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Copyright 1988 by the International FidoNet Association. All
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The contents of the articles contained here are not our
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Table of Contents
1. ARTICLES ................................................. 1
Automatic Routing of Gateways ............................ 1
Quick BBS - Binkley - And More ........................... 6
The Great Earthquake Hoax ................................ 17
2. WANTED ................................................... 20
Anybody for Chess? ....................................... 20
3. NOTICES .................................................. 21
The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 21
Latest Software Versions ................................. 21
FidoNews 5-07 Page 1 15 Feb 1988
This was originally a message to Doug Thompson that I just
kept writing and writing and writing.... eventually i realized
it might be better as an article than as a message. So here it
is.
(In this article, "nets" are Fidonet Networks, that is,
Fidonet routing units like 125 and 109. "Networks" are separate
entities like Usenet and Bitnet. Also, all examples are from
Zone 1, and many the San Francisco Bay Area in particular; this
is only because I'm familiar with it. Please, no national
centrism is implied! -- I just don't know very much about the
setup of Europe or Oceania in Fidonet.)
After thinking it over, these are my ideas to implement
gateways from Fidonet to other networks, as far as Fidonet is
concerned.
Basically, what I want to do is this: just as the Echo
Backbone has special node numbers, and so has the Software
Backbone, gateways to other nets would also have special node
numbers. These numbers would be derived from an assigned
"network" number plus another number indicating the geographical
unit that a to/from node was in.
The question is: why put special numbers in the nodelist?
They're *other* networks, aren't they? Can't they just do it for
themselves? The answer to that is complex. Communication *is*
any network; without communication, there literally is no
network. Increasing communication, by adding people to the list
with whom you can communicate, will only widen and improve the
basis of what the conversations end up being. It should be a
primary goal of any network to improve communications. As such,
while gateways with other networks may not seem likely to better
any one particular network, by "giving away" the information
that that network has, in reality both networks, all gatewayed
networks, improve by the gatewaying.
The reason for the numbers being derived, rather than being
selected at random, is twofold. First of all, it's aesthetic; I
like numbers that work out that way. Second of all, like net
routing to the "xxx/0" node, it allows for automatic routing to
that gateway. You simply send to "Usenet", and the computer
knows where that is.
There are many ways to assign automatic numbers. One may do
it by net and region, either requiring that the net or region
FidoNews 5-07 Page 2 15 Feb 1988
set aside a particular number for gateways (anything/999 will
always be the local Usenet gateway, for example) or by having
the NC or RC act as an outbound host for gatewayed mail (just
so far as the gateway). The problem with this is getting every
NC in Fidonet to do any one thing; I imagine it's hard enough
just getting Donald Dodell, Henk Wevers, and Bill Bolton to
agree. I believe it must be done netwide, and thus via the
nodelist.
For example, it would be perfectly possible to have one
gateway per region with this formula:
<zone>/<two-digit_network><two-digit_region>
So if Usenet were assigned a gateway number of 50, the Usenet
gateway for Zone 1 Region 10 would be 1/5010. The problem here
is that Region 10, and most other regions, are really too big to
only have one Usenet gateway. Should someone in Quebec call a
Usenet gateway in Indiana when might be available right there in
Quebec? I really don't think so.
Therefore, the units have to be smaller. To my mind, the
obvious conclusion is to do it by net. (Independent nodes, of
course, would continue to do it by region.) It could be done
smaller than that, but most of the time if nets are split, then
the split is small enough that it can be plugged in manually.
The next step, then, is to use this formula:
<zone>/<one-digit_network><three-digit_region>
So, if Usenet were assigned the gateway number of 7, the Usenet
gateway for Zone 1 Region 10 would be 1/7010, and the Usenet
gateway for net 161 would be 1/7161.
There are quite a few problems here. First of all, it assumes
that we'll never have more than nine networks. I don't know if
any networks besides Usenet would even consider a gateway (I'll
discuss Alternet later); perhaps there will be only one. It is
possible that Bitnet or ARPAnet will offer us gateways. Or,
perhaps other incompatible microcomputer networks -- the GT-
Powercomm network and PunterNet come to mind -- will one day
have gateways. It very possible that someday we may reach nine
or ten gateways.
Furthermore, even if there were only one or two gateways, it
is still taking away a tremendous number of Zone 1 special
nodes. (I mean by that not that it will take the actual numbers,
but it will take up all ten-thousand of the 7000 numbers even if
there are only a few gateways.) Right now, Zone 1 special nodes
are used in four ways: the software backbone, the echomail
backbone, Fidonet compatible software help nodes, and various
IFNA and Fidonet offices (the IC, the ZoneGates, and also
positions like the FTSC chair and the IFNA membership chairman).
Yet they have not lived up to their potential. They do not list
help nodes for many products that could use them, including
FidoNews 5-07 Page 3 15 Feb 1988
SEAdog (except in Oceania!), Confmail and the rest of Bob
Hartman's software, US Robotics and Telebit, and many other
products. (This is not a complaint, I'm only pointing-out a
possibility.) They do not list the members, or even the chairmen
of the various IFNA committees. They do not include even all the
members of the IFNA Board of Directors! (Is it any wonder that
we have to ask who they are?) When the Zone 1 special nodes are
used to the extent that they could and should be, there will be
much less room for manipulation.
It seems, therefore, that we've run out of options. We just
can't use Zone 1 (or Zone 2 or Zone 3) special nodes because
there simply aren't enough. I think the only reasonable solution
left is to grant special units to gateways to other networks.
Thus, which units should we use? I've already shown that
single-digit numbers, and thus zones, are not feasible. I think
the ideal solution would be to use special net numbers for
gateways, for several reasons. First of all, these special nets
would be directly under the zone and not in a separate region,
thus listing the gateway nodes right under the 1/x special
nodes. Second, there are a lot of network numbers available;
only 100 are currently used in Zone 1, and since there is
already a precedent for not having nets assigned exactly in
numerical sequence (unlike, say, 1/x nodes, where all 1/2xx
nodes are Echomail Backbone hubs, and all 1/3xx nodes are
Software Backbone hubs) there is little reason why all of them
couldn't be used. The problem with using nets is, however,
clear: all messages to nets are routed via the network host.
That is what nets are for, of course, but for situations like
this it's simply not the right thing to do. We'll have to use
regions, which do not route.
There are several drawbacks to using regions, but they simply
cannot be helped. The first one is that regions have been
assigned starting from 10, and thus will not be listed right
after the 1/x nodes; it sounds unimportant but it does ruin the
continuity of the nodelist. Second of all, direct representation
of one region per gateway would place a large overhead on the
region numbers, and ignores the good use that can be made of the
fourth digit in each node number.
I would suggest that other networks be given gateway numbers
of two digits, and the following formulae be used: for the
region number,
If Usenet were given a gateway number of 11, then the Usenet
gateway for Region 10 independents would be 91/1010. If Bitnet
were given 0, then the Bitnet gateway for Net 125 would be
90/125. (It is perfectly possible with this scheme to have a
FidoNews 5-07 Page 4 15 Feb 1988
gateway number of 0 or of 10; you simply leave out the first
digit in the node number). This is really very simple.
I would suggest that gateway numbers be assigned first not
with 0 or 1, but with 89, and go backwards. (This would make
Region 10's gateway 98/9010, and so forth.) This would ensure
that Region 99 is still available in the event another special
region is needed, and that Regions 90 through probably 96 would
be available for regular or special use.
It is true that these numbers would take away some of the
possibilities of new regions. Nevertheless, at this writing
there are only 16 regions in Zone 2, and less in each of the
other zones. While regions will no doubt continue to be added in
Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and it is likely that
at some future time some regions elsewhere will be added or
split, it is also likely that at such a time as that many
regions are needed, a new zone will be needed as well --
doubling the number of possible regions.
(These 90-99 numbers could well be used for other things
besides gateways. It would be possible to use special region
numbers for other special functions we may develop in the
future, should we need new region numbers.)
The way the messages would be routed is as follows. First,
the re-routing program will look in its configuration file for a
manual setting of the gateway node. (This is in case one has
more than one gateway per net.) Then, the person looks for the
node matching the gateway number and the net. For example, Net
125 nodes would look for 98/9125 if the gateway number were 89.
If there was no node 98/9125, then it would look for 98/9010,
since Net 125 is in Region 10. If there were no 98/9010, it
would look for 98/9000. Numbers like 98/0001 and 98/0005 are
administrative numbers, indicating the persons in charge of
running the gateways (this might not be used, but more likely
would be those in charge of keeping the standards for gateway
software).
* * *
I haven't discussed Alternet in the my article, although the
thoughts leading up to this article did include them. I don't
think it's much of a secret that I dislike Alternet because it
hurts communication; it necessitates things like special
gateways and funny 9x/xxxx numbers; barriers to communication,
which is exactly what in an ideal situation we do NOT need in a
communications network! (I like that word, communication.)
Nevertheless, in an apolitical spirit, I have to admit that
Alternet (despite its origin) is indeed a separate network than
Fidonet and (so long as there are enough nodes in Alternet to
justify it) should be treated in the Fido nodelist the same way
as any other network.
That includes, however, the inconvenience of being another
network. If they want to be included in the Fido nodelist, then
FidoNews 5-07 Page 5 15 Feb 1988
they must be part of Fidonet. Fido's Zone 4 will be used for
Latin America, Asia, or Africa, not for any special-interest
group; what's best for the organization of Fidonet is clear
organizational lines, and that would be completely destroyed by
the actual granting of a zone to Alternet and the inclusion of
Alternet in the Fido nodelist. The difference between actual
inclusion and the granting of gateways is clear: special
treatment. Alternet should be given no special treatment
whatsoever.
Quick BBS by itself is one heck of a program. Adding Binkley
as the mail processor or front end if you will, turns a great
program into a super program. While this article is designed for
the Quick BBS sysop, anyone who desires to use Binkley will
profit from reading this.
The topics covered are the ones I receive the most questions
about on the Quick BBS Help Node.
The first question people ask is how do I get Quick BBS to run
under Binkley? There are several ways to doit, but the one I use
and find most applicable is the EXIT method. This frees up the
most RAM and allows me to run almost any RBBS or PcBoard door
from Quick BBS.
You have to add the following line to your binkley.cfg file to
start this process:
BBS EXIT
This tells Binkley to exit when a human caller is detected
with the Errorlevel set to the callers Baud Rate divided by 10.
An example would be if a caller comes in at 2400 baud then
Binkley will exit with the Errorlevel set to 24, ready to be
trapped by the batch file used to run Binkley.
Now in the batch file you use to run Binkley you will need to
add the following statements to trap the Errorlevel and start
QuickBBS when a human calls.
If ErrorLevel 24 Goto Baud2400
If ErrorLevel 12 Goto Baud1200
If ErrorLevel 3 Goto Baud300
Those three lines will trap 2400, 1200 and 300 baud callers
and send them to the appropriate routine in the batch file. The
three routines these lines call are listed below.
:Baud2400 ; Procedure Name
C: ; Change To Drive C
Cd\AAAAAAAA ; Change To Quick BBS Sub
QuickBBS -b2400 -E0 ; Call Quick BBS Pass Baud
Goto AfterQuick
:Baud300
C:
Cd\AAAAAAAA
FidoNews 5-07 Page 7 15 Feb 1988
QuickBBS -B300 -E0
Goto Start
You might notice that in the Baud2400 and Baud1200 routines
the last command is Goto AfterQuick and in the Baud300 routine
the last command is Goto Start.
This is because I do not accept 300 Baud callers on my system,
so once QuickBBS has informed the caller of this and logged them
off, I do not have to worry about processing any messages or
netmail and can go right back to start Binkley up again.
Okay so now Binkley can answer the phone, detect a human
caller and pass control to Quick BBS. Once the caller has logged
off, my batch file goes the routine named AfterQuick which is
listed below.
:AfterQuick ; Procedure Name
C: ; Make Sure I Am On C Drive
cd \AAAAAAAA ; Change To Quick BBS Sub Directory
echoscan ; Move EchoMail To Message Area
mailscan ; Move NetMail To Message Area
D: ; Change Back To Drive D
cd \BINK ; Change To Binkley Sub Directory
Goto Bundle ; Goto Message Processing Routine
Okay, so what is Bundle? How does Binkley or Quick BBS now
process the mail? Well, it took me quite a while to completely
understand this with help from experts such as Bob Hartman, Rick
Siegel, Doug Boone, Baba Buhler, Mike Janke, and many more, to
whom I say THANK YOU!
OMMM is the program that processes the messages and sets
things rolling for delivery. What I could not grasp was the
UNIQUE things that OMMM allows you to do. Just like most other
Sysops, I was used to the three tiered mail schedule we use in
Net 107. Basically, it works like this.
From one hour before National Mail to one-half hour before
National Mail, we send all outgoing mail (non-echo) to our
local Hubs.
From one half hour before NMH to NMH our Hubs send the mail to
our Outbound gateway.
During NMH each node is responsible to send EchoMail and
messages with Attaches directly to the destination.
From NMH to one half hour after NMH we send and receive from
nodes in Net 107, while the Igate processes the mail and sends it
to the Hubs.
From one half hour after NMH to one hour after NMH the nodes
are usually quite, waiting to receive mail from their Hubs.
Even though I ran SEAdog as a front end, I never thought about
FidoNews 5-07 Page 8 15 Feb 1988
processing mail any way other than above.
Now with Binkley as my front end, mail processing has changed.
Since my Hub accepts CM and mail outside of National Mail Hour,
Binkley and OMMM make it very easy for me to send outbound mail
to my Hub during the day. The Hub is a LOCAL call, so it does not
cost anything to make the call during the day.
So in my Day Time Schedule in OMMM.CTL (Schedule D) I send all
non-echo outbound mail to my Hub. Since there are several nodes
in the local area, I send any mail to them directly thus
lightening the load on my Hub somewhat.
I also HOLD echomail for several Sysops who desire to Poll me,
so I have HOLD statements in this schedule as well. Here is what
my OMMM.CTL looks like.
SCHED D
UNHOLD ALL ; Remove Hold From All Packets
ONEHOLD 129/34 ; -+
ONEHOLD 135/68 ; |
ONEHOLD 104/24 ; +--> Hold For People Who Poll Me
ONEHOLD 170/211 ; |
ONEHOLD 135/4 ; -+
ROUTE 107/200 107/ALL ; Route All Remaining 107 Mail
; To My Hub.
(Author's Note: It might not be the best but it works!)
Here is what the schedule event looks like in the Binkley
configuration file.
Event All 06:00 23:59 L C B E1=10 E2=30 E3=50 A=180
Event All 00:00 02:59 L C B E1=10 E2=30 E3=50 A=180
Okay, now my day time mail is being handled. Note that there
are 2 events above. This is because Binkley cannot handle an
event that crosses the midnight hour. So one event is from 6:00
am to 11:59 pm and the next is from midnight until 2:59 am.
The three flags I have set are L which enables local mail, C
for Crash Mail and B which allows BBS access.
E1 is set to Errorlevel 10, which sets the SCHED variable to
SCHED D. When the event starts it goes to SCHED D in OMMM.CTL and
processes the mail as above.
FidoNews 5-07 Page 9 15 Feb 1988
From 3:00 am to 3:59 am I poll various nodes to get my
echomail.
From 04:00 to 05:00 (NMH) I use SCHED M which is show below.
SCHED M
UNHOLD ALL ; Removes Holds From All Packets
ONEHOLD 135/4 ;
ONEHOLD 129/34 ;
ONEHOLD 135/68 ; Hold EchoMail For Pickup
ONEHOLD 170/211 ;
ONEHOLD 104/24 ;
Here is the event line for this schedule.
Event All 04:00 05:00 N E1=11 E2=30 E3=50 A=180
E1 is set to Errorlevel 11 which sets the schedule to SCHED M
which is my NMH schedule.
I hope you are beginning to understand this. Basically you set
each schedule to handle the mail the way you want it done.
So far, I have not touched on the command line for OMMM but
will now cover that.
All of my events call the procedure named :BUNDLE which
basically starts OMMM on its way. Here is what BUNDLE looks like
in my batch file.
-s%sched% is the SCHED variable set by the various events as
the day goes by.
-hd:\zzzznet\outbound is the holding area for messages once
they have been processed. This is WHERE they seem todisappear to
after OMMM has processed them. This is also where Binkley EXPECTS
to find them.
-c:\Bink\ommm.ctl is the COMPLETE path and file name of the
control file for OMMM.
-Id:\Bink\binkley.PRM is the COMPLETE path and file name for
the Binkley PRM file.
-Md:\zzzznet is the directory where Quick BBS and any other
utility stores messages WAITING to be processed.
FidoNews 5-07 Page 10 15 Feb 1988
Once OMMM has processed the mail, the batch file goes back to
the start and runs Binkley again.
E3 in the Binkley.cfg file is a special flag. This is what you
want to occur when CRASH Mail is received. I have listed my
procedure below.
:Unpackmail ; Procedure Name
C: ; Change To Drive C
Cd\AAAAAAAA ; Change To Quick BBS Sub Directory
echogen -U -T ; Unarc and Toss All Echomail
ARCMAIL FROM ALL ; Just In Case Echogen Misses Something
ECHOTOSS ; Same As Line Above
MailToss 2 ; Toss NetMail Into Quick BBS Board 2
D: ; Change Back To Drive D
Cd \Bink ; Change To Binkley Sub Directory
Goto Bundle ; Ah, Here Is Bundle Again
Bundle is called at the end to process the mail again. Echogen
produces the echomail for the nodes I feed. If any EchoMail came
in the CRASH mail, Echogen sends it to the nodes I feed and then
tosses it into the appropriate message boards in the Quick BBS
message file.
So, as you can see, running OMMM to process the mail is done
after any mail comes in, and again at the start of every new
event. By setting the SCHED variable to the proper schedule in
OMMM.CTL you determine how the mail is to be handled.
You will notice the following lines at the top of my batch
file to run Binkley.
Set BINKLEY=D:\BINK\
If %Sched%!==! goto day_route
The first line sets the Dos variable BINKLEY equal to the PATH
where the Binkley files are stored. This is QUITE important, so I
set it here as well as in my AUTOEXEC.BAT file upon system start
up.
The second line covers unexpected mistakes on my part. If, in
my all night editing sessions I screw up and leave an event
unscheduled, it reverts to the day time mail schedule which ONLY
sends local mail. I learned this lesson the hard way.
I hope that explains a little more about how Binkley works
with Quick BBS. I have enclosed my complete batch file and
configuration at the end of this article to help you along your
way.
As the Quick BBS HELP node I keep a complete set of Quick BBS
and Binkley files on-line. These are available to new callers for
download on the FIRST call. Here is the latest list of Quick BBS
and associated files that go along with Quick BBS.
You can request FILES from 1/114 to get the latest listing of
FidoNews 5-07 Page 11 15 Feb 1988
files available. This is updated twice a day and is always
current.
EGEN_105.ARC Version 1.05 Fixes BUGS In 1.04
QUICKUPD.ARC Update Quick BBS 1.01 To 1.02
QUICKBBS.ARC QuickBBS Standard Package (Main Program)
QUICKDOC.ARC QuickBBS Sysop Documentation
QUICKNET.ARC QuickBBS Net Mail Option
QUICKECO.ARC QuickBBS Echo Mail Option
QUICKPAK.ARC All Of The Above Files
BATCH.ARC My Batch And Control Files For This System
SAMPMENU.ARC Menus Used On This System
SAMPQEST.ARC Sample New User Questionnaire
STRUCT.ARC File Structures For Quick BBS
X00106.ARC Fossil Driver For QuickBBS
BULLMAKE.ARC News/Bulletin Generator (FREEWARE)
CVTMSG.ARC Imports Messages From Opus To Quick BBS
CVTUSER.ARC Converts Opus User File To Quick BBS
DSZ0110.ARC External Zmodem Protocol (Latest Version)
FILESCAN.ARC Creates List Of Available Files V5.1
USERLOG.ARC Userlog/Message Base/Answerfile Utility <-New
UPURGE.ARC Purge By Date, Security Level
WXMODEM.ARC External Wxmodem Driver
BINKBATS.ARC My Cfg And Bats To Run Binkley
BEXE_130.ARC Binkley (A Front End For Quick BBS)
BINKOMMM.ARC Using OMMM With Binkley
BTCTL.ARC Replaces Faulty BTCTL In BEXE_103 Archive
CONFMAIL.ARC B. Hartman's Mail Package 3.3
FILESCAN.ARC V5.1 Now Supports Binkley <--NEW
OMMM_108.ARC Message Handler For Binkley
OMMMHELP.ARC More Help Using OMMM With Binkley
ONODE146.ARC Nodelist Utility For Binkley
REMAPPER.ARC Service Points With Binkley
All of the above files are requestable. Opus and SEAdog
requests are handled quite well by Binkley, so you should not
have any major problems if you decide to request them from 1/114
or 107/246.
For those of you that enjoy running programs outside of Quick
BBS we have an assortment of RBBS doors and PcBoard programs that
work quite well.
- QUICK BBS EXTERNAL DOOR SOFTWARE
BBSLIST.ARC User Maintained BBS Listing Program
FidoNews 5-07 Page 12 15 Feb 1988
- Quick BBS External Door Software
RBBSDOOR.ARC All below REQUIRE This To Run
CIA.ARC Join The CIA Adventure Game
CHESSDOR.ARC Multi-Player Chess Game
TIME.ARC Adventure In Time
- PCBOARD External Door Software
QDOOR12.ARC REQUIRED For All Below
5-CARD20.ARC 5 Card Draw Poker
CHECKERS.ARC On-line Checkers Game
CRAPS141.ARC Craps Game
FIFI12.ARC Madam Fifi's House Of Pleasure
GHOST.ARC Ghost Hunter Adventure
KRAPZ15.ARC A Better Craps Game
PCBVIET.ARC VietNam Adventure
SCRACK12.ARC Safe Cracker
TGTRIV26.ARC Top Gun Trivia(Latest Release)
- Utility Files
DOORBATS.ARC Sample Door Batch Files And Menus
QBBSSPEC.ARC 3 New Game Adventure Doors
More and more door software is being developed and we are
expecting a Quick BBS specific version of Trade Wars in the near
future. I have seen it, and it runs very nicely. I would love to
Beta test (Hint) on my system.
Quick BBS version 2.0 is going into Beta test very soon, and
we are all looking forward to seeing it.
For those of you who have never seen Quick BBS in action, here
is a list of some of the Beta test sites.
104/24 QuickBBS Support Board Adam Hudson
104/32 ETA Denver Rick Christensen
104/51 P2 B2 S Claude Warren
104/54 CoCo County Airport Ron Biehler
105/55 Casper's Place Dale Weber
107/246 QuickBBS East Gene Coppola
202/401 QuickBBS West Rick Fry
381/1 The Data Emporium Vernon Six
383/761 Telelink Information Michael Otto
103/501 Mount Silverthorne David Garrett
132/114 Stateline Bob Westcott
116/2 Music PC Users Group John Reed
Each system may appear different to you, as the menus and
basically the entire presentation is designed by the Sysop,
similar to TBBS.
Ansi graphics are used in many systems and the color displays
can be very nice.
FidoNews 5-07 Page 13 15 Feb 1988
Unlike other systems Quick BBS does not write a message file
for each individual message. Messages are stored in one large
file with the header and other message info in another file. This
alone has been the cause for many Opus and Fido Sysops to switch
over to Quick BBS. Lots of disk space and directory entries are
saved in this manner and the search through the message base is
extremely fast!
Currently Echogen 1.05 handles mail just like Confmail does.
It will Toss and Scan mail and is extremely fast.
Quick BBS handles most popular file transfer protocols
including Zmodem and Ymodem.
You can exit Quick BBS while on-line in one of several
methods. One method is a spawn to Dos to run another program.
Another method is an actual exit from Quick BBS and then a return
with the special -R command. These two features allow you to run
large programs with no problems.
A FOSSIL driver is required to run Quick BBS. At this time we
recommend either X00V_106 or X00V_108 depending upon which of
those two perform best on your system. Both will work with
Binkley with no problems.
Well that's about it for now. Here are the files I promised
you earlier.
;RunBBS Batch File To Run Binkley And Quick BBS
echo off
Set BINKLEY=D:\BINK\
If %Sched%!==! goto day_route
:Start
d:
cd \BINK
getdate
search /d
echo off
BT Share
If ErrorLevel 100 Goto LocalBBS
If Errorlevel 90 Goto nat_mail
If ErrorLevel 70 Goto Qmodem
If ErrorLevel 50 Goto unpackmail
If ErrorLevel 30 Goto unpackmail
if Errorlevel 25 goto receive_only
If ErrorLevel 24 Goto Baud2400
If Errorlevel 20 Goto clean
If Errorlevel 15 goto loc2_mail
If Errorlevel 14 goto loc_mail
If Errorlevel 13 goto o_gate
If ErrorLevel 12 Goto Baud1200
If Errorlevel 11 goto nat_mail
If ErrorLevel 10 Goto day_route
FidoNews 5-07 Page 14 15 Feb 1988
If ErrorLevel 3 Goto Baud300
If ErrorLevel 0 Goto End
Event All 00:00 02:59 L B E1=10 E2=30 E3=50 A=180
Event All 03:00 03:59 N E1=13 E2=30 E3=50 A=180
Event All 04:00 05:00 N E1=11 E2=30 E3=50 A=180
Event All 05:00 05:30 N E1=15 E2=30 E3=50 A=180
Event All 05:30 06:00 N R E1=25 E2=30 E3=50 A=180
Event All 06:00 23:59 L B E1=10 E2=30 E3=50 A=180
Hold D:\ZZZZNET\Outbound\
Init |AT&FM0H0&C1&D2S0=1|
LogLevel 5
MaxReq 10
Netfile D:\ZZZZNET\
Netmail D:\ZZZZNET\
Nodelist D:\NODELIST\
Okfile C:\AAAAAAAA\okfile.txt
Point 107/246
Port 1
Prefix |ATDT,
Protocol D:\Bink\Kermit.exe
Protocol D:\bink\Ascii.exe
Protocol D:\bink\Wxmodem.com
Protocol D:\bink\Ymodemg.com
Reader Nc
Statuslog d:\bink\Binkly.Log
Sysop Gene Coppola
System Quick BBS East
Timeout 5
Unattended
Zone 1
Original reference material may be found at Griffith
Observatory, located at 2800 East Observatorty Road, Los
Angeles, California. 90027. Request back issue of Griffith
Observer, January, 1975, page 14, for Edward K. L. Upton, "The
Great Earthquake Hoax". Direct requests to Dr. Edwin C. Krupp
and staff. You may aquire subscriptions to the Griffith Observer
through the same address. It provides a great quantity of
understandable information concerning astronomy, (And is well
worth the price!)
--------------------
The word "Scientist", as defined in the common dictionary,
describes a person who is "expert in science". It further goes
on to say that "Science" is defined as "systematized knowledge
or a branch of it". "Expert" has been described as "X", (the
unknown factor), and "Spert", (a drip under pressure).
A scientist would then be a person who specializes in drips
under pressure. At least this seems to be the case with some of
the so-called "Scientist" that "pop up" every now and then.
Related here, in the form of a question, is the actuall
account of an incident that many of you will remember. Do you
remember way back in 1982 when the San Andreas Fault gave way
and California slipped into the contenential shelf?
If any of you were quick enough to buy Nevada beach front
property after reading "The Jupiter Effect", written by John
Gribbon and Stephen Plagemann, you would no doubt remember that
fatefull day as the day your newly aquired property became beach
front indeed.
Let's explore the outer edges of known science and see if we
can understand how these two great scientist were able to
extrapolate the end of California from mounds of research papers
and data.
--------------------
In September of 1975, two scientist, one who associated
within the NASA circle, the other who works for a scientific
journal, wrote a book that would inform the general California
public about the up-comming destruction of the state.
The train of events for the discovery of this information was
a staggering amount of hypotheses. For each of these hypotheses,
a detailed examination with supportive data and graphs was
offered.
1) Within the text of this book, they say that sunspots are
created by tidal forces generated by the planets. They go
further to state that sunspot activity increases when
planets are grouped along one side of the sun.
Can they be serious? Do they do their homework? Well, the
FidoNews 5-07 Page 18 15 Feb 1988
answer would have to be no. Tidal forces are additive when on
opposite sides of the sun also. This would seem to be an
assumption on the part of the authors that the pull of gravity
would be additive when on the same side and cancel eachothers
pull out when on opposite sides of the sun.
2) The solar wind produces changes in the air flow pattern in
the Earths atmosphere. Further, the changes that take
place tend to slow down the rotation of the Earth,
increasing the length of the day by about one 0.001
second.
Well, in fact, this is true. We must agree that the effect of
solar particles and the accumulation of meteroic dust does
contribute to the lengthening of the day. The rotation of the
Earth is not constant and in fact will speed up and slow down
for a variety of reasons.
3) Fault lines are put under additional strain when the Earth
is slowed down. The deceleration of the massive Earth is
great enough to cause major damage to the Earths crust.
It's a good thing the Earth doesn't have tecktonic plates or
we would all be in trouble! When in fact, we do have tecktonic
plates that cause the faults the authors talk about. These
plates move in all directions, (California will be at the North
Pole some day). The theory that the Earth decelerates quickly
enough to cause increased strain to the Earths crust has not be
demonstrated yet. At least to subscribed knowledge, such
evidence does not yet exist.
4) When Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus join the others planets in
1982 there will be a greater tidal pull on the sun
triggering massive solar eruptions. These eruptions will
change the air flow pattern of Earth, causing fault lines
to break, and all of California will be history.
Actually, the authors do not go on to say that California
will be history. What they actually talk about is the massive
damage and loss of life that will occure when the big one
finally hits.
The authors don't know about Alaska, Chile, or Japan where
other major faults can be found. Why would San Andreas be the
only fault to be affected by the Jupiter Effect?
California is a nice place. I have lived on the Californian
beach for over 28 years, and even spent some time in Los
Angeles! I was born in southern California at an undisclosed
year, but I am forced to admit that the people are a little
quick to accept any "scientific" observation or device that
makes the six o'clock news. That and the earthquakes that take
place from time to time add up to an underlying fear that
someday the big one will come.
It would have been better for everyone concerned if the
FidoNews 5-07 Page 19 15 Feb 1988
authors had published their scientific data in a comic book.
This type of sensationalization of a planetary "alignment" was
childish and gives the rest of the scientific community a
black eye.
--------------------
It is up to the scientist of the community to suppress this
type of nonesense and psuedo-sciences such as astrology and tea
leaf reading. Unfortunatly, respectable scientist don't have the
visability that the authors of "Jupiter" do. You might remember
the revelations about the origin of humans in the Von Danakain
Theory or "Chariots of the Gods!". Many graphs, charts, and
photographs prove points which the layman or uninformed are not
trained to understand.
Carl Segan has stated that just because he is a highly
visable scientist, you shouldn't take his word as an authority.
This is a good message to take with you on your way to the book
store.
--------------------
Additional Information:
1) The actual "Alignment" that took place in 1982 was not a true
alignment in the proper sence. The planets grouped along 100
degrees of the ecliptic when they are usually further apart.
In this sense, it could be said that an alignment was taking
place.
2) The solar tide is affected by the planets by about one
milimeter. This is about the thickness of a dime.
--------------------
Additional Reading:
1) The Jupiter Effect. Don't wast your money if you can't borrow
a copy of this book. The library in your area might have it
so ask them first.
2) Griffith Observer, January 1975, Volume 39, Number 1. The
Great Earthquake Hoax by Edward K. L. Upton. Subscriptions to
the Griffith Observer may be aquired through the address
offered at the top of this article. A monthly booklett is
published by the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and each
contains a wealth of valuable information. The subscription
price is probibly still around $10.00 or $15.00, and is used
to maintain that great institution. To find the actual
subscription price, call the observatory and ask for the
subscription rates available.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I would like to know how I can contact Don Berg the author of the
program "chess88".
I'm also interested in obtaining chess programs that run on MSDOS
machines. Any leads for public domain, shareware or even
commerical programs would be appreciated.
Another thing I would like to do is start a Chess echomail
conference. Please let me know if you are interested in linking
in. If I get real adventurous I may even gateway the
rec.games.chess newsgroup from UseNet if there is enough
interest!
Last but not least I'm interested in playing some email chess
games. If you are interested, send me netmail and I'll let you
know how we can proceed.
Regarding any of the above items please address FidoNet mail to
Thomas Kenny at 107/416. Thanks!
19 Feb 1988
Start of the International FidoNet Associations Board of
Directors meeting in St. Louis. Meeting runs through the 21st.
16 Jul 1988
A new areacode, 508, will form in eastern Massachusetts and
will be effective on this date. The new area code will be
formed from the current areacode 617. Greater Boston will
remain areacode 617 while the rest of eastern Massachusetts
will form the new areacode 508.
25 Aug 1988
Start of the Fifth International FidoNet Conference, to be
held at the Drawbridge Inn in Cincinnatti, OH. Contact Tim
Sullivan at 108/62 for more information. This is FidoNet's big
annual get-together, and is your chance to meet all the people
you've been talking with all this time. We're hoping to see
you there!
24 Aug 1989
Voyager 2 passes Neptune.
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