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Volume 3, Number 5 3 February 1986 +----------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | - Fidonews - /|oo \ | | (_| /_) | | Fido and FidoNet _`@/_ \ _ | | Users Group | | \ \\ | | Newsletter | (*) | \ )) | | ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +----------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings Fidonews is published weekly by SEAdog Leader, node 1/1. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in Fidonews. Article submission standards are contained in the file FIDONEWS.DOC, available from node 1/1. Disclaimer or don't-blame-us: The contents of the articles contained here are not our responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them. Everything here is subject to debate. Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL In Memorium 2. NEWS The Dream is, and must remain, alive! Encryption, Public Keys and Otherwise Valentine's Day FidoGrams Don't Miss Those Calls! FidoNet Mail Help (A Plea) Fido Sysop's BBS in the making!!! TROFF, Part 2 3. COLUMNS The World of Computing: Greetings, 1986 Predictions 4. FOR SALE New hard disk/modem combo for PCjr 5. NOTICES The Interrupt Stack Higher Education Network to Form South Bay Users Group sets up new Fido node 143/17 Please Don't Ask Florida! The Challenger ============================================================ EDITORIAL ============================================================ Lloyd Schwartz node 109/74 For those who did not identify President Reagan's moving poetic closing literary allusion, the following original text of the WWII flier's piece will be appropriate: "Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds ... and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of ... wheeled and soared and swung High in sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air ... Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, Where never lark, or even eagle flew ... And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God." What could be a better tribute, and memorial, to those who died in Space? ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 2 3 Feb 1986 ============================================================ NEWS ============================================================ The Dream is, and must remain, alive! Kurt Reisler SYSOP 109/74 The Bear's Den On January 28, 1986, at 11:39 am, our world was rocked. Once again, we will all remember exactly what we were doing when we heard the news. The shock, disbelief, pain and sorrow were felt across the country and the world. A lot more than seven lives were lost in those microseconds when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. Along with the death of the seven astronauts, a little of America and the world died. In grief, pain and frustration, I decided to try to do something to make myself feel a little better. I setup a new editorial on both of my FIDOs, expressing my feelings, and asking the user population to share their views in a new message area. In addition, I decided that I would collect these messages, and try to take them to Senator Jake Garn's office, to show that there was support for the space shuttle program from a sector that is not usually heard from, the BBS community. I also issued the same request via UUCP/USENET to the UNIX community. And the messages have been pouring in. I have been in touch with Senator Garn's office, and they are very interested in the effort. So again I ask, to the SYSOPs and users of FIDONET. Please collect messages from your users, expressing their reactions to the shuttle tragedy, and their opinions as to the future of the manned space program. After a week or so, bundle them up into an archive and send them to me via FIDONET. I will collect them, print them out, and hand carry them to Senator Garn, on behalf of all of us in FIDONET. We need to express our opinions and make them known to the right people. If we don't, someone else is going to make the decisions without our input. And if the wrong decision is made, a lot is going to be lost, to us, and to future generations. I have received responses from as far away as Sidney Australia. Please help keep the program going. "The Dream is, and must remain alive!" ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 3 3 Feb 1986 Encryption, Public Keys and Otherwise PART One. If you know what "Public Key Encryption" is then feel free to skip to part two. Public Key Encryption is a special form of encryption which uses different keys for encryption (or scrambling) of a message and decryption (unscrambling, the reverse operation). The separate keys for each operation have several advantages. The first is that the encryption key can be distributed much more easily by less secure means without compromising the security of future encrypted messages. Simple knowledge of the encryption key does not enable decryption of encrypted messages. The decryption key is required to recreate the original message. For this reason the encryption key is commonly called the "public key" and the decryption key is the "private key". In operation, everyone who wants to receive secret messages creates their own pair of keys, one private and one public. The public key is them communicated to everyone who may want to send them a secret message. Perhaps a central key distribution center could be established. The private key is kept secret and never told to anyone. For example ... Art wants to send Beth a secret message. He would look up Beth's public key or ask her to send him one (in the clear). He would then use Beth's public key to encrypt his message and send her the encrypted message. Beth receives the message and decodes it with her private key. No one else can decrypt the message even if they get a copy of the encrypted message AND the public key. They need the private key. In 1978 the CACM journal published a way of doing this on computers. The system they described has come to be known as the "RSA" cypto system. The RSA system has an additional property beyond the general Public Key Encryption system described so far. With the RSA system the keys are interchangeable so you can use a private key to encrypt a message and then only the corresponding public key will unscramble the message. This is in effect a "digital signature" which "signs" a message showing that the encrypted message could only have been created with knowledge of the private key. Messages can also be encrypted more than once. For example you can sign a message with your private key and then encrypt the result again with the intended receiver's public key to make a signed, secret message. The receiver would then need to do the reverse two steps in the reverse order to get the original message back. Fidonews Page 4 3 Feb 1986 Even more complex interaction can be used for special purposes. Articles have appeared on how to play poker over the phone and how to hold a secret ballot election over the phone and others. PART Two. I have recently completed a Public Key Encryption system based on the RSA system. It runs on MS-DOS using files for keys and messages. I am distributing the system as freeware/shareware. (PKSCrypt 0.0 or 0.01) There may be some legal or political considerations in this. I have heard rumors that this sort of stuff comes under certain restrictions for export of high tech (or something) from the USA. I don't think this quite applies to me because I am exporting the system TO the USA. (I live in Canada). I have also heard rumors that some intelligence organization (unnamed) is discouraging public discussion (let alone utilization) of these systems. I have trouble believing this because I had no trouble finding all the information I could ever desire on the subject. There was even an article in Byte magazine and a couple of follow-up letters. Anyone who has any solid info on this, I would like to hear from you. I especially would like to hear directly from any government organization(s) (in any country) who may think they are involved. Interested parties may contact me via Fido node 134/1. Lloyd Miller Calgary, Alberta 1986 January 16 ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 5 3 Feb 1986 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::: : VALENTINES DAY FIDOGRAMS : :::::::::::::::::::::::::::: By Luck Hurder "What's a Fidogram?" Aw, c'mon now! Dontcha read your Fido newsletters? OK, for all of you who've been chasing bytes in Katmandu of late, here's the scoop. The Fidogram service is a free telegram service. Yessiree, just like Western Onion; you send us the complete name, address and telephone number of the person you want to send the Fidogram to. You also provide the text and signature, of course. Finally, you provide the senders complete name, address and Phone number. This is necessary in the event that the Fidogram can't be delivered; no point in forcing the volunteer Amateur Radio Operators to spend money on Fidomail back to you just because you forgot to include some necessary information. If you include the senders info, we can send Fidograms for free... No Fidograms are accepted that relate in any way to anybody making money. No profit by Fidograms, period. Also, don't try sending Fidograms that include a lot of numerical data - these messages are relayed by volunteers who don't necessarily know anything about computers, baud rates, or even Fido (strange as it may seem!) Fido Sysops that are located on or near college campuses, take note! Fidograms don't have to come from just Fido users - this service can easily be advertised in cafeterias, dorms, and on bulletin boards - (you remember the old kind of bulletin boards, right?) Be sure to send time-value Fidograms in plenty of time. Three to four days seems about right to most larger cities in the USA. If you're planning on originating a hundred Valentines Day Fidograms, send 'em extra early Feel free to use and enjoy the free Fidogram service. For more info, call Cape Cod Fido at 617-255-9465 and download the Fidogram file. Oh ya, by the way, NO, we DON'T accept "Happy VD" Fidograms for Valentines Day! ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 6 3 Feb 1986 Don't Miss Those Calls! How many of you have taken the telephone off the hook to do Fido maintenance, and then restarted FIDO... Two hours later you notice the telephone is still off the hook. No wonder Fido was so quiet! After doing this one time too many I figured out an automated way of busying the phone, so that it would automatically go busy when Fido went down, and reset when Fido was restarted. Assuming you have a "Hayes Compatible" modem, here's how you do it in BASIC: 10 OPEN "COM1:1200,N,8,,CS,DS,CD" AS #1 20 PRINT #1, "AT M0 C0 S7=1800 H1" 30 ' 40 PRINT "* COM1 Telephone Line now OFF Hook *" 50 ' 60 'M0 = no speaker H1 = Offhook 70 'C0 = no carrier S7 = # of sec to pick up phone 80 ' 90 CLOSE #1 100 SYSTEM If your modem won't handle 1200 baud, change the '1200' in line 10 to whatever your modem will handle. Your phone LINE is now off the hook, but your TELEPHONE isn't. When you are ready to run Fido again, simply execute the following: 10 OPEN "COM1:1200,N,8,,CS,DS,CD" AS #1 20 PRINT #1, "ATZ" 30 ' 40 PRINT "* COM1 Telephone Line Now RESET *" 50 ' 60 CLOSE #1 70 SYSTEM The above resets the Modem, and FIDO can initialize it as it wants. Now, to really make this system automatic, I've added the execution to my RUNBBS.BAT file. Just before FIDO_IBM I execute OFFHOOK, as I call it, and just after FIDO_IBM I execute RSETCOM1. It's that simple and I can't forget. Every time I run the FIDO .BAT file the modem is reset, and FIDO starts up. When FIDO comes down for whatever reason (CTRL-C, External events, whatever), the modem goes off hook, so callers will get a busy. I've been using this for several months now without a problem and thought I'd share my laziness with others! Fidonews Page 7 3 Feb 1986 David Kaplan, Sysop 142/0 ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 8 3 Feb 1986 FidoNet Mail Help (A Plea) by Bob Hartman Sysop Fido 132/101 The UN*X Gateway and Home of Rovermsg As everyone knows, FidoNet has grown at an incredible rate over the last two years. This growth has caused some problems. One of those problems is that the amount of FidoNet mail being sent has also increased. This is a real problem for my node. I send about 30 messages per night to nodes all over the country. These include personal messages from me and my users, and also messages from users on UNIX systems around the world. Anyway, to get to the point. The one hour national mail slot is simply no longer long enough! Many messages spend a few days to a couple of weeks on my board waiting to be forwarded. In particular, it is extremely difficult to connect to nets 102, 101, or 107. Since these are very large nets, that is not surprising. Now that I have pointed out the problem (which everyone knew existed anyway), the question is what to do about it. I would like to ask every network coordinator to send to me a list of times when he/she runs a FidoNet schedule, and can receive mail. I would also like to know if that schedule is run by all of the nodes in the network. If every network could send that information to me, I could create a larger number of FidoNet schedules, and attempt to call some nodes during the non-national mail times. This is an extremely important question to be addressed for my node. The extra messages that simply sit in my message area waiting to be forwarded take up valuable processing time at the start and end of my FidoNet schedules. This finally came to a peak last Tuesday when my board was trying to process 118 FidoNet messages. It took 40 minutes to create all the packets, and then it could only try about 4 phone calls in the remaining time! This causes a real bottleneck at my end, but with your help it can be stopped. The reason that I am placing this in the Fidonews rather than requesting it via FidoNet mail should be obvious!!! ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 9 3 Feb 1986 Juan Jimenez 102/511 DataFlex BBS 714-675-7106 3/12/2400 baud Due to a lack of interest in the current theme of my BBS, the DataFlex RDBMS Application Development System, I am considering changing the main driving force of the board to a Fido Sysop's Board. Therefore, I would like to conduct a poll to determine how much interest there would be to such an undertaking, which, admittedly, will be one humongous job. Basically, it will be a restricted access system with regis- tration and questionnaire required as a prerequisite of password validation. Verifiable Fido Sysops will be given privileged access to all Sysop-related areas, others will have access only to the general message base and the exten- sive collection of IBM and compatible public domain soft- ware, which at this time consists of over 15 megabytes of software and other types of files, all in ARC format. The board does support 2400 baud access, and is currently up most of the 24 hours (and sometimes more) hours in a day. This Sysop is an independent consultant currently on con- tract to Rockwell International's Collins Defense Communica- tions division. I have been a programmer for over 10 years and also spent 4 years in the Marine Corps as an Avionics Technician. The board itself has been up since last summer. The subjects to be covered by the board will be many, but will be obviously left to the users themselves. I will attempt to provide some direction, but, considering the quite large number of Fido Sysops today, I don't think that will be a problem. If you are interested in this and would like to see this project become a reality, PLEASE SEND A FIDONET MAIL MESSAGE STATING SO!! I really want to do this but won't if there is no interest. No point wasting time on a project that might not get off the ground, considering how much time it takes to set up something like this. Send your vote to Fido 102/511. I just changed my Net/Node number to join my local region, so I might not be on your current nodelist. If this is the case, add the following line to your nodelist in the Net 102 section: ,611,DataFlex_BBS,Balboa_CA,Juan_Jimenez,1-714-675-7106,2400 Thank you in advance for taking the time to send out your vote. Juan Jimenez ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 10 3 Feb 1986 TROFF 2 by Rich Gough FIDO 129/13 (The reaction of the Pittsburgh Area Computer Club to my TROFF story was so positive, that I wrote a sequel 6 months later, May 1983. At the 1984 Computerfest in Dayton, Ohio I found out that these 2 articles had been reprinted in computer club newsletters all over the Midwest, and that a third story had been written using the same characters and setting. I DIDN'T WRITE IT. I'd like to see it, if any of you remember it, I'd appreciate someone sending me a copy via FidoMail or just submit it to the Fidonews.) One night a few months ago, something very strange happened to me while I was using my home computer. I was trying to load the operating system, and I meant to type "LOAD CPM" but I typed "LOAD MCP" instead. Before I knew it, I found I was being sucked into the computer through the video display! I woke up in strange world where home computers are computers that work at home, as opposed to office computers who commute. I had found myself at a computer club meeting, which is where a bunch of computers get together every month, it seemed to me, mostly to gripe about the people they own. I heard two or three get specific -- that they were overused, underused, or ignored altogether, due to their poor choice of user (what they call the people they own.) I was about to give them a bit of my mind when I crashed back here (to reality?) It has been hard for me to believe what happened, and the one friend I confided in thought someone had spiked my pain- reliever tablets. I knew the only way to know for sure that I had been there was to go back. I plugged in an appliance timer which would shut off the power and crash the system in 2 hours, to make sure I got out, and turned the computer on. I carefully loaded the same diskette as before and took a deep breath as I typed "M...C...P". I exhaled when nothing happened. It must have been a dream. I realized that my diskette drive hadn't made it's usual clattering noise -- probably a loose connection. I tapped it lightly with my fingernail. My finger disappeared, then my whole hand! Too late for second thoughts now, I thought, as I plunged through the CRT. This time I landed on my head, on the silicon floor of a round lobby. Fortunately, all of the computers in the room were so engrossed in technical conversation that none of them noticed my arrival. I started to go into the main meeting room, but I was stopped by pudgy grey computer wearing tinted glasses. "Hi!" he said. "Welcome to the meeting. Are you a member or a visitor?" Fidonews Page 11 3 Feb 1986 "This is my second time here. Excuse me, are those glasses you're wearing?" "Oh these filters? I get tube-strain when I stare at a user for too long at a time. Would you like to join the club?" I thought about it. I got here twice, and I may make it back twice, and it's certainly a neat place. I may have a hard time getting past this fellow if I don't join. "Sure," I said. "Good, just fill out this form" he said and handed me a formatted diskette. He still doesn't realize I'm just a user. He thinks I'm a computer! I'll have to act like one. "Ah, er excuse me. I'm sort of an inexpensive system. I don't have a diskette drive yet. Can I fill out a cassette and mail it to you?" The grey system found a tattered printout. "Sure. Here, show this to your user and answer the questions. Oh, and include the fee, 112 bits." I did some mental arithmatic. 2 bits to a quarter, that's 8 bits to the dollar, that makes 14 dollars. What a coincidence! Just what it costs in the "real" world. "And what name should I put on your tag?" he said. "Ahhhhhhh" I said. He looked puzzled. "RIC. That's it, my name is RIC-20." "Great. Always nice to see new systems. There are some other RICs over in the corner. I think they are discussing the best way to teach BASIC to their users. They may even get together a class." I went into the meeting room and got a cup of programming fluid (we would call it coffee.) I noticed that all the computers were careful not to spill it down their keyboard. I started mingling. A keypad tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around see a middle-aged system in a one-piece beige case, with a little round rainbow-striped logo above one side of his keyboard (sort of like the alligator on an Izod shirt). "Excuse me, RIC, didn't I see you here a couple of months ago?" "You might have. Could you tell me what happened to the three systems that did most of the talking?" Fidonews Page 12 3 Feb 1986 "Well", the beige-cased computer said "the video game got the teenage user he wanted and now he's so busy playing games he doesn't bother to come to the club meetings. The 16-bit system got a multi-tasking operating system, so he was able to acquire a second user. The second user likes to use graphics, so he isn't bored anymore. The 16-bit system even gets his users to send electronic mail to each other!" "What happened to the machine that complained he was never used?" I said. "It was too bad. He had to sell his user at a big loss. I think it will be a long time before he buys another one." "Gee, I'm sorry to hear that. I guess that's just the way the chips fall sometimes." I looked at my watch. The main meeting would start soon. "Say, have you heard who the speaker today is going to be?" the beige system asked. I looked at the newsletter I had picked up on the way in. It's hard for me to read hexidecimal, but I managed to pick out the headline. "Some professor from C.P.U. is going to speak on a project there, Natural Intelligence and Humantics." "Waste of time" the beige computer spat. "The user never breathed who had an ounce of real intelligence, and they're wasting millions of bits proving it." I smiled at him and said "Oh, I think there a few users around here who might surprise you." ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 13 3 Feb 1986 ============================================================ COLUMNS ============================================================ THE WORLD OF COMPUTING written by Reuven M. Lerner FidoMail 107/33 Hi! Welcome to the World of Computing. This is going to be a mish-mash of news, ideas, Fido happenings, and computer-related things. "The World of Computing" is, admittedly, a strange name for a column, but until I get any ideas, that's what it's going to be. First of all, let me introduce myself. I've been using computers for about six years now, from Apples to IBM's to DEC's (I'm writing this on an old DEC VT180, my favorite machine). In that time, I've taught a few computer classes at my school, written columns and articles for my school newspaper and Fido (see December 23, 1985), and some other stuff besides.I programmed in BASIC and Logo, and for the past few months, I've used Turbo Pascal. Some day, I hope to go into computer engineering, but we'll take it one step at a time. So, back to the column. I plan on reporting some news, talking about it, reviewing a little software and hardware, and discussing telecommunications (and of course, Fido). I'm more than open to ideas. If you want to tell me about something, give me a suggestion for a topic, or anything of that sort, just write to me at 107/33, addressed to Reuven Lerner, or at 21 Old Westbury Road, Old Westbury, NY 11568. I prefer electronic mail, but plain old US (or Canadian) mail is just as welcome. I'd like to take a quick look back at what happened in 1985, and say what I think will happen in 1986. I'll probably not get to everything, but here it goes. 1985 was, to say the least, a busy year. Lots of take-overs, bankruptcies, new companies, and great new software and hardware. The biggest news, of course, were the Atari 520 ST and the Commodore Amiga. I've seen and used the ST, and wow! What a machine! The best graphics that I have ever seen were nothing compared to this! I predict that the ST will take over the home market in 1986, slowly but surely. So where does that leave the Amiga? In the same market as the Macintosh. The Amiga is, simply, a better Macintosh. It runs faster, it has beautiful color graphics, true multitasking, expansion slots, and everything else that Apple forgot. Upper-class users and small businesses will use the Amiga, leaving the old Macintosh in the dust. Fidonews Page 14 3 Feb 1986 But the new Macintosh, as written up by InfoWorld, is a different story. Watch out, Commodore! Apple's coming back with a superMac! With 800K drives, a bigger keyboard, some expansion slots, more memory, and lots more, this is going to spur some real competition. Apple announced some products this year, and discontinued some old ones. First of all, it showed off (and rightly so) it's megabyte memory board for the IIe. Whatever happened to the shift to the IIc? Who knows. Anyway, coupled with a turbo-card, the IIe is a better machine in some ways than the IBM PC! Apple's hoping that people will realize that, when they take into account the fact that the new 3.5" Unidisk drive holds 800K, more than twice a 5.25" disk on an IBM. Apple also announced the ImageWriter II, a color version of the popular ImageWriter. I wonder if there are going to be any new Mac programs that take advantage of the color abilities of this machine. If I remember correctly, the Lisa (remember that?) could output color, even though it couldn't display it. How long has it been since you saw an ad for a Macintosh with 128K? Well, probably about three months, since Apple discontinued it in October. I wonder why they didn't do it sooner. I guess enough people were fed up with getting "Out of memory" errors. And what of IBM? They formally un-announced the PC II, making even more noise and speculation about the machine. I think they probably have something, and just don't want to release it. We probably won't see it until late 1986. However, the long-awaited "Clamshell" should be around soon. I can't believe that IBM is going to take all of the competition from Data General and Kaypro. Look for their new laptop in the spring or summer. So, what's left? Software, that's what. There was a lot of new and updated programs this year. At the top of the list was 1-2-3, Symphony, Framework, and other programs that took advantage of the Lotus/Intel/Microsoft/etc. standard for breaking the 640K barrier. The software just did a lot of memory-juggling, so that you could get about 4 megabytes from your PC. Is it really here? I can't believe they really did it! Microsoft finally came out with Windows, their $99 competitor to TopView and GEM. I haven't used it yet, but all of the reviews and information that I have say that it is going to blow the competition away. This is definitely going to be a big winner in 1986. Speaking of GEM, Digital Research just changed it! So much for their ad campaign with beautiful color photos; they had to scrap it. For those of you who don't know, Apple threatened a lawsuit over the interface that GEM used, stating that it's too close to the Mac. Some people Fidonews Page 15 3 Feb 1986 think that Xerox should sue Apple for taking THEIR idea. After all, Steve Jobs borrowed the idea from PARC (the Palo Alto Research Center, where the whole mouse-graphics interface was born). Borland International came out with SuperKey and Traveling SideKick this year. Lucky for them the extended memory specifications came out, or the "background" programs would have taken up all 640K! Now Traveling Software is talking with Borland about using the Traveling name. I can understand their point, but I highly doubt any of their business is going to be lost when Borland's logo appears in big letters on anything of theirs. Another background program, Ready! arrived from Living Videotext. I have never used an outline processor, but the more I think about it, the more I think I need it. Every time I'm writing something, I get an idea, and then by the time I get up to that point in the text, I've forgotten it. I'm getting an IBM compatible soon...maybe it's worth looking into. I'm very sure that a lot of people will get Ready! and will discover how much it's needed. A definite 1986 hit. News flash: About an hour ago, I read something about a group of computer companies getting together to discuss standards on new computers. What do I think? That's the greatest thing that ever happened. If any of you subscribe to the New York Times, you can read more in the Monday, January 6 edition in the Business section. The only bad part about this group is that IBM hasn't decided whether or not it's going to join. Come on, IBM! You can jump on the bandwagon for once in your life! That about wraps it up for this issue. If I left someone out, it's not because I didn't like them, maybe I just forgot about them at the moment. As I said, I'm probably getting an IBM XT compatible within a week or two. Next time, I'll discuss IBM compatibility and its effect on the industry. Until next time, happy computing! (c)1986 Reuven M. Lerner. All Rights Reserved. Reprinting permission is given solely to Fidonews. If you would like permission to copy this article, please write to the author at 21 Old Westbury Road, Old Westbury, NY 11568, or at FidoMail 107/33. ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 16 3 Feb 1986 ============================================================ FOR SALE ============================================================ RIM ELECTRONICS, INC. Announces The SASITALK Disk Subsystem/Intelligent Modem The RIM ELECTRONICS SASITALK-jr fixed-disk subsystem provides a flexible and inexpensive method of adding fixed-disk storage to the IBM PCjr, using the industry standard Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI). The fixed disk provides 15MBytes of storage. A 300/1200 baud intelligent modem can be added to the host adapter board. Coupled with RIM's version of PROCOMM communications software, SASITALK allows the user to reliably upload and download using XMODEM, or KERMIT protocols, escape to DOS without leaving the session, or run as a task under Topview or Windows. A SASITALK host adapter is also available for the IBM PC, Portable PC, PC-AT, and compatibles. The SASITALK systems enables high performance peripherals to be attached to an IBM PC, PCjr, or upgraded versions. The SASITALK disk subsystem and SASITALK modem are available from: RIM ELECTRONICS, INC. 300 Blossom Court Morgan Hill, CA. 95037 (408) 778-1286 For a limited time RIM will be offering the SASITALK systems at the following prices. SASITALK System with Modem (includes host $945.00 adapter for either IBM PCjr or, PC, PC Portable, and PC-AT as well as a 15MByte disk drive, 300/1200 Baud Intelligent Modem, PROCOMM communications software and driver software) SASITALK System (includes host adapter for $695.00 either IBM PCjr or, PC, PC Portable, and PC-AT as well as a 15MByte disk drive, and driver software) SASITALK 300/1200 Baud Intelligent Modem with $295.00 PROCOMM communications software and disk driver software. (You supply the SCSI Controller and disk drive) SASITALK Host Adapter and disk driver $ 95.00 software. (You supply the SCSI Controller and disk drive) ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 17 3 Feb 1986 ============================================================ NOTICES ============================================================ The Interrupt Stack 9 Feb 1986 Halley's Comet reaches perihelion. 9 Feb 1986 Diana Overholt (109/74) has another birthday. 1 Mar 1986 The Next Occasional MetroNet Sysop Meeting, to be held at Matt Kanter's apartment. Check with Matt at 107/3 for details. 1 Mar 1986 European mail hour shifts to 0230-0330 GMT. Summer time will no longer be observed. 11 Apr 1986 Halley's Comet reaches perigee. 19 May 1986 Steve Lemke's next birthday. 24 Aug 1989 Voyager 2 passes Neptune. If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to Fido 1/1. ------------------------------------------------------------ Higher Education Network to Form There appear to be several FIDO's running at colleges and universities. 11/301, FIDO-RACER, at Murray State Univer- sity, and 144/2, Fido/CSU, at Colorado State University, would like to invite all colleges, universities, medical schools, etc, that would like to join a net devoted to information related to higher education to drop a line to 11/301 indicating interest. We look forward to hearing from you. Bill Allbritten, Sysop, 11/301 ------------------------------------------------------------ ======= WELCOME ========= Fidonews Page 18 3 Feb 1986 South Bay Users Group from Silicon Valley joins as a new Fido node 143/17. This Users Group is oriented toward Tandy products. The group first formed in 1977 when TRS80 Model I was the leading edge in personal computing. The BBS number is 408/253-6293 300/1200 8 N 1 Don Rhodes and Gerry McKee are the Sysops Address mail to: South Bay Users Group P O Box 60116 Sunnyvale, CA 94088 SBUG publishes a monthly newsletter "Dynamic Memories" and has a large disk, tape and documentation library. Member- ships are $18.00. Write or call for information. Meetings are held every 3rd Tuesday of each month at the Cupertino Public Library, Cupertino, California at 7:15pm to 9:30pm. ------------------------------------------------------------ Apparently the sysop of Space Coast Fido has been deluged with mail asking about the shuttle disaster. He's asked us to ask you to please stop. He isn't allowed to talk about it yet. ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 19 3 Feb 1986 In Memorium Dick Scobee Michael J. Smith Ronald McNair Ellison Onizuka Gregory Jarvis Judith Resnik Christa McAuliffe It is hard for a romantic person to live in romantic times. The romantic is better off living in practical times, where he can read novels and dream of high adventure. Romantic times call for hard headed practical people to deal with the realities and risks of the universe. We are at the edge of conquering space itself. We have left footprints on the Moon, and we are now making space travel an everyday occurrence. We live in romantic times, where the sky itself is no longer the limit. This is an age of practical people who know the risks, and, knowing them, take them anyway. We have the great privilege, and the misfortune, of living in an age of heroes. ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 20 3 Feb 1986