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The Journal of IceNET June 1994
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ Editor's Desk ³
³ The Upper Registers Deacon Blues (2@7653) ³
³ M/E Comments Louie (6@1) ³
³ Letters To The Editors Louie (6@1) ³
³ IceNEWS Op-Ed Forum Louie (6@1) ³
³ ³
³ Feature Stories ³
³ WWIV Goes To School Chris (1@7668) ³
³ WWIV Security: One Semi-Expert's View Crossfire (1@8854) ³
³ ³
³ WWIV-Specific ³
³ WWIV Mod and Utility Reviews Papa Bear (1@5079) ³
³ ³
³ Software/Programming ³
³ To DOS, Or Not To DOS... Mega Bite (172@7672) ³
³ Learning C - Pt. 5 Daarkhan (1@7676) ³
³ Artificial Intelligence - Pt. 2 Louie (6@1) ³
³ ³
³ Hardware ³
³ Will Crawford On: The Future of Computing Will (1@6754) ³
³ Give me an A, Give me a T, Give me a Z Fractal (3@5750) ³
³ ³
³ Lite Bytes ³
³ Tales From Being A BBS Sysop - Funny Users Ima Moron (1@9661) ³
³ How They Got Started In BBSing - Pt. 3 Louie (6@1) ³
³ Silly Strings Ima Moron (1@9661) ³
³ Word Search Puzzle Answer Louhal (1@10) ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ IceNEWS Staff For June 1994 ³
³ ³
³ IceNEWS Publisher - Jim 1@1 ³
³ IceNEWS Editor-In-Chief - Deacon Blues 2@7653 ³
³ IceNEWS Managing Editor - Louie 6@1 ³
³ ³
³ IceNEWS Contributing Editors ³
³ Hardware - Will 1@6754 Software/Programming - Daarkhan 1@7676 ³
³ WWIV-Specific - Papa Bear 1@5079 Lite Bytes - Ima Moron 1@9661 ³
³ ³
³ Editors-At-Large - Louie 6@1, Chris #1@7658 ³
³ IceNEWS Production - Spelunker 1@7653 ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ IceNEWS is always seeking submissions from those who have ³
³ ideas for stories. If you have any ideas that you might ³
³ like to see published, contact any IceNEWS editor or ³
³ subscribe to IceNEWS Beat, subtype IceNEWS, host @1. ³
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ E D I T O R ' S D E S K ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ The Upper Registers ³ Deacon Blues (2@7653)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Here's a couple of thoughts that I had while cleaning the coffee cup
rings off of Jim's old desk, which is now mine...
______________________________________________
Several weeks ago on the IceNET National Sysops Only sub, I saw something
that really warmed my heart. It seems that a local IceNET sysop from my 716
area code had a problem with one of the users of his system. The person had
apparently sent out some rather nasty e-mail to a number of network sysops and
users. The sysop of the system that the messages originated from posted on the
sysop sub, publicly apologizing to everyone for the actions of that user and
stated that he was revamping his BBS setup to make sure that something like
this did not occur again. While this was a great gesture of the sysop's part,
it is not the part of the story that got to me.
Several posts later, there was a response from a sysop from another area
of the net that had been the recipient of one of the offensive mailings. Much
to this person's credit (who also happens to be an IceNET Area Coordinator),
this sysop did not blast the other sysop for the occurrence. Instead, the
person posted saying that it was understood that sometimes these things happen
in the net and that there were no hard feelings over what happened. This
person went on to say the it was understood that there is no way for anybody
to monitor their system 24 hours a day to make certain that things like this
do not happen. This sysop then extended a hand to help the other in the
restructuring of the other's BBS and wished him the best of luck.
I personally take my hat off to both of these individuals for showing an
uncommon amount of class in the handling of this matter. Many lesser sysops
would have taken the opportunity to flame or bash the sysop of the system
where the messages originated from or would have made other comments that
could have belittled the other sysop. I've seen flame wars on sysop subs start
for less. Much to my pleasure, the situation was solved amicably, without
slurs, slander, and seamy behavior. Maybe Jim should consider changing the
name of the network to NIceNET...
______________________________________________
For those who may have missed it, "Newsweek" recently (May 16, 1994) ran
a cover story regarding the gender gap in BBSing. In a part of the story, a
number of female users related to the author how they were being treated
unfairly by the other inhabitants of cyberspace, saying that they are often
the target of flame mail or rude posts by male users for speaking their
opinions about various subjects and railroaded off of message bases. They also
stated that when it was found out that they were females, they often had to
deal with mail and posts in which they felt they were sexually harassed (asked
for body statistics, dates, and sexual favors).
In another story that recently appeared on PBS's "The MacNeil/Lehrer News
Hour" (May 12, 1994), the cyberworld was again the subject of bad press. The
show related the story of a young male who, through his computer access at the
prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, managed to set up an
illegal BBS system that encouraged the uploading and downloading of
commercially-released software. In other words, "pirate" software.
While Internet was prominently named in both stories (in the case of the
pirate system, it was apparently an anonymous FTP site set up at the school
itself), I can't help but think that all of this reflects badly on all
computer networks and BBSing in general. Stories of this type can only further
the public misconception that BBSes are horny teenaged he-man woman-hating
boys clubs where you can download copies of WordPerfect for the price of a
phone call.
Unless the BBS community both cleans up its act and starts to find ways
to generate more positive press coverage of the cyberworld, I fear that the
false perception I mentioned above will not only damage the credibility or
create prejudice against the thousands (or tens of thousands... who really
knows for sure?) of good, legitimate sysops around the world but will also
turn some potential newbies -- females in particular in light of the
"Newsweek" story -- away from the idea of typing "NEW" at the "NN" prompt. The
real world is moving into computing, BBSing, and networking at a blistering
rate. Unless more tolerence and openness is shown toward these new drivers on
the data highways, the proposed Information Superhighway (now called the
Information Infrastructure by the politically-correct) is going to look like a
California freeway; with people taking pot-shots at other people who cut them
off, look at them the wrong way, intrude on their space or otherwise annoy
them.
______________________________________________
Well, that's enough musing for this month. Time to get on to IceNEWS
matters. In that respect, I would like to welcome a few new faces to the
editorial ranks here. Papa Bear, #1 @5079, comes aboard as a Contributing
Editor and joins our WWIV Specific department. Papa starts out this month by
answering the call of a number of IceNEWS readers by providing a couple of
reviews; one on the popular utility AutoSend, the other on a BBS mod.
Daarkhan, #1 @7676, steps into the Software/Programming department as a
Contributing Editor. Readers of past issues will recall his name from the
continuing series on learning C programming, a series that he continues in
this issue. Last, but not least, is Chris, #1 @7668, who has joined Louie as
an Editor-At-Large and will be contributing to various departments. Chris
starts his tenure here with a Feature story on how he got his school to set up
and operate a WWIV BBS.
The addition of these fine folks is in direct response to feedback
received from our readers asking for IceNEWS to be able to bring you a wider
range of stories. With these new additions, I feel that we have taken the
first step in that direction. Another step taken to improve the quality of
IceNEWS was a recent meeting of the 716-area staff (myself, Louie, Daarkhan,
Chris, and Spelunker) to "gang edit" the copy of this issue for errors. It was
a useful and productive meeting which I feel worked out well and should
benefit all of our readers. Hopefully, we will be able to continue this
practice in the future.
This shouldn't let us off the hook, though. We still need to keep hearing
from our readers about what you like and don't like and want or don't want to
see in future issues of the Journal. The Letters To The Editors section of
this issue contains a letter telling us just that. We need to hear from more
of you about whether or not you agree with these views and why you feel that
way. Remember, if you don't tell us what you want, we can't deliver it to you.
Please take the time and drop us a line to let us know that you're there.
And now, your June, 1994 edition of the IceNEWS Journal. Enjoy!
ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ Comments From The Managing Editor ³ Louie (6@1)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Well, this was a busy month at IceNEWS. Deacon Blues has assumed the
power position of Editor-in-Chief. Deacon is a long time IceNEWS Editor and
the rest of the Staff welcomes him to his new position as our fearless leader.
Deacon already filled you in on the staff expansion with Papa Bear, Daarkhan
and Chris becoming editors. I would like to extend my personal welcomes to
each of them as well.
This months issue provides some very good stories for your reading
pleasure.
Crossfire (1@8854) starts us out with an article about WWIV Security. It
contains just about everything a sysop ever wanted to know about ways he or
she can protect their system from unwanted hack attempts. It should be noted
that this article does share a common subject with a story written for the May
1994 issue by Papa Bear. Both articles were received within days of each other
and were both written with no input from each other. As PB's story was
received first, it was printed first. Crossfire was kind enough to allow us to
hold his article over until this issue.
Daarkhan and I continue our series articles about Learning C and
Artificial Intelligence respectively. I also have a third installment of "How
They Started BBSing," with segments this time coming from from Benny Hill
(1@7400), Wildfire (1@5857) and Daydreamer (2@4501). This is very interesting
stuff I think most folks are interested in. We got Louhal's (1@10) answer key
to last month's word search puzzle. Some nice techie articles from Fractal
(3@5750) on modems and Mega Bite (172@7672) on the DOS vs. Windows debate. Ima
Moron (1@9661) is his normal humorous self. There are a bunch of other
articles that you will be interested in as well.
Also, in DB's E-I-C Comments, he mentions the Letters to the Editor
section. We do wish for Letters from our readers. This month we are starting a
similar feature to the Letter section though. The IceNEWS Op-Ed Forum, which
users in all of WWIVland can write for.
The Op-Ed Forum will allow anybody and everybody to write an editorial in
which they can expound about their opinions on some issue facing WWIVland,
IceNET, BBSing, WWIVnet, WWIVLink, etc. This is not for your views on
President Clinton's Health Care Bill, but for your opinions on issues such as
"Pings," the Life Arts Network controversy, Information Superhighway, the Big
Three networks vs. the smaller networks, etc. Letters for the IceNEWS Op-Ed
Forum should be e-mailed to me (6@1) as I am the Letters guy on the staff.
Also, unlike the regular Letters section, the Op-Ed Forum will not contain
IceNEWS Editor responses. An IceNEWS Editor _may_ write for it (as I do in the
inaugural installment), just not as an IceNEWS Editor, but as their private
selves.
I hope you enjoy this months issue of IceNEWS. We do this all for you,
our kind-hearted readers. Thanks for reading us.
ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ Letters To The Editors ³ Compiled By: Louie (6@1)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
The IceNEWS "Letters To The Editors" column is a forum for the readers to
express their feelings, thoughts, or opinions regarding IceNEWS. Please take
the time to write us regarding your feelings on IceNEWS and its contents, good
or bad. We want to hear what you have to say. Remember, IceNEWS is meant for
EVERYONE in IceNET and we need YOUR input in order to maintain a successful
and respected publication.
Please address any remarks or questions to:
IceNEWS Letters To The Editors
c/o Louie, #6 @1
IceNEWS Editor-At-Large
Wildfire, #1 @5857, writes regarding his opinions on IceNEWS:
I don't particularly care for learning programming in a computer article.
I like a hardcopy book, with reference and index, etc., and I always
understand it better on paper than on a computer. (Yes, I know that I can
print it out, but it still isn't the same)
Maybe hints and tips would be fine. Actually, they would be great. Like
compiler compatibilities, OS/2, DOS, and Windows compilers, and the
performance of each, and any workarounds or MAKEFILE changes needed for
different versions, such as TC++, BC++, and GNU++ compilers. For those of you
out there who don't know what GNU is, it's an OS/2 Shareware C++ compiler,
I've yet to unzip my copy of it and look at it. "The Adventures of ModemMan,"
I skip them. It's filler fluff that I feel is wasted space. Maybe fill it in
with actual facts about computer industry happenings, Gates vs Stac, etc.
I feel that IceNEWS needs more technical articles. The "Building A PC"
articles, I didn't even look at, but were highly appropriate (I didn't look at
them since I built my system, (I'm a hardware specialist)) and there should be
more of them. Mainly, there should be more product reviews if possible in the
areas where we would need them; modem test results, com port test results,
backup devices, and video displays with built in BUS mouse connectors (for
those of us with multiple modems, too much other hardware, and no more IRQ's
and expansion slots for other serial ports to run a mouse for our BBS).
Another thing we should have [in IceNEWS] is software reviews for our
BBS. Like new utilities that are available and their actual usability and
usefulness. Possibly a section for chains reviews, new games and the setups
for WWIV, and how well the users like the game, and how much the sysop
actually likes it. There should also be more info on the NET itself, and NET
utilities that would make our lives easier and that are easy on our
pocketbooks. I know I'm running on a limited budget so there have to be a lot
more sysops out there like me who need utils, but don't have a lot of cash.
Louie, #6 @1, IceNEWS Editor-At-Large, responds:
I would like to start by extending my personal thanks to Wildfire for
writing up and e-mailing his comments to me and the rest of the IceNEWS Staff.
We like to get feedback from our readers. We wish to know what the people who
read the IceNEWS Journal think about our product.
I would just like to state that IceNEWS wants to be read and wants to
appeal to as many people as possible in the IceNET and WWIVland Communities.
That is why we publish many different types of articles from Humor and
Programming Language descriptions to Product Reviews and WWIV-Specific
articles. We want everybody who reads us to find something they wish to read.
Now, Wildfire has told us that he wants to see more tech-type stories in
the IceNEWS Journal. We have been recruiting more technical articles over the
past few months. But technical articles need to be written by technical
people. At IceNEWS, we have subdivided the technical areas into Hardware,
Software, Programming and WWIV Specific. We are looking for more and more
articles on each of these sub-topics. This month Papa Bear, our new
WWIV-Specific Editor, has a good article on WWIV Mod Reviews and includes a
couple of his own reviews in it.
However, I would just like to defend one specific thing that Wildfire
said. Wildfire does not seem to like Humor articles, like the "ModemMan"
series by Jot$ (1@7850) and Deacon Blues. Now, myself, I like computer humor.
I think that a lot of other BBSers around IceNET and WWIVland do as well.
So, please e-mail us (6@1 is the address to write to) and tell us if you
like the Lite Bytes Humor and what appears there. If most people like it, then
we will try to keep it around, if - in the main - folks think we should give
it the old heave ho, the we have to toss it aside and see how IceNEWS does
without humor.
We really do want to know what all our loyal readers think of any and
every aspect of IceNEWS. Please drop us an e-mail at any time to tell us what
you think of this issue (June 1994), or on anything about it in general.
ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ The IceNEWS Op-Ed Forum ³ Louie (6@1)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
This is the first installment of the IceNEWS Op-Ed Forum. We will be
printing readers' personal opinions about things going on in IceNET, WWIVland,
the Information Superhighway, etc. Anything about these and other computing
topics is fair game for anybody to write a Guest Editorial about.
Please remember that any opinions published reflect the thoughts and
opinions of the respective authors and may not necessarily reflect the views
of IceNEWS, its staff, or any other contributing writers. These opinions are
in no way endorsed by IceNEWS or IceNET in any official manner.
The first person to write a guest editorial for the IceNEWS Op-Ed Forum
is myself. Somebody has to get the ball rolling and I want to air a gripe.
It's my opinion and not that of IceNEWS. With that in mind...
Sysop Sub-boards
When I read the various sysop sub-boards in IceNET, WWIVnet, WWIVLink and
other networks, I can't help but wonder just what all these sysops (with a
smattering of cosysops) are discussing. All that seems to ever get discussed
is modding, WWIVland politics, techie "my computer blew up, how do I fix it"
things, Sub-board advertisements and a few more posts about modding.
That troubles me a lot. Why? Because I do not think that is what a sysop
Sub-board should be used for. There are WWIV mod discussion subs already in
existence. There are WWIVland political discussion subs (WWIVnet Concerns,
WWIVLink Guidelines, etc.) already in existence. There are subs for technical
concerns as well. And there are the various Yellow Page Subs for sub-board
ads. Those subs are where those topics should be discussed in my opinion.
What should sysops and cosysops talk about? Simple. How do you make the
BBSing world a better place? How to deal with users in a variety of ways? How
to keep their boards good places to call? I realize that these are broad
topics and possibly a little difficult to discuss, but that is why they should
be talked about more often. The more that people discuss them, the easier it
will get to talk about them in the future.
Why don't sysops talk about those things much? I think it is because it
is much easier to talk about 14 lines of code in the latest mod. It is
specific, it compiles and executes properly or it doesn't.
WWIVland politics is pretty stupid most of the time anyway. Who's going
to be the AC in Area code XXX? Who is going to be King-for-a-day? Admittedly,
as the movie "History of the World - Part 1" pointed out, it is good to be the
King... but in most networks (save WWIVLink), the King appointed himself and
you kind of accepted that fact when you joined that network. If you have to
have an AC fight in your area, make a sub for the fight to take place on. Then
the rest of us in WWIVland do not have to hear about it.
Sysops and cosysops have got to remember that BBSing is about
communication. It isn't about sysops and cosysops communicating, it is about
USERS Communicating. Users are the important folks.
ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ F E A T U R E S T O R I E S ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ WWIV Goes To School ³ Chris (1@7668)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
WWIV, the great creation of Wayne Bell and WWIV Software Services, has
been one of the most popular bulletin board software platforms around and its
popularity is increasing every day. Bulletin boards are mostly used for fun,
but now the vast array of applications that are available are becoming more
practical. Local computer stores have created bulletin boards for support of
their existing customers as well as a means of public relations in gaining new
ones. Just recently, however, WWIV has been used for educational purposes.
The Hamburg Central School District of Western New York is one of the
leaders in our area regarding the integration of telecommunications and
bulletin boards in the classroom curriculum. The Hamburg Junior High School
started a WWIV bulletin board (The Pinnacle, IceNET @7668) in November of 1993
and have had tremendous student, staff, and community involvement in the
project. We have used the bulletin board for many classroom activities.
Recently a ninth grade home and careers class used the bulletin board to
gather information on states they would like to live in as part of a group
project. Bulletin board users from various states responded to a form that the
students posted which included several questions pertaining to that state.
Students found various statistics in each state. They found that the divorce
rate in California was much higher than that of New York. They also found out
about some local news in each community as well as collage and education
information.
Another project that we are working on now is simply dubbed "I'm
Sailing!" One of the technology teachers in the Junior High School will be
taking his sail boat from Lake Erie to the Caribbean and will be taking all of
Hamburg with him. Yup, that's right! Armed with a Macintosh Powerbook and a
modem, he will be updating The Pinnacle weekly as to his progress. Because
students learn best in "hands on" situations, this project has the ability to
prove to students the relevancy of the subject matter at hand.
Science classes will be able to gather information on tides, currents,
winds and ecology, etc. which may be used directly in the classroom. Social
studies and English teachers can collaborate to have students retrieve
geographical and historical information on the areas visited and compare them
with encounters by the crew. Math classes might chart the courses on maps from
information gathered from the bulletin board. This can be directly applied to
such problems as time/speed/distance relationships by using real-life places,
people and situations. This is a tangible experience to move students beyond
the constraints of a text book and the traditional classroom environment.
The hard part about using a bulletin board for a class is that a bulletin
board, traditionally, allows only someone with a modem to access the bulletin
board. Thanks to Wayne Bell, that is no longer true. As I'm writing this, I'm
awaiting the arrival of Novell DOS for the bulletin board so that students can
access it on any of the three local instances we've registered on our
50-workstation local area network. We are also awaiting the arrival of Filo
Software Productions Front Door Installer so that we may add FidoNnet to the
cornucopia of networks that The Pinnacle subscribes to.
Well, that's about all we are doing at the moment. We are still
relatively new and we only have about 200 users, but that is changing quick. I
already have plans to help two other local school districts in creating WWIV
bulletin boards for themselves and linking them together with a special
WWIV-based network. I'm also giving presentations at the University of Buffalo
on the educational implications of bulletin boards in the classrooms. So, as
you can see, I'm a busy kid. If you have any suggestions, comments or
questions feel free to e-mail me. Oh, I almost forgot, one more thing!
Remember: "An hour spent on The Pinnacle is an hour spent reading and
writing!" so check it out at (716) 649-3530!
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³ WWIV Security: One Semi-Expert's View ³ Crossfire (1@8854)
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WWIV security (or the alleged lack thereof), stock or modded, netted or
not, is certainly one of the most pressing concerns of virtually every WWIV
sysop today. I have been a WWIV sysop for over three years and have
encountered several attempted hacks on other systems (two of which were
successful) and advised other sysops on how to protect themselves against the
hacks which were commonly known at the time.
There has been a lot of debate lately, particularly in IceNET's WWIV
Security sub (subtype 213, host @1), about whether or not WWIV does in fact
contain several internal back doors. One person has even claimed to have found
a back door in NETWORK.EXE, but the general consensus judges this as highly
unlikely. Several people claim extensive knowledge of WWIV hacks but cannot
seem to produce a single viable example.
The keys to avoiding hacks are to understand the most common and likely
hack methods and to set up protection against them. Such methods of protection
may range from simple ones to highly complex ones requiring skill in C
programming in order to modify the BBS.
There are essentially two types of hacks, under which all known methods
may be grouped: internal, meaning a flaw in the BBS itself, or external,
meaning methods which rely on some external program to allow DOS access or
perform some other function like transmitting copies of CONFIG.DAT and
USER.LST. Most such programs can more accurately be called trojans, as they
may claim to be onliners or WWIV utilities.
--- OLD HACKS AND BACK DOORS ---
About four years ago, when WWIV 4.11 was new, a very common and
frequently successful hack was the one I refer to as the "411 Wildcard" hack.
This method required nothing more than entering ????????.??? as the filename
to upload; the BBS, thoroughly confused, would then place the uploaded file in
the main BBS directory. It was necessary to use a protocol which supported
batch operation as Xmodem would not allow a file with an unknown name to be
received. DSZ was generally used with the wildcard hack.
Obviously, this file could be anything the hacker wanted it to be. It was
certainly a very dangerous back door in its day, but, thankfully, it was
extinct by the time 4.12 was released. At any rate, this is an example of an
internal hack; a flaw in the BBS itself.
Popular opinion among most WWIV experts these days says there are few, if
any, internal back doors to WWIV. Indeed, in my associations with a few of
these experts, I have not heard one single word about any known internal back
doors in recent revisions of WWIV. They seem to be known <sarcasm mode
activated> only to the hackers themselves, who can never seem to give any sort
of hints as to their exact nature even when dared to do so by an entire
network. Many who claim to have knowledge of several large back doors seem to
be basing their claims on what was known about older versions of WWIV. Such
hack methods are very unlikely to have any relevance today.
It is important to note that when I claim belief that WWIV is secure I am
referring to stock versions or versions which the sysop himself has personally
modified. There have been several cases where, in direct violation of all
copyright laws and Wayne's policies, people have made extensive modifications
to the source and redistributed them as their own work. In some of these
cases, the person doing the modding has deliberately built a back door of his
own directly into the distributed version of the BBS, allowing anybody with
the necessary knowledge (generally an associate of the modder) to simply log
on and drop to DOS with a single command or keystroke, sometimes not needing
to go any further than the "NN:" prompt. This would be another example of an
internal back door, but it is one which has been deliberately and knowingly
placed there, and as such would not be an inherent flaw in WWIV itself.
--- HACKS THROUGH EXTERNALS ---
Barring deliberately created back doors, most methods will be external.
External programs may be on-liners, WWIV utilities, trojan versions of the
network software, or virtually any other program which may be called by the
BBS. Installation of such a program must be done by the hacker himself or, as
is usually the case, unknowingly by the sysop. If the hacker uploads the
program, begs the sysop to install it, and the sysop does, the sysop becomes
an unwitting accomplice in the hacking of his own BBS.
If the BBS has been set up correctly, it will be extremely difficult to
install such an external program without the direct involvement of the sysop.
What was known as the "extract hack" in earlier versions of WWIV, which relied
on the presence of a bogus PKUNZIP in the TEMP directory, has been eliminated
from all recent versions, making it a very poor choice for a hack attempt. The
"wildcard hack" has also been obsolete for several years and is a danger only
to those still running 4.11, if in fact anybody is still running it.
In order to guard against potential external hacks, it is extremely
important that every sysop make a full examination of each and every program
he plans to install in his BBS. This examination should include not only a
full virus check with everything he has in his arsenal, but also a full scan
with a utility like CHK4BOMB. If the program was uploaded by an unfamiliar
user who begs for it to be installed, the sysop should be immediately
suspicious. I personally would not install it at all.
When scanning a program, pay attention not only to the results of virus
and bomb scans, but also to the text data contained in the program. For
example, a program which claims to be a BBS log analyzer should have no reason
to access your USER.LST. External programs uploaded by a hacker may also be
nothing more than compiled batch files. In this case, you will usually see
word-for-word the original content of the batch file and you will be able to
gauge immediately the true intent of the program.
Another vital point is for the sysop to be intimately familiar with his
system. He should know what is in every single archive in his transfers, know
which files exist and which seem to have appeared out of nowhere, and what can
be considered "normal" behavior for any given program on his system. Anything
out of the ordinary should be investigated immediately.
--- SECURING TRANSFER SECTIONS AND ARCHIVERS ---
One of my favorite security tips has its origin back in the days of the
"extract" and "411 Wildcard" hacks, but it remains just as valid today as it
was three or four years ago - SPELL OUT ALL PATHNAMES. When installing
protocols, archivers, and editors in INIT, when installing any program in
//CHAINEDIT, when writing batch files, when defining paths for directories,
SPELL OUT ALL PATHNAMES. Let nothing go to default. Don't simply specify
"PKUNZIP" because it is in your PATH= variable. Tell the BBS to look for
C:\WHATEVER\PKUNZIP.EXE. Given this, there can never be even an ounce of
confusion as to which "PKUNZIP" you mean. It will be impossible for a bogus
PKUNZIP to be run unless it has overwritten the real PKUNZIP where it resides.
Since the transfer section is a favorite target, several steps must be
made to protect the system there. I recommend disabling uploads to all
directories except SYSOP, giving all users the U restriction so their uploads
will be forced to SYSOP, and turning on "uploads to sysop" in INIT. There is
no way an upload will go anywhere else unless an external protocol has been
installed incorrectly. BBS security is only one of the reasons for this.
Another concern is the welfare of your users. By placing new uploads on hold,
they can be fully tested and examined before they are ever made available for
download. Of course, you should also be careful to specify complete pathnames
for PKUNZIP, etc., in INIT if you choose to leave the archive commands active.
I personally believe the archive commands are absolutely safe when properly
configured, so in my opinion there's no reason for past worries about the
"extract" hack to force you to leave such a useful feature unavailable.
While PKUNZIP tends to be the favored archiver on many boards, there are
certainly others available, and they may have back doors similar to PKUNZIP
2.04's "rename or overwrite" problem. When installing any archiver for the
view/extract/add commands in INIT, it is crucial that the archiver's command
set be examined thoroughly for any options which can allow an extracted file
to be overwritten rather than renamed, included pathnames ignored, etc.
Whenever possible, files being extracted from an archive should be allowed to
overwrite existing files rather than being renamed (assuming the archiver does
allow renaming), and stored pathnames should always be excluded from the
extract process.
Although it might at first seem dangerous to allow overwrites while an
archive is being extracted, this is not really the case. WWIV tells the
archiver where to place the files it has extracted (the TEMP directory), so
any files being overwritten will be in the TEMP directory only. This may
sometimes be an inconvenience if multiple archives contain the same filename,
but it is certainly much safer than allowing a user on the BBS to rename a
file, complete with the pathname, and place it where he wishes.
--- HACKS COURTESY OF PKWARE ---
Now, on the subject of PKUNZIP, although I have said I believe the
archive commands are perfectly safe, this is assuming the archivers have been
set up correctly. PKUNZIP 2.04 contains what can be the core of an extremely
simple and dangerous external hack, and we have Phil Katz to thank for this
one. Suppose you're extracting from a .ZIP file, and one of the files in the
archive will overwrite a file which already exists (it's easy - extract it
twice). By default, PKUNZIP 2.04 will ask you if you would like to rename the
file being extracted. Now, let's suppose the extraction is being done by
someone trying to hack your system. He does want to rename the file. His
keystrokes are piped, courtesy of the BBS, directly to PKUNZIP's "new
filename" prompt. Suppose he decides to rename it to ..\BBS.EXE or
\COMMAND.COM? You've got a problem then.
The cure? Force PKUNZIP to ALWAYS overwrite existing files. This is done
with the -o switch. You can set this for the extract command line in INIT, or
you can set it as an environment variable (SET PKUNZIP=-o). The main point is
never to let PKUNZIP allow a user to rename a file as it is being extracted.
This one fix alone will cure what is today one of the single most common and
dangerous hacks, and often the most frequently unknown or overlooked among
novice sysops and those who have not already heard about this via the
networks.
--- OTHER ARCHIVE DANGERS ---
Another popular archiver, ARJ, also has a back door very similar to the
PKUNZIP 2.04 "rename" back door. In fact, it works in the same way. If a file
already exists, ARJ will, by default, let the user rename the file and send it
elsewhere. ARJ will give the user a "(YNAQ)" prompt, which means
Yes/No/Always/ Quit. "Yes" will force the existing file to be overwritten.
"Always" will tell ARJ to overwrite all existing files without any further
prompting. "Quit" is self-explanatory.
The problem here is the "no" response. If the user tells ARJ not to
overwrite an existing file, the user will be prompted for a new filename under
which the extracted file should be written. As with the PKUNZIP problem, if
this new filename happens to be a key system file, particularly one associated
with DOS or the BBS, then system security will be very badly compromised.
The fix for this problem is slightly different from the PKUNZIP fix, but
it is just as simple. One of ARJ's switches, -n, will force ARJ to ignore
files which already exist. As such, they cannot be renamed and redirected.
If the -n switch is included in ARJ's "extract from archive" command line
in INIT (as it most definitely should be), this back door is effectively
closed and is no longer a danger to the BBS. Thus, ARJ's command line should
be "ARJ e -n %1 %2." You may also want to tell ARJ to ignore stored pathnames;
in this case, use "ARJ e -e -n %1 %2."
Note that the above back doors are inherent to the archivers themselves,
NOT to WWIV or any other particular BBS software. This means they are a danger
not only to WWIV, but to any other software which allows a user to extract
from an archive. Any sysops of other BBS software reading this article should
make note of this and take the necessary steps to secure their boards as shown
above, since these archiver back doors can conceivably be used against their
systems as well.
The following can be used as a basic security test for any archiver you
plan to install on your system. Create an archive (it doesn't matter what you
put in it), extract it, then extract it again so it would try to overwrite an
existing file. If you are given a multiple-choice prompt, as is the case with
ARJ, try each choice in turn and note the results. You might run across an
option which allows a file to be renamed. If this happens, examine the
archiver's command set and use whatever switch or option will prevent a file
from being renamed, or at least one which will allow existing files to be
overwritten or ignored. The ability to rename an existing file has been found
to be a potential back door in at least two major archivers so far. There
certainly may be others. Don't take the chance - test each new archiver you
install in INIT and make sure it will not allow a file to be renamed or
redirected.
I have performed the above test with another archiver, LZH (LHA.EXE), and
have found that LZH will, by default, refuse to overwrite any file which
already exists. As such, it is my opinion that LZH is safe with the basic
extract command (LHA e filename.LZH <destination>) and no extra command line
options need to be used for security purposes.
--- AUTO-SKIPPING DURING EXTRACTS ---
PKUNZIP 2.04 has an option with the potential to provide excellent
security, the "-x@listfile" switch. Using this, it is possible to specify a
set of files which PKUNZIP will completely refuse to display or extract. Such
a file may look similar to this:
BBS.* INIT.* NETWORK*.* PKUNZIP.* RETURN.* *.BAT
Suppose this file is named PREVENT.LST. By passing "-x@PREVENT.LST" on
PKUNZIP's command line, you will eliminate the possibility that PKUNZIP may
extract the listed files from an archive. This is more of a precaution than an
important method of protection, but in my opinion every step toward a more
secure system is a step which should be taken.
I have found that, at least for my purposes, the space given for the
"extract from archive" command line in INIT is just a bit too short; I can't
fit the "-x@listfile" switch into the command line I use. If this is also the
case on your system, you can place this list in your PKUNZIP= environment
variable. The only disadvantage to this is that you must remove it from the
environment variable if you do wish to extract any of the listed files from a
.ZIP archive.
--- ANSI BOMBS ---
There has also been a lot of talk about ANSI bombs, especially where BBS
security is concerned, and in most cases this concern is generally unfounded.
An ANSI bomb usually relies on the presence of an ANSI driver which allows
keyboard remaps. The ANSI.SYS which comes with DOS is one such driver.
However, WWIV does not under any circumstances perform any ANSI decoding with
the aid of the ANSI.SYS driver. All necessary ANSI translation for cursor
movement and color is incorporated directly into the BBS itself, and codes
which are not deemed useful, such as the codes which remap the keyboard or
change screen modes, are completely ignored by the BBS.
In order for an ANSI bomb to have any effect against the BBS, it must be
translated by the resident ANSI driver. As such, it must be sent to the CON
device, which is something else the BBS does not do. However, assuming the
worst does happen and an ANSI remap code finds its way to CON, it will have no
effect unless the resident driver allows keyboard remaps. In truth, most
drivers don't allow remaps these days; DOS's ANSI.SYS is one of the few that
do. Using an alternate driver such as ZANSI or PKSFANSI will completely
eliminate any and all danger from ANSI bombs which cause keyboard remaps.
I have heard rumors of a hack method which involves //UPLOADing a certain
type of file and forcing the BBS to display it, but this seems to me as if it
is a variation of an ANSI bomb, and I have never once heard of any case where
such an attempted hack has been successful. I'm not saying it's impossible,
because I admit I know little about it, but I'll believe this one if I see it.
ANSI bombs in .ZIP comments have also been a concern in the past, but it
is rather well known at this point that PKUNZIP will not attempt to translate
ANSI comments unless the -q switch has been used. Leave out the -q, and you
can't be bombed by an ANSI .ZIP comment. No further elaboration is needed
here.
--- DANGEROUS DOS DOODADS ---
Some of the primary targets of ANSI bombs are DOS utilities such as
FORMAT, FDISK, and DEBUG, as these have the potential to do the most damage.
However, they are dangerous only if they can be found. FORMAT should be
renamed to something known only to you. FDISK can be completely removed from
the drive, as it is not something you would normally use on a regular basis
unless your hard drive is ready for the cemetary. DEBUG, unless you frequently
do assembly language programming, can also be safely removed from your drive.
If you must leave it on your drive, rename it as you have done with FORMAT.
It is entirely possible to protect your drive from FORMAT, even if it has
been renamed and the new name is somehow discovered. The key is in the volume
label. With all recent versions of DOS, FORMAT will prompt you to enter your
hard drive's volume label before it will proceed with formatting your drive.
This in itself does not amount to an effective security measure, but suppose
your label is something which simply cannot be entered from the console? I am
not referring to high-bit ASCII characters, which can be easily entered using
an alt+keypad combination; rather, I am referring to lower-case characters.
--- FANCY TRICKS FOR THE EXPERT ---
When you enter a response to FORMAT's volume label prompt, DOS will
convert your input to upper-case characters. Now suppose your label is "My
System" instead of "MY SYSTEM." When you try to enter "My System" in response
to the prompt, DOS sees this as "MY SYSTEM." Since "MY SYSTEM" does not match
"My System," FORMAT will not proceed!
In order to pull this trick, you will need a utility capable of
performing low-level editing directly on the File Allocation Table (FAT)
itself. Norton Utilities and Disk Commando are two such utilities. (You will
also need to be thoroughly familiar with the use of those utilities. I do not
recommend this patch to novices.) Search the FAT for your volume label, and
edit it to contain lower-case characters.
But, won't label be able to change this back to something which can be
entered from the keyboard? The answer is, no, not if it's done correctly (I
also recommend LABEL be renamed or removed). The volume label itself is
nothing but a null file with the exclusive <L>abel attribute set. Since it is
a file, you can do with it what can be done with almost any other file. To be
exact, it can be made read-only! So, while you're editing your FAT, set the
<R>ead Only attribute for your volume label. Not only will it be protected
from LABEL, it will also be protected from many other utilities, such as
XTree, which normally are capable of changing the volume label. After
performing these operations, I have tried changing my label with everything
I've got, and nothing but a sector editor seems capable of changing it.
Of course, a truly capable programmer could defeat this method, but if
such a hacker has managed to get this close to your DOS then you were in
trouble quite a while beforehand.
--- PROTECTION FROM THE INSIDE ---
Another way to protect the BBS from the inside is to modify the commands
for //DOS, //CHAINEDIT, etc. This is done in the source code itself, and is an
easy patch even for those with little or no modding experience - search for a
block of case{} statements containing the BBS sysop commands, change them to
whatever you wish, and recompile. Changing the commands is such a common
practice that my mention of it does not even approach being newsworthy.
Some sysops have added even more internal protection by either simply
eliminating the //DOS feature altogether or by adding a second password to be
used in addition to the system password. This second password is usually hard
coded into the BBS itself, requiring you to recompile the BBS if you change
the password, but those who use this trick swear by it. I wish I could show
novice modders how to add the second password, but I don't speak C.
--- PROTECTION THROUGH INIT.EXE ---
Another good security measure targets the definition of SL privileges in
INIT. As you know, there are a total of 256 different security levels which
can have various privileges, time limits, etc. assigned to them. What I have
done on my system is select a specific set of SL's for various purposes and
blanked everything else out. SL 254 is as good as SL 0 on my BBS, because I
have stripped all time, all privileges, and turned on all restrictions. It
takes time, but it's worth the effort.
Suppose you F9 a user and, while your back is turned (never turn your
back on an F9'ed user!), he goes into //UEDIT and gives himself an SL upgrade.
The highest SL which can be given in UEDIT is 254; so, when he sees he can't
give himself 255, he tries for the next best thing and winds up with a 254 SL.
Now, you've got everything ZEROED OUT for that SL. As soon as he sets his 254
SL, he is out of time, out of power, out of privileges, and out of luck. The
board kicks him off at the main menu and, if you have done as you should and
restricted that SL to one call per day, he will not be able to log on again
that day under that account. Simple, devious, and effective.
I'll return briefly to the subject of pathnames, particularly the TEMP
directory. While the old extract hack has been eliminated, it is still - in my
opinion - not a good idea to make the TEMP directory one branch down from your
main BBS directory. The reason for this is that writing a file as ..\file.ext
will send that file to the directory immediately preceding the current direc-
tory. If that directory happens to be your main BBS directory, it could cause
serious problems.
Make your TEMP directory AT LEAST two steps removed from your main BBS
directory. If you have several logical or physical drives, your TEMP directory
should reside on a different drive than your main BBS directory.
I also recommend changing the default pathnames used in INIT for the
DATA, GFILES, MSGS, BATCH, DLOADS, and TEMP directories. Many hack methods,
valid or otherwise, rely on a sysop's laziness and assume these pathnames have
been left at their default values. The trick here is to fool the hacker in
every way possible, and in many cases the only way to do that is to stay one
step ahead of him. You may also want to use a non-standard name for the main
BBS directory as well. You may want to call it BOARD or WWIV or even something
which doesn't even look as if it's BBS-related.
--- THE FORGOTTEN LOGON ---
Many novice sysops aren't aware that WWIV also contains a reserved logon
"account" similar to the !-@NETWORK@-! logon. This account is called the
!-@REMOTE@-! account and can be used to call a program called REMOTE. This may
have valid uses, especially when running file-request utilities or linking to
networks which do not support the WWIV network exchange protocols, but in many
cases it is little more than a back door waiting to be opened. If a hacker
manages to place a REMOTE program where it can be accessed by the BBS, he can
simply enter !-@REMOTE@-! at the "NN:" prompt and have his trojan execute. Of
course, as is the case with trojans, they can do whatever the authors want
them to do. This can extend as far as transmitting copies of CONFIG.DAT and
USER.LST; once those files are in a hacker's possession, he's got the sysop's
account and the system password.
To protect against this, it is not necessary to do anything more than
install a REMOTE program before anybody else can do so. Place a file called
REMOTE.* (where * can be COM, BAT, or EXE) in your main BBS directory and set
it to read-only. At the !-@REMOTE@-! logon, the BBS will execute your REMOTE.*
program. If you have eliminated the possibility of this file being overwritten
by such methods as the PKUNZIP 2.04 rename back door, then you have protected
yourself from the !-@REMOTE@-! hack.
If you can program in any language, you might also want to make your
REMOTE program do such things as write to the daily log and reprimand the
caller. At the very least, you can use a REMOTE.BAT which looks similar to
this:
@echo off echo Nice try, but the REMOTE logon has been closed! > COM1
echo ATH0 > COM1
If you have experience with C and the WWIV source code, you can go in and
comment out the entire block of code which processes the !-@REMOTE@-! logon;
in this case, it cannot possibly be used as a back door even if a trojan
REMOTE has somehow been installed.
--- ONE WORD: BACKUPS! ---
The importance of making regular backups cannot be too strongly or
frequently stressed. They may be extensive and involve mass-storage devices,
or they may simply be .ZIPped copies of every last file related to your BBS.
At the very least, you should keep frequently-updated backup copies of
CONFIG.DAT and your DATA and MSGS directories. It is also a good idea to make
regular backups of your networks' directories, especially if you are hosting
subs. It would be a major inconvenience to your subscribers if you suddenly
lost all your subscription data. Think about which files would cause headaches
if they got lost and BACK 'EM UP!
--- CONCLUSION ---
These are just some of the more common back doors and security holes
known or alleged to exist in WWIV. It is my opinion that the majority of the
older back doors, such as the extract (bogus PKUNZIP) and wildcard hacks, will
have no effect against a properly-configured and recent version of WWIV. Other
points, such as ANSI bombs, can be easily nullified (if they are indeed even a
danger at all) by using the proper ANSI driver, and in fact the general
concern over WWIV being vulnerable to ANSI bombs seems to be completely
baseless.
Hacks performed with the aid of external programs usually rely on a
sysop's lack of knowledge, caution and/or common sense, as they cannot usually
be installed or activated in any other way except perhaps by renaming an
extracted file with PKUNZIP 2.04 or ARJ 2.30, and even these are useless to a
hacker if the proper precautions have been taken (remember, specify -o for
PKUNZIP and -n for ARJ).
I believe WWIV is 100% secure in the hands of an informed sysop.
Protecting your system against hacks may at times seem to border on paranoia
and certainly requires a bit of cleverness, but isn't a little cautious
paranoia worth the effort when your entire system is at stake?
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ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ W W I V - S P E C I F I C ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
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³ WWIV Mod and Utility Reviews ³ Papa Bear (1@5079)
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Introduction, AutoSend v1.13 and ALTW-07.MOD
A few weeks ago, I introduced a new sub-board into the WWIV world. It is
a sub-board for which I thought there was a real need. I hadn't seen anything
like it any time previously or else I wouldn't have done it.
It is called "WWIV MOD/Utility Reviews and Discussions." It is a sub
board on the WWIV-InfoBahn whose sole purpose is to review (and discuss, too
<g>) WWIV modifications and external utilities. No actual coding is to be
posted on this sub-board. Some, if not all, reviews may find their way into
the "pages" of IceNEWS as part of out WWIV-Specific department.
It accomplishes its goal by using a set format to review the items and
with specific rules governing how the reviews are to be written. I'll show a
couple of reviews, one for an utility, and another for a mod. But first, the
rules:
(1) The author of any modification/utility may not review their own work.
[And they shouldn't goad a friend into it either!]
(2) Modifications/utilities should be either registered copies of the
software or, if not registered, then they *must* be fully-functional
versions!
I'll now explain the format that should be used for review submissions on
the sub board. The primary purpose of this format is to provide anyone
considering these utilities/modifications with a quick way to determine
whether this is for them. It is not meant to be an exhaustive write-up.
NAME OF MOD/UTILITY BEING REVIEWED: {proper name}
AUTHOR'S NAME/HANDLE : {real name and handle}
VERSION NUMBER : {important to note ver. no.}
VERSION DATE (.EXE date stamp) : {this can be important, too!}
OVERALL SCORE : {a total of all scores below, divided by
4 (or 5, in the case of a mod)}
INSTALLATION : {how easy did it install, go into the
source? [score 1-10]}
DOCUMENTATION : {did the docs explain everything clearly?
did they cover everything? [score 1-10]}
PRESENTATION : {how does it look? [score 1-10]}
EASE OF USE : {is it intuitive? is it easy to use?
[score 1-10]}
CODING (MODs Only) : {is the coding easy to understand? is it
commented clearly? is the formatting in
coding consistent with WWIV? [score 1-10]}
STATED PURPOSE OF MOD/UTILITY:
------------------------------
{these should be the author's own words}
REVIEWER'S PRO COMMENTS:
-----------------------
{why did you like it? what made it stand out in your mind?}
REVIEWER'S CON COMMENTS:
------------------------
{what was wrong? explain any mark-downs in scores from above}
FINAL THOUGHTS:
---------------
{this is for anything you'd like to say about it. how to improve it. things
you'd like to seen done with it in the future.}
REVIEW WRITTEN BY : {handle / real name}
NET ADDRESS(ES) : {this is so the author can get hold of you! :) }
REVIEWER'S SYSTEM : {this should list you processor, CPU speed, operating
system, WWIV version number, memory manager, multi-
tasker, etc...}
HEAP FREE @ //STAT: {a *very* important consideration for any utilities, any
large modifications!}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sub-board is open to all people, sysops and non-sysops alike. Bad, or
negative, reviews are accepted. I don't want this turning into a "yes-man"
type of operation. The people in WWIVland deserve to know the lemons as well
as the great ones. Authors of the modifications/utilities have no say-so on
posting of reviews or inclusion in IceNEWS. We are trying to make sure this is
all on the up-and-up and completely fair and unbiased.
The sub-board is hosted by me. The SUBTYPE for subscription purposes is
REVIEW, and it can be picked up on the following node numbers/nets:
@5079 IceNET @5079 WWIVnet @15061 WWIVLink @1860 fileNET
@5050 SEXnet @5079 TARDISnet @11579 WW4net @11 norcalNET
Here is a review that I have written up for an utility, AutoSend 1.13:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME OF MOD/UTILITY BEING REVIEWED: AutoSend
AUTHOR'S NAME/HANDLE : Cris McRae / JAFO
VERSION NUMBER : 1.13
VERSION DATE (.EXE date stamp) : 03/07/94
OVERALL SCORE : 9.25
INSTALLATION : 9
DOCUMENTATION : 9
PRESENTATION : 10
EASE OF USE : 9
STATED PURPOSE OF MOD/UTILITY:
------------------------------
A WWIV Net Sub Host Utility. Features: Sends old posts to new
subscribers; posts sub rules and subscription lists; post sub ads, rules, etc.
on any sub; removes unknown systems from N*.NET files; scans DEAD.NET for dead
posts and e-mail, configuration program for easy setup, graphical packet
scanning; complete logging system
REVIEWER'S PRO COMMENTS:
-----------------------
Easy to install using the new AUTOSCFG.EXE program.
Excels at its stated purpose.
Installs very easily via the AUTOSCFG /INSTALL command.
WWIV source code mod for registered WWIV sysops helps make manual message
sending easier.
REVIEWER'S CON COMMENTS:
------------------------
Documentation should be more explicit as to what command line switches
can be used when using it in conjunction with the EPREPROC.NET file as well as
those that shouldn't be used.
There *can* be problems with memory. This reviewer has not had any of
these problems since 1.12, though.
While the /REMOVE command line switch for removing "unknown systems" is
really nice, it can be a pain when one of your subscribing systems has been
removed from the net accidentally or temporarily.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
---------------
If you host a sub-board, I *highly* recommend using this program! It
really does help new systems join in the swing of things when they first
subscribe when they get the last few messages automatically
The other options: /REMOVE, /AUTOPOST, /AUTOPURGE make this a great tool
for automatic maintenance of your sub-boards.
JAFO's support sub-board provides an excellent place to ask the author
directly for help. He is also very open to new suggestions about AutoSend.
REVIEW WRITTEN BY : Papa Bear / Tracy L. Baker
NET ADDRESS(ES) : 1@11579.ww4net, 1@5079.ice/tardis/WWIVnet, 1@5050.sexnet
1@11.nocalnet, 1@15061.WWIVLink, 1@1860.filenet
REVIEWER'S SYSTEM : 386SX-33, DRDOS 6.0, DESQview 2.6, QEMM 7.0, WWIV 4.23
HEAP FREE @ //STAT: 241k
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
And now, a review for a modification - ALTW-07.MOD:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME OF MOD/UTILITY BEING REVIEWED: ALTW-07.MOD
AUTHOR'S NAME/HANDLE : French Mod Division (4@5497)
VERSION NUMBER : Revision B (C)
VERSION DATE (.EXE date stamp) : 05/02/94
OVERALL SCORE : 9.60
INSTALLATION : 9
DOCUMENTATION : 10
PRESENTATION : 10
EASE OF USE : 10
CODING (MODs only) : 9
STATED PURPOSE OF MOD/UTILITY:
------------------------------
This modification will allow the sysop to have a much better call-out
function, it lists the nodes you are connected to on each networks, gives you
information on this node and you can move between each nodes with the arrow
keys.
REVIEWER'S PRO COMMENTS:
-----------------------
An *outstanding* modification. I really love being able to use the cursor
keys to scroll around the box, all the time highlighting the various nodes to
call out. Very easy to use. Very intuitive.
I'm also pleased with the lower "window's" information. I'm now able to
easily see a lot of the networking and node-to-node information I never knew
was there!
REVIEWER'S CON COMMENTS:
------------------------
They could have done a little better job instructing those of us
upgrading from DS007A.MOD (its predecessor). There were some minor, but
important changes to be made. Take special care if upgrading.
Also, I'm not real keen on the global variable declarations in VARS.H.
Since they aren't used anywhere else in the source, it would have made more
sense to #define those variables in NETUP.C, where they are actually used.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
---------------
Keep in mind that it is my opinion about those "unnecessary" global
definitions/variables! The mod installs just peachy, especially if you are
installing it for the first time.
This is a great mod that really deserves to be included as stock source
in WWIV!
REVIEW WRITTEN BY : Papa Bear / Tracy L. Baker
NET ADDRESS(ES) : 1@11579.ww4net, 1@5079.ice/tardis/WWIVnet, 1@5050.sexnet
1@11.nocalnet, 1@15061.WWIVLink, 1@1860.filenet
REVIEWER'S SYSTEM : 386SX-33, DRDOS 6.0, DESQview 2.6, QEMM 7.0, WWIV 4.23
HEAP FREE @ //STAT: 241k
REVIEW DATE : 05/07/94
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, that's it for this month. Here's looking forward to a long and
healthy run for both this column and this sub board. I hope all of you out
there find reason to write up a quick review!
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ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ S O F T W A R E / P R O G R A M M I N G ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
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³ To DOS... Or not to DOS... Or is Windows the answer? ³ Mega Bite (176@7672)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
All of us probably remember the first time we turned on a computer and
were mystified as it flashed incomprehensible messages onto the screen and
then proudly presented us with a C>. Then came the harrowing moment when we
realized it was not going to ask us to play a game or show us pretty pie
charts like all the demo computers had done. We searched though all the boxes
and bags and found a promising manual, "DOS x.xx". It was a large book with a
chapter on everything you could possibly need, except for what you wanted to
do right now. Most of us tried reading it and got through the first chapter
before throwing our hands up in futility.
But in that first chapter we learned some very important things like the
DIR and COPY commands. We were happy. Starting from there, whenever we needed
to do something different we would either call a friend, who invariably knew
more about it than we did. Or we chanced reading some more of the DOS manual.
It was all a learning experience and soon we all became accustomed to the
plethora of commands and syntax needed to do anything in DOS.
Then came Windows, everything was three clicks away from perfection. New
users no longer had to fumble through manuals (that would come later) to do
the simplest of things. The hardest part was getting the mouse pointer on the
right icon. They took the easy path to learning computers. But when they got
caught in a dos shell with that mysterious C> staring them in the face, they
were stumped. What in the world could they do? The all important mouse would
no longer respond to their summons, they pleaded with the computer to let them
back into Windows with all the pretty pictures and colors and a screen saver
that goes off every fifteen seconds. It was their first taste of DOS and they
were terrified, so they called us. And we would tell them, "Oh! Type this and
that and this and this and that." Having "grown up" with DOS we were experts,
but the poor guy on the other side of the phone was instantly mystified and
confused, for after all, how did we possibly remember all that? Then we
thought and replied, "I don't know, I just do."
And that is where DOS and Windows are different. Putting aside the
cosmetic differences, DOS requires a user to learn and remember a multitude of
commands and switches, whereas the only requirement for Windows is hand-eye
coordination. But then you might say, "Isn't Windows better then? You don't
have to spend all your time memorizing commands." That may be true, but if you
think carefully about how Windows works you find that it speeds up the
learning time for the user by doing more of the work for him/her. Is that bad?
Maybe. The more work someone does for you, the less control you have overall,
you become accustomed to having it done for you, and you become lazy. For
example, have you ever tried to copy select files from one drive to another in
Windows? In DOS it is a simple command: Copy *.exe a: c:, but in Windows you
have to find two or three different specification windows, look thought the
choices until you come to the one you want, mark the files, drag them
physically to the other side of the screen and drop them on the new drive.
User-friendliness (everything you need is right there and explained
clearly) is often tedious and time consuming for those of us who are used to
DOS. A 16 character statement in DOS is replaced with umpteen clicks and some
typing in Windows. The reason why many people who learned computers with DOS
hate Windows so vehemently, it is too simple. The inherent user-unfriendliness
of DOS is balanced by its great flexibility and power. Windows trades in some
of that flexibility and power for ease of working and user-friendliness. So
which one is better? That all depends on what you are doing.
DOS vs. Windows.................Tech. Help and Manuals
Until the advent of MS-DOS 6.0 DOS had almost no practical on-line help.
Slash H commands often gave incomplete or incomprehensible "help". But with
MSDOS 6.x came the HELP command which greatly enhances the usefulness of many
of the dos commands. But Windows still beats DOS hands down with the cross
referenced, easy to access help systems that COME WITH EVERY WINDOWS PROGRAM.
Don't we wish the same was true with all DOS applications? The one problem
shared by both products is the fact that the manuals both read like an
Apache/PKzip mix. The DOS manuals have gotten much [Ed. Note: Remember the DOS
3.x manuals that started renumbering the pages in the middle?] Windows hasn't
gone through the sheer number of changes DOS has so it is difficult to compare
to anything, but it is very hard to imagine the manuals doing anything but get
better.
DOS vs. Windows..................................Speed
One very serious drawback to Windows is the fact that it is a severe
memory hog. The problem has been patched and toyed with but because Windows
itself is a hog, anything not expressly made for Windows will almost always be
slower when used in Windows than when it is not. Most of the programs like
Word Perfect for Windows run more slowly than their DOS counterparts. Anything
that makes extensive and relentless use of graphics, such as flight simulator
or a fast action game becomes choppy and slow when played in a Window. DOS
doesn't have a problems like that. The reason is Windows is constantly
checking for screen saver times, taskmaster switches, residual drivers not
used in the DOS program, and an abundance of other things. This ties up memory
and eats up precious CPU time. In DOS , when a program is run it steps out of
the picture almost entirely. Before the program was run, Autoexec.bat and
Config.sys set up everything to listen to the program's instructions and stay
out of the way as much as possible.
But again, it depends what you are running. If it is a memory-intensive
CPU-burdening program, Windows will only make it slower. But if speed or
smoothness is not a factor, like in most word processors then Windows will do
just fine.
DOS vs. Windows.....................Programs Supported
Much to the dismay of many staunch DOS users, Windows programs are taking
over a good portion of the DOS market. But at this time there are still more
DOS applications and games then Windows applications and games. But due to the
fact that Windows now comes on practically every new computer system sold and
that almost all new users are learning on Windows, the places will soon be
reversed. What else is there to say?
DOS vs. Windows......................Correcting Errors
If you use computers for any length of time you are bound to screw
something up, sometimes by just turning the computer off at the wrong time.
Solving some problems is very easy, others may take hours or even days to
locate and fix. If you are using Windows and you get a fatal error a lot of
times the problem is in DOS. If you don't have experience with DOS you are
pretty much up the creek. Sure Windows comes with editors but if you never
worked with DOS you will have no idea what LH 12,512 /s means in your startup
files. Problems originating totally in Windows are generally easy to fix.
Generally. Sometimes.
Well, I can't think of much more to say in this article. I hope I have
helped you to see why you like or dislike Windows and which one is better for
you. I tried to present both DOS and Windows equally here, but, being one of
the "staunch DOS users" I mentioned earlier, I might have subconsciously
belittled Widows. If I did, I didn't mean to. Remember that there are a lot of
exceptions to anything anyone could say about DOS and Windows. So if you come
up with one example where I was wrong, don't get bent out of shape, I just
might not have thought of it. Just e-mail me and scream your head off, I don't
mind. It will help me to write better articles, taking in more points of view.
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³ Learning C - Part Five ³ Daarkhan (1@7676)
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Chapter Five: PROGRAM CONTROL STATEMENTS
IMPORTANT NOTICE
This is the FIFTH chapter in a tutorial series by Richard Rost designed
for people who know very little about programming and want to learn C. If you
have not read the previous chapters, I urge you to call Paragon BBS
(716/837-1636) and download them!
FORWARD TO CHAPTER FIVE
Well, I said I'd try to get these chapters belted out faster, but alas,
time is a luxury I have not had as of late. My thanks go out to all of the
people who have helped keep the "Learning C" message base talkative and
informative.
PROGRAM CONTROL STATEMENTS
What is a program control statement? Simply, it is a statement that
controls the execution, or "flow," of your program. Without program control
statements, your programs would be able to do little more than simply display
information. Program control statements allow your program to "branch" out to
multiple possibilities based on various conditions. The two most important
control statements are "if" and "for," and we will cover each in depth,
starting with the "if" statement in this chapter, and the "for" statement in
chapter 6.
IF
The IF statement (I use it in capital letters to show that it's a
reserved word, but do not capitalize it in your programs - remember that C is
a case-sensitive language and will puke on you if you capitalize your IF
statements) is called a "selection" statement or a "conditional" statement. It
basically tests an operation or value to determine whether it is TRUE or
FALSE. In C, something is equal to logical FALSE if it is ZERO. Anything that
is not ZERO is considered TRUE.
value logical
----- -------
1 TRUE
0 FALSE
-1 TRUE
10.3 TRUE
The basic syntax of an IF statement is:
if (condition) statement;
For example, the following statement will print, "yes" if the variable
'x' is equal to 6:
if (x==6) printf("yes");
OOPS, I FORGOT "CONDITIONAL OPERATORS"
This brings us to another topic that we need to cover: conditional
operators. These are as follows:
operator operation
-------- ---------
== equal to
!= not equal to
< less than
> greater than
<= less than or equal to
>= greater than or equal to
If you have any background with mathematics, you can easily grasp the
meaning of these operators. Do not, however, confuse the equality operator
'==' with the assignment operator '='. Both have completely different uses.
For example,
x = 1
assigns the value of '1' to the variable 'x', whereas
x == 1
tests to see if 'x' is equal to '1'. This may seem a bit confusing, but
you'll get the hang of it through many (yes, many) compiler warnings for
"possible incorrect assignment" statements. The Turbo C and Borland C
compilers catch some of the instances in which you may have improperly used
these two operators.
NOTE: for those of you who are used to Pascal or Modula-2, the equality
operator in these languages ('=') is the assignment operator in C, whereas the
assignment operator in Pascal and Modula-2 is ':=' and in C it's just the
plain '='. Don't get confused between them all. I find myself sometimes
sitting down to write in Modula-2 and using '=='s all over the place.
DRILL THIS INTO YOUR HEAD:
Assignment =
Equality ==
IF, AGAIN
OK, so back to our IF statement. The best way to learn, as I always say,
is to look at and study examples. So what I'll do now is put up some examples
and let you see what they produce.
if (1 > 2) printf("TRUE");
In this statement, the "TRUE" will never print. The conditional statement
"1 > 2" or "is 1 greater than 2" will be evaluated to FALSE and the printf()
statement will never execute.
if (2 > 1) printf("TRUE");
In this example, the "TRUE" will print. 2 is, indeed, greater than 1.
if (2 >= 1) printf ("TRUE");
Again, the "TRUE" will print. 2 is greater than or equal to 1.
if (2) printf("TRUE");
This is an example of how you can put just about anything inside a
conditional statement. Remember, anything that is ZERO is equivalent to
logical FALSE. Everything else is considered TRUE. In this case, the
conditional statement is just '2' which is not zero, and is henceforth TRUE.
In this example, the "TRUE" will print.
if (!2) printf("TRUE");
Now, here, we introduce another new symbol, the logical NOT or '!'
symbol. You can negate any expression by including a '!' symbol before it. We
touched on it earlier with the '!=' or NOT EQUAL TO operator.
expression logical evaluation
---------- ------------------
0 FALSE
1 TRUE
-1 TRUE
!0 TRUE
!1 FALSE
!-1 FALSE
In our example above, the '!2' is evaluated to be equal to "NOT 2" which
is FALSE, so the "TRUE" will not print. If this seems confusing, read it
again. Ha ha ha... seriously, though, it will come to you - just remember that
you don't necessarily HAVE to have a mathematical expression inside the
parentheses of a conditional expression. You can have just about everything
from single numbers and variables to whole assignment statements! We'll see
some examples of more things you can do with the IF statement later.
SAMPLE PROGRAM
Ok, let's take a look at another example. This complete program will ask
the user to enter a number (int) and will tell the user whether or not the
number is equal to ZERO or not.
/* Am I Zero? */
#include <stdio.h>
void main (void)
{
int i;
printf ("Input a number: ");
scanf ("%i",&i);
if (i==0) printf ("Your number is ZERO");
if (i!=0) printf ("Your number is not ZERO");
}
Ok, so it's not the most functional program in the world, but it works.
First, a message prompts the user to input a number. Then the scanf() function
reads a number from the keyboard into the address of the variable 'i' (need to
review scanf()?) Then, the value of i is checked to see whether it is equal to
ZERO. If so, the first message is printed. If i is NOT zero, the second
message is printed. Note that there will NEVER be a case in which both
messages print NOR will there ever be a case where neither message is printed.
ONE and ONLY ONE message will always be printed.
One other way we could have represented the conditional statements above
would have been to just test the logical values of the variable 'i' as
follows:
if (i) printf ("Your number is NOT zero");
if (!i) printf ("Your number IS zero");
Remember, if i is logically FALSE, it is the same as being ZERO. This is
a very powerful aspect of C, and we will see more uses of it later.
IF... ELSE
It seems kind of redundant to have to check the value of i twice, doesn't
it? That's why C and most other major programming languages have an ELSE
statement. The syntax is:
if (condition) statement1;
else statement2;
Basically, if the condition is evaluated to TRUE, statement1 is executed,
otherwise (ELSE) statement2 is executed. These statements can be single
statements or entire code blocks (which we learned about in chapter 4) so we
can expand this syntax to:
if (condition) {
statements;
} else {
statements;
}
which is much more functional than single-line statements. So, let's take
a quick look at the else statement. See if you can figure out what the
following program does:
/* Am I Negative? */
#include <stdio.h>
void main (void)
{
int i;
printf ("Input a number: ");
scanf ("%i",&i);
if (i < 0) printf ("I am a negative number");
else printf ("I am NOT a negative number");
}
Simple enough, right? 'i' is evaluated, and if it's less than zero, the
first message is printed, ELSE the second message is printed. This method
saves us from having to check the value of i again - in large programs, this
can greatly effect execution speed, and code optimization is a good habit to
get into.
ASSIGNMENTS
I know that I said I would be including assignments for everyone to do,
but very few people have bothered to send me copies of their completed work,
so I'll stop doing them with this tutorial... if you really want me to
continue assignments, send them in! My e-mail address is below.
1. Write and execute a program that asks the user for a number greater
than 10. Have the computer yell at the user if the number is not in range.
2. Write and execute a program that asks the user for two numbers. Have
the computer tell the user whether or not the two numbers are EQUAL to each
other, or if not, which number is the larger of the two.
NEXT
Chapter 6 : The "for" statement.
SOURCES
Downing, Douglas. Dictionary of Computer Terms. New York:
Barrons, 1989.
Holzner, Steven. C Programming: The Accessible Guide to
Professional Programming. New York: Brady, 1991.
Schildt, Herbert. Teach Yourself C. Berkeley: Osborne
McGraw-Hill, 1990.
---. Turbo C/C++: The Complete Reference. Berkeley: Osborne
McGraw-Hill, 1990.
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³ Artificial Intelligence - Part Two ³ Louie (6@1)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
For a long period of time, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, the field
of artificial intelligence (AI) was considered a dead issue to many within the
computer sciences. Many of the predictions made by the AI experts, such as
Marvin Minsky, made great pronouncements about what was to come in the
not-too-distant future from AI. They were juiced-up on making computers that
could play chess very well and thought "well, if a computer can play chess on
par with most normal humans, then it isn't that far away from simple things
like language translation, computers seeing objects, computers thinking, etc.
etc."
Then they learned that a lot of the things that seemed simple at first
weren't so simple. There are lots of ambiguous things in this world. For a
simple example, language translation seems like something computers were
almost perfectly designed for. Give it a vast dictionary in English and in
Russian and it should be able to translate back and forth with ease. But it
doesn't work out that way. Take the English sentence "the spirit is willing,
but the flesh is weak." That, when translated by an early computer designed
for translation, came out in Russian as "the vodka is good, but the meat is
rotten."
That occurred because of meanings we attach to words. "Spirits" can mean
"alcoholic beverages." It could also mean "ghost," "soul," "good feelings,"
etc. Just a bit of a small problem.
Things like that were not beginning to be solved until the 1980s. You
needed a translator that understood what it would translate. That is still a
bit of a pipe dream even now. They have gotten better at it in choosing the
right methods, though. However, one area of AI did come forward with promised
advances. That field was Expert Systems.
Expert Systems
The major type of artificial intelligence programs to gain a lot of
attention are expert systems. Programs such as DENDRAL (for aid to chemists in
figuring out what chemical substances are which) and MYCIN (an AI expert
system for diagnosing blood diseases) have gained a lot of attention. They are
both expert systems.
An expert system contains knowledge about a particular field to assist
human experts or provide information to people who do not have access to an
expert in the particular field. Expert systems do something that seems almost
impossible at first glance. Often in AI circles, it has been found that the
things that seem simple on the surface are extremely difficult and the things
that seem extremely difficult on the surface are relatively simple. Expert
systems make a computer an expert in a narrow range of knowledge.
Today, many expert systems are in use for computer equipment repair,
investment analysis, financial estate and insurance planning, route scheduling
for vehicles, contract bidding, production control, training, etc. Many expert
systems in use around the world today.
Expert systems have three basic components: a knowledge base (database),
an inference engine, and a user interface (something common to most computer
programs). The knowledge base is a combination of data to work on and
if-then-else rules to apply to the data. This is the major reason the computer
language LISP is still widely used in AI circles. LISP can treat data and
programs statements as basically the same thing.
An example of the if-then-else rule-based structure is the following:
1. IF it is huge, THEN it is a whale.
2. IF it is NOT huge, THEN it is not a whale.
3. IF it is not a whale AND it blows a jet OR it has a blowhole OR it has a
horizontal tail, THEN it is a mammal.
4. IF is it not a whale AND it has no blowhole OR it has a vertical tail,
THEN it is a fish.
5. IF it is a mammal AND it has a pointed snout, THEN it is a dolphin.
6. IF it is a mammal AND it has a blunted snout AND it is with a whale, THEN
it is a baby whale.
7. IF it is a mammal AND it has a blunted snout AND it is not with a whale,
THEN it is a porpoise.
8. IF it is a fish AND it is by itself, THEN it may be a tuna.
9. IF it may be a tuna AND it has a double dorsal fin, THEN it is a tuna.
10. IF it may be a tuna AND it does not have a double dorsal fin, THEN it is
an unknown fish.
11. IF it is a fish AND is by itself THEN it is a swordfish or shark.
12. IF it is a swordfish or shark AND it has a sword, OR it is silvery AND has
a forward dorsal fin, THEN it is a swordfish ELSE it may be a shark.
13. IF it may be a shark AND it has sinewy swim, THEN it is a shark.
14. IF it may be a shark AND it does not have a sinewy swim, THEN it is an
unknown fish.
The words IF, THEN, ELSE, AND, and OR are capitalized because they each
perform a special operation. They are basic boolean mathematics. Conditions
met and operations performed. They are pretty much each self explanatory.
The knowledge base contains the hard data to work with as well. The data
may be like:
1. Robbie is not huge.
2. Robbie has a blow hole.
3. Robbie has a pointed a snout.
4. Jane has a double dorsal fin.
5. Jane is not huge.
6. Steve is huge.
The data would be descriptions of things in this case. You then apply the
descriptive data to the if-then rules and conclusions would fall out. This is
the domain of the inference engine.
In this example, Robbie is a dolphin, Jane a tuna, and Steve is a whale.
The inference engine of the expert system controls how and when the data
and rules in the knowledge base are applied. The two basic methods used in
inference engines are forward-chaining and backward-chaining.
Forward-chaining is sometimes refereed to as data-driven because the
inference engine uses the info that is provided to more through the network of
rules to reach all possible conclusions that can be drawn. When it doesn't
have enough info to reach conclusions then it may ask for more info.
To understand how forward-chaining works, imagine that your car has
malfunctioned. You call your mechanic and he/she asks you to describe what is
wrong. The mechanic continues to ask for more information until he/she figures
out what is wrong with your car.
Backward-chaining is the reverse of forward-chaining. Backward-chaining
starts with a possible conclusion and then tries to prove, using the data, if
that conclusion is true or false. Backward-chaining is sometimes called
object-driven because the expert system begins with "Robbie is a shark" and
then finds that Robbie isn't a shark according to its database. It would then
start again with "Robbie is a tuna" and then find out Robbie isn't a tuna.
When it finally tries "Robbie is a dolphin," it finds that it is correct and
then stops.
A good backward-chaining water animal expert system would start using
possible conclusions that are more likely to be true than other possible
conclusions. There are more tunas out there than sharks. So it would try to
see if Robbie is a tuna before it would try see if Robbie were a shark.
Backward-chaining may seem to be the process that would get answers
slower than forward-chaining, and in a simple expert system that would be the
case. However, in expert systems with very large data bases, backward-chaining
seems to be quicker most of the time.
The user interface communicates with the user of the expert system. The
user interface may ask questions when it needs more info. When I wrote an
expert system of my own when I was in college, the user interface was
practically non-existent. The system was just asking for file names. More
advanced expert systems have user interfaces that allow the user to ask
questions, provide information, etc.
Expert systems are very simple in their basic approach and set up, but,
the more rules and data in the data base, the more powerful they are. They are
starting to be used more and more to aid people in finding information because
of the shortage of and/or expense of consulting human experts.
LISP
Last month I wrote a little about the LISP programming language. LISP
(LISt Processing) is the predominant programming language used by the
Artificial Intelligence community.
John McCarthy developed LISP at MIT in 1958 because he needed a language
in which he could implement a program called "Advice Taker" efficiently.
Advice Taker never took-off itself, but the language McCarthy came up with for
it did. LISP is the second oldest programming language still in use. (FORTRAN
is the oldest)
There are many dialects of LISP around today. FranzLISP, ALISP, MacLISP
(note: MacLISPs name has nothing to do with the Apple Macintosh, MacLISP was
developed before the Apple Macs came into existence), XLISP, PC-LISP, etc. The
standard is called "Common LISP." It is an ISO and ANSI Standard language
definition.
XLISP and PC-LISP are Shareware standards for the IBM PC-compatible
market. They are both rather powerful. Both can be downloaded from The Great
White North (IceNET @1) or Paragon (@7654).
The major features that LISP offers as a programming language over other
languages are recursion, storage of programs and data as the same basic stuff,
and its ability to act as an interactive interpreter.
Recursion allows for functions to include themselves as part of their own
definitions. Other computer languages can do recursion, but they do it in
clumsy ways that are rather inefficient. Recursion is second nature to LISP.
Storing programs and data as the same basic stuff allows for programs to
be treated as data. A program could be written that would modify itself. AI
finds this a very useful thing for program learning: A program that could
teach itself a new trick. This also allows for LISP to keep track of which
instructions have been executed and how many times they were executed... which
is perfect for writing expert systems so that they can explain how conclusions
were reached.
LISP as an interactive interpreter means you have a programming
environment suitable for writing programs. Each program statement is only
executed when called for. This allows for quicker development as you don't
have to waste time compiling and recompiling all the time during the
development process.
The two LISP's I used in developing this article were:
XLISP Version 2.0 by David Betz (BIX address: dbetz).
PC-LISP v2.17 by Peter Ashwood-Smith.
Both can be downloaded from TGWN (IceNET @1) and Paragon (@7654). XLISP
includes Turbo C source code. Both are shareware software.
When I was in college, we used XLISP in the class. I wrote up one of the
programs we wrote and, with little modification, it ran in PC-LISP. I had to
change one function around a little bit and made it work by adding a few calls
to the list function in two places.
LISP's main data types (or object types if you prefer, as LISP is an
object oriented language at heart) are Symbolic Expressions, or S-Expressions
for short. The two major S-Exps are Atoms and Lists. Atoms are subdivided down
into Numbers (Fixed and Floating point), Literals, and Strings. Lists are
subdivided down into Data lists and Forms.
Numbers are just that; 1, 2, 3... 358452.254125, e, pi, etc. Fixed
numbers are what would be termed Integers in Pascal and int in C. Floating
points are what would be called Reals in Pascal and floats in C.
Literals are words, letters, etc. Things like A,B, Jim, IceNET, LISP,
WWIV-is-Great, etc. When you reference a literal you would normally reference
it with a quote mark ('). That is so LISP knows you are not trying to
reference a function or global variable.
You would reference them as 'Jim, 'IceNET, or 'WWIV is great.
Strings are mainly a lot like strings in Pascal or C. "Jim," "IceNET,"
"Deacon Blues is an evil Editor-in-Chief," etc., are string atoms. Everything
between the double quotes in included in the string.
Lists are expressions contained in parentheses. (A), (Jim), (IceNET is
great), (), ((())), (5 is a Number), etc. Lists can also contain other lists
and they can also be empty like the empty list () I noted above. Each Sublist
only counts as one element in a list, though. (LISP (Jim) (IceNET is (good)))
contains 3 elements even though there are 5 words.
Examples of lists and number of elements they contain.
List # of Elements ---- ------------- () 1
(Jim) 1
((IceNET)) 1
(Jim (IceNET is great)) 2
((())) 1 (Deacon Blues (is a Good
Editor)) 3
(An (interesting ((List)
structure))) 2
Forms come in two major types... Function and Global Variables. Functions
are defined by the user with the Function DEFUN. There are built-in functions
as well though, called primitives. Primitives are functions you would use in
creating more complicated functions.
Numerical Primitives : PLUS, DIFF, TIMES, and DIV.
PLUS performs addition. (PLUS 4 5) --> 9. (PLUS 1 2 3) --> 6.
DIFF does subtractions. (DIFF 6 2) --> 4 (DIFF 4.2 2.2) --> 2.0
TIMES is multiplication. (TIMES 5 5) -> 25. (TIMES 2 3 4) --> 24.
DIV is division. (DIV 6 2) ---> 3. (DIV 4 4) -----> 1.
PLUS and TIMES can take any number of arguments you give them. DIFF and
DIV only accept two arguments.
These can allow you to build your own functions, such as :
(DEFUN Factorial (num)
(COND ((EQUAL num 1) 1)
(t (TIMES N
(Factorial (DIFF num 1)) )) ))
You should take note that EQUAL is just what you would think it is. A
function that tests to see if two things are equal. If they are, it returns T
(True) or, if not it returns Nil (LISPese for False). COND is just a fancy way
of saying "If".
If NUM is equal to 1 THEN return 1 as the value of the function, if
not... activity T, which in this situation means "Else" and multiply NUM times
a recursive call to itself with NUM-1.
(Factorial 4) returns the value 24.
Symbolic Manipulation. the manipulation of symbols like '(IceNEWS is a
Fine publication), is what LISP was invented for. (Note the quote again. You
use those a lot in LISP for when you don't want to get data and program mixed
up.)
CAR, CDR and CONS are the heart of Symbolic Manipulation functions. CAR
means "Contents of the Address part of the Register," which sounds complicated
but in reality it means "First." It gives the first element of the list.
(CAR '(IceNEWS Is great)) --> IceNEWS.
CDR means "Contents of the Decrement part of the Register" but it really
means "Rest". Give me all of the list except the first element.
(CDR '(IceNEWS Is great)) --> (Is great).
Both these functions are often also referenced as FIRST and REST within
most LISPs. You LISP's environment can be altered so that CAR and CDR can be
referenced as FIRST and REST if you want. (Setq FIRST 'CAR) should do the
trick for you. Both CAR and CDR expect to be called with Lists, though. Don't
call them with only atoms as arguments. (CAR 'A) and (CDR 'A) both return NIL
or False.
CONS is for Constructing new lists. It accepts two arguments. It inserts
the first argument into the second argument. The first can be either a list or
atom. The second must be a list.
(CONS 'IceNEWS '(is great)) --> (IceNEWS is great).
(CONS '(Jim is an evil overlord) '(who must be stopped)) --->
((Jim is an evil overlord) who must be stopped)
There are also True-False or predicate functions. NULL, LISTP, ATOM,
NUMBERP, EQUAL, etc.
NULL tests to make sure something isn't Nil. LISTP checks to see if
something is a list or not. ATOM checks to see if something is an ATOM.
NUMBERP checks to make sure if something is a numeric atom. EQUAL, as I noted
before, checks to see if two things are equal or not.
Some other functions that should be referenced are: APPEND, a special
version of CONS. LIST which forms a new list out of its arguments, LENGTH,
which returns the number of elements in a given list as a numeric atom, and
REVERSE, which reverses a given list.
(APPEND '(IceNEWS is great) '(IceNET is cool)) ---->
(IceNEWS Is great IceNET is cool)
Compare to (CONS '(IceNEWS Is great) '(IceNET is cool)) ---->
((IceNEWS is great) IceNET is cool)
(LIST 'A) ---> (A). (LIST '(Jim is a nice guy)) ---->
((Jim is a nice guy)).
(LENGTH '(A B C D)) ---> 4.
(REVERSE '(A B C D)) --> (D C B A).
The other type of Forms are the global variables. These you alter using
Setq. Global variables can be functions as well as just your normal variable
like in Pascal or C. Like when I set a global variable equal to the CAR
function beforehand.
(SETQ **A** '(IceNET is nice)) defines a global variable of **A** which
means (IceNEW is Nice).
(CAR **A**) ----> IceNET.
(CDR **A**) ----> (is nice).
(CAR (CDR **A**)) ----> is.
(CONS 'Jimbo **A**) ----> (Jimbo IceNET is nice).
SETQ can be used for what is sometimes refereed to as polymorphism in
other languages like C++ or an OOP Pascal. It allows function names to go with
different types of functions at different times.
I'll now define some functions I have written in the past to give a feel
of what LISP can do sometimes.
Palindromep - a predicate that tests an argument list to see it is it a
list that has the same sequence of symbols when read from right to left as
when it is read left to right.
(DEFUN Palindromep (l)
(COND ((NULL l) T)
((EQUAL l (REVERSE l)) T)
(T NIL) ))
(Palindromep '(a b c b a)) ----> T.
(Palindromep '(a b c c c a)) --> NIL.
Presentp - a predicate that determines whether a given atom occurs
anywhere in an expression.
(DEFUN Presentp (a exption)
(COND ((NULL exption) NIL)
((EQUAL a (CAR exption)) T)
((LISTP (CAR exption)) (OR (Presentp a (CAR exption))
(Presentp a (CDR exption)) ))
(T (Presentp a (CDR exption)) )) )
(Presentp 'x '(SQRT (DIV (PLUS (expt x 2) (expt y 2)) 2))) ---> T.
There are other things to LISP, but those are the more difficult and
advanced aspects of the language. If anybody has any questions they would like
me to answer just drop me an e-mail (6@1 IceNET) and I will try to answer them
in an upcoming installment of this Artificial Intelligence series of articles.
Coming in the July issue of IceNEWS: Part 3 of this series.
Sources used in this series:
_Understanding Artificial Intelligence_; 1988; by Henry C. Mishkoff;
Howard W Sams.
_Artificial Intelligence... Using C_; 1987; by Herbert Schildt;
Osborne McGraw-Hill.
_The Computer Glossary: The Complete Desk Reference_; 1991; by Alan
Freedman; AmaCom.
_Using Turbo Prolog_; 1988; by Kelly M. Rich & Phillip R. Robinson;
Borland-Osborne McGraw-Hill.
_I, Robot_; 1950; by Isaac Asimov; Del Rey.
_Asimov On Science_; 1989; by Isaac Asimov; Pinnacle.
essays entitled "Thinking About Thinking" and
"More Thinking About Thinking".
_AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence_;
1993; by Daniel Crevier; BasicBooks.
_LISP: An Interactive Approach_; 1986; by Stuart C. Shapiro;
Computer Science Press.
_XLISP: An Experimental Object-Oriented Language_; 1986; by David M. Betz;
Documentation with program.
_PC-LISP User Manual_; 1987; by Peter Ashwood-Smith; Documentation with
program.
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ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ H A R D W A R E ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ Will Crawford On: The Future of Computing ³ Will (1@6754)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Every few months, people get together and try to figure out what the
computing scene will look like five, ten, or fifteen years down the line.
Often these are wild guesses, flagrantly optimistic or too narrow-sighted and
pessimistic. A committee under President Johnson was told to come up with an
idea of what computing would be like in the year 2000. Everything they
predicted had occured by the mid 1970s. Arthur C. Clarke, a science visionary
if there ever was one, overshot the direction of AI (in 2001) and understated
it as well (in some of his novels, he predicted that punch cards would still
prevail in 100 years).
The mid 1990s is certainly a turbulent time, with platforms, chips, and
operating systems all jostling for a top position, and nobody is really quite
sure what will come out on top in the end. However, computer technology is
begining to settle into a pattern and trends appear which make long range
predictions easier. While things are still murky, many technological
developments of the next five to ten years can be seen through the haze.
Hard disk capacities will double, triple, and finally increase by up to
50 times over the next five years, with no real change in cost. Two new
technologies will make this possible. The first involves using DAC chips
(Digital Audio Converter, more on them later) to filter data "noise" from the
hard disk. This will allow information to be packed much more tightly on the
disk platter without additional miniaturization costs. The second scheme,
which may bear even more potential, involves changing the orientation of the
recording medium on the disk platter to allow a much tighter density of
information.
Crystal Lattice memory may also come into its own for storage, pehaps by
the year 2000, perhaps later. This involves using a laser to store data in
"cells" a few dozen atoms across in pieces of special crystal. While current
working models only store a few dozen bits of memory, this technology has the
potential to cram terrabytes of memory into a recording media not much larger
than a marble.
The chip wars will continue for a few more years, the eventual winner
still indeterminite. IBM, and Apple especially, are betting the farm on the
success of the PowerPC RISC chip. Intel has a lot to lose if PowerPC catches
on, so they'll continue to step up R&D and solve the cooling problems of the
latest generations of Pentiums and above (Intel recently demoed a Pentium DX4.
While capable of hundreds of MIPS, the machine needed liquid cooling).
Machines using liquid nitrogen cooling might become popular if the chips can't
be made to run at a lower temperature.
If IBM and Motorolla can release the PowerPC 620 chip on schedule, and
announce even more advanced versions, they have a good chance of prevailing.
Rumors are that IBM plans to incorporate some 486 compatible circuits onto the
next generation of PowerPC, helping end the copmatibilty problems. The other
RISC manufactures, such as MIPS (makers of the R4000 chip used in Silicon
Graphics workstations, among other strong RISC machines) aren't going to toss
in the towel, so there's still the possibility of a "Dark Horse" canidate.
Who wins the chip war really depends on who wins the Operating System
War. Which chip is "in" use might become quite irrelevant if Microsoft and/or
IBM get the multi-platform versions of Windows NT and OS/2 out the door on
time. Part of Microsoft's master plan includes versions of Windows NT, which
should be able -- with minimal effort -- to run all Windows NT apps, period,
making proccessor type irrelevant. If they can improve the emulation of 80x86
programs, they might manage to do just that. If IBM wins big with OS/2, then
the PowerPC will have a definite advantage. Of course, the product under
development by the IBM/Apple join venture Talligent may change all of that.
Audio subsystems will become standard equipment on almost all new
machines, perhaps to the level of common motherboard interfaces. The DAC chips
that are becoming very popular allow customized data proccessing that allows
the sound elements to be turned to various uses. Soft modems, such as those
found on the AV Macintoshes and available from a few PC vendors, will become
increasingly popular because they can easily be upgraded with software and
double as an audio system. They'll gradually replace conventional modems. With
the advent of enhanced telecommunications environments (the so-called
Information Superhighway), the picture might change again, with direct ISDN
links replacing modems in many applications.
There's a lot going on in the PC world, and the next few years and months
are going to be very interesting.
Next Month: The PC Buyer's Quandry
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ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ Give me an A, Give me a T, Give me a Z ³ Fractal (3@5750)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
What does it spell? ATZ. It sounds really simple, and if you feed it to a
modem, 99.9% of them will say OK. Not only that, they for the most part will
connect to almost any other modem at that setting. Why is it then that so many
people have so many problems getting their modem INIT strings to work?
For starters, most are overly complex. There seems to be a mystique about
modem initialization strings that says that they need to be a complex magical
combination of indiscernible characters to result in the right connection.
Take the following examples:
(lines with - are two-line init strings)
ATE0H0M0Q0V1X4\N3%C1\A3S0=0S2=1S48=7S95=44
ATC1E0F1H0M0Q0V1X6&A1&B1&C1&D2 - AT&H1&I0&K1&N0&R2&S0S0=0S2=1
ATC1E0F1H0M0Q0V1X6&A2&B2&C1&D2S38=1 - AT&H1&I0&K1&N0&R2&S0S0=0S2=1
AT\N3%C1\K3\G0\A3%D2%E0%M3 - ATS46=138S48=7S82=128S36=1S95=44S11=50
ATE1Q0M1L2&C1&D2S0=0S2=255&W0&W1
In most cases, much of the contents of the init strings are unnecessary
as many of them match the default values that are already set on power-on.
Many modems provide more than one command to do the same thing. Sometimes, a
command that starts with a letter like M0 or M1 (speaker on or off) can be
duplicated by an S-register command like S193=0 or S193=1.
Adding to the confusion is permanent memory, which allows modems to be
pre-configured to one setting or another but which can conflict with settings
that are specified in an initialization string. The best way to eliminate this
problem and assure consistency is to begin all init strings with a factory
reset command that will start you off from a common ground; an &F will often
work toward this end.
The "ATZ" init string doesn't reset to factory defaults, it merely resets
the modem to what it was when it was powered on, which would be different if
the permanent memory has been saved to in the past. AT&F, if the modem accepts
that command, would be much better because it is more consistent. Also, avoid
saving to permanent memory (ending with &W, &W0, or &W1) because it serves no
purpose as long as an init string is being used and could cause some problems
for other software which uses the modem (it will also probably slow down the
initialization process).
Many times, redundant commands can make for long lengthy init strings.
AT&FE1 wouldn't make sense because almost any modem that is new enough to have
a default setting in ROM will always turn the echo on anyway in its default
setting, so the E1 is redundant and should be removed. Your manual will
indicate the settings that a default initiates. Follow the &F (or similar)
command only with settings you desire to be different from the default
settings. This will often include &C1 and &D2, which are common additions; &C1
enables the carrier detect line so it doesn't always indicate a connection
even when noone is online; &D2 tells the modem to hangup in response to the
dropping of the DTR line from the computer. Most term programs and BBSes
(including WWIV) will try to hangup this way. You may also want to include a
M0 if your modems default leaves the speaker turned on.
A few spaces never hurt either just to make it readable. Hayes compatible
modems completely ignore spaces, so "AT &F &C1 &D2" makes a pretty good
universal setup string for most modems.
WWIV sysops should be aware that if your modem's factory defaults should
enable auto-answer you will need to add "S0=0" to your init string or the
modem will hang up when the board tells it to answer (You'll know this because
nobody will connect)! This happens because when a modem answers, pressing any
key before a carrier is locked on will cause it to abort and the ATA sent by
the computer aborts the answer already in progress.
Common additions to the generic setup include: S10=50, which allows the
modem to recover better from a momentary lost carrier (like a call waiting
beep), S0=0, which prevents auto-answer, and M0, which turns off the speaker.
Add these only as required to keep yourself running well.
For a good init string, start with something like this:
(WWIV sysops won't forget to add the curly brace on the end :))
AT &F S2=255 S10=50
Then, if needed, add &C1, &D2, S0=0, and M0 as required. By this time,
you should be well on your way to a good connect. WWIV sysops making a .MDM
profile will then need to make sure that the result strings indicate the
appropriate connects and baud rates (this can be done by setting the MS= and
CS= numbers as required). If your modem needs different settings added to its
init string to allow it to report the caller's baud rate, then add them. You
can lock the baud rate or leave it floating as long as the result strings
indicate the appropriate action. There are reasons for going either way, but
we'll leave that as well as other tips and tricks for another time.
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ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ L I T E B Y T E S ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ Tales From A BBS Sysop - Funny Users ³ Ima Moron (1@9661)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
ÿ That Funny Occurance
Every once in a while, a user pulls/posts/or E-mails one of those
immensely funny occurances that makes the work of being a sysop worth the time
and effort. I live for those moments, and I frequently encounter that point in
time when a user torques my funny bone. On that note I'll let all of you in on
my users quirks.
In creating an incentive to donate to my BBS I utilized a program titled
"Tradewars Galactic Market" by Eric Heimburg, WWIVnet 1@4709. The program
allows an external starport feature in which the sysop can regulate item
prices, users decloak others, disclose other player's locations, or in which
the user can transwarp tow themselves anyplace. I then created an ANSI ad
campaign using a modified mafia.ans from the tradewar ANSI files. Within Mr.
Martin's ANSI I created my mafia "Don" who extolled all of the features of the
software. There would now be two classes of Tradewars playing users on my BBS;
those that paid me a bribe for the AR toggle to use the mafia and those that
just played the game without any outside intervention. To be sure of immediate
success and a large subscription list to the program I added an incentive to
pay up; all paying subscribers to my mafia could, if they wished, pay an
additional $2.00 and exclude a competitor from the mafia. One fine morning I
picked up my mail to find the following letter wrapped around nine one dollar
bills:
Dear Mr Mafia Man
I am enclosing 900 cents in small unmarked bills. Please
do not hurt my ship. I want to see it alive again.
Thank you
David [real name excluded]
I laughed myself into stitches, I gave him his access and an extra
fifteen minutes of daily user time for the humor. BTW - the letter had the
appearance of a cut up magazine.
---- User Errors ----
I had expressedly informed all of my users that they should read the
network sub-board of their interest and, after aquiring a grasp of the subject
on the sub-board, they should then post. A young man logged on shortly after
having been allowed access to the networks. He then proceeded to comment on
anything and everything. I spent most of the morning logon deleting what I
could stop from being sent out and attempting to apologize for the dialogue
that was transmitted and I restricted him.
When the youngster logged back on to the BBS the following evening, he
immediatly sent me some feedback in which he stated that he was possesed by a
fervor that he had never experienced before. Mom and dad had held a cocktail
party at their house. At the end of the party, Junior was instructed to clean
up the mess, which he devoured in gulps -- gin, wiskey, etc. What could I do?
There just isn't any way to regulate the travels of youth. I temporarily
restricted his access, then, after a week, I forgave him.
ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ How They Got Started In BBSing - Pt. 3 ³ Compiled by: Louie (6@1)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Some of the kind readership of IceNEWS may recall the older articles in
this series in which stories from well known folks around WWIVland tell us all
how they started in BBSing. Such luminaries as Wayne Bell, Filo, Jim, Deanna,
etc. told us how they started in this wonderful hobby of ours called BBSing.
Hummm... Why do we call it "BBSing?" "MUGing" (Modem User Group) gets us
funny looks when we put up picnic signs with that on it. "Modemers" doesn't
give the same oomph as BBSing. "Bauders" just sounds weird. Well, I guess we
are stuck with some strange names like "BBSing" for our hobby.
This month we have stories from DayDreamer (2@4501), an all around nice
person who wrote about being a female sysop in the May 1994 issue of IceNEWS;
Benny Hill (1@7400), the all famous Group Coordinator of WWIVnet; and
Wildfire, (1@5857) who is a nice person writing for his first time for
IceNEWS. Each is "good people"... unlike some of the IceNEWS Staff. :-) hehehe
(Hey, Will... put that axe down!) One moment please while I put down the
rebellion within our ranks!
**BANG!** Ahhhggg! **THUD!** Belch! **WAP!**
There, everything seems to be back in the natural order of things. Seems
I had to promise Will that he could be M/E next month though.
Anyway, this is getting weird and you would rather hear from Daydreamer I
am sure.
Daydreamer, #2 @4501, writes:
Dream Tales
In the time before the creation of the mountains and after the creation
of the sun, there came into being DayDreamer.
'Twas the summer of '89. A bright, beautiful afternoon that gave no hint
of what was to come. Suddenly, a sharp scream echoed throughout the building,
followed by a sigh of relief... DreamScape, the dusk to dawn BBS, emerged into
the unsuspecting world.
After hours of reading fine print labeled FYEO, the newly created sysop
knew that something wonderful was going to happen. Rising from the chair that
she had called home for the better part of the day, the weary DayDreamer
brought into creation a blinking cursor, turned out the lights, and said,
"this is good."
Early the next morning, DayDreamer rushed to the room containing
DreamScape to see what had happened in the night: arghhhhhh... absolutely
nothing, not a call, not even a wrong number. With a worried expression, she
wondered what could be wrong. Then, the reason for failure became apparent.
Who knew about this new reality? Quick, call the printers. Send out the
messengers. Let the world know that there is something new and different to be
found in the tiny town of Oklahoma City. Find kindred souls. Search for others
that share the same desires and passions, those that wish to spend long,
endless hours making a simple machine become a power to be reckoned with.
Six WWIV wizards appeared, all with thunderous attitudes, bearing
predictions of misfortune. This was not a task for m'lady, 'twas a dirty and
thankless job and best left to those more suited for it. The lady viewed the
wizards, wondering what secrets they were trying to hide, why would they want
her to stay in the "dark Ages of childbirth and housework." Squaring her
shoulders, DayDreamer said, "We shall see if the walls of ignorance can be
torn down, and women given their rightful place in the electronic age." As
time passed, the user base grew with astounding speed. The new serfs cried for
more online time, more hours of operation, more utilities, and more of
DayDreamer's ancient wisdom.
Realizing that growth was a sign of success, DayDreamer sent a carrier
falcon with registry for her creation. As days passed, she became restless.
Would the keeper of the records, Lord Bell, also feel that this was not a task
for the other gender? Then it happened. The secret code arrived. With it came
a magic number, and DreamScape evolved into a 24-hour system, made to the
specifications of DayDreamer. Hers alone. No other had anything exactly like
it. The local WWIV wizards were still skeptical, but now they asked for advice
on questions that they could not resolve.
DayDreamer became the matriarch of WWIV in Oklahoma. This also created a
new set of problems. The reigning wizard had to admit to errors in some of his
spells, spells borrowed from other wizards in distant realms. New alliances
had to be formed. The camps divided, those that followed the bard and those
that followed a dreamer. Old friendships crumbled to dust as the new ones grew
stronger. The full meaning of the original worries became clear. WWIV: another
way of warfare; a masculine skill.
DayDreamer joined a national alliance of wizards and found no unusual
comments on her gender. There were questions of course, but time and
experience had provided answers. Some made offers of a physical nature, others
wondered at what had caused her to become one of the sysops. The answer to the
latter was simple, time was at fault. 'Twas the last frontier (or so she
thought). One of the new wizards spent long hours talking with the dreamer and
a friendship about user bases, file formats, archives and network connects.
DayDreamer wondered if the past and future could blend into the present
without constant strife. A merging took place and DreamScape and StarBase
resided in the same time and space. The Dream Wizard and the StarBase Admiral
signed an agreement to co-exist, bonding the past to the future.
Then another evolution took place. DreamScape had fullfilled DayDreamer's
every expectation. The time for change was at hand. With a few keystrokes,
DreamScape ceased to exist in this reality. DayDreamer made a permanent move
to StarBase, becoming the Admiral's right-hand "man." The random ways of
DreamScape were not the ways of StarBase. Choas was not the order of the day,
but singularity of purpose. DayDreamer sent a message to the wise Texas
Wizard, title to DreamScape was transferred to the Admiral, and DayDreamer
became the "Other One."
Ah, for a moment we forgot that this was suppose to tell the tale of
being a female sysop. Sysops have no gender, just a love of creation, a desire
to make new friends and assist others in becoming familiar with the keystrokes
required to navigate a message base. Being a sysop only requires a desire to
be up long hours searching out the reason for failure when new code is
incorporated into old, the reason for modem connect failures and lost
messages, corrupted user bases, and file not found errors.
Perhaps the motto of the sysop should be "be all you can be" and nothing
more.
Wildfire, #1 @5857, tells about how it all started for him:
I originally started BBSing in 1987 on my Tandy 1000EX, with a 1200 baud
modem. I was fast at that point. 2400 bps was just introduced, but many people
I knew still only had 300 bps. I was a member of a lot of WWIV BBSes. I liked
them. They were easy for new users to get used to and there was even a Mac
running a version of WWIV. Somebody actually took the time to port over (I
think a Pascal version) WWIV, and it was a cool BBS for us young'ns. I was all
of 15 and was really getting into computers. The modem was a natural
extension. I felt I could communicate better over the modem than person to
person, and I grew with the modem.
I dropped out of BBSing for almost a year. The Tandy died (don't tell my
dad but I left the window open behind it one night and it got rainded on. He
still thinks it was a natural failure) and I was without computer. Dad then
went out looking for another computer as I was starting to sort of need one to
do reports on as my school was no longer accepting hand-written reports and we
didn't have a working typewriter. He finally decided on another Tandy, a
1000SL this time. We bought the adapter board and put the 1200 bps modem back
in and I was back in business. Procomm + 1.1TD and I were good friends at the
time. When 2400 was becoming more and more prevalent, and most BBS users had
1200 bps modems, I wanted faster. So I wasted my $80 for the then cheapest
2400, and I was again a BBS speed demon/god. 9600 baud hadn't even been heard
of yet.
I graduated high school on that Tandy 1000 and got a job at Radio Shack
when I started college. I got a lot of computer exposure there. I already knew
more than most of the RS employees about computers, so it was just natural
that I learned more about them. After about a year, I finally bought a new
computer. It was about 6 months before the 386SX came out, so the only
affordable power at the time was a 286. The company made me a deal: a 286, 10
MHz, 1 MB RAM, 1.44 MB floppy, 52 MB IDE hard drive, 101-enhanced KB, and a
VGA monitor. I put my modem in there, still had that copy of PC+TD, and was
full force into BBSing again.
About 2 years ago, probably a little more, I got my own phone line. Don't
know why. I think it was really so I could BBS without dad bugging me to get
off the line. The phone line was horrible. After complaining, rewiring,
complaining again and getting them to fix the problems, I finally could call
out without a screen full of line noise.
Two of my friends then decided to set up a BBS on my computer. I kept
telling them not to, I didn't want to run a BBS. I didn't want to, really, I
didn't. They set up a copy of WWIV 4.12 and between the two of them, it took
all of about a half-hour. Full BBS with file directories, message bases,
g-files, and a game (we were all very good DOS users at the time, stuff wasn't
hard for us). I finally sat down and made a couple of ANSI logon/logoff
screens, and made the new user message, the system message, etc. Since the
thing was set up mostly, why not finish it?
I opened part time in around April of 1992, 9:00 AM until 12:00 AM, and
ran that way for about 6 months. Then I went 24 hours, swearing that I
wouldn't join a network since I didn't want to run a BBS to start with. Well,
needless to say, here I am. The BBS takes up as much of my life as my
ex-girlfriend did. It's scary...
Benny Hill #1 @7400
I started sometime in August, 1968, in the Big Apple. There, my parents
decided they wanted to have a child.... Wait, you only want how I got started
into BBSing? Oh, Sorry...
I started calling bulletin boards on one of my old best friend's computer
in 1988. His name was Kevin Camardelle from New Orleans. His computer was a
Timex Sinclair 2068 (no, not a Timex 1000 doorstop). At times, I would go over
to his house and call a bulletin board or two because I thought they were
"neat." The system he had consisted of only a TS 2068 computer and a Westridge
300 baud modem, which was slow at the time, and real slow now that I think
about it!
The first BBS I called was named LA Medsig, which was a RBBS Bulletin
Board in New Orleans. The first WWIV bulletin board I ever called was a system
run by Josh Aasgaurd in New Orleans called, at the time, Freedom's Gate. On
that BBS, I learned about BBS etiquette by observing things I saw from several
of the board's more respected users, such as Taliesin, Quadrangle, Morgana,
Shadowspawn, The Police, Redwitch, Todd VomiT, and Elizabeth Shaw. I watched
and tried my best to blend in with the ways of BBSing, as any newbie would do.
Eventually I got the hang of it. I was definitely hooked on BBSing!
In June of 1988, I called Madman's BBS, The Funny Farm BBS (still in
operation today, WWIVnet @5401, WWIVLink @15401 - WWIV Source Distribution
Site). At that time, he had just put up his BBS and I was his 6th user. Madman
was just getting his board started and I really enjoyed calling his BBS. One
day, Madman decided to take advantage of one of WWIV's features by assigning
subops to some of his sub-boards. At that time, his assistant sysop was a man
who went by the handle of Goata. I had volunteered to become a subop of the
"Opinions" sub-board, and someone by the handle of Stalker became the subop of
the "War" board. Well, I spent a lot of time on The Funny Farm. Eventually,
something or another happened with Goata and Madman decided he needed another
cosysop, and for some reason he selected me.
As a cosysop, I spent time trying to learn all the features of WWIV, as I
did enjoy the software and preferred it over any other BBS programs that I
saw. I became fairly familiar with the software through experimenting with the
commands, DOS, etc. The trick was, I did not have an IBM-compatible, but one
of Kevin's Timex Sinclair 2068s and 300 baud modem! No previous DOS experience
whatsoever! WWIV was easy to learn as the menus were easy to go through.
We ran WWIV v4.01 at the time (a -long- time ago). At one point, we
decided to drop down to WWIV v3.21d because we wanted to install games on the
system that we could not with 4.01, as not many were available at the time.
Things ran smoothly for the Farm; more users, more activity on the system, all
was going well.
Sometime around October of '88, I learned about WWIVnet. WWIVnet at the
time probably only had 150 systems in it, if that many. The System Operator of
The Ravenloft BBS, who was Count Strahd Von Zarovich, brought WWIVnet into New
Orleans as WWIVnet @5400. I was fascinated with the networking concept: that I
could actually send e-mail to someone in California from my own computer. I
spent a lot of time trying to convince other sysops in the area to join
WWIVnet. Madman was the first I was able to convince and he joined as the
original WWIVnet @5401. Of course, Madman had to upgrade to WWIV v4.05 to join
as v3.21d was not compatible. Kevin Caparotta (Piano Man) joined soon after as
node @5402, I got Freedom's Gate on the net as @5403, and things started
rolling along. By this time, I had 255 access on most of the WWIV boards in
New Orleans and was always willing to help anyone out if I could.
Eventually, with the help of Madman, I got an IBM XT-Turbo machine with a
huge 20 MB hard drive (well, back then, it was a good size). With the machine,
I inherited a 1200 baud modem. A big jump over 300 baud. Of course, I
downloaded a copy of WWIV and put it on my machine and tried to figure out
more things about the software. In February of 1989, I got my first 2400 baud
modem through help of Foxx of The Foxxhole BBS (1@4907 WWIVnet currently).
During the summer of 1989, I spent time trying to help promote the use of
the WWIV software. During that time, the original WWIV Support Network was
created with 5 systems, including Mr Bill of Mr Bill's Abode, Filo of The
Dragon's Den, a guy from Massachusetts, Eric Golden of Farpoint Station, and
Doug Fields of The Galactic Empire. The support network was growing a bit and
I tried my best and got The Funny Farm (original) into it. We registered the
WWIV software at this point (June of 1989).
In September 1989, I moved from New Orleans to Charlotte, NC. There was
not a single WWIV BBS in the 704 area code and not a single alias BBS in the
city whatsoever. I decided to put up my own BBS and decided to call it The
Funny Farm (East Wing). When my board was put up on October 10th, 1989, its
sole purpose was for the support of the WWIV software. It was my aim as a
sysop to promote the use of the software. In time, I had one of the largest
collections of WWIV compatible games, files and utilities available anywhere!
I joined WWIVnet as node @7400 and 704 area coordinator. In this area code, we
jumped from one WWIV BBS to, at one time, over 30 of us! All but one were
alias-based boards.
In time, Wayne Bell appointed me to coordinate the WWIV Support Network.
The first thing I did as support board coordinator was limit my own power, if
it ever even existed. I made it where any system being added would be voted
upon by the membership of the area, not any decision made by just one person.
Through trial and error, I think we currently have one of the best systems of
adding support systems as needed. While not perfect, it is the best solution
we have come up with so far; To be fair to one and all who submit a support
application.
I also remember one of the biggest events that ever hit the WWIV world.
It was in late 1990. There was some dissatisfaction of what was going on in
WWIVnet. At that time, there were no group coordinators; only ACs and Wayne as
the NC. I attended a sysop meeting in Richmond, VA. There, I met John Hardman,
John Wash, Tarkender Evenstar, Lord Samos, ->DOC<-, Deanna, Moribound The
Burgermiester (MTB of The Vaporboard), Kent 1@9955, and several other sysops.
It was at that meeting that the separation of WWIVnet was put into full force,
the meeting in which WWIVLink was born. On Feb 27th of 1991, WWIVLink was made
a reality when all of the systems which were to be WWIVLink boards instead of
WWIVnet boards were cut out of WWIVnet.
I created a modification for my board at the time (WWIV v4.10 I think)
which allowed me to be on both networks at the same time. I do believe I was
the first ever multi-network BBS for a WWIV-type network. I remained on
WWIVnet and was also a charter member of WWIVLink. I did this by allowing a
command to "jump" to the other network (a different BBS.EXE entirely). I had
tweaked the code so it would make automatic callouts to both networks through
batch files and everything was in full gear then. Unfortunately, some
circumstances developed and I could not duplicate what I did to that code to
do multi-network and I dropped out of WWIVLink.
Since 1991, I have served as the WWIVnet Group 6 Coordinator. I am also
the coordinator of the WWIV Support Network. My aim still remains the same: to
promote the use of the WWIV software. My BBS is an official support board, and
one of the original Source Distribution Sites. Since my board went up, I have
received close to 45,000 calls to the system, I have over 1000 users, and have
received calls from many parts of the globe including Canada, Japan, Mexico,
Portugal, England, Spain, and Australia.
If you wish to call my system, feel free to do so! The system runs 24
hours a day, 7 days a week. We are now at 14.4k v.32bis using a USRobotics
Dual Standard modem. The software as of this writing is WWIV v4.24 beta 1. We
have auto-sysop validation so you can download WWIV-related files on the first
call. We have about 65 MB worth of WWIV-related downloads available. We also
serve as a Source Distribution Site authorized by Wayne Bell. If you wish to
be able to download the source from here, give the board a call, and read the
instructions in the g-files section #1, "System Bulletins." No upload/download
ratios for WWIV sysops!
------------------------------------------------------------
Well, there. We found out that Daydreamer doesn't seem to live within our
Universe, Wildfire is a weird person, and Benny Hill is a card-carrying wacko!
But then, you could say any of that about any BBSers in existance. Myself, I
live on the 61st planet or Sirus in the year 6547. :-) Ha ha.
I hope you liked this.
ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ Silly Strings - From IceNET Sysops Everywhere ³ Ima Moron (1@9661)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
For the June issue of the Journal, I've decided to include two partial
tagline collections submitted by Mike Hunt and Michael Siegle. Below that I've
included some humor submitted by Diamond #1 @3956.
Taglines from Mike Hunt #510 @1
"Apple" (c) Copyright 1767, Sir Isaac Newton.
And God said: E = «mvý - Zeý/r, and there was light!
On a clear disk you can seek forever
THE ROAD TO SUCCESS IS ALWAYS UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
The floggings will continue until morale improves.
I know a good tag line when I steal one.
Taglines from Michael Siegle #1 @8654
Drop your carrier...we've got you surrounded.
RAM= Rarely Adequate Memory.
Mary had a little RAM -- only about a MEG or so.
OK, here's some humor for ya. (not original) By Diamond #1 @3956
How do you tell the difference between a used car salesman and a computer
salesman?
The used car salesman knows he's lying... and knows how to drive.
ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ Word Search Puzzle Answer ³ Louhal (1@10)
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
. . . T N O F . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S
COMPUTER D . T U P T U O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . T
. L . . . . T U P N I . . . . . . . . . . . I
. . E . E . . . . . . R O T C E S . . . . . B
ANALOG JOY STICK . . . I . G . C A N A L O G . . . . . . P . .
ARRAY KEYBOARD . . T . F K A . I . . . . . . . . . . R . . .
BASIC LANGUAGE . . . R . . C U . S . E S U O M . . I . . . .
BITS MEMORY . . . . O . . I G . A . . . . . . N . . C . .
BYTES MODEM . . . . . P . . T N . B . A . . T . . O . . .
COMPUTER MONITOR . R V . . . . . . S A . . R . E . . M . . . .
DATA MOUSE S O A . . . . . . . . L . R R . . P . . D . .
DISKETTE OUTPUT P T R . . . . . . . . Y . A . . U . . . R . .
DRIVE PORT R I I . . . . . . . . . O Y . T . . . . A . .
FIELD PRINTER E N A . . . . . . . . . M J E . F . . . O . .
FILES PROGRAM A O B D I S K E T T E A . R . . O F . . B . .
FONT SECTOR D M L . . . . . . . R G . . . . R I . . Y . R
FORMATE SPREADSHEET S . E . S E T Y B G N . . . . . M L . . E E .
HACKER STRING H . S . . . . . O I . . . . . . A E . . K . .
INPUT VARIABLES E . . . . . . R R . . M O D E M T S . C . . .
E . . . . . P T . . . . D R I V E . A . . . .
T . . . . . S M E M O R Y . . . . H . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . A T A D . . . . . . . . .
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ IceNEWS is an independent newsletter published monthly as a service to ³
³ IceNET, its sysops and users. The opinions & reviews expressed herein ³
³ are the expressed views of the respective writers. All Rights Reserved.³
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ
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