FidoNews is published weekly by the International FidoNet
Association as its official newsletter. You are encouraged to
submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission
standards are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from
node 1/1.
Copyright (C) 1987, by the International FidoNet Association.
All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted
for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances,
please contact IFNA.
Table of Contents
1. EDITORIAL
What is this thing called IFNA?
2. ARTICLES
Letting 9 to 5 Go By the Board by Alice Kahn
Medical Bulletin Boards
SEAdog node list problem
Pointless Nodelist Hassles
Electronic Mail--Plague or Panacea?
3. COLUMNS
Tandy User Group Newsletter (MARCH, 87)
4. FOR SALE
UNDER-C(tm) PFS2TXT Program
5. NOTICES
The Interrupt Stack
What the heck is IFNA anyway? And what can it do for ME? This
is a valid and important question. We've created this outfit
called IFNA, and even voted on bylaws for it, but just what does
it all mean, anyway?
First and foremost, IFNA is a legal entity, a not for profit
corporation in and of the State of Missouri. So what does that
buy us?
Well, it turns out that there are certain advantages to having a
corporation around.
One that's been highly touted by a lawyer who was involved in the
bylaws committee is the "corporate shield". I wish I had a
nickel for every time I've heard that phrase. The general theory
is that if the business of IFNA is running bulletin boards, then
if any member of IFNA is sued for something he did while running
a board his own personal assets will not be on the line. All the
plaintiff will be able to go for is the assets of IFNA itself.
I'm less than incredibly impressed with that argument. It sounds
to me like, if push ever really comes to shove, the so-called
corporate shield of IFNA will be just one of many points the
lawyers will bandy about, much to the expense of the parties
involved.
But that's not to say that there's no point in having IFNA
around. I can see some advantages to it.
The thing is that we seem to have two separate entities here. On
the one hand we have IFNA, which is this legal entity which may
or may not mean anything. On the other hand we have FidoNet,
which is a coalition of sysops each doing his or her own thing.
IFNA is governed by a Board of Directors elected by its members,
while FidoNet is governed by a loose hierarchy of coordinators on
several levels. The two are quite different, so how do they
connect?
"The Net" we all know and love is FidoNet, of course. We don't
need IFNA to govern the net. FidoNet has its own policies and
procedures to handle all of that quite nicely, thank you. So why
bother with all of this corporation nonsense? There are a few
reasons:
1) Tax reasons; This is really why IFNA was formed in the first
place. Ken Kaplan, the International Coordinator, was
incurring some heavy expenses, so he asked for some help to
defray the costs. People responded (thank you!), but the IRS
saw those donations as income for Ken Kaplan, and did NOT see
his expenses as legitimate tax deductions. Incorporation
Fidonews Page 3 13 Apr 1987
solves that.
2) There are some advantages to copyrighting the node list and
FidoNews. Mainly, by copyrighting them we can enforce our
policy that no one may sell them for a profit. But someone
has to hold the copyrights. Saying that each is a collective
work of 1200+ people doesn't help much. By forming a
corporation we create a legal entity to hold the copyrights
on our collective property.
3) We're attracting some attention. Various people in the media
and in business are interested in what we're doing. Having a
recognized business entity for outsiders to deal with makes
public relations a lot easier. And it sure doesn't hurt the
average sysop for bulletin boards to get a little positive
press for a change!
4) While we're at it (and since, once you get right down to it,
we're a pretty potent market force) it'd be nice if we could
coerce manufacturers into giving us some deals on hardware
and software. But companies aren't used to dealing with
loose aggregations of individuals. If I call a modem
manufacturer, for example, and say "Hi! I'm a sysop, and I
have a lot of friends who are sysops -- what can you do for
us?" it isn't going to cut much ice. But if I call and say
"I represent the International FidoNet Association, a
coalition of over twelve hundred sysops worldwide" it carries
some weight. A good example of this is the current situation
with 9600 baud modems. We're in a pretty good position to
establish the de facto standard for 9600 baud. It behooves
us to (a) figure out which modems will do what we want, and
(b) get the best deal we can from anybody making modems that
are good enough. But we can't do that unless we have some
sort of cohesive organization for the manufacturers to deal
with.
So what is IFNA? Three things, mainly. It's our PR department,
our legal department, and our public face. That's all, but
that's enough.
(c) San Francisco Chronicle, 1987. Reprinted by permission.
So I'm sitting in Hamburger Mary's talking to a guy with
orange hair and a skateboard. Big deal. There are plenty of
fish with Technicolor hair skating in the SoMa sea.
But Tom Jennings is different. He's fresh and rad beneath
the surface, a nonconformist trying to create his own life in a
world that stomps on nonconformists. He seems determined to go
where no man has
gone before.
Jennings recently went "high profile" as a genuine
character when, at 31, he retired from his job at Apple Computer
to live by his wits and his skateboard.
WHY'D HE DO IT?
For me, the only fun in being a journalist is having the
license to call up any unusual person you hear about and lunch
him. So I ask Jennings why he has done something as weird as
leaving a 9-to-5 office job to skateboard - to "shred" the
streets. I'm not the first; many have asked why he left his
"dream job" as a well-paid systems programmer at Apple, as if a
young man who has worked a third of his life in the electronics
bussiness has no basis for feeling bored with it. "I think it's
the West Coast infatuation with Apple Computer," he says. "I
don't mean to knock it. For some it may be the orgasm of a job.
But it's still a big corporation. It is run by a guy from Pepsi."
It's soon clear that I'm with an artist whose masterpiece is his
own life. His delight in risk-taking also makes it fun to be
around him. There's not a dead bone in his body. Jennings sees
himself as a product of the tacky '70s and the punk anti-culture
spawned by what he calls "the era of John Travolta, a time when
the emperor's clothes were really off." Opportunities for men of
his generation seem to range from service-sector yuppie to
marginal bum. The real curiosity about Jennings is How can a
smart punk live as a grown-up? Bright in math and science but
somewhat of a "wise-off" in high-school, Jennings barely managed
to graduate from what he calls "the cesspool of public
education." Just out of the cesspool, he went to work in the
electronice industry near his hometown of Woods Hole, Mass. In
the late '70s, like other lone nuts with a catalog, he began
mail-ordering components for his do-it-yourself personal
computer. Eventullly, Jennings developed his own computer
networking software, FidoNET, which allowed him to have
electronic intercourse with people all over the world.
Fidonews Page 5 13 Apr 1987
His software accomplishments resulted in Jennings'
nomination for the Andrew Fluegelman Award, named after the late
editor of PC World and MacWorld. He explains that Fluegelman was
also a computer hobbyist who believed that computer software
should be free. But, Jennings added, some say that Fluegelman
ended up, at 41, jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.
A year ago, Jennings began his late-night solitary
glidings through the streets of San Francisco. This led to the
decision to live by the board rather than die by the chip. He
now works full-time with Shred of Dignity, a skateboarders' union
formed to fight various ban-theboard crusaders. His politics are
a strange mixture of reverence for organization and distrust of
authority and bureaucracy. In his warehouse digs, just a wheelie
away from Moscone Center, the walls are covered with punk
graffiti and Shred of Dignity notices, yet it seems oddly neat
and organized. The handwriting-on-the-wall philosophy ranges
from "Skate Free or Die" to "Duke's a Dweeb" to "SFPD: Skate for
Pedestrian Destruction" to "Drugs, Just Say No." The House of
Jennings reminds me that being a grown-up needn't involve the
surrender to drugery that most of us end up with. Of course,
being a grown-up is a lot more laughs without a job and kids.
In place of the traditional family, Jennings finds support from
the electronic network and the skateboarding community. Like
other urban explorers, he sees the skateboard and the computer as
"guerrilla technology" in the battle to survive with dignity.
He finds friends through skateboarding events and encourages use
of the Shred of Dignity message phone (882-9973). The tape
closes with the group's credo: "Skate until you puke." He
proudly shows me the Shred of Dignity Ragazine (sic). "Our
'Zine," he calls it. It includes a map of the city highlighting
places to skate and the risks involved (occupational hazards like
getting busted and getting beat up). One skating site - "The
Dish" - is described in the Ragazine as a concrete object that is
"great for skating, but be prepared to get the hell out at the
first hint of trouble. Macho bull---- is insane, be a wimp."
Jennings seeks out other likeminded wimps for his brave new
world. He describes his people as "straight-edge compatible."
It's an attitude, he explains, not a lifestyle - whatever that
means. The basic components are "don't pollute anything; drugs
aren't revolutionary, they're nasty; we're not fighting the
government, we're not participating in the government."
Many in this pit of punk culture are also vegetarian and
celibate -more evidence for the It's Hip to Be Square theory.
"Some say straight-edge punks are just late-model Puritans," adds
Jennings.
LATE-MODEL PURITANS
Among the favorite pastimes of these modern Puritans is
"thrashing," a kink of dancing that Jennings gleefully describes
as "violent." Participants are thrown into a pit packed with
people. It could be a metaphor or just a weird thing to do.
Standing 6-foot-4 and cachectically thin, Jennings throws so much
energy into conversation that you can almost see the calories
Fidonews Page 6 13 Apr 1987
burn off. But he becomes most animated when he talks about the
animosity to skateboarders. For him, skateboarding is both
ecologically sound transportaion and a physical way to enjoy "the
three dimensions of the city, the textures of the world. We
didn't grow up in the country with outhouses. The streets and
the concrete are our natural environment." This theme of the
lone pioneer finding kinesthetic beauty in the concrete jungle is
echoed repeatedly by other rolling poets in the Shred of Dignety
'Zine. Writes one: "To the skater, CITY is a place with
unlimited potential, speed, slides, bails, broken bones, walls,
banks, curbs, even the grim feeling of swiftly moving pavement
along your thigh." "I'm also into shooting guns," Jennings adds
with a wide grin, relishing the shock value of his comment. "But
I shoot them purely for fun - not to hurt anybody; not to protect
myself; not to kill animals. Hunting is disgusting. I was once
with someone when he shot a seagull. I was sick for the rest of
the day." Tom Jennings can always make a buck if he has to. And
he can give it away, which he has. This allows him the freedom
to live his life for the hell of it. He's a socially responsible
punk. He also gives great lunch, but I'm glad to be heading home.
The burden of being the ordinary one is an incredible drag.
Late in 1984 I began to search the nations bulletin boards
in order to create a list of boards specifically related to
medicine. That first list had about 5 numbers on it and that
really took some searching !
Since that time, health care professionals have really begun
to take advantage of this powerful new form of communications,
and now the list consists of over 90 numbers. Fido Net has been
instrumental in this growth. Although still small in number, the
sysops of these boards are now publishing their own weekly
medical newsletter (Thanks to Dave Dodell at 114/15) and with the
advent of echo mail, conferences have developed on a variety of
medical topics including AIDS, Social Work, Alcoholism and
Emergency Medical Services.
I have submitted the following list of medical bulletin
boards to Fido News because I think they are a special resource
within Fido Net. In addition to being a unique and vital
medical communications link, these boards offer general users
access to a wealth of medical information in the form of files,
programs and on line professionals.
I'd like to appeal to the Fido Net Community in enhancing
this list. It is an important asset which I feel needs to be
aggressively maintained. For my part, I've confiiirmed the
existence of these boards on the dates shown below and will
continue to do so. I hope any Fido Net users having any
additions !!!!!, corrections (especially name and baud rate) or
suggestions would take a few minutes and net mail me the info
at the address below.
Finally, I'd like to thank ALL those who have made
Fido Net possible. It truly is the wave of the future and I
congratulate those who have been, and are being so responsible in
assuring that it evolves in a useful and coherent manner.
Also, a special thanks has to go to all those medical Fido Net
sysops who have done a superior job in attempting to help and
educate society using this new medium.
Edward DelGrosso M.D.
Black Bag BBS 126/120
***** ALASKA *****
ANMC (Alaska Native Medical Center) 907-265-9550 1200 03/04/87
Cardio Board 206-328-7876 1200 03/08/87
Health Online 206-367-8726 1200 12/12/86
Midwife's Bag (138/41) 206-275-4146 2400 03/08/87
US HDS Human Service (138/35) 206-442-8127 1200 03/01/87
***** WISCONSIN *****
Dent-Tech 414-224-1062 1200 03/04/87
The latest version of the list along with the Qmodem phone
directory used in its compilation is always available on the
BLACK BAG BBS (126/120) (614) 421-7254
A bug has turned up in SEAdog 4.0 when it compiles a very large
node list. Some people are hitting it now with the latest node
list plus private lists, and everyone will probably hit it when
the public list gets a little larger.
Yes, this is truly a bug, and we apologize for it. It shows up
as MAILER hanging when it compiles the node list. TELL, SEND,
and GET can handle a somewhat bigger node list, and MAIL should
be able to handle an even bigger list, but all would get stuck on
it if given a large enough node list.
Future versions of SEAdog won't have this particular bug, but
that doesn't help much right now. So to deal with this problem
we've written a program called NLBUG.EXE, which should be able to
compile a node list of any size. Or at any rate, we know from
testing it that it'll properly handle a node list of over 5000
nodes in over 300 nets. The suggested sequence of events is:
1) Run XlatList to create NODELIST.BBS
2) Move NODELIST.BBS to wherever SEAdog normally looks for it.
3) Run NLBUG.
4) Delete NODELIST.BBS
5) Proceed as usual.
NLBUG will then compile the node list properly.
To get a copy of NLBUG, either file request NLBUG.EXE from node
107/6, or send us network mail and we'll send you a copy.
I just had one of the stupidest experiences in my life:
trying to get a current nodelist. Bear with me.
I have been away from the IFNA net for a while, but I had
lots of experience with it in the past. I have a nodelist from
Oct 86, and want to get a somewhat current one. Easy, right? Dead
wrong. After over an hour of long distance calls, no luck.
I tried 1/0, 618- something. Said "loading Opus...",
never came back. (3+ minutes) Tried 1/2, its now 100/22 only, no
problem with that, but no nodelist. OK. Wrote down various
help/bug nodes, modem help, etc. Called those. NYC, LA, etc. No
nodelist files AT ALL! Not even nodediffs. Finally found some
stuff on echohelp in NYC? Dozens of DIFF files, a few nodelist
files, but Opus wouldn't let me list selectively through the 100+
files in the area, and anyway, the newest nodelist was Jan 87,
and Id have to get all the DIFFs to bring it up to speed.
This is stupid and absurd. Can't there be somewhere in
region 1 that is a small number of places where the nodelist can
be found? Like maybe a complete ARC'd nodelist from the beginning
of the month plus DIFFs, or maybe even just a complete nodelist
every week?
My experience isn't that unusual, lots of people get out
of sync with the diffs, or drop out and come back like I'm trying
to, or maybe just messed up and want to get cleaned up. DIFFs are
great, but they were supposed to be a time & effort saver, not
another bureaucracy. Let's be real folks.
DIFFs are a waste of time under many conditions, like
when you have to get a number of them to get up to date, that's
not what they were meant for. Take a 70K nodelist, add a dozen or
so DIFF files, and you have a huge download, and a complex and
error prone XLAT process. Any arguments about disk space, etc are
a waste of time. It's just not that big, and besides, you could
just not bother keeping so many old DIFFs around. (If the
nodelist complete is say 70K, then you reach break even when the
DIFFs total 70K, right? To keep a 70K nodelist, plus dozens of
DIFFs, "to save disk space" is silly. A 70K nodelist, plus the
last months DIFFs is plenty. The files just aren't that
inherently interesting historically. Maybe someone should keep a
copy of every one ever made, but not everyone needs to.)
The nodelist is the life blood of the IFNA net, and if I,
an experienced FidoNet sysop, cannot find a copy then certainly
relative-novices and other outside people certainly cant.
The flyer I received in the mail also doesn't have ANY
phone numbers on it. I realize as well as anyone that BBS numbers
aren't reliable, but don't the IFNA overhead ones tend to stay up
for months at a time? Like 1/1, 1/0, etc? Can't these be
published with a disclaimer, and the address "if all else fails,
Fidonews Page 14 13 Apr 1987
write ..."? It would probably save a LOT of letters & stamps &
hassles in answering questions.
I still don't have a nodelist, and I don't know what to
do, except make more expensive phone calls and hope that 1/0 will
finally load Opus or something so I can see if the files are even
there.
I think a number of NODELIST NODES in region 1 would fix
this, all they have to do is have the damn files around. Or
maybe put it in the comment section, or something. Just so there
is some way for someone like me (or worse off) can find a
nodelist!
A Random Walk Courtesy
of the Keyboard
of
Kurt Reisler
SYSOP
The Bear's Den (109/74)
The Pot of Gold (109/483)
[AARRGGHH!! Stop me! I feel an article coming on!]
Every once in a while, something happens out there in the wild
and wacky world of FIDONET that triggers the creative juices.
Usually I just wipe it off the keyboard. However, the recent
spate of repetative messages that have been reverberating around
the country in the national echomail conferences (the national
SYSOP conference in particular) caused me to put the following
thoughts down. I would have put them into the echo, but these
thoughts should be shared with the FIDO community at large (at
least I think so, and the FIDONEWS will publish anything).
The advent of electronic mail has opened a wonderful tool for
communications. In this microcomputer age, it is possible to
exchange thoughts (great or not-so-great) on a one-on-one or a
one-on-many basis. Though the use of echomail conferences, the
ability to have many-on-many exchanges exists. All of these are
a two-edged sword. They can be both a panacea and a plague.
Echomail messages take several forms. On rare occaisions, they
are private messages between two individuals, or groups of
individuals (i.e. SYSOP to SYSOP). The latter message type is
really public, as everyone in that "class" has access to these
messages. So in a sense, they are privledged, rather than
private. For the most part, messages in an echomail conference
are public, open for response and comment by all participants in
that echo.
The content of these messages can vary widely, as anyone who
participates in an echo can verify. Some are the general "how do
I do this, or why does my program do this" question that is
addressed to no one in particular. These messages propogate
accross the net, in a manner not unlike the ripples caused by a
rock thrown into a pond. However, unlike the ripple, this
message can generate a reply from each and every node that it
passes through. Because of propogation delays, these replys may
take several days to get back to the originator of the original
"rock". And each of these replays also propogates around the net
in the same fashine. Soon, you have a very rough surface on this
otherwise calm pond, as the replies and replies-to-replies bounce
back and forth accross the net. Eventually the "pond" calms
down, until someone who has not been read the mails for a while,
responds to the question, and the entire process begins again.
In the case of the "REN/RENUM/REN" ripple, the results are rather
benign. The responses that have been repeating from almost every
Fidonews Page 16 13 Apr 1987
node have been essentially the same. Everyone seems to be of the
opinion that they would be the only one to reply to this
relatively straight-forward problem. This is not a bad thing,
but it is taking up bandwidth (as is this article, which is
getting to be a LOT longer than I thought it would). In other
cases, it is interesting to note that everyone seems to have a
different opinion about a technical question, which would appear
to have a single, correct answer. It is left up to the reader to
determine which of the barrage of "feedback" to the original
question is the correct one. This is also not a bad thing.
However, there are other, nastier, things lurking in the echos.
Quite often, an individual will make a statement or observation
of how "things seem to me". Usually, these pass unnoticed
through the nets. However, occaisionally they trigger a reaction
that can be very ugly. A recipient of the message will decide
that not only does the sender have no right to express this
opinion, but the recipient will make sure that the originator
never is foolish enough to again clutter the bandwidth with an
opinion that is contrary their own outlook on life, the universe
and other things (wow, that was a close one!). The resulting
flamage, results in severe cluttering of the net, with personal
attacks that are senseless, pointless, redundant, immature,
vindictive and in some cases potentially libelous. We see the
ugly head of the "you can express your opinion, as long as it
agrees with mine" beast rearing up over the keyboard. Usually a
single message will result in a bararge of abuse, usually from
individuals who are well known for their writing styles. Often,
they succeed in their objective, and the originator of the
message is beaten into submission and will seldome venture into
the echos to express another opinion. In other cases, they
succeed in driving these valuable individuals to giving up on the
echos and fidonet. Those of us who have been at this for a while
have seen this happen. And it is not limited to echomail
conferences over FIDONET. I have seen the same type of thing
happen accros USENET, which has a much broader user base.
So, what is my point? (This article has gotten out of hand!)
Electronic mail in the form of echomail conferences can be a two-
edged sword. It can be used for a creative purpose, such as the
solving of technical and non-technical problems, the sharing of
information, or just communicating with a fellow communications
addict via the keyboard and screen. It can also be used in a
very destructive manner to put down, to ridicule, to lie, to
slander, to confuse, to generate disinformation or generate
apathy. There are a lot of individuals of both types out there.
There is a little of both in each of us. The final decision as
to whether we use this electronic blade as a tool for progress or
a weapon of destruction is in our own hands. As Pogo once said
"We have met the enemy, and it is us." The ultimate choice as to
where we head as a network, is in OUR hands.
Your comments are most welcome and encouraged. I can be reached
by name or as SYSOP on FidoNet nodes 109/74, The Bear's Den
(703-671-0598); and 109/483, The Pot of Gold (703-359-6549). For
those of you with access to USENET (the FidoNews is available in
Fidonews Page 17 13 Apr 1987
mod.mag.fidonet) I can be reached at ..!seismo!hadron!klr. If
there is any interesting response of either type, I will
"summerize them to the net". The above ramblings were aimed at
no one in particular, and everyone in general. However, I am
sure that there will be some who feel I am refering to them. All
in all, this got entirely too long.
"IFNA, love it or change it. If you chose to ignore it, don't
complain about the directions it takes."
Things have gone well this past week. I stopped by my local
dealer and he was very busy. He was due to give a seminar at a
computer show in the area and didn't have the time to learn how
to use the software, and he wanted to give a demonstration during
the seminar. I offered to help him out, and as a result got a
chance to play with the latest in Desktop Publishing software. I
had some time to look around the show and am happy to report that
Springboard is taking Certificate Maker seriously, at least I
found someone selling the first library disk of certificates. The
new disks also include several new border styles as well as over
one hundred new certificates. Other than that there wasn't much
else at the show, although I was seriously tempted to buy a
laptop computer that was on sale (I hate myself later when I
empty my checking account at these shows). Thanks to the money I
made giving the demonstration at the seminar, I have ordered
ATI's EGA Wonder which is a sort of Swiss Army knife among video
cards and will be letting you know how it works out in a few
weeks.
-- PageMaker (Aldus corp. list price $695.00) --
Those of you who are fans of PageMaker on the Macintosh will
be pleased to hear that it works the same on the PC. The PC
version of PageMaker runs under Windows, so any monitor and
printer that Windows understands will run PageMaker fine. The
only catch is that Windows is SLOW! I tried running it on an XT
initially and eventually gave up because of the delays. On an AT
the speed is bearable, and it probably wouldn't even be noticed
on a 386 machine. The speed problem is due to Windows
multitasking capabilities, if your machine runs Windows at an
acceptable speed you shouldn't have any problems with PageMaker.
There's a whole list of software that the PC version can work
with for text and pictures, and I will say it did read my text
files created with Word, WordPerfect and Wordstar. In the
graphics department all I got it to read in was Windows Paint
pictures and Lotus PIC images. It is supposedly capable of
bringing in drawings from AutoCad and some other programs, but I
didn't have any of the other one's around.
I found it exceptionally easy to move my text around the
pages although at first it seemed odd to divide the page into six
different sections each containing part of one of my columns. My
only complaint on it's text capabilities is that the text
wouldn't flow around my pictures to easily. In order to get a
picture to fill half a column I had to divide my text into three
different parts; the part above the picture, the part next to the
picture and the part below the picture. I would have liked it if
things had been a little easier for something like this. Another
nice extra is that PageMaker automatically determined which word
processor had been used when it read in my text, the only
exception was I had to "tell" it when I was reading in straight
Fidonews Page 19 13 Apr 1987
ASCII. The editing capabilities within PageMaker are nothing
fantastic, although they would be more than adequate to make a
few last minute changes.
Manipulating the graphics images wasn't as easy as the text.
Those of you familiar with the Macintosh version may enjoy
PageMaker's methods for cropping a picture, but I found it
slightly clumsy to my way of working. This isn't to say that they
aren't extremely capable, once I got used to how it worked it
wasn't that bad. It's just that it isn't as instinctive to me as
the rest of the program, and I was never able to get the text to
flow around a picture as easily as I'd like. The other newcomer
into the PC Desktop Publishing arena did things a little better
in this department.
-- Ventura Publisher (Xerox corp. list price $895.00) --
Ventura Publisher is Xerox's bid into the PC Desktop
Publishing market and this one really blew my mind! First off it
runs under GEM instead of Windows. While I am not really a fan of
either of these two operating environments, GEM beats Windows any
day. Mainly because GEM doesn't suffer from the delusion that a
PC or XT can be a good multitasking system so it runs a lot
quicker. Also since software manufactures can get a run time
version of GEM, you don't have to buy GEM in order to use Ventura
(you have to buy Windows if you want to run PageMaker). While you
don't get the full GEM operating environment, Ventura runs fine
and you don't have to do any extra work when you exit it (you
have to exit Windows after exiting PageMaker). While PageMaker
costs less than Ventura, keep in mind that you've got the hidden
cost in PageMaker that you don't have with Ventura (so don't
write me telling me how PageMaker costs so much less than
Ventura). For those of you unfamiliar with a run-time library (or
"program" in this case) what it means is that Xerox can give you
the necessary part of GEM in order to use their product and they
just pay Digital Research so much for every copy of Ventura they
sell. Aldus can't do the same thing with PageMaker because
Microsoft doesn't have a run-time version of Windows, you either
have it or you don't.
Ventura matches PageMaker's text editing capabilities in
every department and destroys it because Ventura uses style
sheets. A style sheet is one of the things that makes Ventura a
lot better than PageMaker in my book, it allows you to define the
characteristics (justification, size, type face, etc.) of any
paragraph of text. If you're doing a magazine type layout you
might have a particular way you want a liftout to look (a liftout
is those few lines of text that publisher's take out of the text
and turn into big bold letters that stand out from the text and
either catch your eye or annoy you depending on what mood you're
in). In Ventura you'd merely define what a liftout should look
like, click on the paragraph that should be "lifted-out," and
click on your liftout definition (when "categorizing" paragraphs
all your defined styles appear in box to the left of the screen).
If you're looking over the text for the first time it's just as
easy to mark the text that should be a liftout, copy it to
Fidonews Page 20 13 Apr 1987
wherever you want the liftout and then mark it as such. All this
made Ventura an utter joy to use. I can't emphasize enough how
easy style sheets made it when creating a document. While Ventura
only comes with 21 different style sheets, you can modify any of
them or create totally new ones.
Ventura beats PageMaker hands down when in comes to image
pictures in my book. Some of the image pictures from other
programs it can use are PC Paintbrush, GEM paint, and supposedly
anything from a Microtek Dest image scanner. I found it much
easier to enlarge and shrink the pictures, and the cropping was
much more powerful AND easier to use. You can set the sizing and
scaling in a few keystrokes, and crop the image within it's
frame. I should mention that everything in Ventura goes in a
frame, if no other frame is specified the background page becomes
the frame. Border's around pictures became a snap, and it would
allow a border to be made up of as many as 3 lines with you
controlling the thickness of each line and the spacing between
each of them. Captions to pictures were just as easy and you can
easily move them from either side of the picture or above and
below. You are also capable of squeezing a lot into the caption
and controlling how much space is set aside for it.
With line art (as Ventura calls it) you can import pictures
from AutoCAD (although once again I wasn't able to really test
this), almost any of the GEM programs (GEM Graph, GEM Draw,
etc.), Lotus 1-2-3 PIC files and Symphony picture files (might
even handle Framework if Framework generates a "standard" picture
file). I know it can handle AutoCAD because of some of the
samples included with Ventura, mainly the nozzle picture and the
picture of the Space Shuttle which I have seen being manipulated
using AutoCAD. One of the nice things you can do with Ventura is
add some text to a picture and then make an arrow pointing to
from your text to part of the drawing. I used this to make a
comment on a graph and actually point to that section of the
graph. On line art you can't do very much in the way of cropping,
but you are capable of resizing it up to a full page.
Let me point out that Ventura is NOT a good drawing program.
It's capabilities in that department are minimal, mainly just add
a small box of text and draw lines, circles, and boxes. If you
plan on doing much "free hand" drawing, you'll want a decent
paint (or drawing) program like PC Paintbrush. This shouldn't be
a problem since you would probably be using a word processor to
generate the initial text and either a scanner, paint program, or
drawing program (or CAD program) to create the individual parts
of a document and just bring them all together using Ventura.
Printer support in Ventura is pretty decent. They've covered
most of the laser printers out there (mainly through
compatibility to the HP laser printers and PostScript) although
dot matrix wise you'd need something that's compatible with an
Epson. An unusual capability is the Xerox color printer, if you
have either that or a color printer compatible with it you can
print in up to eight different colors. The catch is you really
need a PostScript printer to take full advantage of a wide
Fidonews Page 21 13 Apr 1987
variety of different type styles and sizes. Is there any
PostScript printers out there besides the Apple LaserWriter's
(excluding the professional typesetting equipment)? If so please
let me know about them, it's a shame that only one company will
support what is bound to become a standard since IBM's
announcement (yes, IBM is now officially endorsing PostScript).
That's about all on the hot new software I promised I'd look
at last week. I didn't intend it to run on for so long, but I
just had to write about it while my memory was still fresh. If I
had to choose between PageMaker and Ventura right now, I'd have
to say go with Ventura. It seems to have a lot more capability
than PageMaker, and I think it's worth the extra bucks (which
isn't that much after you toss Windows into PageMaker). Maybe one
of these days I'll have the money to buy one of these products
(and a PostScript printer) and I'll be able to give you a better
run down on them. Until then, this is going to have to do.
-- Winding Down.. --
Best game I've had a chance to play with this week has been
EMPIRE, which is available on many bulletin board systems. It's
you against the computer in taking over a world. After a few
hours I was able to beat the computer at the easy level and in
setting out to explore the world I gained a lot of insight in the
logistic problems of today's armies. You start out with one town,
and every town you control can produce one "product" be it
armies, planes, various types of ships, etc. Each town you
capture will also produce something for you. In trying to manage
several cities, you could get bogged down in the commands to
every troop, plane, and ship. Thankfully you can "automate" a lot
of your commands like telling an army to just roam the continent.
I've had quite a bit of fun with it, and like HACK it was
initially written for a UNIX type machine so just about everybody
out there can run it.
Best book this month goes to "Using PC DOS" by Chris DeVoney
(QUE books, $21.95). It would make an excellent supplement to
Learning MS-DOS which I commented on a few weeks ago. It has
sections in it for both the beginner and more advanced users and
covers the topics well. Some of the topics include how to prepare
diskettes, managing DOS directories, and what a RAM disk is and
how to use it. It will probably become a well worn book in the
next few months in my own library (from loaning it out to friends
who are just beginning if nothing else).
Next column I should get around to looking at the new SEAdog
(originally meant to write about it in this column, sorry Thom)
and a nice database program I found on a local board. I once
again welcome your comments on my column. I'd especially like to
hear from you if you think I should look over any specific
products (hardware or software). If you're a user of a bulletin
board please mention to your sysop that mail to me must be routed
through either 157/0, 157/502, or 157/1 , and sysops just take
note of this sentence. All of those nodes are running SEAdog and
will take mail (and files) to be forwarded to me anytime. I'll
Fidonews Page 22 13 Apr 1987
try and answer any mail, so please give a node number (or site
name on USEnet) if you send anything though US Snail (oops US
mail).
Dale Lovell
3266 Vezber Drive
Seven Hills, OH 44131
from OpusNODE 362/1, The Last Resort - Chattanooga, TN
Tandy User Group Newsletter.... March, 1987
PC MAGAZINE REVIEWS TANDY COMPUTERS
Earlier this week, several Tandy executives attended the "1987
PC Forum" in Scottsdale, Arizona. PC Magazine publisher William
Lohse and Editor Bill Machrone made it a point to tell Graham
Beachum and/or me, how well they think we're doing in the
marketplace, and how highly they regard our MS-DOS product line.
Too bad they don't write the reviews in their magazine!
When we returned to Fort Worth, we found the March 31 issue of
PC, with reviews on the Tandy 1000 EX, 1000 SX, and 3000 HL
computers. The reviewer obviously didn't share their enthusiasm.
But... neither did he understand or have accurate facts about the
machines he reviewed.
We won't argue with a reviewer who forms his negative opinions
based on fact, but these reviews weren't in that category. I'll
say that the reviewer obviously didn't understand the 1000 EX and
its positioning as an entry-level home and school product. He
tried to measure it by office standards... the need for IBM board
compatibility, the lack of hard disk capability, etc. I would
suggest that it actually is a computer capable of running IBM PC
software, at a price most people would expect to pay for a
computer principally intended for entertainment.
That said, I will try to overlook his opinion-based
statements and address some of the half-truths and outright
errors...
1) The EX was panned for lack of expandability, and it was said
we offer "640K RAM expansion and a 300/1200-baud modem." The
impression left was that only two boards are available. Fact
- we offer seven... the RAM, a 300-baud modem, a 1200-baud
modem, RS-232, mouse/clock board, Network 4 card, and STB's
new EX Chauffeur display adapter. More are coming.
2) Of both the EX and SX, the reviewer said our video signal
timing is so far off the IBM standard that the 25th line of
the display disappears behind the monitor bezel of non-Tandy
monitors. Fact - ours are 220-line monitors, while IBM's
display 200 vertical lines. There is a MODE 200 command which
may be keyed in or put in an AUTOEXEC.BAT file to compensate
if you're using a non-Tandy monitor.
3) The EX was described as "... a moderate performer, yielding
nowhere near the double speed its fast clock would imply."
Fact -7.16 Mhz is 50% faster than 4.77 Mhz, not double. We
claim a 20% throughput gain, which is exactly what PC found.
4) "The EX's 4.77 Mhz speed was even more disappointing, at best
10 percent slower than the standard IBM time." Fact - With
256K RAM, the video refresh is interleaved. When you expand
beyond 256K, video RAM is re-positioned, and refresh is no
Fidonews Page 24 13 Apr 1987
longer interleaved. Speed should at least equal the IBM.
5) "For anyone accustomed to the IBM standard, the EX keyboard
is a terror." By the time he reached the SX, the same
keyboard was "Both compelling and confounding. The touch is
positive, with both audible and "tactile feedback." Fact -
it's the same keyboard that received raves on the Tandy 2000.
Absolute keyboard cloning is hardly a major issue to a first
time user. Our "enhanced keyboard", an exact duplicate of
IBM's "enhanced keyboard" (except for indicator lights), can
be adapted to the SX for those with a need for key placement
compatibility.
6) Personal DeskMate was described as "... all the software
you'll need--until you discover how much better commercial
programs can be." Fact - it's furnished free with the
computer. It's an entry-level program designed to give the
user immediate utility and the ease of use provided by
Microsoft Windows conventions. There was no intention or
claim that DeskMate replaces hi-level, full-featured
applications packages. We hope introducing new users to the
concepts involved, will allow them to make a more informed
choice of full-featured, megabuck "commercial programs", when
they're ready.
7) "... the 1000 EX will not run PC-DOS 3.2." Fact - the 1000 EX
absolutely runs PC-DOS 3.2. (It obviously won't run IBM's
BASIC, since part of IBM's BASIC is and always has been in
ROM. Could this be what confused the reviewer?)
8) "...the 1000 EX has severe limitations. The worst of these
are proprietary expansion, no provision for a hard disk, and
its odd keyboard." Fact - most entry-level users or
"homework" users, will need video, a printer, and the ability
to expand to 640K. They'll transport their work on floppies,
hardly on hard disks. And to my knowledge, all the popular
software is still delivered on floppies... Lotus, Ashton-
Tate, Microsoft, etc. If your needs are greater, you should
be looking at a 1000 SX anyway.
9) "You must buy a special Tandy adapter cable to tie in your
parallel printer." Fact - We use an industry-standard
parallel I/O... there's no adapter involved. Yes, you have to
buy a printer cable -- regardless of the computer you choose.
10) The Tandy 1000 SX is described as a "stripped down though not
unlikable machine." Fact - The SX comes with 384K, two
drives, faster clock, dual speed processor, printer
interface, monochrome and color video interface, graphics
capability, composite and RGBI outputs, sound, line-level
audio output, light pen port, two joystick ports, an 8087 co-
processor socket, and five open PC-compatible slots (even
with 640K RAM on board.) And, it's supplied with DOS, BASIC,
and DeskMate II. Maybe I'm getting subjective, but I'd sure
like him to tell me when a computer ceases to be "stripped
down."
Fidonews Page 25 13 Apr 1987
11) "The standard MS-DOS 2.11 operating system of the 1000 SX
allows access to a huge library of PC-Compatible programs.
Yet the machine does have its incompatibilities. Like many
older compatibles, it will not run PC-DOS 3.2." Fact - not
only does it run PC-DOS 3.2, but it is supplied standard with
MS-DOS 3.2, not 2.11 as stated.
12) On both the EX and SX, memory benchmark tests were not run
"because of insufficient memory." We'd have been most happy
to send additional memory, had it been requested. We supply
reviewers with any configuration they ask for. Had the memory
been installed, the video memory change would probably have
resulted in better numbers for all the tests.
13) In a chart on page 168, parallel ports were listed as
optional on both the 1000 EX and 1000 SX. Fact - They're
standard... built right onto the motherboard.
14) Same chart shows expansion slots for the EX as "none". Fact
- The EX has one proprietary slot. Our memory expansion card,
when plugged into that slot, provides two additional "plus
slots" for two more option boards.
15) The review of the 3000 HL says it has seven slots, three "XT-
style 8-bit" and four "full AT-style 16-bit." Fact - reverse
the numbers and you have it... four XT and three AT slots.
Don't get me wrong... I know the senior executives at PC
magazine, and have great respect for them and their publication.
This is a commentary on three Tandy reviews, nothing more.
Less than two days after the review reached us, there was at
least one message thread, about the inaccuracies, on CompuServe's
Tandy forums. I believe it is appropriate that we should take
this avenue -- about the most timely one open to us -- to set the
record straight. I have asked PC Magazine's publisher what can be
done to set the record straight with his readers.
LARGEST MODEL 100 CLUB ?
I had a call this week from Rick Hansen of "Club 100", a Model
100 user group which claims to be the largest. Rick reports a
membership of about 600 people. Can anyone top that? In case
you'd like more information, the address is P.O. Box 23438,
Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. They have a BBS, too... (415)939-1246.
MOUSES
Or "mice" or whatever you prefer. We've had a few questions
recently about the discontinuing of our 26-1197 Digi-Mouse. No,
we're not abandoning these little critters. Currently, we have
the Logitech Mouse in our Express Order system (Cat. No. 90-2055
for 25-pin, 90-2056 for 9-pin). They will replace our Digi-Mouse
as a store-stocked item in the second quarter of this year, and
can be ordered from Express Order between now and then.
Fidonews Page 26 13 Apr 1987
TANDY 1000 DOCUMENTATION
Many Tandy computer buyers are novice computer users in every
sense of the word. One of the most frightening things to any
first-time computer user, is to be confronted by a mountain of
documentation. That's why we elected to hold the "standard"
documentation down to a minimum. We tried to include just enough
to get those first-time users up and running with off-the-shelf
applications packages or DeskMate.
We firmly believe our decision was absolutely right for those
first-time users. That's the good news. The bad news is the folks
among you who are quite computer-literate felt short changed.
First off, let me assure you that you got what you paid for.
Had we included detailed documentation on MS-DOS and GW-BASIC,
the cost of the computer would have increased a bit. And for
those of you who want that documentation, there is an MS-DOS/GS-
BASIC reference manual available... Cat. No. 25-1508, $29.95.
It's a question that comes up often at user group meetings, so
I thought maybe you'd like to know our reasoning.
HARD DRIVE OWNERS
Our merchandising department would like to alert hard drive
owners to a potential problem area that doesn't have to be. It
has to do with hard drive formatting. From personal experience, I
can assure you it will cause trouble.
When you format your hard drive, you must enter the "bad track"
information that is supplied with your drive. If you don't, you
can have failures which will look exactly like hardware glitches.
Be sure you enter this information any time you format.
The media error map should be taped to the bottom of the
computer or external hard drive case. If yours was installed by
our service center, it may be taped to the top of the drive
itself.
That's about it for now... see you next month.
Material contained herein may be reproduced in whole or in
part in user group newsletters. Please quote source as Tandy
Corporation/Radio Shack.
Send questions/suggestions to:
Ed Juge, director of market planning
Radio Shack
1700 One Tandy Center
Fort Worth, TX 76102
NOTE: Join the Tandy EchoMail Conference by contacting myself or
Neal Curtin (138/14) 206-527-5618. KeyWord for conference is
"MOD1000."
=================================================================
FOR SALE
=================================================================
Stanley Quayle
Fido 126/1
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UNDER-C Library.
27 Apr 1987
Start of the Semi-Annual DECUS (Digital Equipment Corp. Users
Society) symposium, to be held in Nashville, Tennessee.
17 May 1987
Metro-Fire Fido's Second Birthday BlowOut and Floppy Disk
Throwing Tournament! All Fido Sysops and Families Invited!
Contact Christopher Baker at 135/14 for more information.
21 Aug 1987
Start of the Fourth International FidoNet Conference, to be
held at the Radisson Mark Plaza Hotel in Alexandria, VA.
Details to follow.
24 Aug 1989
Voyager 2 passes Neptune.
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