEWS -- 17 Jun 85 00:00:20 Page 1
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Volume 2, Number 18 17 June 1985
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| / \ |
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| - FidoNews - /|oo \ |
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| Fido and FidoNet _`@/_ \ _ |
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| Users Group | | \ \\ |
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| Newsletter | (*) | \ )) |
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| ______ |__U__| / \// |
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| / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / |
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| (________) (_/(_|(____/ |
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| (jm) |
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+----------------------------------------------------------+
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Publisher: Fido 107/375
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Chief Procrastinator: Thom Henderson
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Fidonews is published weekly by SEAboard, Fido 107/375. You
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are encouraged to submit articles for publication in
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Fidonews. Article submission standards are contained in the
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file FIDONEWS.DOC, available from Fido 107/375.
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Disclaimer or don't-blame-us:
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The contents of the articles contained here are not our
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responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them;
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everything here is subject to debate. We publish EVERYTHING
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received.
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In Defense of Copy Protection
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No, I haven't lost my marbles. And no, I don't like copy
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protection either. But there IS more than one side to this
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issue, and I'd just like to point out a few facts for the
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other side.
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The major problem in this industry today is software piracy.
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It's been estimated that over half the copies of 1-2-3 in
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use by major corporations are pirate copies. Wordstar does
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even worse than that. One of my sources tells me of a major
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international corporation where almost every PC is equipped
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with a large assortment of pirated software, and the people
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using it see nothing wrong.
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I've lost count of how many times I've heard people complain
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that the software houses should "get rid of expensive copy
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protection and just price the stuff reasonably." I'm told
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that Lotus charges far too much for 1-2-3, and that if they
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only asked (figure varies, generally under a hundred bucks)
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then nobody would pirate it and they'd make more money.
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Bull chips. They could sell it for ten bucks a pop, and
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FIDONEWS -- 17 Jun 85 00:00:22 Page 2
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people would STILL pirate it. As for the price being
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unreasonable, I have news for you. The retail price of
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1-2-3 would just about get you my services for ONE DAY, so
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think for a minute how much 1-2-3 would cost if you tried to
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get someone to write it for you.
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The upshot is that when a company does an honest piece of
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work and produces a quality piece of software, they deserve
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to make some bucks on it.
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FIDONEWS -- 17 Jun 85 00:00:22 Page 3
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============================================================
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NEWS
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============================================================
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In view of the expansion of Fido, I would like to propose an
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idea for reduced-cost mail, involving low overhead on the
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part of each local board, and a LARGE overhead on the part
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of the network manager.
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Fido COULD send mail from local dialing area to local
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dialing area, but to do this would involve creating a graph
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containing all Fidos, each graph containing COMPLETE routing
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instructions for point-to-point transfer. At each receiving
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station, (pardon my LISP) take CAR(ROUTE-LIST) as the next
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node to transmit to, and send CDR(ROUTE-LIST) as the New
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ROUTE-LIST. Upon arrival at the desired point, CAR(ROUTE-
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LIST)=NIL, and the message has arrived at its final
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destination. The file sent could easily be small relative
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to ROUTE-LIST, and each Fido would have to store (#NODES)^2
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maximum ATOMS - this is a HUGE amount of disk overhead.
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The idea I would like to suggest would be that each FIDO
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store a route map for its LOCAL hub only, with designated
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Fido GATEWAYS to the next hub in the direction of travel.
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Each GATEWAY would have LOCAL numbers leading into a new
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hub, would check the final-destination address, and pass it
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to the next hub. The incoming gateway would then route to
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an appropriate gateway in its hub, or to its final
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destination if in the current hub.
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The biggest problem in this is the construction of the map -
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and what to do in the event of a GATEWAY FAILURE (i.e. the
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gateway is down or otherwise unable to pass messages).
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Adaptive routing would be nice, except that this involves a
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large communications overhead (each active node must
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periodically pass the list of LOCAL Fidos that it can
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actually contact to each GATEWAY in its hub.) My guess is
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that this would entail an additional 15-20 minutes per day
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(or mail period) in receiving and transmitting local connect
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information. If adaptive routing is not made automatic, one
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node would have to determine the map of local nodes and
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gateways, and go from there. Inter-hub linkages should be
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made redundant (i.e. if hub 1 wants to talk to hub 2, there
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should be more than one gateway to hub 2, if at all
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possible.)
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The message traffic bottleneck would come at the GATEWAYS -
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it would be essential that (1) the gateway have sufficient
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hard disk storage to hold all incoming or outgoing mail for
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the HUB!!! and (2) the gateway have the capability of
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reporting to the net the failure of another gateway, so that
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alternative routing can be generated. The mathematics
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involved in this part of the problem would be (1) topology
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and (2) graph theory. Andrew Tannenbaum's "Computer
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Networks" (Addison-Wesley, 1981) discusses these topics in
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relation to mainframe point-to-point networks (the examples
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are ARPANet and IBM's SNA), and discuss the possible
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solutions.
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FIDONEWS -- 17 Jun 85 00:00:25 Page 4
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I currently have a program which is used to solve this type
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of problem in a generic sense - it is a modification of DR's
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NETWORK2.PLI program. In order to use this program, it is
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necessary to construct an exhaustive list of the local
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dialing area overlap relative to FIDO nodes. This program
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as presently written is memory bound - I do not think that
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the mapping for a 1000 node system could be stored in less
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than 384K on a PC under PC-DOS 2.1 (we run the program on
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the CompuPro here in house to solve LAN gateway problems.)
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Under Fido version 10i, the point-to-point could only be
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handled within a local hub - there are two main reasons that
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it would be difficult to use for other purposes:
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(1) There is no provision in the FidoMail to place more
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than a total of two destinations for a file - the first is a
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transmit-to address for an incoming gateway, the second
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being the final distribution address. This would make it
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possible to make a two-jump transfer - transmit to an
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incoming during National Mail, and then redistribute during
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a local mail period. This would be practical for messages
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between, say, New Haven and Bridgeport, with an incoming
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station in Milford.
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(2) The amount of time it would take to make a long
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distance trip would be prohibitive. Suppose that using
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local-to-local jumps, you could have a message make three
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jumps per day - about 50-70 miles. It would take about 40
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days to get to a destination in California!!! Also,
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discontinuities would exist between many locations - those
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locations would be unreachable under the FREEMAIL concept.
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In the event of a gateway failure, either a new FREEMAIL
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route would be needed (adaptive routing), or the mail would
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be further delayed - possibly forever if the gateway remains
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down.
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Any suggestions or comments should be sent to:
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Ed Rauh
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FIDO 215 (BCP Technology)
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(203) 777-7763
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(300/1200 baud, 8-1-N or 7-1-E)
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Bulldog Computer
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1334 Chapel Street
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New Haven, CT 06511
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Incidentally, we have several unique ports of Fido, one to
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our Turbo PC (runs at 7 MHz) under a modified CPC-DOS 3.2,
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and another under MS-PRO (MS-DOS 2.1 for the CompuPro from
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Computer House.)
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FIDONEWS -- 17 Jun 85 00:00:27 Page 5
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============================================================
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NOTICES
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============================================================
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* * * WARNING * * * WARNING * * * WARNING * * * WARNING * * *
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PIRACY WARNING
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Several game programs have been making the rounds, billed as
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public domain versions of Atari games. This includes (but
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is not limited to) the following games:
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STARGATE
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ROBOTRON
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MOONBUGS
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ZAXXON
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If you have any of these games on your board, please remove
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them as soon as possible.
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------------------------------------------------------------
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*** Calendar of Events ***
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18 Jun 85 RSVP deadline for the Next Occasional MetroNet
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Sysop Meeting.
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22 Jun 85 The Next Occasional MetroNet Sysop Meeting.
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23 Jun 85 Submissions deadline for next issue of Fidonews.
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If you have any event you want listed in this calendar,
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please send a note to node 107/375.
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