FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:28 Page 1 Volume 2, Number 33 30 September 1985 +----------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | - FidoNews - /|oo \ | | (_| /_) | | Fido and FidoNet _`@/_ \ _ | | Users Group | | \ \\ | | Newsletter | (*) | \ )) | | ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +----------------------------------------------------------+ Publisher: Fido 107/7 Chief Procrastinator: Thom Henderson Fidonews is published weekly by SEAboard, Fido 107/7. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in Fidonews. Article submission standards are contained in the file FIDONEWS.DOC, available from Fido 107/7. Disclaimer or don't-blame-us: The contents of the articles contained here are not our responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them; everything here is subject to debate. We publish EVERYTHING received. Daylight Losing Time This coming October 27th is the day when Daylight Savings Time ends, at the ungodly hour of 2 AM (on a Sunday morning, no less). Once again we engage in our twice yearly shifting of the network mail hour, with its usual confusion. For the record, the "approved" procedure is to set your clock back one hour sometime between Saturday morning mail and Sunday morning mail (anytime during the day Saturday is cool). But, inevitably, some people will forget, one or two will set their clocks the wrong way, and many won't be able to reach their machines until Monday anyway. (Many business boards are in company areas that can't be reached on the weekend. Do they change their clocks on Friday before they leave, or Monday when they get back? Who knows?) Our little semiannual ritual also has other drawbacks. It seems Hawaii doesn't observe daylight savings time, and they are far enough west that the summer shift has them making FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:31 Page 2 VERY long distance calls at the more expensive evening rate. Just to make life even more fun, I'm told that parts of Indiana, Kansas, Texas, Florida, Michigan, and Alaska also do not observe daylight savings time. So here's my suggestion, if it's not already obvious: Let's go ahead and get off of daylight savings time this month, and from then on forget about it. If anybody complains, we can tell them that we're really running on Greenwhich Mean Time (or Universal Coordinated Time, as it's called these days). All this changing of clocks just isn't worth the hassle. So the clock on your system doesn't match the clock on your wall, so big deal! The users will never know the difference, since it's hard to get the time of day from Fido anyway. [Could one then say that Fido wouldn't give you the time of day? Some other editorial, perhaps. . .] FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:32 Page 3 ============================================================ NEWS ============================================================ Greetings from Mike's "C" Board Net 102 / Node 201 619-722-8724 The latest release of Fido, ver 11, has reimplemented the scrolling download/upload display as default. When it was taken away a few versions back I was glad to walk in and see what was being downloaded or uploaded but would have no idea where in the transfer the user was. But this was better than "Sending block 134" and not knowing what was being transferred or whether there where 650 blocks or 10 blocks left. Well now with the new version I can have my cake and eat it too! The following is the patch I applied to Fido using the Norton Utilities 3.0 program "NU". I couldn't figure out how to do this with debug because of the Plink overlays used in Fido. 1. Copy Fido to a blank disk and invoke NU B: or what ever disk Fido is on. This insures that the program will be stored contigously. 2. Next press F1 then F3 to select a file and place the highlighted bar over FIDO_IBM.EXE. Press return and you will be back at the TOP MENU. 3. Next press F2 then F4 to display information about the file. The 4th line down contains the starting cluster number with the sector number in parentheses. Add 197 to the sector number in parentheses and write the result down. 4. Now press ESC then F1 then F5 to place you in the Select Disk Sector menu and enter the number you noted earlier. Press enter and then F5 to enter the Change Contents mode. 5. You should see all the usual messages that continually scroll by as a file transfer is taking place. Pressing enter twice will place you in the edit mode. From here we can do some interesting things to Fido to enhance the existing display. About 3/4 way down you will see TIMEOUT followed by two funny characters that are a carriage return and newline (0D0A). Change the second one, that looks like an O in reverse video to a space or hex 20 and do the same following "Sending block #%u" two lines down and after "ACK" on the same line. These changes will make the display overwrite the existing line during transfers giving the effect of only the current block number changing and eliminating the scrolling off the screen of the file name and number of total blocks. 6. If you really want to be creative you can change the FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:34 Page 4 Data Block %u, which I believe is used for upload along with the "ACK character = %u" which I truncated to "ACK=%u" and null terminated and added the hex 0D before the null. The message "Sending filename" also should be done to take of the Telink protocal transfers. Also what I have done is by hitting the PgDn key (Entering W for write when requested to save the changes) you will see the "----- Yelling at sysop ----" message the user see's when the C key is pressed. I have changed it to "---- Hello... This is Mike ----" making the interruption much more friendly. 7. When finished press ESC and answer W to write the changes to disk and you have the new enhanced version of Fido!!! Though these patches are simple they accomplish something I have asked for in fido, but fell on deaf ears. I keep hearing rumors of Fido look alikes in the making with source and all the bells and whisles you can only dream were in Fido, with full net compatibility. Tom has created a work of art that is worth recognition, but lets have a masterpiece. If you don't have Norton Utilities 3.0 I highly recommend purchasing it, as I have found it to be a fascinating tool. This patch was only done on the IBM version but could be easily applied to the DEC version as well. Enjoy!! Mike Elkins ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:35 Page 5 The UN*X Gateway is Complete! by Bob Hartman Sysop Fido 132/101 The UN*X Gateway BBS This is the news you UN*X hackers have been waiting for - the UN*X Gateway BBS is now capable of sending FidoNet mail on to UN*X systems as well as receiving UN*X mail to be sent via FidoNet! In the past only the latter (UN*X->Fido) was working. In order to use the gateway you must do the following: Sending Fido to UN*X: 1. Send a FidoNet message addressed to "Usenet" on the UN*X Gateway Fido (132/101). The addressee of Usenet is what the system keys on, so make sure you get it right! 2. The first line of the message must be the UN*X UUCP path to be used to send the message. This must be the only thing on the first line! The path does not have to be complete as the host will try to figure out the best routing for the message, but the addresses to major hosts would be: encore!decvax or encore!decvax!ucbvax or encore!ihnp4 To send a message to me use "vaxine!rch" 3. The rest of the message can be any legal FidoNet message. 4. When a message meeting these requirements gets to the gateway, it is converted to UN*X format and sent to the host named 'vaxine'. This UN*X host then sends the mail to the address given in the first line of the message. Sending UN*X to Fido: 1. Send UN*X mail to either decvax!encore!vaxine!spark!net!node!username or ihnp4!encore!vaxine!spark!net!node!username where net is the FidoNet net number, node is the FidoNet node number, and username is the name of the person to receive the message with all spaces changed to the underscore (_) character. The name cannot have any quote marks or other punctuation characters in it except for the underscore character! If it does contain any punctuation marks, then a UN*X mailer somewhere will not properly process the mail and it will get returned as undeliverable. 2. When this message reaches the host 'vaxine', it is sent through a special mail processor that routes it to the gateway using Kermit. 3. Once it is received at the gateway, it is processed and changed into FidoNet mail to the appropriate person at the given Fido node. This gateway has been tested, but if you try it and notice FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:37 Page 6 something that seems to be wrong, please let me know so that I can try to fix it. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:37 Page 7 The aliens are coming! The aliens are coming! by Dave Barry I don't want to alarm anybody, but there is an excellent chance that the Earth will be destroyed in the next several days. Congress is thinking about eliminating a federal program under which scientists broadcast signals to alien beings. This would be a large mistake. Alien beings have atomic blaster death cannons. You cannot cut off their federal programs as if they were merely poor people. I realize some of you may not believe that alien beings exist. But how else can you explain the many unexplained phenomena that people are always sighting, such as lightning and flying saucers? Oh, I know the authorities claim these sightings are actually caused by "weather balloons," but that is a bucket of manure if I ever heard one. (That's just a figure of speech, of course. I realize manure is silent.) Answer this question honestly: Have you, or has any member of your immediate family, ever seen a weather balloon? Of course not. Nobody has. Yet if these "authorities" were telling the truth, the skies over America would be dark with weather balloons. Commercial aviation would be impossible. Nevertheless, the authorities trot out this tired old explanation, or an even stupider one, every time a flying saucer is sighted. Wake up, America! There are no weather balloons! Those are alien beings! They are all around us! I'm sure most of you have seen the movie "E.T.," the story of an alien who almost dies when he falls into the clutches of the American medical establishment but is saved by pre-adolescent boys. Everybody believes the alien is a fake, a triumph of special effects. But watch the movie closely next time. The alien is real. The boys are fakes. Real pre-adolescent boys would have beaten the alien to death with rocks. Yes, aliens exist. And high government officials know they exist, but they've been keeping this knowledge top secret. Here is the Untold Story: Years ago, when the alien-broadcast program began, government scientists decided to broadcast a message that would be simple yet convey a sense of love, universal peace and brotherhood: "Have a Nice Day." They broadcast this message over and over, day after day, year after year, until one day they got an answer: FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:39 Page 8 Dear Earth Persons: OK. We are having a nice day. We also have a number of extremely sophisticated weapons, and unless you start broadcasting something more interesting, we will reduce your planet to a very warm object the size of a child's bowling ball. Regards, The Aliens So the scientists, desperate for something that would interest the aliens, broadcast an episode of "I Love Lucy," and the aliens loved it. They demanded more, and soon they were getting all three major networks, and the earth was saved. There is only one problem: The aliens have terrible taste. They love game shows, soap operas, Howard Cosell and "Dallas." Whenever a network tries to take one of these shows off the air, the aliens threaten to vaporize the planet. This is why you and all your friends think television is so awful. It isn't designed to please you - it's designed to please creatures from another galaxy. You know the Wisk commercial, the one with ring around the collar, the one so spectacularly stupid that it makes you wonder why anybody would dream of buying the product? Well, the aliens love that commercial. We all owe a great debt of gratitude to the people who make Wisk. The have not sold a single bottle of Wisk in 14 years, but they have saved the Earth. Very few people know any of this. Needless to say, Congress has no idea what is going on. Most legislators are incapable of eating breakfast without the help of several aides, so we can hardly expect them to understand a serious threat from outer space. But if they go ahead with their plan to cancel the alien- broadcast program and the aliens miss the next episode of "General Hospital," what do you think will happen? Think about it. And have a nice day. Submitted by Rob Rothberg, Sysop of Digital Bitch. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:41 Page 9 A new Fido Network by Bob Hartman Sysop 132/101 (formerly 101/101) As of Friday, September 20th, the UN*X Gateway Fido, and several others in New Hampshire have formed a new Fido network - NH_Net. The affected boards are: UN*X Gateway was Fido 101/101 now is Fido 132/101 or 132/0 cLINE was Fido 101/102 now is Fido 132/102 M'Cycle Bytes was Fido 101/107 now is Fido 132/107 Revap Data was Fido 101/388 now is Fido 132/388 North Net was Fido 101/444 now is Fido 132/444 Alter-Net was Fido 101/644 now is Fido 132/644 Wizards Castle was Fido 16/615 now is Fido 132/615 Spaghetti_heav was Fido 16/620 now is Fido 132/620 Please use the new node numbers whenever you send mail. Since the UN*X Gateway receives *LOTS* of mail, it should now be addressed to the new node number (132/101). Also, Rovermsg, Renum, and Filedate bugs should now be mailed to 132/101. Thanks from all the nodes in net 132! ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:42 Page 10 A Bit of Clarification Kurt Reisler SYSOP FIDO 109/74 & 109/483 In an article excerpted from the August 1985 issue of DIGITAL REVIEW (it was reprinted with permission wasn't it?), was a discussion fo the FIDO sessions presented at the Fall 84 and Spring 85 DECUS Symposia. As the speaker at those sessions, I felt that a misconception expressed in that article should be cleared up. The first FIDO session was presented at the Fall 1985 DECUS, which was held in Anaheim, CA. The session was actually a Birds of a Feather (BOF) session, which was scheduled at the symposium. I had not been involved with FIDO long enough to get together an abstract for a formal session in time to meet the submission deadlines. The room it was held in was the same size room that all BOF sessions are held in. It would seat 50 people and was to be an hour long. Well, we had nearly 100 people in the room, with more in the hall outside. The session went to 1.5 hours before we were thrown out by the next BOF session. All in all a very good session, with several FIDO systems spawned as a result. The second FIDO session was presented at the Spring 1985 DECUS which was held in New Orleans, LA. This one was a formal session of an hours duration. Unfortunately, it was scheduled immediately before an award ceremony that I was supposed to be at, so the session was not able to run over the alotted hour, and I was not able to field all of the questions that I would have liked to. Had about 150 in attendance. A third FIDO session is going to be held at the upcoming DECUS which is being held in early December at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. This session is to be 1.5 hours. Hopefully there will be enough time to handle all the questions. In addition, Tom Jennings (anyone know who he is?) is scheduled to do a "Pre-Symposium Seminar" before the start of the actual symposium. All in all, I would say that both DEC and DECUS have been very, very good to us. Also, I have never considered myself to be a "spokesman" for FIDO, I just happen to like to talk. FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:44 Page 11 ============================================================ COLUMNS ============================================================ A long time ago... on a node far, far away (from PDPvax) XXXXX XXXXXX XXXX X X X X X X X XXXXX X X X X X X X X X X XXXXX XXXXXX XXXX X X XX XXXXX XXXX X X X X X X X X X X X X X XXXX X XX X XXXXXX XXXXX X XX XX X X X X X X X X X X X X XXXX The further adventures of Luke Vaxhacker Episode n+1 The story thus far: Luke, PDP-1, and their 'droids RS232 and 3CPU have made good their escape from the Imperial Bus Signals with the aid of Con Solo and the bookie, Two Bacco. The Milliamp Falcon hurtles onward through system space. Meanwhile, on a distant page in user space... Princess _LPA0: was ushered into the conference room, followed closely by Dec Vadic. "Governor Tarchive," she spat, "I should have expected to find you holding Vadic's lead. I recognized your unique pattern when I was first brought aboard." She eyed the 0177545 tatooed on his header coldly. "Charming to the last," Tarchive declared menacingly. "Vadic, have you retrieved any information?" "Her resistance to the logic probe is considerable," Vadic rasped. "Perhaps we would get faster results if we increased the supply voltage..." "You've had your chance, Vadic". Now I would like the princess to witness the test that will make this workstation fully operational. Today we enable the -r beam option, and we've chosen the princess' $HOME of /usr/alderaan as the primary target." "No! You can't! /usr/alderaan is a public account, with no restricted permissions. We have no backup tapes! You can't..." "Then name the rebel inode!" Tarchive snapped. A voice announced over a hidden speaker that they had arrived in /usr. FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:46 Page 12 "1248," she whispered, "They're on /dev/rm3. Inode 1248." She turned away. Tarchive sighed with satisfaction. "There, you see Lord Vadic? She can be reasonable. Proceed with the operation." It took several clock cycles for the words to penetrate. "What!" _LPA0: gasped. "/dev/rm3 is not a mounted filesystem." Tarchive explained. "We require a more visible subject to demonstrate the power of the RM STAR workstation. We will mount an attack on /mnt/dantooine as soon as possible." As the princess watched, Tarchive reached over and typed "ls" on a nearby terminal. There was a brief pause, there being only one processor on board, and the viewscreen showed, ".: not found." The princess suddenly double-spaced and went off-line. To be continued... FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:46 Page 13 ============================================================ NOTICES ============================================================ ROBOT Version 3.20 I, Thom Henderson, general partner of System Enhancement Associates, hereby grant to all sysops of non-commercial Fidonet systems registered with DECUS Central in St. Louis (as shown by a current node list) a limited license to use the Robot automated file mailer and to distributed it amongst themselves, provided that: 1) No fee is charged for such distribution, and 2) The files ROBOT.COM and ROBOT.DOC are distributed together and in their original, unmodified form. Voluntary contributions will be appreciated, but are not required. Commercial users may use Robot, subject to the above conditions, for a fee of twenty dollars ($20), to be paid to: System Enhancement Associates 21 New Street Wayne, NJ 07470 Registered users of the SEAdog electronic mail system do not need to pay a separate fee, as it is included in the cost of the SEAdog package. ------------------------------------------------------------ The Interrupt Stack 27 Oct 1985 2 AM - Change from Daylight Savings Time to Standard time. You should change your system clock before mail hour this date. 27 Nov 1985 Halley's Comet passes closest to Earth before perihelion. 24 Jan 1986 Voyager 2 passes Uranus. 9 Feb 1986 Halley's Comet reaches perihelion. 11 Apr 1986 Halley's Comet reaches perigee. 19 May 1986 Steve Lemke's next birthday. FIDONEWS -- 30 Sep 85 03:02:48 Page 14 24 Aug 1989 Voyager 2 passes Neptune. If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to Fido 107/7.