206 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
206 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
============================================================================
|
||
|
||
THE SYNDICATE REPORT
|
||
Information Transmittal No. 10
|
||
Released April 16, 1987
|
||
Featuring:
|
||
BOC 800 Service Signals Major Changes (n wk 12\20)
|
||
MultiBus II Goes Unix (ele engr 12\25)
|
||
Software Publishers Step Up Anti-Piracy Actions in Canada (c.user 2\21)
|
||
Hybrid Phone System (c.user 2\21)
|
||
Lawmaker's proposal restricts computerized calls (s&t 4\15)
|
||
by The Sensei
|
||
============================================================================
|
||
Exposition:
|
||
|
||
Once again, TSReport now excepts outside sources. Anyone can write/provide
|
||
information to the Syndicate Report. The Syndicate Report is also altering
|
||
format. Rather than concentrating mainly on BELL orientated information,
|
||
the Syndicate Report now has a more broad interest. Thus, TSR now handles
|
||
all types of news gatherings.
|
||
|
||
All articles have been presented by me unless shown at the end of the
|
||
article as the information provider(s).
|
||
|
||
This transmittal is a little late, sorry.
|
||
|
||
============================================================================
|
||
|
||
BOC 800 SERVICE SIGNALS MAJOR CHANGES:
|
||
|
||
An assistant vice president of Bell Communications Research said this
|
||
month that the first application of a new signaling network and a group of
|
||
Bell Comm. Research-developed specialized data bases will transform today's
|
||
telephone system into the "Intelligent Network."
|
||
|
||
Speaking at a press conference in Washington, D.C., Robert Robrock said
|
||
the Bell operating companies (BOCs) are on the brink of the most significant
|
||
network service introduction since customers first dialed long distance
|
||
without the help of an operator 30 years ago.
|
||
Robrock said the new network is reffered to as "intelligent" because
|
||
call-handling equipment will no longer be limited to switches. \ He said its
|
||
first application will be BOC 800 service.
|
||
|
||
Business customers will be able to tailor their own BOC 800 service,
|
||
Robrock said. They'll be able to choose a single, nationwide 800 number and
|
||
select single or multiple carriers. They also can vary call distribution to
|
||
destinations based on the time of day, day of week, the caller's are code, or
|
||
other criteria.
|
||
|
||
BOC 800 service will begin in BellSouth late next year. All the BOCs
|
||
expect to be cut over by 1988. At that time, the network will be supporting
|
||
10 billion 800 call attempts per year. The 800 service is only the first of
|
||
many new services the network makes possible. Included are such services as
|
||
area-wide Centrex (R) and a new billing procedure for CREDIT CARD CALLS that
|
||
verifies the caller's identity before call completion.
|
||
|
||
"A local switch no longer needs to contain all sorts of special call-
|
||
handling information," Robrock said. "Rather, it only needs to send a query
|
||
to the data base. Therefore, changing or adding a service could mean simply
|
||
changing or adding information to the data base -- rather than updating
|
||
hundreds of switches."
|
||
|
||
|
||
============================================================================
|
||
|
||
MULTIBUS II GOES UNIX:
|
||
|
||
The first MultiBus II UNIX System V development system lets systems
|
||
designers get up and running with a minimum fuss. The SDU-II from Microbar
|
||
System Inc. is a complete development key with all the necessary ingredients.
|
||
The heart ofthe system is Microbar's MT 68020 single-board computer with a
|
||
16.7-MHz 68020, a magabyte of dual-ported RAM (expandable to 4 Mbytes), SCSI
|
||
disk and tape controller and a pair of RS-232 ports. The OS (operating system),
|
||
Unix System C, Release 2, is fully loaded and preconfigured on a 40--
|
||
Mbyte Winchester drive. The software includes sample drivers for several
|
||
different peripherals and instructions for reconfiguring other user-supplied
|
||
devices. Compared with VME, the 40-Mbyte-per-second MB II offers
|
||
synchronous protocals for easier system design and improved noise immunity.
|
||
The multiplexed bus with parity offers greater efficiency and reliability and
|
||
it supports burst or sequential data transfers for maximum transfer rates,
|
||
adds Sherrod. And, Multibus supports distributed bus arbitration that
|
||
implements advanced multiple bus master configurations efficiently and includes
|
||
will-- defined secondary buses for optimum data, message and control transfers.
|
||
|
||
|
||
:::::::::::::::::Information provided by Swingline Edison:::::::::::::::::::
|
||
|
||
============================================================================
|
||
|
||
SOFTWARE PUBLISHERS STEP UP ANTI-PIRACY ACTIONS IN CANADA:
|
||
|
||
Through civil and criminal actions, software publishers are stepping up
|
||
efforts to curb unauthorized copying of software in Canada. On Jan. 8, 1987,
|
||
Canada Judge Paul Rouleau ordered Montreal-based C&D Data Systems to pay
|
||
36,000$ in damages to Concept Omega Corp. of Somerville, New Jersey, for
|
||
illegaly reproducing copies of Concept Omega's Thoroughbred Software for
|
||
PC-DOS, Unix, and Xenix systems.
|
||
|
||
In addition, Judge Rouleau ordered C&D Data Systems to provide Concept Omega
|
||
with a list of all illegal copies made and to replace unauthorized copies with
|
||
legitimate copies, according to Roger Sparks, vice president of
|
||
marketing for Concept Omega. Many customers did not know they were buying
|
||
illegitimate copies of Thoroughbred, Sparks said, adding that C&D had sold
|
||
both legitimate and illegitimate copies of the program.
|
||
|
||
Concept Omega filed charges in Dec. and received a search and seizure
|
||
order for its attorneys to enter C&D's offices and obtain evidence, Sparks said.
|
||
The search and seizure was similar to an action recently taken by Lotus
|
||
Development Corp., the Software Publishers Association, and six other software
|
||
publishers against softsave Information Services Inc. of Cancouver, British
|
||
Columbia ("Canadain Rental Firm charged with Copyright Infregement," Feb. 5, 1987).
|
||
|
||
The pursuit of illegal software copiers is not limited to civil actions
|
||
in Canada, however. Recently, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials in
|
||
Toronto brought criminal fraud charges against three rental firms in Toronto,
|
||
according to RCMP Constable Pierre Riopel of the Toronto trademark copyright
|
||
unit. The RCMP raided the firms to collect evidence and shut down the
|
||
operations, Riopel said.
|
||
|
||
Charged in the raid were Softcity of Scarborough, Ontario; Photo
|
||
Insurance of Toronto; and Brent Muray Radbourne of Toronto, Riopel said. Fraud
|
||
charges were filed because criminal copyright laws in Canada permit a maximum
|
||
fine of 200$, Riopel said. Under fraud charges, defendants face stiffer fines
|
||
and possible jail sentences.
|
||
|
||
Radbourne's attorney confirmed that his client had allowed customers
|
||
to come to his business to make copies of the software for a fee. "The question
|
||
is whether he did anything illegal," said Hy Bergal, a Toronto attorney.
|
||
"The question is, are there proprietary rights to that software that belong to
|
||
somebody else?"
|
||
|
||
Canadian appellate courts are considering cases related to copying of
|
||
BIOS code, which might clarify the illegality of unauthorized software copying
|
||
in Canada, said Robert Brouillette, partner at the Montreal law firm of Clark
|
||
Woods, which represents Concept Omega.
|
||
|
||
============================================================================
|
||
|
||
HYBRID PHONE SYSTEM:
|
||
|
||
There used to be a sharp division between the kind of Telephone system you
|
||
found in a small business and the kind you found in a large corp.
|
||
To put it simply, small businesses had key systems and large businesses had
|
||
private automatic-branch exchanges. The electromechanical key system can have
|
||
as few as two lines and four telephones (a 2 x 4 system), but seldom has more
|
||
than 15 telephones (or stations or sets). Each station has a button for each
|
||
line that blinks when the line is busy. With this arrangement, often called a
|
||
squared system, each user knows which lines are in use and can answer any
|
||
ringing line if the receptinist is busy.
|
||
|
||
Electronic key systems, priced around 500$-600$ per station, have a
|
||
similar config. They have a few additional microprocessor-controlled features
|
||
like speed dialing and conference calling. You cn add more lines, but that
|
||
meanes:1W-Kk:Ul4RkKWUQQ=9-Y
|
||
At the other end of the monetary scale in the private branch exchange or PBX.
|
||
At a cost of around 800$-1,000$ per sation, it can accommodate hundreds of users.
|
||
You can expand it even further by adding modular circuit cards. Users do not
|
||
know what calls are coming in because the receptionist fields them all at the
|
||
front desk and switches them to the appropriate station.
|
||
Private branch exchanges are microprocessor controlled and have considerable
|
||
memory-GTE's Omni is equipped with 1 megabyte (MB) of RAM. and a 20MB hard disk.
|
||
That opens the way for all kinds of data processing capabilities: integrated
|
||
voice-data transmission, networking within and among company locations, to name a
|
||
few. Some manufacturers incorporate a telephone and data terminal in the
|
||
individual station units.
|
||
|
||
::::::::::::::::::Information provided by Ascii Py-Rat X:::::::::::::::::::
|
||
|
||
============================================================================
|
||
|
||
LAWMAKER'S PROPOSAL RETRICTS COMPUTERIZED CALLS:
|
||
|
||
A funny thing happened to a man named Lakin the other day that boosted
|
||
his hostility a bit: He got a call from a computer named John who, by all
|
||
accounts, simply would not get off his telephone line. As a result, said Lakin,
|
||
a free-lancer who does commercials and celebrity interviews for radio stations
|
||
around the country, he missed a telephone interview that he had spent two weeks
|
||
setting up.
|
||
|
||
You thus can understand how Lakin's interest in the political process has perked up since he learned that Sen. Allan Spear, DFL-MN, introduced a bill
|
||
in the Legislature to regulate these computerized forays into our living rooms.
|
||
|
||
His complaint was that he tried to hang up, but that John the Computer
|
||
held onto the line for what Lakin estimated was about 3 minutes. How ever,
|
||
Central Telephone Co. which serves Lakin's, contended that its spiffy, up-to--
|
||
date, good-as-Bell's electronic switching gear could not have allowed that to
|
||
happen.
|
||
|
||
The equipment is designed to force a disconnect within 15 seconds after
|
||
the person being called hangs up. Most Bell companies use a 11-second lag.
|
||
The delays are necessary because new telephone features -- call waiting and
|
||
forwarding, for example -- are operated by the switch hook.
|
||
|
||
============================================================================
|
||
|
||
If there is any question to the information in this file, contact the
|
||
author. Now can be found on the Private Sector 20 Meg, 3/1200 baud
|
||
system at (201) 366-4431 (2600 Magazine Bulliten Board).
|
||
|
||
============================================================================
|
||
This concludes this transmittal No. 10 provided by:
|
||
The Sensei of The Syndicate Report
|
||
Released April 16, 1987
|
||
============================================================================
|
||
[Mother Earth BBS]
|