Volume 3, Number 3 20 January 1986 +----------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | - Fidonews - /|oo \ | | (_| /_) | | Fido and FidoNet _`@/_ \ _ | | Users Group | | \ \\ | | Newsletter | (*) | \ )) | | ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +----------------------------------------------------------+ Publisher: Fido 1/1 Editor in Chief: Thom Henderson Review Editor: Allen Miller Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings Fidonews is published weekly by SEAboard, Fido 1/1. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in Fidonews. Article submission standards are contained in the file FIDONEWS.DOC, available from Fido 1/1. Disclaimer or don't-blame-us: The contents of the articles contained here are not our responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them; everything here is subject to debate. We publish EVERYTHING received. Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL FidoNet Administration 2. NEWS Modified copies of Fido documentation Fido 108/62 afflicted with FidoRot Things That Need to be Said Running a "Non-Technical" Fido ProComm support board back on-line! Some more thoughts on shareware 3. COLUMNS Printer Tips A Critique of PC Pursuit Rainbow Corner 4. WANTED Rainbow hard disk controller needed Space Coast Fido is looking for people 5. NOTICES All About ARC version 4.52 The Interrupt Stack Special notice to Jim Filgo ============================================================ EDITORIAL ============================================================ This week's guest editorial is by Ken Kaplan, the National FidoNet Coordinator. FidoNet Administration FidoNet has been growing by leaps and bounds. It's not only growing in this country, but in other countries as well. Administering the net has grown to be an enormous task. So far we've been able to keep up, but it looks like that will be harder and harder as time goes by. The time has come when we need someone full time to keep up with it all. The cost of phone calls alone has gotten large enough to make my company complain, not to mention the sheer amount of time I spend daily on FidoNet administration. I don't intend to make anyone do anything they don't want to do. FidoNet is and always has been a voluntary thing; I don't propose to change that. But there is so much that I can do, and should do, that I am not at present able to do, that would make FidoNet better for all of us. I simply don't have the time to do the things I'd like! There are so many services that I could provide, if only I had the time to do them. We should be advertising FidoNet to unsophisticated users. We should be providing more support to the beginning sysop. We should be compiling a stack of ready answers to common questions. We should be compiling a list of services that FidoNet sysops can provide to commercial users (for a price, of course!) We should be getting involved in legislation that affects sysops. There are so many things that we should be doing, but nobody has the time! It is all I can do just to maintain the national net, and I see so much more that I could do, if only I could spend the time on it. I'm an amateur, same as you. I've been doing this in my spare time, same as you. But I've just about reached the limit of what I can do without offending my company. I'd like to be able to spend all my time on making FidoNet better for all of us, but I need your help. What I have in mind is something like freeware. If you can see your way clear to send some money to help out, I'll greatly appreciate it. At the very least, it'll help to pay for my phone bills. If we're lucky, enough people will help out enough so that I can spend all my time working on improving FidoNet. If enough money comes in, then I can think of several solid, worthwhile services I can provide that you'll really appreciate. Fidonews Page 2 20 Jan 1986 I promise that I'll be the national coordinator as long as I can afford to, but please send whatever you can to: FidoNet(tm) Administrators PO Box 41143 St. Louis, MO. 63141 Thanks, Ken Kaplan and Ben Baker ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 3 20 Jan 1986 ============================================================ NEWS ============================================================ Rob Elliott Fido's #115/100 and #115/500 I have heard many complaints from sysops concerning the dis- tributed documentation for Fido Version 11. The problem does not lie in the huge size of the file, but in the over- printing used to produce bold and underlined characters. It can take hours to print, if your printer can even handle it. (A surprisingly high number cannot) So, I have created two modified versions of the documentation that do not use this tedious overprinting process, and put them in archive format for distribution as follows: FIDODOC1.ARC is the original documentation with overprinting via backspacing. It is about 300Kb long when un-ARC'ed. FIDODOC2.ARC is a modified version that uses escape codes for bold and underline, as used by DEC LA50/LA100 type printers. It is about 250Kb long when un-ARC'ed. FIDODOC3.ARC contains no bold or underlining by any means. It is about 246Kb long when un-ARC'ed. These files are available on Sit-Ubu_Sit Fido #115/500 and at Illini Data RB Fido #115/100 (the latter requires good VT100 emulation). Possibly elsewhere by the time you read this. ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 4 20 Jan 1986 Tim Sullivan PC Techniques 108/62 My board seems to have an affliction that can best be described as 'Fidorot' or 'Fido dulldrums'. It seemed like an excellent idea to bring up a Fido system of my own. My company was willing to provide the resources and I had the time and interest to undertake SYSOP duties. There were only a few Fido nodes in my area and it seemed as if it was getting harder to gain access to them. I even came up with what I thought was a unique idea for a theme. But after less than three months in operation, my board seems to have stagnated! There haven't been any new ideas lately. The frequency of calls is dwindling. Nothing new has been uploaded. There hasn't been any Fido mail for days. I NEED HELP! Please help this board to survive! I'll listen to ideas, comments, suggestions or any kind of help. Please take the time to Fido mail your favorite freeware program, new SYSOP utilities, an article that you read last week, games, or anything of interest or controversy to keep this board alive. This board needs a quick injection of activity. If you like phoning Fidos in other places, how about trying PC Techniques! We're online from 6pm - 6am Weekdays and 24hrs Weekends at (513) 891-1947. ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 5 20 Jan 1986 Miscellaneous Things That Need to be Said Well once again I've somehow managed to find the time to write another one of my amazing articles for FidoNews. My main problem is that I've found this amazing institution called Private High School, and for some reason they feel I'm a Senior and that they should be able to take all of my time. By the way, this institution is called Allen Academy, and if any Alumni is out there send money or it won't be around any longer. Anyway I'm glad that someone created the index, it was just what Fnews needed. I believe that I own the world's oldest IBM Pc. The mother board came with 48k (in 16k chips). Of course we upgraded, but our BIOS is so old it won't except the 640k we put in. In fact we can't install a hard disk of any measurable size. I have a complaint! The last time I looked at the nodelist Bill Smith was the Sysop of Elite Software! Well, I hate to say this but Bill doesn't sysop the board, I do. Would someone fix this please? I don't know how many people out there use Volkswriter but if you don't use it you should. It spells now and is real nice. Oh, yeah. Every one that reads this is invited to my 19th birthday which is on the 23rd of May. And if you want you can stick around and go to Commencement ball (24th) and on the 25th you can stick around and see if I actually graduate this year. Mike Ringer Sysop of Elite Software 117/1262 3/12 ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 6 20 Jan 1986 Brad Hicks Fido 100/523 +-------------------------------------------------+ : SOME THOUGHTS ON RUNNING A "NON-TECHNICAL" FIDO : +-------------------------------------------------+ I've been running WeirdBase since March of 1984, and in those scant few months, it has grown into the one of the most-popular BBS in St. Louis. Along the way, I've learned a few things that I think are worth passing along. Most of these come under the heading of, "I wish somebody had told ME that!" LESSON NUMBER ONE: THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHOSE COMPUTERS DON'T RUN MS-DOS. And furthermore, a lot of them have something to contribute! What does this mean? To start with, it means that you should lose your copy of SQ.EXE, and only use ARC and LU to open things up, not box them in. Hundreds of Apple //, Macintosh, CP/M, TI, and Atari users will thank you. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute - would you call back to a BBS where roughly half of the text was restricted to people with a different computer? LESSON NUMBER TWO: THE FIDO GENERIC ON-LINE HELP SUCKS. Maybe it's adequate for technical users and as a quick reference, but otherwise it's just blatantly useless. Nowhere in the on-line help does it tell a new user what a Message Area IS, or what the difference is between an upload and a download, or what the difference is between the E)ditorial and the B)ulletin, or what he can change with the C)hange menu, or any of the myriad topics that a newcomer to Fido needs to know. Technical users will, of course, download the Fido Users Guide from some system, memorize it, and never look back. Non-technical users can't or won't DO it that way. The '?' command is a good place to put a few screens'-worth of good on-line help. Tip: make it specific to your board! When you describe the A)rea-change command, tell them what the other A)reas are used for, and so forth. LESSON NUMBER THREE: KEEP THE MESSAGE AREAS SMALL. There are several good reasons for this one, and not the least of them is that each message takes up 4 kb. At that rate, once you hit a thousand messages, you're starting to hurt for disk space. But the most important reason is that nobody wants to read more than about 60 messages before jumping into the conversation. When you consider how many 300 baud modems are still out there, and what some people pay in long- Fidonews Page 7 20 Jan 1986 distance costs, you can see why. But what can you do for people who don't call in very often? See my next tip ... LESSON NUMBER FOUR: DON'T THROW ANYTHING AWAY. I have a long-standing complaint about bulletin boards. While they are a great way to collect a lot of written material in a hurry, a very convenient means of correspondence, they are completely without history. Outside of CompuServe, where you can occasionally find a file 'something.THD', old messages go to the same place where your lap goes when you stand up. On WeirdBase, I have a sloppily-hacked-together IBM PC BASIC utility to print out messages, which I use in conjunction with PC-Write 2.4 to maintain The Message Archive. The Message Archive is a collection of conversation files, from all of the areas on WeirdBase, separated by topic, each with around ten to thirty messages. For example (excuse the truncated subjects) ... FILENAME BYTES FROM TO MSGS AREA SUBJECT ---------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ---- ---------------- ALERT 21019 10/15 11/22 19 4 Pagan Action Ale ASTRO 21029 10/14 11/03 25 1 Astronomy, Comet BBSLAW 8192 09/16 10/26 9 1 Congress vs. BBS DRWHO2 15436 09/24 11/03 26 3 Dr. Who, fandom EVIL!D&D 36668 09/16 11/21 37 5 The Evils of D&D FANMISC1 11168 08/31 10/25 30 2 S.F. Books and M JOKES2 3967 10/16 11/22 15 1 More Attempted H SEX 10596 12/28 12/31 10 1 Sex & Contracept Any new user, or anyone who's been gone for awhile, can go to Files Area 1 and with the F)iles and T)ype command locate and read ONLY the messages in which he is interested, then switch to the Message Area indicated (in my FILES.BBS comments I show the range of dates, number of messages, and the message area for your replies) to catch up on this week's contributions and reply. LESSON NUMBER FIVE: STICK TO SUBJECTS THAT YOU KNOW Look - no matter how fanatical your users are, expect that (especially if you're just getting started) somewhere between 20% to 50% of the messages on your board are going to have to be written by the sysop. Users (quite rightly, I think) expect the sysop to reply to their comments, and to lead off new conversations. I've been in science fiction fandom since I was a small child, I'm a Neopagan Witch, I'm a gamer, I'm into political philosophy and Libertarianism. Wanna guess what the first couple of message areas on WeirdBase are? That's right, after #1 (general), science fiction books and fandom Fidonews Page 8 20 Jan 1986 is in #2, science fiction TV and movies in #3 (I got so many Dr. Who fans that they needed their own area), Neopagan Witchcraft in #4, gaming in #5, and civil rights in #6. That's what I know, so that's what conversations I started. Fortunately, these aren't uncommon interests in the St. Louis modem community. But I've tried several times to get conversations going on subjects I knew less well but was interested in - BadFilms, Punk Rock, and so forth - and each time it fizzled. SOMEBODY has to take charge of a message area and keep it moving, or it fades away. LESSON NUMBER SIX: ... BUT KEEP IT LEGAL! This almost shouldn't have to be said. For one thing, you won't last long on the FidoNet if you're heavily into illegal activities - I doubt if many Pirate Boards will ever even see this article. Here's the list of things that I've been avoiding like the plague: phone numbers of Pirate Boards or any other information on hacking, phreaking, pirating, or crashing; any advice or suggestions on criminal activities; anything to would be classed as "pornography" by St. Louis community standards (for example, ASCII nudes). By cracking down hard on people who do such things, and by having a very supportive cast of regulars, I've been able to get away with running a completely open board, no validation whatsoever (knock on wood!). The people who are into those activities leave VERY quickly for more hospitable boards. By the way, I decided a long time ago that I wasn't going to have much of any software to download. There were three reasons, and I still stand by them. First, they discourage people with other machines. Second, they really aren't that appropriate to a non-technical, conversation- oriented BBS. Third, I didn't want the hassle of having to figure out what really was and wasn't public domain. You might want to think about these reasons, too. Remember, there are lots of other boards from which people can download software. LESSON SEVEN: BE FLEXIBLE! If a message area isn't getting any new messages, don't let it just sit there and rot - clean it out, archive the mess (see Lesson Four), and start something new! In fact, an empty message area probably looks better than one that is stagnant. And if worse comes to worse, you can always raise it to Sysop privilege, so it doesn't even show up on the A)rea list, until you're ready to unveil it. On my board, I reserved area 9 for FidoNet, so I've got Fidonews Page 9 20 Jan 1986 two areas just for experimentation. At the moment we're using Area 7 in a group-writing project, and storing personal autobiographical messages in Area 8 - but that's very subject to change. In fact, that's why a few months ago I re-built the whole board so that my message areas were M!AREA1 through M!AREA9, and my file areas were F!AREA1 through F!AREA9. It encourages me to think about them in different ways. Star Tzard (normally on 125/433, lately on 100/22 and 100/523) tells me that his favorite metaphor for BBSing is the Electronic Cocktail Party, but I prefer to think of WeirdBase as the Electronic Science Fiction Convention - with nine different function rooms, and an ever-rotating schedule, and everything caught on "videotape" so that you can review it later ... What more could anyone want? =========================================================== Personal footnote: I'm trying to compile a list of Pagan BBS's and boards with message/file areas dedicated to Paganism and/or Witchcraft. If any of you know of any, send FidoMail to Brad Hicks, 100/523. Thank you! ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 10 20 Jan 1986 Tom Smith Fido 14/619 PIL Software Systems is back on-line! The ProComm Support BBS, formerly Fido #10/619, is now up and running as Fido #14/619 out of Columbia, MO. Hours: 7pm-7am CST, M-F (except for national mail time) Plus any other time the machine's not in use. 23 hour/day service coming soon. Number: (314) 449-9401 Focus: We're here primarily to distribute and support ProComm, our user-supported communications program. Currently featuring ProComm version 2.1. 2.2 is in the works and will feature Telink, YMODEM and MODEM7 file transfers, among other new features. Give us a call and download ProComm, ask a question or make a suggestion. We want to hear from you! ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 11 20 Jan 1986 Some more thoughts on shareware A thought on shareware. After reading several articles in FIDONEWS on the topic, I can't help but get my two cents in. Our office uses several shareware programs. Among them, the PC Write, File, Calc series, Pibterm, and AUTOMENU v 3.01. Several utilities such as ARC are used, too. I guess what caught my attention was mention in an article about the personal check for Fido from an employee at MCI who had set a Fido up for use in PC Pursuit advertising. Many shareware authors make it easy for institutions to pay for their products by including a formal invoice or order form. Others, perhaps out of a desire not to appear pushy, do not. It is impossible for my institution, under state law, to send a check to a vendor without an invoice. I guess the bottom line of this is -- Authors, please include an invoice with your documentation or in the ASCII that appears on screen when your program is called without parameters, i.e. ARC. This will make it possible for those of us who wish to compensate you for your work to do so. I hope this hasn't been offensive; it is just not possible for some institutional users to pay for items without an invoice. Bill Allbritten, sysop, 11/301 ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 12 20 Jan 1986 ============================================================ COLUMNS ============================================================ PRINTER CARE Carol Bluestein Most people read their printer manual, plug in the printer and never think anything more about it. I did, until trouble developed. It is a very helpless feeling to realize that something is going wrong and the trouble is electronic. Most of my work is on my disks and I need that information printed out. Oh well. The printer needed attention so I took it in for service. My printer was not printing a line of dots. I now know that this means that one of the pins was inoperable. The print head was replaced and everything was okay until the line feed action was not consistent. Lines were being skipped or printed at 8 lines per inch instead of 6 lines per inch, all without my explicit direction, and a different pin was out of commission. I took it back to be fixed. I wound up with a new printer board and a second new print head. Everything seemed to be okay, until another pin went. I found this all very frustrating. I had had this printer for 10 months with no problems, and now it couldn't seem to operate for two months straight. This time the service people couldn't find anything wrong with the electronics. It turned out to be something fairly simple. The pin had gotten clogged with ink. There is a way to fix this problem, and you can do it at home. First remove the print head. Take out the ribbon, and look down at the print head. There is a metal lever that swings out and unlocks the print head. Lift the head out. When the head is free, you will notice that it is still attached to the printer board by a plastic cable which has a clear plastic tab just underneath it. Never pull the cable itself; always use the tab. Pull it horizontally, and the print head and cable will pull free of the printer board. Now, look at the print head and find the pins (the part that is up against the ribbon). Take some WD-40, and either spray it directly on the pin heads or on a tooth brush, and then carefully brush the pin head to clear out the clogging ink. If you want, you can then place some lubricating oil behind the pin heads, where you can see their shafts. To replace the print head, just reverse the procedure, remembering to handle the cable only by the clear tab. And one more item. Be careful when you use multi-forms and textured or heavy paper in your dot matrix printer. Printing occurs when the pins strike the ribbon, which in Fidonews Page 13 20 Jan 1986 turn strikes the paper. If you don't make the adjustment on the position of the print head in relation to the paper, and you are too close, the thickness of the paper(s) can snag the pins. There is a lever which adjusts the pin head distance from the platen. If you are using thick paper or multi-forms, make the adjustment. I sincerely hope that this saves you time and money. ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 14 20 Jan 1986 C R I T I Q U E : P C P U R S U I T This article is a short critique of GTE's long distance communications service called PC Pursuit. I have attempted to provide a maximum amount of information in a minimum amount of space. This document was written on 25 Oct 85. What is PC Pursuit? =================== It is a data only communications service provided by GTE. It is available only during evenings and on weekends, corresponding to the times when reduced long distance voice phone charges are in effect. It is available only in 12 major cities. The service allows a subscriber to make an unlimited number of calls to any of the twelve cities. Each call is supposedly limited to one hour in length; I have made a few calls longer than one hour and have not been cut off. You can call at 300 or 1200 baud. Voice is not supported. How much does it cost? ====================== $25 to sign up and $25/mo. The first month's charges are prorated based on the day of the month you subscribe. There is no (zero) charge for connect time, number of calls, or for using 1200 Baud. $25/mo is all GTE charges for ,as they say, "all you can eat." GTE will bill your Visa or Master Card, or send you invoices monthly. Depending on what your local call telephone charges are, your local phone company may charge you for each connection -- see next section. How does it work? ================= It works quite well, subject to the "problems" described below. Each of the 12 cities has a local PC Pursuit access number. You call this number, and a modem answers. (In my case, this "local" number is a Zone 2 call and costs me $.07 on weekday evenings, $.04 on weekends.) The network answers and asks you what city you want to call. (I have never received a busy signal from the local number.) You answer with one of the twelve city names. It asks you what the local number is you want to call (in the requested city). You provide the number. It asks you if you want to proceed, or respecify city/phone number. Your specify proceed. It asks you to hang up and wait for a call back. It hangs up. Within about 30 seconds it calls you back. You must have a modem capable of answering; when your modem answers you get a series of messages stating (1) your request is on the GTE network, (2) your call is being made, (3) your connection is complete, or busy, or no answer. If complete, you are automatically connected to the other number, just as if you Fidonews Page 15 20 Jan 1986 called using normal long distance. Otherwise the network hangs up, and you can start again. What are the problems? ====================== The biggest one is that a 1200 baud connection has an effective data rate of about 600 baud. This is caused by the extra computer processing done by the PC Pursuit network. I have not tried 300 baud. Occasionally I have gotten a message to the effect that there are no circuits open to the requested city; when this happens the network hangs up after saying "Please try again later." Also, on a very few occasions I have gotten a very noisy connection, and also lost the connection during an upload/download operation. In general, except for the slow data rate, I feel the service is at least as good as normal long distance. What are the upcoming improvements? =================================== They will support 2400 baud sometime during 1986. In the last few weeks the network has occasionally redialed busy numbers 10 times. They will implement auto redial "real soon now"; I suspect they are trying it out on a few lines first. How do I get more information &/or sign up? =========================================== Call the PC Pursuit information number, 1-800-835-3001. It's busy a lot. When you get on you'll have 10 minutes on a stripped down Fido system. The Files section has files giving the 12 cities, access numbers, availability times, etc. You can download all of this data. You can also sign up online; that's what I did. I hope this answers more questions than it raises. I've been using PC Pursuit since early September and, except for the slow data rate, I really like it. ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 16 20 Jan 1986 Rainbow Corner by Theodore Needleman Finally, a chance to catch up a bit on Reader mail. This week's seems to fall into two categories. More positive comments and encouragement on Project Transport, and questions which, surprisingly enough, are all pretty much about the same topic. Project Transport looks more and more likely. I'm currently giving some thought about how to identify those software packages to be tested, and will probably use some software guides, such as QUE Book's as a start. Several of you have already reported some IBM packages which will run on the Rainbow, and I will be listing these in a couple of weeks. I still haven't received the IBM emulator package I mentioned last week. If it does show up, (and if it works), I'll not only report to you on it, but try to make it part of the project. This week's questions all seem to be about the feasibility of using IBM peripherals (RAM memory, hard disks, multifunction boards, etc.) with the Rainbow. There are two factors to be considered when discussing this possibility, neither of which offer much encouragement. The first of these is hardware incompatibility. IBM peripherals are designed for a bus environment. All of the IBM's expansion slots lie on this bus, allowing any card to be placed into any slot. The Rainbow does not use a bus structure (strange when you consider DEC invented the bus concept). Instead, there are areas on the Rainbow motherboard where specific expansion boards can be plugged in. The connectors in these areas contain just the particular signals that are used with the specific board that belongs in that area. Even if you could fit a disk controller board in the area reserved for the graphics expansion, it wouldn't work. Add to this the fact that IBM type cards connect through fingers on the card, while DEC cards use a plug and socket scheme. So you can't just "plug in" an IBM type card. Beside the hardware incompatibilities, there are also quite a few software problems. Because IBM peripherals are used on a bus, they must contain some method of decoding when the signals on the bus are destined for them, rather than some other card. Complicating things even further, the organization of the memory (memory map) is different from the Rainbow, as are the screen addressing and graphics, and the BIOS (Basic Input Output System). As you can see, it is no easy job to use an IBM type board with a Rainbow, though, at least in theory, it can be done. What is needed is an interface. This would plug into the various Rainbow connectors, and the IBM type boards would plug into the interface. Once this was accomplished, the "BOX" would convert Rainbow signals into something the IBM peripherals could understand, and vice-a-versa. There is a similar type of equipment (at least in concept) used in communications called a PROTOCOL CONVERTER. In fact, I Fidonews Page 17 20 Jan 1986 recently came across a rumor that DEC has commissioned such a device from a third party OEM. I wouldn't hold your breath though, I hear lots of rumors, most of which are wishful thinking. Even if this one turns out to be true, with DEC's marketing track record, it will probably cost more to buy than a fully configured IBM-PC! If anyone could bring out a device like this for between $500 and $750, they would make a lot of money in very little time. Last week I promised to spend more time on the FIDONET system. FIDO is a public access bulletin board system (BBS) that was written several years ago by Tom Jennings. Tom lives in San Francisco, and though I've never met him (or even talked to him) I have a lot of admiration for him and his work. He put FIDO into the public domain, and it has become the most used micro-based BBS in the world. The FIDO BBS is an extremely user-friendly system to the dial-in caller and most have a similar structure. There are two main areas - a Message Area, and a File Area. Each area usually has several (or many) sub areas. On most FIDO boards, for example, the Message Area has sub areas for FIDONET Mail (more on this in a moment), answers to questions to the SYSOP (System Operator) a "general" message area where you can leave messages for other users of the board, and several specialized message areas that depend on the orientation of the board and/or inclination of the SYSOP. So far, the FIDO "system" sounds (and is) great. But I haven't discussed the most remarkable thing about it. Almost every FIDO BBS is networked with the others (that's why it's called FIDONET). Each individual BBS is a node in the network. and, as of this writing, there are 306 nodes! This means that you can send mail, in the form of messages or programs, to (and from) any node in the network. The way this works is that the message is left in a special area of the board (the FIDOMAIL area mentioned before) along with routing instructions. Sometime during the early morning (from 2AM to 5AM), with each board having its own assigned time, FIDO collects all messages to a single node into a packet, dials up those boards where a message or packet is destined, and delivers (transmits) the FIDOMAIL. It's really quite remarkable when you think of it. Every night, while most of us are sleeping, all of these messages are zipping around the country (and world). There is generally a charge for using FIDOMAIL, albeit a very reasonable one to help cover the phone bill. If you are interested in using this feature of FIDONET, check with the SYSOP of the board you use. Next week, I'll discuss the process of up and downloading software, review some public domain software, and give some more DEC-oriented FIDO board numbers. See you then! (c)opyright 1985 by Ted Needleman-all rights reserved ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 18 20 Jan 1986 ============================================================ WANTED ============================================================ Rob Elliott Fido 115/100 I am in desperate need of a DEC Rainbow hard disk controller board and a Winchester hard disk mounting plate. If you have any of these for sale, or know of a place they are available immediately, please reply to me at Fido 115/100. ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 19 20 Jan 1986 Hello, EG&G Space Systems is collecting resumes of people with Technological backgrounds. This is the format we would like to see them in: Your Name Education Summary of schools you have attended. These include training in the armed forces, for work, etc. For colleges and universities they can just be the degree you have from them. Professional Summary Short summary of your work experience. Any managerial posts, technical positions, etc. Professional Experience Your work experience, from latest to earliest by company. Preferably short description of what you have accomp- lished, but we don't mind if you get long winded, some people get too terse. Publications and Papers Any documents that you have authored. Include everything. We will edit the list to your best advantage in any proposals that we submit. Professional Organizations and Honors Not all of us graduate Summa Cum Laude (gee did I spell that right?) or be a Phi Beta Kappa, but we can belong to some very interesting organizations and have honors from some very interesting places. Basically we are generating proposals for NASA and KSC in the advanced technology area. For more information, contact us: EG&G Space Systems 219 Indian River Avenue, Suite 200 P.O. Box 6505 Titusville, Fl 32782-6505 (305)-267-8028 David W. Heron Computer Hardware/Operating Systems Specialist Sysop Fido 145/1 Network Coordinator Net 145 Space Coast Net Titusville & Kennedy Space Ctr. Brevard Co. Florida ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 20 20 Jan 1986 ============================================================ NOTICES ============================================================ Thom Henderson, 107/8 System Enhancement Associates Relax! ARC 4.52 Is Ours There's a great deal of confusion out there about what version of ARC is the "correct" one. Is it 4.52, or 4.50? Since this all started because of a mistake I made, then I should explain. The "official" current version of ARC is 4.50. That's what we have on our board, and that's the one we support. However, we're still working on it, as we have been all along. (After all, four major versions in less than a year!) At one point, not all that long ago, I logged onto a board and saw that the sysop had version 4.3, or some such. I thought he would appreciate the latest version, so I uploaded it. By mistake I uploaded an internal development version, numbered 4.52. Needless to say, I'll try not to do that again! At this point, I'm no longer sure just how 4.52 differs from 4.50, except that you'd have to look long and hard to find it. It also shouldn't do any harm for you to use 4.52, except insofar as it's creating headaches for us. I'm amazed, and deeply gratified, at the storm of messages we've received from concerned sysops and users. Our thanks to you all, and I apologize for all the confusion. ------------------------------------------------------------ The Interrupt Stack 24 Jan 1986 Voyager 2 passes Uranus. 9 Feb 1986 Halley's Comet reaches perihelion. 9 Feb 1986 Diana Overholt (109/74) has another birthday. 11 Apr 1986 Halley's Comet reaches perigee. 19 May 1986 Steve Lemke's next birthday. Fidonews Page 21 20 Jan 1986 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 Fido 1/1. ------------------------------------------------------------ Will Jim Filgo, node 131/445, please call node 1/1 to pick up his mail? ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 22 20 Jan 1986