Volume 4, Number 9 2 March 1987 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|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) 1987, 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 Editor Unleashed! 2. ARTICLES AMIGA Update Update on Fido version 12 Reply to "Reply to GAGS Shareware Expenses" An open letter to all SYSOP Tax Program Developers Heed! 3. COLUMNS An Irregular Column 4. NOTICES The Interrupt Stack WARNING: Phony PC-Write Fidonews Page 2 2 Mar 1987 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= Editor Unleashed! I have a confession to make. I've been holding back. You see, somehow or other I found myself on the interim Board of Directors. One of three in the limelight, as it were; one of three "targets" who gets to take the heat. It's been uncomfortable, for a number of reasons. Mainly it's been uncomfortable by choice. You see, during the whole recent debate on the bylaws I felt that it would not be proper for me to comment on the proposed bylaws one way or the other. Undue influence, and all that. But holding my tongue is an uncomfortable position -- for me more than most, I suppose. No one who has ever known me has considered me reticent, so far as I'm aware. But the election is past now, so I am free to speak my mind. It may come as a bit of a surprise to a few people. I don't like the bylaws. They are more suited to a major nation or a multi-million dollar corporation than to us. They call for a 22 person Board of Directors, which is ridiculous when you stop to think that IFNA only has about 200 dues paying members. They mandate a half a dozen or more standing committees, most of which oversee things that a single person could handle better. Worst of all, they are incredibly paranoid! Here's one example of paranoia. The treasurer is not allowed to chose a bank to put the money in. The Finance Committee has to recommend a bank, and the entire board has to approve it. All this for a few thousand bucks? My own inclination is to leave it all up to the treasurer. In short, pick someone you trust, and then trust him! It'll be hard enough to find anyone willing to do the work anyway without hanging a dozen or so overseers on his neck. That's just one example out of many. Read the bylaws. Take a good, long look at them. Does this sound like a bunch of sysops getting together, or Megacorp Inc? I've already shown you something I like better, though you probably didn't know it was me. You probably didn't take it seriously either, in spite of the fact that this is supposed to be FUN! Why do we do it if it isn't fun? Do you remember the alternate proposed bylaws for the Intergalactic FidoNet Alliance? I wrote them, and I was dead serious. The whole point of the Alliance was to remind us all that this is supposed to be fun. We're doing this because we enjoy it, Fidonews Page 3 2 Mar 1987 remember? So why not adopt bylaws that will remind us of that? I've come to realize that even those bylaws were too restrictive. I plan on revising them (i.e. chopping out even more manure) and publishing them again. I'm hoping that I can at least get people to use different terms. Why have a Board of Directors? That's what businesses have. Why not have a Council of Lords instead? I think "Grand Wizard" is a much better term than "Vice President of Technical Operations." Instead of having a President, it'd be much more descriptive of the actual job to call him a Whipping Boy. This carries through to other areas as well. The FidoNet Technical Standards Committee sounds like a stuffy group of people bent on maintaining the status quo. But call them The Ironmongers Squad and it sounds like they have more room to play in. Why have a Publications Committee when you can have the Rumormongers Squad? The Membership Services Committee sounds dull and boring; the Graft and Vice Squad sounds like a LOT more fun! After all, isn't that what it's all about? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 4 2 Mar 1987 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Mark Randall, 102/962 I just got back from CES and Commodore did not show the new machines that I predicted they would. Many people were upset and disapointed. They DID however have the new machines there, tucked away upstairs in their booth under guard. They were showing them to a few people (very few) and only after a very nasty and lengthy non-disclosure statement had been signed. Unfortunately, I had to sign one of those agreements before being permited up the magic stairs to mecca. I can't go any more in to detail for obvious reasons and after all my word is my word (and Commodore hasn't layed off their legal deptartment yet). BUT I can tell you how I felt after I came back down the stairs. It was a lovely day in Las Vegas. The kind of day that makes you feel wonderful. The kind of day that makes you feel good about the future. The NEAR future. I looked around the booth and thought about how it was going to be a very good spring for Amiga and a very bad summer for Tramiel & Sons. I listened to the people that were complaining about the lack of new hardware at the Amiga booth and the plethora of new vapor machines at the Atari booth. I thought about how smart it is for some companies to hold off announcing computers until they are sure of delivery dates. How smart it is for some companies to try to turn around their reputations by delivering on time with new products. I had a big dumb grin all over my face. I thought about how wonderful it is that technology can march forward and yet compatability can be preserved. I wish you had been there. I hope you've enjoyed my observations of Las Vegas. Many of you have committed your time and effort to making the Amiga a success with no possibility of personal gain, just because you believe. I think that you deserve more than to be left in the dark wondering if you've been abandoned. I thought I'd do my what I could to let you know that all our futures are very, very bright indeed. I'm sorry that I can't go into more detail but keep the faith, Santa's just going to be a little late this year but it'll be worth the wait! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 5 2 Mar 1987 Ken Kaplan, Node 1/2 TJ and Fido Version 12 I had another chat with TJ about V12 yesterday and found out that he has more problems, unrelated to Fido development, that will unfortunately cause further delays. He is leaving APPLE in mid January and going into business for himself. He is moving into a San Francisco Warehouse with a number of others that will double as a business office, and he is spending about one hour a week on V12 development, which puts his current target date sometime in second quarter of '87. For those of us that have dealt with TJ over the past three years this is disappointing, but not at all surprising. For those of you beyond the 1200 node table limit in Fido we are hoping that by telling the truth it will light a fire under a few more FidoNet clone developers. SEAdog already has the limit problem licked, OPUS development should consider a FidoNet Mail clone, and hopefully others will follow suit. TJ may prerelease a version of Fido with greater than a 1200 node limit, but I wouldn't count on it happening very soon. All I can suggest is that our friends in Regions 2 and 3 (Europe and Australia) not give up hope since they are the most adversely affected. Encourage new developers to pick up the FidoNet Standards Documents and offer to assist the current FidoNet clone developers when you find them. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 6 2 Mar 1987 Reply to "Reply to Shareware Expenses" by Mark J. Welch, Fido 161/459 [private SEAdog node] Berkeley, CA (415) 841-8759 (voice) In the February 16, 1987 edition of FidoNews (Volume 4, Number 7, Page 8), Jeff Sheese (Sysop, THUD BBS [Opus], 110/10, 513-890-0422 data) posed some quite understandable questions about whether my Shareware program, the Generic Advenure Game System (GAGS), has really been as unprofitable as I said in my earlier FidoNews article. I'd like to reply briefly to his comments and try to explain how I do my accounting, and why I charge some expenses to GAGS and other expenses to other things. Needless to say, I didn't post the categories and numbers without having solid defenses to each of them. If I was stretching things, I wouldn't publicize the numbers since I already have strange enough returns that only the merest luck has saved me from scrutiny by the IRS. First off, the easy stuff: the expenses for books, development software, other software, postage, and supplies are, in fact, strictly limited to expenses related to GAGS. Yes, I did reuse the compilers and some of the books in other [aborted] programming projects. Heck, some of the books ended up not being useful at all. The key is that I bought them for use with GAGS and with the recognition that they were for use as software development tools. On the other hand, I used many resources (about $1,000 worth of books in my library and over $2,000 worth of software on the shelf, for example) which were paid for by other activities, but made no effort to retrospectively apportion their value to GAGS. [Those estimates on books and software are conservative: anyone who wants to challenge those numbers is welcome to a copy of a list of the software on my shelf, and to a copy of the list of over $1,000 worth of computer books I've proposed to donate to a local university library to make room on my shelves for more books.] The "Cost of Goods Sold" figure includes all the disks I manufactured and mailed, including free copies to the press, user groups, and many sysops, and also includes mailing envelopes and such. I have receipts for everything, and it's all genuine "cost of goods sold." It doesn't include postage, which is lumped under "postage" along with all other postage expenses (including updates and press releases); the postage category doesn't exclude anything: remember that each disk costs just 39 cents to mail (except to Europe). The miscellaneous category, always suspicious, is also absolutely pure: it does not include all my memberships or all my subscriptions even to computer magazines, only those that are related to GAGS. (It also includes other bizarre expenses.) I do not (and legally cannot) take a separate tax deduction for these memberships or subscriptions. Fidonews Page 7 2 Mar 1987 The phone category so aggressively challenged by Mr. Sheese hurts most. I established my bulletin-board in an effort to create goodwill so I could expand distribution of GAGS. My BBS, like BBSs sponsored by computer stores and other software publishers, had other programs on-line, and I sent FidoMail mostly about GAGS but also about lots of other things. The BBS was established to support GAGS, and whenever conflicts occurred, GAGS won. The BBS was instrumental in distributing GAGS: FidoMail requests, file- attaches (40 minutes on my dime), and regular callers allowed GAGS to become available nationwide in a matter of weeks. When I realized that GAGS would never pay the BBS expenses, I closed it down (Fido 161/459 is a private SEAdog node to exchange FidoMail only), saving the expense of the second phone line which had been installed especially for GAGS and then relocated (a second $100 installation charge) when I moved. Of course, I've held the most controversial category for last: computer equipment. The $2,400 in that category is essentially what turns an otherwise nearly-breakeven operation into a huge loss. Again, I have other computer equipment here, and this equipment was purchased for the single purpose of developing and supporting GAGS. GAGS development and maintenance has accounted for far more than half of the system's use, with GAGS-related business activity accounting for another quarter. I have used it for other things, and those "other things" (like writing freelance articles) thus are not properly "charged" for the expense of the computer, but neither is GAGS charged for the publicity that results from my writing nor for the hardware and software that predated GAGS or was acquired for some other purpose. Another note: the computer equipment for which I paid about $2,400 now has a resale value of about $500 to $750. When I buy another system this year, as I certainly will, I will "charge" it to some other activity, even though I will probably use it part of the time for GAGS-related activities. And more than likely, I will spend even more on the new system. (In the unlikely event that I sell the old system, I would "credit" GAGS for any income from that; I credited GAGS when I sold some equipment in 1985, and that credit is incorporated into the figures.) Mr. Sheese is surely right about one thing that makes my numbers easy to challenge: the "crossover effect" between activities is substantial. It goes even further: I buy games for personal use (Starflight, etc.), and although the games provide me with insight into game development I wouldn't dream of calling those purchases "expenses" for GAGS. Of course, neither do I allocate 10 percent of the system cost because I spend that amount of time using it to play games, or 10 percent of the system time to the "enterprise" of being a BIX [BYTE Information Exchange] moderator, which is a quite enjoyable but unprofitable thing to be. Before 1985, I spent a lot of time developing earlier programs that were ancestors of GAGS, and GAGS wasn't "charged back" for those expenses. Nor have I ever charged GAGS for any portion of my trade show expenses, even though I spend a quarter to a third of my time talking to publishers and the press about Fidonews Page 8 2 Mar 1987 GAGS. (I did charge GAGS for admissions to computer "swap meets" when I was shopping around for my XT clone.) My practice is to charge all current expenses to the current projects. All my software development expenses were "charged" to GAGS for the past 18 months because GAGS was my only published product. Those aborted projects involved a total of perhaps ten percent of the system use. Virtually all my computer and phone expenses are now charged to my freelance writing activity, because it produces the most income and activity. For the IRS, because the activities are so overlapping, I lump all freelance writing, programming, and consulting activities together as a single "enterprise," which lost a couple grand in 1985 (because of GAGS) and made a fair amount of money in 1986 (because of growing freelance writing income). I broke out the GAGS results only when I was making the decision to move GAGS from Shareware to commercial distribution. So, what does all this come down to? I think the numbers I used are very close to reality. Surely, if I sat down and allocated each fraction of an hour spent at the computer, and computed the precise market value and cost of the hardware and software used to develop GAGS, I could come up with a more secure number, but I'm confident that the resulting number would be quite close to the loss I mentioned in my earlier article. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 9 2 Mar 1987 Matt Giwer, The Pot of Gold (109/483) An open letter to all SYSOP This is an open letter to all SYSOPs. My eleven year old son managed to download a file probably called SEX.ARC which contained several rather crude pornographic animated graphics. One of the files was PORNO.EXE. This file is possibly of German origin. OK. I am not really excited about this. At that age I would have downloaded it but also I might have been smart enough to keep it on a well hidden floppy. The point of this message is this. If you think the GOV has been interested in cracking down on BBSs because of potential copyright infringement, just imagine what is going to happen if some parent reports this file to The Moral Majority. Arguing the law is one thing, arguing against a bunch of half-crazed puritan parents is another. If files like this can be down-loaded by people who are not legal adults and it hit the papers, BBSs are asking for a crack-down that will not quit. Books have been banned and burned for less than this. Now legally, the person called and asked for the file and as such I think that BBS operators are legally safe, just as the phone call sex talk business is safe as long as the buyer calls for the service. I am not a lawyer but I think that this is correct. The problem is some Oral Roberts (may he not collect his $4.5M) gets his hands on this and starts condemning all BBSs and all downloading because of one or two files. Those kinds of fools do that sort of thing. Please pass this message on. If you carry such files, try to find a way to restrict access to 18 year olds. At best do not carry such files at all. If you carry sexually oriented files, then do you best to screen out the gross ones -- the kind that will get public attention. Gross is what gets the public's attention and no one will come to your defense. If the file is artistically interesting, a well done nude then fine, the Liberals will come to your defense and you will win politically. But crude porn has few defenders. Consider strongly,the control or removal of all crude/vulgar sexually oriented programs, particularly grafix programs. For further information, and for the file if you want it as an example, you may contact me at 109/483. Note that I will not upload the file simply to have it listed for downloading. This sort of thing should not be on any board for the reasons stated above. Fidonews Page 10 2 Mar 1987 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 11 2 Mar 1987 Tax Program Developers Heed! by Ben Baker -- 100/76 Someone from the IRS made an interesting statement in an interview I heard on the radio this morning on my way to work. If you develop and sell tax computation software, you are a "tax preparer" in the eyes of the IRS. If a taxpayer's tax is understated because of an error in your software, YOU are subject to a "preparer's penalty" ammounting to 75 % of the ammount of understatement. I know there are a lot of you out there, so I thought I should pass along this interesting little tid-bit. If you distribute your s/w as "shareware" via the BBSs, your exposure could be quite large, so MAKE DAMN SURE ANY ERRORS ARE ON THE HIGH SIDE! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 12 2 Mar 1987 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= The First of an Irregular Column Dale Lovell 157/504 Even before I read Thom Henderson's comments on how small FidoNews was becoming, I noticed how there didn't seem to be that much in it anymore. I had been considering writing an irregularly appearing column, but had been putting it off for a variety of reasons. When I got and read FidoNews this week (Volume 4 Number 7) I decided it was time to finally do something. If things go well, I should be sending off at least one column every month. If anyone can come up with a cute, catchy name for it let me know because I haven't been able to think of anything. I'll be giving everyone my views and opinions on events, software and hardware that come to my attention. If you have any comments on my column either write an article for FidoNews or send me a message, I'll try to go over any netmail in the end of future columns. That out of the way, on to the column. Finally got a copy of the Microsoft C last week and have been looking over the docs and playing around with it. First off, I didn't believe what anybody had to say about Codeview and was surprised. It really is a great program. For the first time I was able to watch the program execute (in my C source code) and the programs output at the same time. Even back in the days when I used BASIC I couldn't do it this easy. Since I've got two monitors I had one monitor tracing the program and the other "running" the program. For a lot of people that alone might be worth the price of the compiler. Another thing that I noticed much earlier is the size of the documentation. Microsoft gives it to you in 3 of the IBM size manuals. I spent over a day just going over it, and to me it seems rather complete. I primarily dabble in programming and don't consider myself a professional programmer yet so my evaluation may not be perfect, I also haven't done that much compiling. It did handle some programs from a UNIX system without any problems (my old C compiler hated most of the stuff off UNIX systems) and everything seems to run properly so I'm fairly satisfied with it. My biggest complaint is Microsoft's function key templates. I've got a 5151 keyboard and while they provide a nice template for Codeview, it only works with function keys on the left side of the keyboard, not on the top like mine. Please note that this is NOT the package for someone interested in learning a little about C or dabbling in it, this is meant for someone doing professional software development or at least something close to this. For someone interested in learning C, I'd say you're better off with something like Let's C or the new Turbo C from Borland. I haven't seen these packages, but both have been recommended by others. I've also heard good things about the DataLight C compiler, but unfortunately haven't Fidonews Page 13 2 Mar 1987 had a chance to see it yet. DataLight's current ad challenges Microsoft to a speed test on compilation, linkage, and execution time. If they lose, they won't advertise their product for 2 months. There's no reason for Microsoft to respond, but if anyone tests these two compilers side by side drop me a line and let me know how they stack up against one another. Borland, incidentally, has been busy the past few months, with the release of Eureka, TurboBASIC and TurboC. From what I can tell from the ads, Eureka is supposed to be like MathCADD (also known only from ads), mainly you enter equations the way you wrote them in various math classes and it can solve, graph, and do other nice things with the equation. TurboBASIC is a competitor to Microsoft's QuickBASIC, which was a response to TurboPascal. TurboC is an extension of the idea and it will be interesting to see how Microsoft responds to it. If they release a Quick C, they may be cutting their profits on their current compiler; yet they could lose more sales by not releasing anything, and let Borland take some of their C sales. I think they'll release a Quick C within the next few months which will be very similar to their current C compiler with a few changes. Mainly no Codeview, smaller libraries, and a complete environment. As to how it will stack up, let's wait and see what the reaction is to Turbo C. On the lighter side, I've started playing Leather Goddesses of Phobos from Infocom. It's as hilarious as Hitchhiker's and possibly even more bizzare! If you liked Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you will love Leather Goddesses. It's also the first adventure I've seen that doesn't assume your gender. Their approach to asking you is unique. Very early in the game you must visit a restroom, I leave it to the reader to determine how , I leave it to the reader to figure out how the game determines your sex. There's also three levels of play, varying from something you wouldn't mind your five year old playing to lewd, which supposedly uses most of George Carlin's seven words you can't say on television. The best computer book I've seen in the past few weeks is "Supercharging MS-DOS" by Van Wolverton. It is a fairly good introduction on what is considered advanced topics by many people. It does a very good job of teaching someone about things like ANSI.SYS, printer control codes, batch files. You are also guided through redefining a key, and how to create your own menu system. The book is available from Microsoft Press for $18.95. Once again I welcome your own comments on anything I've written about, or something you think I should see (and possibly write about). My US mail address is below along with my net/node number. If you're a user of a BBS please mention to your sysop that mail to me must be routed through either 157/0, 157/502, or 157/1, he'll understand what that means. Sysop's take note of the previous sentence if you send me mail yourself. Those nodes will also accept a file for me and are running SEAdog so you shouldn't have to worry about mail schedules. Fidonews Page 14 2 Mar 1987 Dale Lovell 3266 Vezber Drive Seven Hills, OH 44131 usenet: ..!ncoast!lovell FidoNet: 157/504 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 15 2 Mar 1987 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 17 May 1987 Metro-Fire Fido's Second Birthday BlowOut and Floppy Disk Throwing Tournament! All Fido Sysops and Families Invited! Contact Christopher Baker at 135/14 for more information. 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 FidoNet node 1/1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the February 9,1987 issue of INFO WORLD. WARNING! Trojan PC-Write Can Trash Your Disk A system operator of a Los Angeles bulletin board has found a bogus version of PC-Write. The "trojan" version, when invoked, destroys the fat of a user's hard disk and initiates a low-level format, destroying the hard disk's data, according to system operator Tom Wilkinson. The bad version of the program masquerades as a "newer" release of Version 2.71 and is 98,274 bytes long, said Wilkinson. The real Version 2.7 is 98,242 bytes long, and the real Version 2.71 is 98,644 bytes. The version posted on compuserve is the real version, he said. Quicksoft, PC-Write's developer, is offering a $2500 reward for the first person who identifies the creator of the bogus program and a $5000 reward for the person who provides proof that convicts the perpetrator. Those with information can contact Quicksoft at (206) 282-0452. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 16 2 Mar 1987 __ The World's First / \ BBS Network /|oo \ * FidoNet * (_| /_) _`@/_ \ _ | | \ \\ | (*) | \ )) ______ |__U__| / \// / Fido \ _//|| _\ / (________) (_/(_|(____/ (jm) Membership for the International FidoNet Association Membership in IFNA is open to any individual or organization that pays an annual specified membership fee. IFNA serves the international FidoNet-compatible electronic mail community to increase worldwide communications. ** Name _________________________________ Date ________ Address ______________________________ City & State _________________________ Country_______________________________ Phone (Voice) ________________________ Net/Node Number ______________________ Board Name____________________________ Phone (Data) _________________________ Baud Rate Supported___________________ Board Restrictions____________________ Special Interests_____________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ Is there some area where you would be willing to help out in FidoNet?_______ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ Send your membership form and a check or money order for $25 to: International FidoNet Association P. O. Box 41143 St Louis, Missouri 63141 USA Thank you for your membership! Your participation will help to insure the future of FidoNet. ** Please NOTE that IFNA is a general not-for-profit organization in formation and Articles of Association and By-Laws were adopted by the membership in January 1987. An Elections Committee has been established to fill positions outlined in the By-Laws for the Board of Directors. An IFNA Echomail Conference has been established on FidoNet to assist the Elections Committee. We welcome your input on this Conference. -----------------------------------------------------------------