Volume 6, Number 7 13 February 1989 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|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. 1:1/1 is available for network mail between NMH-1 hour to NMH+1 hour. At all other times, netmail is not accepted although submissions can be uploaded. Copyright 1989 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 Product Announcement -- ARC 6.00 ......................... 1 New Echo Conference Available ............................ 3 The Flamers Bible ........................................ 5 SEA Letter: New Stuff! ................................... 7 2. LATEST VERSIONS .......................................... 9 Latest Software Versions ................................. 9 3. NOTICES .................................................. 10 The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 10 FidoNews 6-07 Page 1 13 Feb 1989 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= System Enhancement Associates, Inc. 1:107/9@FidoNet, 520/1015@AlterNet New Product Announcement ARC 6.00 System Enhancement Associates, Inc. is pleased to announce that we are now taking orders for version 6.00 of our popular ARC file archive utility. The new manuals are at the printer now while we touch up the code, and we expect to start shipping on February 14th. This is a major enhancement to ARC itself and to the popular ARC file archive format. New features include the ability to compress and extract subdirectory structures and support for extended file information such as longer filenames. ARC version 6 is also FAST, FAST, FAST! It's over four times as fast as our previous version, WITHOUT sacrificing the reliability that ARC is famous for. This version of ARC also includes many enhancements and additions to the SEA utilities that come on the ARC disk. Almost all of the utilities have been rewritten and updated. Major changes include: * The LF menu shell for MS-DOS is now much faster and more powerful. * The ScanDisk disk diagnostic utility can now shift data off of questionable clusters, saving your data BEFORE your disk goes bad. * A new utility, OHMYGAWD, was added. If your lost data can be recovered at all, OHMYGAWD will find it! * And many others, too numerous to mention. The complete ARC package with disk and manual is available for $50 from System Enhancement Associates, Inc. We can be reached by phone between 9 AM and 5 PM Eastern time at (201) 473-5153, or by mail at: System Enhancement Associates, Inc. 21 New Street, Wayne NJ 07470 As always, full program sources are available at no additional FidoNews 6-07 Page 2 13 Feb 1989 cost. Those of you who have maintenance contracts need do nothing -- you will be receiving your new ARC disk in the mail soon! ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-07 Page 3 13 Feb 1989 With all the recent sludge going through FidoNews about AIDS, homosexuality, and the nutty ramblings from Fundamentalists, this advertisement for a new echo conference I started really fits. I couldn't have picked a better time. The echo conference that follows is being distributed by me personally. Yes, that means that *I* will poll *your* node nightly for no cost or real effort on your part. You simply set up the conference on your system. This is to get established-- later it shall be made available to the backbone. How can you refuse a deal like that? ``ICGAL'': Issues Concerning Gays And Lesbians Right now, there are some people thinking this is going to be a "fluffy chat" conference. Nope, that seems to be the role of GAYNET. ICGAL is to be more focused on real-world issues gays and lesbians have to face, and through networking I think it can also serve as an electronic "support group." Some of you are probably thinking this will be a sexually explicit conference. Not likely, unless you consider discussions involving adoption, inheritance, and real estate sexually explicit. The focus is on the special problems homosexuals face dealing with laws, regulations, and social prejudice. Through open and honest discussion, we'll try to find solutions. ICGAL is publically accessable on my system, and I would prefer that it be made public on systems that wish to participate. However being gay myself, I know the kinds of prejudice homosexuals face, and so I have no real problem if participants wish to make it private on their systems. I see no need to make the conference limited to "adults" as there are gays in their teens who have problems they might like to discuss as well. I myself would have given anything when I was 16 to find such a conference to help sort out my feelings. Although Pat Buchanan will disagree, estimates point to an average of 10% of the world's population being homosexual. The average BBS (at least in Net 260) has about 400 users, which means that at least 40 of those users would find ICGAL interesting and possibly useful. Consider it; if not for yourself as a SysOp then for your users. Wish to connect? Simply leave me a netmail message, set up an echo conference named ``ICGAL'' on your system, and I'll go about connecting you. Already have a similiar-sounding conference on your system? Tell me about it, and we can talk about adding it to ICGAL, which would benefit everyone. Send netmail to John Passaniti on 1:260/218. Thank you. FidoNews 6-07 Page 4 13 Feb 1989 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-07 Page 5 13 Feb 1989 The FLAMERS BIBLE Origin: Unknown (actually, I wrote the first one a few months ago, but I thought "origin: unknown" looks cool) Revision 1: Dec. 2, 1987 by Joe Talmadge In the time I have been posting to net, I have encountered flame wars of epic proportions (Brahms Gang vs. Tim Maroney), and flame wars of a more modest nature (MIT vs. CIT). Flaming has evolved into a highly-stylized art form, complete with unwritten rules and guidelines. Here, I have attempted to document the Art of Flaming, in such a way as it will be interesting to old hands (flame masters) and novices (virgins) alike. Without a further ado, then, I present: ***********The twelve commandments of flaming************** 1. Make things up about your opponent: It's important to make your lies sound true. Preface your argument with the word "clearly." "Clearly, Fred Flooney is a liar, and a dirtball to boot." 2. Be an armchair psychologist: You're a smart person. You've heard of Freud. You took a psychology course in college. Clearly, you're qualified to psychoanalyze your opponent. "Polly Purebread, by using the word 'zucchini' in her posting, shows she has a bad case of penis envy." 3. Cross-post your flames: Everyone on the net is just waiting for the next literary masterpiece to leave your terminal. From rec.arts.wobegon to alt.gourmand, they're all holding their breaths until your next flame. Therefore, post everywhere. 4. Conspiracies abound: If everyone's against you, the reason can't *possibly* be that you're a fuckhead. There's obviously a conspiracy against you, and you will be doing the entire net a favor by exposing it. 5. Lawsuit threats: This is the reverse of Rule #4 (sort of like the Yin & Yang of flaming). Threatening a lawsuit is always considered to be in good form. "By saying that I've posted to the wrong group, Bertha has libelled me, slandered me, and sodomized me. See you in court, Bertha." 6. Force them to document their claims: Even if Harry Hoinkus states outright that he likes tomato sauce on his pasta, you should demand documentation. If Newsweek hasn't written an article on Harry's pasta preferences, then Harry's obviously lying. 7. Use foreign phrases: French is good, but Latin is the lingua franca of flaming. You should use the words "ad hominem" at least three times per article. Other favorite Latin phrases are "ad FidoNews 6-07 Page 6 13 Feb 1989 nauseum", "vini, vidi, vici", "fetuccini alfredo". 8. Tell 'em how smart you are: Why use intelligent arguments to convince them you're smart when all you have to do is tell them? State that you're a member of Mensa or Mega or Dorks of America. Tell them the scores you received on every exam since high school. "I got an 800 on my SATs, LSATs, GREs, MCATs, and I can also spell the word 'premeiotic' ". 9. Accuse your opponent of censorship. It is your right as an American citizen to post whatever the hell you want to the net (as guaranteed by the 37th Amendment, I think). Anyone who tries to limit your cross-posting or move a flame war to email is either a communist, a fascist, or both. 10. Doubt their existence: You've never actually seen your opponent, have you? And since you're the center of the universe, you should have seen them by now, shouldn't you? Therefore, THEY DON'T EXIST! This is the beauty of flamers' logic. 11. Lie, cheat, steal, leave the toilet seat up. 12. When in doubt, insult: If you forget the other 11 rules, remember this one. At some point during your wonderful career as a flamer you will undoubtedly end up in a flame war with someone who is better than you. This person will expose your lies, tear apart your arguments, make you look generally like a bozo. At this point, there's only one thing to do: insult the dirtbag!!! "Oh yeah? Well, your mother does strange things with vegetables." The Golden Rule of Flaming: My flames will be witty, insulting, interesting, funny, caustic, or sarcastic, but never, ever, will they be boring. Here endeth the scriptures. Joe Talmadge hplabs!hpda!hpsemc!jat ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-07 Page 7 13 Feb 1989 What's Happening at SEA? We're told that the path to success lies in emulating a duck; Look calm and unruffled on the surface, while paddling like mad underneath! We haven't said much lately about what we've been doing, but that doesn't mean we haven't been doing anything. Rather the opposite. We've been doing everything at once! Many of the pieces are interrelated to one extent or another, and we don't like talking about vaporware, so we've held off talking about any of it until it was finished. But it's wrapped up now, which leaves us with a new problem. (Was there ever a problem whose solution didn't lead to more problems?) Now that we've finished working on everything all at once, how do we tell you about everything all at once? We can't, so we'll deal with them a piece at a time. This week we'll lead off by mentioning something for the techies out there. No doubt you saw our product announcement for SEAdog 4.50 last week, and saw lots of interesting goodies in there. How do they work? How does a chat link work, and what's this "domain" business? To answer those questions (and others) we've started publishing a series of Technical Memoranda. These are machine-readable documentation files describing various aspects of our software. Techies will appreciate these for the hard data they provide on how our stuff works, and everyone will appreciate the many helpful tips and suggestions. Here is the current list of titles for our Technical Memoranda thus far: Number Title ====== ===== TM0001 Technical Memoranda TM0101 Using SEAdog within FidoNet TM0102 Using SEAdog with TBBS TM0103 Using SEAdog with Fido TM0104 Using SEAdog with Opus TM0105 Using SEAdog with RBBS TM0201 SEAdog 4.50; Session Passwording TM0202 SEAdog 4.50; Domain Addressing TM0203 SEAdog 4.50; Event Scheduling TM0204 SEAdog 4.50; External Event Triggers TM0205 SEAdog 4.50; Chat Mode Functions TM0206 SEAdog 4.50; TTY Interface Functions TM0207 SEAdog 4.50; Chat Session Protocol TM0208 SEAdog 4.50; Shells and USNO TM0209 SEAdog 4.50; Undocumented Features of MAIL TM0301 Technical Aspects of Implementing Group Mail TM0302 GROUP 2.05; Undocumented Features FidoNews 6-07 Page 8 13 Feb 1989 TM0303 Coupling Group Mail to EchoMail TM0304 GROUP 2.05; High Volume GroupMail Any of these may be downloaded from our technical support bulletin board at (201) 473-1991, or may be file requested from node 520/1015@Alternet or 1:107/1015@FidoNet. The names of the files are the TM number with an extension of ".TXT". For example, TM0304 is in a file named "TM0304.TXT". The complete set of technical memoranda may be had by requesting "TM.ARC". Next week: XlatList and route files ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-07 Page 9 13 Feb 1989 ================================================================= LATEST VERSIONS ================================================================= Latest Software Versions Bulletin Board Software Name Version Name Version Name Version Fido 12K* Opus 1.03b TBBS 2.1 QuickBBS 2.03 TPBoard 5.0 TComm/TCommNet 3.2 Lynx 1.10 Phoenix 1.3 RBBS 1.71C Network Node List Other Mailers Version Utilities Version Utilities Version Dutchie 2.90C* EditNL 4.00 ARC 5.32 SEAdog 4.50* MakeNL 2.12 ARCmail 2.0* BinkleyTerm 2.00 Prune 1.40 ConfMail 4.00 D'Bridge 1.10 XlatList 2.90* TPB Editor 1.21 FrontDoor 2.0 XlaxNode 2.31 TCOMMail 2.0 PRENM 1.40 XlaxDiff 2.31 TMail 8901* ParseList 1.30 UFGATE 1.02* GROUP 2.04* EMM 1.40 MSGED 1.96 * 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 6-07 Page 10 13 Feb 1989 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 19 May 1989 Start of EuroCon III at Eindhoven, The Netherlands 24 Aug 1989 Voyager 2 passes Neptune. 24 Aug 1989 FidoCon '89 starts at the Holiday Inn in San Jose, California. Trade show, seminars, etc. Contact 1/89 for info. 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-07 Page 11 13 Feb 1989 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 3:711/403 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 Ivan Schaffel 1:141/390 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 6-07 Page 12 13 Feb 1989 __ 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. -----------------------------------------------------------------