Volume 3, Number 25 30 June 1986 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | - FidoNews - /|oo \ | | (_| /_) | | Fido and FidoNet _`@/_ \ _ | | Users Group | | \ \\ | | Newsletter | (*) | \ )) | | ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (C) Copyright 1986 by IFNA (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings FidoNews is the official newsletter of the International FidoNet Association, and is published weekly by SEAdog Leader, node 1/1. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission standards are contained in the file FNEWSART.DOC, available from node 1/1. The contents of the articles contained here are not our responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them. Everything here is subject to debate. Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL FidoNet Business Meeting View from the Top - ECHOMAIL 2. ARTICLES An Introduction to ASCII A Warning about PC's Limited "C" TROJAN HORSE ALERT 3. COLUMNS Hard Disk Usage and Management Tips, Part 1 4. FOR SALE Entertainment Software for your PC! Public Domain Software Library Sale!! 5. NOTICES The Interrupt Stack Starting a conference for the Mindset PC Faculty Position Available - Computer Science Fidonews Page 2 30 Jun 1986 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= This week's guest editorial is by Ken Kaplan, the International FidoNet Coordinator. FidoNet Business Meeting We're finally getting IFNA set up as a non-profit corporation. This has several benefits, the main one being that we can now go hit some of the major corporations for grants. With any luck, this will provide for most of our operating expenses one day. Meanwhile, thanks to all of you who have donated. Without your help, we wouldn't have the seed money to get this thing going. But a corporation needs to do certain things. One of the things we need to do is have an annual business meeting, to do things like report on finances, vote on officers, and such. The first IFNA business meeting will be held during the upcoming International FidoNet conference in Colorado Springs. One of the things we'll have to discuss is how to organize these meetings. For now, we are assigning one vote to each network and region. So if you're a network host or a regional coordinator, please try to make it. If you can't make it, then please find someone in your net or region who IS going, and make them your representative. Please send a message to me at 1/0 letting me know if you'll be there, or who you've picked to represent you. If there's anything in particular you'd like to see discussed, then send me a note about it. All suggestions are welcome. Please try to make it to Colorado in August. Sally and I will be there, and we're looking forward to meeting you at last. ----------------------------------------------------------------- View from the Top ECHOMAIL by Ben Baker - Fido 100/76 Much has been said in the past few weeks, in these pages and elsewhere, about EchoMail. Packed in the archive with this newsletter is a file, POLICY2.DOC, an update of the prior policy document. It sets forth the "official" IFNA view on EchoMail. I'd like to set down some of my own views and to perhaps shed some light on the thought processes underlying the formulation of the new policy document. I consider EchoMail to be a very good thing for FidoNet, which is, after all, a communications network. Many of us have beaten our heads against the wall trying to get our users to communicate via FidoNet with, at best, only limited success. Fidonews Page 3 30 Jun 1986 EchoMail seems to be succeeding where pleading and coercion failed, probably because many don't realize they are using the network when they enter a message in an EchoMail conference area. It's no different than entering a message in any other "normal" message area. But EchoMail can be both a blessing and a curse. It has raised the level of traffic considerably. In and of itself, this is not bad. FidoNet is nowhere near saturation, but there are choke points. FidoNet's original intent was, and it remains, to provide fast, economical point-to-point electronic communications. Our standard of service goal is over-night delivery of point-to-point messages. Many things beyond our control can prevent the achievement of this goal. But EchoMail is (or should be) within the scope of our control. It must not be permitted to interfere with point-to-point communications. Just how does EchoMail interfere? The biggest burden is placed on the network hosts, and they have two different kinds of problems with EchoMail; communications saturation and disk storage problems. Consider the plight of the bi-directional host, the guy who both receives and sends mail for his network. Since he must listen for incomming calls between his outgoing calls, he can make at most twenty to thirty call attempts during the FidoNet one-hour mail window. If he has a (very good) 75% success rate, he can expect to send out about eighteen to twenty-two packets a night. An already busy host can easily be swamped by two or three locals, each engaged in two or three different EchoMail conferences. But what of the out-bound host who doesn't have to worry about incomming calls. He can operate in a send-only mode and make rapid fire calls. Fido 100/10 has successfully sent as many as forty packets in a single night, and averages twenty or more. It takes a lot to saturate his ability to communicate, but he has another problem with EchoMail. He operates on the thin edge of poverty where free disk space is concerned! When you do a DIR in a message area and see all those tiny two to three hundred byte message files, you tend to think your capacity to hold them must be nearly infinite, but not so! DOS allocates a minimum of one full cluster (that's four kilobytes, folks) to every message! Worse yet, point-to-point messages tend to be short and concise. Usually they are are four or five liners stating a single point of information. On the other hand, the nature of EchoMail tends to encourage long messages. When you expound on a philosophy or support an opinion with convincing argument, you tend to use a lot of words. Now consider a hypothetical situation. You're a host and on Fidonews Page 4 30 Jun 1986 a particular night two of you locals each have six new messages in some conference area for which they each mail to five other participants. They each send you a packet of thirty messages. In packet form the messages average say 4K, so you need 240K to store the two packets. At the end of the collection schedule you unpack the packets, and the messages expand to an average of 6K because DOS only allocates space in 4K chunks. So you have to find room for 320K worth of messages. Of course you delete the first packet before you unpack the second, so your high water mark so far is only 540K. But now comes the FidoNet schedule, and you must packetize all those messages without deleting any of them! You build ten outgoing packets of 28K each (allocation granularity) and you now have 600K tied up in EchoMail to handle ten innocent messages! Oops! You only had 580K when the night began, so you got the "Disk Full!" message when building packets, and YOU DIDN'T SEND ANYBODY ANY MAIL AT ALL!!! A similar scenario would illustrate that the in-bound host is succeptible to exactly the same problem! So here's the IFNA point of view. The network host has an obligation to strive for the standard of service of over-night delivery of point-to-point mail. He should attempt to support EchoMail so long as it doesn't interfere with his first priority. When it does, he has the right, nay the duty, to impose restrictions on the EchoMail users. Imposed restrictions are not punitive, but merely the ordering of priorities, and EchoMailers are expected to cooperate. The degree of restriction will depend on the severity of the specific problem and will be entirely up to the affected host. We want to encourage EchoMail and see it work, but not to the detriment of FidoNet. That would have been all I had to say, but here's a new wrinkle not covered by POLICY2.DOC (because we didn't think of it until a situation was brought to our attention). What are the special responsibilities of a network host who participates in one or more EchoMail conferences? How do you resolve the issue when his activities begin to impact his locals who don't themselves participate? I'd like to hear your ideas on this. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 5 30 Jun 1986 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= An Introduction to ASCII The proper and correct names for all those funny characters on your keyboard, and in computer related text. Here is the correct explanation. Ignore all others; this is of course the absolute truth. ASCII characters sometimes use parity; parity is a method of confusing your computer into thinking that the characters sent are something that they are not. Parity has no practical use in real life; large computers use parity as part of their religion. Space. You can't see it there. ! Surprise mark; dammit; Incorrectly called "exclamation point" by foolish grade school teachers. Usually you will find either none or too many; every! other! word! will! have! one! or! more!!! " Quote; double quote. Usually put around words the author is afraid he doesn't understand; for computer programs, it is the latter. # pound; sharp; it must be called either pound or sharp, even though it never means either. This is a secret password into computer priesthood. $ bucks; or, as originated by Digital Research, "the end". Actually, as far as DRI goes, its pretty prophetic ... % percent; Used in drawing ugly boxes around useless text, as in bulletin boards and the like. & and, in logical expressions; ampersand elsewhere. It looks nice and is hard to draw by hand. Let your printer do it. ' little quote; single quote; apostrophe to ignoramuses. Since it is very small and hard to see, some computer languages use it as an important operator. ( paren; left paren; open paren; or parenthesis, which is way too long a word. Used to correct compiler bugs in operator precedence, or by incompetents who cannot memorize a few hundred simple rules. ) paren; right paren; close paren; parenthesis. See above. * star; blob; blatz; asterisk. Yet another horrible character used to draw boxes. Like most of these, it is used far too often to be of any use. Fidonews Page 6 30 Jun 1986 + plus; "and" if you're sloppy. Connects things together, and is sometimes used by people who want to draw boxes but can't afford graphics. , comma; what can I say? - minus if near a number; dash otherwise. Some word processors try to fool you that a bunch of these in a row is really the end of a page; we know better than that. . point if near a number; dot otherwise. Three dots together (like ...) can be called "dotdotdot", but it is really an ellipsis. This is another test for computer priesthood. / slash; divided by; a good compiler will find many different, conflicting uses for this in different contexts. 0-9 You know these. 0 is not "oh", it's zero, and is greater than 9, as we all know. : colon; I have heard that human colons do not resemble this in the slightest. ; semicolon. (Actually, its more than a colon, not part of one, it has a tail, but alas ...) < angle bracket; less than. Can be put to great use when attempting to define the syntax for a computer program, like so: PROGRAM ARGUMENT [optional { ... } ] = equals > angle bracket; greater than ? question mark; what; denotes confusion. @ blob; at; bang. Usually what your terminal displays just before going south with all your days work. A-Z If I have to tell you ... [ bracket; square bracket \ backslash. There is usually a slash (regular style) to be found near by to check that you are paying attention. ] bracket; square bracket ^ hat; incorrectly called caret. Sometimes means "Control-", as in "Control-C", syntactically similar to "Shift-A". ^A is to a as A is to a. Sometimes used to cause arithmetic overflows; as in 100^5000. _ Underscore; incorrectly called underline. This is a Fidonews Page 7 30 Jun 1986 wonderful character, because you really can't underscore another character without writing a long letter to your word processor, requesting it do do so. a-z See note above on A - Z ` accent; backwards quote (sic). Not used in any computer worth anything. These are meant to be deleted when found. { wiggly bracket; squiggly bracket; incorrectly called brace. While you may think it is like angle brackets and square brackets, it most definitely is not. | bar; vertical line. Why does it have that little piece missing? } wiggly bracket; squiggly bracket; incorrectly called brace. ~ wiggle; squiggle; traditionally called a tilde, which is obscure enough to continue using. Only very good languages find a use for this. It is extremely hard to see, especially when near a dash, little quote or back quote. Aha! Can't see that either! Its a delete! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 8 30 Jun 1986 Robert Briggs, 15/464 WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING I've been ripped off to the tune of $700 by PC's Limited, 7801 N. Lamar, Suite E-200, Austin, TX. This whole situation started on the 27th of March, 1985 when I originally ordered the drive. I used the drive to bring up Fido node 15/464, and used it for about 5 weeks. Unfortunately, the drive that I originally obtained from PC's Limited was faulty, it crashed almost weekly, and each time it was re-formatted, it had more and more bad sectors show up. It was returned to them for repair. It came back "Dead On Arrival" - the person responsible for Quality Controlling the drive failed to retract the heads, this resulted in a bad track 0 which made the drive unusable. I had since purchased a larger drive, and had made arrangements to sell the drive to someone else. Needless to say, the buyer was no longer interested in buying a hard disk from me. The drive was once again shipped back to them on June 7th, 1985, accompanied by a letter requesting a refund. (it is interesting to note that the RMA number issued the second time was 3436, the first RMA was 2973 - that means that in a period of roughly 2 weeks, PC's Limited had 493 defective products shipped back to them!) There was no response to my letter, nor any repaired drive returned. I was unable to contact the person who was responsible for handling refunds. Two months later, I sent the following letter addressed to the Chief Executive Officer of PC's Limited: Robert S. Briggs P.O. Box 7175 Murray, UTAH 84107-0175 08 August, 1985 Dear Sir: It has now been over 60 days since I returned my disk drive to your company for a refund, and nearly six months sine I originally purchased the drive, (which has never worked correctly). While I (am) normally quite patient, this situation is causing me to become angry enough to take some rather strong measures to recover my money. Unless I receive my $695.00 refund check by the 21st of August, 1985, I intend to do the following: 1. Send a copy of this letter and a formal letter of complaint to Byte magazine, PC magazine, and any other major magazine that I can find one of your advertisements in. 2. Publish a copy of this letter in the public domain, and a Fidonews Page 9 30 Jun 1986 warning about both the type of service and equipment that you seem to be providing. In addition, I will request that anyone reading that warning distribute it to any other bulletin boards that they use. I expect that such a warning would be distributed to well over 2000 bulletin boards in a matter of several weeks, making this letter available to well over 200,000 readers by the middle of September. This could have a great impact on your sales... The situation is becoming ludicrous; I have been unable to contact the mysterious Tammy (the person handling refunds) in nearly two months of calling two days a week. A typical days worth of calls (my local time) goes something like this: 9:00 a.m. Not in yet 10:00 a.m. Not in yet 10:30 a.m. Not in yet 11:00 a.m. Out to lunch 12:00 p.m. Out to lunch 12:30 p.m. Out to lunch 1:00 p.m. Out to lunch 1:30 P.m. Out to lunch 2:30 p.m. Out on break 3:30 p.m. Left for the day - try tomorrow I have enclosed a copy of my invoice; my original copy of the charge slip was sent in the last time I returned the drive for repair. The last return of the drive was under RMA #3436, the drive was "DEAD ON ARRIVAL" when returned from RMA #2973 repair (due to the heads not being retracted when the drive was shipped back to me). I would appreciate your prompt attention to this matter, and hope that this whole situation can be settled swiftly and in a friendly manner. Sincerely, Robert S. Briggs After another month with no reply from PC's Limited, in frustration, I sent the following letter to the advertising editors of several magazines, PC-TECH, PC WORLD, etc. Robert Briggs P.O. Box 7175 Murray, UT 84107-0175 (801) xxx-xxxx XXXXX Magazine Advertising Manager xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxs xxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx, xx xxxxx Fidonews Page 10 30 Jun 1986 August 29th, 1985 Dear Advertising Editor, I would like to make a formal complaint against one of the companies that advertises in your magazine. It has been nearly six months since I first ordered a 20 megabyte drive from PCS Ltd., (the drive was originally ordered in March of 1985), and in that time they have failed to deliver me a either a functional disk drive, or the refund that I have been requesting for over two months now. Enclosed please find a copy of a letter that I sent to the Chief Executive Officer of PCS Ltd. on August 8, 1985. There has been no response to this letter. As nearly as I can tell, I have simply been "ripped-off" for the sum of $695.00. If there is any way that you can assist me in recovering the original sum, I would be pleased, I have already "written off" the money spent in long distance phone calls and shipping. Unless I can recover my money in the near future, I am going to place a description of what I have been through and copies of the correspondence into the public domain with a request that it be distributed as widely as possible. It is a last resort and a one way step - once done it can not easily be undone - but maybe I can get some satisfaction out of keeping other people from making the same mistake. I am not vindictive and would be more than happy to let the whole matter drop upon receipt of a check for what I am owed. I would certainly appreciate any help that you could give me in this matter. Sincerely, Robert S. Briggs On September 13th, 1985, I received the following letter from Byte magazine. It is nice to know that at least one of the magazines was interested and courteous enough to reply. Looks like I will have to re subscribe to BYTE magazine.... September 10, 1985 Mr. Robert Briggs P.O. Box 7175 Murray, UT 84107-0175 Dear Mr. Briggs: This is in response to your letter of August 29, a copy of which we are forwarding to PC's Limited. Rest assured that Fidonews Page 11 30 Jun 1986 we shall use whatever influence we have to get them to satisfactorily respond to your complaint. Please also try to understand that it is impossible, both logistically and legally for us to try to resolve all disputes between advertisers in BYTE and their customers. The best we can do is to provide a conduit to start communication between the advertiser and the customer, and to cease offering advertising space in our magazine to an advertiser when a clear pattern of unresolved customer problems appear. With your complaint, we are sincerely attempting to facilitate discussion between the parties which could lead to an appropriate resolution. We are asking both you and PC's Limited to keep us posted on any results obtained from our transactions. Thanks you very much for your patience and information. Sincerely, xxxxx x. xxxxxxx Customer Relations Here is my reply to the Byte Magazine letter: Robert Briggs P.O. Box 7175 Murray, UT 84107-0175 (801) xxx-xxxx BYTE MAGAZINE Attn: xxxxxx x. xxxxxxx 70 Main Street Peterborough, NH 03458 October 7, 1985 Dear xx. xxxxxxx, This is in reply to your letter of September 10, 1985, concerning PC's Limited. I believe that I have allowed a sufficient time for PC's Limited to reply, so I must regretfully state that I have received absolutely no correspondence from them. I must also assume that they have chosen to not reply because they have no intention of issuing me a refund - they have simply "ripped me off" to the tune of $700. I hope that there is some pressure that you can exert on Fidonews Page 12 30 Jun 1986 them as advertisers in your magazine. I am also going to correspond with the Attorney Generals Office, consumer complaint division, and the Better Business Bureau of Austin Texas, in hopes of getting some response (i.e. a refund) from them. I am preparing to distribute all of the correspondence to date to each of the nodes in the FIDO network (watch your BYTE bulletin board, all of this information will be distributed under the file name RIPOFF$.700 or pc-ltd.rip or something similar) and will request that it be passed along to any bulletin board that the users know of, and I hope to have copies of all of this correspondence published in several IBM-PC specific newsletters. This action should make this whole situation available to approximately 200,000 readers in a matter of roughly two weeks, and could reach a million PC users, by word of mouth, in roughly a month. I do not understand why PC's Limited is forcing me to pursue such an unfriendly course of action. I am not alleging mail fraud, but I think that anyone is entitled to a refund and a letter of explanation after attempting to obtain a working product or refund for over six months. Thank you for your time and the help that you and Byte Magazine have given me. Sincerely, Robert S. Briggs SYSOP of FIDO 15/464 A copy of the original letter to the advertising managers suitably modified, (below) has been sent to the Austin Texas Attorneys office, and the Austin Better Business Bureau. Robert Briggs P.O. Box 7175 Murray, UT 84107-0175 (801) xxx-xxxx City Government Building Attorney Generals Office Consumer Complaint Division Austin, TX 78752 Fidonews Page 13 30 Jun 1986 October 7th, 1985 Dear Sir, I would like to make a formal complaint against a company doing mail order sales based in your city. It has been nearly six months since I first ordered a 20 megabyte drive (some computer equipment) from PC's Limited, 7801 N. Lamar, Suite E-200, Austin 78752, (the equipment was originally ordered in March of 1985), and in that time they have failed to deliver me a either a functional disk drive, or the refund that I have been requesting for over three months now. Enclosed please find a copy of a letter that I sent to the Chief Executive Officer of PCS Ltd. on August 8, 1985, and copies of other correspondence with various magazines that they advertise in. There has been no response whatsoever from PC's Limited, and, as nearly as I can tell, I have simply been "ripped-off" for the sum of $695.00. If there is any way that you can assist me in recovering the original sum, I would be pleased, I have already "written off" the money spent in long distance phone calls and shipping. I would certainly appreciate any help that you could give me in this matter. I am not alleging mail fraud, but the whole situation has dragged on for over 7 months now, and I feel that a refund should have been forthcoming long before now, from an honest company. Sincerely, Robert S. Briggs As yet, there have been no replies to the latest round of correspondence. I guess that I have to leave it up to you, the reader to decide whether I have been too harsh on a company that failed to deliver me a working product after more than 6 months, and who seems to refuse to issue me a refund. If you can, give this file the widest distribution that you have available. Maybe someone else will avoid getting ripped off by this company. Maybe even you... If you are really into such things, how about sending a letter to PC's Limited telling them that you have read this article, and Fidonews Page 14 30 Jun 1986 have no intention of purchasing anything from them because of it. Anyone having similar problems with this company might drop a letter to the BYTE Magazine Customer relations department, urging them to remove PC's Limited from their advertising. You can keep current on the situation and get any further bulletins from my board at (801) 264-8290. Robert S. Briggs SYSOP FIDO 15/464 (801) 264-8290 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 15 30 Jun 1986 "C" Peeple have bin noan to objekt to my spelling. I am going to take this oportunity to fite bak. The problem is not with my spelling, it is with written English. As an example, the letter "c" serves no purpose in written English. For the hard "c" as in "cat", a "k" works perfektly well. For a soft "c" as in "city", a "s" kan be used. The only other "c" is the "ch" sutsh as is found in "such". In fakt the only exkuse for the letter "c" in the English language is for proper names (peeple, plases, and things). "California", "Charles", and "Chineese" (refering to the language) should probably be spelt the obsolete way, at least till there is an oportuinity to tshange them on maps and other rekords. Of koarse I see no reason they kould not be refered to as "Kalifornia", "Tsharles", and "Tshineese" but there may be a some unnessessary konfushun. One interesting example is the "Programming Language C". "C" kould be redefined to treat the symbols "c" or "C" as speshul reserved operators. The statement "c name" kould be defined to run "name" where "name" is a string with the name of a "c" program. Identifiers and reserved words kould be denied the alfabetik use of "c". There are many other problems I find with written English. I will leave solutions to them to the reader. I have purposly not made an attempt here to korrekt all of the follies of our language (nor have I made any partikular effort to follow them). Lloyd Miller "Calgary" (Kalgary), Alberta Fidonet 134/1 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 16 30 Jun 1986 *** W A R N I N G *** TROJAN HORSE ALERT FIDOPROM.COM Well, we have a new one. This program claims to be written by Tom Jennings: Welcome to the Fido prompt writer Written by: Tom Jennings Intended for use with Fido Versions 11v - 11w ONLY Copyright 1986, Tom Jennings I just got off the phone with Tom, and HE DID NOT WRITE IT! The first clue was that it is written in TURBO PASCAL. Tom only writes in C or ASM. Next, the cute dialog in the file is atypical of what Tom does. From looking at the strings in the program (using CHK4BOMB), I guess that it will either delete your USER.BBS file, or copy it to another file (REPORTS.PAS), where it could be downloaded at some later date. Interestingly enough, another "new user" was on the next day, searching all the file areas for files of the type indicated in the program. It was uploaded to both 109/74 and 109/483 within 1 hour of each other. If you have received a copy of this "gift", I would appreciate getting any information you might have on the fool who uploaded it. And, if you have run it, I would like to know what happened. SYSOP 109/74 - The Bear's Den 109/483 - Wash-A-RUG ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 17 30 Jun 1986 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= Taking Advantage of Your PC's Hard Disk: Part I, File Management Barry Gordon New York Personal Computer, Inc. This article is about organizing files on any hard disk attached to a member of the IBM PC family, including the PC with an Expansion Unit, and certainly, the PC AT. The following suggestions have evolved from several months of using the IBM PC XT as a follow-on system to the IBM PC. I hope these thoughts prove useful to those who work with hard disks on the IBM PC, particularly those who are new to it. File Management The hard disk is not merely an overgrown diskette. It can be used that way, but you would be inviting serious file management problems in doing so. The hard disk has other capabilities you should utilize, and there is no reason not to take full advantage of the hard disk's potential. About the last thing you want to deal with is a ten megabyte hard disk containing all its files in one directory. (There is a limit of how many files the root directory can contain, so the disk may give you an error message even though much of the disk is not filled.) With intelligent organization, the hard disk retains its speed advantage over the diskette, and you are better able to keep track of your files as well. The name of each file should use filename and the three-letter extension. Sooner or later you will need all the help you can get in remembering what each file contains. Most importantly, though, your files should be organized among several directories. The Root Directory Each DOS volume (diskette or hard disk) has a root directory which DOS creates when it formats the disk. The root directory on your hard disk should contain a minimum of files, reserving the space for sub-directory names. Nonetheless, a few files are essential in the root directory. When you format the hard disk, use the /S parameter: FORMAT C:/S which copies three .COM files to your hard disk: (IBMBIO.COM) (IBMDOS.COM) COMMAND.COM Notice that the first two are hidden files. You won't see them in any DIRectory listing, but the CHKDSK command will tell you they are there. Fidonews Page 18 30 Jun 1986 You should store the various DOS external command files and all data files in other sub-directories. Sub-directories for Executable Files Now let's consider locating your various executable program files--the .EXE, .COM, and .BAT files. You'll want to separate related programs into sub-directories of their own. For example, you may want one sub-directory containing all of the external DOS commands, another sub-directory with your word processing .COM and .EXE files, another with your accounting .COM and .EXE files, etc. until you have stored all of your executable programs into sub-directories. They are much easier to remember this way. The root directory has no user-assigned name, but all sub- directories are specifically created and named using the MKDIR command, MD for short: MD anyname You can create as many levels of sub-directories as you like, but generally, the fewer levels you have to create, the simpler your directory structure will be. There will be times when a second- or third-level sub-directory is needed (a directory created within another sub-directory), but multi-leveled sub-directories create a more complex path structure for both you and DOS to sort through. Directory Sizes You can fill a sub-directory with as many bytes as the disk will allow, but it is often convenient to limit the size of those sub- directories into which you regularly store data to the capacity of a single diskette, 320-360 KB. This allows you to back up a directory using the COPY command: COPY C:*.* A: The COPYable directory size offers an alternative to the BACKUP and RESTORE commands, an alternative that many find easier to use. It offers portability as well as backup. If you want to verify the copy with its original, you can follow the COPY command with this: COMP C: A: However, if you feel confident using the BACKUP and RESTORE commands, the contents of a single sub-directory can be as many bytes as you like. The bigger it is, the more time consuming the backup process becomes. Another suggestion is to give each backup diskette a volume label. This is especially useful if you use the COPY command to back up your sub-directories. By using the /V parameter when you format the diskette, you can label your diskette with the same name as the directory it backs up. Fidonews Page 19 30 Jun 1986 It is rarely necessary to back up the entire hard disk. Typically, you store data changes in the files of a few sub- directories, those few being the only sub-directories you need to back up regularly. Many sub-directories never change, and need backing up only once. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 20 30 Jun 1986 ================================================================= FOR SALE ================================================================= ENTERTAINMENT SOFTWARE FOR YOUR PC! SUPERDOTS! KALAH! Professional quality games include PASCAL source! From the author of KALAH Version 1.6, SuperDots, a variation of the popular pencil/paper DOTS game, has MAGIC and HIDDEN DOT options. KALAH 1.7 is an African strategy game requiring skill to manipulate pegs around a playing board. Both games use the ANSI Escape sequences provided with the ANSI.SYS device driver for the IBM-PC, or built into the firmware on the DEC Rainbow. Only $19.95 each or $39.95 for both exciting games! Please specify version and disk format. These games have been written in standard TURBO-PASCAL and run on the IBM-PC, DEC Rainbow 100 (MSDOS and CPM), CPM/80, CPM/86, and PDP-11. Other disk formats are available, but minor customization may be required. BSS Software P.O. Box 3827 Cherry Hill, NJ 08034 For every order placed, a donation will be made to the Fido coordinators! Also, if you have a previous version of KALAH and send me a donation, a portion of that donation will also be sent to the coordinators. When you place an order, BE CERTAIN TO MENTION WHERE YOU SAW THE AD since it also appears in PC Magazine and Digital Review. Questions and comments can be sent to: Brian Sietz at Fido 107/17 (609) 429-6630 300/1200/2400 baud ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 21 30 Jun 1986 Now available from Micro Consulting Associates!! Public Domain collection - 550+ "ARC" archives - 20+ megs of software and other goodies, and that's "archived" size! When unpacked, you get approximately 28 megabytes worth of all kinds of software, from text editors to games to unprotection schemes to communications programs, compilers, interpreters, etc... Over 55 DS/DD diskettes!! This collection is the result of more than 15 months of intensive downloads from just about 150 or more BBS's and other sources, all of which have been examined, indexed and archived for your convenience. Starting a Bulletin Board System? Want to add on to your software base without spending thousands of dollars? This is the answer!!! To order the library, send $100 (personal or company check, postal money order or company purchase order) to: Micro Consulting Associates, Fido 103/511 Post Office Box 4296 200-1/2 E. Balboa Boulevard Balboa, Ca. 92661-4296 Please allow 3 weeks for delivery of your order. Note: No profit is made from the sale of the Public Domain software in this collection. The price is applied entirely to the cost of downloading the software over the phone lines, running a BBS to receive file submissions, and inspecting, cataloguing, archiving and maintaining the files. Obtaining this software yourself through the use of a computer with a modem using commercial phone access would cost you much more than what we charge for the service... Please specify what type of format you would like the disks to be prepared on. The following choices are available: - IBM PC-DOS Backup utility - Zenith MS-DOS 2.11 Backup Utility - DSBackup - Fastback - ACS INTRCPT 720k format - Plain ol' files (add $50) Add $30 if you want the library on 1.2 meg AT disks (more expensive disks). There are no shipping or handling charges. California residents add 6% tax. For each sale, $10 will go to the FidoNet Administrators. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 22 30 Jun 1986 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 20 Jul 1986 St. Louis Area Sysops Meeting, to be held at Baker's Acre. Net 100 sysops please contact Ben Baker at 100/76 for details and directions. 14 Aug 1986 Start of the International FidoNet Conference, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Contact George Wing at node 1/10 for details. Get your reservations in NOW! We'll see you there! 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- James Pallack, 16/635 MINDSET Conference using EchoMail I am looking for Fido's around the U.S. that are willing to participate in a conference for the MINDSET computer. This would be using the EchoMail software and dedicating a message section to the conference. If you are interested or am willing to have this conference on your BBS. Please contact me via FidoNet at 16/635. If you are interested in participating, but don't have the funds for the service, please contact me anyway. Arrangements can be worked out (e.g. I'll pick up the mail). Currently I have locations in Sunnyvale, CA (143/20) and New York City (107/102). ----------------------------------------------------------------- Faculty Position Available - Computer Science Position Description: Full-time, tenure track position to teach various computer science core courses which emphasize programming languages and data structures. Will also teach upper division courses in Operating Systems, Compilers and Formal Language Theory. Salary and Rank: Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Fidonews Page 23 30 Jun 1986 salary dependant upon qualifications and experience. Qualifications: M.S. or Ph.D. in computer science. Strong interest in undergraduate teaching and developing a computer science program in a liberal arts setting. Classroom teaching experience and a working knowledge of UNIX are preferred. Appointment Date: August 25, 1986 Closing Date: Open until filled, immediate applications accepted. The University: Pacific University is a small, independant liberal arts institution with an enrollment of about 1100 students. The university is composed of the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Optometry. The computer science offerings are within the Department of Mathematical Sciences. The Department of Mathematical Sciences offers a major and a minor in Computer Science, a cooperative BS/MS program in Computer Science with the Oregon Graduate Center, and a major and a minor in Mathematics. The Community: The city of Forest Grove has a population of about 14,000. It is located 25 miles west of Portland, within an hour's drive to the Oregon coast, and two hours to the Cascade Mountains. Hiring Policy: Pacific is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer. To Apply: Send letter of application, vita, three letters of recommendation and official transcripts to: Douglas J. Ryan Department of Mathematical Sciences Pacific University Forest Grove, OR 97116 -----------------------------------------------------------------