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Volume 4, Number 11 23 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. EDITORIAL What's IFNA Up To? 2. ARTICLES BROADCASTING Echo Conference Copyright warning, re: FidoNews and on-line info theft SeaDog has arrived ! What's in a name? The End of FidoNews? Amateur Radio Novice License: A Better Bargain And Now for the Rest of the Story! Convoy to the Wall 3. COLUMNS Column Without a Name Technical Topics - Getting It From There To Here 4. FOR SALE Magazine on Disk for IBM PC and Compatibles 5. NOTICES The Lost Issue The Interrupt Stack Fidonews Page 2 23 Mar 1987 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= What's IFNA Up To? What has IFNA been doing lately? The big public hooraw for longer than I care to think about has been the bylaws, but that's over now. Onward! Plenty of things have been happening. Here are a few: 1) Some more political junk. Now that we have bylaws, we have to start electing a Board of Directors. Lucky for me I don't have to do anything about it. A Nominations and Elections Committee has been appointed, with Bob Morris (141/333) in charge. I gather that, much to my surprise, he is actually well on his way to having a full slate for folks to vote on. I would have sworn that we'd never find twenty people willing to sit on the board, but it's starting to sound like we might just make it. 2) The next conference is starting to take shape. A group has formed to host the event (probably somewhere in the Washington, DC area), and has even found a commercial backer to provide most of the front money. 3) The Technical Standards Committee is continuing its fine work, and building on the excellent foundation it started with the Basic Protocol Standards Document. A subcommittee has been formed to investigate and evaluate 9600 baud modems. No vendor seems to quite have a modem yet that will work with our existing software on typical phone lines, but they are coming close. At least two modem manufacturers are working actively with IFNA to modify their hardware for our needs. 4) While we don't have the resources (yet) to start our own lobbying group, Kurt Reisler (109/74) is working on establishing a legislative watchdog group to keep us informed on pending Federal legislation which may affect us. 5) International mail isn't fixed yet, but the mechanism for handling it has been worked out, and the pieces are slowly being put in place. More on this in a future issue. In short, IFNA has been making like the proverbial duck. You may not see much activity up top, but we're paddling like mad underneath! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 3 23 Mar 1987 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= NATIONAL BROADCASTERS ECHO TO BE INSTALLED Broadcast_Software BBS 9026 Natural Bridge Rd St Louis, MO 63121 Fido 100/517 data:314-427-4064 voice:314:427-4720 Echo operated by Glen Jackson We are looking for FIDO's that would like to participate in a national Broadcast Echo. This Echo will be used for engineers,radio programmers, and market executives. Very much in the infant stage, even at our net, we feel that there could be more interest developed if implanted on a National level. This echo could also be made available to the general public in order for them to ask questions of the broadcast industry. 100/517 will handle all of the polling for the Echo. We will set up our echo conference under BROADCAST. Any SysOps interested, please contact Glen Jackson at the Broadcast_Software Fido 100/517. Target date is March 25th. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 4 23 Mar 1987 Copyright, FidoNews, and on-line information theft from Mark J. Welch, Fido 161/459 Berkeley, California I read the March 2, 1987 issue of FidoNews (volume 4, number 9) with some interest (partly because one of my articles appeared in it). However, I was surprised to find that a copyrighted article from InfoWorld magazine was also "dropped into" the issue in the notices section ("Trojan PC-Write Can Trash Your Disk," page 15), without any note that the reprinting of that article was by permission [or not]. This, my friends, is a copyright violation (unless InfoWorld had given permission to reprint the article; usually, when magazines give such permission, they require a tag line noting that the article was "Copyright 1987 by Mag_Name, reprinted with permission"). The reason I mention this is not to get anyone in trouble, and I doubt that InfoWorld would take any action except to send a polite (or maybe nasty) letter if they found out (I, for one, don't consider it worth mentioning to them). Still, I'd like to point out that we, as BBS sysops, programmers, and writers, should take more care to respect copyright laws. You don't want your commercially-released computer program, which took you 18 months of 16-hour days to write, to be posted on every bulletin-board in the country. As a professional writer, you don't want your copyrighted article, written for one publication, to be republished by ten other magazines unless they pay you for the privilege. And as a BBS sysop, you probably don't want to be defending a copyright case and have the opposing attorney confront you with the fact that you had dozens of illegal copies of copyrighted articles and programs on your BBS, and took no action to remove them. So what *should* we do? In the case of the InfoWorld article, someone (e.g,, the person who sent it to Thom) should have called InfoWorld (800-344-4636) and asked for permission to reprint the article, and affixed the appropriate permission notice to the article. Mentioning the author's name (Jeff Angus) would also have been a nice, polite thing to do. If InfoWorld had refused to grant permission (or if there wasn't time to comply with their usual desire for a written request), the information in the article could have still been used, by paraphrasing it or by calling QuickSoft or the LA sysop quoted in the article to independently obtain the information. (Even though only two paragraphs were posted, they included virtually every word of the original article and no new material, and thus don't count as "fair use.") Fidonews Page 5 23 Mar 1987 Again, I don't think that this incident is significant except to point out the conflicts that exist between on-line and print media, and between various on-line media. This certainly was not the first time that copyrighted information has appeared on-line without authorization; I have seen many newspaper and magazine articles, and many CompuServe news items, copied generously onto public BBSs without any thought that it might not be legal to do so. If CompuServe or InfoWorld writes a news item, and then the author's efforts in obtaining and writing the item are stolen and posted on "free" BBSs and newsletters, fewer people (eventually, no one) will bother to read or pay for the "legitimate" copy, and theoretically the firm gathering the information will go broke, resulting in no information-gathering at all. As a professional journalist who relies on words for my food, clothing and housing, I'm more than a little bit scared by this scenario, however remote. In the U.S., like it or not, information is an asset and people have a right to be paid for their words. If we, as sysops and BBS users, fail to respect copyright laws, we can't expect others to respect the laws either. Also, by violating copyright laws, knowingly or not, we invite the wrath of publishers desparate to save their jobs and profits and, even more frightening, of legislators concerned about tax revenues and the emerging information-based economy. "Let's be careful out there." Mark J. Welch Fido 161/459 [private node] P.O. Box 2409 BIX 'mwelch' San Francisco, CA 94126 CompuServe 76137,2643 (415) 841-8759 [voice, Berkeley, CA] (Yes, I know I'm beginning to sound like a pest, since all my FidoNews articles seem to complain about something. My concern this time comes from *everything* I do, though: I'm a professional journalist [formerly at BYTE and InfoWorld, now freelance], a computer programmer [author of the Generic Adventure Game System], and a law student [!].) (Disclaimer: this article does not constitute legal advice.) (This article may be reproduced without permission, but may not be excerpted out of context or in a misleading way. -mjw) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 6 23 Mar 1987 Jerry Hindle, 123/6, MemphisNet 2400 baud MAX, 901-353-4563 Notes from MemphisNet Well, I finally got SeaDog (version 4.0) in and set up on the system here. What this means to the rest of the FidoNet is easy to figure out. You are now able to do file requests from the Distribution Areas for both Fido and Opus. If you wish to find out what files are in these areas then you will need to request the file "distrib.arc" from 123/6 (or 123/0). I will honor file requests up to 0200 Central Standard time (ie 1 hr BEFORE the National Mail Hour) and will resume honoring them at 0430. You will be wasting your money to try requests any time between 0200 and 0430. Any file in the Fido, Opus, or (in one instance) General file areas is available. Ok now that I have that out of the way I would like to comment on a few things that have happened since I stopped writing a couple of months ago to give the issue to the ByLaws stuff..... I GOTTA agree with Mr Thom Henderson on the fact that Fido (opus,Collie, etc) is supposed to be FUN ! If you take the FUN out of it then it simply becomes ANOTHER JOB (which I don't need right now) and ANOTHER PAIN in the keester (again I don't need this). I had a sneaking hunch the Thom wrote those By-Laws that appeared in Fnews with the rumor-mongers, and the Grand High Executioner. Something told me it was just his style. I say that if Fido is going to become a corporate giant in this world (like some of you out there want it to) that I wanna buy STOCK and at least get a return for my investment (of time and equipment). If we are going to run this like big business maybe we better start hiring people to do the managing and PR and office stuff, maybe we better apply for a TAX number, maybe we better start filing corporate returns and hire a CPA full time to manage the books, maybe we oughta start advertising. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Well for a big corporation the above stuff is NECESSARY, for a hobby it is not only not necessary, but downright STUPID! I for one don't give a @#$%$%^ if they do decide to go corporate, to me it is, always has been, and ALWAYS will be a HOBBY, not a business. If we start running things like a business then we are bound to attract attention to ourselves in the form of government regulation and snooping into records (again something I don't need OR want). As examples (and I am not picking on anyone here) if Mike wanted to run his net like a business, let him register his net with the state corporate comptroller, if I wanted to run MemphisNet like a business I would certainly HAVE to register the company with at least the county tax office and file tax returns etc. This could really get to be more then even a 5 or 6 girl office could handle for IFNA since they would have to file reports with ALL 50 states to comply. I say stop all this BYLAWS crap, election crap etc. Sure collect dues (donations or whatever you wanna call them) to help defray the costs of administration, but don't add to those costs by doing exactly Fidonews Page 7 23 Mar 1987 like the government does and adding a bureaucracy to it. the old adage of KISS applies here (Keep It Simple Stupid). Now on to other news.... Seems as though Tom Jennings has decided to depart from APPLE (at least according to the rumor-mongers <hehe>) and go into business for himself. Great, but the only thing I know of that Tom has that I think could even be a money making possibility, other then his computer smarts, is FIDO. Who knows maybe version 12 is being held up for no other reason then to build a distribution chain to sell it. I applaud Tom for daring to leave the "relative" security of APPLE and quote "go for it", all I question is the rumor (and please Tom correct me if I am wrong) I get here, that we may wait till 1988 for 12a to arrive on the scene. Tom open your eyes and look at the nodelist.....more and more nodes are converting to OPUS for a variety of reasons, the least of which is lack of feedback from the author about bugs, we report this bug and that bug and the same thing is always given as the answer "yep that's a bug". If this keeps up then by the time you do have your skateboard technique down pat, this will be know as OPUSNET instead of FidoNet. every day you wait is that much less chance you will have of making 12 a commercial success, if in fact this is what you are shooting for. Now to the last of the news items...and this is more a request than news. ANYONE KNOWING THE WHEREABOUTS of one BILL BOLTON, (late of St Ives NSW Australia) PLEASE have him contact me ASAP. I sent him a set of 34 disks out over 3 months ago and have heard NOT a PEEP from him since. This despite the fact that I have requested other callers from down under to contact him asking him to let me know if he even got the disks (I checked with the post office and they are presently TRACING the package to see if it was delivered). I sent those disks out free with the PROMISE from Bill that they would be returned to me with the latest stuff for Fido from down under. I have gotten this stuff from my other users from Aussie land already, however I would like to know why there has been no return contact. Bill I have tried everything else short of getting on Quantas and flying down to see ya (wish I could, but alas the $$$$ ain't there) and still nothing, how about it, huh? TALK TO ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 8 23 Mar 1987 David Melnik, 107/233 What's in a name? There has been a lot of talk around the net, intentional or otherwise, about the implications of the names people log in under. As it has been said before, we are part of a great medium here and, as it can never be said too often, A VERY POWERFUL one, Fidonet! With this means of communication comes many responsibilities, one of which is taking responsibility for what one writes. I could have easily written this note under a pseudonym that gave no indication of who I was, but that would have made this comment essentially worthless. What I'm trying to say is if one is part of a single or local BBS, then alter egos are fine, but if someone writes msgs that travel across the country or even the state then the sender should be identified! For Net business (i.e. IFNA, SYSOP or By law feed back echo) it is essential that a real name is used!! It is very discourteous if one obscures ones identity when trying to have any form of communication with someone. I have been the victim of not responding to msgs from people I did not know only to find out later that they were people I knew (and owed a favor to), but under an alter ego and therefore not identifiable. Please, heed this warning, if you have some thing to say, don't hide behind a name, say it using your given name! People will respect you for it and the ones that don't aren't worth the bother. PS. Don't send mail as SYSOP, most of us are already a sysop and sending mail as SYSOP just adds to the confusion. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 9 23 Mar 1987 Bob Swift The Power Station SEAdog/Opus 140/24 Is This The End of FidoNews? ---------------------------- Here it is, Wednesday night and still no sign of this week's FidoNews. After Thom's Editorial in Volume 4, Number 7, I am beginning to wonder if this is the beginning of the end for our beloved newsletter. I don't know about you, but I want to see it continue! How many of you remember back to September 1986 to "The Day FidoNews Didn't Come Out"? A pretty disturbing time for us "FidoNews Junkies", wasn't it? Well, that is NOTHING compared to the present situation and the very real possibility that the newsletter will be discontinued without our support. I have read (in the FidoNews Article Submission Guidelines) that the estimated readership of FidoNews is SEVENTY THOUSAND. Where are you all? Surely there are a few of you that have considerably more literary talent than I have that can submit something of interest for publication. The Submission Guidelines clearly state that "All of the articles which appear in FidoNews are written by users of FidoNet(tm)". Note that this said "users", which means you don't HAVE to be a SysOp to submit an article. I have seen a number of Bulletin Boards with a special file area devoted to "Articles & Stories", and have seen some excellent work there. Why not share it with the rest of us? Perhaps some of you are saying to yourself, "But I don't know what to write about." That's easy. Simply choose a topic that you are interested in, or something that is affecting the way we operate our systems, or something that you want the rest of us to know about. How about topics like the recent PC Magazine decision to allow their software to be posted on BBS's and how that affects the BBS community, a review of a new product like the Commodore RAM Expansion, or maybe just some Tips & Tricks. These are all articles that I would like to see here. It has been said that many of you are opting to post your articles in the EchoMail areas rather than submitting them to FidoNews. Perhaps this is one reason why a number of the EchoMail conferences are becoming too large to handle or follow. I look forward to reading the FidoNews every week because it usually gives me a brief rundown on a number of topics and I don't have to sort out the interesting and useful information from the "flames". It is my feeling that this newsletter belongs to all of us (despite the Copyright notice on the cover) and is in danger of going under if WE don't contribute. WE means you and me. This is my contribution, where's yours? With a readership of seventy thousand, that should leave at least sixty-nine thousand of you that we have yet to hear from. I look forward to reading your Fidonews Page 10 23 Mar 1987 articles in FidoNews for a long time to come. Thank-you. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 11 23 Mar 1987 Enhancements to Amateur Radio Novice License Steve Bonine, KB9X Sysop, Cope BBS, 115/777 Many of the users of Fido are amateur radio operators. This should come as no surprise, since there is much in common between modeming and the hobby of amateur radio. Both are basically communication with peers who have a common interest; only the mode of communication is different. Amateur radio is the only hobby which is licensed by the Federal Government. This is a mixed blessing. Without some form of "weeding out" process, amateur radio would degenerate into the chaos which marked Citizen's Band radio a few years ago. The high standards of conduct and self-regulating of amateur radio have long been a source of pride to the fraternity. Most current operators feel that the requirement to learn Morse code to obtain the entry-level Novice license should not be compromised. On the other hand, this requirement to learn Morse code may discourage too many potential ham radio operators. Why should someone who wants to use radio with a PC and modem take the time to obtain a Novice license, which only allows the privilege of using Morse code? To address this issue, changes have been approved which improve the entry-level Novice license. Beginning March 21, Novices can use voice and computer modes in addition to the code privileges that they previously earned. Packet radio is a recent development in the hobby. Using AX.25, the amateur-radio implementation of standard X.25 computer protocol, it is possible to connect computers using radio instead of telephone lines. There are radio-based BBS's, and conversation between operators in different countries is possible and becomming common. The protocol supports relaying a message through several stations; thus it is feasible to communicate through a large area. On a segment of the ten meter band, Novices can use up to 200 watts of power. (This compares with the 5-watt maximum for legal Citizen's band transmitters.) This frequency, 28 MHz, is close to the Citizen's Band. Conditions depend upon the 11-year sunspot cycle, which is currently at its minimum, so the range of this band will be limited for the next few years. During the years of sunspot maximum, it is an excellent band for worldwide communication, and during the summer it is likely to "open up" for nationwide communication even now during the sunspot minimum. On a segment of the 220 MHz band, Novices can use up to 25 watts. Packet-radio activity is growing on this frequency band, espe- cially in urban areas. An influx of new operators will make it more popular. Range is limited to line-of-sight, but the flexi- bility of packet radio provides coverage throughout metropolitan areas. In short, the Novice license is a better bargain than ever. For Fidonews Page 12 23 Mar 1987 information about classes in your area, contact the American Radio Relay League, 225 Main Street, Newington CT 06111. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 13 23 Mar 1987 Tim Peeters OPUS 139/630 Appleton, Wi. In the last couple of months FidoNews has published numerious articles about the plight of the poor ShareWare authors. We have listened to the Mark Welch's pleaded their cases looking for our sympathy. I found it quite interesting when the Sysop of The Fox Valley Techinical Institute's bulletin board, a local BBS, posted the following message on my board: * * * * * * * * * * * * Notes from the 1st Annual Shareware Conference, by Judith Brown I was lucky enough to attend the 1st Annual Shareware conference in Houston on February 21st for authors, librarians and system operators. The following are some notes which I thought may be of interest. Jim Button has been "locked in a closet for the past year, existing only on Twinkies and Coke which have been passed to him through the door." He has thrown out the source code for PC-File III and is completely rewriting it in another language. PC-File + will be announced in the first half of March. It will run 5 times as fast as PC-File III and be twice as easy to use. Last year Button's income was in excess of $2,000,000. Marshall Magee's commercial version of Automenu 4.0 will be released March 26th as shareware. He now has over 15,000 registered users and is receiving an additional 500-700 registrations per month. Not bad for a young man whose dad told him to forget about computers because they were a passing fad! Bob Wallace who wrote PC-Write just recently released version 2.7. He employs 20 people and currently recieves $40,000-$50,000 per week. Version 3.0 will be going into Beta testing in March or April and the final version will be released in May or June. There will be no manual included on the disk due to space limitations, however extensive on-line help will be available. * * * * * * * * * * * * * Surprised? I'm not. I would imagine that Smith & Barkelew, the authors of PROCOMM, along with many other quality shareware Fidonews Page 14 23 Mar 1987 authors enjoy similar rewards. I think if you have a Shareware product that's really worth something compensation is really not a problem. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 15 23 Mar 1987 Todd Looney Vietnam Veterans Valhalla 143/27 CONVOY TO THE WALL Plans are well underway and continue for a nationwide convoy to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. All convoys are scheduled to arrive in D.C. for a July 4th memorial service at the Wall. According to Bob Castagna, Organizing Chairman of the Convoy to the Wall, an estimated two million vets and their families are planning to be there. The following timetable is reprinted without the permission of Penny Decker, Editor of Pathfinders EVAC (Effective Vietnam Veterans Action Center), Klamath, Oregon (but nothing but good can come of its further distribution to the hundreds of veterans are active in the International Vietnam Veterans Echomail Conference [yes...it is now being hosted in Europe!], not to mention the countless vets who read the Fido Newsletter, so I hope she will forgive me). For further information, please contact Bob Castagna, VVA Chapter #179, P.O. Box 823, Medford, Oregon, 97501, or just send a message to me at Fidonet (tm) node 143/27 in San Jose, California (I have Seadog running here so you can crash it to me anytime of the day or night). Make your plans now...the departure date is less than 4 months away! CONVOY TO THE WALL ROUTE AND TIMETABLE Northern Route ----------------------------------------------------------------- CITY ARRIVE DEPART HWY/ROUTE ----------------------------------------------------------------- Medford, Or. 6am 6/26 I-5, 44, 395 Reno, Nv. Noon 6/26 2pm 6/26 I-80 Salt Lake City, Ut 2am 6/27 6am 6/27 I-80 Denver, Co. 8pm 6/27 6am 6/28 I-80 Omaha. Neb. 8pm 6/28 6am 6/29 I-80 Chicago, Ill. 4pm 6/29 6am 6/30 I-65, I-70 Pittburgh, Penn. 7pm 6/30 6am 7/1 I-76, I-70, I-81 Winchester, Va. 1pm 7/1 (Staging area until July 4th) Central Route ----------------------------------------------------------------- CITY ARRIVE DEPART HWY/ROUTE ----------------------------------------------------------------- Los Angeles, Ca. 6am 6/26 I-10, I-15 Gallup. New Mex. 1pm 6/26 3pm 6/26 I-15 Cedar City, Ut. 7pm 6/26 6am 6/27 I-15, I-70 Denver, Colo. 8pm 6/27 6am 6/28 I-70 Kansas City, Kan. 8pm 6/28 6am 6/29 I-70, I-64 Louisville, Ky. 7pm 6/29 6am 6/30 I-64 Fidonews Page 16 23 Mar 1987 Charleston, W. Va. 2pm 6/30 6am 7/1 I-79, 40, I-81 Winchester, Va. 3pm 7/1 (Staging area until July 4th) Southern Route ----------------------------------------------------------------- CITY ARRIVE DEPART HWY/ROUTE ----------------------------------------------------------------- Los Angeles, Ca. 6am 6/26 I-15, I-40 Gallup, New Mex. 9pm 6/26 6am 6/27 I-40 Amarillo, Tx. 4pm 6/27 6am 6/28 I-40 Little Rock, Ark. 7pm 6/28 6am 6/29 I-40 Nashville, Tenn. 5pm 6/29 6am 6/30 I-40, I-81 Roanoke, Va. 5pm 6/30 8am 7/1 I-81 Winchester, Va. 1pm 7/1 (Staging area until July 4th) My wife Nancy and I plan to take the Central Route (we HATE I-80!) and will be forming our own convoy departing San Jose, Ca. at 9am 6/25 and to ariive in Los Angeles, Ca. at 7pm 6/25, Hwy 101, I-5. We will be ready to depart 6/26 at 6am. Hope to see as many of you there as possible! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 17 23 Mar 1987 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= Well, it's been a busy week so this may turn out shorter than the previous columns. Monday night the local net had it's monthly meeting and we covered a lot. We had several new boards start since the last meeting, all of which needed to be educated in our net's routing and echomail. We've also had a few people switch over to OPUS, and several are waiting for SEAdog 4.0 to come out. All in all, it made for a busy meeting. Work kept me fairly busy the rest of the week, with Saturday being the only day I had a good part of free. Sunday was shot because of a Hamfest being held in the area. If you've never attended one of these, I strongly urge you to go to the next one. Despite the name, there is quite a lot available for computer buffs in addition to amateur radio operators. Most of the stuff is usually marked down quite a bit also, I picked up a few books by QUE at $8.00 apiece and a box of paper for $20.00. You can usually find a few good bargains at every show. One more thing I'd like to mention about the show, one of the people there was selling Public Domain/Shareware/whatever (nothing wrong with this, as they had okayed it with the respective authors and were only charging $5.00 a disk). On most of the packages there was a sticker which urged you to pay the author's licensing fee. All to many of us tend to ignore the license on these type of programs, and we should try to pay for those programs we use before the programmer's stop writing shareware type programs. I didn't have a chance to look over any new programs this past week, so I'm going to go over some programs I've had and used for awhile. This first of these programs is Certificate Maker from Springboard (list price $59.95). This program has seen a lot of use in the past few months, mainly by others in my family who needed or wanted to give out certificates to others for a variety of reasons. It comes with a wide variety of certificates to fit any given situation; from church groups (support for most of the major religions) to the office Christmas party (Most Coffee Breaks award), Sports awards (almost any sport) to the outright ridiculous (Backseat Driver, Party Animal, etc.). I only have two complaints about the program, the first is that you have no way to preview the certificate. The only way to see what will print is to actually print the certificate, I've gone through too much paper through lack of being able to preview a certificate. My other complaint is that you have no way to design your own certificate, you're dependent on Springboard to come out with Certificate disks or go with a very general certificate (No pictures, "seals" or anything interesting). I think this is a very serious limitation on an otherwise fantastic program. You are able to do an equivalent of a form letter by creating a list of people for which to print a certificate, this could be very useful for grade school teachers (just enter the names of those who have completed the multiplication tables and have the computer print each one a personal math award) or anyone else who needs several identical certificates with only the name Fidonews Page 18 23 Mar 1987 changing. Since Certificate Maker comes with over one hundred certificates and Springboard is supposedly working on certificate disks, I don't see any immediate need to be able to design your own certificates. I know I'd be hard put to come up with a purpose not covered by the certificates included with the program. It is very easy to use, and I'm sure many of you will find uses for it that Springboard hasn't even thought of yet. I'd strongly recommend this program to any grade school teachers, people associated with any of the scouting programs, and youth group leaders. Other groups that I can see using this program include business that have an inhouse training program, parents who are involved with their children's education (room mothers, teacher assistants) and anyone who would like to award a friend with one of the stranger certificates (look at the previous paragraph for some examples). Another program that has been a favorite of mine is XTREE from Executive Systems (list price $ 49.95). This is one of the most useful programs I've ever come across. It's a visual DOS shell, but don't let those fancy phrases confuse you. When you start it up it shows you a visual picture of your directory tree, as you move the highlight bar up and down the tree (using the arrow keys) you can see some of the files in each directory at the bottom of the screen, press return and you can look through the files in that directory. Press return again and the directory tree vanishes and it uses most of the screen to show you the files in the directory. In addition to the DOS functions rename, copy, delete; you can view a file in either a debug type format or in ASCII, move a file to a different directory, and tag and untag files. Tagging files is a way of marking them for XTREE only, you can then perform a file operation on a whole series of files. My biggest use for this is when I clear off space on my hard disk, XTREE keeps track of how many bytes have been tagged so I can tell at a glance how much space I've "freed up." Once I've gotten things down to a reasonable level, I have XTREE show me every file on the hard drive and have it delete all tagged files. I've also tagged files for copying to floppies, I've had a few requests for my entire download library and XTREE can copy the tagged files and preserve the directory structure. This way everything is organized on the floppies the same way it is on my hard disk, if the person is looking for the word processors he finds the floppies with the subdirectory "\WORDPROC" and looks at the files in the subdirectory. It could also be used as a way to backup a hard drive and have executable files on the floppies instead of files only useful to the restore program. There is a demo version of the program available on a few bulletin boards, I originally got interested in the program from the demo that was sent across USENET. The demo is limited only by the fact that it can't write to a disk, and this isn't that serious of a limitation. Most people should be able to decide from the demo whether or not to buy the program. It can still be used for a variety of housekeeping purposes such as looking over text files (documentation, system logs, etc.), seeing how much Fidonews Page 19 23 Mar 1987 space a program is taking up and printing the directory tree. Several of my friends have bought the program on my recommendation (or seeing it run on my machine) and now swear by it! No new games this time around, I'm still busy with StarFlight and Leather Goddesses of Phobos. I've gotten a little further in each of them, but still haven't beaten either of them. A friend was kind enough to laminate the starchart from StarFlight for me, and it's helped a lot since I feel better about drawing on it now. I've heard that quite a few graphic shops or printers can do this for you, and I picked some grease pencils up from an office supply store in the area. It can make navigating a lot easier because of the short cuts available, and I can tell at a glance if I'm near any known mineral rich planets. I've been beating my head against the wall on Leather Goddesses, Infocom has come up with some pretty bizarre problems and solutions for this game. It is still very entertaining and has provided me with many hours of enjoyment, although any chance of believability went out the door a few days ago. Both these games are still highly recommended, although if you don't care for text adventures you probably won't enjoy any of the Infocom games. (Yes, I know they have a graphic game. I just haven't bought a copy at this time.) Best book this time around is not a computer related book, although it deals with computers. It's "Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution" by Steven Levy. I've found it very enjoyable reading and it gives me a new perspective on the home computer market. The book is divided up into three sections on different times and places in this "revolution." The first goes into the early days (how early? how about a DEC PDP-1!) of computing at MIT and can be fairly amusing at times. The second section goes out to California and the "Hardware Hackers" who built and designed machines like the Altair, Sol, and Apple computers. The third section pretty much follows around the beginnings of Sierra On-Line and the Apple II computer. The trailing minisection can cause a little bit of self-examination, and out of curiosity if anyone has a recent copy of the public domain EMACS, I would appreciate it you could send me a copy of it along with source code. Once again I welcome your own comments on anything I've mentioned in my column, or something you think I should see (and possibly write about). My US mail address is below along with my net/node number and USENET address. If you're a user of a BBS, please mention to your sysop that mail to me must be routed through either 157/0, 157/502, or 157/1. They should understand what that means, and sysops please take note of the previous statement. These nodes will also forward files to me and are running SEAdog so you shouldn't have to worry too much about mail schedules. Hmmm... this wasn't really shorter than the other columns, must be getting easier to write 'em! Dale Lovell Fidonews Page 20 23 Mar 1987 3266 Vezber Drive Seven Hills, OH 44131 usenet: ..!ncoast!lovell FidoNet: 157/504 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 21 23 Mar 1987 Bob Arnold 260/320 Technical Topics - Getting It From There To Here Many sysops know that files can be transferred between widely differing machines and stored for further transmission. What many people fail to realize is that (more or less) ASCII files can be exchanged AND USED on almost any system. Why I said more or less above is the subject of this column. ASCII codes are NOT necessarily used intact on other computer systems. For example, the old Atari 8 bit line uses a Decimal 155 as the carriage return as well as several other non-standard characters. The entire Commodore line (except for the Amiga and the new PC compatible products) are even stranger still. Another problem is the various word processing programs used. Even in the PC/XT/AT world, WP programs use their own unique storage methods. For example, a file created under Multimate is in NO WAY directly compatible with WordStar or almost anything else. Having multiple computer systems here I've learned a considerable amount about getting files from one system and WP program to function on a totally different system and program. I'll cover some of the basics first. You'll need a utility that will let you look at the file AS IT RESIDED ON THE DISK. I suggest NU from the Norton Utility package but others are equally suitable. With this type of utility take a look at the file and see just how bizarre it might be. If you're lucky, the file will be in standard ASCII with at least carriage returns (or some other unique character) either at the end of each line or paragraph. If not then you may be in trouble. What you do next depends on just how the file will be used when you're finished with it. If it will appear as a bulletin or be used on a BBS then you'll need to make sure that it's limited to no more than 80 characters per line, has ALL characters in 7 bit ASCII (the 8th bit must be off) and that each line must end with a carriage return and a line feed (CR/LF) character. This will ensure that when the file is typed or displayed that it will look as intended. How, you ask, do you change a file around? As a starting point, try your trusty WP program. If it will load the file you can do the required editing by hand and in a few rare cases this might be the ONLY way. If you're lazy (like me) and do a considerable volume of material on a regular basis, you'll want to automate as much of the process as possible. I found an old BASIC program on an local BBS and ported it from CP/M to PC-DOS using UNIFORM to read my Kaypro's DSDD 390K disks. Since MBASIC under CP/M and BASICA or GWBASIC are almost identical in syntax I saved the file as an ASCII file on the CP/M Fidonews Page 22 23 Mar 1987 disk using MBASIC's ",A" option and load it into the GWBASIC I use on the clone. Yes, if you didn't know, Microsoft BASIC on many diverse systems usually will load directly, or has a provision to convert, a standard ASCII file into a BASIC program. The original BASIC program was written to convert text files that were terminated in a carriage return only at the end of paragraphs into files where each line was 55 characters or less long marked at the end by a "soft" carriage return and each paragraph was terminated by a normal return. This is the standard AppleWriter to WordStar document mode convresion. The program runs well but it's slow, handling about 1k a minute. Compiling with BASCOM under CP/M speeded things up considerably. Fortunately for me, the PC-DOS BASIC conversion ran exactly as had the CP/M BASIC version so no serious modifications were needed for that particular problem. Compiling it with QuickBasic increased the speed here too. With a simple BASIC framework like this it's possible to change the program to do almost any type of conversion as long as the file is reasonably standard ASCII with no bizarre storage method used. I've modified it so many times that my working copy bears little resemblance to the original program. Other techniques are needed for files using strange storage formats. A case in point is an ongoing project involving a file created on Multimate. This program stores the files in blocks of 512 bytes with block and format information inbedded in each block. It doesn't even store a document in the proper order if you've done any editing on the file. It's almost impossible to convert this raw file to another format such as WordStar document mode without considerable manual effort or a complex conversion utility that would take too long to write. The answer? I printed the file to disk using the PRINT section of Multimate and then ran a modified version of the conversion program on it to remove imbedded codes intended for the daisy wheel printer the file was printed on. The original 150K file was stripped down to a bit less than 110K using the various utilities involved in the conversion. This is a topic that can occupy an entire newsletter and still not cover all of the situations you can run into so I'll outline some of the basic steps involved in the typical conversion: 1) Understand the format of the SOURCE FILE using some type of disk editor utility to look at the raw file. Simply typing it on the screen or loading it into your WP will NOT give you all of the details you need to know. Look for unique characters that mark the ends of lines and paragraphs and check to see if the file has any characters with the 8th bit on. Make sure that the file is stored in the proper order and that its not scrambled into blocks out of sequence. 2) Compare the SOURCE format against the DESTINATION format and Fidonews Page 23 23 Mar 1987 see exactly where the differences are. If there are but minor differences then by all means use a WP to correct the file. If the differences are great and it would take considerable time to do a manual conversion then grab that trusty conversion utility and do some modification on it to do the job. 3) After conversion by whatever means possible, verify that the file is indeed in the destination format by using the disk editor utility. Small changes may be needed and can easily be done with your WP program. All conversion routines are not perfect! There will almost invariably be a situation that shows up that you haven't dealt with before. 4) If all else fails, try to find out what program created the file and see if there is a way to have the original file printed to disk by that program to make a "standard" file. As an example of how this all works, I wrote this on WordStar's document mode with the justification on. I'll print it to disk when I'm finished but this particular version of WordStar doesn't turn off the high bit when it prints to disk. I'll run the file thru a conversion utility that strips off the high bits, makes sure that each line is limited to the length specifications as set forth in the article info file that Thom Henderson provided and that each line has a CR/LF at the end. I then take a look at the file by using the DOS TYPE command and if all looks good I'll forward it by netmail/netfile to 1/1. Seems like a long way to go doesn't it? There's a way to get almost any ASCII file file created on one system into another and have it useable. You just have to look for it a bit. As a sysop, next time you get a file sent in for display for your system from an Atari or Commodore owner just take a few minutes to analyze it. You might find the conversion to standard ASCII will be minor and you've got another usefull contribution to the system instead of a worthless file. As for the BBS users out there, ask your sysop if he/she can convert files from other computers and don't be afraid to contribute interesting items to both your own local system and to the FIDO newsletter. I'll do file conversions for material intended for newsletter submission here at 260/320 and forward them on to Thom if you're using another type of computer that doesn't generate standard ASCII files. Just send me a netmail message FIRST and ask because I expect to get swamped and may have a backup of files to convert. Bob ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 24 23 Mar 1987 ================================================================= FOR SALE ================================================================= MAGAZINE ON DISK FOR IBM PC AND COMPATIBLES BIG BLUE DISK, the magazine on disk for the IBM PC and compatibles, is currently available at Waldenbooks stores and many other retail locations, as well as by mail subscription. It is contained entirely on a floppy disk. Each issue contains programs, articles, feedback from subscribers, program reviews and demos, and more. For example, issue 6, on sale soon, contains 2 disks full of features, including: - Foolagain's Island: In this April Fool parody section, we take a peek (and a poke) at PC-STRIFE, the ONLY magazine on disk. - Kalah: A computerized version of an ancient strategy game. - Political Preference: Are you "left," "right," or just left right out? Find out with this program. - The Reminder System: Remember appointments, anniversaries, and other important dates with this handy program. - Color Test: Determine monitor color combinations. - The MV Command: Move files around between subdirectories. In addition, there are other programs, articles, and regular features, including feedback from our readers. You can order this issue by direct mail by sending $9.95 (check, money order, or Visa/Mastercard/American Express accepted) to: BIG BLUE DISK, DEPT F2, PO BOX 30008, SHREVEPORT, LA 71130-0008. Mail subscriptions are also available: One year (12 monthly issues) costs only $69.95. (A 41% savings over newsstand price.) A six-month subscription is available for $39.95. Lots of interesting stuff is coming up; issue 7 contains a full- featured database program, plus the first in a series of the humorous, animated (mis)adventures of our unique character, Alfredo. Subscribe now and don't miss anything! BIG BLUE DISK requires an IBM PC or compatible, with at least 256K and MS-DOS 2.0 or later. Color graphics is recommended. Send questions/comments to Daniel Tobias on FIDO 380/2. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 25 23 Mar 1987 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= Due to a glitch that developed in our system when we changed machines, we seem to have sent out an empty newsletter last week. Accordingly, Volume 4 Number 11 has been officially delayed until this week. We'll try not to let it happen again. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Interrupt Stack 27 Apr 1987 Start of the Semi-Annual DECUS (Digital Equipment Corp. Users Society) symposium, to be held in Nashville, Tennessee. 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. 21 Aug 1987 Start of the Fourth International FidoNet Conference, to be held at the Radisson Mark Plaza Hotel in Alexandria, VA. Details to follow. 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 23 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. -----------------------------------------------------------------