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Volume 3, Number 17 28 April 1986 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | - FidoNews - /|oo \ | | (_| /_) | | Fido and FidoNet _`@/_ \ _ | | Users Group | | \ \\ | | Newsletter | (*) | \ )) | | ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (C) Copyright 1986 by IFNA (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings FidoNews is the official newsletter of the International FidoNet Association, and is published weekly by SEAdog Leader, node 1/1. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission standards are contained in the file FNEWSART.DOC, available from node 1/1. The contents of the articles contained here are not our responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them. Everything here is subject to debate. Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL Challenging the Right of an Information Industry to Exist! 2. ARTICLES DECUS Dallas FIDO On-line Kermit versus XMODEM SEAdog and Fido 3. COLUMNS Why Own a Modem? Bug Report Column (or Does Fido have Fleas?) Notes from Abroad 4. FOR SALE Entertainment Software for your PC! Public Domain Software Library Sale!! Special Offer to FidoNet Sysops 5. NOTICES The Interrupt Stack DoubleDOS Help Node Change FidoRead version 1.5 Now Available Aviation Net Proposed Fidonews Page 2 28 Apr 1986 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= This week's editorial is by an anonymous author. Challenging the Right of an Information Industry to Exist! The "Information Industry" is presumed to include any company that collects information, using intelligence or technology sources, and which then sells that information somehow to a limited audience. For the purposes of argument, that industry includes the media (TV, newspapers) as well as conventional research agencies, analysts, and so on. 1) Suppose a private weather bureau receives information from its privately-owned satellite indicating that a major hurricane is about to strike the Florida coast. This information is given to the firm's private clients who have subscribed to its weather service but not to the general public. As a result, since no other weather service detects the storm in time and none of the clients divulge the information to non-clients, thousands of people are killed and billions of dollars worth of property is destroyed. Counter-argument: This wouldn't happen; the bureau would reveal its knowledge out of humanitarianism or in an effort to gain publicity. Rebuttal: that the bureau would do so simply proves that certain information cannot, should not, may not be considered private. 2) Suppose a private company starts an On-Line Service (OLS). OLS obtains non-exclusive rights to store copyrighted articles in its database, which can be searched easily using fancy retrieval techniques. OLS also obtains public-domain information from government documents and non-copyrighted publications. The information base grows rapidly, and soon OLS becomes a very useful tool in gathering information. If the OLS database is used to search for a solution to several pressing world problems, those problems could be solved more easily and millions of lives would be enhanced. But OLS charges $10 per hour to access its database. These OLS charges are not affordable by some independent and government- funded social services researchers, who consequently cannot collect the information necessary to solve the problems. Because these researchers do not have access to the informa- tion, ten million more people die of starvation and malnutrition before answers are found. Few would argue with the comment in the first example, that the private company is compelled, morally and probably by law, to reveal its privately-collected information to the public. It would, in fact, be hard to pretend that any human being would Fidonews Page 3 28 Apr 1986 conceal that information. Few would argue that in the second example, in which the exact cause and effect relationship is unprovable, that OLS is com- pelled to provide free searches to all those who might benefit from them. OLS needs to pay its expenses. As a result, informa- tion will be partially overlooked. While it is clear that free access to vast databases would almost certainly improve the quality of life, it is just as clear that such free access cannot be expected. As technology progresses, it will be possible for more and more information to be more and more accessible. But because the cost of collecting information is not falling as rapidly as the cost of "publishing" and distributing it, it is quickly becoming obvious that more firms will be visibly selling "information" rather than "goods." And as it becomes obvious how advantageous it is to have access to wide libraries of information, what will the reaction be? Will information collectors be permitted to charge the maximum possible fee for their information, thus limiting its distribu- tion? Or will they be forced to sell that information at cost or to exchange it for free, thus reducing their incentive to collect the information and in turn reducing the collection of information? This is not an opinion: this is a question. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 4 28 Apr 1986 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Fritz Howard, 107/23, 124/300 DECUS Dallas FIDO On-line Hey all you RAINBOW people out there (IBM, SANYO, etc. too)... DECUS Dallas FIDO 124/300 is now on-line and will be running from April 28 through May 2 during the Spring DECUS Symposium in Dallas. Sponsored by the DECUS PC-SIG, DECUS Dallas FIDO will have a vast array of new and useful public domain software for the Rainbow and other MS-DOS machines. When you call in, you'll also have the chance to leave messages to DEC's Personal Computer Engineering Group, and the PC-SIG, and find out the lstest happenings at DECUS. As a final added feature, we'll be offering free FIDONET(tm) mail to any FIDO in the continental US. The phone number was not available as of this writing, but if you check with any of the following boards, you'll be able to get the number and give us a call: Hitchhiker's Guide Rainbow Corner Washarug DECUS Central Illini Data Rainbow Data We'll look forward to hearing from you... ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 5 28 Apr 1986 Comparing Kermit with Other Packages by Frank da Cruz First let me say that there seem to be two major kinds of commercial packages: the kind that use some variation of MODEM protocol, and the kind that use their own proprietary protocols. First, MODEM (please, any MODEM aficionados feel free to correct any of this)... MODEM and Kermit are similar in that they both use back-and-forth ACK/NAK protocols over asynchronous telecommunication lines. However, MODEM sends fixed-length packets with 128 8-bit data bytes, KERMIT sends variable length packets (up to 96 characters in length) with either 7- or 8-bit data bytes. The MODEM packet control fields use all 8 bits; Kermit control fields only use 7. There are several consequences of all this: MODEM can't work at all over a 7-bit channel, even for text files, because the checksum and other control fields will be wrong. This means that MODEM can't be used over public packet- switched networks like TELENET, or with hosts that require use of character parity, like IBM mainframes. Kermit can send both text and binary files over either 7-bit channels or 8-bit channels, but the data gets longer if you have to squeeze it through a narrower hole. Certain computing or communication equipment cannot accept 128 characters at a time. Their buffers aren't that big. Kermit can accommodate these systems, but MODEM cannot. Many systems cannot accept all ASCII characters, particularly control characters, transparently. MODEM provides no mechanism for encoding otherwise taboo characters. Non-CPM systems, which do not necessarily allocate files in units of 128 bytes or follow the CTRL-Z end-of-file convention, will often have junk at the end of a file received by MODEM. MODEM, to the best of my knowledge, does not have a good mechanism for transmitting a group of files; Kermit has it built into the protocol. Kermit protocol also includes optional features for management of remote files; directory listings, file deletion, quota checking, etc. Many of the Kermit programs support these optional features. MODEM sends the file bytes exactly as is, whereas Kermit gives you some options for reformatting and compressing. A "text" file is transformed to "canonical form" by Kermit, i.e. a stream of ASCII characters with the "records" (lines) separated by (encoded) CR/LF sequences, so that it may be stored in useful form on the target system. Thus, Kermit may be used on record- oriented systems (like IBM VM/CMS) or on stream-oriented systems like Unix where there record boundaries may be different (LF instead of CRLF); Kermits on those systems that don't store text files in the canonical manner do the appropriate conversions. In addition, Kermit may also be told to send files as-is. Fidonews Page 6 28 Apr 1986 On the other hand, MODEM works nicely between like systems (especially CP/M systems). It's more efficient than Kermit because it doesn't have to encode and decode the data, and the packets are somewhat longer. Also, much greater attention has been given in MODEM programs to modems themselves, and MODEM programs are typically able to control dialout modems from various manufacturers, and to run in "remote mode" when dialed up from the "back port" of a micro (but the forthcoming MS-DOS Kermit will have this ability also). MODEM provides the ability to dynamically switch between 8-bit and 16-bit block checks depending on the error rate; KERMIT provides 6, 12, and 16 bit block checks, but one of these must be selected ahead of time and will be used throughout the transfer. There's more, but in short I think that, on balance, Kermit is more flexible and more easily adaptable to new systems; hence its rapid spread to a wide variety of micros, minis, and mainframes. Now, as to commercial packages with proprietary protocols, well, who knows? In some cases, these protocols may be superior to Kermit in every way. But you have certain problems with any commercial package: Are implementations available for all the systems you want them for? If not, will the vendor write the missing implementations? When? For how much money? Does the protocol make assumptions (like full duplex communication, 8-bit data path) that would lock out certain classes of systems? Do you have enough money to buy the software licenses for your mainframes and each and every one of your micros? Some sites have thousands of micros. A typical commercial file transfer package costs $500-$5000 dollars for the mainframe end and $50- $500 for each micro. Can your vendor fix bugs in a timely fashion? If you had sources, you could fix them yourself, but most vendors don't provide sources. Many commercial packages are very fancy, both in the protocol and the user interface. But they often tend to be specially tailored to a certain combination of systems and/or applications. Kermit is not as fancy as a commercial product that knows how to dial up Dow-Jones and look up your stocks, reformat the data as it comes in, and display it in a color pie chart, all upon a single keystroke. But then that package probably can't exchange text and binary files with 50 or 60 different kinds of systems in a relatively uniform and consistent way. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 7 28 Apr 1986 Thom Henderson, 107/8 Reprinted from the third edition of the SEAdog manual (C) COPYRIGHT 1986 by System Enhancement Associates Reprinted by permission of SEA SEAdog and Fido It is possible to run Fido under SEAdog. SEAdog will answer the phone and determine whether or not a caller is trying to send mail, and pass them on to Fido if not. First, SEAdog must be told to pass non-mail callers on to Fido. This is done with a BBS statement in the CONFIG.DOG file, like so: bbs RUNBBS *b SEAdog will pass a human caller to Fido by invoking another generation of DOS and giving it whatever command you specify in your BBS statement. Fido must now be told that it is being passed a user, and that it should return control to SEAdog when the user is finished. This is done by way of the /N and /E switches. Your RUNBBS.BAT should contain a statement something like this: fido_ibm %1/n 5/e The "%1/n" (where %1 is replaced with a baud rate) tells Fido that it already has a user at the specified baud rate. The "5/e" tells Fido that it should terminate with an error level of 5 when it is finished with the user. Fido won't terminate if you use "0/e". You will probably want to add other switches as needed to configure your system. See the Fido manual for more details. You should use somewhat different mail events when operating on FidoNet. We recommend some variation of the following: Event H all 3:00 3:30 ;Locals to hubs Event G all 3:30 4:00 ;Hubs to outbound gates Event T all 4:00 5:00 ;National Mail Hour Event V all 5:00 5:30 ;Inbound gates to hubs Event W all 5:30 6:00 ;Hubs to locals Check with your network host for the exact times. If your net does not have hubs, then you can leave out events H and V. If you do not have an outbound host, then you can leave out events H and G. If you are in a region, then we recommend a single event A, as with Fido. If you have an outbound host, then you will need to modify the St. Louis node list. You would do this by placing an OGATE statement in your XLATLIST control file. For example, if your Fidonews Page 8 28 Apr 1986 outbound host is node 107/16, then your XLATLIST.CTL file should contain: OGATE 107/16 You should place XLATLIST and ROUTEGEN in SEAdog mode by removing the FIDO statement from their control files. We advise that you use SEAdog implicit routing wherever possible. Fido-style detailed route files can be used, but are not needed. You will need to define external events in Fido to correspond to all of your SEAdog events. Otherwise, Fido won't know when it has to force a user off. For example, if you are using the events given above, then you should tell Fido that it has an external event starting at 0300, with a 180 minute window. This event should exit with the same error level as that of the "/e" switch, since they both mean the same thing (return to SEAdog). We suggest that you have SEAdog handle all of your "normal" external events. If you wish to use Fido's O)utside or sysop zero commands, then you'll need to set your error levels and your batch file properly. Here's an example of a RUNBBS.BAT for Fido with the sysop zero command: echo off :loop fido_ibm %1/n 5/e 10/w 15/a if errorlevel 15 goto outside if errorlevel 10 goto dropdos goto seadog :outside watchdog on remsysop /c watchdog off goto loop :dropdos watchdog on ctty com1 echo Type EXIT to return to Fido. command ctty con watchdog off goto loop :seadog You can't just "run off the end" for remote system access, because DOS will exit and return to SEAdog. Instead, you should invoke a new generation of DOS by giving the "COMMAND" command. It will terminate when you type "EXIT", and you will loop back into Fido. The meaning of "%1" will be retained, and Fido will Fidonews Page 9 28 Apr 1986 start up at the proper baud rate. If you do NOT need any DOS access from Fido, then you don't need a RUNBBS.BAT file at all. Instead, you can have SEAdog invoke Fido directly. The BBS statement in your CONFIG.DOG file would then look something like this: BBS fido_ibm %1/n 5/e SEAdog's default banner states that it is a private mail system, and asks the caller to hang up. You will want to change this. You can use either or both of two methods. The first is the BANNER statement in your configuration file. Whatever follows the word "BANNER", up to the end of the line or a semicolon, is displayed instead of the default banner. A typical example might be: BANNER SEAboard system -- stand by for Fido You can also create a text file named BANNER.DOG, which will be displayed instead of the banner string to any callers outside of mail events. This file may contain anything you like, and may be as long as you like, but we recommend that you keep it short, as SEAdog banners cannot be interrupted. If Fido gets "stuck", which can easily happen if a caller hangs up before Fido finishes loading, then don't worry. Fido will return to SEAdog properly after the next caller or at the next event. You will not, however, be able to receive mail while Fido is in control. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 10 28 Apr 1986 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= WHY OWN A MODEM? by Mike Guffey In the words of Stewart Brand, publisher of "The Whole Earth Software Review" ("TWESR"), 'computers are automobiles of the mind. They empower. They can also estrange, but information has a greater capability for self-correction than gasoline and steel. (Also a greater capability for acceleration.)' If what he says is true, then consider a modem a combination set of 'booster cables' and a 'siphon hose'. A device to extract information that will give both you and your machine an extra boost, a quick start, more range and versatility. A start to WHERE, you might ask? If you don't own a modem (and don't plan to acquire one soon) you may feel you are well on your way into the computer age. Thousands of dollars worth of technology at your fingertips must mean you're heading SOMEPLACE. Right? -- Wrong. You've packed the trunk and are ready to do a minimum of cruising around the block. And you're ready to drive back and forth to work. But you are as limited as some pedestrians. You can't take a long trip. You have neither enough 'juice' in your battery nor enough fuel in your tank. For that you need a modem. It doesn't matter how big your engine is or how many bells and whistles are under the hood. Sooner or later you are going want or need to go places your model won't take you. One solution is to replace your hardware. Or your software. Or something. Whatever it is, it is likely to be expensive. And you will again be at the mercy of salespeople who mean well but just can't understand your needs as you do. (That's neither bad nor good, it just IS.) Enter the modem. Prices start at around $100 and go up, depending on your needs. Public domain CP/M software is available for most machines and for most needs. The price of full-featured commercial communications software is accelerating downward. (Just WHAT do you need in a modem? Try "The Complete Handbook of Personal Computer Communications" by Alfred Glossbrenner. Remember, this article is about 'WHY', not 'what'.) In an article on telecommunicating in the premier issue of "TWESR", Art Kleiner points out four good reasons to own a modem. First, information retrieval. The availability of facts and figures from the proliferation of databases is, simply, amazing. Second, is software access. By connecting either to the 'free' computer Bulletin Board Systems (BBS's) and Remote CP/M systems (RCP/M'S) around your town and around the world you can get Fidonews Page 11 28 Apr 1986 software to make CP/M much, much more user friendly. The cost? The price of the phone call. And by connecting with commercial firms you can purchase and acquire software 'online' that may be just what you needed. Third, are the electronic transactions that are 'just around the corner'. Electronic banking and shopping, both local and long distance -- all from your easy chair. And the final reason is communicating with 'like-minded' people. There is no other method to quickly access information about computing, about software problems, about most computer subjects on a 24-hour, seven-day-per-week basis than by accessing BBS's, RCPM's or databases such as "The SOURCE" and "COMPUSERVE". To quote Art Kleiner, "For anyone who's comfortable writing and reading, computer [telecommunicating] is a warm... satisfying form of communication different from but complimentary to the telephone." So, why own a modem? Better, perhaps, to ask, why NOT own one? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 12 28 Apr 1986 David Dodell, Fido Bugs West, 1/98 Marvin Shelton, Fido Bugs East, 1/99 Fido Bugs East and West This is the first in what we hope will NOT be a regular column of FidoNews. We hope that Fido will be rid of all its "fleas" but the column will help to point out problems that Fido does have and any solutions or comments from Tom Jennings. The Bug Nodes have been averaging about 10 messages a week. Most of these messages are not truly bugs, but rather sysop error or configuration error. We will attempt to talk about only documented bugs here. The only documented bug this week came from 107/210. He reports that there is a discrepancy between the summary at the end of each mail session and the actual log itself. The discrepancy seems to be in the file attach area - did a file actually get transferred, or not. Here is Tom Jennings response: This file attach business: that is a genuine bug. The log isn't real consistent, ie. did the attaches go or not. You are right in that the running log is more accurate, the table at the end is not. Or is it the other way around! File attaches are "optional", ie. if an attach fails the transfer is considered OK as long as the mail went. This is for many reasons, the biggest one is that if the receivers disk fills up and the caller will keep trying to send over and over, the protocol doesn't tell different kinds of failures, just go or no-go. And, a long time ago, it was considered a "needless frill", hence it was not designed in. Hindsight is wonderful ... I wouldn't do it the same way today, that's for sure! I will see about fixing the log biz in the future. That's it for this week. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 13 28 Apr 1986 Notes from Abroad Hello, here it is again, regular as French Nuclear tests in the Pacific, the one and only European FidoNewsLetter!! It's about 4:00 AM here in Woking at the moment and I'm still beavering (translation: English slang for working) away, halted only occasionally by the keyboard locking up as FidoNet (in foreground partition of MultiLink) dials up Henk Wevers in an attempt to send some important bit of FidoGossip. I don't think we should call it FidoMail yet; but it's getting there. I hope you see the point I'm trying to make. The last few newsletters have been dominated by my pleas for FidoNet activity. It seems that my pleas have not fallen on deaf ears. Almost every night now I either send or receive mail, on a good night - both. I have a free offer on for FidoMail at the moment on my node (4403,4404) in an attempt to get more people using the net. Most people on my board hardly even bother to look at the mail section. Fido is just a big free software library as far as they are concerned. Am I the only one who has this problem? We have just changed over to Daylight Saving (to use the American term). In English I think that means the end of summer time (summer I hear you say - I only hope yours was better than ours in the UK). Our two London Fido's (Dataflex and Microway) are still off air at the moment. Their sysops (Bob Manekshaw and Nik Spicer) are both keeping in touch and say that only minor problems are holding them up. Jim Richardson (4405) has been off-line for a while and as of now he is still not yet back on line. Jim says has had a few hardware problems and also a slipped disk (in his back!). Get well soon Jim. Rod Smallwood has returned to the Fido scene after a short illness. I'm sure Rod would like me to say "Hello", so there it is. If you do wish to contact Rod a mail message addressed to him on 4403 would be the best way. We still have modem problems but I think the 300 baud modem problem has been cracked by the Dataflex modem. It still has a couple of bugs but on the whole I'm pleased by the performance. For your interest the main bug is that it doesn't recognize the dial tone properly. If someone calls in and hangs up half way through the connect sequence, the modem hangs and tries to connect thinking the dial tone is a 2400 baud incoming call. Bob Manekshaw says he has a fix in the pipeline. He says the cure is to monitor the dial tone current as opposed to the dial tone itself. As yet he doesn't know whether the fix is going to be in software or hardware yet. When I have more news on this I'll let you know. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 14 28 Apr 1986 ================================================================= FOR SALE ================================================================= ENTERTAINMENT SOFTWARE FOR YOUR PC! SUPERDOTS! KALAH! Professional quality games include PASCAL source! From the author of KALAH Version 1.6, SuperDots, a variation of the popular pencil/paper DOTS game, has MAGIC and HIDDEN DOT options. KALAH 1.7 is an African strategy game requiring skill to manipulate pegs around a playing board. Both games use the ANSI Escape sequences provided with the ANSI.SYS device driver for the IBM-PC, or built into the firmware on the DEC Rainbow. Only $19.95 each or $39.95 for both exciting games! Please specify version and disk format. These games have been written in standard TURBO-PASCAL and run on the IBM-PC, DEC Rainbow 100 (MSDOS and CPM), CPM/80, CPM/86, and PDP-11. Other disk formats are available, but minor customization may be required. BSS Software P.O. Box 3827 Cherry Hill, NJ 08034 For every order placed, a donation will be made to the Fido coordinators! Also, if you have a previous version of KALAH and send me a donation, a portion of that donation will also be sent to the coordinators. When you place an order, BE CERTAIN TO MENTION WHERE YOU SAW THE AD since it also appears in PC Magazine and Digital Review. Questions and comments can be sent to: Brian Sietz at Fido 107/17 (609) 429-6630 300/1200/2400 baud ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 15 28 Apr 1986 Now available from Micro Consulting Associates!! Public Domain collection - 300+ "ARC" archives - 10 megs of software and other goodies, and that's "archived" size! When unpacked, you get approximately 17 megabytes worth of all kinds of software, from text editors to games to unprotection schemes to communications programs, compilers, interpreters, etc... This collection is the result of more than 10 months of intensive downloads from just about 100 or more BBS's and other sources, all of which have been examined, indexed and archived for your convenience. Starting a Bulletin Board System? Want to add on to your software base without spending thousands of dollars? This is the answer!!! To order the library, send $100 (personal or company check, postal money order or company purchase order) to: Micro Consulting Associates, Fido 103/511 Post Office Box 4296 200-1/2 E. Balboa Boulevard Balboa, Ca. 92661-4296 Please allow 3 weeks for delivery of your order. Note: No profit is made from the sale of the Public Domain software in this collection. The price is applied entirely to the cost of downloading the software over the phone lines, running a BBS to receive file submissions, and inspecting, cataloguing, archiving and maintaining the files. Obtaining this software yourself through the use of a computer with a modem using commercial phone access would cost you much more than what we charge for the service... Please specify what type of format you would like the disks to be prepared on. The following choices are available: IBM PC-DOS Backup utility Zenith MS-DOS 2.11 Backup Utility DSBackup Fastback Plain ol' files (add $50, though, it's a lot of work and takes more diskettes...) Add $30 if you want the library on 1.2 meg AT disks (more expensive disks). There are no shipping or handling charges. California residents add 6% tax. For each sale, $10 will go to the FidoNet Administrators. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 16 28 Apr 1986 SEAdog Electronic Mail System Special Offer for FidoNet Sysops System Enhancement Associates, the makers of the popular ARC file archive utility, are proud to announce the release of the SEAdog electronic mail system. SEAdog is a PC-based electronic mail system which is fully FidoNet compatible. In addition to all the functionality of FidoNet mail, SEAdog adds the following: o User directory support, for automatic lookup of node numbers o Return receipts o Audit trails o Message forwarding, with or without a retained copy o Twenty four hour mail reception o High priority mail for immediate delivery o The ability to request files and updates of files from other SEAdog systems. o No route files needed! o A full screen user interface that our beta test sites fell in love with! SEAdog is NOT a bulletin board system, but it can be used as a "front end" for Fido (version 11q or later), allowing you to add the full functionality of SEAdog to your existing system. SEAdog normally sells for $100/node, but for a limited time only we are offering SEAdog to registered FidoNet sysops for only $50! Orders may be placed by sending a check or money order to: System Enhancement Associates 21 New Street, Wayne NJ 07470 Or by calling (201) 473-5153 (VISA and MasterCard accepted). ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 17 28 Apr 1986 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 3 May 1986 FidoBaby's first birthday. 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 FidoNet node 1/1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- DoubleDOS Help Node Change The DoubleDOS Help node (1/105) has been changed. Oscar Barlow, otherwise known as node 104/56, has turned it over to David Melnik, otherwise known as node 107/233. ----------------------------------------------------------------- (========================================================) | FidoBetaKappa FIDO | PHONE: (513) 874-5417 | 24 HOURS! | (==========================================================) |SYSOP:David Eason__________________ | | | _____________ | Telecomputing desig-| | __I'm here!| | | | ned for those seeking| | / \ / | | WELCOME | | current knowledge in| | / ^ ^\/ | | ~~~~~~~ | | science & technology| | (__\ |) ===> | | PH:874-5417 | *| (with a bit of humor,| | | \@/ | |_____________| *| of course). | |\__| |> |__________________| >>CALL US AND SEE!<< | | | | _______|____________|______ YOU'VE SEEN THE | |Rec-\ \ | _______ _______ | REST, NOW HERE'S | |ieve|____| | IBM-PC |===@===|| 640k | | _______ THE | |Netwrk\ \ ||||||||||_______||_______| | |_______| BEST!! | |E-Mail \ \ |___________________________| |1200B| ~~~~~~ | (==========================================================) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Polunsky, 106/2 FIDOREAD 1.5 NOW AVAILABLE The utility FidoRead, which lets you read, print or file Fido Fidonews Page 18 28 Apr 1986 messages from the DOS level is now available in an upgraded version. Version 1.5 has the following features: - Subdirectory name on the command line - Better feedback messages - Message suppression - Supports merged file output Version 1.5, like previous versions, will only work at the local keyboard, not in remote mode. Also, please note that the syntax has changed in order to support subdirectories. FidoRead is available on 106/2, and will be made available various other boards as time allows. The "bombing run" distribution method used back in December will not be repeated this time. DISTRIBUTION METHOD: Archived File (FIREAD15.ARC) REPLACES: FIDOREAD.ARC, FIREAD12.ARC ----------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Stappenbeck, 14/609 NIGHT FLIGHT PROPOSES NEW NET The Night Flight, Fido 14/609, of Wichita, Kansas is looking for other nodes with an interest in aviation. No, you don't have to be a pilot to get in on this. Night Flight's current main emphasis is in the airline area, but there must be other boards that are interested in any area of aviation. Those nodes with an interest in developing an aviation based net treating areas such as, General Aviation, Corporate, Homebuilt or Airline are requested to drop a note to 14/609. Please include your primary field of interest. The previously mentioned areas should not be considered exclusive. Night Flight will be happy to act as a clearing house for suggested net parameters and operations. With the increased use of microcomputers in the entire field of aviation, there must be a number of users with an interest in such a net out there. Let's hear from you airplane nuts!! -----------------------------------------------------------------