Volume 3, Number 45 24 November 1986 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings FidoNews is the official newsletter of the International FidoNet Association, and is published weekly by SEAdog Leader, node 1/1. 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. Copyright (C) 1986, 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. Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL What's Up? 2. ARTICLES Marketing Research Questionnaires WHO "COPYRIGHTED" MY ECHOMAIL CONFERENCE? The Brian Walsh Logical T's FRAUDULENT Contest MULTITECH 224EH Keep a Running Scoreboard on your system! dBASEIII Bible project Tom Jennings, Thrasher National Vietnam Veteran's Echo-Mail Conference 3. COLUMNS Review of Boyan-C1 (a NEW term program) 4. FOR SALE Magazine On Disk for IBM PC and Compatibles The Structured Programming Language for PC/MS DOS Dennis Baer 5. NOTICES The Interrupt Stack Fidonews Page 2 24 Nov 1986 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= What's Up? I can't stand it. I've tried my best to be a good boy. Shortly after the conference in Colorado Springs several people told me that I should hold back and not express my opinions, but should wait for a general consensus to develop without me. But to quote the immortal Popeye, "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more!" Right off the bat, yes, a great many mistakes were made, and I made my own share of them. What can I say? I don't really think that anyone really realized just how many seriously concerned people there are out there. I am quite pleased at the breadth and depth of feeling that exists in the FidoNet community, even though it may have been painful to experience at times! I suspect that quite a lot of us now realize that FidoNet (like much of the software that spawned it) is growing to be a far greater thing than anyone would have thought even so recently as this time last year. We are now being taken quite seriously indeed by many outside groups. We are coming to have a presence in the market and in the industry that cannot be ignored. And the International FidoNet Association, like it or not, is being recognized as the visible manifestation of that presence. IFNA is by no means ready for the sort of attention that is already being focused on it by the various trade publications, trade groups, manufacturers, and so on. But as time passes, we grow and we learn. Many people within FidoNet have expressed concern over IFNA. Will this legal fiction, this corporate person, that we are creating be what we want, or will it be a Frankenstein's Monster? I personally feel that it will help. The sysop has generally been a much ignored and much maligned figure, bringing visions (if anything at all) of hackers working away in their basements to bring about World War III. IFNA would give us a central source that the media could go to for information and advice, through which we could express our own opinion of the sysop as a dedicated volunteer performing a public service. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 3 24 Nov 1986 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Andrew Kanter Sysop Fido 101/301 ****************************** Can You Prevent a Nuclear War? ****************************** Well, if you have every wondered what is really going on out there in the land of Star Wars and Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles, nows your chance to find out... and do something about it! Fido 101/301 (The Beyond War/IPPNW BBS) is back on- line! Moved from Los Angeles to Cambridge, Mass, then on to Brookline, Massachusetts, Fido 101/301 is up and running 22 hours a day. The new phone number is (617) 731-1575, 300/1200 baud. If you want to get more information about the prevention of nuclear war, or want to discuss the feasability of Star Wars with other concerned modem- users, call today. There are many articles available for t)yping or d)ownloading, ranging from interviews with Nobel Laureates to opinion articles by your average college student. Want to hear what the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War have to say about Chernobyl or the summit? Tired of not finding solutions to this ultimate problem? Call and check out the articles by Dr. Lown, Beyond War, and others! If you are interested in seeing a list of available files, simply fidomail a message to Sysop of 101/301 and I will send it out to you. Later, if you would like some of them, maybe we can arrange to have them arced and sent along too. What better way to help prevent the Last Epidemic then spreading the word by sharing these important articles! Many of you carried some of these articles at one time (when the BBS was in L.A.). Now is the time to "renew your subscription"! Send a message today! And if you are interested in medical issues, the latest updates on AIDS, radiation, and the flu, you can get them from 101/301 too. Remember, that's: ( 6 1 7 ) 7 3 1 - 1 5 7 5 Call today! Yes, you CAN make a difference! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 4 24 Nov 1986 Review of FlickerFree 11/2/86 D. Ellison Fido 18/4 FlickerFree, A User Review FlickerFree is a memory resident utility to "dramatically increase text display performance". This it does...remarkably. Some of the other claims made in the advertising is not quite as accurate. The program was tested on an IBM-PC under PC-DOS 3.1. The quotes come from their current advertising. "DRAMATICALLY INCREASE TEXT DISPLAY PERFORMANCE". The program delivers! Scrolling speed with the DIR command is truly impressive. Also the TYPE command scrolls the file with dizzying speed. Not mentioned is that if you use the MORE filter when typing the file to screen, FlickerFree is disabled so you lose the speed advantage. This limits the usefullness of the program. "ELIMINATES THAT ANNOYING SCROLLING FLICKER". It's true, the flicker is gone completely. If you don't mind flicker, you can speed scrolling even more by selecting a faster scrolling mode from the FlickerFree menu. "CONTROL DOS FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND COLORS" Again, the program does allow easy selection of screen colors as long as FlickerFree is on. What isn't mentioned is that it disables the ANSI.SYS driver. If you use imbedded codes in files or if you call any bulletin boards that use them, you'll see the escape codes and not the colors. "100% COMPATIBLE WITH ALL PCs, COMPATIBLES, AND WITH ALL OTHER MEMORY RESIDENT UTILITIES" The program falls down a bit on this one. The documentation states that it isn't compatible with PC-WRITE or SMARTCOMM. Oddly enough, the documentation that came with FlickerFree describing the incompatibility with PC-WRITE is dated June 86 but their October ads still claim 100% compatibility. They provide another program that will automatically disable any incompatible program if their FFIX.COM is run first against the incompatible program. There is a problem, though. If you do as they say and FFIX ED.EXE, then run ED.EXE (PC-WRITE's editor) PC-WRITE runs normally until you try to use the DOS shell within PC-WRITE. You can go to DOS but the machine locks up when you EXIT back to PC-WRITE. You can turn FlickerFree off by typing FF off at the command line but the program seems to remain in memory. Even with FlickerFree off, I lost a document when trying to exit PC-WRITE. Even worse than the problem with PC-WRITE is that the program seems to have difficulty with Fido. I found Fido would crash unpredictably after FlickerFree had been loaded. Each time, this required a cold boot. Unfortunately, cold boots with a hard disk can cause data loss because the heads aren't parked. I spent the afternoon reformatting my hard disk. The ad quotes Peter Norton in his 6-86 PC Magazine article Fidonews Page 5 24 Nov 1986 claiming FlickerFree "...solves several problems that muck up display screens: snow, flicker, and lack of speed...". When you read the documentation, they claim Peter Norton was mistaken when he said the program eliminates snow. It seems a bit misleading to quote someone about your program when you clearly know him to be mistaken. "FULL, MONEY-BACK, SATISFACTION GUARANTEE" I sent them their program back for a refund. This guarantee makes the program well worth a try. If you are annoyed by the flicker and slow pace of your display, FlickerFree may be the answer. If you run a Fido BBS or use PC-WRITE, you'll want to keep their satisfaction guarantee in mind. FlickerFree $39.95 Gibson Research Corporation 9 Lago Sud Irvine, Ca 92715 (714) 854-1520 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 6 24 Nov 1986 Dear Sysops, As a senior at Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, New Hampshire, I am majoring in Marketing, within the Division of Business Administration. In order to graduate, each business student must complete an independent study project which results in the completion of research and the writing of a formal research paper. This thesis must be defended before the faculty and administration of the college. The thesis topic I have chosen is Fidonet. I am investigating its marketing potential and as part of that investigation, I also need to identify and quantify the various types of users of FIDONET. I have therefore designed two questionnaires - one for sysops and one for users. Your assistance is urgently needed in order to obtain this information. The first questionnaire is for sysops. Please use your word processor to answer the questions and return it to me via 101/27 (Dave's Fido in Gardner, MA) under the name Lyndalee Foster, or simply print it out and send the completed survey to: Lyndalee Foster P.O. Box 360 Franklin Pierce College Rindge, NH 03461 It would also be very helpful if you could send me a file which simply contains the opening screens and menus on your system. The survey for users follows the survey for sysops. Please make it available to all your users as is. Directions to the user describe the purpose of the study and how they should respond. Please try to respond by November 20 as the results are urgently needed in order for me to complete my thesis on time. The results of the survey have to be coded, tabulated, analyzed, and reported in the thesis by December 3. I have tried to obtain this information through public sources but so far without success. If you know of any sources which address the questions which are in my survey, please let me know. Since I have been unable to find the information, I would be most appreciative if you could help me. Thank-you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, Lyndalee Foster Fidonews Page 7 24 Nov 1986 QUESTIONNAIRE FOR SYSOPS PART I Please fill out these questions in the method indicated by each question as honestly as possible to insure the validity of the questionnaire. 1. How long (years, months) have you been a sysop? 2. What comprises your message section? (for example, FIDONET mail, messages to/from sysop, ect.) 3. Please list other features that you offer on your system below (such as type of files). 4. How do you finance your Fido operation? a. suggested fee of $__________ (1) b. manditory fee of $__________ (2) c. charge only for Fidomail (3) d. other______________________________________________ (4) 5. Approximately, how many current users (i.e. active within the last six months) do you have on your Fido? 6. The overwhelming majority of users on most systems seem to be male. What would you estimate is the percentage of users who are female on your system? 7. What options do you feel could be added to Fido to increase its usage? PART II - BASELINE QUESTIONS The following are background questions for classification purposes. Please mark or fill in the appropriate blank to answer the questions as accurately as possible. 1. What is your sex? 2. How old are you? 3. What is your marital status? Fidonews Page 8 24 Nov 1986 4. Do you operate your system out of your home or from an office? 5. On what type of computer is your system operated? 6. How many years of school have you completed? (e.g. highschool graduate equaling 12 years) 7. What is your current or most recent occupation? **The results of this survey will be reported in a future newsletter.** ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 9 24 Nov 1986 To All Fido Users: As a senior at Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, New Hampshire, I am majoring in Marketing, within the Division of Business Administration. In order to graduate, each business student must complete an independent study project which results in the completion of research and the writing of a formal research paper. This thesis must be defended before the faculty and administration of the college. The thesis topic I have chosen is Fidonet. I am investigating the marketing potential of FidoNet. As part of that investigation, I also need to identify and quantify the various types of users of FIDONET. Please use your word processor to answer the questions and return it to me via 101/27 (Dave's Fido in Gardner, MA) under the name Lyndalee Foster, or simply print it out and send the completed survey to: Lyndalee Foster P.O. Box 360 Franklin Pierce College Rindge, NH 03461 Please try to respond by November 20 as the results are urgently needed in order for me to complete my thesis on time. The results of the survey have to be coded, tabulated, analyzed, and reported in the thesis by December 3. I have tried to obtain this information through public sources but so far without success. If you know of any sources which address the questions which are in my survey, please let me know. Since I have been unable to find the information, I would be most appreciative if you could help me. Thank-you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, Lyndalee Foster Fidonews Page 10 24 Nov 1986 FIDO USERS QUESTIONNAIRE PART I The following is a questionnaire dealing with your usage of FIDO and other bulletin board services. Please fill out these questions in the method indicated by each question as honestly as possible to insure the validity of the questionnaire. 1. How often do you access Fido? a. every day (1) b. more than once a week (2) c. more than once a month (3) 2. What options do you utilize most on Fido (for example, e- mail, uploading and downloading programs, Echomail, bulletin board, etc)? 3. What options would you like to see added to Fido? 4. Do you subscribe to other systems? a. yes (1) b. no (2) 5. What system, other than FIDO, if any, do you use most often? (Compuserve, The Source, MCI Mail, etc.) 6. What options do you use from the other system, for example, e-mail, bulletin boards, uploading or downloading programs, etc? 7. How often do you use the other system? a. every day (1) b. more than once a week (2) c. more than once a month (3) 8. Are there any other systems to which you subscribe? 9. How did you first hear about Fido? PART II - BASELINE QUESTIONS The following are background questions for classification purposes. Please mark or fill in the appropriate blank to answer the questions as accurately as possible. Fidonews Page 11 24 Nov 1986 1. What is your sex? a. male (1) b. female (2) 2. How old are you? a. under 18 (1) b. 19-30 (2) c. 31-40 (3) d. 41-50 (4) e. 51+ (5) 3. What is your marital status a. married (1) b. single (2) 4. Do you own a home computer? a. yes (1) b. no (2) 5. If yes to question 4, what type of system do you own? 6. How many years of school have you completed? (e.g. high school graduate equals 12 years) 7. What is your current or most recent occupation? **The results of this survey will be reported in a future newsletter.** ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 12 24 Nov 1986 Robert E. Spivack Sysop Spiv's Fido 143/3 Sillicon Valley Net 143 Host (408) 247-3296 Greetings fellow Sysops and Fido Users. It has been a while since I last wrote a column for Fidonews, but so much is going on it is time to comment. I. Mark Welch's problems with PC-SIG (tm): Mark -- I support your position and hope that you plan to put your education (U.C. Law) to work ASAP to fight those *@$@%%#! (I recall reading somewhere you were now attending law school.) II. Commercial Fidonet: I don't care what you call it, how you structure it, whether the goals are noble or not, but FORCING any kind of charge for Fidonet (being in the nodelist, being serviced by a national or regional host, etc.) just isn't a hobby anymore. Instead of worrying about some Fido's (SUCH AS MINE) that might drop out and how that would affect the net, why don't all you money-hungry anti-hobbiests JUST DROP OUT NOW AND FORM YOUR OWN COMMERCIAL NET IN THE FIRST PLACE! (How's that for turning the tables with an interesting suggestion) III. Commercial tag-along "points": A recent Fidonews (#339, I think) carried a proposal for extending the hierarchical routing beyond zone:net/node to include subnodes called points. Although I think the motivation is wrong (to faciliate commercial nodes and payments) the concept of "points" is interesting. I would like to propose an alternate use. "Points", or degenerate nodes, could be used for individuals that want to link to the Fido network but do not want to set themselves up as nodes. Essentially, these are casual users that might be online for several weeks, disappear for a month or two, etc. "Points" are maintained only by the local node as private extentions to the nodelist (That is already possible using the XLATLIST option for a private nodelist.) The real value of "points" is that it allows someone (Shareware authors, are you listening?) to create a single-user simplified Fido package that simply allows a user to create Fidonet messages offline and send/receive them to/from their supporting node. This creates a form of electronic mail where "points" are primarily involved with sending messages to/from other Fido users (either normal nodes or other "points"). The key is that the supporting node HOLDS all mail for the "point" until the "point" calls (polls) to receive it. Since this mini Fido program is limited in function, it would be small enough to fit on a floppy disk and be usable with a portable/laptop computer, maybe even implemented on a Z80 machine like the Tandy 100, etc. Finally, since "points" are users without the responsibility of Fidonews Page 13 24 Nov 1986 having their nodes up 24 hours a day (or even every day at Fidomail time), anyone that wants to join Fidonet but doesn't have the time, money, dedicated phone line, or discipline can still participate rather than join as a full fledged node and be counted among the "missing, lost dogs, or disappearing" nodes. Just like the original proposal, the real benefit/simplification of "points" is that the list of them is not compiled and circulated with the nodelist. "Points" are like real Ma Bell phone numbers, you gotta know them to call them and any "Phone Books" available are published as a favor, not a requirement. (I.E. users can voluntarily exchange their "point" addresses and/or publish their own phone directories, but the operation of Fidonet and "points" does not REQUIRE it. Thus, no additional overhead to IFNA, Fido 1/0, et. al.) IV. Echomail - I must admit, although quite technical myself, I've waited too long and only recently started joining this FANTASTIC facility. I'm glad that ideas are being generated for bringing order to this wildly growing feature and at the risk of covering ground that may already have been discussed, let me propose a few simple things: A controlled list of Echomail conferences should be compiled and distributed on a weekly basis listing the name of the conference, the conference coordinator, and a short description. This may or may not be distributed WITH the weekly nodelist update. A more formal acknowledgement of a second kind of Echomail capability should be made. I'll coin the term "Broadcast" mail to refer to the desire for one user or Sysop or send a message to many systems and have the message "tossed" into a specific message area. The easiest example is trading/selling something we no longer want. If I want to sell a hard disk, modem board, or even a bicycle, I would like to broadcast (should I say carefully execute a "bombing run") to many boards and have the message appear in an area reserved for it. Most likely, many of us have a message area called "FORSALE". All that is needed is for the most common ones (For Sale, Wanted, Gossip, News, etc.) to be assigned standard NAMES and have a list compiled showing which nodes have them. Thus, a Robot-like utility could then send Fidonet mail only to those nodes that have a message area (an implicitly then are saying its ok to forward the message to me) on that topic. Note that the default Fidonet area is a degenerate case. We all know we can send a message to any Fido and have it be received in its Fidonet message area, however, many systems restrict the Fidonet area to only certain classes of users. V. Fido enhancements - Boy, we all have lots of ideas here, I'll try to restrict myself to a few things which may benefit a lot of Sysops. Again, I apologize if some of these are already being addressed by the next revision or have already been shot down. Fidonews Page 14 24 Nov 1986 International - I hope the "country" stuff will make Fidonet smarter and simply refuse to deliver mail directly to a node that has an incompatible modem. Right now, it is up to the Sysop to manually remember which systems just can't receive using US Bell std modems. I know that I would spare the $$ to dial up our non- US friends, it is the modems, not the bucks that is keeping the ocean a barrier for many of us. Nodelist Processing - It seems strange to me that the NODELIST.IDX file is bigger than the NODELIST.BBS itself. It might be interesting to include parameters inside Fido itself that obsolete the XLATLIST stuff. I mean, instead of batch converting canonical phone numbers to local dialing codes, etc. why not just include the parameters inside Fido (or via a control file) so that Fido converts a phone number on the fly when it uses it to dial. It would only take less than a second to convert one phone number in real time, rather than forcing us to endure ever-longer xlatlist,routegen sessions. Independent Message and File Areas - I think the original thinking for having each SYSTEMnn.BBS file describe a message and a file area needs a revision. I know that many Fidos do not have pairs of areas. (I.E. very few Fidos actually have a UNIX message area with a UNIX file area; a DOS message area with a DOS file area; etc.) This pairing makes setting privileges very difficult because often you want to disable access to a message area but allow access to the file area. Right now, you've got to juggle them around and re-pair up different areas to get around this. User Privileges by Area - One of the biggest suggestions I keep hearing is to enlarge the USER password file to allow specifying for each user which file or message areas they can access. This would provide a much richer more granular way to control the system. Right now, all you can do is define classes of users (twit, normal, extra, sysop, etc.) and then assign class attributes to file/message areas. Today, you can't have two users each the same class (normal or extra) with each one restricted to DIFFERENT message areas. (Note: Since there can be up to 99 areas, a reasonable restriction might be to only allow room for 10 or 20 areas that can be controlled this way) Whew! and I thought all I was gonna write was two sentences..! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 15 24 Nov 1986 WHO "COPYRIGHTED" MY ECHOMAIL CONFERENCE? by J. Brad Hicks, Sysop 100/523 (WeirdBase) I have now seen the following in almost every Echomail conference that I participate in, including the one I created: _________________________________________________________________ #165 02 Nov 86 21:45:00 (PRIVATE) From: Thomas Gentry To: All Subject: LEGAL NOTICE This ECHO area Copyright 1986 by Thomas Gentry All rights reserved. All electronically transmitted messages in this area become the sole property of Thomas Gentry and the CHAI Way BBS (c) 1986. A limited license is granted to sysops and users to utilize this information freely. ANY attempts at regulating the exchange of this copyrighted material will result in legal action against the offending party or parties. Contact: IFNA node - 136/200 (IFNA-(c)1986 International Fido Net Association) TECHNET node - 950/200 (TECHNET-(c)1986 Mike Johnson) for more information. --- v1.36 * Origin: (c) 1986 CHAI_Way_OPUS (512) 388-3464 (136/200) _________________________________________________________________ Sounds like a joke, doesn't it? This guy can't possibly be trying to assert prior claim over the Echomail conference I founded, can he? Well, I've been trying for a while now to get through to Mr. Gentry, and he has yet to reply to ANY of my messages on the subject in the Echomail areas where the offense took place. And that's close enough to a legal notice that I'm worried. _________________________________________________________________ I, Brad Hicks, sysop of Fido 100/523, renounce the copyright no- tice excerpted above. Thomas Gentry is a newcomer to the con- ference, and cannot demonstrate ANY WAY in which he has contri- buted to the concept, creation, or operation of the MAGICK Echomail conference prior to the entry of this message. Further, existing documents, both paper and electronic, verify that I, along with Josh Gordon (sysop of Fido 161/93) and Dave Rene (sysop of Fido 101/27, aka Fido 101/0) are the originators and creators of the MAGICK Echomail Conference. Our contribution is visible and significant, both in distribution and in authorship of messages. Therefore let it be know to all that the MAGICK Echomail con- ference is PUBLIC DOMAIN, and not property of any person or organization. Neither the name, nor the concept, nor the structure may be claimed to be owned by any person. The public messages of this conference are put into the public domain and may be reprinted in whole or in part, in any medium, by any person without let or hindrance. The private messages of said conference should be considered the property of their authors and Fidonews Page 16 24 Nov 1986 the addressees. _________________________________________________________________ It is possible that Mr. Gentry thinks he is trying to "protect" us by keeping unscrupulous operators from claiming ownership of our material and by some arcane legality charging us money for our own names, or something. Oh well, I suppose stranger things have happened (anybody who knows the history of Fantasy Role- Playing games knows what I'm talking about). But the sysop of 136/200 should NOT have taken this action without consulting ME, whom he knew full well to be the founder and coordinator of this conference. Far from it! And I suspect he didn't warn the coordinators of any of the OTHER conferences (such as BIBLE) that he tried to "land-grab". And I do NOT consider myself protected by Mr. Gentry's claim that he OWNS MY WORDS--"sole property of Thomas Gentry ... (c) 1986," it says here. I am therefore taking direct action to protect myself and the other members of the MAGICK conference from prosecution by returning "ownership" of their words to where it belongs, and where any sane court would have ruled it was before this obnoxious entry: the public domain. If Mr. Gentry really does think he can get away with claiming full, sole ownership over my words and work, he had better retain an attorney and prosecute his claim, because I will CONTINUE to distribute this conference as I see fit, as I have done for six months now. I hate to put it in these terms, but remember, I didn't start this fight. Should it become a legal battle, I in- vite, I BEG all Fido Sysops (and IFNA) to assist me in defending me against take-over of my work and words. I may be contacted via FidoNet at my own address of 100/523, or via U.S. Mail to: J. Brad Hicks, 3900 Roland, Apartment B, Saint Louis, Missouri 63121, United States of America. Thank you. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 17 24 Nov 1986 Howard Feil User of The Heart of Gold 109/624 October 23, 1986 The Brian Walsh Logical T's FRAUDULENT Contest In mid August of 1986 Brian Walsh, sysop of Logical Technologies FidoNet 109/640, ran a contest under the name of Computerland. The contest stated that the first person to upload 100 public domain files would win a 1200 baud Hayes Compatible Modem. I, Howard Feil, was later informed by Brian that I was the "winner" of the contest he ran under name of Computerland. At this point Computerland Bulletin Board had gone down; however, Brian had started a new board with the SAME fidonet numbers 109/640 only under the name of Logical Technologies. It was in a data conversation with Brian on this board that I learned I had "won" the modem that it would be mailed to me by UPS after he received the modem on Friday, September 5, 1986, and during this same data conversation Brian also informed me that all the programs uploaded to the Computerland Board had been lost. It should be noted here that I was under the impression that the Hard Disk the BBS was running on hadn't been backed up although Brian later informed me that this was not true. He informed me that he had absolutely no idea where on earth the software for his Tape Backup system was (I'm assuming it didn't occur to him to put it on his Hard Disk), and the floppies he had backup the Hard Disk had been taken by someone else in the store. (Computerland) I offered to bring the software to Brian on Floppy disks to Computerland where he was working at the time, and he would mail them back with the Modem I rightly deserved. Brian was out on a service call at the time so I gave the disks to another person at Computerland and had them give the disks to Brian. He later informed by Fido Mail that he did receive the disks. I NEVER received the modem or my floppies from Brian. On September 28, 1986, I had my last data conversation with Brian of any length His parting words explained what had happened (This is a direct screen capture.) I sold IT since then because I had NO intentions of EVER giving you one until about 10mins. ago. talk to you toimmorrow, Bye. Brian had agreed to order another modem at this time (so he said) and was going to call me tomorrow and also agreed to call me on two more occasions. He never did. I never received the modem I rightly deserved. I never received the eight floppy disks I lent to him. Brian Walsh has Conducted a FRAUDULENT Contest. He has never Fidonews Page 18 24 Nov 1986 denied this and he appears to have planned it all along. I was informed on the phone by Son of the Owner of Computerland that Computerland had no knowledge that Brian Walsh had operated a BBS under the name of Computerland and that Brian Walsh was fired from Computerland for selling "products we don't even carry." Brian Walsh denies this stating that he resigned, and he had a written copy of his resignation. I would prefer not to comment on which story is true for I have no hard evidence for either story. I justly "won" the modem in a public contest sponsored by Brian Walsh. All I asked of Brian Walsh, was to be give the modem that I am entitled to and the disks I lent him which are my own personal property. He has never done so and has given no indication that he is going to compromise on the issue in anyway; not even in returning the disks I lent to him. I have persistently asked Brian questions on this issue, and all he has done, is deleted my messages. I formally request that Brian Walsh sysop of Logical Technologies 109/640's future in FidoNet be considered by the members of FidoNet as to whether or not they want members who have conducted Fraudulent Contests. Any Comments to this article can be sent to Howard Feil on FidoNet 109/624. Note: The sysop of FidoNet 109/624 is in no way involved or affiliated with the above proceedings. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 19 24 Nov 1986 Jin Tan Fido 107/701 MultiTech 224EH (with MNP) This is a plea to owners of the above modem who have run Fido during mail hours without ANY problems. I need to know your dip switch settings as well as your Fidomdm.bbs contents. I have tried Modem_Help_East, Tech Echomail as well as MultiTech but to no avail. This is my last resort! I am having problems getting Fido (11w) to work with the 224EH. The problem I am having is getting the modem to answer 2400 baud calls during Mail hours. Error message on my end says it is waiting for sync and that it is not a Fidonet. On the callers' log, they see a "no response to whacking CR" message. This problem is especially severe (100% of the time) for a Hayes 2400 and moderate (50%) for the USR Courier. I have tried nume rous suggestions including adding "AT&Q1" in the Fidomdm.bbs file. I also tried 1/J, 11/J, 5/J as well as AT&E0 (no MNP). My PROM version is 2.09. This problem exists ONLY during Mail hour. Despite the above problem, I am still very happy with the MultiTech modem. The servicing policy is Excellent. (Once, I sent in two modems (a Hayes and a MultiTech) back to the manufacturer to be repaired. The MultiTech took 1 week; the Hayes took 2 months. The techical support personnel know their modems VERY well (too bad they don't know Fido). And the special sysops' price for the modem just can't be beat! Thanking you in anticipation. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 20 24 Nov 1986 Allen Miller, 108/10 November 4, 1986 Now don't anyone feel sorry for me because I don't feel bad about this..... I have had a lot of fun running this Bulletin board and now I am to a point where I am rearranging my priorities. As part of this I will be retiring from the Sysop business. I appreciate all the support that the users of Allen's Board have contributed; you have made it very rewarding for me. Jesse Armontrout, Fido 108/64, will be the new Cincinnati Net Host. If anyone needs assistance of a Net Host, contact Jesse. He is very capable and I am sure he will do a good (probably better) job of Host. Once again, thanks. Regards, Allen Miller ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 21 24 Nov 1986 Daniel Tobias Soft Fido, 19/216 I have just released a new program that lets Fido sysops run online games and activities with a running scoreboard. This is a feature present in some other BBS systems, such as NoChange, and is very popular with users of such systems. Users compete to become System Champion, and can see a display of the top ten scores at any time. The SCOREKEEPER program, downloadable as the file SCOREKPR.ARC in file area 6 of SOFT FIDO [(318) 636-4402, 24 hours, 300 or 1200 baud], works in the OUTSIDE section of your system. It is fully compatible with either OUTSIDE or OUTER, and probably any other Outside menu program you might be using. The scores are kept in a standard ASCII file (the data format is documented in the accompanying text), so you can write games and other programs of your own which manipulate this data. SCOREKEEPER includes a routine to find the current user's score and move it to a short file CURRSCOR.BBS for easy access by other programs, when the user enters the Outside section; another routine to replace this score data in the master score file (SCORES.BBS) when the user leaves the Outside section, to save any changes in his or her score; commands to increase or decrease the current user's score; and a command to output the current top ten. Instructions are included showing you how to use SCOREKEEPER on your system. I plan on releasing game programs designed to work with SCOREKEEPER in the future. Right now, I have "The Numbers Game", downloadable from Soft Fido as NUMBERS.ARC, which is a "lottery"-style drawing with some interesting twists. Once again, our number is (318) 636-4402; our FidoNet node number is 19/216. Check us out; we also have a wide selection of other Fido utilities available for download, and no pre- registration is needed for download access. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 22 24 Nov 1986 Ken McVay Fido 138/45 WORD.DBF In 1983, I began to assemble a database which will, in time, contain the entire Bible. The project was begun using an Osborne-1 and dBASEII, and was upgraded to dBASEIII in 1985. I began the project on the assumption that by the time it was completed, the equipment required to utilize it would have become inexpensive enough that small congregations could readily afford it. It was assumed that the need for automated accounting and congregational record-keeping would provide the impetus which would lead to the purchase of an XT or compatible. At that point, I felt that the usefulness of the datafile would make the purchase of dBASEIII worthwhile. The Bible was already available in one version at the time the project began, but dBASEIII offered advantages which were NOT available, to wit, the ability to append commentaries through the MEMO field - including sermons relating to specific verses, citations from biblical dictionaries and commentaries, etc. After browbeating a few friends, active in the Christian Community, who were also PC owners, I managed to solicit some help, and the file grew apace. The file structure includes a field for VERSION, which permits the file to contain differing versions of the same books, for comparisons which would not be possible in commercial bible databases. 90% of the work presently available has been done using Beck's New American Translation, with the balance from the Good News Bible. About 75% of the NT is presently avail- able through 138/45, and is found in WORD.ARC. Individual files (books) are also available. I would deeply appreciate volunteers to help in this work. Fido has made it possible to seek them. Those willing to add a chap- ter or two are invited to contact me, so that I can co-ordinate the work and avoid needless duplication. Those who send me a new book at their expense will receive the entire project file at my expense...more than a fair trade! WORD.ARC also contains two crude command files to facilitate creating new files and searches. A dBASE programmer I am not, and I would be delighted if someone out there would provide me with a menu-driven command file which could be useful to non- computer types, enabling searches, comparisons, appending commentaries without entering manual commands, etc. The following data file structure must be created with dBASEII (minus the memo file) or dBASEIII: WORD.DBF FN FIELD TYPE SIZE Fidonews Page 23 24 Nov 1986 ------------------------------------ 1. NEW L 1 ;logical T=New Testament 2. VERSION C 5 ;translation version 3. BOOK C 3 ;Book title, abridged 4. CHAPTER N 3 5. VERSE N 3 6. L1 C 50 ;text goes to the Ln fields, 7. L2 C 50 ;with no word-wrap. Use 8. L3 C 50 ;quotes where appropriate 9. L4 C 50 10. L5 C 50 11. L6 C 50 12. XR1 C 10 ;cross-refere