Volume 2, Number 37 28 October 1985 +----------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | - Fidonews - /|oo \ | | (_| /_) | | Fido and Fidonet _`@/_ \ _ | | Users Group | | \ \\ | | Newsletter | (*) | \ )) | | ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +----------------------------------------------------------+ Publisher: Fido 1/1 Editor: Thom Henderson Review Editor: Matt Kanter Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings Fidonews is published weekly by SEAboard, Fido 1/1. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in Fidonews. Article submission standards are contained in the file FIDONEWS.DOC, available on request from Fido 1/1. 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. Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL A New Look for Fidonews 2. NEWS Utility for Sysops Fidogram Free Telegram Service Metro-Fire Fido net/node change Brother, Can Ya Spare the Time? 3. WANTED Is Charles H. Downs out there? 4. NOTICES The Interrupt Stack Node List Bug ============================================================ EDITORIAL ============================================================ A New Look for Fidonews We've made some changes here. I finally got around to working on the newsletter generator, as I've been meaning to for awhile now. It makes life a great deal easier at our end. The changes aren't that apparent to the reader, though. What readers WILL notice is that we now have a table of contents. It was suggested just recently, and judging from the flood of messages we've gotten, we gather it's something you really want. We'll need your help to do make it work. When you submit an article, you should put a content line at the beginning of the file. This is just an asterisk ("*") followed by a short description of your article. Everything after the asterisk will appear in the table of contents, and not in the article. Your article won't get bounced just because it doesn't have a content line -- it just won't show up on the table of contents. Unless, of course, we go in and add one ourselves, about which we make no promises. The other big change is that we are using ARC to pack the newsletter for mailing, by popular demand. We'll also be making our first test mailing to the regional coordinators. If all goes well, we'll scrap the present distribution system entirely. Each regional coordinator will be getting FNEWSvnn.ARC, which will contain FIDOvnn.NWS, where "vnn" is the volume and issue number (227, in this case). I still feel funny putting just one file in an archive, but the fan mail has convinced me. ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 2 28 Oct 1985 ============================================================ NEWS ============================================================ Utility for Sysops I have written a small utility that has proven to be very useful to me as well as a few other sysops. It's a simple program that renames a file to the current system date. For example, if the date were Oct. 21, 1985..., and I ran this program as such "CHG2DATE SYSOP.LOG" then the file SYSOP.LOG would be renamed to 21OCT85.LOG. Note that the extension does NOT change. Now you may be saying "So what" or "Big deal", but this small program has come in very handy many times. What I do is, every night.., one minute before midnight, I run an external event which changes the names of the SYSOP.LOG and the MAILER.LOG files. I usually let these accumulate until the end of the month when I combine them into an ARChive file according to the month, such as OCT85HIS.ARC for Octobers history. Recently, I wanted to find a person who had changed their name the month before and see what their name was before they changed it. It was really simple using a small batch file that I wrote. I just entered the paramters and used the DOS FIND command to search thru the files to find it, such as: LOOK ??OCT85.LOG "Name changed to: Bernie Lawrence" The program searched all the matching files and displayed the line with the name change in it. Then all I had to do was to type the file that it was found in. The LOOK.BAT file is very simple and only contains: ECHO OFF FOR %%f IN (%1) DO FIND %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 %%f ECHO ON The reason for the long list of parameters is so you can enter up to eight words to search for. You MUST enclose the string to search for within quotes! You can also use the FIND programs switches such as: LOOK ??OCT85.LOG /N "Name changed to: Bernie Lawrence" This can be used for many things..., say you want to find out how many times Bernie Lawrence logged onto your baord on Oct 5, 1985. All you would have to do is enter: LOOK 05OCT85.LOG /C "Bernie Lawrence on" and you get a count of the number of times he logged on, on Oct 5, 1985. This batch will only work effectively if Fidonews Page 3 28 Oct 1985 used in conjunction with the CHG2DATE.COM program, since this provides a way of keeping the days seperate. CHG2DATE.COM is a small program written in assembler. It only takes up 698 bytes of space. It's command format is simple..., you just place the name of the file to rename on the command line such as: CHG2DATE SYSOP.LOG The file SYSOP.LOG would be renamed, and the extension would remain the same. Note: Since the extension remains the same, rename the MAILER.LOG to MAILER.MAL before renaming it to avoid duplicate names. Otherwise, CHG2DATE will abort with an error. This program, combined with the LOOK.BAT file is handy for looking at all the mail that was sent out during a month or just on a particular day. For instance, if you wanted to see all the Nodes that had mail successfully sent to them and the days it was sent, then you could enter: LOOK 20OCT85.MAL "Yes" and a list like this would be displayed: ---------- 20OCT85.MAL 124/11 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 00:22 Yes 124/7 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 00:44 Yes 124/11 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 00:19 Yes 124/2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 00:30 Yes 124/7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 00:44 Yes 124/8 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 01:06 Yes 124/11 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 00:27 Yes 124/12 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 00:29 Yes Again.., you could have used ??OCT85.MAL to get a list for the whole month. Well.., now that I've explained a few of the benifits, let me explain how to set it up to run. It's not very hard to implement at all. All you have to do is set up an external event with a tag of X and give it the errorlevel to exit to DOS with. The event should be set up to last only one minute since that is more than enough time. I have chosen an errorlevel of 20 and so I'll show you how I have my runbbs batch file set up. ctty con watchdog off fido_ibm 1/J 128/V 10/W 45/L 15/F 180/D /P /Y if errorlevel 20 goto renlog if errorlevel 10 goto remote if errorlevel 1 goto end :renlog chg2date sysop.log Fidonews Page 4 28 Oct 1985 ren mailer.log mailer.mal chg2date mailer.mal waitn 60 runbbs :remote watchdog on ctty com1 goto end :end Note: The program waitn.com is used to make the system wait till the entire one minute is up so that the event is not executed again. I hope that you will find this program of use and if you would like to get a copy of it, you can download it from my board, or from one of the other nodes in my Net. The program waitn.com can also be downloaded from my board. Note: This program was written in MS-DOS on an IBM PC and it will work on MS-DOS machines. _____________________________________ | _ _ _ __ __ ___ || | | \ /\ | \ / _ |_ / | | \ / || | |_/ \/ |_/ \_| |__ \__ | | | || |____________________________________|/ | || | || | ||_ __ ___|__||___ _____| ||_)_[__]__/ | Population| _____| ||\\/ oo \ (ruff)| 286 | || | || (_| /_) ' |___________| || | || \\@/ \ | || || | || \ *|\\ | || ||___| || / |// | || _____| || /====(_) | || || | || (__/\_\| | || || | || _\ \ \ \__ | || |/ |__|/(___/ \___) | || |__|/ Berinie Lawrence Sysop of Dodge City 124/3 (214) 494-1940 ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 5 28 Oct 1985 Luck Hurder 101/105 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +The Fidogram Free Telegram Service+ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Amateur Radio operators here at 101/105 have been en- joying the responses to our Fidogram service that began last month - (see Fidonews 9/09/85). For those of you who didn't read it (gasp!) we'll recap briefly: 1. Personal (non-business) telegrams to anyone with a telephone can now be accepted by Fido. Free, no charge - gratis. 2. There's no limit to the number of Fidograms you can send for free, but each Fidogram must be kept rather short. 20-25 words seems about right. Remember - vol- unteer radio operators will be delivering these for you. 3. You may not attempt delivery of any Fidogram that con- tains: A. Material compensation, direct or indirect to any party. B. Codes or ciphers meant to disguise the true meaning of the message. C. Suggestive or foul language. Here's some of the typical questions we've been asked: 1. Can I send a Fidogram to my Aunt matilda in Mexico? Yes, Mexico is one of the countrys whose government shares an agreement with our government, allowing Fido- grams via Amateur Radio. many countries in Central and south America have this agreement with us; most of the European countries do not. Remember, however, that final delivery of your message will depend entirely upon our locating an Amateur Radio operator within free calling distance of the addressee. We recommend that you begin initially by sending Fidograms to more pop- ulated areas here in the USA... 2. Can I send "happy Thanksgiving" messages with the same text to 30 people in 20 different cities? You betcha - we call these "book" messages - but be sure to always include your own complete name, address, and voice tel- ephone number as well as the same complete info for each addressee. In this example, the text need only be sent once. 3. How long does it take to deliver my Fidograms? Sorry, that's a toughie to answer; if it's going to a place in New England, we'd estimate a day or two. Other desti- nations in the USA should take less than 3 days. 4. Why so long? Well now, you wouldn't be guilty of for- Fidonews Page 6 28 Oct 1985 getting that this free public service requires the efforts of many volunteers, now would you? Considering the price (you can probably squeeze one heckuva lotta fidograms into one piece of Fidomail!) it's still a bargain, regardless of the time element involved... The Amateur Radio operators actually appreciate the opp- ortunity to offer this service to Fido users. These mess- ages are grist in our radio mills - ways to exercise uour skills and equipment. We realize that we're likely to be hit up fairly hard around the holidays and - particularly from college-area Fidos - during the weeks prior to Val- entine's day. That's fine - overloads of message traffic help us to spot our weaknesses. Feel free to try and in- undate us. Fidograms, as well as questions & criticisms regarding them can be sent to Luck Hurder at Fido 101/105. ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 7 28 Oct 1985 ============================== WE'VE CHANGED OUR NET/NODE BUT NOT OUR STRUGGLE! By Christopher Baker, Sysop, Metro-Fire Fido, 135/14 ============================== This is just to let everyone know that Metro-Fire Fido has moved to a new net/node location in your trusty nodelist. We are now part the Miami Area Network, Net 135. This too is temporary, since we intend to form a Special Interest Region for Fire Departments. Several departments are now studying the possibilities of linking up with Fido and FidoNet. As soon as one or two more come together, I will be applying for a Region number assignment. You in FidoLand can continue to assist me in my endeavor by passing these articles to anyone you know in any Fire Department anywhere. (See also FidoNews 227 & 229.) As an update, Metro-Fire Fido now has two doctors on-line for questions and answers related to EMS, Trauma Networks, Hyperbaric Medicine, Diving Trauma, and General surgery and other medical questions. We are looking for an Expert- in-Residence to take up the gauntlet of Hazardous Materials, Water Rescue, Apparatus, Training, Safety, and any other areas of interest to the Fire/Rescue Services. Please feel free to lend your support/assistance/expertise or to contribute information to our system. Verification for access to our system can be made by FidoMail or call 305-596-8611 and leave information to the Sysop. The board runs in the private mode from 2230 Sunday til 1800 Friday and in the semi-private mode from 1800 Friday til 2230 Sunday. If you want to communicate in writing, address your questions/requests to: Sysop Metro-Fire Fido Metro-Dade Fire & Rescue Department Communications Bureau 5680 S.W. 87 Avenue Miami, FL 33173 We'll be looking forward to your interest. Thank you. C.B., 135/14 ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 8 28 Oct 1985 BROTHER, CAN YA SPARE THE TIME? by Ben Baker, 100/76 Hey look people, I'm the guy who started this whole daylight saving time controversy in a phone conversation with Thom H. and I can't believe EVERYBODY has missed the point completely!!! We have a time period we call "The National FidoNet Mail Window." Now, I don't care if your clock reads 15:23 when it begins, so long as your schedule says "begin mail at 15:23!" Do with your clocks what you will, but I think you'll agree that we all have to start the "National Window" together more or less. We call it the "National Window" and its time was selected because the whole nation can make calls when the rates are lowest. Right? -- WRONG! One whole state is so far west that in the winter its "National Window" starts at 11pm. Well, it's early OK, but they still get the cheap rates. Right? -- WRONG AGAIN! They are also so far south that they get more or less twelve hours of daylight all the time, so they don't bother with daylight savings time. So when we push our clocks forward in the Spring, we push their "National Window" back to 10pm and there went the cheap rates. I speak, of course, of Hawaii. (Alaska probably would have a similar problem, but we don't have any Fido nodes up there. . .yet.) So, what I suggested, for this reason alone, was that when we get the "National Window" back to 0900 hrs Coordinated Universal Time next week, we keep it there. Then the entire nation would have access to the cheap rates most of us enjoy year 'round. And you can set your clock any way you like! ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 9 28 Oct 1985 ============================================================ WANTED ============================================================ Matt Carpenter c/o Allen's Bd. 108/10 Cincinnati, Ohio Help!? Are there any Fido software collectors out there? due to modem incompatibilities with the later versions of Fido, I am forced to use an older version (10e, gadzooks!). That's no big problem, but I would like to have all the software I need to set this up. I do have almost all of the necessary files but one: ROUTE.EXE. Soooo, that's what I need! Is there anyone out there with an old ROUTE.EXE program floating around on a floppy somewhere? Ifso, a reply would be great! I'm kinda in need, so any information would help! Just send me a reply to Matt Carpenter (me) at Fido 108/10, Allen's Board. Also, is Charles H. Downs out there? Leave me a FidoNet msg I need to contact you! (if any of you know him, relay this please, if possible) Help, anyone? Matt Carpenter *at-> 108/10* ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 10 28 Oct 1985 ============================================================ NOTICES ============================================================ The Interrupt Stack 23 Nov 1985 European sysop conference -- Utrecht, The Netherlands. Contact node 3101 for details. 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. 9 Feb 1986 Diana Overholt (109/74) has another birthday. 11 Apr 1986 Halley's Comet reaches perigee. 19 May 1986 Steve Lemke's next birthday. 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 1/1. ------------------------------------------------------------ Node List Bug The node list for day number 298 (NODELIST.298 and NODELIST.A98) has the wrong phone number for node 1/1. The correct phone number is: 1-201-472-8065 Please fix the phone number in your node list before sending anything to Fidonews, node 1/1. ------------------------------------------------------------ Fidonews Page 11 28 Oct 1985