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.
Daylight Losing Time
This coming October 27th is the day when Daylight Savings
Time ends, at the ungodly hour of 2 AM (on a Sunday morning,
no less).
Once again we engage in our twice yearly shifting of the
network mail hour, with its usual confusion. For the
record, the "approved" procedure is to set your clock back
one hour sometime between Saturday morning mail and Sunday
morning mail (anytime during the day Saturday is cool).
But, inevitably, some people will forget, one or two will
set their clocks the wrong way, and many won't be able to
reach their machines until Monday anyway. (Many business
boards are in company areas that can't be reached on the
weekend. Do they change their clocks on Friday before they
leave, or Monday when they get back? Who knows?)
Our little semiannual ritual also has other drawbacks. It
seems Hawaii doesn't observe daylight savings time, and they
are far enough west that the summer shift has them making
FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:31 Page 2
VERY long distance calls at the more expensive evening rate.
Just to make life even more fun, I'm told that parts of
Indiana, Kansas, Texas, Florida, Michigan, and Alaska also
do not observe daylight savings time.
So here's my suggestion, if it's not already obvious: Let's
go ahead and get off of daylight savings time this month,
and from then on forget about it. If anybody complains, we
can tell them that we're really running on Greenwhich Mean
Time (or Universal Coordinated Time, as it's called these
days).
All this changing of clocks just isn't worth the hassle. So
the clock on your system doesn't match the clock on your
wall, so big deal! The users will never know the
difference, since it's hard to get the time of day from Fido
anyway. [Could one then say that Fido wouldn't give you the
time of day? Some other editorial, perhaps. . .]
FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:32 Page 3
============================================================
NEWS
============================================================
Greetings from
Mike's "C" Board
Net 102 / Node 201
619-722-8724
The latest release of Fido, ver 11, has reimplemented the
scrolling download/upload display as default. When it was
taken away a few versions back I was glad to walk in and
see what was being downloaded or uploaded but would have no
idea where in the transfer the user was. But this was
better than "Sending block 134" and not knowing what was
being transferred or whether there where 650 blocks or 10
blocks left. Well now with the new version I can have my
cake and eat it too!
The following is the patch I applied to Fido using the
Norton Utilities 3.0 program "NU". I couldn't figure out
how to do this with debug because of the Plink overlays
used in Fido.
1. Copy Fido to a blank disk and invoke NU B: or what
ever disk Fido is on. This insures that the program will be
stored contigously.
2. Next press F1 then F3 to select a file and place the
highlighted bar over FIDO_IBM.EXE. Press return and you
will be back at the TOP MENU.
3. Next press F2 then F4 to display information about the
file. The 4th line down contains the starting cluster
number with the sector number in parentheses. Add 197 to
the sector number in parentheses and write the result down.
4. Now press ESC then F1 then F5 to place you in the
Select Disk Sector menu and enter the number you noted
earlier. Press enter and then F5 to enter the Change
Contents mode.
5. You should see all the usual messages that continually
scroll by as a file transfer is taking place. Pressing
enter twice will place you in the edit mode. From here we
can do some interesting things to Fido to enhance the
existing display. About 3/4 way down you will see TIMEOUT
followed by two funny characters that are a carriage return
and newline (0D0A). Change the second one, that looks like
an O in reverse video to a space or hex 20 and do the same
following "Sending block #%u" two lines down and after
"ACK" on the same line. These changes will make the display
overwrite the existing line during transfers giving the
effect of only the current block number changing and
eliminating the scrolling off the screen of the file name
and number of total blocks.
6. If you really want to be creative you can change the
FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:34 Page 4
Data Block %u, which I believe is used for upload along
with the "ACK character = %u" which I truncated to "ACK=%u"
and null terminated and added the hex 0D before the null.
The message "Sending filename" also should be done to take
of the Telink protocal transfers. Also what I have done is
by hitting the PgDn key (Entering W for write when
requested to save the changes) you will see the "-----
Yelling at sysop ----" message the user see's when the C
key is pressed. I have changed it to "---- Hello... This is
Mike ----" making the interruption much more friendly.
7. When finished press ESC and answer W to write the
changes to disk and you have the new enhanced version of
Fido!!!
Though these patches are simple they accomplish something
I have asked for in fido, but fell on deaf ears. I keep
hearing rumors of Fido look alikes in the making with
source and all the bells and whisles you can only dream
were in Fido, with full net compatibility. Tom has created
a work of art that is worth recognition, but lets have a
masterpiece.
If you don't have Norton Utilities 3.0 I highly recommend
purchasing it, as I have found it to be a fascinating tool.
This patch was only done on the IBM version but could be
easily applied to the DEC version as well.
The UN*X Gateway is Complete!
by Bob Hartman
Sysop Fido 132/101
The UN*X Gateway BBS
This is the news you UN*X hackers have been waiting
for - the UN*X Gateway BBS is now capable of sending FidoNet
mail on to UN*X systems as well as receiving UN*X mail to be
sent via FidoNet! In the past only the latter (UN*X->Fido)
was working. In order to use the gateway you must do the
following:
Sending Fido to UN*X:
1. Send a FidoNet message addressed to "Usenet" on the UN*X
Gateway Fido (132/101). The addressee of Usenet is what
the system keys on, so make sure you get it right!
2. The first line of the message must be the UN*X UUCP path
to be used to send the message. This must be the only
thing on the first line! The path does not have to be
complete as the host will try to figure out the best
routing for the message, but the addresses to major hosts
would be:
encore!decvax
or encore!decvax!ucbvax
or encore!ihnp4
To send a message to me use "vaxine!rch"
3. The rest of the message can be any legal FidoNet message.
4. When a message meeting these requirements gets to the
gateway, it is converted to UN*X format and sent to the
host named 'vaxine'. This UN*X host then sends the mail
to the address given in the first line of the message.
Sending UN*X to Fido:
1. Send UN*X mail to either
decvax!encore!vaxine!spark!net!node!username
or ihnp4!encore!vaxine!spark!net!node!username
where net is the FidoNet net number, node is the FidoNet
node number, and username is the name of the person to
receive the message with all spaces changed to the
underscore (_) character. The name cannot have any
quote marks or other punctuation characters in it except
for the underscore character! If it does contain any
punctuation marks, then a UN*X mailer somewhere will not
properly process the mail and it will get returned as
undeliverable.
2. When this message reaches the host 'vaxine', it is sent
through a special mail processor that routes it to the
gateway using Kermit.
3. Once it is received at the gateway, it is processed and
changed into FidoNet mail to the appropriate person at
the given Fido node.
This gateway has been tested, but if you try it and notice
FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:37 Page 6
something that seems to be wrong, please let me know so that
I can try to fix it.
I don't want to alarm anybody, but there is an
excellent chance that the Earth will be destroyed in
the next several days. Congress is thinking about
eliminating a federal program under which scientists
broadcast signals to alien beings. This would be a
large mistake. Alien beings have atomic blaster death
cannons. You cannot cut off their federal programs as
if they were merely poor people.
I realize some of you may not believe that alien beings
exist. But how else can you explain the many
unexplained phenomena that people are always sighting,
such as lightning and flying saucers? Oh, I know the
authorities claim these sightings are actually caused
by "weather balloons," but that is a bucket of manure
if I ever heard one. (That's just a figure of speech,
of course. I realize manure is silent.)
Answer this question honestly: Have you, or has any
member of your immediate family, ever seen a weather
balloon? Of course not. Nobody has. Yet if these
"authorities" were telling the truth, the skies over
America would be dark with weather balloons.
Commercial aviation would be impossible. Nevertheless,
the authorities trot out this tired old explanation, or
an even stupider one, every time a flying saucer is
sighted.
Wake up, America! There are no weather balloons!
Those are alien beings! They are all around us! I'm
sure most of you have seen the movie "E.T.," the story
of an alien who almost dies when he falls into the
clutches of the American medical establishment but is
saved by pre-adolescent boys. Everybody believes the
alien is a fake, a triumph of special effects. But
watch the movie closely next time. The alien is real.
The boys are fakes. Real pre-adolescent boys would
have beaten the alien to death with rocks.
Yes, aliens exist. And high government officials know
they exist, but they've been keeping this knowledge top
secret. Here is the Untold Story:
Years ago, when the alien-broadcast program began,
government scientists decided to broadcast a message
that would be simple yet convey a sense of love,
universal peace and brotherhood: "Have a Nice Day."
They broadcast this message over and over, day after
day, year after year, until one day they got an answer:
FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:39 Page 8
Dear Earth Persons:
OK. We are having a nice day. We also have a
number of extremely sophisticated weapons, and
unless you start broadcasting something more
interesting, we will reduce your planet to a
very warm object the size of a child's bowling
ball.
Regards,
The Aliens
So the scientists, desperate for something that would
interest the aliens, broadcast an episode of "I Love
Lucy," and the aliens loved it. They demanded more,
and soon they were getting all three major networks,
and the earth was saved. There is only one problem:
The aliens have terrible taste. They love game shows,
soap operas, Howard Cosell and "Dallas." Whenever a
network tries to take one of these shows off the air,
the aliens threaten to vaporize the planet.
This is why you and all your friends think television
is so awful. It isn't designed to please you - it's
designed to please creatures from another galaxy. You
know the Wisk commercial, the one with ring around the
collar, the one so spectacularly stupid that it makes
you wonder why anybody would dream of buying the
product? Well, the aliens love that commercial. We
all owe a great debt of gratitude to the people who
make Wisk. The have not sold a single bottle of Wisk
in 14 years, but they have saved the Earth.
Very few people know any of this. Needless to say,
Congress has no idea what is going on. Most
legislators are incapable of eating breakfast without
the help of several aides, so we can hardly expect them
to understand a serious threat from outer space. But
if they go ahead with their plan to cancel the alien-
broadcast program and the aliens miss the next episode
of "General Hospital," what do you think will happen?
Think about it. And have a nice day.
Submitted by Rob Rothberg, Sysop of Digital Bitch.
A new Fido Network
by Bob Hartman
Sysop 132/101 (formerly 101/101)
As of Friday, September 20th, the UN*X Gateway
Fido, and several others in New Hampshire have formed a
new Fido network - NH_Net. The affected boards are:
UN*X Gateway was Fido 101/101 now is Fido 132/101 or 132/0
cLINE was Fido 101/102 now is Fido 132/102
M'Cycle Bytes was Fido 101/107 now is Fido 132/107
Revap Data was Fido 101/388 now is Fido 132/388
North Net was Fido 101/444 now is Fido 132/444
Alter-Net was Fido 101/644 now is Fido 132/644
Wizards Castle was Fido 16/615 now is Fido 132/615
Spaghetti_heav was Fido 16/620 now is Fido 132/620
Please use the new node numbers whenever you send
mail. Since the UN*X Gateway receives *LOTS* of mail, it
should now be addressed to the new node number (132/101).
Also, Rovermsg, Renum, and Filedate bugs should now be
mailed to 132/101. Thanks from all the nodes in net 132!
In an article excerpted from the August 1985 issue
of DIGITAL REVIEW (it was reprinted with permission wasn't
it?), was a discussion fo the FIDO sessions presented at the
Fall 84 and Spring 85 DECUS Symposia. As the speaker at
those sessions, I felt that a misconception expressed in
that article should be cleared up.
The first FIDO session was presented at the Fall
1985 DECUS, which was held in Anaheim, CA. The session was
actually a Birds of a Feather (BOF) session, which was
scheduled at the symposium. I had not been involved with
FIDO long enough to get together an abstract for a formal
session in time to meet the submission deadlines. The room
it was held in was the same size room that all BOF sessions
are held in. It would seat 50 people and was to be an hour
long. Well, we had nearly 100 people in the room, with more
in the hall outside. The session went to 1.5 hours before
we were thrown out by the next BOF session. All in all a
very good session, with several FIDO systems spawned as a
result.
The second FIDO session was presented at the Spring
1985 DECUS which was held in New Orleans, LA. This one was
a formal session of an hours duration. Unfortunately, it
was scheduled immediately before an award ceremony that I
was supposed to be at, so the session was not able to run
over the alotted hour, and I was not able to field all of
the questions that I would have liked to. Had about 150 in
attendance.
A third FIDO session is going to be held at the
upcoming DECUS which is being held in early December at the
Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. This session is to be 1.5
hours. Hopefully there will be enough time to handle all
the questions. In addition, Tom Jennings (anyone know who
he is?) is scheduled to do a "Pre-Symposium Seminar" before
the start of the actual symposium.
All in all, I would say that both DEC and DECUS have
been very, very good to us. Also, I have never considered
myself to be a "spokesman" for FIDO, I just happen to like
to talk.
FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:44 Page 11
============================================================
COLUMNS
============================================================
A long time ago... on a node far, far away (from PDPvax)
XXXXX XXXXXX XXXX
X X X X X
X X XXXXX X
X X X X
X X X X X
XXXXX XXXXXX XXXX
X X XX XXXXX XXXX
X X X X X X X
X X X X X X XXXX
X XX X XXXXXX XXXXX X
XX XX X X X X X X
X X X X X X XXXX
The further adventures of Luke Vaxhacker Episode n+1
The story thus far: Luke, PDP-1, and their 'droids RS232
and 3CPU have made good their escape from the Imperial Bus
Signals with the aid of Con Solo and the bookie, Two Bacco.
The Milliamp Falcon hurtles onward through system space.
Meanwhile, on a distant page in user space...
Princess _LPA0: was ushered into the conference room,
followed closely by Dec Vadic. "Governor Tarchive," she
spat, "I should have expected to find you holding Vadic's
lead. I recognized your unique pattern when I was first
brought aboard." She eyed the 0177545 tatooed on his header
coldly.
"Charming to the last," Tarchive declared menacingly.
"Vadic, have you retrieved any information?"
"Her resistance to the logic probe is considerable,"
Vadic rasped. "Perhaps we would get faster results if we
increased the supply voltage..."
"You've had your chance, Vadic". Now I would like the
princess to witness the test that will make this workstation
fully operational. Today we enable the -r beam option, and
we've chosen the princess' $HOME of /usr/alderaan as the
primary target."
"No! You can't! /usr/alderaan is a public account, with
no restricted permissions. We have no backup tapes! You
can't..."
"Then name the rebel inode!" Tarchive snapped.
A voice announced over a hidden speaker that they had
arrived in /usr.
FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:46 Page 12
"1248," she whispered, "They're on /dev/rm3. Inode
1248." She turned away.
Tarchive sighed with satisfaction. "There, you see Lord
Vadic? She can be reasonable. Proceed with the operation."
It took several clock cycles for the words to penetrate.
"What!" _LPA0: gasped.
"/dev/rm3 is not a mounted filesystem." Tarchive
explained. "We require a more visible subject to
demonstrate the power of the RM STAR workstation. We will
mount an attack on /mnt/dantooine as soon as possible."
As the princess watched, Tarchive reached over and typed
"ls" on a nearby terminal. There was a brief pause, there
being only one processor on board, and the viewscreen
showed, ".: not found."
The princess suddenly double-spaced and went off-line.
I, Thom Henderson, general partner of System Enhancement
Associates, hereby grant to all sysops of non-commercial
Fidonet systems registered with DECUS Central in St. Louis
(as shown by a current node list) a limited license to use
the Robot automated file mailer and to distributed it
amongst themselves, provided that:
1) No fee is charged for such distribution, and
2) The files ROBOT.COM and ROBOT.DOC are distributed
together and in their original, unmodified form.
Voluntary contributions will be appreciated, but are not
required. Commercial users may use Robot, subject to the
above conditions, for a fee of twenty dollars ($20), to be
paid to:
System Enhancement Associates
21 New Street
Wayne, NJ 07470
Registered users of the SEAdog electronic mail system do not
need to pay a separate fee, as it is included in the cost of
the SEAdog package.
