FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:17:57 Page 1 Volume 2, Number 28 26 August 1985 +----------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | - FidoNews - /|oo \ | | (_| /_) | | Fido and FidoNet _`@/_ \ _ | | Users Group | | \ \\ | | Newsletter | (*) | \ )) | | ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +----------------------------------------------------------+ Publisher: Fido 107/7 Chief Procrastinator: Thom Henderson Fidonews is published weekly by SEAboard, Fido 107/7. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in Fidonews. Article submission standards are contained in the file FIDONEWS.DOC, available from Fido 107/7. Disclaimer or don't-blame-us: 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. This week we have a guest editorial by Robert Mitchell. This editorial was originally published in the February 1984 issue of The Underground Grammarian. A Sense of Ease Computer literacy doesn't require speaking a computer language, nor does it require programming skills, nor does it even require extensive knowledge of already-written programs. All it requires is a sense of ease around computers, and the knowledge that personal computers are powerful tools, and not menacing characters from science fiction. --Peter McWilliams The advanced [ETS] placement course in computer science includes such topics as recursion, operations on stacks, lists, and trees, and the heap sort. These are complicated, machine-independent abstractions that are not learned while sitting at a terminal. They are learned by hearing competent lectures, studying a textbook, and by sitting alone gleaning insights from drawing diagrams and walking through FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:01 Page 2 prospective codes.... Replying to the question, What is the best single indicator of an applicant's programming ability, one of today's most respected computer scientists, Edsger W. Dijkstra, wrote: '...an absolute mastery of his native tongue.' --Merrit & Stix Here's what we wish: We wish that we were running a very expensive private school for little children, and that McWilliams wanted us to take his sxi-year old daughter and provide her with a good dose of literacy, the antiquated kind, 'book literacy,' they probably call it nowadays. First we'd take his certified check for our standard, large, unrefundable deposit, and then we'd tell him about our real neat, absolutely painless, and invariably effective Book Literacy Education Program. The yoke of book literacy is easy, we would tell him, and its burden is light. Quite contrary to the foolish notions of self-appointed reformers, book literacy does NOT require reading and writing in book language. Nor does it require any noticible knowledge of already-written books. All it requires, as you would surely be the first to understand, McWilliams, is a sense of ease around books! Little children, you see, are afraid of books. Yes, afraid. They see them as menacing characters from the walls of doctors' waiting rooms and quiet, dreary libraries, where fun is not allowed. Our program teaches children that books are powerful tools, good for building walls and castles, and for keeping drawings from blowing away, and even for standing on to reach the good stuff that grown-ups like to keep to themselves. Why we actually let our young scholars PLAY with books, open them, close them, even turn some of the pages, and all by themselves. That's the REAL education, you know, learning by doing. You just leave your precious little tyke with us, and in no time at all--say ten, twelve years max--she will be the most book-literate kid on the block, chock full of a sense of ease. And all of that for a measly fifteen thou a year! And may the future bring you a million RETURNs without GOSUB, buster. We are, you see, ready to consider 'computer literacy.' We suspected, mostly because the educationalistic faddists were so enthusiastic about it, that it was all bunk. Now, having done some homework, we can reach a better informed opinion: It IS all bunk. To begin with, it is not 'literacy' in any reasonable sense of the word. 'Literacy' has become nothing but a pretentious title for an 'awareness' conjoined with any modicum of acquaintance. If you know that slide-rules exist, you have achieved slide-rule awareness, which is already FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:06 Page 3 quite enough to earn you a splendid grade in a mathematics education course. If you can actually use a slide-rule, or even if you have just slid one a bit, you have slide-rule literacy. (That's just for now of course. The school people have obviously not yet received the pedagogical doctrine of Peter McWilliams, who is a 'syndicated computer columnist,' just the kind of expert they take from. When they hear the word, they will discover that slide-rule literacy calls for nothing more formidable than a sense of ease around slide- rules.) And then there's all that bunk about computer 'languages,' which are languages in just the same way that the 'language of the flowers' is language--not at all. They are codes, ingenious and elaborate codes, which is what they must be if they are to work. Computer languages provide the possibility of an exact and precisely limited correspondence not only between what is said and what is meant, but also between what is meant and what is so in the strictly defined system about which, and ONLY about which, statements can be made. For computing, that's good, and it works. But those same attributes are characteristic of the very least of the powers of language, communication, a power also wielded by wolves and crows. If wolves and crows do not devise computers and computer 'languages,' it is because they have none of the higher powers of language, especially meatphor and discourse. It is in those powers that we grow when we study language, and to pretend that the study of computer language is the study of language is primarily a convenience for those who pretend that they teach the powers of language. And then there's another thing--that bunk about 'fear of computers.' It is, of course, possible that there are certain people who do fear computers, even as there are probably people who fear shredded wheat or party hats. They are loonies. Computers are no more likely than rulers, or even sextants, to provoke fear in people who are not loonies. What we see at work here is a longstanding educationalistic con job that has been eagerly adopted by peddlers as well as politicians, who also make their livings by preying on emotions. It is the pose of the big-hearted giver, who so charitably understands your shortcomings, and so selflessly seeks only your good. He kindly tells you that there IS a little something wrong with you, maybe just a little learning disability, or an unraised consciousness, or this irrational fear of computers, that you can't seem to overcome all by yourself. But don't worry. Your deficiency is 'perfectly natural' in one who has not yet had the inestimable benefit of his ministrations, which he will be only too happy to provide. FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:11 Page 4 And there is yet one more thing--the pernicious notion that learning to work a computer has something to do with education. One of its versions suggests that no one can be educated without learning about computers, which confuses training with education and information with knowledge, as is the custom in the schools. An alternative version pronounces, as is also the custom in the schools, that NOW we know what to do. NOW we can teach those students who have stubbornly refused to be taught by 'traditional' methods, i.e., the LAST few paroxysms of innovative thrusts. The other quotation is from a letter to the NYT by Susan M. Merritt and Allen H. Stix, members of the computer science department at Pace University. When they say 'science,' they seem to mean SCIENCE, which is neither a pleasant feeling nor a vocational skill, but a discipline in the mind. It is to be learned just as they say, which is just as ANY mental discipline is to be learned, by hearing competent lectures, studying books, and sitting alone. Those things are not allowed in the schools. Competent lectures are elitist and authoritarian, books are just NOT experiential, and sitting alone is aberrant behavior. The schools will have to teach computer science in THEIR way. Spending somebody else's money brings a great sense of ease. The Underground Grammarian is available from: R. Mitchell, Asst. Circulation Mgr. Post Office Box 203 Glassboro New Jersey 08028 for $15 per year to Persons in USA & Canada. (It is $25 for Institutions.) FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:14 Page 5 ============================================================ NEWS ============================================================ Bdale Garbee Sysop of L5NET Gateway, Fido 129/13 Some Utilities I'm Looking for and Haven't Found There are a few public domain utilities I would like to locate for my Fido host, which I have unfortunately not yet found in my random wanderings around other Fido systems. I'm running a Tandy 1200HD, which is an IBM XT-clone. If you have any of the things I'm looking for, either send them to me by Fidomail, or send me a message detailing how I can get them. Emphasis on public domain. Sources desirable but not absolutely necessary (beggars can't be choosers!) 1 - A disk utility like DU for CP/M. When setting up my system, I was faced with the need to patch ATDT to ATDP in Fido, and ended up Kermiting the file over to my CP/M box to make the patch. Not too hard, but someone out there must have a good disk patch utility. The search command in particular has been usefull in DU. 2 - A full-screen filer similar to the VFILER program distributed with ZCPR3 for CP/M compatible systems. What would be nice is a full-screen view of the files in a directory node, with commands to do individual and group file manipulations, as well as printing, bouncing up and down the directory tree, etc. 3 - A good incremental backup utility. Something that would allow me to do an occasional full backup, and then on a daily or weekly basis cut a floppy with all of the files that have changed or appeared since the last full or incremental backup. 4 - A directory entry raw editor. Something like FDBED under Tops-20. You give it a filespec, and it puts up all of the information contained in the directory entry on the screen and lets you move around and edit the entries with absolutely no error checking. Usefull when directories get trashed, or when you do a file transfer that bombs before the file gets closed, and you want to hack on the directory entry. I'm not yet experienced enough on MS-DOS to know how practical this particular utility would be. I suppose that's enough for this time. If I get enough responses, I will summarize what I find out, and how the things I get actually stack up to what I want, in a future article for the news... ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:19 Page 7 This article has two purposes! The first one is I have a friend who is looking for a bbs that works on a Ti pro and TI's internal program and the second is some response to this article. I think it is self explanatory! Contact me at fido 437 net 117 or call the people that wrote the messages directly at the RCP/M I found them on wich is RAPID (409)-845-8931. Date: 08/06/85 From: JIM COBURN To: ALL Re: KAYPRO LIVES No matter their stock doesn't appreciate in value at any fast pace their is one masterful use for kaypros. Put TBBS Bulletin board on a 2700 10m machine and show me something more powerful for major companies to run their in house BBS's for terminal users from around the country . salesmen etc , sure it can't except 12 incomming lines but $ 2800.00 beats the pants off of having your big mainframe 40-50-60- 100000.00 computer played around with by hackers. Cp/m will live and will resurface because most people haven't the 1st idea of what computer to buy but run out and buy IBM or clones and spend fortunes to run What. Simple programs excluding Lotus etc but then again they usually aren't the buyers of Lotus. As soonn as some advertising exec gets smart and sells the idea of all the wonderful prgms for cpm that exist plus the p/domain prgms you will see c/pm again. Really how many of the users of 16 bit computers know the difference between 8 and 16 bit and for sure the home buyer isn't going to be the programmers of the future except for a few. Kaypro is now the largest selling C/pm system in the usa and it won't be long before some one figures a marketing stradgy out to renew interest. How many IBM clone programs came from c/pm. Date: 08/06/85 From: DON BUZZINGHAM To: ALL Re: Jim's comments Too true, unfortunately most purchase decisions are made on the basis of information derived from some marketing jock who may never have even put a disk into a computer. All he is doing is pushing a product. Think about it! How many computer salesmen are competent users? How many computer salesmen even own a personal computer (purchased with their own cash, not provided by the employer)? Come to think about it, how many people here at A&M have invested their own cash in a microcomputer? I have decided to postpone buying a new computer until a decidedly superior product appears. Until that time, and it ain't here yet, I'll keep running my Kaypro. After all, why should I pay a premium to SLOW DOWN? Well you've heard there side now lets hear yours! FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:23 Page 8 Mike Ringer Fido 437 in net 117 ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:24 Page 9 FIDO 19/918 An Idea for FidoNews I am a Fido user in Lubbock, Texas. I have a suggestion for the newsletter that I am sure many people who are in the same fix will agree with. Here is my problem: I own a low speed (300 baud) modem. I don't have a dedicated line, either, so I use our one phone in the house. We also have this diabolical thing called "call waiting" that is one of AT&T's attempts at destroying useful telecommunications. Last, I would love to be able to read all the issues of Fidonews when they come in, but for one problem: They are so long! It seems as though everytime I start downloading one, an incoming phone call fouls up my carrier, and I have to re-download the whole thing, read and unread articles, all over again. What would be nice is a feature that would let the user jump around in the newsletter, reading only the articles they want to. I know this would entail lots of modifications to Fido, but surely it wouldn't be that difficult? The newsletter could be packaged with a "Table of contents" at the beginning describing article titles, authors, content, and a logical record offset in the file. (Page number!) Then they could be called up via a special command, and the user could read only the articles he/she wanted to, or read some and read the rest later, and so on. For die-hards that wish to download the thing w/ Xmodem and print it out later (It saves eye strain) they could still go into the File area and download...the table of contents file format structure shouldn't be any problem, it may even help them, too! I don't have a Rainbow or PC or anything nearly compatible, so I don't know what sort of modifications this would require, perhaps the file format would not make it possible to jump around like that. But, I believe that FidoNews is the best thing to come around since local bulletin boards. --------------Also possibly of some interest--------------- I have written a freeware bulletin board that has a network system similiar to Fido but incompatible, called TI-SUB. You can call the headquarters board, sysop Matt Storm, at 806-792-5831 if you want to look around. Number two is in Philadelphia PA at 215-676-7393, sysop Mike Bell, and a major magazine is looking into it right now. For more info, write to Erik Olson, 3712 68th, Lubbock Texas, 79413, or FidoMail to 19/67 or 19/918. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:28 Page 10 From Spiv's Fido #346 in Region #10 (408) 972-8164: (The ONLY FIDO devoted to the IBM PC AT) ******************************************************** Part of an article in PC WEEK: GTE's PC Pursuit Offers Users Electronic Links Via Local Call: GTE Telenet last week introduced PC Pursuit, a service that will allow PC users to connect to database services, bulletin boards, or individual computers by making a single local phone call. According to GTE Telenet Vice President Floyd Trogdon, PC Pursuit "links the user's terminal to any off-network phone number... that he wishes to call, whether it's a free database in Boston, a specialized bulletin board in Los Angeles, or his brother in Denver." The new service, though officially launched to allow PC users to contact other PCs in distant locations, also was designed to take advantage of Telenet's nationwide distribution network. The PC Pursuit service will make use of the excess capacity of GTE Telenet, and as a result is only available at night and on weekends. During the day, Telenet's network capacity is dedicated to large corporate uers. To use PC Pursuit, a caller dials the PC Pursuit access number in his area. The GTE computer asks for the caller's number, and the city and number to be called. At this point, the caller hangs up. Shortly thereafter, the PC Pursuit service calls the user back, and makes the long distance connection requested. While the connection is being made, PC Pursuit keeps the user informed of the progress of the call through periodic status messages. A call can last up to an hour. GTE charges subscribers $25 for using the service regardless of the amount of time that the service is actually used. Users can pay by credit card. Currently, only 12 cities have access to PC Pursuit: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington. The system supports 300 and 1200 baud modem operation. 2400 baud service will be available in October. On-line sign-up for the service is available by calling 800- 835-3001 or 703-689-2987 (in Virginia.) FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:32 Page 11 Analysis: GTE is offering an off-hours, flat rate ($25 per month) gateway to any dial-up system. For the cost of a local phone call, any dial-up system is now reachable from 12 cities. Shades of FidoNet! Just think what will happen when outbound hosts are formed in these 12 cities! Nationwide FidoMail/FidoNet forwarding of unlimited message traffic for a flat fee of $25 per month! I don't know if the 800 number listed above is voice or data, but I'm waiting to get through (busy tone) to get all the details. Those of you not in the selected 12 cities, get on your local BBS systems and start lobbying everyone to call GTE and request that your city be added as soon as possible. Unless I am wrong, this is the first time a major company is creating a product/service that shows they fully understand the potential of the hobbiest/hacker telecommunciations community. Let's prove their right. (Typed in and comments by: Robert E. Spivack, Fido 10/346) ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:34 Page 12 Review of Alpha Software's "Keyworks" keyboard macro software. By Mark Perloe, for the National PCjr Users Group Alpha's KEYWORKS lets you redefine combinations of keystrokes to customize any operation. You can personalize your software with up to 380 macros and save 7000 keystrokes. KEYWORKS also lets you easily customize menus that can be called up for a variety of functions. Although these features alone justify the purchase price, the few extras are also appreciated. The ability to encrypt files, copy files, format disks, and search directories is very useful. KEYWORKS comes with suggested macros and pop- up menus for many programs. If you are presently using PROKEY, but wish to switch, Alpha has included a simple conversion program. WORDSTAR is a breeze with KEYWORKS. It loads its macros from the autoexec file but macros files can be interchanged without even exiting from the file you are writing or you might choose one set to use when writing reports for school and another for writing letters. Paragraphs for form letters can be stored as separate files on the floppy disk and called up with two keystrokes. Menus are provided for WORDSTAR but in less than one hour you can customize or create additional mouse compatible pop-up menus for any command you wish. KEYWORKS can come to the rescue when problems occur. More than once I've had Wordstar files too big to fit on partially filled disk. Rather than lose the files, KEYWORKS allowed me to format a new disk. When logging to another drive in Wordstar you are required to have overlay files on the logged drive or the program may freeze. This can be easily solved by using KEYWORKS copy command to transfer the necessary files. File encryption and test window creation can be valuable aids for any user. A single macro can call other macros or pause for fixed or variable lengths which is great for designing forms. This has made data entry a much faster task with DBASE. Frequent entries can have their own macros which pause for certain fields. For instance, recurring monthly checks can be recorded easily with minimal keystrokes. You can design the macro to pause only for entry of the date and amount. The remainder of the data fields will be supplied by the macro. KEYWORKS `USER GUIDE' is short and sweet. The way to learn KEYWORKS is to use it. The menus are so well designed that you can easily learn to edit, list, create, change macros or menus without ever opening the manual. FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:39 Page 13 Compatibility has always been a problem for those of us using expanded PCjr's. If I had a dollar for every supposedly "compatible" program that crashed my IBM PCjr's RAM disk or erased the video memory, I would be able to afford a real PC! Alpha Software has come to our aid with KEYWORKS. This program is an invaluable tool just waiting to make life with Jr a little bit easier. It coexists happily with ramdisks, print spoolers, and Racore expansion boxes. This is not true for PROKEY and SUPERKEY, its competitors. If versatility, user friendliness and price are important in your software decisions, then KEYWORKS is a powerful program that you will want in your autoexec.bat file. Mark may be reached for comment or question at FIDO No.15 in Region 900 PCjrUserGroup Tulsa, OK (918) 496-2055 300-1200-2400. FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:41 Page 14 ============================================================ WANTED ============================================================ Help Wanted for SEAdog System Enhancement Associates, the developers of the popular ARC utility, have developed a full-featured electronic mail system for the PC. This is a fully developed system for sending and receiving messages and files which includes the following features: o Full Fidonet compatibility o Automatic message routing o Message forwarding o Return receipts o File requests o File update requests o On-line, context sensitive help o Easy installation We are now seeking sources of venture capital so that we may begin our marketing operation. Interested parties should contact Jim Kennedy at (201) 575-5144 or send Fidonet mail to SEAdog Leader at node 107/8. FIDONEWS -- 26 Aug 85 00:18:43 Page 15 ============================================================ NOTICES ============================================================ Fidonews Bugs We made a mistake in the last editorial about Fido user lists. The output from SHIPUSER should be sent to Matt Kanter at node 107/1, NOT node 107/7. ------------------------------------------------------------ The Interrupt Stack 27 Nov 1985 Halley's Comet passes closest to Earth before perihelion. 24 Jan 1986 Voyager 2 passes Uranus. 9 Feb 1986 Halley's Comet reaches perihelion. 11 Apr 1986 Halley's Comet reaches perigee. 19 May 1986 Steve Lemke's next birthday. 24 Aug 1989 Voyager 2 passes Neptune. If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to Fido 107/7.