F I D O N E W S -- Vol.10 No.22 (31-May-1993)
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| A newsletter of the | |
| FidoNet BBS community | Published by: |
| _ | |
| / \ | "FidoNews" BBS |
| /|oo \ | +1-519-570-4176 1:1/23 |
| (_| /_) | |
| _`@/_ \ _ | Editors: |
| | | \ \\ | Sylvia Maxwell 1:221/194 |
| | (*) | \ )) | Donald Tees 1:221/192 |
| |__U__| / \// | Tim Pozar 1:125/555 |
| _//|| _\ / | |
| (_/(_|(____/ | |
| (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. |
| | -- JOSEPH PULITZER |
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Submission address: editors 1:1/23 |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Internet addresses: |
| |
| Sylvia --
[email protected] |
| Donald --
[email protected] |
| Tim --
[email protected] |
| Both Don & Sylvia (submission address) |
|
[email protected] |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| For information, copyrights, article submissions, |
| obtaining copies and other boring but important details, |
| please refer to the end of this file. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
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Table of Contents
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1. Editorial..................................................... 1
2. Articles...................................................... 2
The Cynic's Sandbox, v2.666................................. 2
"The Free BBS".............................................. 4
FIDONEWS? WHAT'S IT?........................................ 5
Solving the Modem Init Problem.............................. 5
3. Fidonews Information.......................................... 7
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Editorial
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FidoNews 10-22 Page: 2 31 May 1993
It's that time of week again, and we have a fairly sparce
issue. There is one article, however, that brings up a sore
point.
We are the *editors* of Fidonews. We are not the writers,
nor are we the censors. By and large, we print the articles
that we receive.
An article this week complains that we do not print enough
articles from Europe. If no-one in Europe submits an article,
then we do not print anything from Europe ... it is that simple.
We are quite willing to revise and re-write articles if the
writer feels that their english is not good enough. We can also
take a run at translating them, if time permits. Even a rough
translation would be a big help as we do not get a lot of
practice. Between us, we can read english, spanish, german,
and french. Just give permission in a covering letter.
The same thing goes for various subjects. About once per
week, we get a complaint reading "why do you not have articles
on ...". The answer is always the same ... "because no one
wrote one. Would you like to write such an article?"
Invariably, the letter writers never do.
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Articles
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The Cynic's Sandbox, v2.666
R. Cynic
Hey, kids! Been kicked out of Fight-O-Net? Got a sadistic NC?
Ego-crazed moderators ruining your favorite echo? Join the
club. Join the club and CLEAR YOUR NAME with the handy
On-Line-Distributable Fight-O-Snooze Super Innocence Legal kit!
The OLD FOSSIL (No relation to Ray Gwinn) consists of three
must-have items.
1) Sample Letter templates! Before the OLD FOSSIL, you were
forced to come up with original insults, obvious examples
of power abuse, and so many other difficult things.
With the OLD FOSSIL, all you provide is a name and position!
Insults are taken from a large database, and can be
customized should you so desire!
The output is a perfectly done statement of your innocence.
Here's a sample!
Dear Fight-O-Snooze readers:
My _NC_, _Phil Cayton_ is a psychotic power-hungry dictator
who has kicked me out of Fight-O-Net for no reason at all.
FidoNews 10-22 Page: 3 31 May 1993
I know that you all, as fair and right-thinking people will
.
.
.
Thank you for reading this note, and I hope that you'll join
me in stringing my _NC_ up by the earlobes.
Sincerly,
The Good Guy
See? A masterpiece of modern prose. And that's just ONE of
the sample templates! Let's try another.
Dear Fight-O-Snooze readers:
The _moderator_, _Paul Stevens_, of my favorite echo,
_PETCARE_, has kicked me out for no reason other than me
occasionally posting about how I like to keep dead cats in
plastic bags.
I know that you all, as fair and right-thinking people will
.
.
.
Thank you for reading this note, and I hope that you'll join
me in stringing the _moderator_ up by the kneecaps.
Sincerly,
The Good Guy
But that's not all! The OLD FOSSIL also comes with:
2) The R. Cynic FLAME DICTIONARY! Learn to POST IN ALL CAPS AND
CALL PEOPLE SHEEP-MOLESTING NAZIS! Great for those ECHOMAIL
chats! Imagine how much more powerful your posts can be!
The R. Cynic FLAME DICTIONARY! also includes a section on
how to claim that someone else was using your account to
post insults! The invaluable accessory for today's Fight-O-
Net junkie!
3) The R. Cynic kit of BBS-crashin' ZIP files and VIRUSES! Does
that nasty sheep-molestin' nazi NC automatically unzip and
virus-scan ALL uploads? Just upload one of our special ZIP
files which expands from under 100K to over 300 megs!
They've filled your life with annoyance, so you fill their
disk with ascii 0x07!
For even more fun, just file-attach one of over TWENTY trojan
horses and logic bombs! Featuring such classics as
"RUNMENOW.COM" and the "Floppy-Dice-O-Matic" disk mangler,
it's a package that's sure to be fun for the whole family!
Remember - you're the GOOD GUY! You can take REVENGE! You can
DENY EVERYTHING!
FidoNews 10-22 Page: 4 31 May 1993
Look for the OLD FOSSIL on a BBS near you!
Next week:
Dark Glasses, Dumb Ideas: The Cyberpunk Craze.
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"The Free BBS"
Brian McGroarty
1:2210/7956
I am starting a committee which will be developing and maintaining
platform independent BBS software whose source-code and executables
will belong to all members of the FidoNet community.
Currently experienced sysops, programmers on all platforms and multi-
lingual document writers who are willing to contribute services to
such a project are asked to contact me with information on how they are
willing to help or questions about the project.
Volunteer programmers and consultants will be divided into groups
covering C-based mailer and BBS orchestration, mailer communication
protocol, file transfer protocols, database management (message bases,
user records, node-list management, et cetera.), platform-specific
communications and display routines, single-platform testing and
everything else that makes a system work.
The global portions of the system will be written in C or C++, while
the platform-specific portions may be written in whatever language the
programmers deem best.
Platform-specific routines are planned for MS-DOS, MS-Windows/Windows
NT, OS/2, the Amiga, the MacIntosh and Unix, although additional
platforms would be entertained.
By making the bulk of the system platform independant while creating
powerful, high-performance system-specific support routines for as
many platforms as possible we will be providing a powerful, new package
which will make and keep FidoNet and the latest and greatest BBS
features affordable and available to *everyone!*
I hope that many of you will join me in this exciting venture, and I
ask that you please pass this information along to other potential
contributors.
Hope to hear from you soon!
FidoNews 10-22 Page: 5 31 May 1993
FIDONEWS? WHAT'S IT?
For years I've been reading FIDONEWS and asking myself: what's
this about? I've read articles about every remote corner of USA;
about all the problems American SysOps deal with; about lots and
lots of ridiculous things for us, European SysOps. Did you
think, any time, that there are Fidonet nodes all around the
world that are not interested in The American SysOps'problems?
That don't think like you? That do not live in your cultural,
social, economical, political universe?
For years we haven't, for a single issue, read one line about
European nodes' problems. Do you know where Europe is? Do you
know the world is not only the USA?
FIDONET is all around the world, not only in America. We can't
understand what you are writing, because you write about you, not
FIDONET. I know I can't write plain english, or even understand
American SysOps' problems because I'm not American. But can you
write Portuguese?... or French, or German, or...
For years I've laughed every week with each new issue of
Fidonews: I couldn't understand what you want with it. Now I know:
you are not able to see through your borders! It seems that you
think America is the center of world! But it is not! I am here
and am indifferent towards Americans, the American way of life,
American problems, humor, likes and dislikes. Your problems are
nothing to me! I don't care about what you think.
We have our own problems, not yours. Why are we forced to read
all this junk? I will never read it again! At least untill you
publish articles on Fidonet, not on America. Please put this
into your heads: Fidonet is all around the world, not only in
America.
by Joao Ledo
IELINE BBS
2:361/10
Portugal
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Solving the Modem Init Problem
by Donald Tees 221/192
One of the most common problems that everyone seems to
experience at one time or another, is getting a new modem and
getting it set up correctly. Modem initialization strings not
only have to be changed for the mailer and BBS, but for other
various communications programs.
With a new generation of high speed modems on its' way, the
problem is about to start up again. Locally, a few of us have
standardized on a methodology that I think deserves wider use.
FidoNews 10-22 Page: 6 31 May 1993
If a large number of people begin to set things up this way, the
problem can be trivialized.
The process consists of two parts. First of all, every
program that uses the modem is set up to initialize by setting
to the battery backed up settings. Secondly, a standard file to
set the correct parameters into memory is created, and *played
into the modem as an ASCII upload*. The second portion of this
is the crucial one. Those text files can be created using a
standard text editor, and sent arround the country like any
other bit of software. Let me use my dual standard as an example.
I have a file that looks like the following:
AT&F ;set to factory defaults
ATM3
ATX7
AT&A3
AT&B1
AT&A3
AT&H1
AT&K3
AT&R2
AT&Y0
ATS2=255
ATS7=120
ATS10=30
ATS11=50
ATS13=4
ATS28=40
AT&W ;store that in the battery
ATI4 ;confirm it on the screen
When I switch to the dual-standard, I simply run Procomm, and
upload that to the modem as an ASCII file. Nothing else
changes. Within the Binkley configuration, my initialization is
set to ATZ|ATM0|. My communiaction programs are all set as ATZ|.
As a standard, I use the extension .MDM for modem files. I
therefore have a HOST.MDM for my dual standard, a 2400.MDM for
my backup modem, and a GANDALF.MDM for my spare 9600 baud
gandalf modem. Switching between those is simple and fast.
While I realize that most people use the "ATZ" trick for
setting up their modems, having those files available is of real
benefit. Not only can they be traded about, but they make life
much easier if the modem setup is ever lost.
As a closing thought, many of you probably rely on the
batteries never going dead. You fiddled manually until you had
the modem working, then left it. Well, the ATI4 command will
usually display current settings. That display can be
downloaded into a file, then edited into a file as shown above.
Having your settings stored in a disk file can be a real
life-saver if you ever get into a modem problem.
FidoNews 10-22 Page: 7 31 May 1993
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Fidonews Information
========================================================================
------- FIDONEWS MASTHEAD AND CONTACT INFORMATION ----------------
Editors: Sylvia Maxwell, Donald Tees, Tim Pozar
Editors Emeritii: Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell, Vince Perriello,
Tom Jennings
IMPORTANT NOTE: The FidoNet address of the FidoNews BBS has been
changed!!! Please make a note of this.
"FidoNews" BBS
FidoNet 1:1/23
BBS +1-519-570-4176, 300/1200/2400/14200/V.32bis/HST(DS)
Internet addresses:
Don & Sylvia (submission address)
[email protected]
Sylvia --
[email protected]
Donald --
[email protected]
Tim --
[email protected]
(Postal Service mailing address) (have extreme patience)
FidoNews
172 Duke St. E.
Kitchener, Ontario
Canada
N2H 1A7
Published weekly by and for the members of the FidoNet international
amateur electronic mail system. It is a compilation of individual
articles contributed by their authors or their authorized agents. The
contribution of articles to this compilation does not diminish the
rights of the authors. Opinions expressed in these articles are those
of the authors and not necessarily those of FidoNews.
Authors retain copyright on individual works; otherwise FidoNews is
copyright 1993 Sylvia Maxwell. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or
distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in
other circumstances, please contact the original authors, or FidoNews
(we're easy).
OBTAINING COPIES: The-most-recent-issue-ONLY of FidoNews in electronic
form may be obtained from the FidoNews BBS via manual download or
Wazoo FileRequest, or from various sites in the FidoNet and Internet.
PRINTED COPIES may be obtained from Fido Software for $10.00US each
PostPaid First Class within North America, or $13.00US elsewhere,
mailed Air Mail. (US funds drawn upon a US bank only.)
BACK ISSUES: Available from FidoNet nodes 1:102/138, 1:216/21,
1:125/1212, (and probably others), via filerequest or download
FidoNews 10-22 Page: 8 31 May 1993
(consult a recent nodelist for phone numbers).
A very nice index to the Tables of Contents to all FidoNews volumes
can be filerequested from 1:396/1 or 1:216/21. The name(s) to request
are FNEWSxTC.ZIP, where 'x' is the volume number; 1=1984, 2=1985...
through 8=1991.
INTERNET USERS: FidoNews is available via FTP from ftp.ieee.org, in
directory ~ftp/pub/fidonet/fidonews. If you have questions regarding
FidoNet, please direct them to
[email protected], not the
FidoNews BBS. (Be kind and patient; David Deitch is generously
volunteering to handle FidoNet/Internet questions.)
SUBMISSIONS: You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in
FidoNews. Article submission requirements are contained in the file
ARTSPEC.DOC, available from the FidoNews BBS, or Wazoo filerequestable
from 1:1/23 as file "ARTSPEC.DOC". Please read it.
"Fido", "FidoNet" and the dog-with-diskette are U.S. registered
trademarks of Tom Jennings, and are used with permission.
Asked what he thought of Western civilization,
M.K. Gandhi said, "I think it would be an excellent idea".
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