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ЮЫЫЭ° ЯЫЫЫЫЫЯ ЯЫЫЫЫЫЫ° ЫЫ° ЯЫЫ° ЯЫЫЫЫЫЫ° ЫЫЬЫЫЫЬЫЫ° °°°°ЫЫ°
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The Journal of IceNET August 1994
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і Editor's Desk і
і The Upper Registers Deacon Blues (2@7653) і
і Managing Editor's Notes Chris (1@7668) і
і Letters To The Editors Louie (6@1) і
і і
і Feature Stories і
і Archivers... Which One Is Best? Papa Bear (1@5079) і
і How To Maintain A Good і
і On-Line Story Sub Board Louie (6@1) і
і BBSers Bad Rap Will (1@6754) і
і What Really Happened At WWIVcon '94 Louie (6@1) і
і і
і WWIV-Specific і
і Networking Utilities And і
і The WW4net Change Over Ima Moron (1@9661) і
і Break The CHAINs Scum Sucker (1@6987) і
і і
і Software/Programming і
і How To Get The Most Out і
і Of Your System's Memory Papa Bear (1@5079) і
і Artificial Intelligence - Part Three Louie (6@1) і
і і
і Lite Bytes і
і How They Got Started BBSing... Louie (6@1) і
і Silly Strings Ima Moron (1@9661) і
і WWIVland Word Power Puzzle Phantasm (ExpressNET 1@9901) і
ГДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДґ
і IceNEWS Staff For August 1994 і
і і
і "...Winners of the 1994 WWIVcon Award for Electronic News" і
і і
і IceNEWS Publisher - Jim 1@1 і
і IceNEWS Editor-In-Chief - Deacon Blues 2@7653 і
і IceNEWS Managing Editor - Chris 1@7668 і
і і
і IceNEWS Contributing Editors і
і Hardware - Will 1@6754 Software/Programming - Daarkhan 1@7676 і
і WWIV-Specific - Papa Bear 1@5079 Lite Bytes - Ima Moron 1@9661 і
і і
і Editors-At-Large - Louie 6@1 & Chris 1@7668 і
і IceNEWS Production - Spelunker 1@7653 і
ГДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДґ
і IceNEWS is always seeking submissions from those who have і
і ideas for stories. If you have any ideas that you might і
і like to see published, contact any IceNEWS editor or і
і subscribe to IceNEWS Beat, subtype IceNEWS, host @1. і
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДЩ
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДЩ E D I T O R ' S D E S K АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і The Upper Registers і Deacon Blues (2@7653)
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДБДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
Some musings that came to me while zoning-out in my office on the 13th
floor of the Nunn Building by watching a plasma screen saver...
While it may be a little late and obvious for me to say so, it seems that
WWIVcon '94 was an unqualified success. In this issue of IceNEWS, we bring you
a number of comments from around WWIVLand regarding the whooping good time
that those who attended had by all at (and, in some cases, away from) the
convention held in New Orleans this past July 1st through 3rd. Although I was
not an attendee, I would like to extend my congratulations to all of those
connected with putting WWIVcon '94 together.
Why the congrats on WWIVcon '94 even though I wasn't there for it?
Simple. I am a student learning about the Travel and Tourism industry (a tale
about which I will tell next month in an unrelated story). Part of my
schooling deals with planning conventions and such.
I think that those involved with the planning WWIVcon '94 will agree that
I speak the truth when I say that organizing a convention, even a small one
(no knock to WWIVcon '94, but any convention attracting less than 500
attendees is considered small by industry standards), is far from an easy
task. Phone calls to many hotel sales reps to line-up the best deal, working
with little more than estimates and guesses as to the size of attendance,
getting potential hotel sites to be willing to commit to the convention well
in advance without being able to provide a guarantee that all of the reserved
rooms will be booked (which could cause price changes by the hotel for using a
smaller block of rooms). I'm sure that more than a few fingernails were chewed
down to the cuticle and more than a few Rolaids were digested by the planners
right up to the final day of the convention itself.
Even then, putting together a convention is one thing. Putting together a
convention that has the attendees raving is a completely different matter.
This is just what the planners and organizers of WWIVcon did. Not only did
they get WWIVcon '94 itself to "fly," but they got it to soar. Not an easy
task to do for even for the experienced convention planner, let alone for
people who have little or no formal training in such matters.
In the very pleasant afterglow of WWIVcon '94, a WWIVcon '95 fever seems
to have gripped many throughout WWIVLand. The impact of the good
"word-of-mouth" regarding this past WWIVcon has already spread far and cannot
be termed as a wake, but as a tidal wave. There has been some talk thus far
from a number of areas expressing wishes to hold WWIVcon '95 in their cities,
towns, or regions. This is a very good thing to see.
It's good because it not only promotes WWIV, WWIV networking and BBSing
in general, but it also promotes the idea of people getting together to have a
good time and maybe talk some "shop." It brings together sysops and users from
around the networks who may have "talked" to each other over the nets for
years but never actually met face-to-face before. It gives the attendees a
chance meet, mingle, party, and laugh with each other while, in most cases,
visiting a different part of the country. It's a real-time face-to-face
interface for which there is no substitute.
Isn't that what all of this BBSing thing is supposed to be about anyway;
meeting new people, making new friends and having a good ol' time? That's what
I got into BBSing for. If this were not the case, I highly doubt that everyone
who attended would be waxing so positively about WWIVcon '94 and I doubt that
there would be so much interest from people around the net in having the next
one near their hometown. As I'm sure that I'm right about this, I can't see
WWIVcon '95 as being anything less than a WWIV event extraordinaire.
WWIVcon '94 may be history now, but I feel safe in saying that those who
did attend most certainly did not attend the final WWIVcon. My hat goes off to
those who worked to pull off WWIVcon '94, for they have laid the foundation of
what will most undoubtedly be a long and successful string of future WWIVcons
for years to come.
And now, your August, 1994 edition of the IceNEWS Journal.
ДДННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННДД
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і Managing Editor's Notes і Chris (1@67668)
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДБДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
Welcome to the August issue of IceNEWS! Before we begin, I'd just like to
thank all the people who helped me, the rookie M/E, make another fine issue of
IceNEWS. I'd also like to thank everyone who sent in articles.
Well, as I said before, we've got another great issue of IceNEWS! Papa
Bear wrote a great piece on archivers and by reading it in the classic
"Consumer Reports" format, you can choose which format is the best for you.
Check it out. His findings are very surprising.
Louie has done a lot of research and has come up with a few guidelines on
having your own on-line story sub. As Louie will tell you, these subs can be
fun, informatitive and entertaining.
As most of you have seen, NBC's Dateline and the rest of the media have
begun giving all BBSers a "Bad Rap" due to some of the illegal abuse of our
favorite hobby. Will discusses the whole scene, not just what the media is
telling everybody else. We know better than to stereotype all BBSers, but does
everyone else know?
Are you wondering what REALLY happened at WWIVcon '94? Well, Louie has
complied some reports that will widen your eyes and really make you wish you
were there. Just remember when reading it that it's not to soon to plan ahead
for WWIVcon '95!
Too many networks? Too many connects? Need a better way to handle your
network frenzie? Ima Moron has a review of a few network utilities plus some
comments on the recent WWIVnet -> WW4net change over.
Now those are just a few of what's below plus much much more! Before we
get going though, if you need a copy of the latest IceNEWS in your mailbox, or
need ANY back issue, this is for you!
ICENEWS BACK ISSUES ARCHIVE SERVICE
Courtesy of The Cavern [ASV/RIP] @7653
This service will allow IceNET #1 sysops to request back issues of
IceNEWS in a UUEncoded format via e-mail. You must be a #1 sysop to request
the back issues. If you are not, please ask your sysop to request the file for
you.
To request a back issue, simply ADDRESS e-mail to: ICENEWS@7653. The
TITLE of the e-mail should be the keyword of the file you request (it is not
case-sensitive). You do NOT need to write anything in the body of the e-mail.
For example:
Request for July 1994 issue of IceNEWS
Address: ICENEWS@7653
Title: NEWS0794-1
The example will send a uuencoded mail which is part one of that issue.
Since most issues exceed the 32K net packet limit, they had to be split into
multiple parts. Please make sure that you request ALL parts for a complete
issue. Multiple part issues REQUIRE multiple email requests (e.g. NEWS0794-1
in one e-mail request, NEWS0794-2 in a second, seperate request, etc.).
NOTE: All files have been compressed with PKZIP 2.04G and UUEncoded with
UUENCODE 5.22. These versions may not be compatible with other versions.
Listing of available back issues of IceNEWS:
Keyword Description
------- -----------
NEWS0894-1 IceNEWS for August 1994 [1/3]
NEWS0894-2 IceNEWS for August 1994 [2/3]
NEWS0894-3 IceNEWS for August 1994 [3/3]
NEWS0794-1 IceNEWS for July 1994 [1/3]
NEWS0794-2 IceNEWS for July 1994 [2/3]
NEWS0794-3 IceNEWS for July 1994 [3/3]
NEWS0694-1 IceNEWS for June 1994 [1/3]
NEWS0694-2 IceNEWS for June 1994 [2/3]
NEWS0694-3 IceNEWS for June 1994 [3/3]
NEWS0594-1 IceNEWS for May 1994 [1/3]
NEWS0594-2 IceNEWS for May 1994 [2/3]
NEWS0594-3 IceNEWS for May 1994 [3/3]
NEWS0494-1 IceNEWS for April 1994 [1/2]
NEWS0494-2 IceNEWS for April 1994 [2/2]
NEWS0394-1 IceNEWS for March 1994 [1/2]
NEWS0394-2 IceNEWS for March 1994 [2/2]
NEWS0294-1 IceNEWS for February 1994 [1/2]
NEWS0294-2 IceNEWS for February 1994 [2/2]
NEWS0194-1 IceNEWS for January 1994 [1/2]
NEWS0194-2 IceNEWS for January 1994 [2/2]
NEWS1293-1 IceNEWS for December 1993 [1/3]
NEWS1293-2 IceNEWS for December 1993 [2/3]
NEWS1293-3 IceNEWS for December 1993 [3/3]
NEWS0793-1 IceNEWS for July 1993 [1/2]
NEWS0793-2 IceNEWS for July 1993 [2/2]
NEWS0693-1 IceNEWS for June 1993 [1/2]
NEWS0693-2 IceNEWS for June 1993 [2/2]
NEWS0593 IceNEWS for May 1993
NEWS0493-1 IceNEWS for April 1993 [1/2]
NEWS0493-2 IceNEWS for April 1993 [2/2]
NEWS0393-1 IceNEWS for March 1993 [1/2]
NEWS0393-2 IceNEWS for March 1993 [2/2]
NEWS0293-1 IceNEWS for February 1993 [1/2]
NEWS0293-2 IceNEWS for February 1993 [2/2]
NEWS1292 IceNEWS for December 1992
NEWS1192 IceNEWS for November 1992
NEWS1092 IceNEWS for October 1992
NEWS0992 IceNEWS for September 1992
I really enjoyed my first attempt at the Managing Editor position this
month. Thanks again to everyone who contributed and helped out. And remember
that we are always looking for articles and/or ideas, so feel free to contact
myself or any other editor. Or better yet, subscribe to the "IceNEWS Beat" sub
(sub type ICENEWS - host @1). And now on with IceNEWS!
ДДННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННДД
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і Letters To The Editors і Compiled By: Louie (6@1)
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДБДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
The IceNEWS "Letters To The Editors" column is a forum for the readers to
express their feelings, thoughts, or opinions regarding IceNEWS. Please take
the time to write us regarding your feelings on IceNEWS and its contents, good
or bad. We want to hear what you have to say. Remember, IceNEWS is meant for
EVERYONE in IceNET and we need YOUR input in order to maintain a successful
and respected publication.
Please address any remarks or questions to:
IceNEWS Letters To The Editors
c/o Louie, #6 @1
IceNEWS Editor-At-Large
Huey Dog, 1@6950, writes regarding IceNEWS:
Accolades on IceNEWS. My board is up 6 networks, and by far this is the
most professional and informative publication that I have had the privelege to
read! Thank you for your hard work!
Also, I would like to know if I could excerpt some of the articles (i.e.
your article on handles) and post them on my board's local discussion. I feel
articles such as that are informative for both the sysop and the user alike,
and the user should have access to it. I could put the newsletter available
for downloading, but I fear that some of the techno jargon that the sysops
understand might intimidate the average user. Extracting articles that I feel
the user will find informative, helpful, or just entertaining to read would
benefit all.
Again, thanks for a job well done!
Louie, 6@1 responds:
Yes, excerpting articles out of an IceNEWS issue is allowed for by the
IceNEWS Staff. All that we ask if that you leave in the authors name and
IceNET address and a short credit that the article was taken from IceNEWS for
MM/YY (Month/Year).
Also, the IceNEWS Staff encourages sysops to make IceNEWS issues
available to their users in the g-files and/or transfer sections. We would
like to have a reader base as large as possible. We also encourage regular
users to write for IceNEWS whenever possible.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Malbee, 1@6301 writes regarding a WWIVnet/Internet gateway change:
I wanted to inform you and your users that the WWIVnet Internet Gateway
Node @510 (old WWIVnet) will be changing over to @9023 WWIVnet due to the
re-structuring.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Secret Agent Man, 1@15269, writes regarding IceNEWS:
Well, I'd just like to say that I really enjoyed the last edition of
IceNEWS (07/94 that is). The articles were very well written and informative.
Again, another one of the great benefits of IceNET. Papa Bear's articles were
great, and the OS/2 section was a good addition (I'm contemplating the
investment in OS/2 now). Looking forward to the next issue, as it's like
reading seven great posts on seven different subs. The taglines and strings
were great, and I'd like to share a few tags I saw recently...
"I'm sorry, were the voices in my head bothering you."
"If it wasn't for C, we'd all be using BASI, OBOL, and PASAL."
Pretty imaginative, eh? Thanks again for the great effort you and the
staff are putting into this quality "elctronic publication".
ДДННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННДД
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДЩ F E A T U R E S T O R I E S АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і Archivers... Which One Is Best? і Papa Bear (1@5079)
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДБДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
Archivers... They're an essential part of BBSing today. No BBS I've ever
visited can get along without archives. Mostly, they're used for the file
transfer section. But they can also be used for many other applications such
as backing-up the BBS's files, preserving disk space for seldom used programs,
and more.
Every so often, a heated debate will flare up in BBS-land about which one
is *BEST*. Well, I'm here to help you decide for yourself which would be best
suited for you. I have done some tests -- and the results will most likely
surprise you. I'll also offer some opinions that reflect some of the
intangible aspects of these programs.
I tested using the newest version of each program that I could find. I
also used maximum compression on all of the programs that had such a setting.
(Speed is hardly a consideration anymore, except in one case, and we'll get to
that later)
Lets get to it. I tested 9 programs, and here they are, using the format:
{(Chart identifier)} {Arc. name} {Version} {(Extension)} {Developer}
(!) ARC 6.00 (.ARC) System Enhancement Associates
(@) ARJ 2.41a (.ARJ) Robert K Jung
(#) HAP&PAH 3.00 (.HAP) Hamarsoft - Harald Feldmann
($) LHA 2.55b (.LZH) Haruyasu Yoshizaki
(%) PAK 2.10 (.PAK) NoGate Consulting
(^) Squeeze It 1.08.3 (.SQZ) J I Hammarberg
(&) UltraCompressor II 1.0{?} (.UC2) Ad Infinitum Programs
(*) PKZIP 2.04g (.ZIP) PKWARE, Inc.
(-) Zoo 2.1 (.ZOO) Rahul Dhesi
[The ? for the version number for UC2 is because I couldn't find one]
The testing took place on 5 different kinds of archives, as follows:
{[Chart identifier]} {No. files in arc.} - {total uncompresses size}
[1] 97 text files - 1,500,562 bytes
[2] 26 data files - 1,427,548 bytes
[3] 1 BIG text file - 1,678,337 bytes
[4] 1 BIG data file - 1,410,992 bytes
[5] Mixed data and text, various sizes - 1,637,404 bytes
Here is the chart of how the testing went. Each entry has two numbers.
The first number is the size of the final archive for each type of data. In
this case, smaller is better.
The second number is the percentage of compression, if it says 25% and
the original file size was 100,000 bytes, then the final file size would be
75,000 bytes. So here, the larger the number, the better.
і [1] і [2] і [3] і [4] і [5] і
НННШНННННННННШННННННННННННШНННННННННННШННННННННННШНННННННННµ
(!)і764269 і 1221626 і 633295 і 870588 і 1350310 і
і 49.0% і 14.4% і 60.4% і 38.2% і 17.5% і
НННШНННННННННШННННННННННННШНННННННННННШННННННННННШНННННННННµ
(@)і624257 і 1018320 і 425697 і 588143 і 1113209 і
і 58.4% і 28.6% і 74.6% і 58.3% і 32.0% і
НННШНННННННННШННННННННННННШНННННННННННШННННННННННШНННННННННµ
(#)і521363 і 1036803 і 371865 і 590311 і 1125593 і
і 65.2% і 27.3% і 77.8% і 58.1% і 31.2% і
НННШНННННННННШННННННННННННШНННННННННННШННННННННННШНННННННННµ
($)і630642 і 1029630 і 444987 і 604625 і 1125312 і
і 57.9% і 57.8% і 73.4% і 57.1% і 31.2% і
НННШНННННННННШННННННННННННШНННННННННННШННННННННННШНННННННННµ
(%)і653009 і 1060599 і 477287 і 636336 і 1164962 і
і 56.4% і 25.7% і 71.5% і 54.9% і 28.8% і
НННШНННННННННШННННННННННННШНННННННННННШННННННННННШНННННННННµ
(^)і619371 і 1016825 і 425373 і 585386 і 1110656 і
і 58.7% і 28.7% і 74.6% і 58.5% і 32.1% і
НННШНННННННННШННННННННННННШНННННННННННШННННННННННШНННННННННµ
(&)і546616 і 1006922 і 419000 і 577086 і 1077628 і
і 63.5% і 29.4% і 75.0% і 59.1% і 34.1% і
НННШНННННННННШННННННННННННШНННННННННННШННННННННННШНННННННННµ
(*)і623741 і 1017266 і 418665 і 583832 і 1113326 і
і 58.4% і 28.7% і 75.0% і 58.6% і 32.0% і
НННШНННННННННШННННННННННННШНННННННННННШННННННННННШНННННННННµ
(-)і631148 і 1030693 і 445118 і 604762 і 1127622 і
і 57.9% і 27.7% і 73.4% і 57.1% і 31.1% і
НННПНННННННННПННННННННННННПНННННННННННПННННННННННПНННННННННѕ
Now, in order to keep you from having to bang your head over these
numbers, I have come up with a way to determine a clear "winner". I assigned 8
points to the program that compressed the most, 7 for the one that was next,
and so on until the program that compressed the least -- which got 0 points.
Since there are 5 categories, a perfect score would be 8*5 or 40 points. Here
are those results. Hold on to your hats! Chances are your program didn't win!
1st - 37 points: UltraCompressor II 1.0 6th - 17 points: LHA 2.55b
2nd - 31 points: Squeeze It 1.08.3 7th - 11 points: Zoo 2.1
3rd - 30 points: PKZIP 2.04g 8th - 5 points : Pak 2.10
4th - 25 points: HAP&PAH 3.00 9th - 0 points : ARC 6.00
5th - 24 points: ARJ 2.41a
Yep, you got it, the UC2 format is clearly the best in terms of overall
compression. But normal archives normally do not include just data or text
files, but a mixture of files. So the last column in the chart is actually the
most telling for a BBS sysop. If you were to consider that only, the ranking
falls slightly differently, as follows:
1st - UltraCompressor II 1.0 6th - HAP&PAH 3.00
2nd - Squeeze It 1.08.3 7th - Zoo 2.1
3rd - ARJ 2.41a 8th - Pak 2.10
4th - PKZIP 2.04g 9th - ARC 6.00
5th - LHA 2.55b
Like I said, surprising, no?
Now for some personal "awards" -- these are based on things that the
archiver does, or has to offer, that do not affect its compression:
Most configurable - ARJ 2.41a
Fastest - UltraCompressor II 1.00 [by far!]
Easiest to configure - UltraCompressor II 1.00
"Prettiest" - UltraCompressor II 1.00
Slowest - HAP&PAH 3.00 [I almost fell asleep waiting on this]
Least configurable - Zoo 2.1
Least Flexible - Zoo 2.1
Most confusing - ARJ 2.41a [can be overwhelming in its configurability]
Most online help - UltraCompressor II 1.00
Most popular - PKZIP 2.04g [shame, too, there are better...]
As an aside... I just got UC2 *last night*. I had heard of it via SHEZ,
but didn't know what it was. If that program is any indication of where
archivers are headed, then the future looks especially bright. It truly is a
great little program. Too bad no one really uses it...
I used SHEZ 10.0 to handle all of these conversions. I think SHEZ is one
of the best compression shells around. For the record, I had to do ARC
manually because it kept bombing out under SHEZ.
UC2, HAP&PAH, and Squeeze It all did things okay, until they reached the
archives with large numbers of files in the archive. At that point they all
caused SHEZ to simply quit. I simply reloaded SHEZ and picked up where I left
off.
Well that is it. I hope you got something from this. All of these
programs (and more!) are available here *shameless plug time* at 510-522-3583
(ASV). I appreciate any comments that you may have on this matter.
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ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і How to Maintain a Good On-Line Story Sub-board і Louie (6@1)
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On-Line story subs (sub-boards) are a fairly common sight in the WWIVland
community. They are run on many, many BBSes. But rarely do you see them run
properly. Normally they are just an excuse to increase the post/call ratio,
users and sysops alike. The one-line post is most common on these boards where
they are not run well. These are not really fun to read. They are only fun to
post-on if you don't have even moderately higher standards.
But how do you fix these problems or prevent them before they happen?
Good question. And, to be honest, I doubt I really know the answer. But I will
give it a good shot at getting the answer in the rest of this article.
Well, first thing to look into is to ask the question: Are story subs
ever done well? The answer is yes. I have seen story subs that were fun to
post-on and read.
The best place for them in the 716 area code is The Magician's Castle 4,
a Hermes board run by Merlin the Magician. MTM has been a BBSer and Sysop in
716 going on ten years now. (His board is now the longest running BBS in 716
that I know of.) Other places I has seen good story subs where The Church of
Baseball (now a defunct WWIVnet board) that was run by John Hardball, The
Kingdom of Renjivick (now defunct) that was run by Eh ???, and The Far Side
BBS (also defunct) that was run by Far Side. These last three we all WWIV
boards.
Each one of those boards had one major thing in common: Great Users. Good
users are something that are important for just above every aspect of a BBS.
The Sysop can be the best in the world but if there are no good users calling
the board then I wouldn't want to call there. Of course, a great sysop will
know how to attract good users. And MTM, John, Eh ???, and Far Side were all
damn good sysops.
But what is the anatomy of a good story board? Well, there are the good
users who know how to post. Users are normally involved in the fictional
story. For example, on MC4 the setting is always the Castle. MTM is the Sysop
who is not the true power in charge of the Castle. And then we use that
setting to all go on wild and weird adventures. Other users are evil, good,
idiots, fools, highly intelligent, stupid, etc. MTM, for example is normally a
wizard who uses his magic poorly. You know, decides to caste a spell to make a
cheese sandwich and ends up blowing up the cat. All the users are involved.
But, this is important, users shouldn't abuse the honor of being in the
story to make themselves appear in the best light. I normally am very good at
putting myself down and often do that in the stories there.
The posts are rarely short one-line posts as well. A 20 line post is
pretty much the standard. Everybody adds a lot of text. 40+ line posts are not
uncommon either. This is very important. When the posts start to be one-line
the story sub will start to disintegrate. For example...
1st User - And then Louie turned...
2nd User - pink. And he grew a...
3rd User - third foot that was shaped like...
1st User - a large telephone.
See, that would be four separate posts. The first post should be at least
10 lines, followed by folks who complete the whole thought they are supposed
to form. They should not leave the thought only part way done. Complete that
thought and then add some material and provide the beginning of another
thought for the next person who reads the sub to finish themselves.
The stories should be creative too. The unexpected, the weird, wacky,
crazy, should all be tried for all the time. Originality also counts. Don't
try to make it just a copy of some movie or TV series. Creative Originality is
what your ultimate goal is with a story sub because that is what makes it fun.
Always remember the "no foul language" rule that is a general rule for
any sub-board. Besides, foul language is rarely, if ever, original or
creative. Everybody has heard all the foul language before.
The sysop should always try to keep the sub moving. As should any
cosysops and/or subops. This will make sure the sub doesn't "die" and became a
sub that users rarely post on. The most often there are new posts on the sub
the more interesting it will be. Again, this is a general rule of running good
subs, but it especially applies to a story sub, so I point it out.
Good users who know what the idea of the story sub will help out even
more than the sysop. Sysops often intimidate and scare new users. But if
newbies see regular users posting then they will at least try to post there as
well. And they will not have to be told of the rules of the sub because they
will be copying what other users are doing.
A good story sub-board is something to remember. To me, the good story
subs have been some of the highlights of my bbsing career. Right up there with
my memories of the original Wing Ding planning, or lack thereof, my first bbs
picnic, arguments about Vietnam on IBM Temple (we were all set to kill each
other), IceNETs start, Pipers Parties, etc. All are great memories... and
COB's Story Sub and MC4's Story Subs have been some of those memories.
On-line story's should always be a local, non-networked, sub. Net subs
have a built in delay factor and story subs must be continuous. If one person
was to continue a story on board X, and another continued from the same point
on board Y, then everything gets confused. Not that confusion a bad thing for
a story, but it must be a controlled confusion. Uncontrolled confusion is a
bad thing. The people on the sub have to know that they can continue the story
without having to worry that someone else on another board took it off in a
whole different direction. So, always have a story sub be a localized sub.
I really don't think I answered much in this piece. But maybe it contains
some good advice about some aspects of story subs for others around the
country.
Good posting.
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ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і BBSers Bad Rap і Will Crawford (1@6754)
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The reputation of the BBSing public (between 15 and 30 million people,
depending on who's estimates you decide to listen to and whether the major
online services are factored into the equation), never good to begin with, is
going downhill fast. As recently as a few short months ago, mention of a
computer bulletin board service to a non-user would probably earn you nothing
more than a blank look, or a polite inquiry. Now, more often then not, the
recipient will shy away, or offer the dreaded comment "You're a hacker, then?"
In reality, the "hacker" (and related "k00l hackerz d00dz") stigmata has
been with us since the dawn of BBSing. What has accelerated the decline of the
general image of BBS users, are the recent (and not so recent) cases of
pederests who've been stalking their victims over computer networks
(ironically, this mainly takes place on large systems, such as Compuserve, the
Internet, or large multi line systems such as Boston's Channel One). While
I've only seen a few cases of this actually having occurred (going by the news
reports and newspaper articles, there have only been a handful of arrests for
this - maybe a dozen culprits), the media and public opinion in general have
had the effect of simply blowing the entire issue far out of proportion.
The Boston Herald (a local newspaper with a high circulation, and news
content that waffles between respectability and the New York Post) published
an article on BBS pederests a few months ago, with the lead in on the cover of
their high circulation Sunday issue. The article was written with a "let's
sell newspapers" slant - by someone who was interested in inflating the
problem to a sensationalistic degree. The article gave "advice" to people,
especially kids, on avoiding the "high" risk of this activity on BBSes. The
article encouraged people, among other things, to never divulge real
information on age or address to BBSes that you called.
Of course, being a Sysop myself, I felt the immediate backlash of this
irresponsible journalism almost immediately. When I was validating a set of
new user accounts the next night, I encountered several with blank address
fields and ages that certainly did not correlate with the writing style of the
validation emails that were sent along with them. Over the course of the next
week, more than one validation email contained the phrase "I can't give you my
name or age because my parents told me not to." While things seem to have
dropped back to normal (and user honesty) more than one other area sysop had
the same experience.
Renewed interest in file pirating activity by both the law enforcement
agencies and the general public have increase image-degradation on that front
as well. To most non-BBSers, the image of a BBS user or sysop has been shaped
by the nightly news, "Dateline NBC," and the tabloids such as the
aforementioned Boston Herald. From their point of view (that is, the media)
this makes sense - they sell a lot of advertising with "reports" on those
awful BBSers and doing a good segment or an article on the huge number of
strictly up-and-up BBSes just wouldn't be cost effective. However, it's shaped
a public conception of an underworld full of hackers who spend their time
breaking into corporate computer systems and pirates who can't spell and spend
their time downloading commercial software and heavily pornographic images.
Even though almost every BBS operates on strictly legal ground (of
course, estimates on the number of BBS systems participating in illegal
activities are obviously inaccurate, and - depending a lot on who you talk to
- recent numbers are considerably lower than earlier estimates), and there is
a seeming average of one pederest to between one and two million BBSers, this
image degradation continues. What needs to be done?
The entire "underground civilization" of BBSes and BBS users needs to be
brought more into the open. Popular conceptions are out of line with reality
and the media, which is responsible for this, needs to bring itself into check
and provide a more equal level of coverage. It's amazing what a few positive
spots on a TV network newsmagazine or a well placed article in a popular
magazine of newspaper can do to public opinion. The "Living" section of your
local newspaper may be the place to start. BBSing needs to be accepted as
acceptable.
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ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і What REALLY Happened At WWIVCon '94 і Louie (6@1)
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Last month we heard from Jim (1@1) about what he saw, heard and did down
at WWIVcon '94 in New Orleans. Well, Jim is a nice guy and all that, but we at
the IceNEWS Staff Central Headquarters (located on the 13th of the Massive
Nunn Building in Spacious Downtown Springville, NY - Hummm... is there is a
Downtown in Springville?) thought that all the great Unwashed of IceNET (that
is you (-: hehehe) would love to hear about WWIVcon '94 from a lot of other
folks who went to it.
So, I put out the word that I wanted to know about everything that went
on at WWIVcon '94 on all the sysop subbies. Lots of submissions about what
went on at WWIVcon were recieved. Lots of submissions were also forced out of
people by the "IceNEWS Enforcement Staff". We also got a lot of confessions
about things like bodies that are buryed in basements, folks cheating on their
spouses, and people that went off their diets for short periods of time. All
those that confussed to double murders in Southern Calf. have had their names
turned over to the LAPD. :-) hehehe
Well, before we proceed with the submissions from other folks about
WWIVcon '94 let me just say that the Fearless Leader of WWIVland, Random, said
that "nothing scandalous occured" at WWIVcon. I would like to thank our great
leader for responding to my e-mail about WWIVcon, unlike certain Group
Coordinators in Texas that seem to enjoy their "Z"ap Mail commands. They know
who they are. And let me just say Afronts to the Power of IceNEWS will not be
tolerated!! The "IceNEWS Enforcement Staff" was dispatched to Texas recently
to deal with the "rebels". (-: ha ha (very evil laugher) ha ha! :-)
Now, on with the short pieces about what went down at WWIVcon '94!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here it is for you... Parapuke #1 @18251 [WWIVLink]
Sorry if this sounds technical but that is the way I write since I have
spent years writing medico-legal documents for work.... (grin)
As one of only two people who have attended every national WWIV
get-togethers, including the WWIV Practice Bash in Terre Haute, Indiana
(1991), WWIVLink Bash I in St Louis (1992), Missouri and WWIVLink Bash in Lake
of the Ozarks, Missouri (1993), I felt I HAD to go to the first MultiNet WWIV
Get-together, WWIVCon 1994 in New Orleans.
As representatives for WWIV of Terre Haute, Indiana, myself (Parapuke)
and M Mouse, my wife arrived in New Orleans at about 14:00 at the Comfort Inn
on Gravier Street in downtown NO. After battling for a parking space, finally
having to settle for a parking garage, we entered the lobby, there to find
some old friend and some new friends. Linwood Davis from Helena, Arkansas,
Walking Man, Lovely Lois from New Orleans, Louisiana, Filo and his family from
Texas, were all there.
Almost immediately, I had to leave to pick up Sky and Red Silver who were
flying in from Bristol, Tennessee and had a wonderful time learning the New
Orleans airport since no one had told up what flight nor even airlines they
were coming in on! (grin). After finding them we left the airport and Linwood,
who had been in New Orleans on several occasions, drove us around showing us
the sights of the French Quarter, a beautifully maintained section of the
downtown area, dating back to the late 1700's, early 1800's. Narrow streets,
balconies, and wonderful courts/gardens were the things that most stood out.
After returning to the hotel, we were met by many more people whom I had
yet to meet, including Wild Munchkin and her friend from Montreal, Quebec,
Lorelei, Jim Nunn from New York (and IceNET), the group from Toronto, Canada,
Jafo from California, Lil Sis and Big Sis from Fulton Missouri, Tolkein from
St Louis, Missouri, Jim Wire, Wayne Bell (Random) and his FULL beard!, from
Californian, Sam from Texas, etc, etc. I could go on from many pages but I
will stop there...
We had a get-together that evening renewing old aquaintances and making
new friends from across both the country and the world. The evening ended in a
walk over to Bourbon Street and the nightlife there, the group of 15 or so we
were with stopping at "Rhythms", a Blues club on Bourbon with live
entertainment. Others went to other clubs and sights, an overall good time.
The next day, the meetings started with information coming on several
aspects of WWIV, including information coming from Wayne Bell as to the
origins of WWIV, a round-table on Networking, and another round table on
developments on WWIV 4.24 with several members of the WWIV Beta Team with
information on how things are coming as well as suggestions given on future
developments within the WWIV structure. Lunch was Italian for a group of us
with supper being Italian/Cajun, getting to try Turtle Soup (reminds me of
Vegetable Beef Soup) and Crab Fingers.
The night was spent on both more socializing as well as some trips back
to Bourbon Street.
For me personally, after returning from Bourbon Street, the rest of the
night and into the next morning was spent in the hotel lounge in friendly
conversation and inbibing until after sunup with several sysops/users from
around the country, including a new face, Missing Link and Mad Man, both of
Louisiana, and Mithrandir of Michigan, ending for me at about 07:30 Sunday
morning.
After the nearly IMPOSSIBLE task of waking up for 10:00 meetings, we were
introduced to a representative demonstrating the use of LAN Networking and
further meetings, including Wayne Bell releasing autographed disks with WWIV
v1.0 as well as releases of Beta versions of DirectMail, a new utility from
Sky. Awards were then handed out in many categories including furthest
distance, closest distance, youngest and oldest sysops in attendance, most
likely to end up in divorce (attending WWIVCon on his anniversary WITHOUT his
wife!), the networks' UGLIEST Sysop (Linwood will hold the crown for life),
and others as well as thanks to Group Coordinators, Zone Coordinators, and
Area Coordinators from many networks. Throughout all the meetings and
get-togethers, there were door prizes handed out, primarily thanks to Red
Silver and Sky who own "Expect a Miracle" Shop in Bristol, Tennessee (blatant
plug). T-Shirts, Mugs, Plaques, Books, etc. were all handed out.
After the convention ended, a group of us, Lil and Big Sis (who ARE MY
sisters), and M Mouse went to the famous Mausoleums of New Orleans, the above
ground cemeteries and walked around, seeing the sights. We left New Orleans at
15:00, arriving back at Terre Haute at 06:30 Monday morning, there to sleep
the sleep of the living dead until later in the afternoon......
report submitted by
Parapuke, 1@18251 Zone Coordinator 4, WWIVLink
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WWIVcon/94, the mother of all conventions! Wild Munchkin #1 @15490 [WWIVLink]
What I remember of WWIVcon/94 in New Orleans.
July 1-July 3, 1994.
What an event! What a city! What a crowd!
I would first like to say thank you to all those who helped organize this
year's event. Filo, Linwood Davis, Red Silver, Wayne Bell and all local sysops
in LoUiSiAna, namely Walking Man and Lios (?), Towlhead (you'll be missedd)
and many, MANY others.
You'll forgive me if I forget to mention your name, but there were so
many GREAT people that I met, and by the second day most people had either
lost their name tags or switched them with fellow WWIV'ers.
My fondest memory of this year's convention (my first), was FINALLY
getting to meet my former Group Coordinator, Filo. The *only* reason I voted
against Canada forming our own Group (20) was because we wouldn't be under the
leadership and guidance of WWIV's finest. (not to mention I think Group 4
has/had the best (& sexiest) overall sysops in the network).
Oh oh, now Graham Mainwarning will be mad at me. He made it! It was nice
to meet you finally, even though Ottawa & Montreal are only 2 hours away. I
guess something can be said for WWIVcon bringing people closer together, eh?
At least Canada was represented by you and I, and one Toronto board with whom
I didn't even get a chance to talk with.
BTW, Richard and I finally made it to the Aquarium (and a Swamp Boat
ride) on the last day of our trip. His hangover was gone by then!
Filo and I had plans to meet 1 1/2 years ago, when I visited Sam in
Texas, but alas, things happened and we couldn't. Being one that believes in
fate, I think it was meant to be that he and I would finally meet at the
convention.
Not only did we meet, but I got the HUG and DANCE he promised me years
ago! Filo: I enjoyed our dance tremendously, but don't give up your "day" job
as far as imitating The Platters) ;) It was great to finally get to talk to
you at length about YOU, your beginnings with WWIV, and of course, your
viewpoints on many BBS subjects. Next time though, I hope we have time to
"cover" the BBS stuff and talk about real-life. :)
It was also an honour to meet Mrs. Filo (Grace? I'm losing my memory,
sorry can't remember her first name at the moment). I spoke with her a few
times during the weekend and thanked her "from all of us" for putting up with
Filo's lengthy hours spent online replying to our inquiries! She is truly one
classy lady.
WHERE DO I GET MORE T-SHIRTS and HATS?? Where do I get a copy of the
various VIDEOS that were taken? Where do I get the .GIFs that'll be made?
Where do I pick up copies of other people's PICTURES? And where do I sign up
for NEXT YEAR's convention?
It was also a pleasure meeting many of the sysops that I've written to
over the years, and read their posts. Some of 'em even knew me :) (Allen
Turner the voyeur...er...lurker I mean!)
Sam: It was super to see you again sweetie. You looked GREAT in that
black hat, even though it made you *that* much taller. Great shots at pool
too, even on the 2nd night when we were all pretty much fried. Well, at least
Richard and I and H20 Doc and Erotica were. BTW just where *did* you and Ms.
Erotica disappear too??? [grin]. I feel better knowing the security guard with
note pad in hand was around to keep you guys outta harm's way. You know, New
Orleans has it's deviant elements too! I wouldn't want anything NASTY to
happen to you! [wicked grin]
H20 Doc: What can I say? We came, we saw, we left. Too bad there was no
"we concurred" in there, eh? BTW I still have the 50› you lost to me in that
bet...I shall treasure it always my friend. Now do you think we could convince
you and Erotica to leave Austin and come up to Montreal for a visit? Perhaps
the next WWIVcon?? But next time you negotiate *my* striptease with *me*,
okay?. What do you think Richard is?? My pimp? I think you've spent too much
time playing Pimpwars and Studettes, darling. Besides that, it wouldn't be
fair to Erotica because $50 U.S. means more for *me* than her because of
Canadian exchange rates! [wicked grin] (Aren't you happy 4Filo's daughter
didn't get any of that evening on video??)
Parapuke was a hoot, (voted best looking bare feet in the bar) and it was
fun to hang around Bourbon Street with him, Lil' Sis, Big Sis, and the rest of
that gang. Red Silver always had a smile for us, even though she didn't pick
*my* name outta the "hat" for any of the door prizes. Speaking of doorprizes,
it was very gracious of those Programmers and individuals who contributed
"stuff" for our doorprizes.
Sexy Lady(?) and a few others kept me up drinking all night! At least
Linwood had the southern hospitality to invite a few of us up to his suite
(only to get hassled by security)! Thank Goodness things never close in New
Orleans, and we found a place to try those Beignets! (Talk about a sugar
overdose tho). Linwood, do you think I'd still make a "fine" Southern girl? I
still think I'm too *good* to be a "good" Southern Girl..what do y'all think?)
Do me a favor for next year's convention, don't plan any early morning
sessions, and do NOT make the con longer than the weekend...I don't think I'd
be able to take those 6am nights for much longer than that!
I'd like to say hi to Sparky and his wife (he never shut-up long enough
for her and I to talk), and it's really too bad about their car being towed
away...seems in New Orleans, even the Police can steal cars! At least you got
in back, and thanks to Eric(?) (whoa, what a cutie) for driving you to the
cop-shop to get it.
Seems Tolkien didn't stop "drinking" long enough to talk to anyone.
Rumour has it, he was seen coming out of his hotel room at 6am, Margarita in
hand, ready to check out and start back home... Good job his driving-partner
got a few hours of sleep - we are told :)
There were quite a few of WWIV's women in attendance too. They floored
quite a few good questions to Wayne in the modding session. But of course,
they would. Hi to White Queen and all fellow FemmeNet sysops.
Oh and then there was this guy with a reddish beard. He seemed to be
speaking about new features for 4.24. He was giving away diskettes with the
first version of WWIV on it... what was his name again? Wayne something... I
wonder why people were lining up to get him to sign their copies of this
diskette... hmm.... you Americans are strange sometimes. :) (BTW Wayne Bell: I
can barely make out your last name on *my* copy...) [grin] Would you even
CONSIDER flying to Montreal for a future convention?? ... we have better bars
than New Orleans! - and it ain't *that* hot!
Red Silver and Sky (whoa another cutie) had great timing. As the
convention was winding down, and everyone was getting teary-eyed from saying
their "farewells," she jumped out from the elevator with her water pistol and
soaked us. Thank you sunshine, we really *did* need that. (Sorry I missed the
day-after BBQ at Walking Man's house, but Richard and I really had to do a bit
of driving in our rental car...besides that, it was too hard to say "goodbye"
in the hotel lobby, that I couldn't bare anymore...- ditto to H20 Doc and
Erotica who we didn't get to say farewell too. - Don't worry, there's always
NEXT year!
All in all, a good time was had by all. WILD Munchkin's Castle was the
recipient of a couple of awards, and nominated (probably by Panda) for best
WWIV sysop. Thank you to those who voted for me...altho I know Sam and Panda
were the only ones) Filo: About my "Good Humor" Award - don't you know that in
Canada, we spell it humoUr??? [grin]
Again, I would like to thank everyone for making this convention a
success and it's really too bad ALL of you couldn't have made it this year.
Start saving up NOW for next year, because you will NOT regret it! - That's a
promise!
It was great meeting all of you... as we say here in Montreal:
A la prochaine! Until next time...because I hate goodbyes - farewell.
TTYL,
WILD Munchkin
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: WWIVcon Snake #1 @9353
Well, Cali and I just got back Monday, and I just woke up from sheer
exhaustion. My impressions of New Orleans is that it had been 10 years since I
had been in a city, and it will probably be another 10 until I go back. It was
interesting to visit Bourbon street, and see the sights. The above ground
cemetery was strange.
For the most part, I was shocked with what the south looked like. It was
nothing of what I envisioned it. I would have never thought of Mississippi as
a big pine forest. Of course, I could tell that I was a foreigner down
there....I know how to use my turn signals.
The sysops that I met were all friendly, and it was nice to put faces
with the names. I was surprised by the number of sysops that attended, that I
had never heard of. I guess that they don't post on the same subs that I do. I
was please that I would get along with some of the sysops that I have had
disagreements with on some of subs. We had always kept the disagreements to
the discussion of facts, and when we met in person, we ended up becoming very
good friends.
I am not used to bars that stay open all night, but I am sure that I
could try (g). I did better than some, in that I never got hung over, but sure
tried hard.
I leave WWIVCon with fond memories and friendships that I will continue
for a long time.
Snake
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WWIVcon 94, The True Story... Walking Man #1 @5426
Or, as Jack Webb would say, "Just the Facts".
There has been several "reports" on the events of WWIVcon 94, now is the
time for the truth to come out (at least, the truth the way I saw it).
I will not attempt to mention everyone that was there, the list itself
would probably exceed the network limits. I will, however mention some of the
more memorial occurrences.
First, of course, was Filo and his lovely daughter and her equally lovely
friend. They took a mini-cam and went around "interviewing" a lot of the
sysops in attendance. I can see that both of these ladies have a future in
broadcast journalism.
Then there was "the other WM". Wild Munchkin and I have exchanged mail on
several occasions concerning confusion about our initials. Well, although she
does not know it, I may just have to change my alias. Anyone as lovely as her
deserves any alias or initials she wants, just as a reward for being so
pulchritudinous (don't bother Linwood, dictionaries in Arkenstone don't have
words like that).
M. Mouse and Red Silver! What can I say. Lovely Lois wanted to go to the
convention, if only to see her boyfriend, Linwood Davis, but she was worried
about not knowing anyone else there. You two took her and make her feel like
she was right at home (I tried to tell her that she would find friends there,
and you proved it).
H2O Doc and Erotika. Two of the friendliest people I have ever met. (Of
course, I did get a look from Erotika when she and Lois were exchanging
address so they could mail each other and I asked them if they had ever heard
of E-Mail. They just said it was something a man would never understand.)
Big Sis and Lil Sis. The only thing I can't understand about you two is
how such can such nice people have a brother like Parapuke.
Well, enough about people (did you notice I did not mention several
people, we will get to them), let's talk about the events. (Not the events
that were listed in the program, but the other events. I think they were more
"interesting".)
(Ya see Parapuke, I didn't lie about everything....(G))
Friday morning I arrived at the hotel to find a lot of people already
there. A lot of them were in the restaurant finishing breakfast. I went over
and sat introduced myself and had a glass of tea. Soon we went to the lobby to
see who else was going to show up.
Well, around lunch time several people said they were going to get
something to eat and asked me if I wanted to join them. I told them that I was
going to wait for Linwood (something about sitting across a table from him
makes my dieting easier) since I KNEW that he was in the area and would be
joining us soon.
Sure enough, at about 1PM here he comes carrying several bags and smiling
brightly. As he entered, Filo asked me if I would care to do the interview of
the esteemed Mr. Davis.
Well, after asking Mr. Davis a few simple and very innocent questions
(soon to be available on tape), he got this "I'm gonna get you" look in his
eyes and you could almost hear the gears turning in his head.
After the delightful and informative interview, I asked him if he would
care to have lunch since I was slowly starving to death (does anyone ever
rapidly starve to death?). He agreed, but then fate stepped in via Para- puke
(I bet you thought I forgot about you).
Parapuke suddenly runs up with a message for Linwood telling him that he
has to go to the airport and pick up Sky and Red Silver (I am not sure if they
were in on this plot) at 1:30.
Well, by this time there are several people around who want to register
for the convention and even more who were registered, but have not gotten
their badges yet. All the forms and badges are in these bags that Linwood is
carrying around with him. Well, he (in a brilliant performance) ask me if I
would take care of the registration while he and Parapuke make a mad dash to
the airport. In my complete innocence I agreed telling him that I would have
lunch when I was finished and we would get together for dinner.
Well, he handed me all the necessary forms and badges and disappeared. I
open the box with the badges and low and behold it is exactly what he said it
was (I will not call him a liar, unlike what others have implied about me), a
box full of badges in no order at all.
Here I have several people who want to fill out the forms and register
and 12,345 people who are registered wanting their badges (I don't lie, but I
may exaggerate a bit). The people who have to fill out the forms natu- rally
don't have a pen between them (a pen is something that people without word
processors use to place marks on paper in order to communicate with other
people), and trying to sort out the badges reminded me of Alexander the Great
the Gordian Knot.
Finally, at 2:05 I get that sorted out, and told people that I was going
to the restaurant, and if anyone else needed anything, they could meet me
there.
THE RESTAURANT CLOSES FROM 2 TILL 5!!!!!!!
Here I am, weak from hunger, carrying around a ton of forms and badges
wondering what can happen next.
I again park myself in the lobby to greet people and begin the hercu-
lean of putting the badges in some sort of order (while chaos rules the rest
of the lobby) and, after what seems like hours I get them in almost
alphabetical order (A, B, C, T, works for me).
M. Mouse has come down several times to ask if they had returned yet and
several others were expressing concern about the amount of time it was taking
them to go to the airport and back. I was just thinking about calling taking a
ride myself to see if perhaps they had broken down or something and had just
asked Filo to handle the new registrations.
About that time, Linwood, Parapuke, Red Silver and Sky come in.
"Where the heck (I do remember the rule about foul language on this sub,
but I don't follow it in real life, so you may choose any expletive you think
will fit) have you been?" I asked Linwood.
"Oh, we stopped for a bite to eat and drove through the French Quarter on
the way back." He replied.
And that, my friends, is how Linwood stole my lunch.
Walking Man
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WWIV Con '94 Report Linwood Davis #1 @15100 [WWIVLink]
WWIV Con '94 was a huge success!
Whenever WWIVers get together, you can be assured it will be interesting.
This gathering was certainly no exception. There was some new information
passed around, including a glimpse into the new features of the
not-yet-released WWIV 4.24, and hints at the possibility of using satellite
feeds for WWIV transmissions. I'll let others discuss those things; I was more
interested in the people. Space (and my memory) do not permit a full
discussion of everyone there, so I'll just mention a few at random (pardon the
pun).
First of all, Wayne Bell has a new beard--at least it's new to those of
us who haven't seen him since the '92 Bash in St. Louis.
Filo is just the same--some comforting stability in the fast-changing
world of cyberspace. He has a charming wife, and his daughter and her friend
busied themselves with hat and shirt sales--and with beautifying the
surroundings. Obviously his daughter got her looks from her mother. ;-)
Jim Nunn (Ice) is a mountain of a man, but soft-spoken, and very
interesting to visit with in person. As all of you already know, he's quite
bright and knows stuff I don't even have questions for. Interesting man, and
those of you who weren't able to go to the Con missed getting to meet him.
Tolkien was there, of course, and gave me a hard time because I couldn't
immediately put his name with his face. I think he wanted to put my name and
face together--in the dumpster out back--but he was ultimately nice about it.
His collection of software is now available from WWIV Software Services. He's
a great programmer, of course, and a really interesting person. Wish I could
borrow a double dose of his "slender." [G]
Lorelei and her husband are both very nice people. She's a lot better
looking than him, of course. I just found out I've been within shouting
distance of her house several times in '94--but didn't know it. The next time
I go to Dallas, though...
The Canadians were well-represented, of course, but I was lucky enough to
get to spend some time with WILD Munchkin and WILD Munchkin's Better Half. I
got to introduce them to the wonders of beignets (French donuts) and coffee at
the Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter--and to Shoney's breakfast bar. I'm
not going to take time here to explain how much trouble they and Parapuke and
Sam tried to get me into earlier in the night. [g]
Parapuke is always a fun guy to be around, and I got to meet his sisters
as well. They look a LOT better than he, of course, and M Mouse (Mrs.
Parapuke) is a candidate for sainthood after putting up with him for all these
years.
I *finally* got to meet Sky and Red Silver; Parapuke and I picked them up
at the airport, and we spent a lot of time with them at the Con. Sky is as
bright as you thought he was, and Red Silver is truly a Wise One. I think I'm
going to ask them to adopt me. I'd even promise to be good.
H2O Doc and Erotika were also great "finds" at the Con. He's a terrific
guy, of course, and when you look up "cute" in your dictionary, you'll find
her picture. Nice folks!
Then there are the City Slickers--Madman and Walking Man. They're two of
the best friends I have in the world; that should give you an idea how
desperate my life is these days. ;-)
Walking Man's wife, Lovely Lois, is truly lovely, and as sweet and
wonderful a lady as I have ever known. I'm hopelessly in love, of course. I
admit it. But Walking Man is my friend, so I won't lie about it. I *am*
raising money to hire a hit man to dispose of Walking Man. I hate to do it,
but it has to be done. We are going to provide the very best New Orleans jazz
funeral marching band for the very best funeral money can buy (after all, he
is my dear friend--nothing but the best for him).
You will soon be reading some vicious attacks and distortions of the
truth written by one or both of these nefarious types. Please be warned in
advance that these are coming.
WWIV Con '94 was great! I can't wait until next year.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WWIVcon Dr Diversity #1 @8400
WWIVcon - the event of the year sponsored completely by Jim 1@1. He felt
that since he was rich and loaded with money, he'd offer to pay everyone's way
and treat them to a fantastic time! NOT! (grin)
Well, let me start with my little escapade on getting to the WWIVcon
before I tell you about the 'con itself.
It all started a heck of a long time ago when I made plans to go. I asked
a couple of other local SysOps to come along and they promptly agreed...until
a few months later. I figured, no big deal because I've got other friends who
will go. They cancelled too. Well, it was about this time when my car decided
to take a vacation from working properly so I was getting a little worried.
Right around the tuesday before the 'con, I got a call from Sandman (yeah, the
one way the heck over in Utah) and he stopped by Virginia to pick me up. (Just
a couple thousand miles out of his way!)
The trip down to Columbia to pick up Morgul and Benny Hill went well. It
was fast and there was only one real problem (aside from the fact that the
power went off in a fast food store just as Sandman was about to order). After
that the trip got a little long. We pulled over once to take a cat nap to get
refreshed. After all, who wants to get to a hotel at 5am when the check in
isn't until 3pm?) I really think this is where I picked up my cold.
The 'con was great. I met most of the people I've talked to a whole lot
and met a couple I've only heard of. I was quite pleased to meet them all
nonetheless.
The first night consisted mostly of spending time walking around Bourbon
Street. It was rumored that Wayne could be found walking into every bar there
was on the street (and there were a lot!). Jim took it a little easier (I
think) because I ended up spending a few late hours with him and a couple
others up in his room. He even called his board and FORCED everyone to chat
with Louie who was watching over the system! (Grin)
The second day was a little more laid back. We had a couple of lectures
and believe it or not, we let the beta team off easy by not asking a million
questions. (BTW, Christmas must be Wayne's favorite holiday...he said Merry
Christmas every time he met someone...oh yeah, he also said Happy Easter. I
guess he likes holidays.) That night Sandman, Morgul, and I took it easy. We
were tired from missing sleep so we figured we'd relax in the room. It turned
out that we all ended up in the bar until late. (Grin)
Unfortunately there was a bad storm in our route for the trip home so we
missed Sunday's events. That's not all that bad considering we made it home
early Monday morning without any problems. The worst part was that Sandman and
I were doing okay until after we dropped off Benny Hill and Morgul. We got
quite tired (after 18 hours of driving/riding).
I know I didn't say much about the 'con but there was so much going on
(and I'm still fighting a bad head cold) that I don't remember it all.
(Although there were a couple of interesting shops along Bourbon Street.)
All in all, the whole thing was great and I was pleased to have met
everyone. For those of you who haven't met Jim, he's TALL. If you can imagine
Santa Claus with red hair and a shorter red beard, you're not too far off.
(hehehe)
ДДННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННДД
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДЩ W W I V - S P E C I F I C АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і Networking Utilities & The WW4NET Change Over і Ima Moron (1@9661)
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДБДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
As the writer of this article I must admit that I've never needed an
outside method of communicating with my subboard subscribers until the WWIVNet
node number change over. In that situation I wished that I'd sooner learned of
the two utilities that I'm writing about below.
LINK36B1.ZIP, the archived version of linker.exe is a utility that allows
multiple network packets to be transferred with one phone call. FAST100.ZIP Is
a network mail utility that allows multiple network E-mails, the addressee
being drawn from a file listing. Both utilities would have eased the load when
we WWIVNet sysops were required to form an intermediate network; WW4NET.
To all WW4Net sysops: (Sun Jul 10 10:58:44 1994)
Random #1 @1
Sun Jul 10 10:58:44 1994
RE: WW4Net
We are about ready for the final stage of the WWIVnet/WW4net conversion.
The next (and final) step is scheduled for Saturday, July 16th. On Saturday,
go into INIT, delete the WWIVnet network, and rename the WW4net network to
WWIVnet.
--- segment of this e-mail omitted to shorten the article ---
--- I left the portion of mail below in for informational purposes ---
On a second topic, I found a slight bug in the de1.exe file in use on
WW4net. It will not correctly receive source-verified messages that uncompress
to over 32k. This is not a big problem, since the only thing over 32k sent so
far were subs.lst updates, and I can easily chop those up to <32k chunks.
There is a fixed de1.exe available on my system (plus fixed de*.exe for
the groups), and you should pick them up (from my system or someone who
downloaded them from my system) when convenient. Do not rush, as it will be at
least a few months before I send out anything >32k as a network update
(probably in a subs.lst update). The updated de*.exe files are dated July 10
1994.
--- here's the bomb ---
On a third topic, net34 will be released in two or three weeks. It
supports net calls on multiple instances simultaneously, but NOT multiple
networks per call. You will be notified when an exact date is set.
Finally, you should now have the first WW4net/new-WWIVnet subs.lst update
in your WW4net data dir.
1$F4 1@10
Above is the transmitted news from Mr. Bell. I'd complain, but that
wouldn't make multiple network packets move on one phone call. Nor will
complaining make it possible for myself to mail all of my subscribers on my
hosted subboards over three networks while WW4NET is transformed into WWIVNet.
During this transition a whole new network was created, that network created
much more phone traffic for me to carry.
I'll first out take from the link36b1.zip archive and with that allow
Hellfire to describe his software;
--- from the Linker.doc file ---
Linker v3.6 Multi-Network Sender/Support Software
Written by Hellfire 1@1 Apex / 1@13600 WWIVLink
Documented by Parapuke 1@8251 Apex / 1@18251 WWIVLink
Documentation upgraded by Ketol Ketih 1@10 Apex / 1@13601 WWIVLink
Parts updated by King Master 2@19 Apex / 1@13605 WWIVLink
1-1. Introduction.
Linker originated in the twisted mind of Hellfire during the cold winter
nights of his igloo home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada where he was tired
of spending all his hard earned money on calls to pick up his various networks
from the United States.
Linker will take multiple networks that are received by a host/hub system
and combine them into one call on one network using sub type 10/512. When your
system receives this sub type, it will process the messages being received,
moving them to the appropriate data directory to be processed just as though
you had received the call ON that network. In return, messages from your
system will be processed and combined to be returned back to the host/hub
system. This return process will happen when the Network2.exe runs a second
time. Originally intended as a preview of things to come in WWIV networking,
it has proven itself as a trustworthy addition to any multinetworking system
used by close to 500 WWIV systems, as well as adding several refinements which
will be found later in this document.
Files in Linker Package
-----------------------
LINKER.DOC: This file
LINKER.EXE: 1-1. Primary Executable file
LINKERGD.EXE: Primary Executable for systems using Gold System.
LINKUTIL.EXE: 2-1. Used to create Linknets.Net as well as
enhancements.
LINKER.DAT: 3-1. Definable Enhancements
FILEREQ.BAT: (goes in your root bbs directory) for those systems
that compiled WWIV with the PACKSCAN Option on.
FILE_ID.DIZ: File description
GREENWAR.REG: GREENWARE registration form
WHATSNEW.DOC: A list of new features in current update
SOFTWARE.TXT: A list of support boards and other software
produced by Microtech Solutions and PURGware
FILE_ID.DIZ Gee, I wonder..
Linker may be distributed as SHAREWARE as long as it is also distributed
with the above files.
--- end linker.doc out take ---
I've used Linker version 34b in my connects as the hub for local nodes
within the same city, and I'm ecstatic about the concept. I can drop
everyone's Icenet and WWIVNet packet with one phone call, thereby shortening
the network only window on my own BBS by hours. I can say that for the month
or more that I've used linker.exe I've never lost any E-mail or messages, and
of the three systems that I carry, only one system has dropped a packet which
I feel wasn't linker.exe related.
But that isn't all that Linker offers, in addition to linking different
WWIVNet based network operations Linker will also allow a file search and send
files if you have re-compiled your BBS with packscan enabled. In addition to
packscan Linker has a version of autosend built into it which when the
configuration file for Linker is setup, it will automatically send a subboard
rules message on the subboards you host and allow back post sending to new
subscribers.
Hellfire does request a $10.00 registration fee for his software, however
as a novel approach to registration he also allows "greenware registration" of
his Linker. Greenware releases are registered by writing Hellfire an E-mail
explaining what it is you promise to do to save the environment. I myself
never buy soda or beer in the cans, I always buy bottles. The 2 liter plastic
bottles of soda and glass bottles of Miller beer. One does what one can....or
bottle. I like the concept of greenware.
My recommendation to install linker.exe is that you copy three of the
files included in the link36b1.zip archive to your main BBS directory, note
that there is an option of executable files for gold system users;
LINKER.EXE: 1-1. Primary Executable file
LINKERGD.EXE: Primary Executable for systems using Gold System.
LINKUTIL.EXE: 2-1. Used to create Linknets.Net as well as
enhancements.
LINKER.DAT: 3-1. Definable Enhancements
-- note: Hellfire utilizes a file authentication CRC ---
-- check for the CRC listed within the archive --
Next rename your network2.exe as net2.exe, then rename linker.exe
network2.exe (have I confused you yet?). Now you should create an epreproc.net
file, a text file which merely reads as one line;
network2 /i /o
Now go into the callout.net files of each network and delete all
compression and protocol choice symbols. In fact leave only the following
information for all networks, excepting the prime carrier network;
sample callout.net for linked network;
@10343 %43 + "ABCDEFGHIJKLMN"
sample callout.net for the primary carrier network;
@10343 %43 & /2 (23 )4 ; "ABCDEFGHIJKLMN"
You may still force callouts to the nodes on the original network, but
the software will not initiate a call for any other network other than the
prime carrier network. All incoming network messages and E-mail to be sent to
a linked node will be transferred on the primary network chosen to carry all
network packets.
Speaking of linking node number and network, it's time to write up the
linkutil.exe file. This utility creates the configuration that linker.exe
follows when processing net packets from all networks. My suggestion here is
that you follow Hellfire's second example and link your connect's node numbers
from all of his or her networks to one network;
Your connect is in three networks, WWIVNet, Icenet, ANYNet. You choose
ANYNet as the prime carrier of traffic and "link" your connect's other network
node numbers "to" their ANYNet node number. Below is an out-take from
Hellfire's document file;
--- out-take from linker.doc ---
2-1. Linkutil.Exe Explanations.
Beginning version 3.1б4, there is a new addition to the Linker utility
called Linkutil.Exe. With this, you will be able to edit the direction of
which messages will travel, get a list of definable available files from
fellow Linker users , send out lists of subscribers to subs of which you host,
requests files via network connections and even send files.
When you enter Linkutil, you will be confronted by the following
selection of things to do;
[E]dit LINKNETS.NET
[G]et file listing
[L]ist Subscriber Editor
[R]equest file
[S]end file
[Q]uit
[*]Option?
2-2. Edit Linknets.Net
In the Edit mode, you will be prompted to explain which network you wish
to send packages to and from as well as the systems to which the packages are
bound for. Just follow the prompts.
Here is the entry screen.
[W]rite LINKNETS.NET [M]odify entry [A]dd entry [D]elete Link [Q]uit ?
--- You'll be adding entries to the linknets.net file. ---
--- Below is an example from linker.doc ---
FROM= <- this is the node and net you want to LINK FROM
NET= <- this is the FROM network as defined in Init.Exe -1
TO= <- this is the node and net you want to LINK it TO.
NET= <- this is the TO network as defined in Init.Exe -1
--- end out-take from linker.doc ---
The node you are connected to is linked to itself, Hellfire explains this
in the document file well enough. I will add that you don't mention yourself
in the linkutil.exe input, you only mention your connects node numbers and
link all networks you carry their messages over to one network node number for
your connect's system. After that your connect must do the same thing with
your node numbers and callout.net files.
In closing this story I'll edit in the greenware registration file
included by Hellfire with the distribution archive.
--- greenwar.reg ---
In a new and exciting concept in the software industry, the authors and
бeta testers of Linker wish to introduce nationwide a concept in Shareware
Registration known as GreenWare.
The concept is simple. We care for the environment and the world we live
in. In order to register this this software, you must do the following.
Make a commitment to the planet you and I live on. Recycle! You use
enough paper with your printer don't you? Take some aluminum cans to the
Recyclers. Some of those Coke/beer cans sitting next to your computer will be
a good start. Plant a tree. Use mass transportation. Carpool. The list goes
on.
When you have done that, send mail to me telling me that you care for the
environment and we will consider you fully registered as a user of this
software.
My network mailing address is
The Resource Center
Parapuke 1@18251 WWIVLink
1@8251 Apex/WWIVNet/IceNet/SolarNet/TARDISnet/TerraNet/RockNet
or many fine networks near you.
(REAL NAME PLEASE)
By sending this email I ________________________ agree to the above mentioned
terms failure to comply to these terms means that I relinquish my right to my
LINKER registration.
Alias ______________________
APEX node ______
WWIVnet node ______
ICEnet node ______
WWIVLink node ______
-----
Registered Linker sysops get Automated update information service. Which
means you will be informed of updates if you belong to any of the above
networks.
--- non-greenware registration ---
Please note - this program is GreenWare. You may use it for an evaluation
period of 30 DAYS. Even though this software is FULLY ENABLED without
registration make no mistake the software is not licensed to you unless you
register. The registration fee is merely Ten Dollars, or you may apply to our
alternative GREENWARE program. The GREENWARE program requires that you email
Parapuke 1@18251.WWIVLink or 1@8251.WWIVnet and send in the GREENWARE
registration form.
The GREENWARE registration form has more information on what that means.
Please send money to:
John Wheeler
8703 East Wabash Ave Lot #57
Terre Haute, IN 47803
ДНННННННН End of Linker Text ННННННННД
Earlier I had described my dilemma in mailing the same sysops on
different networks. This problem arose while I was testing WW4NET for the
transition to WWIVNet. How do you mail a total of 60 + sysops for three
subboards on two networks? I called my local support BBS, Maestro BBS @9680
Icenet and learned of Fast-Mail!
ДДДДДДННННННЯЯЯЯЯЯЯ ЯЯЯЯЯ ЯЯЯЯЯ ЯЯЯЯЯЯЯЯ
ДДДДДДННННННЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ
ДДДДДДННННННЯЯЯЯЯ ЯЯЯЯЯЯЯ ЯЯЯЯЯ ЯЯ
ДДДДДДННННННЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ
ДДДДДДННННННЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯЯЯЯЯ ЯЯ
ДДДДДДННННННЯЯЯ ЯЯЯ ЯЯЯЯЯ ЯЯЯЯЯЯ ЯЯ
ДДДДДДННННННЯЯЯЯ ЯЯЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ
ДДДДДДННННННЯЯ ЯЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯЯЯЯЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ
ДДДДДДННННННЯЯ Я ЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ
ДДДДДДННННННЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯ ЯЯЯЯЯЯ ЯЯЯЯЯЯЯ
Version 1.00R
January 5, 1993
CellarSoft LtD.
Copyright (c) 1993,1994
***************************************************************************
WARNING: When you unzip FastMail!, you should see -AV codes on each line
as the file extracts. After all files have been extracted, you should
see:
Authentic files Verified! # MQE905
CellarSoft LtD.
If you don't see the -AV and this message, the files have been tampered
with. DO NOT use them. Contact CellarSoft LtD. at the addresses below and
include the origin of the archive you have.
Files included in this archive are:
FAST.EXE FastMail!
FASTMAIL.DOC Documentation.
FAST.INI Initialization / Definition File.
FAST.DEF DEF file for WWIVedit as External Editor
ORDER.FRM Registration Key order form.
FILE_ID.DIZ Suggested file descriptions.
AUTHORS.NFO Shareware Authors FREE registration offer.
***************************************************************************
Introduction:
=============
FastMail! is a mail utility for use with WWIV v4.22+ Bulletin Board
Software. FastMail! provides the WWIV SysOp with a simplified method of
mailing:
A single user on any system in a given network.
All systems in the CALLOUT.NET of a single network.
All systems in the CALLOUT.NET of a all networks you are in.
All subscribers of a Subboard you host.
All Users on your BBS.
All Users in a specified Mailing List using the
Create and Maintain Mailing Lists options.
SysOps who serve as Area or Group Co-Ordinators also have the ability to
mail all systems under their supervision using Area Co-Ordinator FastMail! or
Group Co-Ordinator FastMail! functions. Group C-Ordinators can also mail all
systems in a specified area code within his Group using the AC FastMail!
function.
--- end out-take from fastmail.doc ---
What more could I ask for? Well, Wayne Bell might remove the 15 E-mail
limit from the network2.exe packet processor for one thing! I myself have
subboards with more than twenty ( I'm being modest here ) subscribers, and I
would have liked to have dealt with the WW4NET changeover without creating
multiple mailing lists. But limitations are the mother of invention and
Fast-Mail will allow you to load mailing list files ( your saving grace Wayne
Bell! ), I also pre-wrote my subscriber mail and I ALT-I loaded the mail in
WWIVEDIT to keep my fingers form going numb.
To install Fast Mail!;
--- out take from fastmail.doc ---
Installation:
=============
FastMail! expects to find itself in the main BBS directory. It will move
to the main BBS directory to run if the directory is included in your path
statement in AUTOEXEC.BAT. You will be returned to the starting directory upon
exit. The default directory structure for WWIV is hard coded into the program.
It looks for CONFIG.DAT in the main BBS directory and NETWORKS.DAT, and
STATUS.DAT in the DATA directory. If you have renamed the DATA directory, see
the section below on INI files. If you have a completely non-standard
directory structure, a special version can be requested at the time of
registration.
WWIV.INI Initialization File:
=========================================
FastMail! supports the new WWIV.INI style configuration file. If you
already use WWIV.INI, add the desired lines from FAST.INI included in this
archive. These lines should be added to the end of WWIV.INI due to the fact
that FastMail! adds FAST_REG_CHK and the registration check code to the end of
the INI file on it's first use. It also adds FAST_REG_CODE and the code when
the registration code is entered. If you fail to add the lines to the end of
WWIV.INI, it will cause no problems, FastMail! scans the entire file for it's
definitions, it will just keep things together.
If you do not already use WWIV.INI, rename FAST.INI to WWIV.INI and edit
as desired.
Using this definition file, you have the ability to set options you may
prefer in FastMail!. Directions for adding these options are contained in
FAST.INI. In the case of non-standard directory structures, you may also
define the location of your DATA directory in the INI file as well. If you are
using the standard WWIV setup, there is no need for this definition.
External Editors:
=================
FastMail! requires an external editor to be defined in the INI file to be
fully functional. Any good text editor should work. FastMail! passes the
storage directory and a filename as arguments when the editor is loaded. If
your editor does not accept a passed filename, you MUST use a filename of
TEMP.MSG in the storage directory for the Single User Mail feature to work.
This feature has been tested with Qedit v2.15 and WWIVedit v2.5 and works
perfectly.
To use WWIVedit as an external editor, place the file FAST.DEF in your
\BBS\WWIVEDIT\CONFIG directory and then from the WWIVedit directory, type
WWIVEDIT /F to compile the DEF files and you are ready to go. FastMail!
generates it's own EDITOR.INF if WWIVedit is set as your external editor and
will delete the file after use.
--- end of out take from fastmail.doc ---
I have to say that I accomplished the installation of Fast Mail although
I encountered one or two items in the docs that weren't perfectly clear to me.
I guess forcing myself to learn the DOS operating system many years ago
finally has paid off. One of those items is that when you wish to mail from a
listing of node addresses the screen prompts will lead you to believe that you
will be allowed to edit a pre-written file. That wasn't the case. Another very
minor glitch was that the packet processing was done externally from the
network software and for that reason the BBS wasn't informed of a pending
packet. When I pressed " P " to look at the pending packets, Fast-mail's work
didn't appear. A drop to DOS and a Z-packet file search indicated that
Fastmail had done the work, meaning it multi-network mailed my fellow local
net sysops.
On another note about short falls, Fast-mail documentation stated that
the software would create the directory paths for the mail and mail lists
subdirectory named fast. That didn't occur, I manually created the directory
structure modifying it from the stated paths in the docs. WWIVEDIT posed
another problem, I thought that the setup file (WWIV.INI) for configuring
Fastmail would call the BBS init.exe strings. Wrong again, you need to
recreate the local init WWIVEDIT string in the fast.ini file and be sure to
rename the file WWIV.INI after you edit it. The file(s) are placed in the main
BBS directory and the BBS must be restarted to load WWIV.INI.
All in all it took me about ten minutes to over come my own
misunderstandings about installing Fast Mail. I then spent one half hour
figuring out how to operate the utility. Again, a little understanding about
DOS goes a long way when installing new utilities. Another item is that you
must be careful when entering the paths in the FAST.INI file, and again rename
the file WWIV.INI.
Regarding the Author:
=====================
CellarSoft LtD. is the trade name of the author. The author(s), by use of
this name, is by no means attempting to defraud any individual, corporation,
or agency or political subdivision of the United States government or the
public at large. The author may be at any of the addresses below:
By US Mail at:
DNK Enterprises
c/o CellarSoft LtD.
P.O. Box 35011
Ft. Wainwright, Alaska 99703
By Email at:
1@9707 WWIVnet/IceNet/SOLARnet/TerraNet
1@1110 FILEnet
1:355/22 FidoNet
The latest version of FastMail! may be obtained from the following systems:
Name of System Phone Speed FREQname FREQAddr. SysOp Name
===============================================================================
Trading Post [NORTH] 907-356-7632 19200 FASTMAIL 1:355/22 Trader Jack
Trading Post [SOUTH] 803-731-0690 57600 FASTMAIL 1:376/126 Morgul
Dream World BBS [ASV] 803-749-3171 38400 <N/A> Sandman
The Rubicon [ASV] 919-676-0738 14400 <N/A> Spackle
Entity BBS [ASV/GSA] 310-973-4949 14400 <N/A> Bogie
Eagle's Dare 301-498-1984 14400 <N/A> Frank Reid
ДНННННННН End of Fast Mail Text ННННННННД
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ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і Break the CHAINs і Scum Sucker (1@6987)
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДБДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
With the dawn of multi-tasking PC's, users the world 'round have suddenly
acquired the wondrous ability of having their cake and eating it too; "Look
ma, I can run Word AND Excel AT THE SAME TIME!!!" Then, the inevitable (at
least for sysops): Multi-instance BBSing. WWIV 4.23 has brought all the joy of
posting your messages with a user online to the door of every gracious owner.
It has also brought it's own Doppleganger in the form of this haunting
feedback message:
"How come TradeWars doesn't work anymore?"
Before you run away screaming, let me try to help; I'm here to break the
CHAINs. I will unravel the mystery that is multi-instancing and appease your
restless users, lest they withdraw their donations and your BBS slowly
shrivels and dies.
At least, that's the idea.
"What the heck is different?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not much, but enough to cheese up anybody's already-working setup.
First things first: If you run a one-instance board, you probably have no
need for knowing what's going on here; everything should work as it always
has. But once you put up a second instance, WWIV and the programs it runs have
to know that there is more than one person trying to use it at once. It has
two ways of doing this:
1) It sets an environment variable. If you've followed the instructions
in the manual, you will have the line SET WWIV_INSTANCE=2 in there somewhere.
WWIV_INSTANCE is a variable, and the computer can check it to see what it
contains. The cool thing is that you can have different variables in each
instance (or "window", or however you'd like to refer to it) that hold
different values. So, if you run the BBS under node 1, WWIV_INSTANCE doesn't
exist (if you've followed the manual.) But under instance two, the value of
WWIV_INSTANCE is 2. Nifty, eh?
2) You have different drop files. In previous versions of WWIV, there was
only one drop file: CHAIN.TXT. Now that multi-instancing is upon us, WWIV will
create another drop-file under each different instance. Unfortunately, you
can't have a file mean two different things at the same time (unlike the
aforementioned variable), so it has to name the new file something different.
Each instance that creates as dropfile after the first is named CHAIN.###,
where ### is the instance number. If you're like most sysops, you only run two
instances. In this case, the two dropfiles will be CHAIN.TXT (instance one)
and CHAIN.002 (instance two).
[A small note: WWIV 4.23 also automatically creates different kinds of
dropfiles, such as DOOR.SYS and PCBOARD.SYS. With each of these, the first
instance filenames remain as they were, such as DOOR.SYS and PCBOARD.SYS, and
every instance after that is renamed exactly as CHAIN.TXT was. So, the
dropfiles for instance two would be CHAIN.002, DOOR.002, PCBOARD.002, etc...]
That's basically all that has changed. But we can use these changes to
make our doors run on different instances.
"Okay, wiseguy. What should I do?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No need to get testy.
My first suggestion is this: Change the batch file that runs instance one
to have the line SET WWIV_INSTANCE=1 in it. This is only a suggestion, and
everything will work if you don't put it in, but some systems (OS/2 for sure,
others maybe) will give you pointless error statements if you check for an
environment variable (like WWIV_INSTANCE) and it's not there. These error
messages don't mean anything, but they're annoying. Making the above
modification will fix it.
Now on to the big problem: getting the chains to work. There are many
ways to go on this, and different onliners may work better different ways, so
you may use many methods.
1) Set it up as normal.
Advantages: No work for you.
Disadvantages: It almost never works. At least, not yet. If the onliner
with which you're working recognizes CHAIN in its different formats, or it
doesn't care what the filename is, then it will work. In other words, if you
can tell from the documentation that it either knows that you can use
"CHAIN.002", or that it doesn't care what filename you give it as long as it's
in CHAIN.TXT format, you can use this safely. The problem is that most
onliners out there will not accept ANY file except CHAIN.TXT specifically if
you tell it you use WWIV, even though CHAIN.002 is the exact same format. I
have yet to see a program that does recognize the CHAIN.### format, and they
probably won't be here for a while. I wouldn't suggest trying this method,
though it clears up a LOT of headaches if you can get it to work.
2) Tell the program to search in its own directory, then copy the CHAIN
file over. WWIV has the cool ability to send whatever chain file is
appropriate through as a "parameter" in the batch file. Let's say you're
trying to run "TICTAC.BAT" as the batch file to run your onliner. First, you'd
go to the chainedit menu and make the chain. But under B. Filename, instead of
putting TICTAC.BAT, you'd put TICTAC.BAT %1. That %1 is replaced by the
appropriate CHAIN file when WWIV runs the chain. So, if you ran that chain on
instance one, it would actually run TICTAC.BAT CHAIN.TXT, and on instance two
it would run TICTAC.BAT CHAIN.002.
Now, let's look at your batch file. Normally, it would look like this:
CD \WWIV\TICTAC
TICTAC
(At least, that's how mine look.) What we want to do is insert one line:
COPY %1 \WWIV\TICTAC\CHAIN.TXT > NUL
CD \WWIV\TICTAC
TICTAC
What that line does is copy %1 (which is the appropriate CHAIN file) into
the TICTAC directory and rename it to CHAIN.TXT. So, even if the user's CHAIN
file was CHAIN.342, it would appear in the game's directory as CHAIN.TXT.
[Note: The "> NUL" at the end redirects output of the command to the NUL
device, which just means that you won't see the "1 file(s) copied" message.]
The last step would be to find in the onliner where it looks for the
CHAIN file (or dropfile) and change it to \WWIV\TICTAC instead of \WWIV. This
can sometimes be tricky, as it will ask for the directory of your "main BBS
files" or some such instead of specifically saying dropfiles. After that,
everything should run smoothly.
Advantages: Brutally simple.
Disadvantages: A few. Sometimes it's hard to find where to specify which
directory to use for drop files. Also, you get CHAIN.TXT files in every
directory, something that could be taken care of by a DEL CHAIN.TXT at the end
of each batch file, but that's something I've never gotten around to doing. :)
Also, this WILL NOT WORK if you have to specify other information to the
onliner for each node--this is taken care of with the next method.
3) Use the batch file's ability to use IF statements to direct the flow
of your batch file. Most languages that allow for batch files also allow for
the commands IF, GOTO and labels. If so, you can direct the flow using the
environment variable WWIV_INSTANCE.
A good example is my TradeWars batch file. TradeWars version 2 requires
that you state which node is requesting to be run in the command line. What
you do is make a batch file that will call each node. Let's say I run a
three-node BBS. Node one and two are dial-in instances, and I have node 3 just
for local logins. The first thing I'd need to do was go into TEdit and set up
my nodes in the node editor. Node 0 in Tradewars MUST be local, so I set that
up with the following statistics:
<A> Path to Data files :<Current Directory>
<B> Path to Drop file :<Current Directory>
<C> BBS Drop file type : WWIV
<D> Hardware Handshaking: No
<E> Active Node : No
<F> Comport 1 to 4 : 0
<G> Override port Addr : LOCL
<H> Override port IRQ : 0
I'd set up the other two instances the same way, except turning "Active
Node" on and giving the appropriate com port.
Next, the batch files:
First of all, TradeWars will not recognize the CHAIN.### format, so I
have to use method number two in tandem with this method. Here are the first
couple of lines:
COPY %1 \WWIV\TW\CHAIN.TXT > NUL
CD \WWIV\TW
Now, the next line of the batch file needs to be the call to the
executable, but there's a fly in the ointment: I have to specify which node to
use. So, I look at WWIV_INSTANCE. When you look at variables in the batch
language, you surround them with %'s (%WWIV_INSTANCE%). I'll use the IF
statement to see if WWIV_INSTANCE is 3 or 2. If it's not, it must be node 1.
[Note: You can't say IF %WWIV_INSTANCE%=2 in the batch language. You MUST
put two ='s there or it won't run. So, the proper syntax is IF
%WWIV_INSTANCE%==2]
When I find out the instance, I will tell it to GOTO different "labels".
Labels in batch files are just words with a colon in front of them. If I tell
the program to GOTO a label it will search for that word, skipping all the
stuff in between, and then start executing from there.
Before I give you the rest of my batch file, here's how we have to set up
the nodes vs. the TWNode settings:
WWIV Node 1 = TWNode 1
WWIV Node 2 = TWNode 2
WWIV Node 3 = TWNode 0
When writing batch files that depend on a number like this, be it
environment or errorlevels, I go from the highest number down. Since you have
to do it with errorlevels, it's a good practice to do it here. Here's my
entire batch file, with comments included at the sides (after the ;'s):
COPY %1 \WWIV\TW\CHAIN.TXT > NUL ; copies appropriate CHAIN as CHAIN.TXT
CD \WWIV\TW ; changes into the game directory
IF %WWIV_INSTANCE%==3 GOTO INST3 ; if we're on node three, goto :INST3
IF %WWIV_INSTANCE%==2 GOTO INST2 ; ditto node 2
TW2002 TWNODE=1 ; if neither, we're on node 1, so TWNode=1
GOTO QUIT ; skip the other node instructions and quit
:INST3 ; this is where it arrives if node 3
TW2002 TWNODE=0 ; run local
GOTO QUIT ; skip the other node and goto label :QUIT
:INST2 ; or, we're node two
TW2002 TWNODE=2 ; run node 2
:QUIT ; this is where everything ends up.
That's it!
Advantages: Gives you a lot of flexibility. You could even run two
entirely different programs depending on the node (which might be necessary
for games like Land of Devastation, that have an EGA w/ MOD player mode and a
plain text mode.) This is the most stable way to do it.
Disadvantages: Kinda tough for beginners.
4) Lie to it. This is the last option because I don't recommend it, but
the plain fact of the matter is this: RBBS has been using DORINFO#.DEF, where
# is the node, forever. So, programs that ARE multi-node already expect this.
In order to do this, just lie and say you're running RBBS and give it your
main directory to find the files.
Advantages: Simple as dirt
Disadvantages: Doesn't work a lot of the time. Some programs will make
different assumptions based on the drop file you use. TradeWars on my system
couldn't handle being called RBBS, and it would only run if I told it I was
running WWIV. Maybe it handles com support differently, but it didn't work.
"Okay, I think I got it. But what about this option in ChainEdit?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The "Multi-User" option in chain edit will allow more than one person at
a time to run the onliner. Don't use this unless the program specifically says
it can handle multiple nodes. Even if it does, it might not do what you think;
many onliners, when you tell them that you're running multiple instances, will
just create a batch file when run that tells the other instance that it can't
run two places at once. In other words, you're making the onliner do what you
could do from ChainEdit! In most cases, just leave it off. Some games, like
TradeWars and The Pit, do support multiple users (even if it's only to see
who's on the other line at the same time.) In these cases, follow through the
instructions provided by the onliner and try to set it up for multi-user play.
Eventually, I hope, there will be some really cool player vs. player onliners
out there that will fully support this feature.
"Are you done yet?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yeah, I guess. I hope that I've helped some of y'all out, and I pray that
for those who were confused at the beginning, I haven't confused you more. If
you have any questions, I'd be glad to help you out. Just drop some mail to
1@6987. Hasta.
ДДННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННДД
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДЩ S O F T W A R E / P R O G R A M M I N G АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і How To Get The Most Out of Your System's Memory і Papa Bear (1@5079)
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДБДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
I FEEL MY MEMORY GOOOIIINNGGG...
I have to first state here that I can only really speak for those using
DESQview, since that's all I use. The format of this will be such that general
memory saving tips will be first, these will be ones that everyone can use.
Further into the article will come specific DESQview tips. If you run Windows,
OS/2, NovellDOS 7, or some other multitasker to run your BBS, and you have
some memory saving tips, then by all means send 'em to me at the above IceNET
address, or: 1@11579 WWIVNet or 1@15061 WWIVLink.
Memory. It's the most precious resource that your computer has. Nothing
else come close to the importance of your machine's memory, for without it, it
will not run. How you use this memory is of great importance as well. You need
enough to get your WWIV running, sure, but what about the other programs that
you may want to use _with_ WWIV?
As a basic overview, there are four areas of memory: conventional, upper
(UMB), high (HMA), and extended (XMS). The basic layout looks something like
this:
conventional - the first 640k of memory your machine has
UMB - the area between 640k and 1MB
HMA - the first 64k of extended memory
XMS - 1Mb to [whatever your processor can access]
In addition, there is also an area just above the 640k boundary that is
for video RAM. This can be accessed as well, providing an additional 96k for
conventional use. But we'll get to that later.
When you try to run a program and it says "Out of Memory," it's not
because you need more actual memory (adding another 2Mb won't solve this
problem), it's because you need more _conventional_ memory free. Conventional
memory is the place where your WWIV program *must* load into and run from
(OS/2 is different -- remember this article is not about OS/2). If there isn't
enough conventional there, then it won't load. Then, once loaded, you have to
have enough conventional free to run other programs, such as WWIVEdit.
So how do you free up enough memory for WWIV, and its associated
utilities, to run? That's where this article comes in. The whole point is to
get the highest HEAP value when you type //STAT at the main prompt in your
BBS.
The first steps lie with WWIV itself. You should not give any single
thing an overabundance of records.
For instance, in INIT. Keep the settings for the maximum number or
subboards, directories, and user slots as close to minimum as possible. Subs
and dirs will be set to the closest 32. For user slots, I generally keep them
set to 50 more than the current number of users that I have. [I auto-weed
non-active users every night, so my user list stays right around 300-310
people, so I set INIT to 375.]
If you have the source code, you can do a number of things. Reduce the
variable MAX_CHAINS in VARDEC.H to something pretty close to the number of
chains you are running. Maybe give yourself a 10 chain leeway so you can add a
few later.
Also, you can remove sections of code that your board really doesn't use.
I personally remove TEDIT, the voting section, all file transfer archive
commands with the associated coding, etc. Anything I find that does not get
used regularly or does not offer a good "service" for my BBS goes away. Some
people remove the G-Files.
Do not install every mod that comes your way. Look over the ones that you
do get and try to understand them. By doing this, you can possible re-write
them -- streamline them so that they use less memory.
Go into the MAKEFILE and overlay all the files possible (COM.C, CONIO.C,
CONNECT1.C, EXTRN.C, MODEM.C, STRINGS.C, and UTILITY.C should not be
overlayed). This step alone can get you 50k+ more heap!
Remove any and all literal strings from your source and place them in STR
files. Literal strings are pieces of non code that appear in double quotes.
This will also save you DGROUP! These line qualify:
pl("This is a literal string.");
npr("This %d is also a literal string.",to);
There are more, mostly insignificant, steps that you can do, but every
little thing *can* help.
Things that you can do outside WWIV can have an enormous impact on your
HEAP value. Since you need as much conventional memory as possible, this
solution is simple -- free up as much as possible. But how do you do that?
Well, without a good memory manager, there's only a few things you can
do:
Only load those "other" programs that you actually need to run the BBS. A
disk cache is a good idea to keep (although I don't how you'd be using one
without a memory manager <G> without really killing your memory). A mouse is
not needed, so get rid of it. An ANSI driver is also not *needed* because WWIV
uses its own [some doors may need it though, but if you don't play them
locally, it's no big deal]. Check all of those things, and only keep the ones
you REALLY need.
Now, if you're using a good memory manger, you'll have a much better time
of things. By "a good memory manager," I mean something other than what comes
with DOS (be it MSDOS, DRDOS, PCDOS, whatever). I prefer QEMM, and I'll give
some specific tips for that (version 7.0+), but I hear that other commercially
available memory managers work equally as well.
Now you can take those TSR programs such as the mouse, ANSI, etc. and
load them into the UMB, freeing up conventional memory. In fact, you can
usually load so MANY programs into upper memory that you'll virtually free up
all of the conventional memory area. For instance, here is my upper memory
layout:
ЙНННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННН»
є Region Area Size Status є
є 1 D000 - D41E 16K Used (QEMM386) є
є 1 D41F - D42D 0.2K Used (DOS-UP) є
є 1 D42E - D4AB 1.9K Used (QDPMI) є
є 1 D4AC - D4FF 1.2K Used (SRDEMS) є
є 1 D500 - D7D7 11K Used (SBCD) є
є 1 D7D8 - D9FD 8.5K Used (X00) є
є 1 D9FE - DA3E 1K Used (FILES) є
є 1 DA3F - DC2E 7.7K Used (BUFFERS) є
є 1 DC2F - DD87 5.3K Used (command) є
є 1 DD88 - E102 13K Used (PC-CACHE) є
є 1 E103 - E10E 0.1K Used (VIDRAM) є
є 1 E10F - EC6D 45K Used (MSCDEX) є
є 1 EC6E - ECF9 2.1K Used (FILES) є
є 1 ECFA - F03A 13K Used (BUFFERS) є
є 1 F03B - F0A3 1.6K Used (SHARE) є
є 1 F0A4 - F108 1.5K Used (VIDRAM) є
є 1 F109 - FFA5 58K Available є
ИННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННј
You'll notice that I have 129.1k loaded high, and I still have 58k to
play with. And here's what I have free for conventional:
Ъ Memory Type ДДДДДВДД Total Bytes ( Kbytes ) ДВДДДДДДДД Available ДДДДДДДДДї
і і і і
і Conventional і 655,360 ( 640K ) і 648,512 ( 633K ) і
і High і 65,520 ( 64K ) і 0 ( 0K ) і
і Extended і 7,340,032 ( 7,168K ) і 0 ( 0K ) і
і Extended via XMS і N/A і 3,768,320 ( 3,680K ) і
і EMS і 7,503,872 ( 7,328K ) і 3,833,856 ( 3,744K ) і
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДБДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДБДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДЩ
With this, I get 266k free for HEAP.
Now, earlier I mentioned video RAM. This area (the first 96k of XMS) can
also be used as conventional. A program that comes with QEMM called VIDRAM
allows you to do this, but there is a trade off. You'll lose your EGA and VGA
capabilities -- until you turn VIDRAM off, that is.
Well, since WWIV does not use EGA or VGA, and very few (if any) doors
requires the use of EGA or VGA graphics, there really isn't any problem here.
If you combine VIDRAM with EMS (expanded memory, a portion of memory that
a memory manager creates from XMS), then you can free up a LARGE portion for
use with the BBS. I personally get 70k more. So now I'm sitting at 703k at the
DOS prompt, and 336k of HEAP. A very nice position to be in. To accomplish
this, I append a VIDRAMEMS to my QEMM line in my CONFIG.SYS file, like this:
DEVICE=X:\MEMORY\QEMM386.SYS RAM ROM ST:M R:1 VIDRAMEMS
Then, in my AUTOEXEC.BAT file, I add these two lines:
X:\MEMORY\LOADHI /R:1 VIDRAM RES
VIDRAM ON EMS
Yes, I even load VIDRAM high :)
Now, for a BIG DESQview tip. If using QEMM 7.0 or greater, make sure that
you turn on QDPMI. Give it 2048 bytes.
Do these steps:
1) load DESQview
2) Press ALT then O then CP then the keys you've assigned to WWIV
3) Press TAB twice
4) Enter something like 800 [stay with me here]
5) Press ENTER
6) Press ALT then O then the keys you've assigned to WWIV
7) At this point, DV will stop you and tell you you've assigned too much
memory. This is what we want, because it'll also tell you, sort of,
what value you CAN enter here.
a) You'll see:
Insufficient memory to open that program.
The block of memory available to a program
in this configuration of DESQview is 658k. << 1st
WWIV (Primary Node #1)
is configured with a "Memory Size" of 800k << 2nd
plus 11k of memory overhead. << 3rd
b) Subtract the 3rd number from the 1st (11k-658k) to get the maximum
amount you can give WWIV. In this instance 647k.
8) Press ESC then CP the the keys you've assigned to WWIV
9) Press TAB twice and enter your number from 7b.
10) WAIT, you're not done -- now press F10
11) Press TAB three times
12) Enter *something* here. If you have 4Mb or more, and are using QDPMI,
then enter 1024. [the EMS/XMS/VCPI/DPMI window]
You can normally set up each preceding nodes by taking the number from
step 7b and subtracting 9k from it (on some systems and setups, this may be
more like 32k :( ). Start at 9k though, and keep decreasing until you get no
more warnings from DESQview.
NOW also do steps 9 to 12 for your BigDOS and any other window that you
may have open when the BBS is running. Why? Because leaving the
EMS/XMS/VCPI/DMPI window *blank* will tell DV to allocate *ALL* of your free
non-conventional memory to that application, leaving none for any other
programs to use that you open AFTER that window. Not a nice scene sometimes.
One last note on TSR programs. If you're using DESQview, use DVANSI (or
better yet a shareware program called DGANSI). This way you can load the ANSI
driver "on-the-fly" in batch files before games and unload it when the game is
done. The same thing can be done with most FOSSIL drivers nowadays.
That's it for now. I hope I've help you along. If you are a Windows or
OS/2 user, let me hear from you! I want your tips!
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і Artificial Intelligence, Part #3 і Louie (6@1)
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First, allow me to apologize for not having written this installment for
last month. I had some problems with my own "real life" among other things and
was not able to contribute a piece about Artificial Intelligence for the July,
1994 issue of the IceNEWS Journal.
NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING
In my previous installments of this series, I commented about two aspects
of Natural Language Processing. They were: A.) when I discussed Joseph
Weizenbaum's ELIZA program, and B.) when I commented on computer attempts at
machine translations of human language (ie. English --> German). Both were
failures, though good looking and clever in appearance, because of the simple
minded approaches used in their development.
I was wrongly thought in the beginning of research into AI and NLP that
the things we humans find difficult, would be difficult, and the things we
find hard would be hard to do in AI. It was discovered that often the things
people find hard were easy to have computers reproduce, and the things people
find simple were very difficult to reproduce, and often seemingly impossible.
The goal of Natural language processing research is to enable computers
to understand people as well as people understand other people, and to be able
to respond in kind. In other words, to produce computers that people can
communicate with without their having to memorize weird commands or learn
various programming languages like C, Pascal, FORTRAN. Just tell the computer
to do something like you would another person. The computer in Star Trek would
be an example of a fictional computer that understands human speech and can
respond in kind.
For now, I will subdivide NLP into Natural language understanding and
natural language generation. I will exclude speech recognition for now because
it involves a discussion of many other things that are tedious and unimportant
in the "grand" sense of the topic.
NATURAL LANGUAGE UNDERSTANDING
Programming a computer to understand a natural language is difficult to
do because computers require precision in communication. "COPY A:*.* B:" is a
PC/MS DOS Command to copy all the files on one disk to another disk. If you
type in "please copy those files on that disk to this other one" at the C:\>
prompt you get nowhere real fast.
The goal of Natural Language Understanding is to enable computers to
understand us well enough to perform an intended appropriate action. That
doesn't mean to have computers understand everything people say, just to have
computers understand us as much as other people would understand us. After
all, we often misunderstand each other.
WHAT IS UNDERSTANDING?
But, what do we mean when we say 'understanding" though? That is almost
as hard to define as "intelligence" can be. As we did for intelligence, we
will use a practical definition of understanding, Communication that allows a
computer/person to know what actions should be performed.
PROBLEMS IN NLU
There are four problems that cause difficulties in NLU development. They
are ambiguity, imprecision, incompleteness and inaccuracy. All are things
people pretty much get by and around because we have vast knowledge to draw
upon. Computers don't have the experience people have though. And even people
still misunderstand each other enough to cause major diplomatic incidents that
threaten our continued existence from time to time. Come to think of it, how
did we human beings make it this far? But that is a question for another
article sometime. Maybe part four? :-)
Natural language can be ambiguous due to multiple word meanings,
syntactic ambiguity, and unclear antecedents.
Regularly we encounter words with more than one meaning. The statement
"the pitcher is angry" could mean that a human baseball pitcher didn't like
the last call the umpire made, or it could be poetic imagery about a vase. It
could also be poetic imagery about a guy who sells black pitch.
Syntactic ambiguity is when a statement is made that could be interputed
in two more more ways because of peculiarities in syntax. Consider "I hit the
man with the hammer". Does that mean I used a hammer to hit another man with,
or did I punch a man who was holding a hammer?
Unlear antecedents are normally caused by pronouns used in situations
where they shouldn't be used. "John hit Bill because he sympathized with
Mary." Ok, why did John hit Bill? Because John sympathized with Mary, or
because Bill did.
Imprecision means using concepts often not described with precision. You
ability to understand what being said because of you rely on your familiarity
with similar situations. In other words, define "long time". You have to know
in what context it is being used. A "long time" at a doctors office and a
"long time" ago dinosaurs roamed the earth are two very different "long
times".
Incompleteness is when we expect other people to "fill in the details"
when we tell them something, we often supply incomplete information. We often
leave out words or descriptions of many things because other people are
familiar with similar situations. We don't tell everybody that a restaurant
has tables, chairs, waitresses, cooks, hat check rooms, etc.
Of course, the most common problem is inaccuracy. People usually can
understand what they are told, even when not structured according to certain
rules they know. Spelling errors, transposed words, ungrammatical
constructions, incorrect syntax, incomplete sentences, and improper
punctuation are just some examples of inaccurate things humans say to each
other.
People overcome these problems in natural language through understanding
of context, familiarity with situations, and expectation. All those errors we
made as little kids finally sunk in even though we sometimes wonder about
certain people.
REPRESENTING KNOWLEDGE
Natural language understanding research includes developing ways to
represent the knowledge needed by the computer to enable it to understand our
instructions. two representations schemes are Frames and Scripts.
Frames represent an object as a group of attributes. Each attribute in a
particular frame is stored in a separate slot. For example, chairs have many
attributes that people regularly assume are there, but the computer using this
approach to NLU would store the word "chair" in a database with information
about chairs. Chairs have a seat, back, legs, arms, normally four legs, and 0
or 2 arms, they can be pretty much any color, they are so talk, weight so
much, etc.
Scripts are another knowledge representation system that allow a sequence
of scenes to be stored. Each event in a particular scene is stored in a
separate slot. Back in to the restaurant example, when you go to a restaurant
you do many various things while there. Each of these situations would be
handled independently by the computer. You would park the car, then go into
the restaurant, then wait to be seated, be seated, read menu, order food, wait
for food and have conversation, eat food, sneak out of the place by acting
like you are going to the rest room, etc.
TECHNIQUES IN NLU
Techniques, like lexical analysis, keyword analysis, syntactic analysis,
semantic analysis, and pragmatic analysis, are used to analyze text as
preliminary steps in natural language understanding.
Lexical analysis involves having a computer use a "dictionary" to look up
each word and determine its meaning.
Keyword analysis, which finds keywords in the text using pattern-matching
techniques, may overlook many important details. ELIZA used this approach. The
obvious shortcoming was that ELIZA often overlooked many important details. A
statement like "I killed my mother" might generate a response asking the
person about their mother without grasping the fact that the person is a
murderer as well.
Syntactic analysis separates a sentence into its component parts in order
to analyze its form. This attempts to ensure that no elements of a sentence
will be overlooked. It requires a method of separating a sentence into its
component parts, or parsing. Parsing techniques often used in syntactic
analysis are Augmented Transition Networks, Top-Down Parsing, Bottom-Up
Parsing, Semantic Grammar Parsing, and Grammar-less Parsing.
ATN's are basically sentence diagrams from hell. Top-Down and Bottom-Up
are two different ways to take apart sentences...forward or backward. SGP is
rewriting sentences according to units of meaning, and GP abandons normal
linguistic theories in favor or ideas a little more "far out".
Semantic analysis interprets a sentence based on its meaning. One
approach is to use grammars that describe how sentences can be constructed.
Pragmatic analysis attempts to determine what a sentence _really_ means.
You know how people often ask questions like "What's up?" and some idiot
always says "the opposite of down" or "the ceiling" (hey, I'm one of those
idiots so don't worry about about being an idiot. It's a great club. :-) hehe)
Pragmatic analysis would attempt to find out that "what's up?" means "what's
on TV" or maybe something more Freudian in nature.
NATURAL LANGUAGE GENERATION
Natural language generation is the area of NLP research that is concerned
with making it easier for people to understand a computer's output. There has
been little research in this area though. Probably the most important reason,
at this time, for the lack of research is simple. There is no great demand for
it just yet. But, as evidenced by the existence of MS Windows, and OS/2,
people are wanting nice Graphical User Interfaces now because they want easier
ways to use computers. For years there was no great demand for GUI's for the
same reason for the lack of research into NLG. Those using computers already
understood the computers.
Today that is starting to change though. Those who want Windows today
will want even easier ways to use their computers in the future. And that
means ways the computers can give information in ways people already
understand.
The three components to Natural Language generation are :
1. The computer must decide when to say something.
2. The computer must decide what to say.
3. The computer must decide how to say it.
The last is the most critical point in the natural language generation
process. It has also proved to be very difficult to do. Not only must the
communication from the machine be grammatically and syntactically correct, but
it must be written in a style designed to be understood by the person using
the computer. In needs to include a great deal of knowledge about the user to
be successful.
David McDonald, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts, thinks
Natural language generation is going to be "much harder" than natural language
understanding. "When you are doing understanding it is clear where you start
from: there is some written text and you start by going through it. With
_generation_ you don't know where you are starting from because no one knows
how the human mind works" is how McDonald put it.
MACHINE TRANSLATION
Machine translation is the area of Artificial Intelligence research that
is concerned with using a computer to translate from one language to another,
incorporating natural language understanding and generation research.
The early history of AI is filled with the failures of machine
translations of human languages. Mainly because humans often say one thing
when we mean another. Just one example "I'm going to the show" has come to
mean that an athlete is going to his sports championship game. But if you tell
a person from another country "He's going to the show" they could interput
that to mean the movies, a play, a "pep show", etc. They have no understanding
of what "show" has come to mean to folks in the United States at times.
Machine translation of human languages will need to include techniques
from both Natural language understanding and natural language generation.
First the computer will have to read and analyze text, and second, be able to
generate summaries or paraphrases of what it just read. Only then will it be
able to proceed with the translation from, say english to russian.
CONCLUSION
It will be a long time, if ever, before we see computers that can use
natural language as well as people do. However, we are just now starting to
see certain new and exciting new developments.
Next month I will cover Speech recognition and computer vision. Two
things very much related to what we covered this month.
Sources used in AI Articles
Louie #6 @1
_Understanding Artificial Intelligence_; 1988; by Henry C.
Mishkoff; Howard W Sams.
_Artificial Intelligence... Using C_; 1987; by Herbert Schildt;
Osborne McGraw-Hill.
_The Computer Glossary: The Complete Desk Reference_; 1991; by Alan
Freedman; AmaCom.
_Using Turbo Prolog_; 1988; by Kelly M. Rich & Phillip R. Robinson;
Borland-Osborne McGraw-Hill.
_I, Robot_; 1950; by Isaac Asimov; Del Rey.
_Asimov On Science_; 1989; by Isaac Asimov; Pinnacle.
essays entitled "Thinking About Thinking" and
"More Thinking About Thinking".
_AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence_;
1993; by Daniel Crevier; BasicBooks.
_LISP: An Interactive Approach_; 1986; by Stuart C. Shapiro;
Computer Science Press.
_XLISP: An Experimental Object-Oriented Language_; 1986; by David M. Betz;
Documentation with program.
_PC-LISP User Manual_; 1987; by Peter Ashwood-Smith; Documentation with
program.
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ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДЩ L I T E B Y T E S АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
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і How They Got Started In BBSing - Part 4 і Compiled by: Louie (6@1)
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Well, this is the fourth installment of "How they got Started in BBSing"
so far. In the first three installments we included the personal stories of
Random (1@3050), Jim (1@1), Filo (1@2050), many IceNEWS Staff members, and
several other folks well known folks from around IceNET And WWIVland.
Why do we run this little personal stories? Well, I think that there are
lots of folks that are interested in why and how other people started bbsing.
Mainly we run the stories of the well known personalities because they are the
folks people around the network are interested in.
This fourth installment is for what I see as a slightly important reason.
The IceNEWS staff, as some of you may know, underwent a major overhaul a few
months back now. Papa Bear (1@5079), and Chris (1@7668) joined our staff while
Jack Ryan (1@4707) seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Papa
is now sitting in the office Jack vacated and Chris moved in across the room
from me in my office. (What offices you ask... well, didn't you know about the
massive Nunn Building in beautiful downtown Springville, NY? We are the 13th
floor of it. (Hummm... is there such a place as "downtown Springville? :-)
hehehehe))
So, I thought it might be nice for everybody to get to know our new
editors a little bit. Chris has done a bang up job being M/E of this month's
issue and Papa Bear has written several top-quality articles for the IceNEWS
Journal. Joining them here this month is Midnight Tree Bandit (1@8411), the
fine AC of the 804 Area Code in Virginia.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris #1 @7668
I've always computed. Since I was 4 I created 1,000-lined programs in
BASIC. When I was 8 I got my first computer. An IBM 8088 XT at a whopping 8
MHz! When I was 12 I got my first modem. My uncle's friend had an old 300 baud
Practical Peripherals just lying around, so my uncle grabbed it for me. It was
the beginning of a beautiful friendship! And it was really OLD! You had to
dial the number with your phone, and then press the CONNECT button when you
heard the "screech!!!" That modem gave me my first taste of "a whole new
world." I'd never knew BBSing existed. I was so excited! There were so many
people, so many games and sooo many files! :-) But, with every joy comes a
little sorrow. Phone lines aren't free, and neither are 200k programs that
take a few hours to download at 300 baud. The phone bill increased by $40 in a
month. Needless to say, my parents were not happy. But, I let them know that I
liked BBSing and I promised to cut down (next month it would only be $35 more
than our base phone bill)! For two years I was a silent user. I use the word
"silent" because I never talked to anyone. All I did was download files. I
never posted, sent e-mail or responded to voting questions. This is the beauty
of BBSing. I went through some tough times at this point in my life and I was
a little short on friends. BBSing gave me a chance to "start over." No one
realized who I was, how old I was or even what my cracking voice sounded like!
It was this false bravado that helped me rebuild my character not only in
WWIVland, but in Chrisland as well. So not only did my modem open me up to a
whole new world, it helped me patch up the holes in the old world. Not long
after, I became interested in starting my own BBS. Who else to ask, but the
Honorable Jim Nunn (all bow) 1@1! He introduced me to WWIV, the great Wayne
Bell creation. And, here I am today!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Papa Bear #1 @5079
I got started in 1979. My first experience with telecommunications was on
a TTY machine hooked into an acoustical coupler to a mainframe far far away
(at least it seemed that way <grin>). Programming was done on paper tape.
In 1981, I got my very own computer. A Commodore 64 machine with a tape
drive and black & white monitor. I just wasn't satisfied. I KNEW there was a
big world out there, and I wanted to be part of it. So I bought a 300bps
modem.
I honestly don't remember my first BBS logon. It was during a time in my
life between attending college and joining the Navy. It seemed as though I was
up all night, every night, calling BBSes. This was in Houston, TX. The
location was important, I believe, because there were no limits on calls
within your own area code, not like here in California :(. I was able to call
ANYWHERE in that area code. In those days, it was a hotbed of BBSes! I was
known simply as "The Bear". My dialing directory on my old EagleTerm had 100+
listings in it (easily), and I called them all at least 4 times a week.
My Father was also interested in BBSing. He got hooked on Compuserve back
in '81-'82. He was un-hooked soon after he got his first bill. Along the way,
he discovered a little-known BASIC 2.0 BBS program called The Keep. Since I
had a lot of experience in BASIC, even then, we took that little program and
hacked on it until we came up with our own variation. In 1982, Valhalla BBS,
with Odin as the SysOp, went online. Since I didn't live with him, I opened my
own BBS across town called Ye Olde Inn III. We continued programming and
running those BBSes together until 1984, when I joined the Navy. My Father
kept that BBS going uninterrupted for 8 years. It closed in 1990.
During my stay in the Navy, I didn't get to BBS much. Electronics
Technician "A" and "C" schools and shipboard life keep you moving around too
much to really be able to BBS. But the yearning never left me.
In 1988, after being honorably discharged, I reappeared on the BBS scene
in San Diego, CA. This time as Papa Bear -- in honor of my firstborn son. I
was active mostly in the, uh, "underground" of Commodore BBSing. Something
that I'm >not< proud of, but something that I learned a great deal from,
especially programming.
In 1989, I moved to Adak, AK (my wife is still in the Navy, and we go
where she goes). There I gave up Commodore BBSing and anything even remotely
illegal. I also met Frank Reid. Here again my BBS direction had changed
dramatically because I had this new IBM machine, a WWIV BBS program, and
first-hand access to one of the WWIV programming "Gods" <grin>. I've always
wanted to return to sysoping, so I did. Thanks to Frank's help, I also started
programming in C for WWIV.
So in 1990, StarPort Valhalla (Valhalla in honor of my first BBS, some 8
years earlier, and StarPort because I was a Trade Wars fanatic back then) was
officially commissioned.
In 1992, we moved to our current location here at sunny Alameda, CA.
StarPort Valhalla is going stronger than ever, and I'm enjoying life as a
sysop. I think (and my wife does too <grin>) that I'll be sysoping from the
grave, if possible.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Midnight Tree Bandit #1 @8411
It was the summer of 1987, and I was working for a startup software
developer. I was at the time the only employee, and my duties mainly consisted
of evaluating software and sitting around doing nothing. We had a 1200bps
modem in the old AT&T 6300 there, and lacking anything else to do, I started
exploring BBSes, at first mainly to get information in relation to the work we
were doing. I was calling long distance a lot, not having any local BBS
numbers to use. Then I discovered the Blue Ridge Express, one of the best
BBSes on the East Coast. BRE now has 36 phone lines, but back then it had only
15. Anyway, from there, I picked up some other numbers, so I started calling
around.
Like many new BBSers, my main aim was to grab files. Mainly I was picking
up files that would be useful for our operation. Then I came across The
Haunted Forest, an Apple BBS (using GBBS Pro, the software that could be what
WWIV is based on, judging by the similarity of interface and the fact that
Wayne Bell cited Apple BBSes as the model the first WWIV was based on). This
was the first purely message based BBS I came across. I was hooked... lots of
friendly people to talk to and I started making friends, some of whom I am
still in contact with. Soon thereafter, I discovered The Phone Boothe, running
WWIV 3.21. This was even better, and before too long, I was making quite a
name for myself with lengthy and opinionated posts about whatever subject was
at hand. In those days, that name was Moribund the Burgermeister (see Peter
Gabriel's first album). I was hooked. Nay, I was obsessed. I wasn't working
much, and BBSing was about all I did.
When I came across my first Fido BBS, I was fascinated by the idea of a
network connecting BBSes everywhere. My first stab at trying to be a sysop
involved downloading OPUS and the related Fido software. I never got beyond
the docs. It was suggested that I have 10MB free, and my old AT&T only had a
10MB drive. Then, on night, I was talking to Dave Boothe, sysop of The Phone
Boothe, and he told me how easy it was to start a WWIV board, and made WWIV
3.21 and a copy of Turbo Pascal available to me. I had a basic board up and
running within 20 minutes. Based on my name, I called it Deadtown and had it
available as a call-back board for about a month (we had only one phone line
in a house with 5 people, and it had call waiting on it... there was no way to
disable it back then). It was a good board. At least, that's what I was told
by the four or five dedicated callers it had.
Then, in March of '88, I moved out of town to a little place with a
population of 3000. Needless to say, BBS desert. I had serious withdrawal and
ran up some bills calling Richmond from work. After a few months, I had enough
money to get a phone line and in October I set up the Rappahannock Vaporbboard
for the first time. I only had one line, so it was a part-time BBS. By this
time, WWIV 4.03 was out and networking was available. I set up a link and the
BBS mainly operated as a mail node so I could stay in touch with Richmond via
WWIVnet.
It was about this time that many message were going around saying "gee,
this networking thing is really cool... but how do we know where the messages
are coming from?" Back in the early days of WWIVnet, there was no line in the
message header saying where the message came from. So I examined the code and
came up with a very simple little mod that put a fido-type tagline at the end
of a message (didn't work with full-screen editors, but then, the only one
available was FSED, and few used it. It was my first mod, and it was not long
before many people were using it.
The phone bills got to me, and I lost my phone line the following March.
Then, in October '89, I got two lines and started up RVBBS again. It went on
till I moved back to Richmond, at which point it moved to Deanna's house,
since I did not have a place to put it yet. The name was changed to just The
Vaporboard. It ended up staying there, and after a few months, it became
obvious that 1) it was not going to leave Deanna's living room, and 2) Deanna
was doing most, if not all, of the work. So she and I traded places, and I
became #2 at the Vaporboard, and my handle changed to Midnight Tree Bandit.
After a almost two years of co-sysoping the Vaporboard with Deanna, I got
the itch to have my own BBS, and Deanna was wanting to shed some of the subs
that were more my interest, and thus was the Many Titled Board born, taking
over some of my subs that I had started on the Vaporboard back in the WWIVnet
days.
The rest, as they say, is (recent) history.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, there we have it. From Chris, Papa and MTB. Folks raking up phone
bills, finding out about themselves, and modding uncontrollably until they
finally exploded or something. (No, if I was being honest, I would have to
admit to having no idea what I mean either. But I ain't gonna be honest. :-)
hehehehe)
What this series of stories from various folks has shown us all is
something very important. That BBSing and computers are part of the world and
life as we understand it, and sometimes don't understand it. I hope this has
made a few more of us understand that other folks you e-mail and post to
across the network are not computers, but people. Maybe a little different
from you at times, but people none the less. Remember that. Then hit them with
that large bat you got anyways. :-)
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ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і Silly Strings - From IceNET Sysops Everywhere і Ima Moron (1@9661)
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As you will probably notice the Silly Strings title states; "From IceNET
Sysops Everywhere", but I have been adding other network taglines to this
section of the IceNEWS Journal.
This editions taglines are a compendium of what I feel are humorous
taglines found on various network subboards that I carry on Das' Tube BBS! I
hope you enjoy these.
From: Pep'e Le Peau 1@9653 IceNET
I tried OS/2 once, but I didn't inhale
From: Teddy Bear 65@9406 WWIVnet
Hello, I'm part number ЭЭііЮііЭ
From: Tiny Tim 30@2080 WWIVnet
It's not my responsibility to sound convincing
From: "The Prezident" 4@3956 WWIVnet
Ahgg there is no "Cent" key on this keyboard
From: Ima Moron 1@9661 IceNET
2› tagline follows...
I could while away the hours, while talking to the flowers...
From: Shadow Cat 187@9448 IceNET
HELP! I'm being held prisoner in a Chinese micro processor factory...!!
From: Stranger 51@9660 Raddnet
death is the nations #1 killer...!!
ДДННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННДД
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і WWIVland Word Power Puzzle і Phantasm (ExpressNET 1@9901)
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДБДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і To solve this INCREDIBLY difficult puzzle, answer the questions on і
і the left. Fill in the corresponding blanks (hyphens) on the right. і
і When all questions are anwered, the column with EqualSigns (=) will і
і spell out the final answer. Good luck! і
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДЩ
The largest Network in WWIV history: =------
Wayne Bell's Handle: ----=-
The file that holds your User's information: ---=.---
Language WWIVv3.x was programmed in: -----=
WWIV's Uglist SysOp: ------= -----
Home BBS of ICENet: --- ----- =---- -----
Word for a second WWIV line: ----=---
Program that links Network packets together: -----=
DOS command that SysOps most fear: =-----.---
Most popular OnLine game for WWIV: -------=- -------- --
"Wayne"-C prototype that says "[PAUSE]": void --=-----(void);
Graphic Protocol that supports rodents: =-------
Protocol that supports Bidrectional Transfers: __/_=__
DOS command that sets an environemnt variable: =__
The >male< author of TradeWars: ____ _ ___=__
IMHO __ __ =_____ _______
A herd of Subs _________=
Another term for insulting a User =_____
The 'G' in GFiles: =_____
The latest in the Space Dynasty series: ______ ____= _____
Jafo's program to post rules (etc) automatically: __=_____
C modifier meaning NOT: =
.ш
Secret Message: _____ ___ ____ __ ___ _____ <-~
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і IceNEWS is an independent newsletter published monthly as a service to і
і IceNET, its sysops and users. The opinions & reviews expressed herein і
і are the expressed views of the respective writers. All Rights Reserved.і
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДЩ