FidoNews is published weekly by the International FidoNet
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submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission
standards are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from
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Copyright 1988 by the International FidoNet Association. All
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Fido and FidoNet are registered trademarks of Tom Jennings of
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The contents of the articles contained here are not our
responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them.
Everything here is subject to debate. We publish EVERYTHING
received.
Table of Contents
1. ARTICLES ................................................. 1
MASS:Monthly Article Submission! ......................... 1
AD&D by Modem ............................................ 3
2. COLUMNS .................................................. 4
Bodies Behind the BBS: Tom Hendricks .................... 4
Let's YACK about Patience ................................ 6
3. NOTICES .................................................. 7
The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 7
Election for Zone 1 Echomail Coordinator ................. 7
Latest Software Versions ................................. 8
FidoNews 5-45 Page 1 7 Nov 1988
Well folks here we are at the end of another month, and the
beginning of a new one. For those of you who have not as yet
made your plans. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and
Christmas is not that far away. For those of you old enough to
do it, DON'T FORGET TO VOTE.
I for one have spent much time recuperating from a battle
with Binkley. For some reason it does not want to run right.
The little sample file runs ok, but once I go to add my own
stuff, some where in the middle of things I get a Date Rollover
problem. So far I have tried just about everything. But when
all else fail the best thing to do is what I did. Convert back
to OPUS. I have so far had no problems with OPUS and ConfMail,
and I have also acquired a new message editor which works great
up to and including me not having to log onto the BBS to read my
mail.
Net 301 has grown a bit in the last couple of weeks. The
newest node 301/9 The Mountain Oracle is SysOp'ed by Paul Seymour
and is in the latest node list. A few weeks older and hopefully
included in the nodediff for this next friday is node 301/8,
VOICE OF ALBUQUERQUE.
There has been a lot of talk from the Houston Area about
phone bills and changes by the phone company. I do have an
article which was written by someone about this which may be
included in the Fido News. It is very interesting.
With all of this going on, I have even had time to work a
little more on the Book I am in the process of writing. Am up to
page 10 of chapter 4. Have also been involved with a new Echo
Mail area. What is new? This area is Hosted and Moderated by
node 304/1, Linda Murphy. It is called ET, and is about almost
anything concerning ExtraTerrestial happenings. For guidelines
and connection you can contact her for the specifics. Or if you
would like you may connect with me here at 301/1 and I will pass
it on to you. To my knowledge she has no intention of putting it
on the Backbone as of yet.
An I know this is a little early but What You Want for
Christmas? I want:
9600 Baud modem.
New computer and monitor.
OPUS 1.1
FidoNews 5-45 Page 2 7 Nov 1988
Ok nuff said, if you are reading this, then I got it sent out ok
and it has been included in the Gazette.
Revis Smith
1:120/110
Playing Dungeons and Dragons by Modem
First you have to roll a chracter. You can either do
this by rolling 3 (6) sided dice, for each of 7
different attributes, or by using a program called
CHARGEN3.ARC. This file is available for file request
on my system. CHARGEN3 was written by my friend Barron
Featherston, and was designed to roll up a character
for the player.
Once this is done the player submits his character to
the dungeon master for approval, and waits to be
introduced into the game.
If the game you are starting is new the dungeon master
writes an introduction to his story, and then you ask
the characters to give a backround history of
themselves. This is so that they can place
themselves in the world that you have created.
In my case this World is "Sanctum", your introduction
goes into a special file area along with character
histories. After this is all done you give chracters a
hint of what their after, and really start plot
development.
Then each of the characters post what he or she is
going to do, usually they a elect leader first. This
is done on a special board, on my system the board is
called the Adventure Section.
When all the characters have posted and a general
agreement on a course of action has been reached, the
DM writes a file called a review, and tells the players
what happened. This file he puts up for download, so
everybody can keep up with the story of what players
are doing.
If a Player wants to do anything he doesn't want the
others to know about he sends DM private mail.
I use the following books to help me run my adventures:
Unearthed Arcana, Dungeoner's guide, and Wilderness
Guide. As mapping goes The DM makes an ASCII map, and
puts it up for download.
An Introduction of Tom Hendricks
FTSC Certification Committee
Last week we got a glimpse of Rick Moore, the new head of the
FidoNet Technical Standards Committee. This week we'll peak at
Tom Hendricks (261/662) who has been picked to head up the
certification process.
Certification is the formal testing of software to determine if
it does what it is supposed to. In this case, the certification
is to insure that software which claims to be "FidoNet compat-
ible" does, indeed, conform to all of the applicable specifica-
tions. This is a process which has never really been formally
addressed, and the IFNA Board of Directors saw it as a priority
when the issue was raised at FidoCon. Tom will have the respon-
sibility for doing the formal testing. Of course, before he can
do that, the exact testing procedure must be determined.
But the purpose of this column is to discuss the PEOPLE, not for
me to editorialize on the wonders of FidoNet technology, so let's
move to an introduction of Tom.
In his "real job", Tom is an analyst for the Federal government,
and spends most of his time working on computer networking
problems, connecting different flavors of computers together.
That would certainly seem to provide a bit of background for his
FidoNet carreer. Tom runs his own small firm on the side,
selling systems to low-end businesses and high-end techies.
Tom somehow finds time for several hobbies in addition to the
work. He's a fan of programming languages, with C and Modula-2
being his favorites at this moment. He has taught classes in
assembly language. Other hobbies include photography and pets,
including exotic birds and tropical fish. In fact, as Tom was
giving me the information for this article, he was the excited
"daddy" of some newly-hatched chicks.
Tom's bulletin-board experience began with a homebuilt modem that
he used with an ASR-33 teletype terminal to access the school's
mainframe while in college. He got his first commercial modem in
1981 and, after playing around on CompuServe and his brother's
CP/M BBS, started one of the first systems in the Baltimore area
in 1985. His board has been up continiously since, moving from
RBBS-PC to Colossus, to COLLIE, and via Fido to Opus.
Tom joined FidoNet when it was about 1,000 nodes strong, in net
109 which then was Metro DC and Maryland. Kurt Reisler was the
NC and Thom Henderson was the RC. Later a new Baltimore net was
FidoNews 5-45 Page 5 7 Nov 1988
formed (net 261).
The name of Tom's system, Avi-Technic, reflects his combined
interests of birds and computers. Sounds to me like ideal
background for the certification job; he'll meet some interesting
birds in that assignment! Tom's current FidoNet interests in
addition to the FTSC work include the HST echo (which he co-
founded with his brother) and coordinating the software
distribution system. He is an IFNA member, on the Membership
Services committee, and is Bob Rudolph's alternate for the IFNA
Board.
I hope you've enjoyed this peek at Tom. If there is someone you
would like to know more about, send me netmail (115/777) and I'll
see if I have any luck digging up dirt on them. Or if you are
Famous in FidoNet, send me your bio!
Boy, sleep really does get away from you after awhile if you
don't watch it. I spent a great deal of time a few weeks ago,
for a few weeks, avoiding sleep for one reason (excuse?) or
another. Staying obnoxious hours at work, working on projects
around the house, late nights drinking coffee at Denny's...what
ever it took. It seemed I was bound and determined to not get
any sleep.
It started to show. My responses to the users on the local area
of the message section were getting short, terse, even quippy.
New word? Maybe. Accurate, though.
Then it got worse. The local in-town EchoMail conferences seemed
to be teeming with problems that simply demanded immediate
attention. Pseudonyms, accidental misspellings...the list goes
on.
The it hit its worst stage. The local Netwide SysOp EchoMail
conference. Problems came up with our Regional EchoMail
Coordinator and the Net EchoMail Coordinator position was
changing hands and Nodes were going down and one wasn't tossing a
strictly SysOp area from the NetMail area, leaving home phone
numbers available for viewing and delays in EchoMail and FidoNews
got me worried. I must've entered a boatload of messages asking
if there was a problem with routing and could I do anything to
help (as if I was even coherent enough to BE of any help), and
did we need to reorganize things and...
My fellow SysOps have a great deal of patience. Obviously, I'm
still here. I look back on it and wonder how I even had the
presence of mind to type. I was one tired puppy. And I lost my
patience.
FidoNet is an experiment in communication. Communication
requires patience. None of us perfectly express our views every
time we type a message. It can take several messages to get the
concepts we dream up across to others. Several back-and-forth
type of queries are usually required. In short, communication
can't be a one-shot your way, one-shot my way type of thing.
It's got to be a lot of sharing of ideas. In short, you can't
have communication without patience. I hope I keep it this time.
Election for New Zone 1 Echomail Coordinator
David Dodell, 1:1/0
As most of you know, Butch Walker has resigned as Zone 1 Echomail
Coordinator.
It is Butch's desire to have an election for the new Z1EC, and I
will be assisting by conducting those elections.
The plan is as follows:
(1)
Applications for the position need to reach my system by Monday,
November 14th. Any applications for the position should include
a statement from the candidate. This statement can contain
anything the candidate wishes, but I recommend that the candidate
express why he/she would be good for the position, why he/she
should be voted to the position, and/or his/her goals for
echomail. This statement should be no longer then 80 x 24 (i.e.
one screen).
(2)
On the 14th of November, I will mail to the REC a copy of all of
the candidate statements. These should be disseminated to the
NEC's in your region.
(3)
Voting will be done by the REC/NEC structure only. It will be
the responsibility of all NEC to get their votes into the REC by
November 30th. The REC's will then get the sub-totals for their
Regions into me by December 4th.
FidoNews 5-45 Page 8 7 Nov 1988
Announcment and notification of the new Z1EC will be done on
December 5th.
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.
Hal DuPrie 1:101/106 Chairman of the Board
Bob Rudolph 1:261/628 President
Matt Whelan 3:3/1 Vice President
Ray Gwinn 1:109/639 Vice President - Technical Coordinator
David Garrett 1:103/501 Secretary
Steve Bonine 1:115/777 Treasurer
IFNA BOARD OF DIRECTORS
DIVISION AT-LARGE
10 Courtney Harris 1:102/732? Don Daniels 1:107/210
11 Bill Allbritten 1:11/301 Hal DuPrie 1:101/106
12 Bill Bolton 3:54/61 Mark Grennan 1:147/1
13 Rick Siegel 1:107/27 Steve Bonine 1:115/777
14 Ken Kaplan 1:100/22 Ted Polczyinski 1:154/5
15 Larry Kayser 1:104/739? Matt Whelan 3:3/1
16 Vince Perriello 1:141/491 Robert Rudolph 1:261/628
17 Rob Barker 1:138/34 Steve Jordan 1:102/2871
18 Christopher Baker 1:135/14 Bob Swift 1:140/24
19 David Drexler 1:19/1 Larry Wall 1:15/18
2 Henk Wevers 2:500/1 David Melnik 1:107/233
Membership for the International FidoNet Association
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Thank you for your membership! Your participation will help to
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Please NOTE that IFNA is a general not-for-profit organization
and Articles of Association and By-Laws were adopted by the
membership in January 1987. The second elected Board of Directors
was filled in August 1988. The IFNA Echomail Conference has been
established on FidoNet to assist the Board. We welcome your
input to this Conference.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FidoNews 5-45 Page 11 7 Nov 1988
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