Fidonews is published weekly by SEAboard, Fido 107/7. You
are encouraged to submit articles for publication in
Fidonews. Article submission standards are contained in the
file FIDONEWS.DOC, available from Fido 107/7.
Disclaimer or don't-blame-us:
The contents of the articles contained here are not our
responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them;
everything here is subject to debate. We publish EVERYTHING
received.
This week's guest editorial is by Tom Jennings.
There is much legislation going around to restrict the use
of computers connected to the phone system. Much of it is
very 1984 type stuff, tramps on First Amendment rights in
the name of law and order, is deadly serious, and will be
deadly to BBSing as we know it. A very few bills are
actually good things. PLEASE try to stay aware of what's
happening. Some form of control is going to happen. Just
what it consists of depends on whether we get a say in it or
not.
The crooks in DC don't announce to the world when
they are about to do something to someone; the less who
know, the fewer complaints. If you read something related
in the newspaper, please spread the word! Don't assume that
"everyone else knows this already". Many of these things
are sneaked through quietly, so make noise! Submit them to
FidoNews, upload to your local BBS, tell other BBSers.
At some point in the future some actions groups will
coalesce; please be prepared to support them. Write
FIDONEWS -- 02 Sep 85 00:01:52 Page 2
letters, mail money. This applies to everyone; when the Tom
Tcimpidis case in LA happened, in 1984, a lot of sysops took
the "head in the sand" approach. This is guarenteed to lose
us our boards. There are a lot of us, sysops, users and
all. If we all do something, I think we'd all be suprised
at how many there are of us. No one is going to be shot, so
stand up for your rights!
FIDONEWS -- 02 Sep 85 00:01:53 Page 3
============================================================
NEWS
============================================================
From: Brian Sietz 107/17
Subject: National Fidonet User Directory
I believe that the concept of the fidonet national user directory
is a terriffic idea, but it has a few problems:
- It takes up too much disk space for sysops.
- It is much too big for users to download.
- The information is quickly outdated.
- The cost of publishing in hardcopy is not worth the expense.
One solution that would solve the above problems and make the
user directory a bit more useful would be to shorten the number
of users listed. The criterion for being listed in the directory
should be any user who called more than 20 times, any user who
has a fidonet credit, users with uploads, and users with privs
above NORMAL. I picked 20 as the number of calls without too
much thought - it just seemed that 20 showed enough interest to
be considered a "frequent caller". Part of the problem with
including all users is that you get your one time callers. I
do not mean to imply that non-frequent callers are not desirable,
it just means that it is too soon to know if users from other
states would be interested in sending mail.
If we keep the list short and concise, the information would
be more useful to both sysops and users.
THE CONTINUING STORY OF
LINKING FIRE DEPARTMENT
OPERATIONS EVERYWHERE
INTO ONE COHESIVE
MASS
(What a Dream!)
By Christopher Baker, Sysop,
Metro-Fire Fido, 18/14
==============================
Our primary function, in the beginning, will be to assemble
as many depts as possible into a sub-net or a number of
sub-nets to establish a base for communication between
depts across the country that would not otherwise be aware
of each other. While that is being accomplished and once it
is in force, our function will be to provide net
coordination and a central locus for collection and
dissemination of information of interest to all.
As you may or may not know, fire department operations bear
little resemblance to any other form of endeavor. This
uniqueness begs (it seems to me) for a common mode of
communication to share ideas and experiences as well as
computer programs specific to fire dept ops. For example,
we have a dept of 1200+ members. We are writing a specific
program to automate the calling of overtime, which is now
done manually, that will automatically sort, file, compare
qualifications and produce an updated listing of who is
next eligible and qualified for overtime. With this many
people and with all the different levels and types of
qualifications, calling overtime is a genuine pain!
Programs of this type could be shared with other
depts via the sub-net we are proposing. I also hope to get
a tie-in to the F.E.M.A. and National Fire Academy systems
for bulletins and other info.
Metro-Dade Fire & Rescue is in the process of setting up an
administrative data network consisting of this 3270 set-up
and a number of IBM ATs. This network will handle the
daily, routine paperwork and allow for individual site E-
mail and program development. This network will operate
outside of the Dade County Data Processing system and be
exclusively for the use of our Dept. The program
development will be managed by a central office but the
programming efforts will come largely from volunteers from
within the Dept who work at it in their spare time or time
alloted from their normal duties for this purpose.
The in-house AT network should develop some interesting
applications for this Dept that may be of use or interest
to other depts, regardless of size. These developments
would be available to other depts through the Fido sub-net
I propose.
This is, generally, what I have in mind at present for the
Fire Net. I hope this information will be of assistance to
FIDONEWS -- 02 Sep 85 00:01:56 Page 5
those of you trying to convince your departments that
computers and data links are the future and are beneficial
for all concerned.
I appreciate the many responses to my article. If I can
be of further assistance to you,please do not hesitate to
ask. FidoMail sent on Mondays & Tuesdays is not processed
until Wednesday(Mon-Tue=my days off), otherwise any mail
will be replied to on the next FidoMail day.
If you would like access to our board, please send the name
you wish to sign on under and the password you would like
to use by PRIVATE FidoMail. Please include the name of your
department, your city and state, and a data or voice phone
number you can be reached at. Your access will be granted
upon receipt. Send all requests marked PRIVATE to Sysop,
18/14. If you wish to call the board and fill out a
verification questionaire, please fell free to do so but be
advised that this method may slow down your access
considerably. Our data number is 305-596-8611. If you have
a question that needs a direct or immediate answer, our
voice line is 305-596-8576. Voice contact is only possible
from 1430-2230, Wednesday through Sunday. (I'm off on
Monday and Tuesday.)
Because my USENET message base areas usually get
upwards of 250 messages per week, I needed to create a
utility to be run from an external event to renumber Fido
message bases. Since the old RENUM utility does not fix
the USER.BBS file after renumbering the messages, I made
my own renumbering program. This program consists of the
Sysop only 2 and 8 commands taken from ROVER, and able to
be run with command line arguments. It allows killing
messages by date, and received messages (sysop 2 command),
and also renumbering message bases, and the user list
(sysop 8 command). The program is being distributed as
RENUM.ARC, and has been sent to all HOST nodes (or at least
is being sent to all host nodes). Since FidoNet only runs
for 1 hour each night it is being sent to about 8 hosts
per night. If your host does not have it, and you are
interested, it can be downloaded from Fido 101/101 - The
UN*X Gateway any time.
Bob Hartman
Sysop 101/101
The UN*X Gateway
and Home of Rover
A little known fact in the PC world is that there
are Intel 8088 and 8086 compatible chips that simply run
faster than the originals! The whiz chips are known as the
NEC V20 (Intel 8088 compatible - NEC part UPD70108), and
the NEC V30 (Intel 8086 compatible - NEC part ???). I
recently installed the NEC V20 in my IBM PC, crossed my
fingers and turned on the machine. Since I didn't smell
any smoke, I turned on the monitor. After what seemed like
an eternity, the familiar whirring of the disk started, and
my PC was alive. I tried doing a bunch of things like
changing directories, using 1-2-3, etc, and it all worked.
The next step was to run some random timing tests with the
new chip. Since I had run them just before replacing the
chip, I was interested in what the timing differences
would be. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find that
every program that I tried ran between 5% and 25% faster
with the NEC chip, than with the Intel chip. I think that
programs could be optimized to generate even better results,
but since I don't have the spec sheet for the chip yet, that
will have to wait.
I don't know why NEC isn't trying to beat up the
market with this chip (actually, I do know - Intel is
taking them to court in April), but my advice is that if you
want to upgrade your PC (Rainbows could probably use the
V30), for only $20.95, call JDR Microdevices at
(800) 538-5000, and order the chip. It was easily the
cheapest upgrade to my PC yet, and produced a lot more
benefit than some of the other upgrades.
Bob Hartman
Sysop Fido 101/101
The UN*X Gateway
and Home of Rover
On our way to a WorldFidoNet
============================
From : Henk Wevers Fido 101/3101
To : All involved
Fido has crossed the borders of the USA now, and
international contacts are possible. This adds a special
flavour to Fido and no doubt will increase it importance as
a way to exchange ideas and thoughts about all kind of
things, including computers.
The FidoNet organisation as it is today is well suited for
one (big) country, but has several drawbacks from the
international point of view. As Fido is on its feet here in
europe and is growing fast, the situation will become
uncontrollable within a few month if fido isn't changed
again. This documents purpose is to start a discussion on
how to change Fido to make it fit for international use
without loosing the somewhat informal way it is organised.
Hopefully the way to go will emerge from the discussion and
Tom Jennings will change Fido again, no doubt he will become
famous in the rest of the world also. As I will point out
hereafter, the changes needed are not that much.
First of all, as fido is used by all kinds of persons, the
dog must be teached to speak different languages. Not
everybody in the wotld speaks english, especially kids do
have problems with the language. Clearly we can patch Fido,
all the messages are grouped together in memory, but that is
a very hard way to do it and must be done again for a new
version. Also english is the most compact language I have
seen, most european languages use more letters to say the
same. So the first thing we are asking Tom Jennings is to
include some kind of ascii textfile, that at initialisation
time (if present) will overlay the english messages. This
must include the Y/N characters and the currency sign. We
can also write a little program to change the privilege
files so menu's can be changed. (The small menu for replying
a message and the one after you have typed in a message must
also be put into a file).
Now for the netorganisation.
============================
FidoNet is a somewhat loose organisation and I think we must
maintain that in our international contacts. The best way to
go is that if two countries want to exchage fidomail, 2
fidonodes, one in each country team up. Both will act as a
host for the country and forward the received mail in that
country. There is money involved here, because forwarding
mail in a country is not cheap. Both sysops are going to
know each other very well, and accounting can be organised.
FIDONEWS -- 02 Sep 85 00:02:05 Page 9
(Fido has to change a little for that as I will show
lateron). To make things more flexible, lets also allow more
than one of this kind of teams for a countrypair.
When Fido grows, there is no point in having all nodes in
the world on line. The file will be too big anyway so here
it is: we must have country codes in the nodeidentification
code. (Listgen has gone this way already)
A nodelist for every country a certain fido will allow his
users to exchange mail with can be put on line then. I
suggest it will look like this from the user point of view:
-------------------------------------------------------
Mail Command: E
This will be message #xx
From: me on Fido 31/101/3101
Active COUNTRY: 1 , active NET: 101
?=Help, !=List COUNTRIES
/=List NETs, #=Lists NODES
Pick COUNTRY, NET and/or NODE:!
Countries available to mail to from this node:
1 - USA, CANADA
31 - HOLLAND
44 - UNITED KINGDOM
46 - SWEDEN
Pick a COUNTRY: 31
Getting the nodebook for that country, wait ....
Active COUNTRY: 31, active NET: 1
?=Help, !=List COUNTRIES
/=List NETs, #=Lists NODES
Pick COUNTRY, NET and/or NODE:
----------------------------------------------------------
Well I think the meaning is clear to you, xx/xx chooses
net/node in the active country. For mailing in the same
country almost nothing is changed.
In this way we can have Nodelists for a country made up
by a countrycoordinator and make them available on Fido
of the international coordinator (fido 51 ?). Countrycoordi-
nators can then (after a little editing) make them available
for their local fido's. A local Fido has complete control
over what countries he will allow his users to mail to by
putting the nodelists (1.nds, 31.nds etc ?) from the selec-
ted countries on line.
This allows us also to put in a routing for that country in
the countrynodelist.
So we come to the fourth change required to make Fido an
suitable for international exchange. A few new keywords in
the nodelist.
FIDONEWS -- 02 Sep 85 00:02:06 Page 10
1: COUNTRY xx @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
defines the country and tyhe name of this country.
2: CHOST net/node
Mail to nodes listed below this host must be send to
CHOST instead.
Thats all, this scheme allows for nodes in a country that
must be mailed directly, not through a CHOST, and multiple
CHOSTS.
Lets have a look how this will look like for a hypothetical
big country:
-------------------------------------------------
COUNTRY 224 WONDERLAND
AREA 1 ...................
(list of nodes)
AREA 2 ..............
(list of nodes)
HOST 3 ..........
(list of nodes)
CHOST 4/22
AREA 4
(list of nodes)
HOST 5
(list of nodes)
CHOST 8/22
etc
--------------------------------------------------
The routing is obvious, either direct, or via CHOST and/or
HOST. The nodelist for a country lists the CHOSTs in that
very same country of course. The CHOST itself has only to
edit the nodelist, by replacing his own CHOST entry with
that of his teammate.
That leaves us to the last change we need to make it all
work, cost accounting and a change in the ACCEPT FROM
function. The costaccounting between hosts and/or CHOSTS and
the local nodes must be much better, otherwise the task of a
(C)HOST may become to timeconsuming for a hobbyist. Luckely,
the changes needed are not dramatical...
First the forwarding node must enter his country/net/node
number into each messageheader of the message forwarded.
Now, if the receiving host sends out some of the message
received, fido knows the last node the message came from and
who to charge. An antry in the maillog should be made like:
FORWARDED FOR xx/xx/xx message to xx/xx/xx $ xx.xx
(The amount of money comes from the current nodelist !)
Because Tom has implemented a kill after send function, this
is not a big change I guess.
Almost there, The ACCEPT FROM function as I understand looks
FIDONEWS -- 02 Sep 85 00:02:08 Page 11
at the originating node of the message and marks it orphan
if that node is not in the accept-from list. Now we have the
cost accounting done, it should be changed so, that accept
from means : accept messages from this country/net/node
don't care where the message came originally from. This way
total control is possible.
Thats it folks, just give you a last example of how this all
may work out from the cost accounting way. I may have seen
things wrong, or left something out. Thats where you come
in. Lets discuss it. And Tom, will you please change Fido
again ??. I think we have about a couple of month before all
this is really needed. Until then, we are in net 101 here in
europe ! See you ... (or should it be 'Fido you ...').
Henk
------------------------------------------------------------
a last example of routing and cost accounting
-----------------------------------------------------------
Local --> Host --> CHOST --> CHOST --> Host ---> Local
1 2 3 4 5 6
Accounting can be done from the maillog (perhaps a dream
analysingprogram like sysrept can be made 'mailrept')
The only difficulty is in how 1 could possible know the
the costs of a message to 6. Thats easy enough, CHOST 3
takes the country nodelist from CHOST 4 and adds its costs
for routing link 3->4. Host 2 takes this nodelist from CHOST
3 and adds its cost for link 2->3 to the nodelist. Local 1
does the same and puts yhe list on line. Presto !
-----------------------------------------------------------
FIDONEWS -- 02 Sep 85 00:02:10 Page 12
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