Volume 8, Number 3 21 January 1991 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | FidoNet (r) | | \ \\ | | International BBS Network | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Vince Perriello Editors Emeritii: Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings Copyright 1991, Fido Software. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact Fido Software. FidoNews is published weekly by and for the Members of the FidoNet (r) International Amateur Electronic Mail System. It is a compilation of individual articles contributed by their authors or authorized agents of the authors. The contribution of articles to this compilation does not diminish the rights of the authors. 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 a Continuous Mail system, available for network mail 24 hours a day. Fido and FidoNet are registered trademarks of Tom Jennings of Fido Software, Box 77731, San Francisco CA 94107, USA and are used with permission. Opinions expressed in FidoNews articles are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Editor or of Fido Software. Most articles are unsolicited. Our policy is to publish every responsible submission received. Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1 So, how about them Giants? ............................... 1 2. ARTICLES ................................................. 3 War in the Gulf .......................................... 3 Just a quickie ........................................... 5 3. LATEST VERSIONS .......................................... 7 Latest Software Versions ................................. 7 4. NOTICES .................................................. 12 The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 12 FidoNews 8-03 Page 1 21 Jan 1991 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= For those of you who objected to last week's editorial: you are a minority (or at least you're a minority of those messages I received). But your point is well taken. I'll try to keep these outbursts to a minimum. It's sort of funny, though. There are really no particular restrictions on subject matter in FidoNews articles. The objections I heard seemed to suggest that the Editor has to apply restrictions to his(her) own contributions that nobody else need be concerned with. Balderdash. Let me tell you what I did today. I watched two football games on my projection TV system, fully enjoying the effects of Dolby Surround in each case. I played about 10 games of pinball down in the basement. I took the family out to dinner. I moved a bunch of files from a scragged Rainbow to one of my clones over a serial line. I watched coverage of you-know-what on CNN. What does all that have to do with FidoNet? Nothing and everything. You see, there was really no particular relationship between what I did and the technical aspects of operating a FidoNet node. So it is logical to assume that there was no relationship between today's activities and FidoNet. However, in the new social manifestation of FidoNet, the person who sits behind the keyboard is an integral part of the network. The contribution made to the network by this person is a function of everything that person experiences and performs. This leads to a logical conclusion that there is a relationship between my trip to Chili's with the kids and FidoNet. Last week, this tension in the Persian Gulf was occupying my mind. I was pissed off that things had reached the stage where war was inevitable. I needed to get it off my chest. I did so. An amazing number of people shared my feelings and many of them indicated that my core dump had been helpful to their own thought process. When I was finished, I felt better. So did others. I made a positive contribution. That makes me feel even more better. Perhaps a few of you media critics could try writing the perfect article. It would sure be a gas to see someone in FidoNet win a Pulitzer Prize. It should be easy. Your only real competition would be some war correspondent, and who cares about wars anyway? FidoNews 8-03 Page 2 21 Jan 1991 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 8-03 Page 3 21 Jan 1991 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Dirk Pitt FidoNet 1:120/224 Your Leader or Your Oil Wedneday, Jan. 16, 1991. I had just finished the readings for a Political Science course on International Relations. Scanning through the channels on the vcr I hit CFPL and see they are transmitting the live feed from CNN about something from Iraq. Wait a minute, it's 7:37pm. Why is CFPL running a feed from CNN in prime time? Better switch over to CNN and see what's happening. In a lightning swift move, US President George Bush has launched an allied air strike on Iraq, and CNN, the little network that grew, is the only US or Canadian network that is transmitting live. For the next three and a half hours I sit and watch what seems to be a very one sided battle. As I go to sleep, wondering what is going to happen while I sleep, I can't help but think that I should have filled up my car's gas tank as the price of oil is likely to go through the roof when the stock exchanges open. Thursday, Jan. 17, 1991. The hike in the price of oil that all the bankers and analists have been forcasting should war erupt never happens, but the price of Light-Sweet Crude (the U.S. Benchmark crude) has hit a low that only existed before Iraq's leader Saddam Hussain moved to illegally annex neighboring Kuwait. And the NYSE rises over 100 points. What's going on here? From what I can piece together, it looks like Iraq, Kuwait, and/or Saudi Arabia will now have a permanent U.S. millitary presence, be it in the form of bases to "protect" the oil wells in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, or a multi-national occupation force will move into Iraq, dividing it into zones similiar to what happened to Berlin after WWII. Finally, almost 24 hours after the initial allied air attack on Iraq, some of the missles that escaped destruction have been fired at Israel. What launching missles at Israel will accomplish, has yet to be discovered. Israel did not take part in the initial attack, but has been singled out as the first nation to be attacked in retaliation. Given the current feelings between the Arabs and the Jews, Saddam may have just signed his own death warrant. Israel has repetedly demonstrated that it can and will defend itself. Now that conflict has begun, we can only hope that it will be over soon, and not plunge us into WWIII and/or a religious war composed of people of the Arabic faith vs. most other faiths. FidoNews 8-03 Page 4 21 Jan 1991 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 8-03 Page 5 21 Jan 1991 Garth Kidd 3:680/828 profuse apologies ================= Apologies if the formatting on this one is bad, but I'm doing it by hand in FroDo. I may even take the time to do it properly later, but since it's just a short one... on with the story... ==================== ... in any case, on with the story. As far as non-geographical nets are concerned: they're really not needed. There is NOTHING in POLICY4 that says you can't get your echomail from whoever you want. So, you can get your feed from the net next door if you like, and all you have to do is poll your real host every now and again to pick up your routed netmail. Seeing as the main reason people want to switch nets is to do with echomail distribution in some way or another, that little realisation should fix quite a few problems. Why am I bringing this up? Well, as it was pointed out to me: > Giving people a choice of which net they can belong to > makes it a social choice, and once a group gets together > they can just as easily 'socially choose' to not have you > in their net. Now, there could be ways in which you could restrict this kind of thing happening under a new POLICY (like WORLDPOL), but it seems to me that it'd be mightily unwieldy. By the way, the worry about this kind of thing happening isn't just opinion -- it's happening, live. Here's a simplified version of what's happening in one area of FidoNet. It's not arranged on the ol' geographical boundary system, and... > What would you say if, in your area of FidoNet, you had > two choices: > 1) Run a specific type of machine, 24-hours-a-day only, and > pay membership fees to a non-FidoNet-related club and honour > that club's rules/decisions about how you run your board. > 2) Run in an alternative independent network where you are > forced to pay _heavy_ contributions to the net's echomail > bill whether you take any or not, and operate under a local > policy (which you must sign) which forbids you complaining > outside the net without first going before the net's FidoNews 8-03 Page 6 21 Jan 1991 > "committee". (Among many other restrictions . . .) Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty worrying to me, especially as I really can see that kind of thing happening in many areas of Australia, said areas already having shown some pretty spectacular displays of applied politics and in- fighting. The POLICY4 we're all so "fond" of is quite explicit about what you have to do to join FidoNet. It's nice to know that if I move house, I'm not going to get locked out of the local network because of a personality conflict with my new area's host. As before, I'm just throwing stuff around to stir debate. Whilst WORLDPOL may be better than POLICY4 in a lot of respects, it's not perfect yet, and I'd hate to make a hasty decision on the matter. gk post script =========== PS. I love mail. If \ANYONE\ has any comments to make, send 'em in to me! International crashmail is not required -- nor would it work (me being a -pvt- node and all). The zonegate, on the other hand, seems to be functioning perfectly. Once it hits there, the beautifully efficient netmail routing we have here in ZONE 3 will get your message to me with loving care. Now, the amusing bit -- I leave for the big end of RG50 in a few days, and will be there for a couple of weeks. Don't expect any huge numbers of replies until then. Sorry. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 8-03 Page 7 21 Jan 1991 ================================================================= LATEST VERSIONS ================================================================= Latest Software Versions MS-DOS Systems -------------- Bulletin Board Software Name Version Name Version Name Version DMG 2.93 Phoenix 1.3 TAG 2.5g Fido 12s+ QuickBBS 2.66 TBBS 2.1 GSBBS 3.01 RBBS 17.3A TComm/TCommNet 3.4 Lynx 1.30 RBBSmail 17.3B Telegard 2.5 Kitten 2.16 RemoteAccess 0.04a TPBoard 6.1 Maximus 1.02 SLBBS 1.77A Wildcat! 2.55 Opus 1.14+ Socrates 1.10 WWIV 4.12 PCBoard 14.5 XBBS 1.15 Network Node List Other Mailers Version Utilities Version Utilities Version BinkleyTerm 2.40 EditNL 4.00 ARC 7.0 D'Bridge 1.30 MakeNL 2.31 ARCAsim 2.30 Dutchie 2.90C ParseList 1.30 ARCmail 2.07 FrontDoor 1.99c Prune 1.40 ConfMail 4.00 PRENM 1.47 SysNL 3.14 Crossnet v1.5 SEAdog 4.51b XlatList 2.90 DOMAIN 1.42 TIMS 1.0(Mod8) XlaxDiff 2.35 EMM 2.02 XlaxNode 2.35 4Dog/4DMatrix 1.18 Gmail 2.05 GROUP 2.16 GUS 1.30 HeadEdit 1.15 InterPCB 1.31 LHARC 1.13 MSG 4.1 MSGED 2.06 MSGTOSS 1.3 Oliver 1.0a PK[UN]ZIP 1.10 QM 1.0 QSORT 4.03 Sirius 1.0x SLMAIL 1.36 StarLink 1.01 TagMail 2.41 TCOMMail 2.2 Telemail 1.27 FidoNews 8-03 Page 8 21 Jan 1991 TMail 1.15 TPBNetEd 3.2 TosScan 1.00 UFGATE 1.03 XRS 4.00* XST 2.2 ZmailH 1.14 OS/2 Systems ------------ Bulletin Board Software Network Mailers Other Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version Maximus-CBCS 1.02 BinkleyTerm 2.40 Parselst 1.32 ConfMail 4.00 EchoStat 6.0 oMMM 1.52 Omail 3.1 MsgEd 2.06 MsgLink 1.0C MsgNum 4.14 LH2 0.50 PK[UN]ZIP 1.02 ARC2 6.00 PolyXARC 2.00 Qsort 2.1 Raid 1.0 Remapper 1.2 Tick 2.0 VPurge 2.07 Xenix/Unix ---------- BBS Software Mailers Other Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version BinkleyTerm 2.30b Unzip 3.10 ARC 5.21 ParseLst 1.30b ConfMail 3.31b Ommm 1.40b Msged 1.99b Zoo 2.01 C-Lharc 1.00 Omail 1.00b FidoNews 8-03 Page 9 21 Jan 1991 Apple CP/M ---------- Bulletin Board Software Network Mailers Other Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version Daisy v2j Daisy Mailer 0.38 Nodecomp 0.37 MsgUtil 2.5 PackUser v4 Filer v2-D UNARC.COM 1.20 Macintosh --------- Bulletin Board Software Network Mailers Other Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version Red Ryder Host 2.1 Tabby 2.2 MacArc 0.04 Mansion 7.15 Copernicus 1.0 ArcMac 1.3 WWIV (Mac) 3.0 LHArc 0.33 Hermes 1.01 StuffIt Classic 1.6 FBBS 0.91 Compactor 1.21 TImport 1.92 TExport 1.92 Timestamp 1.6 Tset 1.3 Import 3.2 Export 3.21 Sundial 3.2 PreStamp 3.2 OriginatorII 2.0 AreaFix 1.6 Mantissa 3.21 Zenith 1.5 Eventmeister 1.0 TSort 1.0 Mehitable 2.0 UNZIP 1.02c Amiga ----- Bulletin Board Software Network Mailers Other Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version Paragon 2.082+ BinkleyTerm 1.00 AmigArc 0.23 TransAmiga 1.05 TrapDoor 1.50 AReceipt 1.5 FidoNews 8-03 Page 10 21 Jan 1991 WelMat 0.42 booz 1.01 ConfMail 1.10 ChameleonEdit 0.10 ElectricHerald1.66 Lharc 1.30 MessageFilter 1.52 oMMM 1.49b ParseLst 1.30 PkAX 1.00 PK[UN]ZIP 1.01 PolyxAmy 2.02 RMB 1.30 RoboWriter 1.02 Skyparse 2.30 TrapList 1.12 Yuck! 1.61 Zippy (Unzip) 1.25 Zoo 2.01 Atari ST -------- Bulletin Board Network Node List Software Version Mailer Version Utilities Version FIDOdoor/ST 2.11* BinkleyTerm 2.40jt ParseList 1.30 QuickBBS/ST 1.02 The BOX 1.20 Xlist 1.12 Pandora BBS 2.41c EchoFix 1.20 GS Point 0.61 LED ST 1.00 MSGED 1.96S Archiver Msg Format Other Utilities Version Converters Version Utilities Version LHARC 0.60 TB2BINK 1.00 ConfMail 4.03* ARC 6.02 BINK2TB 1.00 ComScan 1.02 PKUNZIP 1.10 FiFo 2.12* Import 1.14 OMMM 1.40 Pack 1.00 FastPack 1.20 FDsysgen 2.16* FDrenum 2.10 Trenum 0.10 Archimedes ---------- FidoNews 8-03 Page 11 21 Jan 1991 BBS Software Mailers Utilities Name Version Name Version Name Version ARCbbs 1.44 BinkleyTerm 2.03 Unzip 2.1TH ARC 1.03 !Spark 2.00d ParseLst 1.30 BatchPacker 1.00 + Netmail capable (does not require additional mailer software) * 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 8-03 Page 12 21 Jan 1991 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 16 Feb 1991 Fifth anniversary of the introduction of Echomail, by Jeff Rush. 30 Mar 1991 Jim Grubs (W8GRT) was issued his first ham radio license forty years ago today. His first station was made from an ARC-5 "Command Set" removed from a B-17 bomber. 12 May 1991 Fourth anniversary of FidoNet operations in Latin America and second anniversary of the creation of Zone-4. 8 Sep 1991 25th anniversary of first airing of Star Trek on NBC! 7 Oct 1991 Area code 415 fragments. Alameda and Contra Costa Counties will begin using area code 510. This includes Oakland, Concord, Berkeley and Hayward. San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin, parts of Santa Clara County, and the San Francisco Bay Islands will retain area code 415. 1 Feb 1992 Area code 213 fragments. Western, coastal, southern and eastern portions of Los Angeles County will begin using area code 310. This includes Los Angeles International Airport, West Los Angeles, San Pedro and Whittier. Downtown Los Angeles and surrounding communities (such as Hollywood and Montebello) will retain area code 213. 1 Dec 1993 Tenth anniversary of Fido Version 1 release. 5 Jun 1997 David Dodell's 40th Birthday If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1:1/1. -----------------------------------------------------------------