Volume 5, Number 43 24 October 1988 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief Dale Lovell Editor Emeritus: Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings Contributing Editors: Al Arango 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 1988 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. IFNA may also be contacted at PO Box 41143, St. Louis, MO 63141. Fido and FidoNet are registered trademarks of Tom Jennings of Fido Software, 164 Shipley Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94107 and are used with permission. The contents of the articles contained here are not our responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them. Everything here is subject to debate. We publish EVERYTHING received. Table of Contents 1. ARTICLES ................................................. 1 Elvis Lives .............................................. 1 HAYES Technical Support Echo Announcement ................ 2 New Message Editor ....................................... 4 2. COLUMNS .................................................. 5 Let's YACK about The Negative Side ....................... 5 3. NOTICES .................................................. 6 The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 6 Latest Software Versions ................................. 6 FidoNews 5-43 Page 1 24 Oct 1988 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Noel Crow FidoNet 170/200 ELVIS A Generic Echomail Statistics Utility ELVIS was designed to maintain a history of Echomail traffic for your system. It reports counts of incoming messages, in each echo area, and from each network node sending to you. Since Elvis derives its data directly from incoming packets, and requires no system-specific control files other than its own, it's compatible with just about any MS-DOS system that receives FidoNet-compatible echomail. It is useful for identifying dead echos, broken links, and dupe sources, especially for echomail hubs handling a large number of echo areas or nodes. Elvis consists of two executable files; ELVIS.EXE, which scans incoming mail and stores message counts in monthly data files. ELVISRPT.EXE is used to generate ASCII reports from the data files written by ELVIS.EXE. Any date range (that you have data for) may be specified. Command line switches may be used to report only the message counts in certain echo areas or from certain nodes. File Request ELVIS100.ARC from FidoNet 170/200. Size is 39K, about 3 minutes at 2400 baud. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-43 Page 2 24 Oct 1988 Mike Ratledge SysOp of East Bay X-Change TCommNet BBS 372/555, 372/666, 372/777 and 372/888 I am pleased to announce that I have received permission to create a HAYES technical support conference for owners of Hayes Microcomputer Products modems. I will host this new EchoMail area (tag is "HAYES") and the folks at Hayes technical support department will check in daily to answer any new questions. The following is the unedited text of a letter I received electronically from John Aitken, the head of Hayes SysOp support in Atlanta: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc 705 Westech Drive Norcross,GA.30092 TO: Mike Ratledge, Sysop - East Bay X-Change BBS FROM: John Aitken, Hayes - Sysop Support Coordinator SUBJECT: Hayes Technical Support Forum Date: 16 September, 1988 Mike, We at Hayes are actively committed to supporting our Customers, and are always seeking new ways to provide that support. Towards that end I accept your invitation to participate in your Hayes Support Message Area within the Fido - Networking System. Once your Message Area is up and running we will actively participate by signing-on daily, answering questions and providing technical support to all callers within the network. Additionally, I have provided you with full access to the Hayes Sysop Support Conference, where you will have access to all technical files, bulletins, and configuration notes - contained within our Technical Library. Please feel free to utilize any of the technical information that you may find within our file directories and be sure to let me know how we can provide additional help or information. FidoNet callers are invited to submit their questions, suggestions, and comments - within the message area, and we will monitor and reply on a daily basis. If there is anything that we can do for you or your FidoNet callers - please don't hesitate to ask. FidoNews 5-43 Page 3 24 Oct 1988 Best regards and good wishes for your Network! John Aitken Hayes Sysop Support Coordinator Training and Customer Services If you would like to recieve this echomail area on your system, please get in touch with me at 372/888 and we'll setup your link according to the volume of requests I receive. I imagine that this echo area will warrant being carried on the "backbone" in a short time! NOTE: 372/555 is a Hayes V96 unit - it's online at 5:30PM each weekday (until 8AM) and all weekend, too. If you wish to sign on locally, you should call 372/666 or 372/888 and register. Be sure to ask for access to the V96 unit. I will have a second V9600 online by the time this article is printed. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-43 Page 4 24 Oct 1988 jim nutt 'the computer handyman' 1:114/15.11 Announcing version 1.87 of msged, the only Fidonet mail editor with complete c source code. Features include: Message body text searching Integrated full screen editor Uses existing config files (binkley.cfg and areas.bbs) Easy to Use Easy to Install Full Zone:Net/Node.Point>Domain addressing Intelligent Point remapping Support for Netmail, Echomail and Local Areas Uses All 80 columns of the screen Quoting (of course!) Message Forwarding Carbon Copies Address Lookup Text file import/export Abort/Delete Confirm (optional) Support for large displays Optional Tear and Origin lines Direct Screen Video (video fossil and bios support soon) Source compatible with Quick C, Zortech C and Turbo C Creates a confmail echomail export log Large message handling (big version only) All versions will run in under 128k of memory Fast! (100 messages in under 20s 8mhz AT and Desqview) Free! No charge for non-commercial use Coming features include: Message selection list Editor block commands UUCP addressing You Tell Me what you want! Msged is available from 1:114/18 or 1:114/15 for file request as MSGED and a msged support echo is being formed. For more information contact me (jim nutt) at 1:114/15.11. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-43 Page 5 24 Oct 1988 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= YACK Yet Another Complicated Komment by Steven K. Hoskin ( STEVE HOSKIN at 1:128/31 ) Episode 13: The Negative Side "IF THIS REALLY WAS A GOOD HOBBY NETWORK YOU'D TALK ABOUT D&D". This was a message to me from a user about my board. I don't happen to have any message areas that cover D&D. Funny that should be the case, since my advertised specialty areas are EagleTech Software and the national AVIATION EchoMail conference. I politely responded, explaining that "Amateur Hobby Network" means that *I* have a hobby in playing with computers and networking them together. It does not necessarily follow that I support all hobbies. Even though I happen to like D&D and other adventure, role-playing and war games. Then I get this guy who calls in with a name whose validity I question. So I left him a message AND a custom welcome, asking him to verify the name, with address and phone number. Seven times he logged in, saw the custom welcome, and hit all the file areas and logged off. I dropped him to DISGRACE status, left a more clearly worded custom welcome; still he called in about four more times, tried to hit the file areas (the only one allowed at DISGRACE level is the FidoNews Area), and logged off. So I TWITted him. Why didn't he just leave me a message? I even told him how to do it on the custom welcome. And the classic - "Hacker calling". Oh, that's TWIT level immediately. Why is it so hard for people to say who they really are on BBSs? I don't recall ever having that difficulty when *I* was a mere user. And if ever there was a strange person, I definitely qualify. But *I* never had any problems using my real name. Handles are kind of nice, when they apply, but this doesn't cut well in EchoMail. Too many people out there. Oh, well, even FidoNet can't be all blessings and charm, I suppose. I've been blessed, even in my troubles with users, in that I haven't had any vicious hackers trying to crash my board or slam my communication links. I've heard of such, but (knock on wood) haven't seen any. I guess I'll just overlook the negative side and enjoy my hobby. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-43 Page 6 24 Oct 1988 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 23 Nov 1988 25th Anniversary of "Dr. Who" - and still going strong 24 Aug 1989 Voyager 2 passes Neptune. 5 Oct 1989 20th Anniversary of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1:1/1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Latest Software Versions BBS Systems Node List Other & Mailers Version Utilities Version Utilities Version Dutchie 2.90b* EditNL 4.00 ARC 5.22* Fido 12h MakeNL 2.12 ARCmail 1.1 Opus 1.03b Prune 1.40 ConfMail 4.00* SEAdog 4.10 XlatList 2.86 EchoMail 1.31 TBBS 2.0M XlaxNode 2.22* MGM 1.1 BinkleyTerm 2.00* XlaxDiff 2.10 TPB Editor 1.21* QuickBBS 2.03* ParseList 1.20* TPBoard 4.2* TComm/TCommNet 3.1* TCOMMail 1.1* Lynx 1.10* D'Bridge 1.10 FrontDoor 2.0 * 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 all utilities here, only those which verge on necessity. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-43 Page 7 24 Oct 1988 OFFICERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL FIDONET ASSOCIATION Hal DuPrie 1:101/106 Chairman of the Board Bob Rudolph 1:261/628 President Matt Whelan 3:3/1 Vice President Ray Gwinn 1:109/639 Vice President - Technical Coordinator David Garrett 1:103/501 Secretary Steve Bonine 1:115/777 Treasurer IFNA BOARD OF DIRECTORS DIVISION AT-LARGE 10 Courtney Harris 1:102/732? Don Daniels 1:107/210 11 Bill Allbritten 1:11/301 Hal DuPrie 1:101/106 12 Bill Bolton 3:54/61 Mark Grennan 1:147/1 13 Rick Siegel 1:107/27 Steve Bonine 1:115/777 14 Ken Kaplan 1:100/22 Ted Polczyinski 1:154/5 15 Larry Kayser 1:104/739? Matt Whelan 3:3/1 16 Vince Perriello 1:141/491 Robert Rudolph 1:261/628 17 Rob Barker 1:138/34 Steve Jordan 1:102/2871 18 Christopher Baker 1:135/14 Bob Swift 1:140/24 19 David Drexler 1:19/1 Larry Wall 1:15/18 2 Henk Wevers 2:500/1 David Melnik 1:107/233 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-43 Page 8 24 Oct 1988 __ The World's First / \ BBS Network /|oo \ * FidoNet * (_| /_) _`@/_ \ _ | | \ \\ | (*) | \ )) ______ |__U__| / \// / Fido \ _//|| _\ / (________) (_/(_|(____/ (tm) Membership for the International FidoNet Association Membership in IFNA is open to any individual or organization that pays a specified annual membership fee. IFNA serves the international FidoNet-compatible electronic mail community to increase worldwide communications. Member Name _______________________________ Date _______________ Address _________________________________________________________ City ____________________________________________________________ State ________________________________ Zip _____________________ Country _________________________________________________________ Home Phone (Voice) ______________________________________________ Work Phone (Voice) ______________________________________________ Zone:Net/Node Number ____________________________________________ BBS Name ________________________________________________________ BBS Phone Number ________________________________________________ Baud Rates Supported ____________________________________________ Board Restrictions ______________________________________________ Your Special Interests __________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ In what areas would you be willing to help in FidoNet? __________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Send this membership form and a check or money order for $25 in US Funds to: International FidoNet Association PO 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 and Articles of Association and By-Laws were adopted by the membership in January 1987. The second elected Board of Directors was filled in August 1988. The IFNA Echomail Conference has been established on FidoNet to assist the Board. We welcome your input to this Conference. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-43 Page 9 24 Oct 1988 INTERNATIONAL FIDONET ASSOCIATION ORDER FORM Publications The IFNA publications can be obtained by downloading from Fido 1:1/10 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 Fido Software's Fido/FidoNet $100.00 _____ Fido/FidoNet price as of November 1, 1987 ONLY 1 copy Fido/FidoNet per IFNA Member International orders include $10.00 for surface shipping or $20.00 for air shipping _____ SUBTOTAL _____ MO. Residents add 5.725% Sales Tax _____ TOTAL _____ SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER IN US FUNDS: International FidoNet Association PO Box 41143 St Louis, Mo. 63141 USA Name________________________________ Zone:Net/Node____:____/____ Company_____________________________ Address_____________________________ City____________________ State____________ Zip_____ Voice Phone_________________________ Signature___________________________ -----------------------------------------------------------------