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Copyright 1987 by the International FidoNet Association. All
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Table of Contents
1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1
FidoNews is Back on the Air! ............................. 1
2. ARTICLES ................................................. 3
Fee-Paid Systems Revisited ............................... 3
Open Letter about National Family Forum .................. 6
Shrinking the Node List .................................. 7
U.S. Robotics, Hayes to Share High-Speed Modem Technolo .. 8
3. COLUMNS .................................................. 9
Origin: Angevin Empire ................................... 9
4. NOTICES .................................................. 11
The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 11
Latest Software Versions ................................. 11
FidoNews 4-40 Page 1 2 Nov 1987
Sorry for the recent interruption, gang. Our glorious 90 meg
drive (I've since discovered that we're pikers in the disk space
game -- one sysop I know told me he has a 120 meg drive!) rolled
over and died, making horrible noises along the way and taking
all our .BAT files with it. We got it replaced quickly, but the
new drive kept finding new bad sectors, on the order of a dozen
or so a day. Then I had to leave for two weeks, and didn't have
time to fix it before going.
But now I'm back, and another new drive was waiting for me. It's
now installed and tested, and is looking solid. If I reconstruc-
ted all the files properly, you might even get this issue on time
(crossed fingers).
While the new drive is smaller than the old (77 meg versus 90
meg), it is also a half-height where the old drive was a full-
height, so we can add another 77 meg any time we need it. With
that much storage, I think we'll be able to keep a full set of
FidoNews back issues online for quite awhile to come.
In other news, we've added two sections to FidoNews -- Minutes
and Committee Reports. These come after the notices, and it is
our intention that IFNA business articles will go in those
sections so that readers uninterested in what IFNA is doing can
stop reading once they reach the notices and thus not be
bothered.
Now the bad news. Dave Dodell asked me to write an article
explaining zones, particularly how to use the zone gates and how
all the pieces fit together. So I spent a couple of days writing
it all down. You guessed it -- it was lost in the disk crash. I
really hate rewriting stuff, and I'm still trying to catch up
from my two week absence, so. . . The only REALLY important
thing in the article dealt with XlatList modes of operation. We
goofed up in the XlatList docs for the latest version and never
described the changes. The latest XlatList can generate output
in any of three "modes", as follows:
1) SEAdog mode This produces a NODELIST.BBS for your own zone
only, with hubs left in.
2) FIDO mode This produces a NODELIST.BBS for Fido v12,
which gives all zones and retaines the ZONE
prefixes.
3) OPUS mode This produces a NODELIST.BBS for your own zone
only, with hubs not in your own net removed,
and with the node list comment flags retained.
Some folks running Opus or Fido 11w got the latest XlatList and
FidoNews 4-40 Page 2 2 Nov 1987
started running it in FIDO mode (which used to be correct), and
got a NODELIST.BBS that their software could not handle. They
should now use OPUS mode.
I'll try to find time to rewrite that article one of these days.
There are some other projects underway that should make for
interesting reading. Al Arango is now in the process of
interviewing the IFNA Board of Directors, and will be publishing
a series of articles introducing you to them. We're also working
with Don Daniels on getting timely status reports from the
plethora of committees for this and that. And of course, we're
always ready, willing, and eager to hear from you. We're back up
and rolling, so keep those articles coming! Remember, FidoNews
is YOUR newsletter!
Fee-Paid Systems Revisited
Another look an an old gripe
I would like to respond to Bill Paul's article in the Sept 28,
1987 issue of the Fido News, dealing with Fee Paid systems.
I run Plato's Retreat in El Paso, Texas, and I consider it to be
a free system. I allow almost all callers access, I do not
require a fee, but I do strongly request (NOT require) donations
to help me pay for the expenses related to this bbs.
I would like to take very strong exception to a part of Mr.
Paul's article, and that is where he equates asking for donations
with "fee paid boards," or boards that are in the business to
make money. I can also understand sysops who require people to
pay a fee to access their boards, or at least to pay a fee to
access a part of their boards, when they do it to help offset the
expenses of running the board.
I have been a sysop of various boards using various software
programs for about 6 years now. I have been through BBS PC,
PCBoard, RBBS, and now Opus. Across the board (no pun intended) I
have had very high numbers of callers from across the United
States, Canada, and Europe, and I attribute this fact to my
ability to run a good board as well as to the amount of time I
invest in it. The former is a talent and cannot be measured,
while the latter translates to about 3 hours every day, plus
another 2 to 3 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays. I do not
think that in this I am different from thousands of other sysops
worldwide.
In terms of equipment, I have an XT (soon to be upgraded to a
386) with a 40 Megabyte Hard Drive, a 1200 baud modem (soon 2400,
as soon as I can get the initialization strings to work), and a
300 cps printer, all dedicated to the board, ie not used for any
other applications. My monthly telephone bill JUST for the line
used for the board exceeds $250. Although this is by no means a
lot of equipment or especially expensive, in comparison with some
of the sysops I know, I am mentioning it to illustrate that
sysops go to quite considerable expenses for their hobby.
I understand that Mr. Paul has done the same, and I am happy for
him that he can afford to run it all out of his own pocket. I
understand that there are some very wealthy people who invest
substantial amounts of money to see that Fido is a truly
international efford. The vast bulk of sysops, I venture to say
however, are not independently wealthy and cannot afford to pay
from $250 to over $1000 a month in some cases month after month
after month.
FidoNews 4-40 Page 4 2 Nov 1987
I realize that this is a hobby. I do not believe that there are a
lot of sysops who are in this for the money. But callers also get
something out of it. They too participate in the message bases,
they too laugh and argue and pound the keyboard in frustration.
This is not a one way street for anyone, sysop or caller.
Contrary to popular opinion, very few sysops are in this to get
easy copies of pirated software, and public domain software can
be obtained by anyone, even without going to the trouble of
dedicating $2,000 to $10,000 worth of hardware and software to
the task 24 hrs a day.
If we agree that this is indeed a two way street, the callers
should become aware that it is at least their moral obligation to
share in the expenses, and not only to reap the benefits paid for
out of the sysop's personal funds.
There is one more aspect to this which ought to be addressed. In
6 years of sysopping, there is little that frustrates me more -
and I venture to say that most sysops feel this way - than to
have a caller call for the first time, and the second, and the
third, and so on, just to download, and download, and download.
He doesn't leave a message, doesn't introduce himself, and when
he is confronted by a sysop who asks him "Hi, how would you like
to upload some of YOUR things to us?" he displays a self
righteous demeanor and acts as though it is his god-given
birthright to rape and pillage every bbs that his modem can reach
- even with stolen MCI codes, if he can get them, but that is
another story - without any obligation, duty, or debt to the
sysop or to the other callers. This is a behavior pattern shared
by the same people who oppose contributing reasonable amounts of
money to help with the expenses of something that is their hobby
as much as the sysop's. Not surprising is the fact that those who
donate money also seem to be those who upload consistently, while
those who don't donate anything also don't tend to upload, unless
they are forced to do so with ratios and other unfriendly
tactics.
And then Mr. Paul reinforces this behavior pattern with his
statement "The callers ... don't owe me anything; in fact I owe
THEM more than I could ever begin to express." It is sysops like
Mr. Paul who, to a substantial part, cause sponges, and leeches,
and whatever else we want to call them. I used to have a
questionnaire in which I asked "How do you feel about paying a
small amount of money to help with the expenses of this bbs?" and
I still recall vividly MANY answers that said something like "Why
should I pay anything? There are many bbs out there that are
free, and as long as they are there, I will not pay." In effect
they are telling me: "I will use you for everything I can get out
of you. When you get tired of it, or can't afford it anymore,
then I will use someone else. And I will keep using them until
there is nobody left to use." And then Mr. Paul asks me, and
other readers of his article, the question: "I'd be interested in
knowing ... what you offer users that is unavailable elsewhere
for free." An education in manners, Mr. Paul, that is what I
would like to offer them.
FidoNews 4-40 Page 5 2 Nov 1987
Mr. Paul feels that charging a fee obligates him to the callers.
Does it really? There is a school of thought that goes something
like this: If a caller spends a substantial amount of time and
effort in participating in a conference, especially if he calls
long distance, then it is the host's obligation to ensure that
the conference is not abruptly stopped because of the negligence
of the host. Thus, the host takes a certain responsibility to
back up his system and to try to reactivate the board in case of
a crash within a reasonable time period. I do not argue with
this, and in over 6 years my board has not had any unscheduled
and unannounced downtimes that lasted longer than 24 hrs. But how
does it change this obligation if the hosts says "Hey guys, this
is costing me a lot of money. How about if you chip in to help me
pay the bills?" This is no more a "profit" than if I offer to
give someone a ride to a city 100 miles away, to which I am going
anyway, if I ask the rider to help me pay for the gas.
And to clear up a misunderstanding: The IRS is not interested in
your income, it's interested in your profits!
I hope I make my point clear. I too welcome comments, which you
may send to 381/20 (directly, or if you have problems sending it,
route it through 381/1). You may also call directly to
(915) 545-2752 or mail any replies, comments, questions, or
whatever by US Mail to Plato's Retreat BBS, 6112 N. Mesa,
Suite 103, El Paso, TX 79912.
Several days ago I was slandered through the entry of
messages into Fido mail that were considered to be of a an
unethecial and offensive nature. There were a individuals that
were very supportive to me during this attack. I wish to thank
you for your support! It greatly encouraged me.
For those of you that do not know me I wish to provide
you with a short background on myself and my BBS I have been a
System Operator (Sysop) for over 6 1/2 years. It has been my
policy that message or file content that may be considered to be
offensive to users is not permitted on my system. I run a semi
open system. New users are granted full access to the system
witin 24 hours after their first phone call. New users are not
required to register unless they want to. In addition new users
are not required to pay any fees to access the NFF.
The NFF operates using The Bread Board System BBS
software. To share in Fidonet I use Seadog. There is an open
reward that is offered on my system. If anyone can crash my
system, tell me how they did it and it is not caused by an error
on my part in the way I configure my system I pay out $100
dollars. During the period of time that I have operated TBBS no
one has yet to collect that reward. No one has ever crashed my
system and they have not obtained entry to the system using my
Sysop userlog entry. Many have tried without success.
The National Family Forum is a family oriented system. It
also is a Christian BBS. I can assure everyone that the offensive
messages that carried the name of my system and my name did not
originate on the National Family Forum. It is my personal policy
that when offensive messages appear on my system from my users
that I remove them as soon as they are seen. It is also my policy
that if individuals that use Fido Net enter offensive messages
into the system that I kill all messages from them in the future.
If I feel it is warranted I will send Net-Mail to that person on
the node the message originated on. I no longer "flame"
individuals in echo mail. Most individuals do not want to read
such private messages and it does nothing to directly improve
message content in Echo Mail.
Sincerely Yours,
Anton Johnson
National Family Forum Sysop
In October 5th's issue of FidoNews, there was a column by
Aaron Priven about shrinking the nodelist, and although I highly
respect his purpose, I must comment on his proposed methods.
First of all, removing the name of the board is totally
ridiculous. When I read a message, I like to know what board it's
from. I do not work by numbers, I work by names! I cannot
immediately recognize that 125/111 is Fido Software, or that
109/639 is Renex BBS. In addition, when it's calling, I'd like to
know then and there if I entered the right number.
As for the Sysop name, and for SEAdog's USERLIST feature, I
use it all the time and it is the primary feature of SEAdog that
I miss in Opus. It is SO annoying to have to remember someone's
node number; or, if I don't know them, I just like to say, "I
want to send a letter to Bob Hartman, wherever he is." SEAdog can
oblige. I don't want to have to look it up. In fact, I _couldn't_
if we removed the names.
As for the flags, I would like to know who has SEAdog or
equivalent, although it's not that important. But, some boards
are "Mail Only" (mine, except for a very few people) and don't
want people picking their name off the nodelist without knowing
that I won't be accepting human callers. We can shorten them to
one character, tho.
The least useful field is the city/state, but I still think
it should be kept. I agree with shortening the baud rate to about
one character (1[200], 2[400], 3[00], 4[800], 9[600]) and I also
believe that hex numbers would be faster to convert and would
take up less space.
We could shorten !_Unpublished to just !, and for gosh sake,
WHY is the nodelist distributed with 1- added to the number? We
could save 4k right there!
End of line characters: CR/LF is convenient for C, but ...
if we made it LF it could be handled WITHOUT text mode conversion
and would be faster to operate on. For those who need to edit by
hand, we COULD conceivable make a utility for conversion. This
would only save about 2k, though. Or is that significant?
Some fields could be made fixed, and we can eliminate some of
the commas. Or, we could write some fields in BINARY format
(node/net) or packed decimal (phone). But then writing or
maintaining a private nodelist would be difficult.
Thus is my rebuttle. Comments should be directed to:
Eric Ewanco, SEAdog/Opus 1:130/3.0
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FidoNews 4-40 Page 8 2 Nov 1987
U.S. Robotics, Hayes to Share High-Speed Modem Technology
Skokie,Ill.,October 21 -- Modem industry leaders Hayes
Microcomputer Products,Inc., and U.S.Robotics, Inc., will share
proprietary, high-speed modem technology under terms of a newly-
signed cross-licensing agreement.
The pact could lead both companies to manufacture signal-
compatible modems operating at 9600 bps and higher speeds,
potentially boosting a market that cautiously has awaited a
standard technology for competing products.
Despite the agreement, however, U.S. Robotics said that is has no
immediate plans to manufacture modems employing Hayes'
technology.
U.S. Robotics, based here, has gained a license to manufacture
modems using Hayes' proprietary error-control protocol and
modulation technique currently implemented in Hayes' 9600- and
2400-bps V-Series modems.
Hayes, of Norcross, Ga., becomes a licensee of U.S. Robotics'
proprietary high-speed modem tecnolgy used in its 9600-bps
Courier HST modem.
The agreement also includes cross-licensing of any new inventions
by both companies during the next three years.
"This agreement also gives us more technological flexibility in
responding to potential demand for certain features and
capabilities," said U.S. Robotics President Casey Cowell.
"Any future enhancements to the Courier HST that derive from this
agreement will be appropriate to meeting market demand and
anticipating long-term market development," Cowell continued. "We
intend in any future versions of the Courier HST to maintain
operational compatibility with all previously sold HST modems."
Both companies declined to declined to reveal terms of the cross-
licensing agreement.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Mark Smith
312-982-5001
US Robotics, Inc.
8100 North McCormick Blvd.
Skokie,IL 60076
***Original Press Release sent to IFNA FidoNews Editor***
Issue #5: Public Domain for More than Software
Aaron Priven (1:125/1154)
Deadlines? We don't have no deadlines. We don't need no
deadlines! We don't need no stinking deadlines!
-------
Lately there has been a move toward placing Matrix software
into free distribution, with source code distributed too. I'm
not going to get into this subject very far, but I really am
glad to see it happen. I love the idea of the Matrix as a free
source of information. The idea of all of us helping the common
good, more for everybody, is perhaps one of the best things that
could have happened in the Age of Information that John Naisbitt
and other futurists are always talking about. I don't know if we
can make a real difference in the rest of the world, but I hope
that our concepts of free distribution extend themselves to
others -- not just that others may join the net and take part in
it, but that people may discover that free distribution is good
for *all* media -- not just computery ones.
Now I'm not suggesting that everybody de-copyright their
books and music and let everybody have it for free -- just as I
wouldn't suggest that everyone de-copyright their software and
put it on BBS's. What I am saying is that there is a lot of
information out there that has always been absolutely free --
but inaccessible.
Take an example close to my heart (or my stomach). In 1977 a
friend of mine who happens to be my mother compiled a cookbook
called "Family Cooking" -- she took recipes from all her aunts,
cousins, sisters-in-law, and other relatives, and put it all in
a 150-page book which she basically made herself. She typed it
out on an IBM Executive typewriter, and printed it a local copy
shop. It turned out really nice, but she made no more than
twenty copies -- all of which went to our relatives.
Why didn't we give it away to other people? How could we? We
would have had to buy the paper, which would have cost money,
and if we'd tried to sell it we would have had to make a very
risky investment, which we simply were not prepared to make.
(And realistically, there are so many cookbooks out that "just
another homestyle cookbook" would have had no chance at a
publisher.) So fifteen copies are in the hands of our relatives,
and we have five copies left, and the rest of the people in the
world are stuck.
So this year we're thinking about updating it. We'd take
advantage of newer technology, and desktop-publish it in high
FidoNews 4-40 Page 10 2 Nov 1987
style. We would also release the text of it into free
distribution. We can now do this -- all we have to do is take
the text, convert it to ASCII (which it will be in anyway), ARC
it and file-attach it to various BBS's. That's all it takes now
to give something away free. Big difference from 1977.
The point of this column is to get the rest of you thinking
about things like that. Maybe you're a leech type who would like
to contribute, but can't because you can't write a line of code.
You don't have to! If you can write a story, or a poem, or
relate an anecdote, or anything along that line, then you are
perfectly well off; a good story is at least as good as the
latest user-supported arcade game.
14 Nov 1987
The First New England Sysop Conference, to be held at the
Lederle Graduate Research Center, 16 Floor University of
Massachusetts, Amherst. Contact Mort Sternheim at 1:321/109
for details.
7 Dec 1987
Start of the Digital Equipment Users Society meeting in
Anaheim, CA. Contact Mark Buda at 1:132/777 for details.
24 Aug 1989
Voyager 2 passes Neptune.
If you have something which you would like to see on this
calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1:1/1.
Utility authors: Please help keep this list up to date by
reporting new versions to 1:1/1. It is not our intent to list
all utilities here, only those which verge on necessity.
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