Volume 4, Number 45 7 December 1987 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings Contributing Editors: Dale Lovell, Al Arango FidoNews is published weekly by the International FidoNet Association as its official newsletter. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission standards are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from node 1:1/1. Copyright 1987 by the International FidoNet Association. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact IFNA at (314) 576-4067. 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 ................................................ 1 Standards? What Standards? .............................. 1 2. ARTICLES ................................................. 2 A Letter To Mayor Koch ................................... 2 MEGADEX - A New Way to Look at the MEGALIST .............. 7 3. NOTICES .................................................. 8 The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 8 New IFNA Address for Orders and Memberships .............. 8 Latest Software Versions ................................. 8 FidoNews 4-45 Page 1 7 Dec 1987 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= Standards? What Standards? I'm going to break one of my standing rules here. I'm going to talk from the perspective of a software publisher. Well, to roughly quote Captain Jean-Luc Picard, "Life itself is no more than a mass of exceptions." A year ago there was this thing called the "FidoNet Protocol". It was even documented. The idea was to promulgate a public domain standard for electronic mail. The basic idea was sound, I think. It got a lot of good attention from a lot of people for awhile. I've spoken with people who were planning on implementing it for Telex, Compuserve, BIX, MCI Mail, and a lot of other services. Not to mention, of course, the "real" target of people writing mailers for Ataris, Commodore 64s, and so forth. It was a concrete spec with a fairly wide acceptance, and it made a good, solid target to work at. Oh, it wasn't perfect. We all knew that. Since when is anything ever perfect? But people were working on ways to beef it up and make it cleaner. One such way was extended addressing, as that allowed for open-ended addressing in ways that could not be anticipated in advance, so we could add anything we might need later on without having to rewrite all of the existing software. Another was the SEAlink protocol, so we could maintain backwards compatibility while allowing for much faster data transfer on par with the best protocols known. [Forestalling an argument: I didn't say "faster than", I said "on par with". Remember that the main design criteria of SEAlink was high speed while keeping full compatibility with XMODEM and Modem7. If you like, we can argue over the exact numbers another day.] Something odd happened, though. The whole thing got tossed out the window. Oh, the FidoNet Protocol is still there, but it's now just one possible protocol. Systems linking up these days must negotiate over what protocol they will use. Why? A few percent difference in performance once in awhile? Or just to be new and different? No matter. What's done is done. But I can't help but feel that something important was lost in the shuffle. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-45 Page 2 7 Dec 1987 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Edward I. Koch Mayor City Of New York City Hall New York, New York Re: 179th Street And Hillside Avenue Dear Mayor Koch, Several months have gone by, and the situation at 179th Street and Hillside Avenue has not changed to any great extent! It certainly has not gotten any better!!! To refresh your memory, I wrote to you detailing the fact that I had been verbally abused several times when coming up out of the subway, by the "GYPSY" cab drivers. Since my last letter I have spent over 100 hours observing the situation to see what I could find out. I am not nor have I ever been a gypsy cab driver (just in case you are interested). I am an angry City resident! The only change that has taken place is an increased presence in the a.m. hours (6:30 - 8:00) of inspectors from the T.L.C., who seem to be more interested in drinking coffee than correcting the situation they are paid to correct. But that is not when they are needed! They are needed from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. on the corner of 179th Street and Hillside Avenue, which is where the "GYPSY" cabs block traffic, illegally park, and pick up their passengers. An increased police presence is needed on the same corner, but after the incident last night, I fear even the police cannot or will not handle the situation. Last night a patrol car passed by and stopped to give a gypsy cab several (3) tickets. As soon as the police left, the driver got out of his cab, went over the other drivers who hang around on the sidewalk, said, "F**k those cops", and ripped up the tickets and threw them on the sidewalk. About 15 minutes later, after the driver returned from taking 5 people in his car (at $1 per person), he was loading up again when the same police car passed by. To the officers credit, they stopped and issued him at least FidoNews 4-45 Page 3 7 Dec 1987 seven tickets after inspecting his car. They did not however make him unload the passengers from his car, and when they left after giving him the tickets, he ripped them right up, and threw them in the road! What type of police force are you running? If I ripped up tickets, I would be held accountable. Why are gypsy cab drivers immune from the law? Several weeks ago, the gypsy cabs had the corner of 179th and Hillside so blocked, that an ambulance had to ride on the SIDEWALK for one entire block of Hillside Avenue to get close enough to a building to go inside to help the person who was sick! The parking lot of Burger King, who hires youth from the area, is another problem. When the gypsy cabs hear the police coming (they always blow their sirens to allow them time to get away) most of them pull into the Burger King lot and solicit passengers from the lot, where they know the police will not touch them. Needless to say, this makes the parking lot impossible to access for a paying customer. We are not talking about just a few gypsy cabs here. We are talking about an organized business, led by "Dudley", of 35 to 45 cabs soliciting people on a regular basis. It takes about 10 minutes from the time a gypsy cab leaves until he returns. Each cab carries a minimum of 5 people (they won't go unless the car is full) with some carrying 11 people in a van. During the busy time period (4 p.m. to 8 p.m.) this comes out to an average of 30 passengers per cab/per hour. Throughout those 4 hours over 4800 people are transported by gypsy cabs, 5 days a week. When the cabs are stopped because of police presence, these people are forced to take the City bus instead. It translates out to a loss to the City of over $24,000.00 per 5 day business week, or over $1,228,000 per year in lost revenue to the Transit Authority and the City of New York! Of course these figures do not reflect the additional loss incurred when these cabs operate in the a.m. hours as well as the p.m. hours. Additional revenue to the City is lost in other ways as well. Let us assume that 50% of these cab drivers pay City taxes on their cash income (and that is a very, very large assumption), then 50% of them do not pay taxes! These figures are for only one of hundreds of areas in the City (major subway stations) where this occurs on a daily basis. If this situations exists at even 10 of the major subway stops throughout New York City, the loss in revenue to the City becomes astronomical! FidoNews 4-45 Page 4 7 Dec 1987 "Dudley" (he calls himself "Dudley", which may or may not be his real name) who you might remember I mentioned in my last letter is still in business. Dudley apparently works for the Transit Authority, (as he has been seen inside token booths) and purchases the tokens from the other gypsy cab drivers at a discounted price. What he does with the tokens is a mystery, although informed sources say he allegedly sells them to people who come to the token booth. If true, then this is another instance where the City is loosing revenue. The tokens are sometimes given to the gypsy cab drivers to pay for the fare instead of cash, which is why they need an inside man to redeem them for them. I asked around one day, why no one seems to care when they get tickets. The answer was a good one, and I thought I would pass it on to you, Mayor Koch. I was told, "If we get a bunch of tickets in one day, we go to motor vehicles the next day, and claim a license plate was either lost or stolen". They receive the new plates long before the tickets are due in court, and in most cases are never called to account for the tickets. Of course, they told me, "We can't do that to often, but once in a while we get away with it". People are yelled at when they come out of the subway entrance, and more than once, fights have started over who gets what passenger. Crude and vulgar remarks are made to women by the gypsy cab drivers as the women come out of the subway. Not too long ago, the police gave out a bunch of tickets and left. They were back within minutes, and they were back in force! It seems someone ("DUDLEY") allegedly got on his CB radio and called in a 10-13 on channel 9, the CB emergency channel. Not bad enough he did that, it was reported that "shots had been fired and an officer was down"! Now I don't blame the police for responding the way they did. However I feel sorry for anyone who got in their way, as they were going to help an officer in trouble. Several false alarms have been sent in from that area as well. Cannot say for sure who did it, but if you would come and watch what goes on here on 179th Street and Hillside, you would get an understanding of who did it. After spending this additional time observing this area, I submit the following suggestions for your immediate consideration. 1) Station 2 police officers in a patrol car on the corner of 179th Street and Hillside Avenue. Park this car on 179th Street from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday thru Friday, for a period of 30 days, with explicit instructions to FidoNews 4-45 Page 5 7 Dec 1987 ticket each and every gypsy cab. 2) Station 1 police officer in the Burger King parking lot (with Burger King's cooperation) to prevent the gypsy cabs from picking up inside the parking lot. 3) Station 2 TLC Inspectors on the corner of 179th Street and Hillside Avenue, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday thru Friday, for a period of 30 days with instructions to ticket each and every gypsy cab they see for each infraction of the law they find. 4) Station 1 TLC Inspector in the Burger King parking lot (with Burger King's cooperation) to prevent the gypsy cabs from picking up inside the parking lot. 5) Station a Traffic Department tow truck on the scene to remove cars found to be operating without the proper insurance, inspection and registration documents. 6) Provide legislation that would make the illegal sale and/or purchasing of tokens a crime. The first 4 items might seem like overkill to you Mr. Mayor, but I can assure you they are not! A favorite trick of these gypsy cab driver is to get out of his car, as soon as he is parked. This allows for two things to occur. A) He can get closer to people coming out of the subway. B) When the police do come, there is no driver in the car. If you remember my last letter, you might remember the fact that I told you I would give you a chance to remedy the situation, and crush the rumors that, "The Mayor is afraid of these people and won't do anything to resolve the problem"! Well you had ample time and nothing has been done by your office about it. Now we will see what the people have to say! Copies of this letter are going to all major newspapers, radio and television stations, and corporate taxi fleet owners. The taxi owners can use it in their next rate decision hearings. New York City was once a fine place to live in. It is a shame we have a Mayor who seems to be afraid of a little bad publicity, to save the City millions of dollars annually. FidoNews 4-45 Page 6 7 Dec 1987 Sincerely yours, A Concerned Citizen ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-45 Page 7 7 Dec 1987 MEGADEX A New Way to Look at the MEGALIST Version 1.4 - Released For Use By All Sysops This program is designed to reduce the disk space required to view and search the national software megalist produced weekly from 135/68. Megadex has reduced the file size to less than ONE THIRD the size of the weekly Megalist. This week the update files are 90k v.s. 220k for the megalist. To operate just un-arc the archive into any directory you have handy. Then just type MEGADEX and hit your return key to begin. Weekly updates can be SEAdog requested from 107/246 and 135/68. If you do not have the MEGADEX.EXE file then request MEGADEXC from 107/246. After you have MEGADEX.EXE then the file name to request is "MEGADEX" (without quotes) and WILL NOT contain the .EXE file. It will contain only the weekly update files. (From 107/246) Revision History ---------------- 1.0 Initial Release 1.1 Tightened Search Loops With An Increase In Speed Problem Corrected In Small Node Number Search 1.4 Increased Speed By 23% When Searching ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-45 Page 8 7 Dec 1987 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 9 Jan 1988 The next net 104 FidoNet Sysop Meeting. Contact Oscar Barlow at 104/0 for information. 25 Aug 1988 (pending BoD approval) Start of the Fifth International FidoNet Conference, to be held at the Drawbridge Inn in Cincinnatti, OH. Contact Tim Sullivan at 108/62 for more information. This is FidoNet's big annual get-together, and is your chance to meet all the people you've been talking with all this time. We're hoping to see you there! 24 Aug 1989 Voyager 2 passes Neptune. If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1:1/1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Ken Kaplan, 1:1/10 Effective with this FidoNews issue all IFNA monetary transactions will be handled by our Treasure, Leonard Mednick (1:1/11). Len will deposit money and verify memberships for all IFNA Orders. The actual processing of memberships and filing of PO's will continue to be done by other individuals after the treasure's duties are completed. The administrative and legal address will remain the same in St. Louis. The forms at the back of this FidoNews refect this change. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Latest Software Versions BBS Systems Node List Other & Mailers Version Utilities Version Utilities Version Dutchie 2.71* EditNL 3.3 ARC 5.21 Fido 12d* MakeNL 1.10 ARCmail 1.1* Opus 1.03a Prune 1.40 ConfMail 3.2* SEAdog 4.10 XlatList 2.84 EchoMail 1.31 TBBS 2.0M MGM 1.1* * Recently changed Utility authors: Please help keep this list up to date by reporting new versions to 1:1/1. It is not our intent to list FidoNews 4-45 Page 9 7 Dec 1987 all utilities here, only those which verge on necessity. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-45 Page 10 7 Dec 1987 __ The World's First / \ BBS Network /|oo \ * FidoNet * (_| /_) _`@/_ \ _ | | \ \\ | (*) | \ )) ______ |__U__| / \// / Fido \ _//|| _\ / (________) (_/(_|(____/ (tm) Membership for the International FidoNet Association Membership in IFNA is open to any individual or organization that pays a specified annual membership fee. IFNA serves the international FidoNet-compatible electronic mail community to increase worldwide communications. Member Name _______________________________ Date _______________ Address _________________________________________________________ City ____________________________________________________________ State ________________________________ Zip _____________________ Country _________________________________________________________ Home Phone (Voice) ______________________________________________ Work Phone (Voice) ______________________________________________ Zone:Net/Node Number ____________________________________________ BBS Name ________________________________________________________ BBS Phone Number ________________________________________________ Baud Rates Supported ____________________________________________ Board Restrictions ______________________________________________ Your Special Interests __________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ In what areas would you be willing to help in FidoNet? __________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Send this membership form and a check or money order for $25 in US Funds to: International FidoNet Association c/o Leonard Mednick, MBA, CPA 700 Bishop Street, #1014 Honolulu, Hawaii 96813-4112 USA Thank you for your membership! Your participation will help to insure the future of FidoNet. Please NOTE that IFNA is a general not-for-profit organization and Articles of Association and By-Laws were adopted by the membership in January 1987. The first elected Board of Directors was filled in August 1987. The IFNA Echomail Conference has been established on FidoNet to assist the Board. We welcome your input to this Conference. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-45 Page 11 7 Dec 1987 INTERNATIONAL FIDONET ASSOCIATION ORDER FORM Publications The IFNA publications can be obtained by downloading from Fido 1:1/10 or other FidoNet compatible systems, or by purchasing them directly from IFNA. We ask that all our IFNA Committee Chairmen provide us with the latest versions of each publication, but we can make no written guarantees. Hardcopy prices as of October 1, 1986 IFNA Fido BBS listing $15.00 _____ IFNA Administrative Policy DOCs $10.00 _____ IFNA FidoNet Standards Committee DOCs $10.00 _____ SUBTOTAL _____ IFNA Member ONLY Special Offers System Enhancement Associates SEAdog $60.00 _____ SEAdog price as of March 1, 1987 ONLY 1 copy SEAdog per IFNA Member Fido Software's Fido/FidoNet $100.00 _____ Fido/FidoNet price as of November 1, 1987 ONLY 1 copy Fido/FidoNet per IFNA Member International orders include $10.00 for surface shipping or $20.00 for air shipping _____ SUBTOTAL _____ HI. Residents add 4.0 % Sales tax _____ TOTAL _____ SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER IN US FUNDS: International FidoNet Association c/o Leonard Mednick, MBA, CPA 700 Bishop Street, #1014 Honolulu, HI. 96813-4112 USA Name________________________________ Zone:Net/Node____:____/____ Company_____________________________ Address_____________________________ City____________________ State____________ Zip_____ Voice Phone_________________________ Signature___________________________ -----------------------------------------------------------------