Volume 4, Number 18 11 May 1987 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings FidoNews is published weekly by the International FidoNet Association as its official newsletter. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission standards are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from node 1/1. Copyright (C) 1987, by the International FidoNet Association. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact IFNA. Fourteen Weeks to FidoCon! Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1 Politics ................................................. 1 2. ARTICLES ................................................. 2 A Brief Put-Down ......................................... 2 MACE Utilities - A Sysop's View .......................... 4 2400 Baud Modems ......................................... 5 A Review of Opus ......................................... 7 NY MetroNet Resolution ................................... 8 Vietnam Veterans EchoConference .......................... 9 3. COLUMNS .................................................. 11 The Regular Irregular Column ............................. 11 4. NOTICES .................................................. 18 The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 18 IFNA Board of Directors Ballot ........................... 19 FidoNews 4-18 Page 1 11 May 1987 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= Politics I heard an interesting thought the other day. Some local nets are more "powerful" than others. I'm still trying to figure out what this means. Oh, I know, we're talking politics again. The techie in me rebels at this. "Political reasons" rank right up there with "historical reasons" among the very worst reasons for doing something in a particular way. But I've been in applications work long enough to realize that political reasons, as much as I may dislike them, are still reasons, and are valid in their own context. But I don't think that FidoNet can afford to get bogged down in a morass of politics. You see, there's a funny thing about political reasons. They can work against you as easily as for you. Almost by definition they have no rational basis in facts. Technical reasons, on the other hand, almost always work FOR you. FidoNet is dedicated to the free flow of information. CPCUG originated that phrase, I think, and most boards I've called quote it in one place or another. We just mean it more than most. We're dealing here with the free flow of information between 1500 or more systems around the world, serving countless users covering the whole spectrum of philosophies. Not only do we have the world's largest (mainly) free mail system, we also have that tremendous amplifier of personal expression, echomail. But keeping that information flowing is a technical operation. We serve the most people the best by ensuring that the technical aspects of our network run as smoothly as possible. Only this way can we serve everyone. This means that politics have no place in the operation of the network. The network fails to serve us if it does not serve us impartially. No matter what your philosophy or affiliation, The Word will not go out unless the network runs smoothly. Yes, stand by your beliefs and express your opinions, but please lay aside your special interests when it comes to matters of network operation. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-18 Page 2 11 May 1987 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Kilgore Trout, 107/7 A Brief Put-Down It seems like every time I talk to anyone these days they are raving about what a great editor they have, and in every case it's always BRIEF. The BRIEF editor seems to be taking the country by storm. It's advocates often sound like the computer equivalent of newly converted members of a religious cult. I finally got my hands on a copy of BRIEF so I could try out this wonder editor for myself. BRIEF stands for Basic Reconfigurable Interactive Editing Facility, and they mean it with a vengence. Calling it "reconfigurable" is about like calling the Grand Canyon a valley. As near as I can tell, the actual editor itself is fairly simple, with the usual "type a character and it gets shoved in" stuff. It gets its power from a bunch of built-in macro atoms and a complex macro language. It comes with a large library of macros that do all sorts of neat things for a programmer, plus you can define your own macros to be about as sophisticated as you like. For example, here's a nifty feature that is the main reason why I'm sweating over this thing so much: If you are working on a C program and you want to see if it has any syntax errors, press Alt F10 and BRIEF will run your compiler for you. If you get any error messages, BRIEF will trap the error and show it to you, while zapping your cursor over to the offending line. Sounds neat, eh? It IS neat. Though of course it suffers from some predictable shortcomings. It can only zap you to the line reported by your compiler, so it can never be better than the compiler at pinpointing the actual faulty line. My compiler has a few errors that get reported on the line holding the brace that closes a function, so that's where BRIEF goes. Well, at least it finds the right function for you. I could make a case here for it being TOO all-fired powerful and flexible. In fact, I will. A number one, don't ever even THINK about running it on a 4.77 mHz XT. A plain ol' PC or XT just ain't got the horsepower for this kind of editor. I guess that means don't try running it under DoubleDOS, Desqview, or any other multitasker unless you are really into frustration. One of the features that sends C programmers into raptures is its automatic indenting and template ability. You can set it up so when you type "f " (the space is important) as the first thing on a line, it changes it into "for ()" and puts your cursor in the parens. Nifty, but I don't WANT a space between the "for" and the parens. So okay, I can change that. So after an hour of FidoNews 4-18 Page 3 11 May 1987 thumbing through the book and searching the macros I find it and fix it. Another twenty minutes of thumbing the book and trying things even makes it so BRIEF does what I said. No hassle yet; I was new to it, so I expected a fair amount of manual thumbing. Here's how I spent the rest of my day: BRIEF can also do fancy things for you with braces. When you hit an open brace, it automatically fixes up the indents and sets the closing brace for you. It understands two different ways of doing braces with indents. Method 1: while(x) { a = b; b = c; } Method 2: while(x) { a = b; b = c; } But I don't like either of those methods. I like: while(x) { a = b; b = c; } I've found the macro that handles this (I think). One day I may even understand it. If I'm lucky, I may even someday be able to fix it. First I'll have to learn the macro language, which is no easy task. It's some sort of cross between C, LISP, and something else. Expressions look like: (if (inq_mode) (= replaced (substr (get_parm) (++ loc) 1))) Much of this and I go cockeyed counting parens. I suppose I'll keep slugging away at it. BRIEF is loaded with features, and I love features. One of these days I'll probably figure out how it works, and then I'll probably be as much in love with it as everyone else seems to be. But meanwhile it strikes me as an incredibly bloated example of rampant featuritis, almost (but not quite) as bad as the supermenued BackComm program. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-18 Page 4 11 May 1987 Jean Coppola 107/201 MACE UTILITIES Ever since I got hit by a 'trojan' type program 2 years ago I have been searching for the 'ultimate' recovery program. Now I can say I have found it! Mace Utilities will recover a hard disk that has been formatted either accidently or otherwise! It is a rather smart utility and can find files that you thought were lost forever on your disks. Recently I got hit with another 'trojan' type program. With MACE I was able to recover the disk entirely (after 1 call to the author of MACE) in just under 1 hour. The author of the 'trojan' knew of MACE and made a very good attempt at erasing (read destroying) the file MACE writes to the disk containing the disk (FAT) data. However MACE also writes files to areas of the disk most people don't even know about (I had to call to find this out) and as such is relatively safe from 'trojans' assuming the programs are still on the disk. For the recovery function alone MACE is worth the money! As a Sysop I also use MACE to diagnose and condense my drives. With files constantly being created, erased, and moved between sub-directories my disk slows down very quickly. For those new to hard drives, when the computer goes to create a file it searches the File Allocation Table for the next available spot and writes the file to that area. This IS NOT always the first available spot. More often than not you have at least 25% of the directory entries in the FAT unavailable. These ARE NOT made available again until a Chkdsk is run, or better yet when you condense and un-fragment your disk. Due to the constant erasing, copying, moving of files, some files are not located in contiguous sectors. What this means simply is that the drive heads have to move to many different areas to read one file. MACE allows you to condense which simply moves all entries in each directory to the top of the file, speeding searches especially if you use the PATH command. Then you can un-fragment the drive which simply makes sure that every file is written in contiguous blocks thus making head moves less frequent resulting in faster access. All in all a very good utility that should be in every Sysop's library of utilities. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-18 Page 5 11 May 1987 Steve Ahola, 101/433 2400 Baud Modems I have seen all kinds of stuff on why one brand of modem won't connect to another. Heres something I picked up on the boards a while back. * * * When you call a 1200/2400 bps modem, it answers in either of two ways. If it is a CCITT-V.22bis compliant modem, it answers with 3.3 seconds of 2100Hz tone, then 75 mS of silence, and then a burst of training signals to get the other modem to adjust to the line. If the answering modem receives training signals in response, it assumes that it will be talking 2400 bps using 16-QAM and you have a 2400 bps connection. If instead of the training signals, it receives 4- PSK from the originating modem in response to its answering tones, it assumes that it will be a 1200 bps connection and switches off the training and (in the USA) uses 4-PSK (Bell 212 standard). [European modems use CCITT-V.22 (not V.22bis) for 1200 bps. Some modems claim to handle this as well as 212 for 1200 bps. Here's the rub: some of the 1200/2400 modems don't answer using the CCITT V.22bis handshake. They instead answer with a different handshake (the engineer referred to it as the Bell 2400 bps handshake). After going off-hook, the "Bell handshake" answering modem sends 2125Hz (which is pretty close to the CCITT 2100Hz tone) and waits for the originating modem to respond either with 1200bps 4-PSK or with QAM training signals. It then switches to the appropriate mode, and either sends some training signals for 2400, or 4-PSK for 1200. Some modems can handle both kinds of handshakes. I have, for example, no problem calling a Courier with a Courier, anything with a Racal-Vadic or a MultiTech, etc. But my Courier can't call my Case-Rixon; an Anchor didn't connect to the Courier, etc. No, I don't have a chart of what talks to what, for reasons that I'll explain: The point here is that I'm not interested really in what talks to what on a brandname basis. I want instead to find some brands that "do the right thing" for both handshakes, and recommend those. So far I've found a couple (Racal-Vadic and Multitech come to mind) and I'll choose among those and others based on other factors, such as interface, reliability, mounting, etc. for the list of ones I recommend. But the other manufacturers need to get on the stick and get it right. It seems to me that stating that a modem is CCITT-V.22bis compliant also means that it does the CCITT handshake, and yet I can call several of the modems out there and just by listening FidoNews 4-18 Page 6 11 May 1987 (no 75mS interruption, guys!) tell that they're using the "bell handshake". And the ones that I've tested that answer with the "bell handshake" don't seem to accept the CCITT handshake when you dial out. Moral: It may be 2400 bps but they're not all compatible. C'mon, guys! Modem manufacturers! Heed my words! Since there is a published international standard and one other noncompliant "standard", you need to accept both! And you should probably default to the international standard when you answer. Listening test: I call the modem and listen. After it goes off hook, I hear in my telephone either 1) a steady high-pitched tone, then a very brief interruption, then another slightly-different-pitch tone, then it disconnects. -or- 2) a steady high-pitched tone that lasts until it disconnects. I surmise that #1 is the CCITT handshake. I just tried this with a Case-Rixon 1224 and a USR Courier. The Case-Rixon did #1, the Courier did #2. If I call both on a conference call, I hear what could be a 25Hz beat note between them during the first tone on answer. So, I'm not disparaging anybody's modems. But I wish there was more standardization so that I don't have to buy one of each to test them before we make some big mistake. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-18 Page 7 11 May 1987 "Sak", 107/329 OPUS - I LOVE IT! I've used both Fido and Opus to run this BBS and I find no comparison between the two in as far as flexibility or capability. Opus is a hands down winner. Here are just a few examples of the improvement: o my Fido subdirectory contained some 145 files the system used just to operate, my Opus subdirectory contains about 85 files. o Fido has no way to effectively run "outside" programs other than using something like Outer and then re-logging into Fido like a new caller when finished, Opus exits to "outside" programs like they were part of Opus and returns a caller to the main menu. o Fido's command letter could not be changed, Opus can change the command letter. o Fido was rigidly Fido, Opus allows for the embedding of calls to other programs or files expanding the utility of the whole program. Actually the list goes on. The command structure is different, but its not so different that someone familiar with Fido would be completely lost. The main areas of confusion are the Message Menu selections. I think Opus should include in that menu a note telling callers that by entering the number of a message, you display that message. Nonetheless, I think combining both of Fido's message menus into one menu is a good idea. When I converted, I took the time to switch the help levels of my callers to novice. That seemed to make a big difference in their acceptance of the new system. In short, dispite some of the failings of Opus, it's a strong contender for Fido's place in the sun. I've never used BBS software that contained so many ways to personalize a board's presentation so much, nor offer me so much flexibility in getting around problems. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-18 Page 8 11 May 1987 April 25, 1987 We, the assembled sysops of Net 107*, have unanimously voted in favor of supporting the following statement: As members of FidoNet, we feel that it is in the best interests of FidoNet and the sysops who comprise it to affirm support of the current interim leadership of IFNA and of their decisions to date relative to continued operation of the Network and also toward the establishment of a more formally structured and controlled organization. This includes support of not only the interim Board of Directors and their coordinators, but their creation and exercise of the precepts contained in POLICY3.DOC. We encourage their continued efforts on our behalf until such time as the new Board of Directors is elected and installed as the governing control of IFNA. Gerrie Blum 107/169 Rich Mazzara 107/104 John Cottrell 107/132 Tom Marshall 107/524 Al Arango 107/523 Bill Bertholf 107/102 Larry Manka 107/333 Gee Wong 107/312 Dave OShea 107/35 Burt Juda 107/528 Bill Wilkes 107/211 Karl Schinke 107/16 Rick Siegel 107/27 Jim Nicholson 107/530 Pete Keller 107/522 Don Daniels 107/200 Thom Henderson 107/8 Marv Shelton 107/519 Mike Fuchus 107/326 Irene Henderson 107/6 Larry Porter 107/112 Mitch Kessler 107/269 *Sam Saulys 141/488 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-18 Page 9 11 May 1987 Todd C. Looney, 143/27 NATIONAL VIETNAM VETERAN'S ECHO-MAIL CONFERENCE There is one other wall, of course. One we never speak of. One we never see, One which separates memory from madness. In a place no one offers flowers. THE WALL WITHIN. We permit no visitors. I started out with Steve Mason's poem because it tells a story in itself. I believe it accurately describes in very few words one of the very many complex, and probably one of the most protected, commonalities shared not only among a vast majority of military combat veterans of ANY war, but among nearly every person who has witnessed and survived any kind of life-threatening traumatic experience as well. This "wall" shields us from our darkest, most horrifying memories. It is, without question, one of the most significant components manifested in Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTS). One of the toughest things for any combat veteran can be to open his or herself up (yes, there are women who have seen combat, too) to another human being and share the traumatic events from their past. It is rare in this instance when the occasion can be found when both the will and and a sympathetic, non-critical ear are both available at the same time. Most us of find it very hard, even when conditions are perfect, to "tell it like it really was". One has to have an awful lot of trust in a person to risk the consequences of lowering "the wall" , much less to permit others to visit among our long-since buried memories and feelings. When it gets right down to the line, most of us lose the courage to face the emotional ramifications which unmercifully enshroud us when we dare to share our deepest, most personal secrets with someone else. It is especially difficult when that other person has never experienced the same kind of traumatic events, making it difficult if not impossible for them to truly understand our pain. How do you tell someone who has never experienced combat what it REALLY feels like to witness a comrades violent death? What will that person think of you when you tell them what it REALLY feels like to have to take the life of another human being? Is the emotional relief from getting it off your chest REALLY worth the gamble of possible rejection, ridicule, or criticism? Well, I can tell you from my own experiences that is is far less painful to keep the "walls" in place than it is to face up to the terrifying realities they imprison. There are a few places where I can feel safe bringing up those old, painful memories; places where I can slowly pull each one out and deal with it in a comfortable atmosphere free of mis- understanding and criticism. The local Vietnam Veterans Outreach Center is one, but I sometimes have problems in one-on-ones. The FidoNews 4-18 Page 10 11 May 1987 others are computer bulletin boards where I can find others like myself who have been there and understand where I am coming from. I have also discovered in the past several months that there are an awful lot of non-vets, many who were either not born or were just too young to serve at the time, who can teach me a lot about myself and the residue of feelings still lingering beneath the surface of my consiousness. I have "met" countless ex-protesters who have buried feelings of their OWN which need to be expressed. And, I am sure now, that we all have shared a learning experience together as we communicate our thoughts and feelings to one another. I started a bulletin board just like that in my home in San Jose, California, now the Vietnam Veteran's Valhalla. I also conceived a national echo-mail conference devoted to the Vietnam Veteran and put out the call for supporters across the country. That call was answered by so many Fido, Opus, and TBBS sysops that I wouldn't attempt to name them all for fear of leaving one out. Together, we have linked our systems between the east and west coasts and I am proud to boast of our success, and proud of the long hours and hard work they have ALL put toward making the conference a grand success! There are people from all walks of life contributing to the National Vietnam Veterans Echo-Mail Conference; combat and non- combat veterans from all wars, non-veterans of all ages, and Vietnamese military veterans and refugees. Just because you are not a Vietnam Veteran, or even a military veteran at all for that matter, is no reason not to call one of the boards closest to you. All you need is an interest in learning about the realities of the Vietnam war, and hearing about it from those of us who were actually there; who know the true cost of war and have paid that price. No historian, unless he or she has been there personally, can tell you what WE can! And conversely, no one can tell US what YOU can! We want to put out the call again and ask for the support of other sysops around the country to become a part of this valuable public service by hosting the Vietnam Veterans Echo-Mail Conference in your area, or just to call and browse through the messages accumilated since June of last year. Please contact me, Todd Looney, at the Vietnam Veteran's Valhalla in San Jose, California by FidoNet mail at node 143/27, or direct at (408) 293-7894, or one of the coordinating SysOps listed below: Mike Sellaroli The Board #1 200/100 213-498-6425 Jerry Hindle SpaceStation Opus 123/6 901-353-4563 Bob Richards New York Transfer 107/105 718-442-1056 Jerry Nuckols Lighting Rod 18/11 601-545-1225 Tracy Graves The FORUM 138/39 206-565-1476 Echo-Mail is one of the most effective means of mass- communications brought to light this century, let's USE it! ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-18 Page 11 11 May 1987 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= The Regular Irregular Column Dale Lovell 157/504 This has been an enjoyable week for me. I've been busy catching up on some of the Usenet conferences and have come across some interesting things. One of them is the source code for valspeak, more on that later. This column's going to be a little different. I'm going to stick my neck out and get up on a soapbox for a few paragraphs. Those of you who don't care to read these sections can merely skip the section starting with "[Soapbox ON]" until you see the "[Soapbox OFF]." I've decided that not enough people are talking, and I'm getting kind of tired with the knee-jerk reactions taking place in the network. -- Usenet and FidoNet -- While I was going over some of the conferences on Usenet, I discovered a new one in progress. It dealt with how to connect FidoNet and Usenet together. This wasn't too surprising as I knew it was beginning to be done by people like Bob Hartman who were familiar with both of these public networks (okay, so Usenet isn't quite as public as FidoNet). What was surprising to me is how active the conference seemed to be. There are quite a few people on Usenet who are seriously thinking about or working on gateway software to link these two fine networks. The problem that I saw was that a good number of them were totally unfamiliar with the Fido or SEAdog conventions of mail. If we don't start working on much the same thing here, we may find ourselves shut out of easy Usenet gateways because Usenet has decided how they will accept a Fido, and Fido isn't going to like the methods involved. I'd like to think that anyone out there involved with FidoNet and Usenet is going to try and make sure that the gateway will be something relatively easy to implement, and is a little more relaxed than what Usenet seems to prefer. I say this because I've glanced at some Usenet technical type stuff and became hopelessly lost after the first few pages. It also wouldn't be to convenient if our PCs had to handle a full Usenet feed, because it isn't unusual for Usenet to transfer 2 megabytes of data a day. My local Usenet site has a dedicated line to one of their sources for news, and I don't know of many PCs that could do that very easily. I'd like to hear from anyone out there in FidoNet who is working with the Usenet people on developing a practical gateway between the networks. This is not downplaying Bob Hartman's current gateway by any means. I just happen to be a little lazy and would like to see some gateway software that nearly anyone could implement with a willing Usenet site coordinator. -- Valspeak and LEX -- FidoNews 4-18 Page 12 11 May 1987 While on Usenet I came across the source code for Valspeak. If you've never heard of it, it converts an ASCII text file in "English" into something a little different. How different? Suffice to say that your old high school English teacher would have a heart attack if he saw the final result ("the" becomes "thuh," "yes" becomes "fer shure," etc.). I'd heard of the program several months back (on Usenet) but had missed the posting of the source code. In looking over the source code I found out that I'd need a program called LEX as well a C compiler. After a few days searching I found a version of LEX on Gee Wong's board (thanks for allowing file requests Gee). My only problem seems to be that the LEX I have, isn't quite compatible with the LEX that was used on the posted Valspeak. This meant I actually had to go look at the documentation on LEX and learn what it did. LEX is a "Lexical Analyzer Generator" which means that it writes a program that analyzes (and can convert or translate) an ASCII file. It seems to be very powerful in that it could be used to help you convert source code from one language to another, maybe even do a very basic translation between two spoken languages although I don't think it would be that good of a translation. I've almost got the LEX I'm using to accept the source code for valspeak, after which I should merely have to compile a C program. If this sounds a little complicated or time consuming, that's because it is! Even after I get my LEX to generate (hopefully) a C program, there's no assurance that my C compiler will be able to accept the generated code. While I've only come across one program off Usenet that Microsoft C 4.0 didn't like (JOVE), the docs on the LEX I'm using seem to indicate that it generates code for one of the PC versions of C. If the PC version doesn't correspond to the latest MSC conventions it will be necessary to modify the generated C code to get a working valspeak. There was a similar program called jivespeak that I've seen on a few local bulletin boards, I'd like to hear from anyone who has done such a conversion. I'd especially like to hear any hints on how to do this, or where I could get a more UNIX like LEX. As I write this an idea just popped into my head, I could run LEX on the UNIX machine I have access to and bring the C code down to the PC and compile it there. I'll let you know how that approach works out next week, as there's bound to be more programs like this floating around and this may be an easier way to port them to our PCs. -- [Soapbox ON] -- Last chance to avoid my preaching, those who continue are going to be stuck listening to my opinionated views on several topics. For over a year we've all been hearing about IFNA (International FidoNet Association). Last August there was a meeting in Colorado Springs which started the ball rolling towards incorporating IFNA as a non-profit corporation. Many of us had noticed little things about IFNA for some time (the FidoNews 4-18 Page 13 11 May 1987 copyright on the nodelist for example). Well, Colorado Springs didn't turn out quite as well as anticipated. I am not going to start pointing fingers here as to whose fault that was, I wasn't there and have only heard about what happened second hand from Phil Ardussi, my net host, and what people have written in the echomail conferences and FidoNews. Suffice to say that it came close to being a disaster from what I've heard. This isn't all the fault of the organizers either. Some of the problems stemmed from a few hot-headed people who attended the conference. Well, many of us have seen a whole slew of messages in the echo conferences on IFNA. I've gotten a little tired of some of the stuff I've been seeing and decided it was time to get some of it off my chest. First off there was a vote taken on the bylaws. Granted the current bylaws are not perfect, but is anything? The bylaws give us a starting point from which we can work. Without some beginning "rules" absolutely nothing can be done. How could you start writing a program if you didn't even know what language it was going to be used? (I refer to actual coding, not breaking down the task into reasonable parts.) There were over one thousand people entitled to vote on the bylaws, yet less than one fifth actually took the time to vote. The bylaws were published weeks ahead of time in FidoNews. The week after OUR newsletter was filled with discussion on the proposed bylaws. Thom Henderson even went to a lot of extra effort to make it very easy for people to comment on the bylaws. There was no need to have read the article specifications document, and it isn't that difficult to adhere to those specs. All you had to do was send a normal netmail message to 1/1, and Thom put a notice to this is the FidoNews that was almost dedicated to the proposed bylaws. In net 157, we spent a better part of our monthly meeting discussing the bylaws. After much discussion (in the next edition of FidoNews and a lot in the echo conferences) a modified set of bylaws was printed in FidoNews. When it seemed that these proposed bylaws would be reasonably acceptable a vote was called. In every FidoNews after that, there was a notice and a ballot for the expressed purpose of voting the acceptance of the bylaws for IFNA. If the bylaws had been voted down, the bylaws committee would have gone back to the drawing board and made any changes they felt would be necessary to gain the majority acceptance of the bylaws. Out of over one thousand people eligible to vote on the bylaws, less than one fifth of them actually voted. It seems that taking a few minutes to read the bylaws, consider them, fill out the ballot and send it in was too much for many. I wouldn't think it was the cost of mailing it, one stamp is fairly cheap. Even overseas rates on a one page letter isn't that much. Yet hundreds of people decided not to vote. When you don't vote, you toss yourself on the mercy of those who do vote (and their decision). Voting is one of the highest levels of authority you have in an organization, it is your duty to wield that authority responsibly. If you don't, you have to be willing to accept the decision made by your peers. If the results aren't what you'd prefer, even if you did vote, you have to be willing to TRUST the FidoNews 4-18 Page 14 11 May 1987 decision of the majority of your peers and abide by the GROUPS decision. I realize that there is a strong possibility of one net not knowing about the vote being taken due to a changeover in hosts or something, but even if that entire network had voted against the bylaws the end result would have been the same. The vote for the bylaws was passed by an overwhelming margin. As it was the responsibility for everyone eligible to consider the bylaws and vote on them, it is now everyone's duty to accept that decision and work TOGETHER for a better set of bylaws. I have "heard" several people talk about IFNANET. There is no such beast. It has been stated repeatedly that you DO NOT have to belong (and never will have to belong) to IFNA to be listed in the nodelist. All it takes to be listed in the nodelist is some small proof that you are indeed running the software necessary to communicate with everyone else in the network, and be running that software at the required times. The only absolute throughout the network is the national mail hour, which is only necessary for a public node (special arrangements can always be arranged for a private node). In each net (or region) it is up to the host to decide if any extra mail events are needed and everyone in that net would comply with the host. In Net 157, we've been talking over the idea of several mail events to speed up mail and everyone is involved in the discussion. I don't know how it works in other nets, but here we discuss things rationally and come to a mutual decision. Some people may not care for the decision, but everyone abides by it. IFNA does not "govern" our net, it merely assures our continuity. The guidelines for governing the network are found in POLICY3.DOC, which is merely a revisal of POLICY2.DOC, etc. This document has remained almost unchanged since it's creation. The changes that have been made are to help make all of us in FidoNet (sysops and users) more a single group instead of a mob. The two basic rules are simple: 1) Do not excessively annoy and 2) Do not be easily annoyed. I read it as don't be a real pain to anyone else in the network and be tolerant of other people's ideas, opinions, and beliefs (these rules are very easy to live with). If you want to be a region host or net host, it gets a little harder. You become responsible for distributing the nodelist to everyone in your net. Net hosts have the additional duty of distributing FidoNews to the net. This isn't to punish anyone, it's because FidoNews helps bind us into that group (not a bunch of sysops and BBS users, but people with FidoNet). It even provides a way for you to air a grievance, and that method hasn't changed one iota in a long time. Next up is the copyright issue. Everything I've been able to find out on the nodelist copyright makes me wonder why anyone is complaining about it. At one time there was an individual who started selling the nodelist as an "official list" of bulletin boards in the US. The people who were creating the master nodelist found out about it and didn't feel it was right for an individual to sell the work of others for a profit. The copyright may not have stopped whoever was selling it, but it certainly FidoNews 4-18 Page 15 11 May 1987 made him think twice about it! Copyright violations are a very serious issue in the courts. Look through some recent PC magazines (PC Magazine and BYTE come to mind) and you'll find some companies who offer a "service" to any institution. They come in to your offices and educate your people on why you DO NOT copy software, that those copyright notices ARE VERY IMPORTANT! Fines on these type of things can run very high, plus there's the possible civil lawsuits that can result as well. It's like how college professors impress upon you how important it is not to commit plagiarism. It also serves the purpose of making the nodelist belong to every person in it. Because IFNA really is the network of members and non- members. Even if you don't pay any dues and aren't able to vote, IFNA does affect you. Just like the POLICY?.DOC affect you, so does IFNA. It formalizes what we've been doing all along, adding what the government requires for recognizing a formal organization. Since it's a non-profit corporation, many companies will be willing to make special offers to IFNA members. Without an official organization, companies won't look twice at you. You aren't a group, you're a disorganized mob! IFNA tells people that we are not a mob, we're an organized group of people with some common goals. Now comes the copyright that has appeared in FidoNews. The bylaws stated that there would be a method of distributing news to all paid members and associates, and it would be in a weekly newsletter called FidoNews. It would distribute information that would be useful to its' members. It also means that it would make non-members who qualify for membership aware of what was going on in the network. While this isn't officially stated, I think it follows fairly well that it would serve this purpose as well. As an example suppose you were staring up a new echomail conference that you thought would be of interest to many people. You could enter a message about it in a current echomail conference, but not everyone receives echomail or has the time to read all of it. You could send a netmail message to everyone in the network, but that would be extremely costly to say the least. You could also send a message to every host and ask them to forward the message on to their nodes. This would be less expensive, but you could never be sure that the message reached everyone (you can't demand that someone forward a message). FidoNews however would make your task very easy, all you have to do is send ONE message to 1/1 (in accordance with the ARTSPEC.DOC file) and within a week or two everyone would know about the new echomail conference. Because everyone is supposed to read FidoNews, it contains information for everyone (once again sysops AND users). IFNA is promising that FidoNews will continue to be published, and is promising that someone in IFNA will always take on the responsibilities of the editor for FidoNews (keeping a board up to receive submissions, and making sure it's put together every week). Considering the amount of work that they're guaranteeing, I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to put a FidoNews 4-18 Page 16 11 May 1987 copyright notice on it. If FidoNews was only distributed to paid IFNA members, I would be one of the first to object. But it isn't! Anyone may distribute it provided they do not charge for it (or at least, not make any money by selling it). I would like see an amendment to the bylaws that would assure it's being continued in it's current state, which means anything is published that reaches Thom. The copyright also protects anyone who submits an article to FidoNews from a lawsuit. If I were to make a serious mistake in reviewing a product and my error were to cause a major decline in it's sales, I wouldn't necessarily be put in the poorhouse because of it. That copyright notice would help protect me (and anyone else who had something published in FidoNews). While I would be hard put to find an example as serious as I stated, it does reassure me that I'm not out there all alone! I do think, however, that some things should be censored out of FidoNews. If someone were to write an article which was deliberately slanderous, I would like to think that the editor would refuse to print it. The same would go for anything that is simple name calling or childish. As for who decides what goes beyond the bounds, it's simple. You make someone who the majority trusts the editor, and then let the person do it. If you don't trust the current editor, find someone you do trust or volunteer to do it yourself. If the majority picks someone you don't care for, learn to live with it because an organization is designed to make as many people happy as possible, not everyone. I fully trust the current editor, and would like to seem him stay on as long as possible. If in the future, FidoNews gets a new editor I will be continue writing. If a majority of the people (in IFNA, that organization that works to keep the network together) decide on a new editor, I will happily live with their decision. IFNA is not FidoNet, and FidoNet is not IFNA. FidoNet is the network as a being, the multitude of bulletin boards, sysops, and users who find something worthwhile in telecommunications in general, and in the advantages of Fido/OPUS/SEAdog/etc. in specific. IFNA is the nonprofit organization that is composed of those people who are willing to go the extra ten yards for the network. They believe that there is something good (and not for making money) in the network and want to see its' continued existence. If this means giving up a few hours a week (in addition to the work involved in running a board) to create a nodelist or newsletter, or attend a meeting (perhaps far away) they do it. They don't sit back in their homes or offices and write rude or insulting messages, they work with everyone to make sure that people who DO write rude or insulting messages don't destroy the network, which is something they believe in! Anyway...'Nuff said on this for now. -- Winding Down -- Game of the week this time is The Ancient Art of War (Broderbund, list price $44.95). It's quite a bit like the FidoNews 4-18 Page 17 11 May 1987 strategy board games I played many years ago, only with the new twists of the using the computer. It's also nice because I don't have to spend several hours trying to find someone who feels like playing! It is not copy protected and includes several scenarios as well as a generator for your own scenarios. You're offered the chance to fight against several different opponents, from the easy to beat "Crazy Ivan" to a man who almost wrote the book on strategy, Sun Tzu. I've become fairly proficient in Sherwood forest by practicing some "guerilla warfare" and have also "mastered" the war of attrition (when you start off with 2 big armies and end up with half a dozen men total). The are a wide variety of options you can change with each game (where does food come from, new trainees, supply lines, etc.) to make each game either easier or harder than Broderbund's defaults. I was going to recommend Silent Service (Microprose) for the PC (I used to play it a lot on a friend's Commodore 64) but have been unable to get this copy protected game to load on my machine. I suspect it's the NEC V20 I have installed. I'd appreciate it if anyone could confirm this problem with Microprose's copy protection (I've yet to run into a problem with well written copy protect schemes or non-copy protected programs). I have been to busy to go look over any new books this week, although I did buy several. Hopefully I'll have looked them over by next week. In the meantime I'd like to hear from some of you, either by sending me mail or from an article written for FidoNews. Below you'll find my uucp "address," FidoNet net/node number, and US Mail address. Netmail to me should be routed through 157/1, 157/502, or 157/0 (preferably 157/1 as I hit it more often each day). All these nodes are running SEAdog 4.0, so you shouldn't have to worry about mail schedules. They are also willing to forward a file to me. If you have your own favorite programs, I'd like to know about them (and tell everyone else about them if I think it's good as well). In the meantime, see you on the network. Dale Lovell 3266 Vezber Drive Seven Hills, OH 44131 uucp: ..!ncoast!lovell FidoNet: 157/504 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-18 Page 18 11 May 1987 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 24 May 1987 Metro-Fire Fido's Second Birthday BlowOut and Floppy Disk Throwing Tournament! All Fido Sysops and Families Invited! Contact Christopher Baker at 135/14 for more information. SEAdogs may GET more information by requesting FPICMAP.ARC from 135/14. 20 Aug 1987 Start of the Fourth International FidoNet Conference, to be held at the Radisson Mark Plaza Hotel in Alexandria, VA. Contact Brian Hughes at 109/634 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. If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1/1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-18 Page 19 11 May 1987 Bob Morris 141/333 Chairman, Elections and Nominations Committee The next two pages are your Official ballot for the Election of the IFNA Board of Directors. The following are the few rules which must prevail in this election: 1. You must send a legible copy of this ballot to the address listed on the ballot. It must be signed and bear your net/node number. 2. You may vote for any one person in your region for the position of Regional Director. This vote is to be cast in the LEFT column of the ballot. 3. You may vote for any eleven people in any regions for the position of Director at Large. These votes are to be cast in the RIGHT column of the ballot. 4. Voting will continue until the end of registration at the Conference in August. The results will be read during the opening of the business meeting on the first day of the conference. 5. Write-in Votes will be accepted and are requested during this election. FidoNews 4-18 Page 20 11 May 1987 IFNA Board Of Directors Ballot Regional At Large Region 10: Steve Jordan _________ ________ Region 11: Ryugen Fisher _________ ________ Theodore Polczynski _________ ________ Region 12: Region 13: Don Daniels _________ ________ John Penberthy _________ ________ Thom Henderson _________ ________ Gee Wong _________ ________ Brian Hughes _________ ________ Region 14: Ben Baker _________ ________ Ken Kaplan _________ ________ Brad Hicks _________ ________ Region 15: David Dodell _________ ________ Larry Wall _________ ________ Region 16: Bob Hartman _________ ________ Hal Duprie _________ ________ Region 17: Rob Barker _________ ________ Randy Bush _________ ________ Bob Swift _________ ________ Region 18: Ken Shackelford _________ ________ Wes Cowley _________ ________ FidoNews 4-18 Page 21 11 May 1987 Region 19: Mark Grennan _________ ________ Wynn Wagner _________ ________ Region 2: Henk Wevers _________ ________ Write-in candidates: ___________________ _________ ________ ___________________ _________ ________ Name ______________________________ Net/Node ___________ Signature______________________________ Date ___________ Please complete this and mail it to: Robert Morris IFNA Elections Committee 210 Church Street West Haven, Ct. 06516 or bring it with you when you come to the conference in August. These ballots will be counted by myself since with 200 members the charges for a CPA would be very high. Hard copies will be made available to anyone wishing to insure that their vote was included. Thank You Bob Morris Elections and Nominations Committee -----------------------------------------------------------------