Volume 5, Number 45 7 November 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 MASS:Monthly Article Submission! ......................... 1 AD&D by Modem ............................................ 3 2. COLUMNS .................................................. 4 Bodies Behind the BBS: Tom Hendricks .................... 4 Let's YACK about Patience ................................ 6 3. NOTICES .................................................. 7 The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 7 Election for Zone 1 Echomail Coordinator ................. 7 Latest Software Versions ................................. 8 FidoNews 5-45 Page 1 7 Nov 1988 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Jake Hargrove Fido 301/1 High Mesa Ranger's Well folks here we are at the end of another month, and the beginning of a new one. For those of you who have not as yet made your plans. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and Christmas is not that far away. For those of you old enough to do it, DON'T FORGET TO VOTE. I for one have spent much time recuperating from a battle with Binkley. For some reason it does not want to run right. The little sample file runs ok, but once I go to add my own stuff, some where in the middle of things I get a Date Rollover problem. So far I have tried just about everything. But when all else fail the best thing to do is what I did. Convert back to OPUS. I have so far had no problems with OPUS and ConfMail, and I have also acquired a new message editor which works great up to and including me not having to log onto the BBS to read my mail. Net 301 has grown a bit in the last couple of weeks. The newest node 301/9 The Mountain Oracle is SysOp'ed by Paul Seymour and is in the latest node list. A few weeks older and hopefully included in the nodediff for this next friday is node 301/8, VOICE OF ALBUQUERQUE. There has been a lot of talk from the Houston Area about phone bills and changes by the phone company. I do have an article which was written by someone about this which may be included in the Fido News. It is very interesting. With all of this going on, I have even had time to work a little more on the Book I am in the process of writing. Am up to page 10 of chapter 4. Have also been involved with a new Echo Mail area. What is new? This area is Hosted and Moderated by node 304/1, Linda Murphy. It is called ET, and is about almost anything concerning ExtraTerrestial happenings. For guidelines and connection you can contact her for the specifics. Or if you would like you may connect with me here at 301/1 and I will pass it on to you. To my knowledge she has no intention of putting it on the Backbone as of yet. An I know this is a little early but What You Want for Christmas? I want: 9600 Baud modem. New computer and monitor. OPUS 1.1 FidoNews 5-45 Page 2 7 Nov 1988 Ok nuff said, if you are reading this, then I got it sent out ok and it has been included in the Gazette. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-45 Page 3 7 Nov 1988 Revis Smith 1:120/110 Playing Dungeons and Dragons by Modem First you have to roll a chracter. You can either do this by rolling 3 (6) sided dice, for each of 7 different attributes, or by using a program called CHARGEN3.ARC. This file is available for file request on my system. CHARGEN3 was written by my friend Barron Featherston, and was designed to roll up a character for the player. Once this is done the player submits his character to the dungeon master for approval, and waits to be introduced into the game. If the game you are starting is new the dungeon master writes an introduction to his story, and then you ask the characters to give a backround history of themselves. This is so that they can place themselves in the world that you have created. In my case this World is "Sanctum", your introduction goes into a special file area along with character histories. After this is all done you give chracters a hint of what their after, and really start plot development. Then each of the characters post what he or she is going to do, usually they a elect leader first. This is done on a special board, on my system the board is called the Adventure Section. When all the characters have posted and a general agreement on a course of action has been reached, the DM writes a file called a review, and tells the players what happened. This file he puts up for download, so everybody can keep up with the story of what players are doing. If a Player wants to do anything he doesn't want the others to know about he sends DM private mail. I use the following books to help me run my adventures: Unearthed Arcana, Dungeoner's guide, and Wilderness Guide. As mapping goes The DM makes an ASCII map, and puts it up for download. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-45 Page 4 7 Nov 1988 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= Steve Bonine 115/777 An Introduction of Tom Hendricks FTSC Certification Committee Last week we got a glimpse of Rick Moore, the new head of the FidoNet Technical Standards Committee. This week we'll peak at Tom Hendricks (261/662) who has been picked to head up the certification process. Certification is the formal testing of software to determine if it does what it is supposed to. In this case, the certification is to insure that software which claims to be "FidoNet compat- ible" does, indeed, conform to all of the applicable specifica- tions. This is a process which has never really been formally addressed, and the IFNA Board of Directors saw it as a priority when the issue was raised at FidoCon. Tom will have the respon- sibility for doing the formal testing. Of course, before he can do that, the exact testing procedure must be determined. But the purpose of this column is to discuss the PEOPLE, not for me to editorialize on the wonders of FidoNet technology, so let's move to an introduction of Tom. In his "real job", Tom is an analyst for the Federal government, and spends most of his time working on computer networking problems, connecting different flavors of computers together. That would certainly seem to provide a bit of background for his FidoNet carreer. Tom runs his own small firm on the side, selling systems to low-end businesses and high-end techies. Tom somehow finds time for several hobbies in addition to the work. He's a fan of programming languages, with C and Modula-2 being his favorites at this moment. He has taught classes in assembly language. Other hobbies include photography and pets, including exotic birds and tropical fish. In fact, as Tom was giving me the information for this article, he was the excited "daddy" of some newly-hatched chicks. Tom's bulletin-board experience began with a homebuilt modem that he used with an ASR-33 teletype terminal to access the school's mainframe while in college. He got his first commercial modem in 1981 and, after playing around on CompuServe and his brother's CP/M BBS, started one of the first systems in the Baltimore area in 1985. His board has been up continiously since, moving from RBBS-PC to Colossus, to COLLIE, and via Fido to Opus. Tom joined FidoNet when it was about 1,000 nodes strong, in net 109 which then was Metro DC and Maryland. Kurt Reisler was the NC and Thom Henderson was the RC. Later a new Baltimore net was FidoNews 5-45 Page 5 7 Nov 1988 formed (net 261). The name of Tom's system, Avi-Technic, reflects his combined interests of birds and computers. Sounds to me like ideal background for the certification job; he'll meet some interesting birds in that assignment! Tom's current FidoNet interests in addition to the FTSC work include the HST echo (which he co- founded with his brother) and coordinating the software distribution system. He is an IFNA member, on the Membership Services committee, and is Bob Rudolph's alternate for the IFNA Board. I hope you've enjoyed this peek at Tom. If there is someone you would like to know more about, send me netmail (115/777) and I'll see if I have any luck digging up dirt on them. Or if you are Famous in FidoNet, send me your bio! ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-45 Page 6 7 Nov 1988 YACK Yet Another Complicated Komment by Steven K. Hoskin ( STEVE HOSKIN at 1:128/31 ) Episode 15: Patience Boy, sleep really does get away from you after awhile if you don't watch it. I spent a great deal of time a few weeks ago, for a few weeks, avoiding sleep for one reason (excuse?) or another. Staying obnoxious hours at work, working on projects around the house, late nights drinking coffee at Denny's...what ever it took. It seemed I was bound and determined to not get any sleep. It started to show. My responses to the users on the local area of the message section were getting short, terse, even quippy. New word? Maybe. Accurate, though. Then it got worse. The local in-town EchoMail conferences seemed to be teeming with problems that simply demanded immediate attention. Pseudonyms, accidental misspellings...the list goes on. The it hit its worst stage. The local Netwide SysOp EchoMail conference. Problems came up with our Regional EchoMail Coordinator and the Net EchoMail Coordinator position was changing hands and Nodes were going down and one wasn't tossing a strictly SysOp area from the NetMail area, leaving home phone numbers available for viewing and delays in EchoMail and FidoNews got me worried. I must've entered a boatload of messages asking if there was a problem with routing and could I do anything to help (as if I was even coherent enough to BE of any help), and did we need to reorganize things and... My fellow SysOps have a great deal of patience. Obviously, I'm still here. I look back on it and wonder how I even had the presence of mind to type. I was one tired puppy. And I lost my patience. FidoNet is an experiment in communication. Communication requires patience. None of us perfectly express our views every time we type a message. It can take several messages to get the concepts we dream up across to others. Several back-and-forth type of queries are usually required. In short, communication can't be a one-shot your way, one-shot my way type of thing. It's got to be a lot of sharing of ideas. In short, you can't have communication without patience. I hope I keep it this time. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-45 Page 7 7 Nov 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Election for New Zone 1 Echomail Coordinator David Dodell, 1:1/0 As most of you know, Butch Walker has resigned as Zone 1 Echomail Coordinator. It is Butch's desire to have an election for the new Z1EC, and I will be assisting by conducting those elections. The plan is as follows: (1) Applications for the position need to reach my system by Monday, November 14th. Any applications for the position should include a statement from the candidate. This statement can contain anything the candidate wishes, but I recommend that the candidate express why he/she would be good for the position, why he/she should be voted to the position, and/or his/her goals for echomail. This statement should be no longer then 80 x 24 (i.e. one screen). (2) On the 14th of November, I will mail to the REC a copy of all of the candidate statements. These should be disseminated to the NEC's in your region. (3) Voting will be done by the REC/NEC structure only. It will be the responsibility of all NEC to get their votes into the REC by November 30th. The REC's will then get the sub-totals for their Regions into me by December 4th. FidoNews 5-45 Page 8 7 Nov 1988 Announcment and notification of the new Z1EC will be done on December 5th. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Latest Software Versions BBS Systems Node List Other & Mailers Version Utilities Version Utilities Version Dutchie 2.90b EditNL 4.00 ARC 5.30* 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 2.22 TPB Editor 1.21* QuickBBS 2.03 ParseList 1.20 TCOMMail 1.1* TPBoard 4.2* TMail 8810 TComm/TCommNet 3.2* 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 5-45 Page 9 7 Nov 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 5-45 Page 10 7 Nov 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 5-45 Page 11 7 Nov 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___________________________ -----------------------------------------------------------------