BIRMINGHAM CHRISTIAN BBS NEWSLETTER ISSUE #5 June, 1992 Table of Contents Title Author ----------------------------------- --------------------------- Yucky Technical Stuff Staff Ricky's Mindless Mumblings Ricky Eanes BCBN as a Free Download Staff Southern Gospel Music Larry Hardeman Online Services Henry S. McGraw BBS Focus: The Family Smorgas-Board Ricky Eanes Choosing a Bible Christian Research Inst. The Igma Chronicles Part II Brent Elliott NewsWire Staff Hardeman's Gets Dixie-Net Ricky Eanes New CoSysOps at HCBBS Larry Hardeman STARLITE 1992! Harry Jones Very Easy to Write for NewsWire Ricky Eanes Browsing Through the PC Larry Hardeman In Closing... Editors ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Yucky Technical Stuff Purpose This newsletter was created as a way for the users of Birmingham's Christian BBS's to have their own publication to cover all the events, opinions, and general information of the various boards in Birmingham. We hope to provide the reader with accurate, interesting articles on a variety of topics, as well as dealing with modern Christian issues. Our staff works very hard on each issue, and we hope that you enjoy it. Disclaimer and Reprinting We at BCBN try to insure the accuracy and clarity of all information we publish. However, we cannot be held accountable for any damage as a result of errors or omissions in our publication. We want to have a good newsletter, and please let us know if you think that anything about it should be changed. Please also be aware that opinions expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily the opinions of the editors, other writers, or SysOps. If you wish to use any material in BCBN for your own needs or publication, please contact the author of the material or Ricky Eanes. In general we will let you reprint BCBN articles, but please notify us ahead of time and send us a copy of whatever you plan on using the article for. Rules for Submitting Articles Anyone can write an article for BCBN, and we do not turn down many articles. As long as it has meaning and would be interesting to other people, we will publish it. Our only rule for the subject of articles is that we will not allow anything "bad", or should we say "against the teachings of the Bible". You get the picture. We enjoy articles on Christian issues, computer hardware and software, editorials on many different subjects, and many other topics. If you have an article, please type it in an ASCII text file and upload it to the BCBN file area on Hardeman's Christian BBS. It is for BCBN text files only, and while anyone can upload to it, only our production staff can download the files. If possible, please leave a C)omment to the SysOp or a message to Ricky Eanes telling us that you uploaded your article so that we will be sure and see it. We do reserve the right to correct and reformat your submission in any way we see fit, but we will ask you before we make any major changes other than spelling corrections and the like. We WILL NOT change the content of your article or omit any of it in publication. BCBN has it's own conference on Hardeman's called BCBN Stuff. It should be used for any questions, comments, or anything else about our newsletter that you want to ask or tell us in a message. This would be a good place for you to tell us when you have uploaded an article. If Hardeman's is long distance to you or you can't call there for some reason, you may also leave your submission in a private message to Ricky Eanes on Medicine Man, Family Smorgas-board, or Pooh's Korner. I can also most likely be reached on whatever BBS you downloaded this issue from. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BCBN as a Free Download We would also like to recognize the boards that, while not necessarily "Christian" BBS's, offer BCBN as a free download. That is, downloading an issue does not count against your upload/download ratio, if any. In some cases, this also means that none of your online time is deducted while downloading the file(s). These boards are also on the top of our list for uploading the new issues so that they will be the first to get them. We would like to thank these boards for doing this. Since this is the first inclusion of this list in BCBN, I am sure/hope that I left a few boards out. Please let me know if I left your board out or if you know of a board that was left out and I'll be sure and include it in the next release. Name Number SysOp(s) Hardeman's Christian BBS 640-6436 Larry Hardeman Pooh's Korner 980-8710 Eddie and Cindy Dake The Word 833-2831 Rod Lewis The Family Smorgas-Board 744-0943 Randall Dickerson The Medicine Man BBS 664-5662 Jesse Massengill The Christian Apologetic Board 808-0763 Jeff Brumlow Joker's Castle 664-5589 Rick Morgan The Matrix (Nodes 1-4) 323-2016 R. and J. Rawlins, The Matrix (Nodes 5-8) 323-6016 Tom Egan Kiriath Arba 681-8374 Mark Congleton The Party Line 856-1336 Anita Abney ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ricky's Mindless Mumblings by Ricky Eanes I won't bore you with any BCBN Meeting reviews, but I would like to say that the meeting was pretty good, but was not as good, in my opinion, as the past meetings. This was probably the worst turnout since the first one such a long time ago. Hopefully we will do a better job of advertising the next Meeting. Getting to other things, this issue looks to be yet another ground- breaking issue, introducing another new section. This one has a lot of potential. It is called NewsWire, and is in a way a new form of the old Announcements Column. I won't spoil anything and will let you read on. I will, however, tell you that plans are already underway for some special things relating to and in issue Number Six of BCBN. It will be our half-birthday, and we should have some reminiscing and possibly some survey-taking. Nothing definite will be said for now. From our alert readers section comes a correction. Hopefully no fights will break out because of it. Here it is, from Brent Elliott. ---------- In response to Harry Jones' hardware review: You do not get 57,600 CHARACTERS per second with the 14.4ex, you get 57,600 *BITS* per second! Baud means the same thing as bits. ---------- ***Editor's Note*** The mentioned article by Harry Jones is entitled "Hardware Reviews: The Intel 14.4ex Modem" and can be found in BCBN Issue #4. ***Editor's Note*** I hope you enjoy the two new sections this month, and thank you for supporting all of us here at BCBN. A lot more work goes into each issue than may appear to. See ya next issue. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Southern Gospel Music by Larry Hardeman Okay, we've covered the two major radio stations in the past that play gospel music, and I wish there were more. Well, there is one more, WVOK on Sunday morning, hosted by Steve Green. This month, however, I will do a short run down of a few of my favorite artists. There are many great performers in gospel music today, and several locals that have claimed national recognition in the past. Of the most recent is the Mashburns from Odenville, and of course, we can't leave out some of the greats like Gold City Quartet, Happy Goodman Family, The Southmen, and many more, mostly from the Sand Mountain areas. My favorites of course are The Gold City Quartet, along with The Spencers, The McKameys, The Perrys, The Kingsmen, The Cathedral Quartet, Charles Johnson and the Revivers, and The Nelons, just to mention a few. From these groups come some great talent. The Kingsmen have been around for better than 30 years I guess, and The Cathedrals have been around for I know the past 15 years or so. But, the most recent ones to reach the top of the charts are The McKameys, The Perrys, The Spencers, and Charles Johnson and the Revivers. If you like gospel music even just a little every now and then, you won't go wrong by purchasing an album of any of these. I have most recently been listening to The Spencers' "Coming Soon" cassette in my car and just can't seem to get enough of it, and also have been enjoying Charles Johnson and the Revivers. They are a black singing group from North Carolina and sing Southern Gospel like it has never been sung before. They have taken a couple older songs, beefed them up a little by putting some feelings behind the songs and really have inspired a lot of folks. I recently purchased their cassette named "One Night Revival" which is a live recording and it is great. If you do like gospel music, please don't forget to tune into WURL AM760 any day of the week, WDJC FM93 (93.7) Mon-Sat 6:30pm til 10:00pm and to WVOK on Sunday mornings for some of the best music around. Sure beats that Rock and Roll. ***Editor's Note*** In ordinance with the last line of this article, please remember that the author's opinion does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, other writers, or anyone besides the author. I know it does not in this case (g). ***Editor's Note*** ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Online Services by Henry S. McGraw "Online Services". Even the term sounds ominous. What services? Well that depends on how much money you want to spend. There are databases available that cost mega-bucks. Unless you need very special information you probably would never consider one of these specialized databases for yourself. Luckily there are others that cost a lot less and still provide excellent value. I have two favorite such services. One is low cost and the other is moderately priced. I'm speaking of America Online and CompuServe. For the first timer, I have to suggest America Online or AOL. This is a graphical environment and will run on even an XT machine. I recommend AOL to anyone who thinks they're not quite ready for the austere CompuServe. Not only are there thousands of files, but it's fun navigating to them and downloading. There is also news, sports, weather, and mail. Why there's even a FAX service you can use. You say you like games? AOL has those also. Even one online, but be careful, playing it can run up a bill in a hurry. Just download a game, a demo of a commercial game, or program and play at your leisure. If that's not enough, AOL is having a special offer all summer. Free downloads from a special area of most popular files. This special area also has many articles and news stories for free. It's called Summer Madness and the normal $5.00 per hour charge is waived as long as you're in the special area. It's a great deal and I highly recommend it. CompuServe is not a graphical environment. There is software available to make navigating this service easier, but it is not intuitive. That is to say, you must know where you want to go, by name in order to navigate the service. You have to know the name of the area you want to go to in order to get to it. This is because CompuServe is such an enormous service. Hundreds of databases are at you fingertips, and tens of thousands of files. However, these services do not come especially cheap. The basic rate is $12.80 per hour. CompuServe has started a special offer of it's own recently which is $7.50 per month for unlimited use, but only in certain areas and these do not include any downloading of files. So who do I recommend Compuserve to? You - if . . . -you need to research topics on a regular basis. -you have a special interest in one or more subjects and like to keep up to the minute on them. -you like to have the ability to find the answer you need at all times. CompuServe is a very good service to have. If you can afford to use it, there is no better source for a wide variety of information. For those who need such information, I highly recommend Compuserve. There are other services out there, but these two, I have found, are the most for the money. This month's best game is from Apogee. 3DWOLF, or Wolfenstein, is a fantastic adventure that unfolds in 3D. Not only that, the soundtrack is superb. You want more? - It's shareware!!! The ultimate recommendation. Get it today! Next month - Windows 3.1!!!!!!! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BBS Focus: by Ricky Eanes The Family Smorgas-Board Randall and Brenda Dickerson, SysOps HISTORY The Family Smorgas-Board went online November 1, 1991. Despite several hard drive crashes/problems, the board appears to be running strong. SYSOPS Randall Dake, 38, is an industrial electrician. He has lived all of his life in the Birmingham area, and attended the University of Montevallo for two years. His wife, Brenda, has also lived in the Birmingham area her whole life, and graduated from Samford University with a degree in Early Childhood Education. Both have been on the BBS scene since 1988. The two also design and run the lighting systems for Garywood Assembly of God's Easter and Christmas dramas. MESSAGE BASES TFSB has around 300 conferences by the latest count. Messages bases are definitely the strong point of this BBS. It's current network list includes: FidoNet, AdaNet, EzNet, Prime, International Christian Discipleship Net, New Parents Net, Christian Fellowship Net, AgapeNet, and Messianic Jewish Christian Net. Try typing that in one sentence. As you can see, TFSB quite obviously has a wide selection of conferences, ranging from everything from humor to Christian issues. According to the SysOps, the most popular conferences right now are Genealogy, Cooking, Teens, and Kids, all of which are national echoes. FILE BASES Smorgas-Board has an up-and-coming file selection. While not too terribly large, a decent amount of files are available. An apparent file strength is in the form of cooking recipes, mostly in MealMaster form. Overall, the board has your basic set of necessary files, and then some extras such as the recipes. DOORS While not boasting any game or entertainment type doors, TFSB currently has two mail doors, DJmail and a soon-to-be-registered MarkMail, ProDoor, and the Myers-Briggs Personality Test. OFFICIAL STATISTICS as 06-21-92 Users: 210 Calls: 3441 Files: 241 File Areas: 17 Drive Space: 331.6 megs. Message Areas: approximately 300. Messages: 83,766 COMMENTS The Family Smorgas-Board is yet another quality Christian BBS in the Birmingham area. While its main strength and apparent priority is messages, it has enough files to keep most people busy for a while. For fun, it also has eight different prompt sets to play around with. You can run around the board in Star Trek, Government, Canadian, Southern, or several other prompt sets. This makes things a little more interesting than the standard PCBoard interface. While on the subject, the software, which is in my opinion the best, also helps newcomers to see a familiar menu/command set. I have met and talked with Randall several times and know him to be a very dedicated and nice SysOp, another plus. On the BBS Focus scale on 1 to 10, I'm giving TFSB an 8.1. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Choosing a Bible by Christian Research Institute There are several questions one should examine in selecting a version of the Bible to use or give away. Here are a few of them: (1) How do I intend to use it? For deeper study, fast reading, devotional reading or some combination? A version for broader reading and certain memory work should be in a vocabulary and style you are comfortable with and understand easily. Using at least two translations (one for study, one for other purposes) brings best growth and understanding for most people. The study Bible should be more literal to the details and actual form of the original, perhaps with notes and cross-references. Consulting it and a freer translation together is a helpful method. This is because either type translation can lead to a wrong understanding of the meaning of the original. Here is how. Any Bible version should be tested by the question "Is it faithful to the original text?" However, the question of fidelity can be divided into two parts - transfer of the meaning and of the dynamics of the original. Experienced translators John Beekman and John Callow in their classic work, Translating the Word of God, explain that when a translation transfers the meaning it "conveys to the reader or hearer the information that the original conveyed to its readers or hearers." When a translation conveys the dynamic force of the original, it "makes a natural use of the linguistic structures of the RL (language of the translation) and ... the recipients of the translation understand the message with ease." (pages 33, 44) This does not mean there will be no ambiguous or puzzling statements at all. It does not mean that difficulty in understanding how something is true or how to APPLY it will be removed. The original readers had these problems as well. Translations that seek to maintain the meaning closer to the word level have more difficulty in capturing the dynamic force of the original or in using the natural expression of English (which, of course differs with time and locale, especially U.S. to Great Britain). Translations toward the idiomatic or paraphrase side do better with the dynamics, as a rule, but diminish the readers' ability to know "that's the way they said it (in Greek or Hebrew)," or follow the nuances of the original writers. Special care should be taken in use of Bible versions on either extreme. Literal translations can mislead if one is unaware of the significance of elements of form (grammar, style) or idiom (unique expression) that are more like the original than English. Freer translations introduce more interpretation (although all translation demands interpretation) and sacrifice precision and consistency of renderings. (2) What was the goal of the translator(s)? To reach a specific audience? To communicate particularly the force and impact of the original like J.B. Phillips, or to be clear and vivid like Ken Taylor? Often the preface will give this and other helpful information. (3) Who did the translating? One man, a committee, or one man with a committee checking? A committee translation is generally free of biased theological interpretations that can corrupt a translation but it will usually sacrifice some in consistency and artistic, stylistic expression. (4) What are the credentials and background of the translator(s)? Did he (they) have expertise in the appropriate language(s)? If done by a committee, were they from the same denomination, similar ones, or widely differing ones? One does not have to have complete answers to all of these questions before using a Bible version. In fact, some of the less dependable ones can have positive uses if one is aware of their deficiencies. The subject of Bible translation is a complex one and the previous questions far from exhaust all the considerations. The following brief summaries evaluating specific versions are very cursory, and not meant to be authoritative. The were produced by a comparison and combination of the remarks of a number of evangelical scholars, and in some cases, the personal observations of the author. KING JAMES (AUTHORIZED) VERSION (1611) Translated from the original languages by committee. Unexcelled in literary quality, although now archaic. Does not reflect the best text base on recent scholarship (some editions give explanatory notes on the text). NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE (1970) From the original by interdenominational committee. Patterned after American Standard Version of 1901. Excellent precision in handling of verb-tenses but sometimes pedantic, awkward and lacking in style - "wooden" say many. Literalness, careful work and good notes make it one of the best study Bibles. THE MODERN LANGUAGE BIBLE (1969) Revision of the Berkeley Version (1945). Good balance of accuracy of meaning with plain contemporary English. Helpful notes. JERUSALEM BIBLE Translated with reference to both the original and an earlier French translation by Roman Catholic committee. Forceful but not stylistically consistent or fully idiomatic English. OT text not the best. Notes are a substantial part of the work and are generally non-sectarian but should be checked. NEW AMERICAN BIBLE From the original Greek (NT); revision of confraternity version (based on Latin Vulgate) in the OT. Catholic Committee consulted with Protestants in final stages. More conservative than JB but introductions to sections and to individual books "moderately liberal in tone" (Kubo and Specht, p. 164). Format differs with the publisher. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION From the original, by a large interdenominational but conservative committee. Well balanced - good for study, faster reading, or public reading. Based on reliable Greek text. Somewhat inconsistent in modernizing terminology. Pleasing, very readable format (few footnotes). Many feel it will become the most used Bible of the future, especially for evangelicals. TODAY'S ENGLISH VERSION (Good News Bible) From the original. NT by one man, approved by committee. Aimed particularly at English - as - second - language audience and those with little formal education. Achieves its goal well - very readable, good format. Translates dynamics well but not dependable for deeper study if used by itself. NEW ENGLISH BIBLE From the original by interdenominational British committee. Exciting literary style, very readable but with distinct British flavor and idiom. Excellent for non-churched. Departures from the original text and too much liberty in certain renderings make it undependable as a study Bible. REVISED STANDARD VERSION (1946) Debatable whether more a revision of KJV or a fresh translation from the original (by committee). Probably more the latter in NT. Preserves some of KJV sound of "Bible English", but is somewhat modernized. Accused by ultra-conservatives of deliberate "liberal" bias (along with TEV and others) but has weathered the storm and is considered by some church leaders as the best all-purpose translation. Adequate, though not the best for deeper study in author's opinion. J.B. PHILLIPS' TRANSLATION From the original but definitely a paraphrase by J.B. Phillips, a competent Greek scholar. More than any other, makes the Bible "live" for educated or literary people, although in British expression. Does not read like a translation. Provokes new insight and understanding which should, however, be checked with more literal translations and by deeper study. Excellent for the educated, unchurched person as well as the thinking Christian. LIVING BIBLE Paraphrased essentially from the 1901 ASV by Ken Taylor but checked by Greek, Hebrew scholars. Serves similar purpose as Phillips' but reaches also to the less educated. Encourages Bible reading and helps older Christians express their faith in contemporary terms. Definitely not to be relied on for interpretations or study. Changes, sometimes significant, made between editions. AMPLIFIED BIBLE Amplified Bible done from the originals. Neither a true translation nor a paraphrase. This type version offers readers possible renderings or interpretations and can be helpful for study or deepening understanding. However, users must realize the original author had one meaning in mind, determined by context and usage in that language, not our personal preference or whim. These versions must not be substituted for responsible deeper study. The following is an attempt to convey a chart from this article you are reading. It looks a bit like a list, but the idea is to list the different translations in the order of from the most literal to the least literal (or paraphrase). INTERLINEARS (Word for Word) American Standard King James LITERAL New American Standard New International Version Today's English Version IDIOMATIC New English Version Phillips' PARAPHRASE Living Bible ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The Igma Chronicles Part II: SPAM and Murderers by Brent Elliott Igma returned to his apartment that evening in (here it is!) his mobility device. This device allowed him to roam about without other's help. It consisted of a Radio Shack "Armitron" arm and a remote controlled car on a plywoood platform. Igma sits on a small seat and controls the vehicle with his mouth. He was tired of moving around town with this crude device. So he picked up the phone and called the Post Office and quit his job. This would allow him to spend more time on his Limb Simulator. After the quick phone call, Igma and Bigear sat on the bed. Igma slid out of his mobility device and Bigear fetched the guitar. He handed it to Igma and Igma began to play his favorite tunes. These included "I Like Cheese", "Butt Itch", and "Lightbulbs" (by Ricky Eanes). After playing these songs with enthusiasm, Igma put down his guitar and he and Bigear went to sleep. The next morning Igma woke up to the faint sound of his alarm radio playing the "Crazy Zoo 'o Fun: Morning Edition". Igma flopped on the off button as he slipped into his mobility device. As an incentive for Bigear to help him build the Limb Simulator, Igma got dressed to go to Cheap-o Depot and buy Bigear an inflatable cow eraser. He soon noticed that Bigear wasn't even in the small apartment. He looked everywhere but the main room but when he looked into the room, he saw Bigear, sprawled on the floor with a silver wrapper around him and cream filling coming out of his mouth. He had no pulse. Obviously, the Italian Dyslexic Garbage Men had payed them a visit. Bigear had been "Gyro Wrapped". Everyone knows that the IDGM don't play fair and Bigear was likely to die. Igma almost lost all hope until he remembered his book shelf. Igma thought about his collections of books which he received through pressure salesmen. He remembered he had "Bob's Big Book o' Remedies". He wheeled over toward the book shelf and picked up the 500 page book and looked for the section on foreign food. He found the entry on Gyro Wrapping and found that the only cure for the rare problem was feeding the patient the worst of all foods. The good people at Hormel had to love this cure, because the only way Bigear could be cured was by eating a can of SPAM with catsup. Igma knew he had catchup, but SPAM was hard to come by because of the Pure Food and Drug Act. In order to get SPAM, Igma had to halt the building of his Limb Simulator (if you haven't figured out by now, Igma's main goal in the Chronicles is to build the Limb Simulator and perhaps more stories about him WITH the simulator) and go to the Cap'n Crunch Insul Fiords. Here, he would search for the yellow sludge pond with disposable diapers. Then he would tell the Fnord Man to vomit in a cup made out of Spanish aluminum. He would mix the vomit with a box of silicon. Next, it would be shaken vigorously while being flushed down the Zany Toilet of Dalotaria. Then Igma must travel to the Royal Sewers of Screwdriver Man and burp into the Mighty Microphone. The end product will be SPAM. It's that easy! Igma immediately began to pack his bags for the long journey. In this procedure he packed all of his clothing and medicine into a metal trailer which connected to his mobility device. Bigear would stay at home for this journey, but just incase he woke up, Igma decided to buy that Inflatable Cow Eraser at Cheap-o Depot. He wheeled outside of the apartment and yelled for a taxi. A large yellow car picked up Igma immediately (those Verehousenbacher cabs are fast) and drove him toward the nearest Cheap-o Depot. Igma got out of the cab and payed the driver $243 in cash for the 4 mile ride. That's the price to pay for fast cabs! Igma wheeled toward the store and saw something that could change the course of life as we know it. It was 50% off notebook paper! College ruled no doubt. Igma thought about how aliens could come from outer space and buy all of the paper and Igma would have NONE! Ten minutes later, Igma snapped out of his silly daydream and went into the store. He filled a shopping cart with notebook paper and went toward the cat toy section. But on the way there, he saw something he could never pass by. It was a bag filled with those little perforations that they cut into stamps! Millions of them! Igma filled a second cart with these and finally saw the Inflatable Cow Eraser. The shape of this item is impossible to describe. But sure enough, cats like these things. Igma put this object on top of all the stamp perfs and wheeled over to the checkout counter. He belonged in the "Oh My Gosh, You're Insane!" line but instead went to the six items or less line. The teenager at the counter (who was listening to a Walkman at the time) rang up all the items and said "Like, that'll be $492 dollars man!" as she looked for the purchaser. Igma threw the money up onto the counter and the man who was greeting people at the back door (and checking their receipts) helped Igma carry these things back to his cab. To make a long story short, Igma returned home and put the Inflatable Cow Eraser next to Bigear and left for the Cap'n Crunch Insul Fiords. Igma had the Book 'o Remedies in his trailer along with a few packs of stamp frith. He reached for his book and flipped to the "Gyro Wrapping" section again. He found that the Cap'n Crunch Insul Fiords were located at any local Shriners meeting. And all of those other people are high Shriner caboobas. So Igma found a pay phone and looked for different Shriners Clubs. He actually found one called "The Shriners of the Insul Fiords". He caught a cab and went to this pink and purple building. He payed the cabbie and zoomed to the front door of the building. He knocked twice with his head and the door opened without human aid. He looked across the main room which looked like it was modeled after a jungle safari and found all of the Shriners humming and eating Cap'n Crunch. He soon discovered that the yellow sludge pool was the bowl of cereal that they left for Fombo the Invisible Man. Igma rolled over to the bowl and of course found that it was made of Spanish aluminum and sitting on disposable diapers. Sitting next to this bowl was a man with the words "Fnord Man" written on his hat. Igma said, "Will you please vomit into this bowl, Fnord Man?" There was no response. Igma decided to put the bowl in front of Fnord Man and stick a spoon down his throat. Sure enough, Fnord man threw-up into the Spanish Aluminum bowl. Then he handed Igma a box of silicon. Igma began to pour the substance in the bowl into the box. Fnord Man said "The toilet is that way". This could only mean the Zany Toilet of Dalotaria. Igma quickly went to the toilet and shook the box while it flushed down the toilet. There was only one thing left to do. Go the the Royal Sewers of Screwdriver Man and burp into the Mighty Microphone. Everyone in Verehousenbacher knows that the Royal Sewers are under the City Hall. So Igma summoned a cab and began his journey to the sewers. Igma payed the cab driver as he dropped out of the car. He rolled into City Hall, a large building decorated with hot-dog wieners, and looked around. He immediately saw a staircase which said "This Way To Royal Sewers". He started down the stairs excitedly looking for the Mighty Microphone. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw Screwdriver Man crying in the corner. "What's wrong?" Igma asked. "It's SPAM" the tool replied. "Well," Igma stated "I'm going to make some SPAM right now if you want some of mine!" "You don't understand, this sewer used to be filled with SPAM. Now it has none!" "Well, just let me make my SPAM then" Igma told the tool. Igma looked around at the damp sewage and finally saw a large microphone. He faced the microphone and belched as loud as possible. Then a rumble emerged from the walls, getting louder every second. The stone walls began to crack and then finally, SPAM started rushing in from every side of the sewer. Igma reached for a Zip-Lock bag and filled it with the SPAMMEY substance. The Screwdriver Man said "Thanks for all the SPAM!" as Igma rushed out of the sewer. Igma reached his apartment as fast as possible. When he opened the door he found Bigear on the floor, still dead from the horrible crime. Igma quickly went to get the catsup, and poured it onto the SPAM. He rushed back into the main room and poured the SPAM into Bigear's mouth. Bigear slowly awakened and started singing a song about Chap-Stick. Igma reached for his guitar and started playing along. He was disappointed that he didn't get to build his Limb Simulator, but at least Bigear was alive. "We interrupt this broadcast of Magnum P.I." the TV blared, "to bring you the following". Igma and Bigear stopped making music. "The Italian Dyslexic Garbage Men are behind bars. But don't rejoice just yet. Their mothers were caught giving them pastries. More at 11:00." Igma and Bigear went to sleep later on. Bigear had a dream that he was Super Cat. He went from house to house, replacing cats' scratching posts with luxury sofas. Igma dreamt of having arms and legs, a dream which would soon happen. The next morning, Igma woke up and performed the usual morning routine. He took a bath (don't ask ME how!), brushed his teeth, and got dressed. He knew that that very day was when he would start construction on the Limb Simulator. He tapped Bigear on the shoulder to wake him from his Super Cat dream. Bigear jumped up and said, "What!?!? What is it?!?! Is the house on fire?!?!" "No," Igma replied, "we're going to begin working on the Limb Simulator." "Oh" Bigear responded in relief. Igma moved toward the TV in the main room to watch the morning news. He was greeted with the usual stories of murder and pancakes. Unlike the evening news which has no cholesterol and is coated with cellophane, the morning news tells about all the crimes of the previous day. One in particular caught Igma's attention. The big crime of the day before was right at midnight. A man was found in the middle of a field with Radio Controlled car marks on his back. He also was carrying a book about Solar Desalinization. He was obviously beaten with this book. Igma turned his back on this story as he did with all others until the news broadcast named him as the prime suspect. He responded with shock. Bigear was equally shocked. Bigear ran in circles and finally reverted to pushing "The Red Button Under The Left Back Corner Of The Kitchen Table", but he couldn't remember where it was. So instead of hitting that panic button, he opened the back window next to the fire escape and jumped. Igma screamed "No! Bigear!" as the cat plummeted toward the ground. At that very instant, the police arrived at the door. "Open up!", the officers beckoned. Igma wheeled over to the door and hit the foot switch to open it. "You're under arrest, Igma". "For what?", Igma asked. "For the murder of Peter Newell", the policeman answered. The two police officers stood about six feet tall and wore the traditional uniforms. Both of them were also overweight because of frequent stops at "Grandma Lila's Doughnut House". Instead of using regular handcuffs, the cops tied a leash around Igma. "But my cat jumped out of the window!" Igma yelled. "Well, I guess we can add another crime to your record," the officers jeered, "Animal Cruelty". It was at that time when Igma fainted and went into a deep sleep. A week went by and Igma hadn't waken yet. But in his sleep, he came to a startling realization. He lived on the first floor of his apartment building. That means Bigear was alive! With this thought, Igma woke up. He found himself in a hospital room with all sorts of meters and noise-making devices hooked into him. He mumbled something about vel-cro and looked around. Bigear was asleep in his lap. He was soon greeted by a police officer. "Hi, Igma. I'm officer Beldon," the large man said. "I'm deeply sorry for any trouble our police force might have caused you. We found out that it wasn't you that killed Peter Newell (hey, I can't write mysteries!). It was Joe Billy Bob, the best radio controlled car driver in the world." "That makes me happy!" Igma replied, sighing deeply. Igma pushed the nurse call button and spoke into it. They asked what he needed and he told them that he was finally awake. Two hours passed and still no sign of a nurse. In four hours, a nurse finally arrived and told Igma that he was free to go home. Bigear woke up and helped Igma into his mobility device. They went home in the usual taxi. Igma unlocked the apartment door and quickly thrust the door open. His mouth dropped open at the sight of his apartment. Everything was torn to shreds and thrown all over the floor. That included the plans for building the Limb Simulator. As Igma looked at the damage, it was obvious what had happened. The roach had grown back into Bigear's tail and had escaped for a brief moment to trash Igma's apartment. He knew this was the case because the roach had left a note. What will happen to the Limb Simulator? ***For the answer to this question and more, read The Igma Chronicles next month. Another note: Please leave a message to Brent Elliott on Hardeman's Christian BBS about how you like or don't like this on-going saga. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NewsWire Newswire is our new name for the announcement section here at BCBN. However, it will be expanded a lot. Doing something like this was really one of the main reasons we had for starting this newsletter, but until now we never got around to doing it. We plan to inform you, the reader, of anything important that happens on the local Christian BBS's that we will is important enough to publish. This section is an a "news-short" format. It consists of news and announcements from the Birmingham Christian BBS world, or perhaps other areas that would be of interest to us. If you have something you want to be put in NewsWire, just let us know by any of the ways listed at the beginning of each issue. We plan/want to have a VERY big writer's base for this section. -------------------- Hardeman's Gets DixieNet by Ricky Eanes Hardeman's Christian BBS expanded onto the national network scene in May by adding DixieNet, a brand new network echoed throughout the South. Along with the new net came twelve new conferences of various topics. These include: Conversation, SEC Sports, Hunting, Fishing, Grits, Issues, Yankees, TeenSpeak, Stockin', ANSI Art, Environment, and Dixie Dreams. I have found them all to be good conferences, however, there is not much traffic as of yet since it is a new network. This should change soon. -------------------- New CoSysops at Hardeman's Christian BBS by Larry Hardeman When I started my BBS in April of 1991, I had a cousin who had been helping me out while getting set up, so I thought it only appropriate to ask him to continue. Well, he seemed to quickly lose his interests in the BBS world. During the same time I asked Mark Lawley to help me out some with the message areas, since he was a Baptist minister and most of my users were Baptist . Well, Mark got his Pastorale position at a church, started going to school at Southeastern Bible College, working part time, and raising a family. In all of this, his BBSing days got real far between around the first of this year. So, a couple months ago I invited a devout user and Christian to give me a hand. That was Tony Mathis and he is a terrific guy, even if Pam says different. Tony has been around since I began and has offered several helpful suggestions as well as keeping a great attitude about it all. Not only that, but he has been very helpful in the past and I feel like he is going to be a great CoSysop. I hope he is helping me keep an eye on things. This past month I asked another fellow to give me a hand. Most everyone knows him. If you don't, you can sign on to Crunch Frog and see his photograph. That is Ricky Eanes of course. Ricky is a 14 year old student of Pizitz Middle School. Ricky began signing on to HCBBS last summer and brought a couple of his friends with him and boosted our message base a great deal. Not only that, but Ricky seems to know a great deal about BBSing (he can even play EC) and I know that in the future he will certainly be a great CoSysop or even a Sysop of his own BBS. I think we have a couple of the best Co's in this area and I just wanted to take this opportunity to commend them for their great jobs they have done thus far and for how they have been a help to HCBBS. -------------------- STARLITE 1992! by Harry Jones STARLITE is eight great evenings under the stars, July 19-26, starting at 8 P.M. each night. For 1992, STARLITE returns to Berry High School Stadium on Green Springs Highway in Vestavia. This year's STARLITE Guest lineup: Sun. July 19 - Jodi Benson, the voice of The Little Mermaid Mon. July 20 - 4 Him, contemporary Christian Quartet Tue. July 21 - Truett Cathy, founder and CEO of Chick-fil-A, Inc. Wed. July 22 - Marilyn McCoo, Christian vocalist formerly with The Fifth Dimension Thu. July 23 - Jay Barker, quarterback for the University of Alabama Fri, July 24 - Larnelle Harris, award-winning recording artist Sat. July 25 - Lt. Colonel Oliver North, U.S. Marines, Ret. Sun. July 26 - Dave Dravecky, former San Francisco Giants pitcher In addition to the Stars, join us each night for music by the STARLITE Choir and inspiring messages by Dr. Charles Carter. STARLITE is Shades Mountain Baptist Church's annual gift to the people of the Birmingham area. There is no charge for admission and no collection will be taken. For more information, call the church office at 822-1670. (In case of rain, STARLITE will be held in the Shades Mountain Baptist Church worship center on Green Springs Highway, atop Shades Mountain in Vestavia.) Ya'll come!!! -------------------- Very Easy to Write for NewsWire by Ricky Eanes Since this is our first month, this NewsWire is quite short as could be expected. However, we do hope that we begin having lots of short articles for this issue. This can only be done by you. If you see something happening on a local Christian BBS that you think deserves an article about it, just fire up your editor, write the article, and send it to me in a message or file on a BCB. Don't worry about editing it or worrying about how it sounds; that's our job. If you've been wanting to help write for us but haven't thought of a way yet, this is definitely your chance, as it is the easiest and most general section we have. We hope that this section will grow to be one of our largest and perhaps most popular sections. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Browsing Through the PC "Floppy Drives" by Larry Hardeman After making an attempt to hit the high spots on hard drives, this article should be a snap. After all, what can be complicated about floppy drives? They are either 3.5" or 5.25" and either double density or high density. But, these poor little guys get a real workout in our machines and are subject to whatever type of particles we have floating around in our atmosphere. Contrary to popular belief, these drives do need a little maintenance every once in a while. If you have had your PC very long and never taken it apart and gave it a good cleaning, you would be surprised at all the dust collected inside the drives. Almost all PC ventilation fans pull air in through the front of your computer and blow it out the back. So, even though most air goes in through some sort of ventilation slots or holes in the front case, a lot of air is pulled through the floppies as well. Don't believe me, get a flashlight and look in through the slot where you stick those highly delicate floppies and see what you see. I thought so. To get this dust out, it is best to remove the cover of the computer and use a small vacuum with a soft brush attachment and a can of compressed air made for blowing dust off of electronic components. If you use compressed air, make sure that you use very very low pressure and do remove the case of your computer first. If you don't, all you are doing is blowing the dust to the inside of your computer. Not only are they subject to dust and smoke, but floppy drives are magnetic media devices. Sound familiar? Yep, same concept as the cassette player you have. How many times has your cassette player head had to be cleaned, and when you do clean it, the swab or cleaning tape gets a brown discoloration to it? Well, the same thing happens to floppy drives, just not quite as bad. There are special disks made clean the heads of floppy drives and it is a good practice to do this on a regular basis, especially if you rely on the drives for your backups. Also, a lot of drives, especially 5.25", have little flip levers on them to open and close the drive. Some people just reach up and give them a little flip and let the spring snap the lever up. This is a good way to cause trouble later on because there are heads that are popped up and down when this occurs and after a period of time of abuse, they tend to get out of alignment. The great part about floppy drives is their cost. They are inexpensive compared to most other major components of your PC. You can usually replace high density drives in the $60 to $70 range if you do it yourself. It is a piece of cake. If you do replace one, just connect it up the same way the one you are taking out is connected and you shouldn't have any troubles. There are only 2 connectors to plug in and you can't get them crossed up. Just make sure that on the flat ribbon cable that you put the colored wire edge to the #1 pin of the floppy drive and all should work fine. When installing any drive, it is a good idea to turn the system on and make sure everything works fine before you put the machine back together. If you are adding a drive to your system, just hook it up to the ribbon cable same as the existing drive. On the cable you have a connector a few inches back from the end which is for the "B" drive. Unless you have a peculiar machine, everything should be easy. Don't forget to set up your CMOS correctly on an AT or your config.sys file on an XT. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Birmingham Christian BBS Numbers Name Number SysOp Hardeman's Christian BBS 640-6436 Larry Hardeman Pooh's Korner 980-8710 Eddie and C. Dake The Word 833-2831 Rod Lewis The Family Smorgas-Board 744-0943 Randall Dickerson The Medicine Man BBS 664-5662 Jesse Massengill The Christian Apologetic BBS 808-0763 Jeff Brumlow We hope you enjoyed this issue of BCBN. Look for some special "half- birthday" specials in next month's issue. We thank you for your support. Ricky Eanes and Michael Davidson The Head Guys of Your Favorite Newsletter