Volume 5, Number 18 2 May 1988 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief Dale Lovell Editor Emeritus: Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings Contributing Editors: 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 1988 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. IFNA may also be contacted at PO Box 41143, St. Louis, MO 63141. Fido and FidoNet are registered trademarks of Tom Jennings of Fido Software, 164 Shipley Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94107 and are used with permission. 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. ARTICLES ................................................. 1 ## Important Announcement Concerning the Nodelist ## ..... 1 Echomail -- Some users speak ............................. 2 Help The Samantha Smith Center! .......................... 8 2. COLUMNS .................................................. 10 Top Downloads ............................................ 10 3. NOTICES .................................................. 12 The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 12 MetroFire Third Annual Birthday BASH! .................... 12 FidoCon '88 -> Call For Papers ........................... 14 Latest Software Versions ................................. 14 FidoNews 5-18 Page 1 2 May 1988 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Nodelist Status David Dodell International Coordinator FidoNet 1:1/0 or 1:114/15 The program that generates the nodelist, MAKENL has reached its limits in the generation of the nodelist. To procure a little time till the program can be updated the following TEMPORARY changes are being made to the nodelist by the Region Coordinators. (1) All Echomail/Software Distribution Coordination nodes have been removed from the nodelist. If more room is needed, the rest of the help/administrative nodes will be removed from the Zone 1 Administrative area. (2) All private nodes will be removed from the nodelist. These nodes are encouraged to hook into the net as point systems to their network hosts. Private nodes can be added to your own nodelist by setting up a private network listing in XLATLIST. (3) If necessary, the Zone Coordinators might have to temporarily remove the other Zones from their nodelist generation. For example Zone 1 would only receive a nodelist with Zone 1 included. Zone 2 and 3 would have to be added manually. If this happens, I will be making the Zone nodelists available on my system for file request, for those that need direct connections, vs via the zonegates. (4) A TEMPORARY hold in the issuance of any new node numbers. I hope this will only be in effect for one week till I can evaluate how much growth room we have. We hope to have the problem solved within the next few weeks with appropriate software. Please bear with us. We will have the situation corrected in the sortest possible time. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-18 Page 2 2 May 1988 RAM-SOFT BBS Echomail Survey Results In an effort to determine how Echomail was used by and deemed a worthy part of our FidoNet BBS by our users and to justify the system downtime to process the mail, we recently ran a survey on our BBS. (All callers had to answer Yes or No to answering the survey before they could utilize the bulletin board). This article is an overview and some editorial comments on the results and some thoughts for those of you who are sysops that carry echomail. If the editor of FidoNews does not consider it to be too much material, a complete copy of the results are elsewhere in this this newsletter. Details on obtaining the results from 135/1 are listed below. As a point of information to help you better understand the results, our board has been carrying echomail since it was first available so neither our system is new to echomail nor our users are new to echomail although some of the areas we carry are new. We carry eight public echomail areas: COMM,CECHO,DBASE, TECH,WINDMILL,ECPROG,PASCAL and WORDPERFECT and one private echomail area. At the time the survey started we had around 600 users, about 45 were new to the board within the last month. We have been operating a FidoNet bulletin board since March of 1986. It should be noted that only about 10% (55) of our users even bothered to answer the survey indicating to me that echomail is not too important to them. It should be mentioned also that we average, according to LogRpt statistics, 250 files a week downloaded and as such we are much more of a file oriented board than a message oriented board. We are however a board with many long distance or PC-Pursuit users and had at least 5 long distance users answer the survey and that should give a broader perspective than had only South Florida users answered. Only two sysops responded. (Neither of the RAM-SOFT sysops answered). The results were somewhat surprising in some areas and others quite predictable. Of the answers, 76% read echomail while 24% percent do not read echomail. 24% of the respondents read an average of 2 message areas, while 22% read 3 areas. Only 3% read all eight conferences we carry. The most surprising results came in the hypothetical question: 'What if we charged access to be able to read echomail?' A surprising number, 55% said that they would be more than happy to pay for the privilige. An even more surprising answer came when we asked the hypothetical question: 'What if we only made echomail available to donating members?' 65% said that they would donate. The number of people who considered echomail to be important on a bulletin board was 95% yet 36% of those could not give a coherent reason why it is important. (Reasons like 'Because FidoNews 5-18 Page 3 2 May 1988 good bbs important' count as non-coherent as did 'because it's important'). The majority of those giving an answer (20%) said that echomail expands communications while the second largest group (18%) said it was a good source of information. Three people said the reason was because local message sections are dull and one person said that echomail was the reason BBS's existed. Approximately 67% would carry echomail if they ran a bulletin board. It was interesting that 38% of the respondents had never entered or replied to echomail. In the rating of conferences on a 1-5 scale, the majority (ranging from 53% to 82%) of the respondents rated the conferences with a 0. When the 1-5 scale answers are added together they did not come very close to the number of people who rated the conference areas with a 0. TECH-Net was rated the best with 20% giving it a 5 and 16% giving it a 4. ECPROG was second highest with 11% giving it a 5 and 18% a 4. The WordPerfect conference would be dropped by 31% if they had to. Eighteen percent would drop dBase if they had to with one user commenting that he would not support an archaic database system if he were a sysop. What exactly are the users saying? Only they know for sure but some ideas can be gained from this survey. It seems as though users have come to expect that bulletin boards must have at least two or three echomail areas to be considered a 'good' bulletin board but cannot give a good solid reason as to why a board should have echomail. Are they saying that the same sysops or authors who told us the 'it's a new protocol, it must be good' for downloads story have made echomail a necessity without any solid reason? The fact that the majority could not give a good reason for why they thought echomail important makes me as a sysop think that they are just going along with the crowd - they see everyone with echomail, therefore it must be important. I would argue that if the sysops put forth as much effort in establishing their local message areas as they did in arguing over the IFNA, collecting files, debating fastest protocols and other 'trivial' matters, there would be little real demand BY THE USERS for national echomail as it currently exists. The results could also indicate that we at RAM-SOFT have a very poor selection of conferences. Granted, Windmill, WordPerfect and dBase are not the most popular of conferences but we have our reasons for carrying them. Specifically, we use Dutchie, a very good mailer program and support multiple Dutchie points and like the support that Windmill offers us and them. Overall though, I feel we carry a good, but small selection of conferences that are relative to the computer programmer and serious computer hobbyists and that our board has. Given that most users only read two or three conferences indicates to me that the users do not really care for a large number of conferences. Perhaps the users would rather call two or three boards to get 5 or 6 conferences instead of calling one system that carries a large amount of conferences. FidoNews 5-18 Page 4 2 May 1988 The fact that so many people would not rate the conferences with anything higher than a 0 indicates that the level of quality on these conferences is in serious, if not fatal shape. One could argue that the users are saying that echomail should be routed through a small group of boards that monitor messages to see that they remain on the related topics but that would be countered with the paranoid who would say 'Don't censor echomail -- it's a violation of my 1st amendment rights.' (It wouldn't be). As long as the idea that good boards must carry echomail conferences and boards must make it available to all, there will always be a fairly large amount of garbage. Perhaps the users are telling us sysops to keep echomail alive but get some conferences that stick to the subject and actually are worth reading and participating in. I hate to see what the comments would be if we carried 15 or 20 sections. How can we as sysops have conferences that stick more to the topic and are relative to the users? The users may have answered that by saying that they are willing to pay (either flat-out or by donating) for the privilege of reading and entering echomail. Those that argue that echomail has no security because anyone can logon to a system and enter messages should be pleased at this idea. Of course those users (and sysops) who are leeches would argue foul but probably couldn't justify why they shouldn't have to support echomail in some way. If only donating users have the ability to enter or read messages, then the sysop will know who has abused the privilige and take appropriate actions. The users are telling sysops that they are willing to help foot the phone bill. Unfortunately though, as long as some sysops, especially those with WATS lines or business/government backing (or even 9600's) continue to offer echomail to non-donating/non-privilege users and/or sysops spread the idea that non-echomail systems are poorer systems, there will probably never be echomail that the majority of users consider superior or excellent. In summary, the users seem to be saying that they want echomail, even if they don't know why. They are more comfortable with a smaller number of conferences and don't consider many of the conferences to be of much quality. The willingness to pay either a flat charge or by donating to be able to read messages is the hardest to interpret. Perhaps they are tired of waiting for someone to take the active, visible hand that is necessary to keep echomail conferences on the subject. Perhaps they are saying they don't mind spending money on their hobby. Overall, I'm not convinced that the large numbers of echomail subjects that exist, at least at a national level, is worth the tremendous expense and time involved to process it. A 'globaly' available message area (echomail) is a great idea and worth exploring but I believe only under tight (self-designed) regulatory efforts. Why should users even bother to weed through all the junk that is present in these conferences? Most systems, including ours are too busy for and do not allow enough online time for users to be able to read every message FidoNews 5-18 Page 5 2 May 1988 that comes into the system. You almost have to be either a sysop or a point to reap the full benefit of echomail. That might be the reasons sysops don't like to hear that echomail might not be all that great. Perhaps local echomail if there is a strong active network host or perhaps selective or regional echomail that has a limited number of boards per conferences is something to consider. Comments on this survey and results of your own *surveys* (not opinions) are welcome via net-mail at 1:135/1. I might also add that at this time we have no concrete plans to change the echomail conferences we carry or the way in which we allow users to participate. The complete results of the survey, if not present in this newsletter, are available from the RAM-SOFT Archive Library BBS, 1:135/1 by file requesting ESURVEY.TXT (No file requests 08:30 - 10:30 UTC). It may also be obtained by first time callers in file area 12(INFO). If you can do standard IFNA/FidoNet file requests, we would prefer that you obtain the file that way as we do require users to answer several questions before being allowed on to the system and would prefer not have a bunch of new callers unless you plan to be a part of the RAM-SOFT BBS. James Gilbert Archive Librarian, co-sysop ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-18 Page 6 2 May 1988 Results from the survey on Echomail taken during three weeks in April, 1988 on RAM-SOFT Archive Library BBS, Miami, FL. Questions are exact questions. When text answers were required from those questioned, only a paraphrase of those answers is given here and only answers of a similar nature or interesting comments are included. A total of 55 individuals answered the survey, aproximately 10% of the total number of users on the day the survey began. Neither of the sysops of RAM-SOFT participated in the survey. Question#: 1: Do you read ANY Conference mail areas(Y/N)? Yes: 42 (76%) No: 13 (24%) (if yes) How many individual areas do you read: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 (0) ----------------------------------- Actual # 5 13 12 4 3 3 0 2 (13) (%) 9% 24% 22% 7% 5% 5% 0 4% 24% 2: Is echomail important on a bulletin board(Y/N): Yes: 52 (95%) No: 3 (5%) (if yes)Explain why it is important: No real solid reason (20) (36%) Good sourc of info (10) (18%) Expands Communications (11) (20%) Local messages are dull (3) (5%) Good way to send messages to friends (1) (2%) Cheap way to communicate (4) (7%) Creates a subculture (1) That's what BBS are for (1) 3: If you ran a bulletin board and had to pay the phone bill, would your bulletin board carry any conferences(Y/N) Yes: 37 (67%) No: 18 (33%) 4: Have you ever entered a message or replied to a message in an echomail conference(Y/N): Yes: 34 (62%) No: 21 (38%) 5: IF we charged access to echomail areas (one fee for all areas), would you pay for this privilige(Y/N)? Yes: 30 (55%) No: 25 (45%) 6: As opposed to charging for access, IF we made echomail areas only available to donating users, would you donate(Y/N) Yes: 36 (65%) No: 19 (35%) FidoNews 5-18 Page 7 2 May 1988 7-14: On a scale of 0 to 5 with 1 indicating a poor conference and 5 indicating an excellent conference, please rate your opinion of the following echomail areas. 15: If you had to drop 2 conference, tell us which of the conferences you would drop: (Actual number) 0 1 2 3 4 5 Drop: --------------------------------- COMM: 38 1 2 6 3 5 : 6 CECHO: 37 0 5 5 4 4 : 6 DBASE: 42 1 5 2 0 5 : 10 TECH: 29 0 0 6 9 11 : 2 DUTCH: 45 3 4 1 1 1 : 9 ECPROG: 36 1 2 3 10 6 : 4 PASCAL: 38 2 1 5 4 6 : 7 PERFECT: 42 2 1 5 0 5 : 17 (Percentages) 0 1 2 3 4 5 Drop: --------------------------------- COMM: 69% 2% 4% 11% 5% 9% : 11% CECHO: 67% 0% 9% 9% 7% 7% : 11% DBASE: 76% 2% 9% 4% 0% 9% : 18% TECH: 53% 0% 0% 11% 16% 20% : 4% DUTCH: 82% 5% 7% 2% 2% 2% : 16% ECPROG: 65% 2% 4% 5% 18% 11% : 7% PASCAL: 69% 4% 2% 9% 7% 11% : 13% PERFECT: 76% 4% 2% 9% 0% 9% : 31% 16: Enter any additional comments you may have: I haven't used it enough (2) Public BBS should not charge for echomail (1) Wouldn't make much difference if they were gone (1) You only need one conference to hold all languages (1) Would rather get files from bbs's than read msgs (1) If a BBS charged/donations then users would go elsewhere(1) Never thought it was worth the effort for sysops. (1) Sick of Opus boards (1). I prefer Tandy conferences (1) I wouldn't support a clumsy database program like DBase (1) James Gilbert, survey coordinator, co-sysop, RAM-SOFT BBS. (305) 226-3310. 300/1200/2400/? FidoNet 1:135/1 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-18 Page 8 2 May 1988 Bill Paul The Think Tank OPUS 1:123/7 Life After Samantha That's the title of an article I just read in the May issue of YANKEE Magazine. The article tells the story of Jane Smith, mother of Samantha. I'm sure you all remember Samantha - she's the 11-year old Maine girl who wrote a letter to Yuri Andropov expressing concern about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. She subsequently visited Russia, in July of 1983. Unfortunately, she and her father were killed in a plane crash in 1985. After her death, she became somewhat of a folk hero in Russia. The Soviet Union named an asteroid, a flower, a mountain, and a cruise ship after Samantha. Her portrait greets visitors at the gate to Samantha Smith Alley. Apparently, things are not going so well in the United States. Jane Smith began The Samantha Smith Center "to foster international understanding in the spirit of Samantha". The Center's projects include an international newsletter for children, bringing American situation comedies to the Soviet Union, and hosting Soviet children in American summer camps. However, for various reasons, the foundation is in need of funds. For one thing, the initial founders, who raised $100,000 to get the Center started, wanted Mrs. Smith to move the Center to New York. When they refused, and remained in Hallowell Maine, they lost some of that support. In addition, Mrs. Smith's television appearances have generated more questions and requests for information than financial support. According to Mrs. Smith, at least half the calls they receive are from people wanting the Center to help THEM start a similar exchange. While Mrs. Smith agrees that this is wonderful, it also means that there are that many more centers competing for the same funding. There are other reasons why the center is in financial distress, too many to list here. A magazine for young people failed; a movie which Columbia pictures planned to co-produce with the Soviets appears to have been abandoned; an exchange which gave ten Soviet teenagers almost a week in a Maine summer camp (the first time the Soviets had sent their kids to an American camp) depleted the center's funds. The list goes on... But I suppose by now you've discovered what this is all leading up to. Send money! Can we allow the Samantha Smith Center to fail and still sleep at night? I can't, not if my few dollars, combined with a few dollars from others, can keep it going. How many FidoNet systems do we have right now, 3,000+? And how many users are on those 3,000 systems? If we each sent one dollar, I suspect it would make a difference. It would also bring us all together in a small way, and help us feel better the next time we see a "computer phreaker" article in our local newspaper (why don't they ever print the good stuff?). Even if the center fails, at least we'll know we tried. Please, send a FidoNews 5-18 Page 9 2 May 1988 dollar or two to this worthy cause! I have no idea if it is tax deductible, nor do I care; my check will be in tomorrow's mail. If you'd like to know whether your contribution is tax deductible (or if you want more information, or if you think this is some sort of prank), I'll provide the center's phone number at the end of this article. Let's send a buck or two and do something good for the world! SysOps, if you have a minute, please post this article on your bulletin board, or at least refer your callers to this issue of FidoNews. We all know that (alas) it is mostly SysOps who read FidoNews, let's spread the word even further! I have no idea if I have violated any copyright laws in this article. Brief passages from YANKEE Magazine have been quoted verbatim, as have quotes by Mrs. Smith. Perhaps foolishly, I did not want to take the time to wait for permission from YANKEE before writing this article. In any event, if an apology to YANKEE Magazine and/or Mrs. Jane Smith will keep me out of jail, please consider it done! Now, let's get out our checkbooks or wallets and send a dollar or two. I'm not a writer (did you guess?), so maybe I haven't stated a very strong case, but let's keep a young girl's dream alive, shall we? For a much better article by Mel Allen, pick up a copy of YANKEE Magazine, May 1988. Maybe THAT one will help loosen those purse strings! The Samantha Smith Center 9 Union Street Hallowell, Maine (USA) 04347 (207) 626-3415 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-18 Page 10 2 May 1988 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= Top Downloads A weekly report of the most popular downloads from contributing systems. This column will list the more popular downloaded files for the previous week. I would like this to be a cooperative effort among several boards that are heavy in file downloads and not just a listing of this Software Distribution Board's activity. (See details at the end of this report). This column will list the top 15 most downloads as reported by contributing systems. It will also list selected files of general intereste as well as the the most popular download methods for files. (Intro out of the way, here goes.) Top downloads from for 4/3/88 - 4/10/88 Contributing systems: 135/1 File transactions Average per day ---------------------------------------- Downloads: 309 44.14 File Download Report -- Top 15 Rank Area\File Name # DL's ------------------------------------------------------------- 1. COMM\pcplustd.arc 9 ProComm+ Test Drive (V1.0) 2. GAME\moria.arc 5 Adventure game a la Hack 3. UNPT\123star.unp 5 Unprotect 4. GAME\sorry.arc 4 EGA version of Sorry 5. MISC\gc.arc 3 World Time map display 6. UTIL\dog101a.arc 3 Disk Optimizer 7. GAME\scrabble.arc 3 Scrabble Game 8. UNPT\ati.unp 3 unprotect 9. UNPT\lotus1a.unp 3 unprotect 10. INFO\egademo.arc 2 Demo of EGA graphics 11. LANG\conv.bas 2 12. MISC\bathelp.arc 2 Help for DOS batch files 13. MISC\daylog.arc 2 Keeps a personal log 14. MISC\prompt.arc 2 Various DOS prompts 15. MISC\shofkeys.arc 2 Displays Function keys File Download Report -- Selected area files Area\Name #DL's ----------------------------------------------------------- BBSP\chg2node.arc 1 Change file name to node # LANG\arc50sc.arc 1 C Source to Arc 5.0 EDIT\e88-42.arc 2 Text editor FidoNews 5-18 Page 11 2 May 1988 SHEL\amenu40.arc 2 AutoMenu, DOS menu/shell APPL\aseasy30.arc 1 Spreadsheet similar to 123 EDUC\matrix.arc 1 To teach Matrix math ARCS\arc521.com 1 The ARChiver from SEA. Transfer methods total ----------------------------- SEAlink download/upload 89 Telink download/upload 39 Xmodem download/upload 147 Ymodem download/upload 35 Zmodem download/upload 12 External download/upload 0 (External is defined as any add-in protocol available to Opus ie. Kermit as well as Modem7 on our system). (end of report) I would encourage any other systems that run LogRpt on a weekly basis *OR* can send me data in a similar format (minus the area names) and would like their stats included in this list, please drop a net-mail note along with your system's download data to 1:135/1. If using LogRpt, don't use paths in the output all I want is filenames and total downloads. If any thing is of particular interest or you have changed a filename, mention that. I MUST have the report by Monday's net-mail time in order to get the stats edited. This should give you Saturday and Sunday to get the previous 7/8 days together. If the report is longer than 10 days, I don't think it will be possible to include it. (We can accept net-mail anytime of the day and are PC-Pursuitable). James Gilbert 135/1 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-18 Page 12 2 May 1988 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 16 May 1988 Digital Equipment Corporations Users Society Spring Symposium. Will be held May 16-May 20 in Cincinnati, OH. 29 May 1988 MetroFire Third Annual Birthday Bash and Floppy Disk Throwing Contest. ALL FidoNet Sysops and their families are invited. Contact Christopher Baker at 135/14 for more details. Details available by SEAdog file request as FPICMAP.ARC or BASH. 18 Jun 1988 Area Code 407 takes effect in East/Central Florida. All Sysops should adjust their Nodelist entries immediately. 25 Jun 1988 EuroCon II starts in Tiel, Holland. Sponsored by the Dutch Hobby Computer Club. Will run for 2 days. Contact Hans Lichthelm at 2:2/999 for information. 16 Jul 1988 A new areacode, 508, will form in eastern Massachusetts and will be effective on this date. The new area code will be formed from the current areacode 617. Greater Boston will remain areacode 617 while the rest of eastern Massachusetts will form the new areacode 508. 25 Aug 1988 Start of the Fifth International FidoNet Conference, to be held at the Drawbridge Inn in Cincinnati, 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ATTENTION ALL FidoNet Sysops: This is the Official MetroFire Third Birthday BlowOut Bulletin!! This event will take place deep in the heart of Florida's FidoNews 5-18 Page 13 2 May 1988 wonderland, The Everglades. NO ONE will be admitted WITHOUT an 8-10 pound bag of ICE! (This should not pose a hardship for anyone since a bag of ice is only 69 cents at Publix. Hardship cases should apply to the Sysop for relief via Netmail [grin].) *********** This is the story, so far... WHEN: Sunday, 29 May 88 TIME: 1400 - 2000 WHERE: LimeLite Farms on the Edge of the Everglades WHY: To Celebrate the Survival and Growth of MetroFire, 135/14, and needing an excuse to have a party. WHAT: A B.Y.O.E. (Bring Your Own Everything) Picnic with Games and Shop Talk and Lie Swapping. Musical Instruments and Non- destructive Outdoor Games are Solicited. NEED: Folding Tables, Chairs and Ventilation Equipment and a Portable PC w/2 drives. HAVE: Charcoal and the First Five Pounds of Genuine (accept no substitutes) Sabrett Hot Dogs will be provided. COST: Your Time, Effort and Gas to Krome Ave. ENTRANCE FEE: One 8 to 10 pound bag or block of ICE! PER Person (bring more if you like). REWARDS: Sharpen your Survival Skills and Become One with Your Natural Surroundings. Plenty of Precious Calories and Many Anecdotes to Pass on to Posterity. BRING: Deep Woods OFF! (if the Rain picks up, so will the Mosquitoes.) Don't wear Perfume if the Mosquito report is Hostile (THEY love it!). Something to Sit on. DON'T BRING: Firearms, Fireworks, Animals or Drugs. SMOKERS: Smoking outside, only. WHO: ALL MetroFire Users, Families and Guests and ALL FidoNet Sysops and Families, and Local non-FidoNet Sysops and Families. FidoNews 5-18 Page 14 2 May 1988 Everyone is invited to bring a gustatory specialty for sharing. Make it something simple, Coquilles St. Jacques, Baked Alaska, Salmon Mousse, etc. We will keep track of the comestibles volunteered on 135/14. I will begin the tote with BBS Bakered Beans. For more details, file request FPICMAP.ARC or BASH from 135/14. Out-of-town Sysops, RSVP to 135/14 or call Christopher Baker at (305) 596-8576, Tue-Sat, 1430-2230. We will attempt to line up some accomodations with our users to save you the cost of a hotel. Transportation to the site will be arranged upon request. See you there! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tim Sullivan 108/62 FidoCon'88 Chairman ---->---->----> CALL FOR PAPERS <----<----<---- We are still searching for speakers and topics for this year's conference. If you would like to speak, or have an idea for a topic, please contact Mark Walker at 108/50. FidoCon can only be a success with your involvement. We're doing a great job preparing for the conference here in Cincinnati, but we still need your input! (btw: How many of you use FidoNet technology in your workplace? We're interested in finding out. If you currently use: Seadog, Fido, Opus, Binkley, Dutchie, dBridge, or anything else I've forgotten in you job/profession, drop Mark a note at 108/50. Thanks!) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Latest Software Versions BBS Systems Node List Other & Mailers Version Utilities Version Utilities Version Dutchie 2.81* EditNL 3.3 ARC 5.21 Fido 12g* MakeNL 2.03 ARCmail 1.1 Opus 1.03b Prune 1.40 ConfMail 3.31 SEAdog 4.10 XlatList 2.86* EchoMail 1.31 TBBS 2.0M MGM 1.1 BinkleyTerm 1.40* QuickBBS 2.00* FidoNews 5-18 Page 15 2 May 1988 * 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 all utilities here, only those which verge on necessity. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-18 Page 16 2 May 1988 OFFICERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL FIDONET ASSOCIATION Ken Kaplan 100/22 Chairman of the Board Don Daniels 107/210 President Mark Grennan 147/1 Vice President Dave Dodell 114/15 Vice President - Technical Coordinator Tom Marshall 107/524 Secretary Leonard Mednick 12/1 Treasurer IFNA BOARD OF DIRECTORS DIVISION AT-LARGE 10 Steve Jordan 102/2871 Don Daniels 107/210 11 Bill Allbritten 11/301 Hal DuPrie 101/106 12 Leonard Mednick 12/1 Mark Grennan 147/1 13 Rick Siegel 107/27 Brad Hicks 100/523 14 Ken Kaplan 100/22 Ted Polczyinski 154/5 15 Jim Cannell 128/13 Kurt Reisler 109/74 16 Vince Perriello 141/491 Robert Rudolph 261/628 17 Rob Barker 138/34 Greg Small 148/122 18 Chris Baker 135/14 Bob Swift 140/24 19 Vernon Six 19/0 Larry Wall 15/18 2 Henk Wevers 2:500/1 Gee Wong 107/312 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-18 Page 17 2 May 1988 __ 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 5-18 Page 18 2 May 1988 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___________________________ -----------------------------------------------------------------