FIDONEWS -- 24 Jun 85 00:00:26 Page 1 Volume 2, Number 19 24 June 1985 +----------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | - FidoNews - /|oo \ | | (_| /_) | | Fido and FidoNet _`@/_ \ _ | | Users Group | | \ \\ | | Newsletter | (*) | \ )) | | ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +----------------------------------------------------------+ Publisher: Fido 107/375 Chief Procrastinator: Thom Henderson Fidonews is published weekly by SEAboard, Fido 107/375. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in Fidonews. Article submission standards are contained in the file FIDONEWS.DOC, available from Fido 107/375. Disclaimer or don't-blame-us: The contents of the articles contained here are not our responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them; everything here is subject to debate. We publish EVERYTHING received. The Answer to Copy Protection I've already spoken in defense of copy protection. I don't like it, but I can see why they do it. The big question is, what else can be done? When radio was first invented it was envisioned as "telephone without the wires". It was a neat idea. It could be alot of fun for alot of people. It could even be useful in certain cases. But there aren't too many ways it can compete with the more usual sort of telephone. Then David Sarnoff got a bright idea. He came up with broadcasting. This is more revolutionary than it sounds. His idea was to transmit entertainment, news, whatever people wanted to listen to. All the expensive equipment would be at his end, so anyone could listen even if they didn't have much to spend. The big thing is, he put in all the money and all the work, and GAVE it away! Anybody who wanted to was more than welcome to listen in. The trick, of course, is that he figured out how to make money some other way. FIDONEWS -- 24 Jun 85 00:00:28 Page 2 I think that software marketing is in that kind of a position today. People are still thinking of marketing software in terms of the mainframe market, and it just isn't working very well. It's just too easy to make pirate copies, and there are simply too many small fish to go after. The traditional answer is copy protection, but nobody likes it, and it doesn't even work. People seem able to figure out how to bust copy protection schemes almost as fast as they can be devised. Even the proposed "key" system isn't an answer. How is a physical key any different from a key sector on a disk? The one original answer I have heard is the Freeware approach. It has the virtue of being revolutionary, and it solves many of the inherent problems of copy protection. By taking the approach that "if you don't pay, then you would have pirated it anyway, so take it!" it does manage to make piracy impossible, but few people ever seem to get around to paying at all. What we need is for someone to have a flash of insight, and figure out another way to make money by writing good software. We need some means whereby the more people who use a program the more money the author makes, but not by charging for the software. Regretfully, I have not had that sort of stroke of genius, and I tend to doubt I ever will. I'd thought of advertising, but I can't quite handle the image of a "Big Mac" ad popping up whenever I run my compiler. In closing, I will state publicly something I've said many times in private: "There is some solution to software piracy, and it isn't copy protection." FIDONEWS -- 24 Jun 85 00:00:29 Page 3 ============================================================ NEWS ============================================================ I am unhappy, is anyone else out there unhappy? I am talking about the "improved" fido with nets/nodes/regions/hosts, etc. I was under the impression that fido was running very smoothly before the change (Don't get me wrong, I know a lot of people spent alot of time coordinating the whole shebang and for that I am very thankful), But was the direction fido took the best? I know that the number of nodes had to be expanded, but that could have been done without the nets. (Currently there can be over 32,000 nodes / net. Obviously that should be large enough for quite a while). Too much work was being done by fido 51 and I agree that it makes a lot of sense that "geographical regions" be set up to assign new nodes. One of the major problems with the newest version is that the routing is included with the node list. That means that most of the time, there will be at least 2 phone calls made to send fido mail. The problems with this approach are: 1). The host is VERY! busy. It sometimes takes many days to get through to the host. 2). There is NO way to know if the fidomail ever got through to the destination 3). More phone calls are generated / evening which increases the congestion. For those (few?) people who send mail each evening to more than 1 node served by a host, there is a savings using the routing. I am sure that some of the busy nodes want the routing, but some of us (most of us?) probably don't see the savings. It makes sense that the node list is sorted by region and this should have been done in the past. Since I am going to assume that most sysops have better editors than edlin, It should not be a problem to put your "region" at the top so they are the first ones displayed. For those of us who use fidomail often, we probably remember the 2 or 3 nodes that we usually send mail to. Minor complaint; I find it easier to remember 1 number (even a 4 digit number which allows 10,000 nodes than a net/node number combination. I am fido #208 and I would rather not have another #208 even in a different region. Most people are probably smarter than me so maybe this will not cause problems for others. I have been a software consultant for over 10 years now and there are 2 sayings that I try to live by. 1. K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) 2. If the damn thing works, LEAVE IT ALONE! So far, they have not failed me. I just hope that by making FIDONEWS -- 24 Jun 85 00:00:32 Page 4 the current changes we have not opened a can of worms. Bruce Lomasky Fido #208 (net 16 I think) West Hartford, CT ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 24 Jun 85 00:00:32 Page 5 Mike Ringer Fido 117/437 College Station, TX The first call I can remember when my parents bought our first and only computer!. It was an IBM PC that I was very proud of. We bought it in the summer of 81, It had an amazing 48k which we quickly upgraded to 64k and eventually to 256 when dad found he could not run Lotus on 128k. I got my modem a year later after whinning one for weeks. I signed on to my first board to find that there was nothing not any thing for the IBM! Now what do I do? well you leave messages, but I did not understand how to leave them or get rid of the ones I screwed up! After many futile tries the sysop broke in and said "I thought IBM's were business machines?" This scared the pajeebers out of me and I turned my modem off, calmed down and called the board back back and the sysop explained what had happened. This is something you just don't do to a first time user folks! I don't care how nice the sysop is you just don't tell a 13 year old kid that there are no games for his computer (by the way I have forgiven Paul for doing this). So I sat down and wrote a game called Zor and then wrote ZorII and I'm in the process of writing ZorIII but I haven't gotten very far. After playing my game about ten times I decided it was no fun to play your own adventure games because yo knew how to win them. Finaly the sysop I had my first encounter with got some games and I was satisfied for a while but not for ever. Now I have about 30 disks full of games and another 20 full of utilities progams I don't have time to use because I'm to busy trying to scrape enough money together so I can install a phone line and put up a board and share my games and ancient wares but till then I'll try to upload to the other boards in College Station. Your probably wondering though why I don't make long distance calls to other boards well I have two very good reasons! 1)Don't have the money to call long distance 2)You must be validated on most boards before you can download. I have been helping alot of my friend with thier computers though. I even have one paying 15 dollars and hour to convert wordstar files to ascii and then uploading them to his Commodore 64. Along with doing that I have been trying to write a program that allows my Pc to be a burgular alarm. Along with working 4:30-9:00 Tues,Thurs and 4:30- 11:00 on Fri, Sat and 2:00-7:00 on Sunday, and fighting my family for the use of the computer I don't see how I get any thing done. Maybe I should but my own computer instead of a phone line! hmmmm lets see, 3400 dollars for a new computer? well maybe I'll get the new phone line at 3.50 an hour I don't think I will be able to get a new computer maybe a used one but not a new one. Oh well life does go on but my article can't! Be on the look out for Ollie's board near the end of the month. I think I'll have a game review on the board and expand it to Fido news so Fido users will know what Pd games are worth playing! FIDONEWS -- 24 Jun 85 00:00:38 Page 6 ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 24 Jun 85 00:00:38 Page 7 Hello from Fido 17/35 Greg Martz I run a relatively new bbs, and one with a different flavor. I wanted to have a place to call and get info and numbers to other BBS's around the nation. Since I could not find one, I decided to start my own. Since this is the first Fido to be devoted to the upkeep of other BBS's, I don't have a preset format to follow. I know that most all BBS's have their own list of local and national numbers, but I thought there might just be a need for a "National" number keeper. The reason I'm writing this is because I would like to ask for help. If all the Fido's would compile their list of numbers and send them to me via Netmail, that would be of great help. I also need some help verifying the numbers. I am thinking of putting in a file section so that any BBS who has a pay system can Advertise their systems, and can keep a current catalog on file. Any input or suggestions? If you would like to help out, or want some further info. send a message via netmail to me at net 17 node 35. Note: My system is semi-restricted. If you would like advance sign-up send Name, Pwd, Phone#, etc. Greg Martz Sysop Fido 17/35 FIDONEWS -- 24 Jun 85 00:00:39 Page 8 ============================================================ FOR SALE ============================================================ The Computer Farm now carries Hard Drives for the Sanyo MBC 55x Computers. We are operating these systems on our Fido node 428. The system is an External 5 or 10 meg system with controler and driver for up 4 drives. We have Tested the driver with MSDOS 2.11, DS-DOS and AOK DOS. The hard drive system only takes 10-20 min. to install. 5 Meg External ................ 995.00 10 Meg External ...............1095.00 For more information on thes systems send mail to Node 428 net 15 or call 1 800 621 8386 Ext 283. In Colorado call 303 495-3815. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 24 Jun 85 00:00:40 Page 9 =========================================================== | Lotto-----Lotto-----Lotto-----Lotto-----Lotto | | | | For those of you who suffer from Lotto fever | | we have the ultimate software package for you ! | | We call out Lotto analyzer BUSTER after what it | | does to our state lottery program. | | | | BUSTER is available in compiled Basic, or for those of | | you who play 2 or 3 Lottos at the same time, we have | | a version in Better Basic that takes full advantage of | | of an 8087 co-processor automatically. | | | | Buster is available by mail for the discount price of | | $ 29.95 for either version. Source code is available | | at an additional charge of $25 above program price. | | | | Send a Postal Money Order to: Software, 137 Prospect | | Street, Nanuet, New York 10954 for 7 day delivery. | =========================================================== FIDONEWS -- 24 Jun 85 00:00:41 Page 10 ============================================================ NOTICES ============================================================ Fidonews Bugs You may have noticed that last week's issue of Fidonews came out a little late in some areas. It seems we made what appears to be a fairly common mistake. Fido treats its node list as gospel. If you have a 1200 baud modem and try to send mail to a node with a 2400 baud modem, Fido will try to make the call at 2400 baud. Obviously, this won't work very well. (You are in a similar, or worse, position if you have a 300 baud modem.) The answer is to edit your node list, making sure that nobody is listed with a higher baud rate than you can support. We overlooked this for the simple reason that NODELIST.EXE used to take care of this for us. ------------------------------------------------------------ *** Calendar of Events *** 30 Jun 85 Submissions deadline for next issue of Fidonews. If you have any event you want listed in this calendar, please send a note to node 107/375.