F I D O N E W S Volume 15, Number 51 21 December 1998 +----------------------------+---------------------------------------+ | The newsletter of the | ISSN 1198-4589 Published by: | | FidoNet community | "FidoNews" | | _ | +27-41-515-913 [5:5/23] | | / \ | | | /|oo \ | | | (_| /_) | | | _`@/_ \ _ | | | | | \ \\ | Editor: | | | (*) | \ )) | Henk Wolsink 5:7104/2 | | |__U__| / \// | | | _//|| _\ / | | | (_/(_|(____/ | | | (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. | | | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +----------------------------+---------------------------------------+ | Submission address: FidoNews Editor 5:5/23 | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | MORE addresses: | | | | submissions=> editor@fidonews.org | | hwolsink@catpe.alt.za | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | For information, copyrights, article submissions, | | obtaining copies of FidoNews or the internet gateway FAQ | | please refer to the end of this file. | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1 2. ARTICLES ................................................. 2 3. NOTICES .................................................. 9 4. FIDONET BY INTERNET ...................................... 10 5. FIDONEWS INFORMATION ..................................... 13 FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 1 21 Dec 1998 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= Greetings Did some 'surfing' the WWW in particular fidonet.org and some of it's links. I'm supprised how many of them are out of date or just don't work. Please keep us up to date with any changes. Thanks. This issue is in a way, a major mishap and thats an understatement. My Linux machine decided to say goodbye and with a few articles on it, which I cannot retrieve, it will have to wait until I can replace it. It appears, the power supply is the faulty part. So, my apologies for not placing your article. For those celebrating Christmas, may you have peace, and happy holidays. Whatever you are going to do, don't drink and drive - please arive alive! Happy reading, ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 2 21 Dec 1998 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= FidoNews Article Submission Guidelines FidoNet address 5:5/23 Updated 16 August 1998 by Henk Wolsink Updated 1 Mar 1998 by Zorch Frezberg Updated 1 Jan 1998 by Christopher Baker Updated 29 May 1991 by Tom Jennings Based on the original work by Thom Henderson | denotes a change since the last update |. "Fido" and "FidoNet" are registered trademarks of Tom Jennings, Box 410923, San Francisco CA 94141, USA and are used with permission. ----------------------------- SYNOPSIS: FidoNews is the newsletter of the FidoNet computer network, for both its Sysops and users. It is passed to its readers electronically via the FidoNet and other computer networks and to non-network readers as well as to the InterNet. This document intends to tell you how to write and submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Much of it describes the technical specifications which an article must meet in order to be included in the newsletter, as well as broad (very) guidelines on content. (Of course you realize articles can be submitted only electronically.) Please read this document carefully. The article you save might be your own. ----------------------------- INTRODUCTION: FidoNews was originally founded in early 1984 to include all parts of the lives of its member Sysops and users, which of course means not just technical matters. We do not have fixed goals of maximum distribution or maximum readership (i.e. lowest common denominator) but only to meet the needs of our individual network members. The success of this venture has always been contentious at best (ahem). In any case the grand experiment continues. Over fifteen years later and roughly 20,000 Nodes in the FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 3 21 Dec 1998 network, the editorial policy, or lack of one, of FidoNews has shown to best fit our ever-changing and unpredictable needs. ----------------------------- SUBJECT MATTER: Articles on any subject of interest to FidoNet members and users are welcome and encouraged, not necessarily of a technical nature, though priority may be, but not necessarily, given to articles of importance to the FidoNet, its technology and its uses; other networks such as uucp and the Internet; social aspects of communications; ethical issues; other related matters. ----------------------------- ARTICLE LENGTH: Try to keep articles short. The longer it is, the less likely people are to read it. Consider splitting long articles (more than five pages) into smaller articles to be run serially. Exceptions will be made at the whim of the editors. For practical reasons, we will attempt to keep FidoNews to a "reasonable size", which is of course a highly subjective and variable thing. As of Mar 1998, the goal is to keep each issue under 100,000 bytes. Decisions regarding content may be made based upon this, though in general it shouldn't be an issue. As above, exceptions will be made at the whim of the editors. ----------------------------- WRITING GUIDELINES: We are not all professional writers, nor is that even a goal for the FidoNews -- we want real communication to and from real people; even at the expense of so-called "good writing", which is frequently a tool to exclude. There are, however, a few minimum requirements for any successful writing, even for the lowly FidoNews: * The subject discussed must be clear to people other than the author! Don't assume that people will pick up the context from your writing. Tell them _explicitly_. * Why are you writing this? It may _seem_ obvious -- "Review of the new Acme 75-baud Modem" -- but it's FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 4 21 Dec 1998 not. Are you the manufacturer? An irate customer? Let us know your point of view. * Who *are* you? A good question! Anonymity is acceptable, though most people want to take credit for their work. Include full contact information including NetMail and E-Mail addresses, where such is feasible. * Articles submitted via Netmail or E-Mail must contain all the technically required lines and delimiters in the BODY of the message. This includes the *[title] line and the 70 character width requirement. To indicate the filename type for one of these message submissions, place the FILENAME.TYP in the SUBJ: line of your E-Mail, NetMail, or EchoMail. Those that require extra editing may be delayed from appearing in FidoNews. * Articles will appear when space becomes available, not necessarily the "next" issue. If your article is of a time-critical nature, please say so when you submit it; the editor still has final say. * The editor reserves the right to request changes from an author to meet these "standards", which you have to admit are pretty loose. It is not the intent for this to be a mechanism to refuse articles the editor does not like, but simply to keep the contents intelligible. * If we have a backlog of articles, we may get fussier about things. Historically, this has not been a serious problem. ----------------------------- SUBMITTING AN ARTICLE TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS: If all that hasn't scared you away, the next step is to create a text file which contains the text of your article. The resulting file should be sent or uploaded to "Editor", | FidoNet address 5:5/23, or to "editor@fidonews.org". The "physical" location (and phone number) of FidoNews varies, and hence must be found elsewhere, such as within a recent copy of FidoNews itself. Filenames must follow the MSDOS standard: FILENAME.TYP a 1 to 8 character file name (A - Z, 0 - 9) a period, FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 5 21 Dec 1998 a 0 to 3 character file type (A - Z, 0 - 9) File types are used to distinguish types of submissions, as follows: .LET Letters to the Editor. .ART An article, commentary, open letter, or general news item. .GUE Want to write a Guest Editorial? Place [*Name & Node on line 1] .RTX Need to make a Retraction of a previous article or notice? .COL Want to become a regular contributor with your own column? .ANS Answers to the Question of the Week. .BIO FidoNet biographies - tell us your personal story. .TRU True stories of FidoNet. .HIS FidoNet history - got an anecdote to share? .REV Reviews of related product, services, or programs. .JOK Net humor in print. .FIC FidoNet (computer related) short fiction. .CMX Comics in ASCII. [watch those lines at 70 columns!] [.CMX that are political will be renamed to .GUE] .PRF Want to Proofread? Get a cookie for spotting errors. .AD Advertising FREE services or events. .SAL "For Sale" .WAN "Wanted" .NOT A notice for the back of the issue. Keep them short. .INT Internet addresses for FidoNet-related Web Pages of general interest. If your file doesn't have one of the above extensions, then it will lay around taking up disk space until someone takes a look at it and realizes what it is. Maybe. The name of the file is up to you, though you should use a name which is not likely to be "stepped on" by someone else -- the system will not guarantee file names are unique. For example, FNEWS.ART is probably not a good name for an article. ----------------------------- CHARACTER SETS: The character by character contents of the file itself must FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 6 21 Dec 1998 meet the following standards or it cannot be published in FidoNews. The FidoNews staff WILL NOT be responsible for making file contents conform to these standards. * FLUSH LEFT MARGIN: Please do not put a "left margin" on your articles. Have the text start at the very first column. * RIGHT MARGIN AT COLUMN 70 OR LESS: Less is tolerable, more is definitely not. If your cursor is resting at column 71 when your line is ended, you're okay. But, *one* character past that, even with trailing spaces and MAKENEWS will barf on your submission. If your submission is physically rejected, the Editor will have to fix it manually or send it back for reformatting. * RAGGED-RIGHT TEXT: Word-Star style "justification" (inserting spaces into sentences so that a paragraph is perfectly rectangular) is extremely hard to read, and consumes needless space. Please don't use it! * NO FUNNY CHARACTERS: This includes formfeeds, returns without linefeeds, linefeeds without returns, tabs and other oddities. The only control codes (character codes 0 through 31 decimal) allowed are carriage return (CR) and linefeed (LF). The only exception is: Control-Z "end of file" terminator characters are tolerated. Not required. * NO GRAPHICS CHARACTERS: Believe it or not, not everyone in the world has an IBM PC. Please restrict yourself to printable ASCII characters in the range 20 hex to 7E hex (space to tilde). * LINES TERMINATED: Each line in the article should be terminated with a 'newline' -- either the MSDOS standard (CR/LF) or the unix standard (LF only). ----------------------------- SUBMISSION FORMAT: Below is a sample article properly formatted. Features of it are discussed further below. --article file example begins below this line-- *A Sample Article [this is in LINE 1 starting at COLUMN 1] This is My Title by Joe Schmoe, [Netmail/email address] FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 7 21 Dec 1998 And here is my article. Note that it is flush left (zero indent). Also note that the right margin is at column seventy so that it won't overflow "most" text windows. Each line has a newline. Note the *'ed first line. My article will be listed in the table of contents exactly as it appears after the * above. Figure 1. Table 1. +-------+ ======== | A Box | Alpha +-------+ Bravo Note that we am not using any funny-o characters. This ensures that the final article will look the same to every user, no matter what sort of hardware he has. This is the last sentence of our article. --article file example ends above this line-- The FIRST line of text is the Table of Contents line. It MUST begin with an asterisk * as shown above. NO BLANK lines above title line are permitted. If you do not follow this instruction exactly, the article will not be listed in the Table of Contents. This Table of Contents listing method works for all submission file types. * Everything that follows the *'ed line will appear in the body of the newsletter. The *'ed line will be stripped out of your article text so if you want it repeated as your title in the article BE SURE to REPEAT it on a second line without the *. * Next should be the title or name of your article, your name, and contact information (network address(es), Postal Service address, etc). Try to keep it to one or two lines each. * Put a blank line between paragraphs. Paragraphs that all run together are very difficult to read, and may be rejected. * If you want to put in a table or a figure, go right ahead. We do not rearrange text if you follow these submission guidelines, so your table or figure should remain exactly as you entered it. Try to limit them to ones that make the communication CLEARER. * Don't put a lot of blank space at the top or bottom. The FidoNews-generator programs will visually separate articles automatically. * Please check for basic errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. We're not publishing a textbook, but you don't want it to embarrass yourself do you? FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 8 21 Dec 1998 * Don't use FidoNews to grind your personal axes against other FidoNet members. An article presenting a side of an internal dispute is one thing. An article defaming or perseverating over several Issues is another. Articles that merely quote endlessly from other sources to no particular effect are also not a good idea. * Don't republish copyrighted material from other sources WITHOUT the permission of those sources. Include the permission in such articles. * Remember that FidoNews is no better or worse than the articles submitted to it. If you want FidoNews to be a useful newsletter, get involved and submit useful articles. It's up to YOU to make it work. ----------------------------- SUBMISSION DEADLINES: FidoNews is published on Monday of every week. | To assure the best possible chance of being published in | this week's issue, the deadline for file submission to | the FidoNews Editor via FILE-ATTACH is at 0800 UTC/GMT | on the previous Saturday. | The deadline for submissions via NetMail, E-Mail, or in | the FIDONEWS Echo is 1800 UTC/GMT the previous | Friday. Submissions which miss the deadlines will be processed the following week. Submission by deadline is not a guarantee of appearance in that week's FidoNews but it is likely depending on volume of submissions. As well, submissions may be missed due to changes in the personal schedule of the FidoNews Editor, but should be published in the following issue. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 9 21 Dec 1998 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= Future History 16 Feb 1999 13th Anniversary of the introduction of EchoMail by Jeff Rush. 12 May 1999 12th Anniversary of Fido Operations in Zone 4; 10th Anniversary of the creation of FidoNet Zone 4. 24 Jul 1999 XIII Pan American Games [through 8 Aug 99]. 9 Jun 1999 Tenth Anniversary of the adoption of FidoNet Policy 4.07. 10 Sep 1999 10th anniversary of Zone 5 operations. 26 Oct 1999 Thirty years from release Abbey Road album by the Beatles. 31 Dec 1999 Hogmanay, Scotland. The New Year that can't be missed. 1 Jan 2000 The 20th Century, C.E., is still taking place thru 31 Dec. 1 Jun 2000 EXPO 2000 World Exposition in Hannover (Germany) opens. 15 Sep 2000 Sydney (Australia) Summer Olympiad opens. 21 Sep 2000 10 years of FidoNet in +7 (xUSSR) 1 Jan 2001 This is the actual start of the new millennium, C.E. -- If YOU have something which you would like to see in this Future History, please send a note to the FidoNews Editor. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 10 21 Dec 1998 ================================================================= FIDONET BY INTERNET ================================================================= This is a list of all FidoNet-related sites reported to the FidoNews Editor as of this issue; see the notice at the end. FidoNet: Homepage http://www.fidonet.org FidoNews http://www.fidonews.org [HTML] http://209.77.228.66/fidonews.html [ASCII] WWW sources http://travel.to/fidonet/ FTSC page http://www.goldware.dk/ftsc Echomail [pending] General http://owls.com/~jerrys/fidonet.html http://www.nrgsys.com/orb/foti List servers: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/fidonet-discussion ============ Zone 1: http://www.z1.fidonet.org Region 10: http://www.psnw.com/~net205/region10.html Region 11: http://oeonline.com/~garyg/region11/ Region 13: Net 264: http://www.net264.org/r13.htm Region 17: http://www.nwstar.com/~region17/ Region 18: http://techshop.pdn.net/fido/ Region 19: http://www.compconn.net/r19 Zone 1 Elist http://www.baltimoremd.com/elist/ ============ Zone 2: http://www.z2.fidonet.org ZEC2: Zone 2 Elist: http://www.fbone.ch/echolist/ Region 20: http://www.fidonet.pp.se (in Swedish) Region 23: http://www.fido.dk (in Danish) Region 24: http://www.swb.de/personal/flop/gatebau.html (German) Fido-IP: http://home.nrh.de/~lbehet/fido (English/German) Region 25: http://www.bsnet.co.uk/net2502/net/ FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 11 21 Dec 1998 Region 26: http://www.nemesis.ie REC 26: http://www.nrgsys.com/orb Region 27: http://telematique.org/ft/r27.htm Region 29: http://www.rtfm.be/fidonet/ (French) Region 30: http://www.fidonet.ch (German) Region 33: http://www.fidoitalia.net (Italian) Region 34: http://www.pobox.com/cnb/r34.htm (Spanish) REC34: http://pobox.com/~chr Region 36: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/7207/ Region 38: http://public.st.carnet.hr/~blagi/bbs/adriam.html Region 41: http://www.fidonet.gr (Greek/English) Region 42: http://www.fido.cz Region 48: http://www.fidonet.org.pl Region 50: http://www.fido7.com/ (Russian) Net 5010: http://fido.tu-chel.ac.ru/ (Russian) Net 5015: http://www.fido.nnov.ru/ (Russian) Net 5030: http://kenga.ru/fido/ (Russian & English) Net 5073: http://people.weekend.ru/soa/ (Russian) ============ Zone 3: http://www.z3.fidonet.org ============ Zone 4: Region 90: http://visitweb.com/fidonet Net 903: http://www.playagrande.com/refugio Net 904: http://members.tripod.com/~net904 (Spanish) ============ Zone 5: http://www.eastcape.co.za/fidonet/index.htm ============ Zone 6: http://www.z6.fidonet.org Region 65: http://www.cfido.com/fidonet/cfidochina.html (Chinese) ============ Pages listed above are as submitted to the FidoNews Editor, and generally reflect Zone and Regional Web Page sites. If FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 12 21 Dec 1998 no Regional site is submitted, the first Network page from that Region is used in its place. Generally, Regional pages should list access points to all Networks within the Region. TCP/IP accessible node access information should be submitted to the FidoNews Editor for inclusion in their Region or Zone. -----------oOo------------- Fidonet Via Internet Hubs Node# | Operator | Facilities (*) | Speed | Basic Rate -----------+-------------------+----------------+-------+------------ 1:12/12 | Ken Wilson | FTP | T1 | $24mo. 1:13/25 | Jim Balcom | FTP | 56k | $20mo. 1:106/1 | Matt Bedynek | FTP,VMoT,UUE | 64k | $5/$15mo. 1:106/6018 | Lawrence Garvin | FTP,VMoT | 64k | $5/mo. 1:107/451 | Andy Knifel | FTP, VMoT, UUE | 33.6 | n/c 1:124/7008 | Ben Hamilton | FTP,VMoT,UUE | 64k | $10/$20mo. 1:140/12 | Bob Seaborn | FTP | T1 | $5/$20 1:270/101 | George Peace | FTP | T1 | $30mo. 1:271/140 | Tom Barstow | UUE | T1 | n/c 1:275/1 | Joshua Ecklund | UUE | 28.8 | $10/yr. 1:280/169 | Brian Greenstreet | FTP | 33.6 | $2mo. 1:2401/305 | Peter Rocca | FTP,UUE | T1 | unkn 1:2424/10 | Alec Grynspan | FTP,UUE | T1 | n/c 1:2604/104 | Jim Mclaughlin | FTP,VMoT,UUE | 33.6 | $1mo. 1:2624/306 | D. Calafrancesco | VMoT | 33.6 | $15yr. 1:345/0 | Todd Cochrane | FTP | T1 | n/c 1:346/250 | Aran Spence | FTP,UUE | T1 | $10mo. 1:396/45 | Marc Lewis | UUE | 33.6 | $26/yr. 1:3651/9 | Jerry Gause | FTP,VMoT | 33.6 | $3/$6 1:396/1 | John Souvestre | FTP,VMoT | T1 | $15mo. 2:33/505 | Mario Mure | VMoT,UUE | 64k | n/c 2:254/175 | Alex Kemp | UUE | 56k | n/c 2:284/800 | Jeroen VanDeLeur | FTP,UUE | 64k | n/c 2:335/610 | Gino Lucrezi | UUE | 33.6 | n/c 2:469/84 | Max Masyutin | VMoT | 256k | n/c 2:2411/413 | Dennis Dittrich | UUE | 64k | n/c 2:2474/275 | Christian Emig | UUE | 64k | unkn 3:633/260 | Malcolm Miles | FTP | 33.6 | n/c 4:905/100 | Fabian Gervan | VMoT, UUE | ??? | n/c 5:7104/2 | Henk Wolsink | FTP | 28.8 | n/c -- * FTP = Internet File Transfer Protocol * VMoT = Virtual Mailer over Telnet (various) * UUE = uuencode<->email type transfers [I'm only cataloging transfer methods, eg, ftp, email, telnet. Specific programs using these protocols are no longer being listed. Contact the system operators for details of which programs they have available.] Compiled by C. Ingersoll, 1:2623/71, (609)814-1978, fbn@dandy.net Posted on the 1st of every month in FN_SYSOP, R13SYSOP and Fidonews. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 13 21 Dec 1998 ================================================================= FIDONEWS INFORMATION ================================================================= ------- FIDONEWS MASTHEAD AND CONTACT INFORMATION ------- Editor: Henk Wolsink Editors Emeritii: Tom Jennings, Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell, Vince Perriello, Tim Pozar, Sylvia Maxwell, Donald Tees, Christopher Baker, Zorch Frezberg "FidoNews Editor" FidoNet 5:5/23 BBS +27-41-515-913, 2400/9600/V.34/V.90 more addresses: Henk Wolsink -- 5:7104/2, hwolsink@catpe.alt.za (Postal Service mailing address) FidoNews Editor P.O. Box 12325 Port Elizabeth, 6006 South Africa ------------------------------------------------------ FidoNews is published weekly by and for the members of the FIDONET INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR ELECTRONIC MAIL system. It is a compilation of individual articles contributed by their authors or their authorized agents. The contribution of articles to this compilation does not diminish the rights of the authors. OPINIONS EXPRESSED in these articles ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHORS and not necessarily those of FidoNews and/or the Editor. Authors retain copyright on individual works; otherwise FidoNews is Copyright 1998 Henk Wolsink. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact the original authors, or the Editor. =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= OBTAINING COPIES: The most recent issue of FidoNews in electronic form may be obtained from the FidoNews Editor via manual download or file-request, or from various sites in the FidoNet and Internet. PRINTED COPIES may be obtained by sending SASE to the above postal address. File-request FIDONEWS for the current Issue. File-request FNEWS for the current month in one archive. Or file-request specific back Issue filenames in distribution format [FNEWSFnn.ZIP] for a particular Issue. Monthly Volumes are available as FNWSmmmy.ZIP where mmm = three letter month [JAN - DEC] and y = last digit of the current year [8], i.e., FNWSJAN8.ZIP for all the Issues from Jan 98. FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 14 21 Dec 1998 Annual volumes are available as FNEWSn.ZIP where n = the Volume number 1 - 15 for 1984 - 1998, respectively. Annual Volume archives range in size from 48K to 1.4M. INTERNET USERS: FidoNews is available via: http://www.fidonews.org http://www.fidonet.org/fidonews.htm ftp://ftp.fidonet.org/pub/fidonet/fidonews/ ftp://ftp.irvbbs.com/fidonews/ ftp://ftp.nwstar.com/Fidonet/Fidonews And in non-English formats via: http://www.hvc.ee/pats/fidonews (Estonian) http://www.fidonet.pp.se/sfnews (Swedish) *=*=* You may obtain an email subscription to FidoNews by sending email to: jbarchuk@worldnet.att.net with a Subject line of: subscribe fnews-edist and no message in the message body. To remove your name from the email distribution use a Subject line of: unsubscribe fnews-edist with no message to the same address above. * You may retrieve current and previous Issues of FidoNews via FTPMail by sending email to: ftpmail@fidonews.org with a Subject line of: help and FTPMail will immediately send a reply containing details and instructions. When you actually make a file request, FTPMail will respond in three stages. You find a link for this process on www.fidonews.org. *=*=* You can read the current FidoNews Issue in HTML format at: http://www.fidonews.org STAR SOURCE for ALL Past Issues via FTP and file-request - Available for FReq from 1:396/1 or by anonymous FTP from: ftp://ftp.sstar.com/fidonet/fnews/ Each yearly archive also contains a listing of the Table-of-Contents FIDONEWS 15-51 Page 15 21 Dec 1998 for that year's issues. The total set is currently about 13 Megs. =*=*=*= The current week's FidoNews and the FidoNews public-key are now also available almost immediately after publication on the FidoNews Editor homepage on the World Wide Web at: http://209.77.228.66/fidonews.html There are also links there to jim barchuk's HTML FidoNews source and to John Souvestre's FTP site for the archives. There is also an email link for sending in an article as message text. Drop on over. =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= SUBMISSIONS: You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission requirements are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from the FidoNews Editor, or file-requestable from 5:5/23 [5:7104/2] as file "ARTSPEC.DOC". ALL Zone Coordinators also have copies of ARTSPEC.DOC. Please read it. "Fido", "FidoNet" and the dog-with-diskette are U.S. registered trademarks of Tom Jennings, P.O. Box 410923, San Francisco, CA 94141, and are used with permission. "Disagreement is actually necessary, or we'd all have to get in fights or something to amuse ourselves and create the requisite chaos." -Tom Jennings -----------------------------------------------------------------