Aminet 15

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Aminet 15 / Aminet 15 - Nov 1996.iso / Aminet / comm / fido / fnews4.lzh / fido410.nws < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1987-03-08 | 73KB | 1,406 lines

Volume 4, Number 10 9 March 1987 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (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 ARTSPEC.DOC, available from node 1/1. Copyright (C) 1987, by the International FidoNet Association. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact IFNA. Table of Contents 1. ARTICLES What is the Story on 9600 Baud Modems? The First Echomail Conference List IFNA Board Nominations SEAdog Offer for IFNA Members Public Key Encryption Revisited 2. COLUMNS Irregular column Technical Topics Column 3. NOTICES The Interrupt Stack Fidonews Page 2 9 Mar 1987 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= What is the Story on 9600 Baud Modems by Bob Hartman, Sysop 132/101 So, you've heard all of the stories about 9600 baud modems, and you've seen all the ads, now you want to buy one, but the problem is which one to buy? Before you make the leap, there are some things which you should know: First of all, the International FidoNet Association (IFNA), has created a special committee to study the different 9600 baud (and even higher speed) modems to find out which ones are best suited for our uses with Fido/Opus/SEAdog/etc. The reason for this is simple - there is no standard (that is affordable) for having 9600 baud modems work over standard voice grade phone lines. At 2400 baud there was a well defined standard (V.22bis), but at 9600 baud the only standard is V.32, and modems using that technology tend to cost $3000 or more! This price tag is out of reach for most consumers, so modem manufacturers have taken it upon themselves to try and manufacture modems that work over voice grade lines, and then try to get their technology recognized as the new standard. With over 1000 Sysops world wide, and a user base many hundreds of times that size, the FidoNet community is in a position which is fairly unique - we can help a standard along by deciding that a certain modem is one that does the job for us. In fact, we MUST do this because if we do not, we will all end up with different 9600 baud modems that will not communicate with each other. Yes, it is true, two modems from two different manufacturers will not talk to each other at 9600 baud. Think about it - if you go out and buy right now, and the rest of the network decides on a different modem, then you will not be able to communicate at 9600 baud. Is it worth taking that chance? The second thing you should know about is that all of the manufacturers of high speed modems are working with our committee to try and make us choose their modem. They are all offering discounts of 50% or more to Fido Sysops (they all learned from what USRobotics did at 2400 baud). They are all working very closely with me personally, trying to get my standard SEAdog/Opus system to run on their modems. This obviously is important to us as Sysops, since if it doesn't work with our software, then we can't use the modem no matter how fast it runs. I must say that all three companies involved right now - USRobotics (USR Courier HST), Microcom (Microcom AX9624c), and Telebit (Telebit TrailBlazer) have been EXTREMELY helpful (although as you will see later, not necessarily successful). The final thing you should know before I get on to the results of my testing, is that this report is VERY PRELIMINARY, and should be taken as such. My testing is by no means complete, and as you will see, many technical problems still need to be Fidonews Page 3 9 Mar 1987 overcome. Some Preliminary Results: This section contains my thoughts about each modem so far, and do not represent anything except my own views based upon my exposure to each of the modems. Let me start off with Microcom, since they are the easiest. They have so far shipped me three modems, of which two have arrived DOA. Without two working modems it is impossible to do any 9600 baud testing, so only 2400 baud testing was done. At the lower baud rates this modem will not work properly with SEAdog 4.0. The modem does not react quickly enough to toggling DTR, and as a result there are many times when SEAdog will send a command to the modem which will not be executed. SEAdog will then print an error message and try again - this time the command will generally work properly. SEAdog 4.0 also will not properly "fall back" to a lower baud rate when making a call out. For example, you attempt to call a system at 2400 baud, but he is actually running a 1200 baud modem - SEAdog will connect, but will attempt to communicate at 2400 baud rather than 1200 baud. This is due to the timing the Microcom modem uses in first raising the DCD (carrier detect) signal, and then outputting the CONNECT 1200 message. Hayes compatible modems first output the CONNECT 1200 message, and then raise the DCD signal (which is what SEAdog expects). This modem also only accepts upper case 'AT' commands, while most Hayes compatible modems will accept either 'at' or 'AT'. Having been manufactured by Microcom, this modem obviously supports MNP protocol in hardware. It also supports the Microcom SX command set as well as the Hayes AT command set. The modem is quite confusing to configure due to it not being just a Hayes clone. The modem also has two sets of dip switches, one on the front, and one on the back of the modem - making for even more problems. It is also a half-duplex 9600 baud modem - meaning that data can only be sent in one direction at a time. I guess that I will talk about the USRobotics Courier HST next. As some of you (anybody that reads SYSOP echomail) know, I have been unable to get two USR HST modems to talk to each other over a local phone company connection. I have been able to send two long distance messages to the USR Opus system (115/500 Sit UBU Sit), but those two messages took several hundred attempts - not because of busy signals, but because of ARQ (MNP) disconnects (read on). First some technical information about the modem. It is VERY Hayes/Courier 2400 compatible. In fact, in the 2400 baud testing (and below) it behaves exactly like a Courier 2400 baud modem. I have found no differences between the two when I run the modem in non-ARQ mode. The modem also has MNP (which USRobotics calls ARQ) protocol that can be enabled. It is necessary at 9600 baud to use this option. The modem works as a sort-of full-duplex modem. What does this mean? Well, the modems that are connected determine which side is sending more data (don't ask me how), and that side gets the 9600 baud channel. The other side then has a 300 baud channel for sending Fidonews Page 4 9 Mar 1987 data the other direction. This is a very nice feature to have for interactive operation since the modems do not have to constantly turn the line around for each character that is typed. Unfortunately, this method takes up all of the available bandwidth of the telephone connection, and therefore requires a reasonable signal to noise ratio over the entire bandwidth. On local connections this should be no problem, but on long distance connections with the many games that AT&T plays on long distance, it could be a problem a lot more often. I saw this happen myself when connecting to 115/500 when every time I connected (except for twice), I got disconnected almost immediately because the ARQ (MNP) retry count was too high. In other words, the connection was so bad that the two systems took more than 5 tries to send one packet of data, and therefore they disconnected. Since I can call 115/500 and send mail perfectly at 2400 baud (no errors, or very rare), it seems that the USR HST modem may be trying to push the outer limits of the bandwidth a bit too far. What are the advantages of the USR HST? It will work with my SEAdog/Opus setup without any software changes (other than my modem init string). It is also very Hayes compatible, and as simple to set up as the Courier 2400 baud modem. Finally, let me discuss the Telebit TrailBlazer modem. This modem does not use any sort of conventional technology to get its high speed. It uses what they call PEP transmission mode, and basically what it does is break down the entire phone line bandwidth (0Hz-4000Hz) into 512 channels each 7.8 Hz apart. When the two modems sync up to start, they each do analysis of the line quality on each of the 512 frequencies. Then only the best frequencies are used for the actual data transmission. They modulate each carrier at 7.5 baud (that is the actual speed of the modem -7.5 baud), and encode 2, 4, or 6 (almost always 6) bits of data on each frequency. This can give throughputs of 18,000 bps and up! In a normal phone line, the usable bandwidth is something like 300Hz-3000Hz which would give about 350 usable channels, which corresponds to 15750 bps. On my system I was constantly seeing throughputs of 15000-16500 bps. The advantage of this method is that it should work on ANY phone line, regardless of how bad it is. Even if only 100 channels are usable (which seems silly since that is only a usable bandwidth of 780 Hz, and voice grade really requires at least 2000 Hz), then you would have a rate of 4500 bps, which is still twice as fast as our current 2400 bps modems. In addition, the TrailBlazer does automatic error correction when in PEP mode, and because they choose the best frequencies to start with, there are almost never any retransmissions. In my testing I was seeing about 1 retransmitted packet in every 5000 packets sent. Well, how did this modem stack up? First of all, it was the only modem that so far has been able to transmit data at 9600 baud or higher on my local phone connections. This in itself is a major feat which neither USR or Microcom has been able to achieve. It also acts as a normal 2400 baud modem, with a few minor incompatibilities with the normal Hayes way of doing things. Everything (and I mean everything except the on/off switch) is controlled by AT commands in this modem. There are no external sliders for volume, no dip switches, nothing. It is all done Fidonews Page 5 9 Mar 1987 with AT commands (once you get used to it, it is rather nice). Setup with this modem (for that reason) is a pain in the rear end, but once done, the settings can be stored and never have to be worried about again. Unfortunately, this modem raises DCD, and outputs the connect message just like the Microcom modem does, so it does not work for making outgoing calls with SEAdog. I have spoken to the technical support department at Telebit, and they are going to change this so that it will work with the current software available for FidoNet sysops. The modem is also half duplex, and typing a character and waiting for the echo from the BBS can be time consuming, but again, the technical support department has a fix for this which I will supposedly be allowed to try out under a beta test arrangement. Well, now that I have said all of this, what does it mean? First of all, it means that going out within the next month and buying a 9600 baud modem is probably not a good idea. While Microcom and Telebit have been selling their modems for over a year, they are currently not quite compatible with the software that we have available to us, and USR simply has not worked the kinks out of their modem yet (after all, it just started shipping out last week). It also is not clear to me that the USR modem will work on most phone lines. They have not been able to get their modem working on my phone lines, and they have been working with me since day one. In being fair to Microcom, they simply have not been able to get me two modems that work properly, but they also seem the least interested in getting our business. Now on to some specific questions: If I HAD TO buy a modem today, and it had to work with Fido/Opus/SEAdog, which one would I buy? The answer to that is simple - the USR modem is the only one that works with SEAdog/etc right now. Unfortunately, their modem is very new, still has problems working on my phone system, and has not proven itself in the field. What are the prices going to be? From what I know right now, the USR modem lists for $995, and they will sell it to Fido Sysops for $495. The Microcom price has not been set yet. The Telebit TrailBlazer lists for $1345, and they will give us 50% off for a price of $675. Included for no extra charge is the 2400 baud option which normally would add $100 to their price. Which modem do other people seem to like? This is a hard one. I have seen many people choose Microcom, because until recently Telebit did not agressively market their modem, and it was also marketed under the name FastLink by another company. That is all changing now, and Telebit is committed to being more competetive (hence their offer for FidoNet Sysops). The TrailBlazer has recently been named the PC Magazine Product of the year, and has been reviewed very favorably by Digital Review, Mini-Micro Systems, Popular Science, Network World, PC-Week, and Infoworld. Both USR and Telebit have applied to CCITT to have their technology recognized as the standard for 9600 baud data transmission over voice grade phone lines. Fidonews Page 6 9 Mar 1987 If I was going to buy a 9600 baud modem for high speed file transfers, rather than BBS use, which would it be? In this case I would undoubtedly choose the Telebit TrailBlazer. It was designed for that purpose, and it is the only modem that can send data at baud rates exceeding 9600 baud. Actually, the Microcom can do some data compression to get up above 9600 baud, but I have yet to see two of them work, so I can't really comment on that. The TrailBlazer will only be faster than the USR (again, assuming the USR will work on the phone lines in question) when using a transfer protocol that does not require full-duplex transmissions. This rules out XMODEM, but Ymodem-g, and Zmodem both work nicely, and SEAlink with large window sizes (20 or more blocks) also performs admirably. If I was going to buy a modem today, which would it be, given no other restrictions? I would not buy any of these modems today!!! USR has not proven their technology, Microcom has not proven to me that their modems work either, and the TrailBlazer does not currently work with Fido/Opus/SEAdog. If I was going to buy a modem in six months, which would I buy? At that point a lot could have changed, but I would probably go with the Telebit TrailBlazer. By then, the small incompatibilities with our software will have been fixed, the modem is definitely going to work on any phone lines, and it is the fastest of the group. The price is $180 higher than USR, but right now I would think that paying the extra $180 to get a modem which will definitely work is worth the higher price. Who knows, perhaps six months from now USR will have improved their modem to the point that it too will work on any phone lines, and at that point, the 300 baud reverse channel becomes a factor in their favor. With that 300 baud channel, file transfer protocols like XMODEM, and more importantly SEAlink will work just fine. Which standard - USR or Telebit - will the CCITT approve? Your guess is as good as mine - yet another good reason to wait before buying a 9600 baud modem. Which modem has the best error correction? Well, consider that the Telebit TrailBlazer can continue a file transfer even if you are talking on the same line. It won't just retransmit the data that is in error, it will actually send a large number of packets that won't have any errors in them anyway! Call it the "whistle test" if you will, but imaging seeing your file transfer continue at about 50% of its normal speed while you are whistling into the phone. Enough said? Anything else I should know about these modems? Well, there is a lot more to know, but I just can't provide the answers right now. Some things I do know that might be important are: 1. USR is giving a 30 day money back guarantee to Sysops who purchase the modem - please, make sure that if your modem (if you have already ordered one) arrives and does not seem to work, be sure to return it for a full refund! Don't be bashful about this, because it is your money. The IFNA Board Fidonews Page 7 9 Mar 1987 of Directors, and Ken Kaplan in particular argued long and hard for this provision, because of the problems that I have been having with the modems that USR sent to me for testing. 2. The people to contact about these modems are: USR - Wes Cowell - (800) 342-5877 Telebit - Bruce Blain - (617) 263-9449 Microcom - Victor Forgetta - (800) 822-8224 3. USR and Telebit will both be advertising heavily in the coming months. Try to read the ads, and note important figures. Ask questions. I will answer any questions sent to my board, and if I don't know the answer, then I will find out from someone who does know the answer. Well, that about covers it for this issue of Fidonews. As I said at the start of this article, this is by no means a final evaluation, just a first step. It was prompted by the fact that people were blindly buying 9600 baud modems without having all of the facts (not that you do now, but you hopefully are at least a little bit more informed). - Bob Hartman - Sysop, the UN*X Gateway SEAdog/Opus Node 132/101 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 8 9 Mar 1987 Thomas Kenny IFNA node 107/316 The First Echomail Conference List Echomail Conference List, Issue 1, Number 1 (1/13/87) Copyright (c) 1986, Thomas Kenny. All rights reserved Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. =================== ATTENTION ECHOMAIL COORDINATORS AND CONTACTS! PLEASE send updates to IFNA node 107/316 Deadline for the next issue is 3/1/87 ==================== A special condensed FidoNews Edition of Echomail Conference list will be released monthly. The format is still a bit experimental. For now it's just a list of conference titles followed by the name or node of who to contact if you want to connect. The more complete format showing approximate traffic levels, all Nets carrying each conference, and the date of the last update is available as an ARCed file from 107/316 as a SEAdog File Request or by logon. If you are interested in helping to distribute updates to ECHOnnn, contact: Echo Conference Scribe Thomas Kenny 107/316. We are HOPING for utilities to be written which will update the list without anyone having to do any work at all .. and with noone paying any phone bill whatsoever to distribute it But, until BIGMAGIC.EXE gets written, we will be asking Echo Conference Coordinators to send Netmail to 107/316 letting us know the Name of the Conference, who carries it, the "AREA:????????" name, and any information helpful to potential participants. Then we'll type up the list. It's a crude and inelegant method ... but it gets the job done. =========================== When the "contact" is listed in parentheses it means that the conference is NOT currently active but the person listed is interested in STARTING a conference on the topic. CONFERENCE CONTACT ---------- ------- Abled Echo David Dodell 114/15 Handicapped issues Fidonews Page 9 9 Mar 1987 ADAM Discussion Bill Freads 11/700 ADAM Technical Bill Freads 11/700 ADS Tracy Graves 138/39 Ads from SYSOPS that support their Fido by the work they do. Commercial ads from SYSOPS only. Adults (John Penberthy 129/28) AI Richard Clark 107/222 Artificial Intelligence Amateur Radio John Dashner 133/10 Amiga Grey Mist 124/206 Amiga Prog Richard Clark 107/222 Amiga programmers technical information APL Chris Lincoln 107/103 Appl Bob Abbot 157/511 Applications James Deibele 105/3) Asian-American Arnold Chu 107/16 Asian-American Community happenings ASM Barry Dobyns 102/140 Astronomy Don Epand 114/18 AT&T Bob Morris 141/333 Poll/Pickup from Host (138/39, 0150-0225 PDT) Atari (James Deibele 105/3) Atlgate ? Autocad (Jim Quiesner 104/18) Aviation Net (Mark Stappenbeck 14/609) Basic (James Deibele 105/3) Beyond War Andy Kanter 101/301 Bible Efraim West 136/203 Bitch Jim Bacon 103/507 Bloom Net Sysops Bob Stubbings 127/60 Books, Great Jim Bacon 103/507 Business & Economics Randall Kobetich 150/130 Buy & Sell Jim Deibele 105/3 Bylaws Bob Hartman 132/101 Only for Bylaws committee members? Bylfedbk Tom Marshall 107/324 Bylaws feedback/forum for Region 13 Bylaws representative C Language Ed Rauh 141/215 C_PROG merged into the C_ECHO conference in (Sept '86). Chatter *NONE* Chicago General ? Chicago Sysop ? Christian Debate ? Cincinnati Chatter *NONE* Cincy Jesse Armontrout 108/64 Local sysop conference COCO Echo Brian Bream 112/3 Commodore Marv Shelton 107/311 Consulting ? Business of consulting. Cosmopolitan Hal Duprie 101/107 Boston Metro Area: Books, Food & Good Things of Life CP/M (John Penberthy 129/28) dBASE Alex Hartley 100/500 DC Metro Mensa Jim Kay 109/612 Fidonews Page 10 9 Mar 1987 Metro Washington DC Mensa Debate *NONE* Detroit, Chicago, Colorado. There may be two separate conferences!? DEC Rainbow Dave Rene 101/27 Host is 101/27 who polls all the nodes Divers (Rod Lamping 104/610) Doggies Tracy Graves 138/39 Fido clones & compatibles (SEAdog, Collie, Guardian,etc.) Echomail Coordinators Jon Sabol 124/210 For Echomail coordinators only ECPROG ? Programmers conference EQUUS (Mark Indictor 104/606) Equestrian related topics. Feminism Kim Storment 100/523 Fido Developers (Jim Ryan 141/9) Share source code for FidoNet Compatible systems Fire Net Woody Wood 128/16 Fire/Rescue/EMS news and information exchange. Flamers Ken Shackelford 133/1 For Sale ? Alias Buy & Sell Bob Hartman 132/101 Bill Schreiber 151/301 Forth (George Clayton 103/602) Fortran Barry Dobyns 102/140 Freemess Barry Dobyns 102/140 Los Angeles Chatter Fun Stuff (John Bekas 115/212) Music, concerts, misc... Gaming Robert Plamondon 143/12 Role playing games Gay Net Sysop Rick ? Gay News Sysop Rick ? Genealogy Ken Whitaker 143/26 HACK, PC Kurt Reisler 109/483 PC HACK Q&A and war stories Health David Page 109/604 Health related issues (MDs participating) There is also a larger group that exchanges files only. Heath/Zenith Joe Rock 128/15 Heath/Zenith series 89, 90, 100-120 (not for Zenith 150 & up series) Help Wanted Eunhee Hunter 109/626 HOWSWA Bill Bertholf 107/102 How's the weather in WA state! HP3000TALK Tracy Graves 138/39 HP3000 conversations. (Bob Kohl 102/611) (Steve Butler 138/3) Hunger Chris Irwin 108/68 IEEE (Bill Wilkes 107/211) IFNA Conference *NONE* No longer in existence IFNA Policy & Politics Mike Hamilton 103/501 Fidonews Page 11 9 Mar 1987 *NATIONAL* International Fido Net Association. Restricted to Sysops only. IPR Randall Kobetich 150/130 InterPersonal Relationships plus moral, ethical, social issues. Jobs Tracy Graves 138/39 Computer-related Employment Echo (Job Listings, etc.) (Jim Ryan 141/9) (James Deibele 105/3) (Chris Michael 115/429) Jokes (Bill Jones 105/10) (Chuma Agbodike 102/641) JR-MSG Phil Kaiser 104/904 PC jr conference Judaica * TECHNET * Lap-Tops Ej McKernan 15/20 (James Deibele 105/3) Lifestyle Alternatives (Adam Selene 107/269) Polyfidelity, Family Synergy, Celibacy, Feminism, Communalism, Single Parenthood, Foster Parenting, ... For anyone whose life's path is not "mainstream". Lotus Randy Van de Loo 124/110 (John Penberthy 129/28) (Randy Bush 105/6) MacIntosh Leo LaPorte 125/2 All about the MacIntosh computer (developers & users) Magick Brad Hicks 100/523 Merged with Alternative Religion conference Mensa Jim Kay 109/612 National conference of Mensa run board or where there is substantial membership interest. Metronet Don Daniels 107/210 Net 107 Sysop Conference MIDI Bruce Oblander 161/594 Mindset PC *NONE* Conference was dissolved since 16/635 (James Pallack) went down. MOD1000 Neal Curtin 138/14 Tandy Model 1000 Modula-2 Randy Bush 122/6 Modula-2 programming language Nature (Richard Clark 107/222) Net 102 For Sale Barry Dobyns 102/140 Net 104 Sysop ? alias Fidosysp Net 104 Tech NET_104* alias Techline Net 108 Chatter 108/68 Net 108 Forsale Steve Sullivan 108/75 Net 108 Programmer Jesse Armontrout 108/64 Net 109 Classifieds Alexander Wall 109/606 Net 109 advertising (for sale) Net 109 General Steven Ranger 109/621 General user chatter Net 109 Reviews Kurt Reisler 109/74 Fidonews Page 12 9 Mar 1987 Arts and restaurant reviews Net 109 Sysop Steven Ranger 109/621 Local SYSOPs only Net 109 Technical Help Jim Kay 109/612 Net 124 Sysop Jon Sabol 124/210 Net 125 Sysop ? Net 133 Sysop John Dashner 133/10 Net 137 gossip *NONE* Net 150 Sysop & users ? Net 161 Sysop Butch Walker 161/2 Networking Dave Oshea 107/35 Ohio Phil Ardussi 157/502 Opus Chuck Lawson 124/105 For beta & gamma test sites only Packet Amateur Radio Dan Taylor 102/3121 Park Richard Clark 107/222 US National Park Service only Pascal ? (Randy Bush 122/6) (John Penberthy 129/28) Philosophy *NONE* Photography (Bill Thomas 132/225) PIB Bob Klahn 150/1 (Harvey Nehgila 161/77) Politics Bill Bertholf 107/102 Politics and public policy (Phil Ardussi 157/502) (Allen Miller 108/10) (Jim Kay 109/612) Portables (John Penberthy 129/28) Programming Butch Walker 161/2 Prolog Barry Dobyns 102/140 Rbase (John Penberthy 129/28) Real Estate Al Arango 107/323 Real Estate and finance Records Roger Smith 18/14 Record collecting and music in general Region 17 Chatter Tracy Graves 138/39 Region 17 General Chatter Echo Region 17 For Sale Tracy Graves 138/39 Region 17 Classified Ads Region 19 (David Drexler 147/1) Religious debate Chris Irwin 108/68 Born again vs secular humanists RGN17 Rob Barker 138/34 Region 17 Privileged Echo Area Rights Steve Butler 138/3 Shareware author rights, information exchange. S&M Adam Selene 107/269 Consensual Power Exchange Sailors ? Sci-Fi Authors Brad Hicks 100/523 Science Fiction and Fandom. Discussion of science fiction movies, television, book, comics, and all other media. Doctor Who, Star Trek, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Zelazny, Moorcock, Asimov, Danger Mouse, Fidonews Page 13 9 Mar 1987 Battlestar Galactica, etc! Sci-Fi Fandom Mike Jacobs 150/900 For fans of Sci-Fi Scuba Rod Lamping 104/610 SEAdog *NONE* Shortwave Listening Larry DiGioia 129/17 Sirius Bob Klahn 150/1 Sirius test sites only SMART Neal Curtin 138/14 SMART Software System package from Innovative Software SOCAL Barry Dobyns 102/140 Software Careers Lee Johnson 125/612 Star Trek Trivia Steve Sullivan 108/75 Sysop Jon Sabol 124/210 THE National Sysop conference. Fido bugs/fixes, news and sysop chatter. Restricted to Sysop's ONLY! T1K (Tandy) (Bill Schreiber 151/301) (Neal Curtin 138/14) Tandy ? Tech Butch Walker 161/2 *NATIONAL* *TECHNET* Techline 104 *TECHNET* Telecomm Hal Duprie 101/107 TRS80 (Bill Schreiber 151/301) (John Penberthy 129/28) Turbo Pascal (Bob Klahn 150/1) get ECPROG for this topic (Bill Thomas 132/225) UNIX Mike Johnson 170/329 USA Wide Rick Ward 109/635 Small national general conference VAX Barry Dobyns 102/140 Vietnam Vets Todd Looney 143/27 Wildlife Richard Clark 107/222 Discussion of nature, outdoors, hunting, fishing, conservation. Women's Space (Gillian Boardman 107/269) By and for women only. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 14 9 Mar 1987 Bob Morris, 141/333 ChairPerson, Nominations and Elections Committee Fellow IFNA Members, this is intended to clear the air concerning the procedures which will be followed for the Nomination/Endorsement phase of the Election of the Board of Directors. A person who desires to have their name placed on the ballot for the position of director, either Regional or Director at Large, must: 1. Submit a SHORT message addressed to me stating their desire to run. 2. Obtain a SHORT endorsement message, addressed to me, which supports their running for the position, by ten (10) other IFNA Members(not necessarily from the same region). 3. Must send such messages to me via network mail. This must all be done so that the packets reach me by the National Mail Hour on April 1st. IFNA Members who endorse other members for the position will be checked against the IFNA Membership List and against any new memberships which have not yet been entered, but have been received as of April 1st. Please be advised that some regions did not have people who marked something about working for IFNA on the membership application. It is hoped that the regional coordinators will poll their respective regions and draft someone to fill the two positions available for each region. A file, which is file requestable from 141/333 and 141/301, called IFNAMEMB.ARC contains all known IFNA members as of this date. This file will be updated as the data becomes available. Remember, this is our organization, and you make the difference. Don't forget that the last date that you can submit nominations to 141/333 and the endorsements from ANY IFNA member is the close of National Mail Hour on 4/1/87. Ballots will be printed in the FidoNews which is transmitted on April 13, 1987. Voting will be done upto and including the registration for the National Conference during the week of August 17, 1987. Any questions or comments should be entered in the IFNA echomail conference. P.S. IFNA membership cards will be distributed during March to all paid members via US Mail. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 15 9 Mar 1987 SEAdog Offer for IFNA Members by Ben Baker -- IFNA Techincal Coordinator IFNA is proud to announce that it will make SEAdog version 4.00 available to its members (limit one per member) for only $60.00. As you may already know, Thom Henderson of System Enhancement Associates (SEA) had announced that SEA would withdraw the special Sysop price for SEAdog version 4. The reason is that SEA has expended a large engineering investment in this major revision to SEAdog without raising the list price. Since engineering costs must be recovered from sales, the "fixed costs" of the product, which include engineering, now leave them very little margin. Add to this the cost of servicing an order, which is about the same for one copy or a thousand and it becomes apparent that single quantity orders are barely profitable without discounts. In a phone conversation with Thom, I posed the question "If IFNA were to process and ship orders, and remove that cost item from SEA, could SEA make us a price." He discussed the question with his partners and the answer came back "Yes -- but with restrictions. . ." So here are the restrictions. IFNA must not compete for sales with SEA or its authorized distributers. This means that we may offer SEAdog only to IFNA members, and only one copy to each registered member. Members must understand and agree that SEA is NOT prepared to offer technical support to IFNA purchasers. This is not a serious constraint. More than adaquate support is available from current users and from the SEAdog echo conference. To order, send $60 (Missouri residents add $3.43 sales tax, overseas members please make payment in US dollars, and include an additional $5 for shipping and handling) to: IFNA PO Box 41143 St. Louis, MO 63141 Sorry, we are not prepared to handle credit card or COD orders. Only pre-paid orders will be accepted. Orders received by Friday of each week will be shipped pre-paid via UPS-ground the following Monday (provided, of course, that I have them to ship; at the moment I have a limited stock). If you are not an IFNA member yet, but would like to participate in this offer, fill out the membership application at the end of this newsletter and include it and an additional $25.00. Above all, remember this is a strictly volunteer operation, so please have patience. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 16 9 Mar 1987 Public Key Encryption Revisited 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 compromizing the security of future encrypted messages. Simple knoledge of the encryption key does not enable decrption of encrypted messages. The decryption key is reqired 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 recieve 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 would 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 recieves 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" crypto system named after the authors of the article, R. L. Rivest, A. Shamir, and L. Aldeman. 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 coresponding 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 knowlege of the private key. Messages can also be ecrypted 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 17 9 Mar 1987 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 implemented 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. There may be some legal or political considerations in this. I have heard roumors that this sort of stuff comes under certain restritions 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 roumors that some intelligence organization (unnamed) is discouraging public discusion (let alone utilization) of these systems. I have trouble believing this because I had no trouble finding all the inforamtion I could ever desire on the subject. There was even a articles in Scientific American and Byte magazine and a couple 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. PART Three The preceding article was published about a year ago in FidoNews (twice actually due to some confusion) esentially in the same form you see it now. I have received some interesting correspondence as a result. Some relevant, some not. (No spies came to my door though.) Of the people who tried out the software I wrote, most wanted to know if it could be speeded up. It is quite slow compared to ordinary encryption. The speed depends on the size of the keys used but even with extensive tuning I cannot get it do encrypt faster than about 200 bytes per minute on a regular 4.77 MHz 8088. (I would estmate the SEA ARC /g option to be 1000 times faster). This does admitedly limit the value of the system severly. On the other hand, it is the only PUBLIC KEY encryption system I am aware of for MS-DOS PCs. By the way, addition of an 8087 would have no effect on the speed. One way to speed it up is faster proccessors. (Will someone give me an 80386 please?) Even a 386 won't solve the speed problem though. To solve it completly would require a completly new algorithm. I don't know of any and anyway the RSA algorithm I use has proven to be quite secure when used properly (so far). Fidonews Page 18 9 Mar 1987 Another interesting point which has come up is the possibility of using public key encryption for IFNA voting. It would be nice to have some security on the voting process while using our network for voting (instead of the primitive paper system used for the ratification of the constitution). The digital signature feature would be used to sign your vote. This would involve some extra administration of keys for every one and a CPA with a Fdio node I expect. Using encryption on the net does bring up another point. Some sysops like to know what messages are going through their system. They like to know if their system is being used for illegal activities primarily (and some are just nosey :-) ). Also there is a tendancy to follow the HAM radio policy which prohibits encryption of any form. Personally I don't think the HAM radio policy applies to Fidonet for this. We pay for our communication "bandwidth" in real money to the phone companies. They use the public resource radio spectrum. Some people asked to have the files encrypted into an ASCII form which could be used in regular electronic mail including but not limited to Fido. The original version would only produce (unprintable) binary. The latest versions include an option to produce ASCII files. (Version 0.1 and 0.2) Interested parties may contact me via Fido node 134/1. Lloyd Miller Calgary, Alberta 1987 February 25 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 19 9 Mar 1987 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= Irregular Column Well, here goes the second of my irregularly appearing columns. This time around I've got some more comments on the Microsoft C compiler (I've had a little more time to play around with it), and some comments on OPUS among other things. It occurred to me that some of you may be curious as to what type of equipment I have so I'll mention it now to get it out of the way. I am currently using an XT clone (Beltron) with a 30 meg hard drive (Seagate ST238 with Western Digital RLL controller). Attached to it is a Panasonic 1091 printer, and I use a Tecmar Phonegate modem (2400 baud internal). There will hopefully be a second 30 meg hard drive coming in a week or two as I act as an echomail hub inside my net and would like to keep more than a few days of echomail on it at any one time. Now, on to the column. I've had some more time to play with the Microsoft C compiler and feel I should warn some of you who are considering C over BASIC. Most C compiler's have absolutely no direct control over the screen, even to a clear screen (as a side note Computer Innovations C86 is one of the exceptions). If you want to position the cursor or clear the screen, you have to write a function to do it. This isn't as bad as it seems as you can create a whole slew of basic screen functions in an afternoon's work (if you have the right reference book and know how to do it). If you don't feel like writing them yourself, there are several "function libraries" available from various companies. As to where you can find the information on writing these functions, there are 3 choices: 1) IBM Technical Reference on the XT, 2) A PC-DOS version 2.0 manual or 3) Advanced MS-DOS which will be mentioned toward the end of the column. Overall, I just want to make everyone aware that this is NOT the type of thing for a beginner to try on their own. I recently found some time to look over OPUS, which is a new bulletin board program that is compatible with FidoNet. I can sum up my comments on OPUS with two words, VERY impressive. I thought about writing a bulletin board program many months ago and can appreciate the effort that has gone into bringing OPUS to life. For the user's there are several new protocols for uploading and downloading, and the capability of adding new ones almost as quickly as they're devised. Included in the files I've got is the superquick SEAlink (C) and WXMODEM, If you have the latest version of Procomm you can try the WXMODEM as quickly as you can find an OPUS board (and I've seen them sprout quickly in the nodelist). I've got a program that is supposed to include SEAlink (C) called TELIX, but haven't gotten around to playing with it at this time. From what I've heard on the net the protocol is supposed to be very quick. User's can also peek into an ARChive file to see what's in it online. It also has ANSI graphics capabilities without forcing everyone to use them. For message base people, you can now "read" everything in a message Fidonews Page 20 9 Mar 1987 base without having to hit return between each one, great if you've been away for awhile, just turn on a capture buffer and read 'em after you sign off. On the sysop side there's only one downbeat note, OPUS cannot yet send netmail. It's only capable of receiving mail (at ANY time), although it will allow you to enter netmail. For the time being you have to use either FIDO or SEAdog to send your mail. This shouldn't be too much of a problem as OPUS can use most of your FIDO files (USER.BBS, SCHED.BBS, etc). Otherwise you have a much greater control over how the BBS should look, unbelievable control capabilities in any displayed text file, much greater control over what can be done in any message area (OPUS "knows" about echomail among other things), and the capability of not seeing all the SEEN-BY lines in an echomail conference. You also have quite a bit of control over time allowed, minimum baud rates for certain things. Overall it is a very impressive program and I'd advise everyone out there to take a look at it. I'd also like to thank Wynn Wagner for taking the time to write and debug it. I've had a chance to play with Reflex from Borland the past few days and am already somewhat impressed with it. It a general purpose database manager as far as I'm concerned with a few nice features. I don't particularly care for their method of switching between records, but you may not mind it. It's very easy to create and modify the structure of a database within in the program and you can design your own input form (make it look like you want). The nice feature in it that caught my eye was it's ability to generate graphs from the database. I remember trying to teach someone (at that time my boss) how to generate a graph in Lotus and this would be a breeze by comparison. If you've got a graphics card (hercules or color) you can view the graph as you play with it, kind of like watching everything as you put it together. I wish I had something like this when I took physics, it would have saved at least an hour a week on the lab reports and I might have understood things a little better. Reflex also allows you to view your data several different ways at the same time, thus if you were putting together that lab report, you could see immediately which points were off and fudge the data a little (I know, I shouldn't encourage this but didn't we all tend to fudge data on lab reports occasionally). I think it would be a very good first database program for most people. It teaches you the basics without getting everyone confused with a lot of other things at the same time, and since you can import and export data from many other programs you won't have to reenter a lot of data if you're switching from something else now, or decide to go with a different program at some future date. The best computer book I've seen recently is Advanced MS-DOS by Ray Duncan. The reference section in the back is a must for someone who is programming in C or Assembler. It lists all of the DOS and BIOS interrupts and how to use them in your programs. I used it myself to write some video functions this past week. I Fidonews Page 21 9 Mar 1987 found out about this book from Ray Duncan's column in Dr. Dobbs Journal and intend on making it a permanent part of my library. It's available from Microsoft Press for $22.95 My time on Leather Goddesses of Phobos has started decreasing as I start playing StarFlight from Electronic Arts more and more each day. StarFlight is not quite an adventure, yet more than the standard mindless shoot 'em up type game. You start off with some money and use it to train and equip a ship. As you explore the galaxy, you can land on planet's where you can find minerals and artifacts which can be sold back at the base. You will also run across several different species, some more warlike than others. So far I've managed to do an initial survey of about 50 systems and am thoroughly enjoying the game. I haven't lost my ship yet although I've come close a few times due to either damage or running out of energy. Electronic Arts claim that there are over 800 planets including Earth, which I haven't been able to find it yet (If you find it, please drop me a line on where it is for my own curiosity). List price on the game is $50.00. That about ties it up for this column, If you have any comments on something I've written about, or something you think I should look at (and write about), let me know and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. If I think it's important enough, I'll stick it at the end of my next column. If you're a user of a BBS, please mention to your sysop that mail to me should be routed through 157/0, 157/502, or 157/1. If you're a sysop, please note the last sentence. All those nodes are running SEAdog and will forward the message to me within 24 hours. Dale Lovell 3266 Vezber Drive Seven Hills, OH 44131 usenet: ..!ncoast!lovell FidoNet: 157/504 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 22 9 Mar 1987 Bob Arnold Random Access BBS (Opus 260/320) Technical Topics ================ This is the first in what I hope will become a continuing series of columns on various technical topics of concern to the BBS sysop and user. Almost any topic of a technical nature will be discussed. No, I DON'T want to get into the censorship thing here. That's a topic best left for discussion in other areas. We'll deal with hardware and software here. "What gives this bozo the right to write this thing", I heard somebody ask. Simple. I've been involved with microcomputers since the days of the early TRS-80 Model 1. Anybody remember the huge (for then) 4 K of dynamic RAM and a barely useable BASIC in ROM? I thought when I upgraded to 16K and Level 2 BASIC that I had EVERYTHING anybody ever wanted in a "personal" computer. Hoo boy was I WRONG! The XT system that runs my BBS has over 160 times more RAM and at least a thousand times more storage space. In case you got out the calculator that's 640K ram plus a 2 Meg Ram drive and a 60 Meg Hard Drive. I've since gone thru an Apple II+, an Atari 400, an Atari 800XL with 1050 drive, an Apple //e, a TRS-80 Model 100, and a highly modified Kaypro 2/83 in addition to the XT compatible I built myself. The Apple II+ has found a new home with another owner as has the Model 1 but the rest still reside in the Random Access computer lab doing more or less usefull work as needed. Some of that work is as a freelance writer of a weekly computer column for the Syracuse Herald-American Sunday issue. It reaches a quarter of a million homes in upstate NY and I'm told they figure almost a half million people have access to the paper as a whole. That column, like this one, is done entirely on computers until it reaches the newsprint at the printing press. There's a story there but I'll save it for another time. The job that pays the bills is as a service technician for a large independant service center here in the northeast. I prefer to have it remain nameless. You'll never see the name here or anywhere else that I write either. My work includes hard drives, the entire IBM small system line (PC, XT, and AT), and almost anything else that's compatible. With that out of the way here goes. I've seen many messages flying about on the SYSOP echo about hard drives and heat problems. Since I encounter this quite frequently I've worked out several solutions. If you've stacked a pair of hard drives in the same mounting bay I suggest that you re-mount them side by side on the BOTTOM of Fidonews Page 23 9 Mar 1987 the mounting bays. There's method to my madness! Heat rises and one of the most sensitive areas of a hard drive is the frequently densely packed electronics area on the bottom of the hard drive. Many clone systems and lately IBM boxes have the metal mounting bay cut out so that air can flow to the underside of the drive. Some clone boxes even have a cut-out on the bottom of the chassis under the bays to mount a small fan (more in a bit on the subject of fans). This mounting style helps to spread the heat out over a larger area and reduce the heat built up in one small area. Just be carefull when mounting half height floppies. I got "burned" once when I mounted a pair of floppies over a pair of hard drives. The problem? Interaction between the floppy drives and the heads of the hard drives. The floppies were direct drive units of relatively cheap design and the motors of each drive were poorly shielded. Whenever one of the floppy drives started up (as in a copy operation) the hard drive under it experienced read errors. I got very lucky and realized that the design of the floppy chassis would support the hard drives mounted above the floppy drive. Just in case you're wondering, when I mounted the two floppy drives together in a stack they interacted with each other! Watch out for extremely cheap floppy drives! On the subject of adding fans, DON'T. In general they draw or blow considerable dust into the machine. The hard drive must take in air thru a built in filter assembly. These are NOT user replaceable or cleanable. It'll cost you almost as much as a new drive to have internal maintainance done in a clean room on the old drive if the filter clogs up. The additional dust acts like a fine grit and can actually eat away floppy drive heads unless you methodically clean your floppy drives about every two weeks. I've seen far too many heads tossed in the trash can because of excessive wear due to poor cleaning and high dust levels. The real secret to cooling is to increase air flow by removing the extra slot covers. I know that the IBM manual says this will louse up their cooling flow but it WORKS! With the additional slow speed air flow it's much cooler inside the box and the increase in dust intake is minimal. The boards tend to collect the dust which can be easily cleaned off with a can of compressed air available from most electronic or camera supply houses. There are several other fatal errors hard drive owners make that are easily prevented. NEVER move the system while the drive is still spinning EVEN IF THE HEADS SEEM LOCKED IN PLACE! Despite the fact that you may have run some type of "PARK" utility (another thing most users forget to do) the heads may still not have a mechanical lock to keep them away from the platter surfaces until the platters have stopped. If the heads contact the platter surface they'll gouge out the magnetic coating and damage the drive beyond economical repair. Head damage will also result from the "crash". Another has more to do with software and backups. With the Fidonews Page 24 9 Mar 1987 release of DOS 3.x, many users decided to update their version of DOS. The problem comes when you restore the data from the old drive. If the old DOS 2.X COMMAND.COM file winds up back on the hard drive it will seem to run fine BUT it will eventually crash making most of your data into a random mess of bits and bytes. I've rescued at least 20 systems from this awfull fate and it's no easy task. Just be sure that you have the right version of the COMMAND.COM file on the hard drive BEFORE you boot it after a restore or changing DOS versions. Compare the file size and date from the DOS master floppy with the one on the hard drive. If they're different use the SYS utility to put the two hidden files on the drive and then COPY the COMMAND.COM file to the hard drive. If the SYS utility won't put the hidden files on the hard drive DON'T GO ANY FURTHER. Back up the drive and re-format it from the low level format up through to the standard DOS FORMAT routine to get the proper cluster size. This applies to changing DOS versions as well. The cluster is the basic unit of hard drive storage. With the older DOS 2.X DOS and a 20 meg drive, the cluster is about 4 k in size. With a 30 meg drive the cluster takes up 8 K. This is the minimum ammount of drive space that DOS will allocate. Even if your file is only 122 bytes long it will still take 4 or 8 K of space on the hard drive to store it. With the change to DOS 3.X, the cluster size becomes 2K for a 20 or 30 meg drive. Saves quite a bit of space huh? It seems that you're still stuck with 4 K clusters on a 10 meg drive though. The final fatal error is NOT BACKING UP THE HARD DRIVE! Oh sure, you think "It'll NEVER happen to ME!". Let me tell ya, it can and WILL. If you have even an old backup it's much easier to pick up the pieces that with no backup at all. I've taken up enough space in this first column. One of the pluses of publishing here is the ability of you, the reader to send an "instant" reply with your suggestions or gripes. I fully intend that this is YOUR column and will try my best to answer your questions here. I'll know by your response within about a week after this hits the FIDO News if I should devote additional time to writing more of these columns. I plan on one about every two weeks if you ask for more. Let's hear from you today. The address is The Random Access at 260/320. If you want to call direct the number is (315) 697-3996. Bob Arnold ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 25 9 Mar 1987 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 17 May 1987 Metro-Fire Fido's Second Birthday BlowOut and Floppy Disk Throwing Tournament! All Fido Sysops and Families Invited! Contact Christopher Baker at 135/14 for more information. 24 Aug 1989 Voyager 2 passes Neptune. If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1/1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 26 9 Mar 1987 __ The World's First / \ BBS Network /|oo \ * FidoNet * (_| /_) _`@/_ \ _ | | \ \\ | (*) | \ )) ______ |__U__| / \// / Fido \ _//|| _\ / (________) (_/(_|(____/ (jm) Membership for the International FidoNet Association Membership in IFNA is open to any individual or organization that pays an annual specified membership fee. IFNA serves the international FidoNet-compatible electronic mail community to increase worldwide communications. ** Name _________________________________ Date ________ Address ______________________________ City & State _________________________ Country_______________________________ Phone (Voice) ________________________ Net/Node Number ______________________ Board Name____________________________ Phone (Data) _________________________ Baud Rate Supported___________________ Board Restrictions____________________ Special Interests_____________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ Is there some area where you would be willing to help out in FidoNet?_______ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ Send your membership form and a check or money order for $25 to: International FidoNet Association P. O. Box 41143 St Louis, Missouri 63141 USA Thank you for your membership! Your participation will help to insure the future of FidoNet. ** Please NOTE that IFNA is a general not-for-profit organization in formation and Articles of Association and By-Laws were adopted by the membership in January 1987. An Elections Committee has been established to fill positions outlined in the By-Laws for the Board of Directors. An IFNA Echomail Conference has been established on FidoNet to assist the Elections Committee. We welcome your input on this Conference. -----------------------------------------------------------------