Volume 7, Number 47 19 November 1990 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | FidoNet (r) | | \ \\ | | International BBS Network | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Vince Perriello Editors Emeritii: Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings Copyright 1990, Fido Software. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact Fido Software. FidoNews is published weekly by and for the Members of the FidoNet (r) International Amateur Electronic Mail System. It is a compilation of individual articles contributed by their authors or authorized agents of the authors. The contribution of articles to this compilation does not diminish the rights of the authors. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission standards are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from node 1:1/1. 1:1/1 is a Continuous Mail system, available for network mail 24 hours a day. Fido and FidoNet are registered trademarks of Tom Jennings of Fido Software, Box 77731, San Francisco CA 94107, USA and are used with permission. Opinions expressed in FidoNews articles are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Editor or of Fido Software. Most articles are unsolicited. Our policy is to publish every responsible submission received. Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1 Back from COMDEX ......................................... 1 2. ARTICLES ................................................. 2 Should Zone 3 defect? .................................... 2 General Elections in Zone 4: Results! .................... 6 3. COLUMNS .................................................. 8 Talk me through it, Honey ................................ 8 4. LATEST VERSIONS .......................................... 11 Latest Software Versions ................................. 11 5. NOTICES .................................................. 16 PERNnet: Brigadoon Gift Certificate ...................... 16 And more! FidoNews 7-47 Page 1 19 Nov 1990 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= Hi. I'm really worn out, guys. I've been to COMDEX. I don't really know what to tell you about what I saw there. More Taiwanese (and other) crap, lots of 486 motherboards, damn few 486 systems you can buy because the FCC is still frying eggs on the case -- Windows mania, Bob Denver in his Gilligan outfit, some poor brave UNIX-loving souls... and probably the first show where there was enough OS/2 product to make it seem that you could actually use it in your business. I think I'm going to wait for some PC rag to tell me What It All Meant To The Industry. Because I sure can't figure it out. All it means to me is that my feet don't like me one bit (and that I now have T-shirts from nearly every modem vendor EXCEPT USR). While I was gone, someone in Zone 3 sent an interesting article which you'll be reading in a few minutes. In it, he suggests that Zone 3 should secede from FidoNet. I have had a similar but perhaps more grandiose idea myself. What I would like to see is the breakup of FidoNet into separate domains, operating independently. The domains should be set up more or less the same as the Zones are now arranged (such as EUR.FIDONET.ORG replacing Zone 2, and so on). The passage of mail from one domain to another would be handled by the ING Policy that was published recently. My idea goes on and on, and I'll expound upon it more next week. I just thought it would be appropriate to put my idea and Garth's on the table at the same time, to get your creative juices flowing. Are you are up to it? Back to COMDEX. One of the nicer things that happened was the get-together on Wednesday night. I met Henry Clark, my most regular of irregular columnists. I met Ward Christensen. I met the authors of PCBoard and RBBS-PC. I got together again with Phil Becker, Scott Hunter, Rick Deming, Chuck Forsberg, Wynn Wagner, and many other people whose company I had previously enjoyed. As Henry points out in his column this week, there were some very DIFFERENT ideas emanating from the dais. I am going to attempt to get permission to reprint an article from Telecomputing magazine to give you a feeling for it. THAT was fascinating. I hope you can read it here soon. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 7-47 Page 2 19 Nov 1990 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Garth Kidd FidoNet 3:680/828 Here I sit, having had far too little sleep in the last week and a half. Unfortunately, in this tired state I decided that a good thing to do whilst waiting for the pizza to arrive was to read a few editions of FidoNews. Ouch. Guys, why are you all being so \serious\ about all this? You'd think the fate of the world rested on the editorial policy of FidoNews. (I have my own views on this, and I'll mention them later). For now, however, a wee question: _____________________ Should Zone 3 defect? _____________________ Actually, that should read "Should all zones but Zone 1 defect?", but since I'm not a member of the other zones, I won't make comments on their behalf. Come to think of it, a lot of people are going to be a little irked on my speaking "on behalf" of Zone 3. Don't worry, guys, it's not like I'm in a position of power or anything. Noting wrong with expressing an opinion, unless you're in ZONE3_SYSOP. Oops, complete giveaway. :-) Back to the subject at hand: Zone 1 seems to be largely irrelevant to the rest of FidoNet, except as: a) something that acts as a really convenient feed point for the rest of the Net; b) something that keeps us supplied with this "wonderful" FidoNews, which hardly any of us read, and; c) something that helps coordinate the nodelist for us And, of course, there are all of the wonderful people in Zone 1 that we talk to every day, swapping choice bits of information like baseball cards. There are also the people who ask really silly questions without bothering to read the manual first, but we can put up with them. Most of the time. FidoNews 7-47 Page 3 19 Nov 1990 Unfortunately, Zone 1 also acts as something else entirely: d) a seemingly endless supply of documents like ECHOPOL and POLICY, none of which seem to have been formed with any zones apart from Zone 1 in mind. Guys, just in case you haven't noticed, Australia isn't the 52nd state of America yet. (51st? Whatever). And despite the wonderful things happening in Europe, they have some pretty definite ideas about being annexed to the USA, and they're not "yes, lets!". Here in Zone 3, the POLICY we inhereted from you only seems to get dragged out of the closet in a couple of situations: a) some stickler for rules and regulations has gone totally overboard, and is looking for some kind of fight. Usually combined with righteous indignation at people not agreeing with him or her, and usually to do with trying to kick someone else out of the Net, and; b) trying to get rid of the aforementioned stickler. Otherwise known as "fighting fire with fire". I personally reckon most rulebook-bashers are "annoying", often "excessively" so. Ditto for ECHOPOL, which I seem to remember reading once. I didn't like it. I'm a moderator of an echo, and I really don't like the idea of some book-wielding beuracrat being able to take an echo away from me and my users. Here in Zone 3, and I guess the situation also holds for zones 2 and 4..infinity, we tend to try and get along without these hugely officious tomes. Unfortunately, we have our fair share of rulebook-bashers who just \love\ POLICY, and aren't going to give up their slice of power for anything. What I reckon should happen is that each of the Zones get treated essentially as its own FTN (FidoTechnologyNetwork), and pretty much IGNORE anyone from Zone 1 trying to tell them how to run their lives. Heck, we're already largely doing that. Why not make it official? WORLDPOL is a great idea, because it makes each Zone largely responsible for its own actions. We can all adapt the rules to suit our environment, which is great. It also allows the same kind of thing to happen at the regional and network levels. Oh, just one thing, folks: NOBODY SHOULD HAVE TO JOIN A PARTICULAR NETWORK IF THEY DON'T WANT TO. Gosh, that'd mean removing the requirement that networks be formed on solely geographical boundaries, wouldn't it? FidoNews 7-47 Page 4 19 Nov 1990 Damn right it would. This means that if you don't like the rules a particlar network is using, you are actually allowed to leave it and look for another more to your liking. Without that little statement, all the nice "democratic" stuff is pretty useless, because people don't have the option of voting with their feet. The statement in caps above should be a part of WORLDPOL that simply can't be overriden by POLICY at any level. Back to WORLDPOL: it needs a little more work, mainly to do with correcting some of the more ambiguous wording. Also, section 6 is a little strange. What, exactly, are the "western standards" of democracy? As far as the Council is concerned with voting: their having to approve the voting method used to vote for WORLDPOL and the local POLICY is fine. Them being able to block a Zone from choosing its own extremely strange, "non western" system of deciding things from then on is not. Some networks work VERY well with benevolent dictators, and if people don't like them, they can always vote with their feet. So long as they're allowed to, of course, and they should be. So, support WORLDPOL and suggest changes to it if you like. I'm sure the authors will appreciate it. :-) Back to "defecting": If Zone 1 doesn't approve WORLDPOL or a variant thereof, it shouldn't be too surprised if the rest of the world sticks a symbolic finger in the air and approves it without them. === On Editorial policy: Cute topic. Very hot. The debate on that one's going to last nearly as long as the abortion debate, and it too will suffer from people pushing the limits. I just hope someone doesn't UUencode bits of the nodelist archive and try to submit it as an article. Suggested modifications to the editorial policy: a) Incitement to violence of any sort should be vigorously supressed. Let people discuss (say) how evil and thick they think black people are until the cows come home, but as soon as they advocate killing them off, put the foot down. b) Most places have defamation and libel laws. Remember that. c) Where are all the disclaimers? Lots of people are saying FidoNews 7-47 Page 5 19 Nov 1990 plenty radical things with \no\ disclaimers. The risks you're taking, especially in Zone "home of the lawsuit" 1, are pretty damn obvious. d) Each Zone should have its own FIDONEWS equivalent. e) There should be a FIDONEWS equivalent dedicated to \just\ the operation of the network itself, discussion of rules, and so forth. This'll be less amusing, but more compact. Anyway, on with the show for the time being. Have fun, people. gk ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 7-47 Page 6 19 Nov 1990 General Elections in Zone 4 Elecciones Generales en la Zona 4 Eleicoes Gerais na Zona 4 FidoNet's Zone 4 "Latin America" has just finished it's first "general elections for all coordinators" process, where all the coordination positions were democratically elected simultaneusly. This text is being publish simultaneously on the LATIN.SYSOP echo and FidoNews. The format used to display the results is the following: . . . Here are the results of the election in which all the sysops in FidoNet were entitled to be candidates and to vote for all the positions in their area: Net Coordinator 801, Sao Paulo SP, Brazil Rodrigo Martinez 100 % ELECTED Net Coordinator 802, Rio de Janeiro RJ, Brazil Lauro Henrique 100 % ELECTED Net Coordinator 806, Brasilia DF, Brazil Otto Brito 100 % ELECTED Net Coordinator 808, Recife PE, Brazil Clovis Lacerda 100 % ELECTED Net Coordinator 900, Buenos Aires CF/BA, Argentina Alejandro Hopkins 45 % Sunchie Yang 55 % ELECTED Net Coordinator 901, Rosario SF, Argentina Gonzalo Borracer 100 % ELECTED Region Coordinator 80, Brazil Charles Miranda 100 % ELECTED Region Coordinator 90, Argentina Billy Coen 72.7 % ELECTED Gustavo Zacarias 27.3 % Zone Coordinator 4, Latin America Pablo Kleinman 100 % ELECTED FidoNews 7-47 Page 7 19 Nov 1990 The newly elected coordinators will take over their positions next Friday November 16th, 1990. Elecciones (4:4/444) November 11th, 1990 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 7-47 Page 8 19 Nov 1990 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= Henry Clark 1:124/6120 Comdex '90 Due to the special weekly electronic nature of Fidonews, you are probably reading your first column on Comdex '90. It was bad... not terrible, but really almost boring. Sunday : Nice flight into Vegas and then all stop. It took my sister's husband 1.5 hours to get the car so even though they were there ahead of me, we waited. Hurry up an wait. I'll have to find a better time to arrive if I ever go again. I love to drive onto the strip and see the lights. It's always amazing. We got to Bally's hotel and joined the madhouse there. Finally got checked in. It's such a nervous situation with so many people packed around you, waiting in line, with only a reservation slip in hand. Pray they have your room. They did, and we all got rooms together, so slick. Up in the room, the computer works and the modem works; I'm set. Monday : register and badgemaking and another long line. Well not as bad as I saw later. I failed to receive my badge in the mail, and rather than fight the Convention Center lines, I just had a new one made in Bally's with a spare guest pass. I don't think anyone pays to attend the exhibits. There were guest passes lying on the floor. We cruised Bally's two showrooms first. Most interesting was the real-time video in a Window's window, which will be useful for our video conferencing product. New Media Graphics has a $800 board and software to put the video signal into a Windows window, sizeable and movable. Other companies had video on the PC screen, but they were pure hardware, not real time or cost $2000. Also checked out the ASP - Association of Shareware Professionals and the Mustang Software Wildcat BBS display. It's amazing who you find at Comdex. PKWare and Artisoft too. Then off to the Sands Convention Center. The next biggest exhibition hall. I looked at 486 boxes, 486 cards ( not motherboards, there were a ton of those ), rewritable optical disks, and the Dolch 486 lunchbox portable. The VGA Color plasma screen on the Dolch was beautiful and 3800 bucks ! I picked up a lot of junk too, which Kevin will like. FidoNews 7-47 Page 9 19 Nov 1990 Nobody has synchronous multiport cards ( well, I do, but nobody else does ). Worn out feet and brain. Hopped a taxi back to the hotel and took a nap. Well, except it lasted 12 hours... Tuesday : Rest of Sands was boring. There's nothing new at Comdex. I've either heard about it before, or it's the same old stuff. I am happy to have seen several 486 on a card vendors for our passive backplane computer setup. Wednesday : Did the Hilton. Very interesting talk with a surface mounting company, who talked about board manufacturers and costs, etc. This is the good stuff. Saw the Quarterdeck X-Windows running, I thought it was ugly. A real-time video product called the Video Toaster looked like the hottest display at the show. Real-time manipulation of video, including colorization and lots of effects. Unfortunately, ( for me ) it ran on an Amiga. Next the Convention Center proper. Big companies, shows and lots of interesting convention items, but again, no new PC stuff. I did make a point of picking up the PC-Mag and PC-Week benchmark diskettes. Stopped in at the Oracle meeting room. Many VARs showing Oracle and DB related tools and apps. I felt like I could have shown an Oracle app or two there. Spoke at length with the people from JAM, which makes a forms tool. Too bad their demo was kind of ugly, I guess they go overboard showing features. Also checked in with the Oracle VAR program people, got signed up for some info to do that. I now have little regard for Comdex '90. I know this was my first trip, and I really am not doing business here, but 95% of this stuff represents money better spent on support or new products. I'm convinced that multimedia simply means you have more than 12 chairs for your presentation. All the PC distributors begin to sound the same. A 386 box here for $695. A big hard drive there for $195. In quantity of course. I'm just not interested in power supplys and motherboards. Nor is there much point in watching the Wordperfect/Word/Wordstart type presentations. For an end-user, a good magazine subscription would be much better. Across the street at the Dunes, the Telecomputing party was a highlight. There were keynote speakers and door prizes. In one room in one hour I shook hands with Vince Perriello, Wynn Wagner, Chuck Forsberg and Phil Katz. I guess I won't wash my hand for a couple of weeks. For a BBS Sysop, it was quite an experience. The latest Telecomputing magazine had an article which was expounded upon several times by speakers : democracy thru modems. What a crock. These guys may write the software, but they certainly haven't tried to use it. [Editor's note: None of the folk Henry just mentioned had anything to say along FidoNews 7-47 Page 10 19 Nov 1990 those lines. We were trying very hard to be polite...] It was a good experience to end the week on. Oh, I stayed in Vegas for another day, I just didn't fool with the convention. Next week, I'll give you the low down on the 'vacation' part of my trip. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 7-47 Page 11 19 Nov 1990 ================================================================= LATEST VERSIONS ================================================================= Latest Software Versions MS-DOS Systems -------------- Bulletin Board Software Name Version Name Version Name Version DMG 2.93 Phoenix 1.3 TAG 2.5g Fido 12s+ QuickBBS 2.66 TBBS 2.1 GSBBS 3.01 RBBS 17.3A TComm/TCommNet 3.4 Lynx 1.30 RBBSmail 17.3B Telegard 2.5 Kitten 2.16 RemoteAccess 0.04a TPBoard 6.1 Maximus 1.02 SLBBS 1.77 Wildcat! 2.50 Opus 1.13+ Socrates 1.10 WWIV 4.12 PCBoard 14.5 XBBS 1.15 Network Node List Other Mailers Version Utilities Version Utilities Version BinkleyTerm 2.40 EditNL 4.00 ARC 7.0 D'Bridge 1.30 MakeNL 2.31 ARCAsim 2.30 Dutchie 2.90C ParseList 1.30 ARCmail 2.07 FrontDoor 1.99c Prune 1.40 ConfMail 4.00 PRENM 1.47 SysNL 3.14 Crossnet v1.5 SEAdog 4.51b XlatList 2.90 EMM 2.02 TIMS 1.0(Mod8) XlaxDiff 2.35 Gmail 2.05 XlaxNode 2.35 GROUP 2.16 GUS 1.30 HeadEdit 1.15 InterPCB 1.31 LHARC 1.13 MSG 4.1 MSGED 2.00 MSGTOSS 1.3 PK[UN]ZIP 1.10 QM 1.0 QSORT 4.03 Sirius 1.0x SLMAIL 1.36 StarLink 1.01 TagMail 2.41 TCOMMail 2.2 Telemail 1.27 TMail 1.15 TPBNetEd 3.2 TosScan 1.00 FidoNews 7-47 Page 12 19 Nov 1990 UFGATE 1.03 XRS 3.40 XST 2.2 ZmailQ 1.12 OS/2 Systems ------------ Bulletin Board Software Network Mailers Other Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version Maximus-CBCS 1.02 BinkleyTerm 2.40 Parselst 1.32 ConfMail 4.00 EchoStat 6.0 oMMM 1.52 Omail 3.1 MsgEd 2.00 MsgLink 1.0C MsgNum 4.14 LH2 0.50 PK[UN]ZIP 1.02 ARC2 6.00 PolyXARC 2.00 Qsort 2.1 Raid 1.0 Remapper 1.2 Tick 2.0 VPurge 2.07 Xenix/Unix ---------- BBS Software Mailers Other Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version MaximusCBCS 1.02.Unix.B0 BinkleyTerm 2.30b Unzip 3.10 ARC 5.21 ParseLst 1.30b ConfMail 3.31b Ommm 1.40b Msged 1.99b Zoo 2.01 C-Lharc 1.00 Omail 1.00b Apple CP/M FidoNews 7-47 Page 13 19 Nov 1990 ---------- Bulletin Board Software Network Mailers Other Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version Daisy v2j Daisy Mailer 0.38 Nodecomp 0.37 MsgUtil 2.5 PackUser v4 Filer v2-D UNARC.COM 1.20 Macintosh --------- Bulletin Board Software Network Mailers Other Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version Red Ryder Host 2.1 Tabby 2.2 MacArc 0.04 Mansion 7.15 Copernicus 1.0 ArcMac 1.3 WWIV (Mac) 3.0 LHArc 0.33 Hermes 1.01 StuffIt Classic 1.6 FBBS 0.91 Compactor 1.21 TImport 1.92 TExport 1.92 Timestamp 1.6 Tset 1.3 Import 3.2 Export 3.21 Sundial 3.2 PreStamp 3.2 OriginatorII 2.0 AreaFix 1.6 Mantissa 3.21 Zenith 1.5 Eventmeister 1.0 TSort 1.0 Mehitable 2.0 UNZIP 1.02c Amiga ----- Bulletin Board Software Network Mailers Other Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version Paragon 2.07+ BinkleyTerm 1.00 AmigArc 0.23 TrapDoor 1.50 AReceipt 1.5 FidoNews 7-47 Page 14 19 Nov 1990 WelMat 0.42 booz 1.01 ConfMail 1.10 ChameleonEdit 0.10 ElectricHerald1.66 Lharc 1.21 MessageFilter 1.52 oMMM 1.49b ParseLst 1.30 PkAX 1.00 PK[UN]ZIP 1.01 PolyxAmy 2.02 RMB 1.30 TrapList 1.12 UNzip 0.86 Yuck! 1.61 Zoo 2.01 Atari ST -------- Bulletin Board Software Network Mailer Other Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version FIDOdoor/ST 2.00* BinkleyTerm 2.40j* ConfMail 4.02 Pandora BBS 2.41c The BOX 1.20 ParseList 1.30 QuickBBS/ST 1.02 ARC 6.02 GS Point 0.61 FiFo 2.0b LHARC 0.60 LED ST 0.10 BYE 0.25 PKUNZIP 1.10 MSGED 1.96S SRENUM 6.2 Trenum 0.10 OMMM 1.40 Archimedes ---------- BBS Software Mailers Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version ARCbbs 1.44 BinkleyTerm 2.03 Unzip 2.1TH ARC 1.03 !Spark 2.00d FidoNews 7-47 Page 15 19 Nov 1990 ParseLst 1.30 BatchPacker 1.00 + Netmail capable (does not require additional mailer software) * Recently changed Utility authors: Please help keep this list up to date by reporting new versions to 1:1/1. It is not our intent to list all utilities here, only those which verge on necessity. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 7-47 Page 16 19 Nov 1990 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= =========== >>> PERNnet: Brigadoon Weyr <<< ========== *********** >>> Gift Certificate <<< ********** Welcome to the planet PERN where one can play Pernese style of life. With this Certificate you may get ONE link into PERNnet regardless of the originating system's origin and network. Brigadoon Weyr is devoted to the weirder things in life -- fringe groups, nonstandard religions, Elvis searchers, cult movies, bad audio and video, and certified maniacs and politicians. It is the goal of The Brigadoon Weyr to allow the weird, the odd, the huddled masses yearning to be free an electronic playpen in which to espouse their varied belief systems. It is a network of losers, winners, dreamers, screamers. In time the Pernese conference where one will play out the roll of a Pernese name and also be able to have (a) Fire Lazard(s) or be a dragon rider to defend the planet Pern againsts the Red Planet that visits every 400 years. In closing, I point out that we are all of us doing this as a hobby, and will tolerate no politics or powerplays. We make no distinctions as to age, background, religion, sex, gender, et cetera. We are an Equal Opportunity Network, limited solely by the ability to move echomail around in a reasonably good manner. Problems with offending nodes will be dealt with via the path structure of the network until it reaches The Brigadoon Weyr Central (1:325/101@FidoNet) where we will deal with it as need be. For your free information package you may file requet the magick name of BRIGADOON from 1:325/101 @FidoNet, 9:1010/11 @ParaNet, 69:2700/1 @KinkNet(AdultLinks) and this will get you the file BRIGADON.ZIP. If by chance you can not deal with ZIP type ARChives...FREQ the name BRIGADON.ARC. You may also FREQ BRIGADON.ZIP from Carl Finkeldey at 1:363/71 @FidoNet. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Interrupt Stack 1 Jan 1991 Implementation of 7% Goods and Services Tax in Canada. Contact FidoNews 7-47 Page 17 19 Nov 1990 Joe Lindstrom at 1:134/55 for a more colorful description. 16 Feb 1991 Fifth anniversary of the introduction of Echomail, by Jeff Rush. 31 Mar 1991 Jim Grubs (W8GRT) was issued his first ham radio license forty years ago today. His first station was made from an ARC-5 "Command Set" removed from a B-17 bomber. 12 May 1991 Fourth anniversary of FidoNet operations in Latin America and second anniversary of the creation of Zone-4. 8 Sep 1991 25th anniversary of first airing of Star Trek on NBC! 7 Oct 1991 Area code 415 fragments. Alameda and Contra Costa Counties will begin using area code 510. This includes Oakland, Concord, Berkeley and Hayward. San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin, parts of Santa Clara County, and the San Francisco Bay Islands will retain area code 415. 1 Feb 1992 Area code 213 fragments. Western, coastal, southern and eastern portions of Los Angeles County will begin using area code 310. This includes Los Angeles International Airport, West Los Angeles, San Pedro and Whittier. Downtown Los Angeles and surrounding communities (such as Hollywood and Montebello) will retain area code 213. 1 Dec 1993 Tenth anniversary of Fido Version 1 release. 5 Jun 1997 David Dodell's 40th Birthday If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1:1/1. -----------------------------------------------------------------