Volume 4, Number 32 24 August 1987 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings FidoNews is published weekly by the International FidoNet Association as its official newsletter. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission standards are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from node 1:1/1. Copyright 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 at (314) 576-4067. Table of Contents 1. ARTICLES ................................................. 1 Problems with Opus distribution .......................... 1 2. COLUMNS .................................................. 9 The Regular Irregular Column ............................. 9 Talk To Your Computer! ................................... 14 3. NOTICES .................................................. 16 Notice of action by the IFNA Board of Directors .......... 16 The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 16 Latest Software Versions ................................. 16 IFNA Order Form .......................................... 18 IFNA Membership Application .............................. 19 FidoNews 4-32 Page 1 24 Aug 1987 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Origin: JonesNose (1:321/132) The Problem I could not find Opus_102.Arc The reason for this document is basically that I could not find Opus_102.Arc, two days after the release announcement. In particular, I could not find it on the SoftwareCentral system, and I was flamed by the sysop of that system for wanting him to do what he has committed himself and his node to doing. Dave Finster asked for suggested solutions. I rambled the beginnings of this idea in Meadow, thought I'd take the time to formalize it and get it out, perhaps in time to be discussed at the Conference. Opus distribution format is very inconsistent This is not a criticism - simply a statement of fact. If one polls the various "big" systems around here looking for the major Opus archives, even those of the same version will contain different sets of files. This is a royal pain in the ass. Distribution of new releases often damages other net functions Echomail was thoroughly munged in R16 around Bastille Day In our region, Echomail reliability has been a long standing problem. One of the reasons I was given for one of the many breakdowns was that the echomail distribution nodes were busy sending Opus around on Bastille Day, and "something had to give". If IFNA maintains its hands off echomail policy, perhaps they can at least take some of the preassure off in other areas. I don't see why, with all the capacity of this network, "something has to give". By streamlining and formalizing the software distribution channel, and keeping it separate from the other two primary channels (the NetMail routes and the Echomail backbone), this might be avoided. Distribution should not be a problem of the creator Creators should not have to bear the cost of distribution The creators of net compatible software, particularly those in FidoNews 4-32 Page 2 24 Aug 1987 the Opus group, are doing us all a great favor by putting out fine products for low/no cost. It does not seem fair that they should have to bear the cost of distribution, or even the hassle of arranging distribution. Not precluding creator distribution nets Of course, this is not to preclude an author from setting up his own distribution network, nor does it mandate the use of this network. In some cases, such as Spark Software, where money MUST change hands, it is obviously the responsibility of the author to handle distribution. Keeping track of distribution points should be easy for the sysop The main goal of this proposal is to make the life of the sysop simpler. As it stands, there are overlapping sets of distributors for Sirius, Opus, Dutchie, and all the rest. The sysop is not sure he can get what he wants from the "official" IFNA software distribution nodes. And he is unsure of what the distribution format is. By formalizing the distribution chain, the sysop will have a known good place to look, and the author can spend a little more time packaging distributions and be sure they are consistant. A proposed solution A Software Backbone - a la the Echomail backbone Backbone nodes to be multi-line (described below) Distribution Files Should Be: Identical on all distribution systems The files on all distribution nodes should be identical in name, contents, internal dates, and external dates. Someone who round robin polls official distribution nodes using update file requests should not get the same files twice simply because the distribution systems have different dates on the same archives. On all distribution systems within 24 hours Once a proper distribution hits the chain, it should, in most cases, be on all the other distribution systems (backbone and regional) within 24 hours. Backbone nodes should NOT be otherwise committed FidoNews 4-32 Page 3 24 Aug 1987 A Distribution Backbone or Regional Distribution node should not perform any other central service - they should not be major echomail hubs, NetMail Hubs, Region or Net Co-ordinator systems, IGATES or OGATES. There is simply no good reason to concentrate all these functions into a small number of nodes. By doing so, all we do is increase the chance of one system failure entirely blacking out all the functions of a region. Regional Nodes assume cost of Backbone pickup The regional nodes should bear the cost of picking up from the backbones. This is not as bad as it sounds - there are enough latest and greatest freaks out there that this should not be a problem. The backbone to backbone costs should be borne by the backbone systems. (You gots to pay for a 1/ number!) Should be defined in Policy/IFNA I personally feel this structure should be formalized at least at the Policy level, and perhaps at the IFNA level. I don't want to see this to end up like echomail, where a small group (the echomail backbone) effectively dictates the policy of the net. This could be a good test of the abilities of IFNA to organize something, and perhaps change the minds of the echomail backbone on some of their obstinancies. False Node Distribution Multiline node The backbone nodes would best be run on multi-line systems. Multiple node addresses with same phone in public nodelist Private number of the back channel node is kept that way The backbone nodes would operate (at least) two lines, and have (at least) two node numbers. Their normal node numbers, and a 1/ number. The phone numbers in the nodelist would all be the same - the "public" number. The actual number of the second number of each of these systems would be a closely held secret, and would be associated with the "real" 1/ partition of their system. Distributors are given the real numbers FidoNews 4-32 Page 4 24 Aug 1987 Only the regional distributors would be authorized to use the "real" back channel numbers. This should be enforced by as much technical security as is possible. Authors submit via regional nodes In order to keep the system secure, authors would make distributions via their regional node. The regional node feeds to his backbone back channel number. Once distributed across the backbone, it is fed down to the rest of the regional nodes. Possible problems with the solution Frequent releases A problem with something like this will be authors of highly dynamic products. Authors who add features and release on every change could dramatically increase the costs of running this backbone. Some definite policy should be established on how frequently changes are to be allowed, along with a policy on exceptions. For instance, Opus 1.02 has a couple of very nasty bugs, a 1.03 is soon to follow. While there will probably be a week between them in this case, if the maximum submission rate is one per month, some exception would have to be made. There are also some things that need to be changed more frequently than our "once a month" example rule. For instance, nodelists, newsletters, and the work of the megalist and echolist projects. Distribution Format Changes A related problem is a change in the format of the distribution. If the archive sets change, there is considerable work to be done on the part of the distribution system to change the references. Deciding what developers get access to the backbone Who decides what developers get access to the distribution chain? This is not a simple problem. Obviously, anyone with an FTSC product code should be able to get at it. But many products do not require FTSC product codes. I don't have any answers, good or bad, to this question. How to regulate access in the age of incompatible software The obvious way to control access to the back channel is to control file requests and access on the basis of node number and FidoNews 4-32 Page 5 24 Aug 1987 password. However, given the current state of incompatibility between WaZoo and Bark session security, this is a very difficult problem to address. Wasting a high speed modem and a line The "back channel" lines would like to have high speed modem attached to them. However, since these phone numbers would be have to be very restricted in order to make this work, this capacity would be wasted, to some degree. A possible solution is to nominally have a high speed modem on the backbone's standard line, and a medium speed modem on the backchannel line, and swap them during distribution sessions. I look at this as part of the price one has to pay if one wants to be a "bigwig" in the net. Summation I don't want the job! I obviously am not tempermentally suited for any social or political task in the network. More importantly, I don't have the hardware needed for this job. I don't really have the hardware to even handle region distribution. However, there is a person I have in mind for the task of being an organizer of the backbone - I'm hoping he'll know who he is and stand up and offer to do it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-32 Page 6 24 Aug 1987 NOTE: This article first appeared in FidoNews, Vol. 3, No. 30, 11 Aug., 1986. The author now lives at 1083 Mandarin Dr. NE, Palm Bay, FL 32905, and is a Staff Software Engineer for Grumman Aerospace. * One Man's Opinion of PC-WRITE One Man's Opinion of PC-WRITE by John J. Herro, 1456 Miner Circle, Endicott, NY 13760 The author is a Senior Software Engineer for the General Electric Company. He has no connection with Quicksoft, Inc., except for being a registered user of PC-WRITE. Since he knows of no Fido nodes near him, he is probably best reached by the U. S. Snail, otherwise known as the U. S. Mule or the Phony Express. PC-WRITE is an excellent word processor / text editor written by Quicksoft, Inc., and marketed under the "Shareware" concept. This means that you can download the latest version from your fa- vorite bulletin board and try PC-WRITE for free. You can option- ally "register" with Quicksoft for a reasonable fee, but even if you choose not to register, you are still encouraged to distrib- ute copies of the program. This is such a welcome relief from copy-protected word processors that sell for several hundred dollars! PC-WRITE runs on any size PC, including a PC Junior. The program includes a brief tutorial manual and a quick reference guide, both of which can be printed out. Thus, when you copy PC-WRITE you are also making copies of the two manuals, without the need of an office copying machine! Quicksoft provides several incentives for you to register. One is telephone support. (More about that later.) Users who regis- ter also receive a more detailed printed manual (which would not fit on the PC-WRITE diskette), a one-year subscription to a news- letter, and two free updates (or one update and the source code). Finally, when you register, Quicksoft assigns a unique number for you to embed into the program before you give away copies. If anyone registers from one of your copies, Quicksoft will send you a modest sum, hence the name "Shareware." PC-WRITE contains two major programs, ED to edit a file and PR to print it. You simply type ED or PR ; the on-line help is excellent. When you first get PC-WRITE, you run a special program to customize it for your particular printer. A large menu of printer manufacturers is presented; when one is se- lected, a menu of printer models made by that manufacturer ap- pears. Subscripts, superscripts, boldfacing, underlining, a va- riety of fonts, etc., are then all available if your printer sup- ports them. If your printer is not on the menu, PC-WRITE can treat the print- er as "dumb" (having no special features). Underlining and bold- FidoNews 4-32 Page 7 24 Aug 1987 facing are still available if your printer recognizes backspaces. Alternately, Quicksoft will help you customize PC-WRITE. I've found the telephone support to be excellent, and I never re- ceived a busy signal. Even before I registered, Quicksoft was nice enough to help me with a printer problem. I have a Smith- -Corona Deville 3 Messenger typewriter with a parallel computer interface; it isn't on the PC-WRITE menu. It amounts to a daisy- -wheel printer with a very small buffer. The DOS PRINT command was working correctly, but when I ran PR, I would get the message "Printer not ready, Abort, Retry, or Ignore?" Responding with R caused errors on the printed page. My MS-DOS manual explained how to do "infinite retry" with a SERIAL interface, but not with a PARALLEL interface. Since my version of MS-DOS came with 90 days of telephone support, and the 90 days had not expired, I first called the MS-DOS support telephone number. When they were not able to help, I called Quicksoft. When Quicksoft asked if I had registered, I said, "No. I'm willing to register, but I want to be certain that PC-WRITE will work with my printer first." They were very courteous about giving me help, and advised me to type MODE LPT1:,,P. That fixed the problem, and of course I added that command to my AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Quicksoft also told me that if I had registered first and later became dissatisfied, I would have no trouble getting my money back. ED, the screen editor, has a few features not found even on some expensive word processors. For example, you can optionally make the program continuously keep a paragraph within the margins, even while adding words to the middle of the paragraph! I find this feature very useful. Also, PC-WRITE works with ASCII files - a MUST for programmers. I've even edited .EXE files, because there's no limit to the line length. (The screen automatically scrolls horizontally when long lines are edited.) There are a few "font characters," for example, alternate-B for Boldfacing. These characters can optionally be made visible or invisible. When they are invisible, boldfacing appears on the screen as high intensity, etc. PR interprets the special characters for your particular printer, and also optionally pauses at the end of each page, in case you don't have continuous paper. It also has a nice feature for re- covering from a paper jam in a long document. If the paper jams, you can interrupt PR and resume printing from the top of the cur- rent page or any other page. Other features include definable keys, mail-merge, footnotes and headers, table of contents and index, automatic page breaks, file includes, keyboard input during printing, etc. The method of writing to the screen can be changed to avoid "snow" on some sys- tems, and the screen can be divided into two windows of unequal size. Text can be "cut" from one file and "pasted" into another. Much thought has been given to assigning functions to keys, al- though the assignments can be changed if desired. To COPY a block of text, you use F3 three times: at the start of the block, at the end of the block, and at the new location. Similarly, to FidoNews 4-32 Page 8 24 Aug 1987 MOVE a block of text, you use F6 three times, and to DELETE a block, you use F4 twice. (You can undelete the block with con- trol-F4.) For the masochists among you, most of the control codes of Wordstar (tm of MicroPro) are duplicated. Control-D can be used instead of the -> key to move the cursor right one char- acter, control-F will move right one word, etc. PC-WRITE lacks two features that are found on some expensive word processors. At present, ED cannot handle files that are too big to fit in memory, and there is no spelling checker. Rumor has it that both of these deficiencies will be removed in a later ver- sion. In the meantime, PC-WRITE will at least help you segment large files, and spelling checkers like EZSPELL and PC-SPELL can be found on many bulletin boards. PC-WRITE.ARC is available on the IFNA board, 314-576-2743. I hope that PC-WRITE will become the de facto standard for PCs and compatibles, and that the "Shareware" concept will put an end to copy protection forever! ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-32 Page 9 24 Aug 1987 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= -- The Regular Irregular Column -- Dale Lovell 1:157/504.1 FidoCon, here at last. I'm writing this from my room at the conference having just checked in and registered for the conference. I'll be writing parts of this over the next several days and am going try to keep the flow of events intact. Most of this column is going to be initial views of the people and the earlier events at the conference. While registering I had a chance to meet several people including Thom Henderson. All I'll say is my mental image of Thom wasn't even close! While he seems to have the personality I expected, the physical picture doesn't even come close to matching. So far everyone has seemed very friendly. This paragraph is going to come to a quick close as I head off to SEA's hospitality suite, the reception and hopefully a dinner squeezed in somewhere. The reception on Thursday night proved to be a great success. Got to meet several of the net's more well known personalities, and some that aren't so well known but definitely interesting. The real gem so far has been the Opus hospitality suite sponsored by Vince Perriello. My only disappointment was Telebit's representative turned in early. I had hoped to talk with him longer, but he slipped away from me while I was involved in another discussion. This turned out to be for the better because I got almost everything I needed the next day. We'll have to see how much of the good will lasts through this conference. Thankfully everyone I've talked to that was also at last year's conference say this looks much better organized. With the IFNA meeting being held last on Sunday morning, I'm hoping it will last at least that long and possibly even through the meeting. At the end of the first day of the program my good intentions on giving everyone a quick look over the conference have died a quick death. While the opening ceremonies went without any problem, I started having to type in quick notes (I type faster than I write longhand). By the time the high speed modem report was done, I had over 2 pages of "quick notes" and things only got worse. By the end of the day I've got over 9 pages of these notes and it's going to take me a couple days just to fully decrypt all of them. While I'm still going to try and give you an overview of what going on at FidoCon, I am going to be unable to go into any detail for the most of it. Instead I'll be sending in a series of articles in addition to the regular column and give everyone a proper report on the most interesting, to me, presentations and events. Things started picking up Friday morning with the report from the FidoNet Technical Standards Committee. The basic report went quickly with Ryugen Fisher, the Old Frog, managing to FidoNews 4-32 Page 10 24 Aug 1987 lighten up an all too serious crowd. If things keep going along as they are, we should be seeing a complete level one document (a very complete version of what many of you have already seen) by the end of the year. After the report, several people from the floor were able to ask some good questions of the committee. By the end of the question and answer period, we had already started to fall behind the agenda and we weren't able to get back on it until the banquet that evening. The report on the high speed modems was perhaps one of the longer reports on Friday, and it was unfortunately cut short just to get on with the agenda (we may have gotten over an hour behind if the question and answer period had been allowed). If all goes well the question and answer period is going to be rescheduled sometime over the next few days. Other than that, the reports went well with some genuinely interesting information from Gee Wong and Bob Hartman. Information on why the high speed modems may not work well in certain circumstances, the pipe-lining effect, and other problems that had been encountered with them. The representatives from US Robotics and Telebit were than able to give a short spiel about their products which was scheduled to be followed the question and answer period. While Hayes was present in the exhibition area, we were informed that it is a company policy NOT to appear at talks like this one. I wish I could give you a solid report on the modems yet, but I need to talk to a few people and try to make some sense out of some of my notes on their presentations. All I say is that Telebit appeared to be much better prepared than US Robotics, and that the Trailblazer sounds interesting. After the report on the high speed modems there was a break for lunch, and I spent an enjoyable lunch with Phil Ardussi, Marshall Presnall (of Fido Utility), and Vince Perriello. While the discussion between Vince and Marhsall was very interesting, it did leave me in the dark in a lot of places. I may know a fair amount about programming, but these two left me sitting at the starting line. I was able to learn some of Vince's ideas on speeding up bulletin boards. Among them having a special term program to be used with a particular type of BBS program. Instead of having to resend all the menus over and over, it would send them once. The next time the user needed to see that menu, the bbs would only have send a short code and the communications program would redisplay the captured menu. I've always found offbeat solutions to problems like this interesting and found some of his ideas very interesting. I'm going to have to do a lot of thinking on parts of the discussion, but be assured that once I've come to a conclusion, you'll know what it is! The afternoon program was split into two different parts. One a technical program, which covered most of the IBM net compatible software (some of them new releases since the last conference) and a legal program. I decided to go to the technical sessions, but will hopefully find someone to talk to on what happened in the other room. First up was Tom Jennings, and Fido version 12 is here! This long awaited version is ready. Be forewarned that it is a commercial product, although there are FidoNews 4-32 Page 11 24 Aug 1987 several different rates and specials that will be made available to IFNA members, registered users and other groups. From everything in the presentation, it is what many of us have been looking for in Fido. I was able to get a copy later in the day from Tom, and should be able to give a really solid report on it in a few weeks. The Opus presentation was one of less impressive to me. I am familiar with Opus and although I haven't done a solid review and test of the new version 1, I have started to look at it. After a brief look at Opus by Vince Perriello it was opened up to questions with Wynn Wagner answering. I found it interesting that despite all the claims that his Opus has nothing to do with a certain flightless waterfowl often seen in the Bloom County comic strip, he was carrying a very suspicious looking stuffed animal. While some of the questions were bug reports or problems people were having, there was more than enough new ideas on things to add to Opus to make it interesting. Among them Wynn's proposal for a new user.bbs structure and an explanation of some of the more unusual parts of Opus. I found it interesting that there are three common methods for clearing a screen, and Opus uses all of them. Wynn's personality helped keep what might have become very down beat, bug reports, into something that was entertaining as well as informative. The next presentation was one that I found extremely interesting, TBBS. Phil Becker, the author, had with him a complete 16 line system. While it can only handle mail during specified times, during which the board is down, the package itself came close to leaving me speechless. Many of us in the net have had no experience, and little knowledge of TBBS. Until this presentation all I knew was that it was another bulletin board program that had been made FidoNet and Echomail compatible, mainly through the use of SEAdog. There was something about one reasonably fast (8 mhz) AT running 16 users at once with little degradation to the user that I found impressive. I had often thought it would be interesting to write a piece of software that would handle several different people at once, to find out that it was actually being done astonished me. In addition to this the board sounds to be very flexible on how it looks and what it can do. Hopefully, I'll be doing a series of articles on in the near future. Last up was Henk Weaver with Dutchie. I was surprised to find out that Dutchie originally started as a joke. Henk did a wonderful job describing what Dutchie is and the slot it fills in the net. Some of the people present had never heard of a point and were very interested in the concept. Henk believes that in the next 3 to 5 years we'll see the traditional bulletin board vanish. Instead we'll use point systems for the greater flexibility they can provide. Message base readers can keep up with an enormous number of conferences without losing out due to time limits. Those users who prefer the file areas would merely request a master file list and pick the files they're interested in acquiring and their system would proceed to go and get them. FidoNews 4-32 Page 12 24 Aug 1987 The banquet was uneventful until near the end. Surprisingly the meal was not as bland as usually found at a banquet. My dinner companions were "Mort Sysop" and his wife, my local host and his family, and the Looneys. Combined it made for a wonderful dinner with the discussion including such topics as historical points of interest to visit, the current educational system and universities, and the success of some of the projects the Looney's been involved with and have announced through FidoNews. The speaker after the meal was George Bond, the Senior Executive Editor of BIX (Byte Information Exchange). I learned that BIX has much of its roots in Fido. In addition to the history of BIX, George asked for any help that could be provided to a special project going on in Central and South America. The current war situation has caused several diseases to reappear and the doctors in the areas have often never seen or been trained to handle them. They had been thought cured or eradicated years ago and it was never covered in their schooling. Byte was asked if they knew of any way for a central hospital to keep in touch with its doctors and help advise them. At first some of the high tech people at Byte started going into Microwave relays and satellite communications, until someone realized that this a perfect application of Fido. He asked that if we could spare some time (on the technical matters) or old equipment, it would be greatly appreciated. For further information on this you can contact him directly at Byte, their address is near the front of every issue and address the letter to George Bond. I think it is a great compliment that FidoNet has been asked to help such a situation by providing some technical know-how on the very methods its developed. This will prove to many that we have come up with an important and useful technology. This may become very important if the legislators ever get involved with the bulletin board community. I'm going to wind this down now. It's getting time for another presentation and I've got to get this to Thom a few hours from now. FidoCon has been utterly enjoyable so far and I only wish that more had showed up. Next week the column will be back to normal and you'll see my reports as articles appearing over the next few weeks. In the meantime I always welcome your comments and can be reached at any of the addresses listed below. For those of you sending me mail through FidoNet, please have it routed through 157/1 (157/0) as I'm currently a private node. Dale Lovell 3266 Vezber Drive Seven Hills, OH 44131 FidoNet 1:157/504.1 uucp: decvax\ >!cwruecmp!hal\ cbosgd/ \ >!ncoast!lovell FidoNews 4-32 Page 13 24 Aug 1987 ames\ / talcott \ / >!necntc/ harvard / sri-nic/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-32 Page 14 24 Aug 1987 Todd C. Looney SysOp, Vietnam Veterans Valhalla IFNA (Opus 1.02) 143/27 TALK TO YOUR COMPUTER! I recently had the good fortune to be introduced to a product that I had so much fun playing with I just HAD to tell everyone about it! It's called VoiceLink, and it's consists of a little half-card that installs in seconds into any IBM compatible computer mother-board. The micro-phone plugs right into the back of the card, and the cord is long enough for me to lay back in my chair and chatter away all day long without getting uncomfortable. The software has an install program so it goes onto your hard disk very quickly, and theirs only one diskette! I've had one of these units in my home now for over a month now and have programmed about 87 BBS-related words so far and all I have to say is ... WOW! The ONLY problem I've had so far is remembering the words I programmed into the system (grin). Other than that, it's a snap to just walk up to my system, press the ALT-SPACE keys, pick up the microphone, lean back and say "DO IT BABALOO!" yes, you can program multiple word commands!) At my verbal commands I go into Opus, tell it my name, my password, bark out the menu commands, tell it to "CHANGE TO AREA 5!", "READ 195!", "NEXT MESSAGE", "REPLY AND KILL", etc. etc. I even played around and programmed in all the keys on my keyboard and if I want to just kick back and recite the letters to type, it'll type out my message for me! No more little unnoticed slip of the fingers so I have to go back and edit, GREAT!!!! I must say I've really had a ball checking this product out, and the offer of $195.00 made below by the manufacturers through the Vietnam Veterans Valhalla is a fair and honest deal. It installed in less than 10 minutes (just a half card...took me longer to get the screws off the back of the computer!) This product is worth the $195.00! It's worth the $395.00!!!!!! Go for it...but don't dilly dally! If you don't have the money now, call Bill Newton up and tell him to put in your order and hold it for you (tell him Todd Looney at the Vietnam Veterans Valhalla SAID SO!) TALK TO YOUR PERSONAL COMPUTER!! FREE UP YOUR HANDS FREE UP YOUR EYES FREE UP YOUR MIND WITH 400 VOICE COMMANDS! ADD VOICE RECOGNITION TO YOUR IBM PC/XT/AT OR MOST COMPATIBLES ! FidoNews 4-32 Page 15 24 Aug 1987 --- ONLY $199.95 --- INTERSTATE VOICE PRODUCTS MODEL SRB-LC $199.95! FACTORY SPECIAL FOR LIMITED TIME ONLY! REGULAR LIST IS $395.00 BRAND NEW! INCLUDES PLUG-IN HALF CARD MICROPHONE, SOFTWARE, AND FULL FACTORY WARRANTY FEATURES: 1. 400 WORD/PHRASE VOCABULARY (IE. 400 VOICE CONTROLLED KEYBOARD MACROS. SAY, 'DIAL BBS' AND BOARD WOULD TYPE 'ATDTNNNNNNN') OR WHATEVER YOU PROGRAM IT TO TYPE. 2. SPEAKER DEPENDENT - YOU MUST TRAIN IT TO YOUR VOICE (SECURITY+). NO ONE ELSE CAN TLAK TO YOUR COMPUTER UNLESS YOU LET THEM! 3. DISCRETE WORD RECOGNIZER -- YOU MUST PAUSE BETWEEN WORDS/PHRASES, BUT NO LONGER THAN YOU WOULD IN NORMAL SPEECH. 4. HIGH RECOGNITION ACCURACY -- 98%+ RECOGNITION RATE. 5. RAM RESIDENT SOFTWARE -- REQUIRES NO USER SOFTWARE MODIFICATION! MEMORY REQUIREMENTS - 256K FOR MOST APPLICATIONS OF WHICH 64K IS USED FOR SRB-LC SOFTWARE. REMAINDER FOR DOS AND APPLICATION. 6. COMPLETELY USER PROGRAMMABLE --- YOU DEFINE VOCABULARY AND WHAT KEYSTROKES YOU WANT TYPED WHEN YOU SAY THE WORDS/PHRASES. USE VOICE INPUT TO ELIMINATE KEYBOARD ERRORS, CUT COSTS, BOOST YOUR PRODUCTION SPEED AND QUALITY. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION OR TO ORDER CONTACT: BILL NEWTON INTERSTATE VOICE PRODUCTS 1849 W. SEQUOIA AVE. ORANGE, CA. 92668 PHONE: (714) 937-9010 (VOICE) AGAIN, TELL BILL THAT YOU WANT THE SPECIAL VIETNAM VETERANS VALHALLA OFFER! ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-32 Page 16 24 Aug 1987 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= At a special session of the Board of Directors of the International FidoNet Association held by teleconference on Monday, 18 August 1987: Whereas: An election for a new Board of Directors is now in progress, and Whereas: A strict interpretation of Article 11 of the Articles of Association would disqualify the majority of the new board nominees, therefore Be it resolved: That Article 11 is hereby suspended until such time as the newly elected Board of Directors can convene and consider further action. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Interrupt Stack 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 1:1/1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hello from Bartow, West Virginia! Are there any National Youth Science Camp Alumni sysops lurking out there in FidoNet-land. If so, please contact Mike Jacobs, DE 85, 150/900. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Latest Software Versions BBS Systems Node List Other & Mailers Version Utilities Version Utilities Version Dutchie 2.51 EDITNL 3.3 ARC 5.21 Fido 11w LISTGEN 05.25.86 ARCmail 1.00 Opus 1.03* MakeNL 1.00 ConfMail 3.00 SEAdog 4.00 Prune 1.40 EchoMail 1.31 TBBS 2.0M XlatList 2.81 Renum 3.30 * Recently changed Utility authors: Please help keep this list up to date by reporting new versions to 1:1/1. It is not our intent to list FidoNews 4-32 Page 17 24 Aug 1987 all utilities here, only those which verge on necessity. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-32 Page 18 24 Aug 1987 INTERNATIONAL FIDONET ASSOCIATION ORDER FORM Publications The IFNA publications can be obtained by downloading from Fido 1/10 or other FidoNet compatible systems, or by purchasing them directly from IFNA. We ask that all our IFNA Committee Chairmen provide us with the latest versions of each publication, but we can make no written guarantees. Hardcopy prices as of October 1, 1986 IFNA Fido BBS listing $15.00 _____ IFNA Administrative Policy DOCs $10.00 _____ IFNA FidoNet Standards Committee DOCs $10.00 _____ SUBTOTAL _____ IFNA Member ONLY Special Offers System Enhancement Associates SEAdog $60.00 _____ SEAdog price as of March 1, 1987 ONLY 1 copy SEAdog per IFNA Member International orders include $5.00 for surface shipping or $15.00 for air shipping _____ SUBTOTAL _____ Mo. Residents add 5.725 % Sales tax _____ TOTAL _____ SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER TO: IFNA P.O. Box 41143 St. Louis, Missouri 63141 USA Name________________________________ Net/Node____/____ Company_____________________________ Address_____________________________ City____________________ State____________ Zip_____ Voice Phone_________________________ Signature___________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-32 Page 19 24 Aug 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. -----------------------------------------------------------------