Volume 6, Number 18 1 May 1989 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Vince Perriello Editors Emeritii: Dale Lovell 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. 1:1/1 is a Continuous Mail system, available for network mail 24 hours a day. Copyright 1989 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. We don't necessarily agree with the contents of every article published here. Most of these materials are unsolicited. No article will be rejected which is properly attributed and legally acceptable. We will publish every responsible submission received. Table of Contents 1. ARTICLES ................................................. 1 386 Memory Manager - a Quick Look ........................ 1 Counter-Propaganda for Mr. Witherspoon ................... 4 Universal Mayhem Update .................................. 6 2. COLUMNS .................................................. 15 The Veterinarian's Corner: Fleas! ........................ 15 Notes From Bureaucracy South (Part 2) .................... 17 A Public Service Announcement ............................ 19 3. LATEST VERSIONS .......................................... 20 Latest Software Versions ................................. 20 And more! FidoNews 6-18 Page 1 1 May 1989 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Bill Bolton 3:711/403 386MAX Memory Manager A BBS Application Oriented Product Peek I was after a way to get more Transient Program Area on the 386 server on the Software Tools BBS LAN that supports 3:711/403 and 3:3/113. There are maintenance tasks that run on the server and some of them are quite memory hungry. I have been using a plethora of small utilities to shadow ROMs and squeeze the maximum grunt out of the 386 but felt that there had to be more that could be done. I'd seen the ads from Qualitas for a utility called "386MAX" that promised to do some wonderful things with 386 memory management, so I decided to buy a copy and have a look at it. 386MAX allows you to fill the empty memory spaces between the ROMs above 640K with memory that can be used for a variety of purposes. It automatically moves any BIOS or EGA ROMS into fast RAM in this area and then makes the rest available for whatever use you can put it too. This area between 640K (A0000 hex) and 1M (10000 hex) is termed "high memory" by 386MAX. I found I was able to load the Lantastic REDIR program into the high memory, along with OPUSCOMM, SHARE and FASTOPEN... increasing my TPA in low memory from 450K to 486K. It looks as though other TSRs could also be loaded up there. The 386MAX documentation has some advice about what you should and shouldn't attempt to load in high memory. 386MAX uses F0000 to 100000 for showing the BIOS ROMs etc and with my EGA, Perstor and Lantastic card installed at their default locations, the high memory area was split into three chunks of 16K, 48K and 64K. It turned out that this was less than optimum for loading some of the things I wanted to get into high memory. A quick look at the Lantastic documentation showed that I could readdress the Lantastic card memory space, so I moved it from the default of D8000 to E8000 (so it sits right under the shadowed ROM area) and this gave me a 112K contiguous area of high memory that allowed me to load all the things I wanted. The batch files that load to the network had to be modified to indicate to the LANBIOS where the LAN card was addressed but that was a few moments work with an editor. 386MAX also had to be told that the Lantastic card was using the space from E8000 to F0000 by using a "RAM=E800-F000" statement on its command line. I found that some programs seem to need quite a bit of free space in high memory to load, even though they don't actually use a lot of space once loaded. FASTOPEN, for instance, only occupies about 9K when loaded with a generous amount of buffer space, but would FidoNews 6-18 Page 2 1 May 1989 not load at all into high memory when the largest contiguous chunk was only 64K. When I increased that to 112K I had no problem loading FASTOPEN. 386MAX can give a number of useful displays of memory utilisation. Unfortunately most of them cannot be reproduced in Fidonews. I have modified several to get a reasonable approximation of the information displayed on the screen, though in each case information had to be deleted in order to meet Fidonews presentation requirements. Figure 1 is part of the overall system memory assignment display, the nice graphic part on the top had to be chopped.... Extended memory usage... ROM mapping region = 80 KB, C000-C400, F000-10000 Program storage = 88 KB EMS memory = 0 KB Remaining ext memory = 872 KB High DOS memory = 128 KB, C400-C800, CC00-E800 Low DOS memory = 0 KB Total extended memory = 1168 KB, shadow RAM recovered = 144KB Total expanded memory = 0 KB, in use = 0 KB, available = 0 KB ==> Loading programs in LOW memory... ==> 88 KB available in HIGH memory, largest block is 75 KB. The current state is ON. FIGURE 1. The Figure 2 shows how the memory area from 0K to 1M is utilised... 386MAX -- Version 4.04 -- A Memory Manager for 386 Systems (C) Copyright 1987-8 Qualitas, Inc. All rights reserved. +---------------------------------------------+ | MEMORY MAP for RESIDENT PROGRAMS | +--------------+------+------+------+---------+ | | Hex | Hex | Hex | Decimal | | Name | Start| End | Owner| Length | +--------------+------+------+------+---------+ | DOS & drvrs | 09B2 | 149B | | 44,672 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | COMMAND.COM | 149B | 156F | 149C | 3,376 | | | 156F | 1573 | -Avl-| 48 | | COMMAND.COM | 1573 | 16EB | 149C | 6,000 | | FASTOPEN.EXE | 16EB | 16F8 | CC01 | 192 | | | 16F8 | 1717 | -Cur-| 480 | | | 1717 | 1718 | -Avl-| 0 | | 386MAX.COM | 1718 | 1777 | 1719 | 1,504 | | SERVER.EXE | 1777 | 2614 | 1778 | 59,840 | | | 2614 | 2633 | -Avl-| 480 | | | 2633 | 2664 | 2634 | 768 | | | 2664 | A000 | -Cur-| 498,096 | +-High DOS Mem-+------+------+------+---------+ | Dev=QMMXXXX0 | C400 | C4D2 | C401 | 3,344 | FidoNews 6-18 Page 3 1 May 1989 | Dev=386MAX$$ | | | | | | | C4D2 | C7FF | -Avl-| 12,992 | +- RAM or ROM -+ C7FF | CC00 | 0AA6 | 16,384 | | FASTOPEN.EXE | CC00 | CE39 | CC01 | 9,088 | | SHARE.EXE | CE39 | CF72 | CE3A | 4,992 | | REDIR.EXE | CF72 | D233 | CF73 | 11,264 | | OPUSCOMM.COM | D233 | D544 | D234 | 12,544 | | | D544 | E800 | -Avl-| 76,720 | +--------------+------+------+------+---------+ FIGURE 2. Figure 3 shows another handy function which indicates the relative speeds of the various memory components in your system..... 386MAX -- Version 4.04 -- A Memory Manager for 386 Systems (C) Copyright 1987-8 Qualitas, Inc. All rights reserved. +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Timing memory accesses, please wait a moment... | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | MEMORY ACCESS TIMES | +----------+-------------+--------+---------+-----------------+ | Starting | Range | | Average | Ratio to Fastest| | Address | Start End | Length | Time s | (1.0 = fastest) | +----------+------+------+--------+---------+-----------------+ | 00000000 | 0 | 640 | 640 | 494 | 1.0 * | | 000A0000 | 640 | 736 | 96 | 5039 | 10.2 **********>| | 000B8000 | 736 | 768 | 32 | 8413 | 17.0 **********>| | 000C0000 | 768 | 800 | 32 | 494 | 1.0 * | | 000C8000 | 800 | 816 | 16 | 5039 | 10.2 **********>| | 000CC000 | 816 | 928 | 112 | 494 | 1.0 * | | 000E8000 | 928 | 960 | 32 | 5039 | 10.2 **********>| | 000F0000 | 960 | 1896 | 936 | 494 | 1.0 * | | 001DA000 | 1896 | 2104 | 208 | | Absent | | 0020E000 | 2104 | 2192 | 88 | 494 | 1.0 * | +----------+------+------+--------+---------+-----------------+ FIGURE 3. 386MAX can do a lot of other tricks with extended memory in a 386 PC, including making it look like EMS memory. I don't have a need for most of it's other facilities for my BBS LAN applications so I haven't investigated them thoroughly, though they all seem to work well in a brief test. The "high memory" capability alone has made 386MAX a very useful tool for me and it is certainly worth a look for anyone using a 386 PC. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-18 Page 4 1 May 1989 Daniel Tobias 1:380/2 I'm not sure if political propaganda is a particularly appropriate topic for FidoNews (TJ himself got flamed quite a bit for his foray in that area last year), but since Claude F. Witherspoon started it... In FidoNews 609, Mr. Witherspoon, of node 1:288/525, reprinted an allegorical tale lifted (I'm not sure with or without copyright permission) from Reader's Digest, paralleling the collapse of Chinese civilization under heavy opium use, to a predicted collapse of American civilization due to the present illegal drug culture. Such "moral" stories always oversimplify facts for the purpose of propaganda. I'm sure the causes of the decline in China were many and varied, and it's possible the widespread drug use was more a symptom of the society's decadence than the direct cause of its fall. But I'm no history student, so I won't claim to know the answers there. But I do object to the attempt by conservatives to claim that the fabric of society will be damaged beyond repair if people are allowed to freely pursue "immoral" lifestyles. Whether the subject be sex, drugs, or rock-and-roll, the forces of social repression are always agitating for restrictions on individual liberty in the name of preserving civilization against decadence. My position, however, is that one of the most important parts of American civilization is its general tradition of personal freedom, social tolerance, and individualism. If these are trampled on in the name of "morality", more will be lost than gained. Drugs can cause much harm to their users. Cocaine, heroin, and nicotine are all addictive and harmful to the health, and people would be best off staying away from them altogether. Alcohol and marijuana might perhaps be safely used in moderation, but can be abused with harmful effects to the user (and to others if the user drives under the influence), so shouldn't be regarded as "harmless." I myself don't make regular use of any of these substances. Yet, the "war on drugs" causes even more harm than the drugs themselves. It doesn't stop users from getting their drugs, but it does create a great crime problem surrounding the distribution of drugs and their artificially-high cost which leads users to steal to pay for their next fix. (When is the last time you saw somebody commit burglary to support his cigarette smoking habit?) Various hysterical measures now being practiced or proposed in the name of the "war on drugs" are harmful to the Constitutional principles of this country. For FidoNews 6-18 Page 5 1 May 1989 instance, cars, boats, and planes are being seized without due process of law if minute quantities of pot are found. Drug agents ruthlessly ransack houses of anyone suspected of involvement in drugs, and often innocent people get victimized in error. Increasing invasions of personal privacy are becoming commonplace. The correct solution is not repression, but education. Teach people of the true effects of various substances, and most will choose to stay away from the harmful ones. Those who still use drugs will be making an informed choice to trade off the possibility of health damage for what they regard as a pleasurable activity, which should be their right in a free society. They should fully bear the costs and risks of their choice, as does somebody who chooses to eat unhealthy foods or engage in risky activities like skiing or skydiving. You are the self-owner of your own body, and it is your right and responsibility to decide what substances get placed in it. The war on drugs is a war against liberty. We should return to the system that prevailed in the nineteenth century, when all drugs were legal; incidentally, that was a time of unprecedented economic growth in this country, disproving the implication of Witherspoon's story that allowing drug use will inevitably cause the decay of a civilization. Support free enterprise: re-legalize drugs! Questions, comments, and constructive criticism can be sent to me at 1:380/2. Ad-hominem attacks ("...I hope some druggie runs over you and your mother and all you commies go to hell for your idiotic beliefs...") can be sent to /dev/nul on UNIX machines, or NUL: on MS-DOS machines. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-18 Page 6 1 May 1989 Fredric L. Rice (103/503.3 Astro-Net) (714) 662-2294 - The abandoned Part 1: Hundreds of light years from the nearest planet or star a small, cylindrical craft slices its' way through the void, searching for landfall. Its' only companion for these last seven years has been the hyperspace radio link; a talkative companion who has offered a certain measure of comfort on such a long journey as this; orders which tell it where to turn and which speeds and cross trajectories to perform in its endless search. Reporting failures to locate habitable planets has caused the remote robot sensor to wonder if it has been forgotten by those God-like creatures who created it. A quick nanosecond of panic scurries its' way through the remotes' circuitry at this unworthy numerical thought and it faithfully continues its search. - Battleship SCOR: CAPTAIN MALCON OF the battleship SCOR recording, 881128.20. "I am uneasy at the recent alliance with SANO and BONP. I know that Central High Command feels such an alliance is in the best interest of the Republic but still, I have heard certain rumors, and attack swarm four, commanded by my brother Divad, hasn't reported in last shift. Attempts to gain radio contact have met with failure and I must assume the swarm destroyed. No mayday was received so perhaps they have met with equipment failure. "Meanwhile, SANO and BONP are scheduled to be on patrol along the Optemerder arm of the Galaxy, watching for intrusions into the Republic, allowing SCOR time to refit and rebuild after our encounter with TRIL. "Still I am uneasy. SANO's Captain Marker is a clever one and I would be hard pressed to fight well against him. BONP's Captain I don't know but have heard he is ruthless and isn't adverse to buying biological weapons from pirates and using them against his enemies. "They are too strong and I don't trust them." "Meanwhile, we are still making slow progress to our repair station and expect to make landfall within two months. "Captain Malcon etc... etc..." --- The old and war-scarred battleship SCOR was heavily damaged and leaking air as it made its way to spacedock. Many of the crew had been killed this time out and many were still in critical FidoNews 6-18 Page 7 1 May 1989 condition down in sick bay. The survivors of the fight were in low spirits and there had been talk of mutiny. The instigators had been ferreted out and vacuumed as a televised event on all ships channels to serve as a reminder to any dissenters of the captains authority. The bridge was a wreck. Fluid state components smashed by the many concussions were leaking and dripping from consoles to the floor. Whole control stations had been ripped from the flooring braces when the deck plates had buckled upwards and the bridge had a slight slant which made the bridge crew uncomfortable. The air scrubbers had been damaged early in the fight and a thick blanket of smoke still hung overhead. Many sections of the ship had caught fire when the volatile antimatter intermix chambers coolant containment vessels had ruptured, and the fire control chief was unable to contain the fires. In a desperate measure to stop the fires, three entire decks had been vacuumed, killing the fire, and the majority of the crew. Some had to die. "Here's the casualty list, sir, and a list of religious affiliations. More than eighteen hundred missing." Captain Malcon took the list from the sick bay officer and shook his head, "More than half of the casualties want to be buried in the ships' antimatter compressors. 'Can't do that until we get them back on line, of course. Put them on ice and ask planetary command if we can bury the rest here." "Aye, sir". The sick bay officer turned on her heal and left, her feet crunching on carbonized plastics. It's hard to memorize all the names, Malcon thought. So many of them die so hard and so fast, I can't keep up with them. Captain Malcon stepped over his dead steward and nearly fell when his foot slipped out from under him. Grabbing onto the bent arm of his command chair, he looked down to see the blood that was still spreading, noting the contrast of the red against the black, and wondering at the perfect red foot print he had made. The intercom controls on the chair had been smashed. "Ensign, get someone up here to clear away the bodies. I want this bridge to be cleared as soon as Johnson finishes up with engineering. The ensign, who had been called to the bridge to take over for an injured pilot, strode down hill to the workman access hatch and slid down the ladder to the decks below to carry out his orders. Malcon sat down in his chair and pressed against the arm, trying to push it out to keep it from pressing against his side. The steward had been thrown into it early in the battle and had bent the arm badly. Finally giving up, Malcon looked around his bridge. FidoNews 6-18 Page 8 1 May 1989 The air was running out and with the antimatter engines still out, would not be replaceable. All ships systems which were absolutely required were operating in low-power modes which made the ship uncomfortably cold. If many of the crew members had survived, the accumulative body heat would have made the ship very hot. Captain Malcon wondered if his ship would survive another two months to landfall. --- The Vultures: Not far away, two battle ships lay, watching the bent and broken SCOR limp away. SANO and BONP sat outside of SCORs' remaining sensor range and held a discussion: BONP: "I tell you, we attack now! While they are at their weakest! In a few more hours they may be able to regain some of their armament capability!" SANO: "Steve, wait a minute. Let's see if they are able to make it to landfall first. If they don't, that fool ship TRIL will have done our work for us." BONP: "And if they do make landfall? What then? They will rebuild and find the people who hired TRIL! Are you so sure we won't be found out! Of course we will; I say attack now and finish them!" Captain Marker of the Republic battleship SANO sat back in his command chair and looked at the image of Captain Steve Baltine. Just for a moment, Marker had considered taking him out permanently. Though he thought he could easily defeat the BONP, it was entirely possible that Baltine had made alliances outside of the Republic. Such things had been known to happen and if it had happened once, it could easily happen again. SANO: "We wait. We wait and see if they make it. If they are still alive by the end of the solar month, we will move in but not until then." Marker hit the ship-to-ship on his command chair and noted the look on Baltines' face as the screen darkened. It was clear that Baltine had entertained similar thoughts he himself had been considering. "Lt. Maklin, bring our shields up to half power." "But sir, the SCOR will be able to pick us up if we do so, even with the shape their sensor array is in!" "I know that, Lt., but I don't thrust that Baltine. Better to have a crippled enemy know of our whereabouts than have a friend turn unfriendly." "Yes, sir. Defense screens at half power." FidoNews 6-18 Page 9 1 May 1989 The SANOs' bridge lights flickered briefly as the power was channeled from ships systems to the defense screens. Almost as soon as the screen were up, Lt. Maklin reported, "Sir, BONP has raised his shields to full power and is hailing us on ship-to-ship. He demands an explanation and swears he will destroy us. Shall I answer?" "No, Lt.", Marker switched visual tie-ins on the chairs' console, bringing up a split-screen of the broken ship, with its glittering trail of frozen air crystals, and the view of the BONP, the corona discharge of full shields menacing. "Let him listen to static for awhile." --- "Captain! Two reading!" Malcons' eyes snapped open and sat bolt upright in his chair. Engineering had come two hours ago and replaced it for him, vowing that they would do there best with the rest of the ship. "They're directly in our wake, sir, trying to hide in our gamma trail! One's considerable brighter than the other... Must be defense shielding!" Private Johnson brought the aft view up on the highest magnification possible. Captain Malcon jumped forward out of his chair and strode left to the navigators console. "Something shielded... I can compute the volume of the objects by the envelope against distance, sir. Strange, they didn't come up on us, just suddenly appeared." "They are following us, I can see that much. Anything yet on the identification, Johnson?" "Just a moment, sir," Johnson brought up one ship identification profile after another, using the computer to compare the distant readings against those stored in his computer. "It looks like both bogeys might be Republic battleships but I can't be sure with the way you've reprogrammed our arrays." Malcon let the comment pass. "Confirmed, sir, same class as us, no positive identification on the ships transponders." "Bring up hyperspace channels for ship-to-ship. Let's see what they're up to. Perhaps they can offer assistance though I wonder why they haven't done so so far. With both of them towing, we could make port within a week." Johnson reached under the console and pulled several levers upwards, raising the communications dias from the floor next to his console. Bending over it, he said, "The gigasponder it still missaligned, sir, no communications is possible." On the view screen, both objects hung in space, surrounded by a faint and hazy glow. The tactical computers had arbitrarily named the brighter of the objects as "Primary" and the dimmer as "Secondary". To the left side of the view screen, on a much smaller screen, was displayed the configuration of a Republic Battleship, a configuration Captain Malcon knew all too well. FidoNews 6-18 Page 10 1 May 1989 "How about sending protocol codes over ships running lights?" "I'll have to write that in, sir." Malcon watched with some amusement while Johnson quickly brought up the computers line editor and wrote several filters, a sorter, and compression algorithm, all within minutes. "Sending." Most navigators would have talked the program in as a request these days. Some of the academy graduates, though, were luck enough to be taught under the guidance of professor Cadens, who also taught history and stressed a little of the old ways. "No response, sir." The Captain was about to issue an order to keep trying when Johnson said, "Activity, sir!" Even as Captain Malcons' eyes went to the view screen, the radar return of the navigational fixes strengthened as the Primary ship moved towards them. The second ship on the viewer brightened as its shields were brought up to full power. --- "What's that fool doing!" Captain Marker exclaimed as he watched the BONP move towards the crippled SCOR. "Shields up! Full power, Maklin! Position ourselves between SCOR and BONP, keep our primary shields up at all cost! Brings us about at full speed and stay ready on those phasers!" As Maklin hammered out the commands on his navigation console, Captain Johnson struck the ship-to-ship on his command chair. Within seconds, Captain Baltine of the battleship BONP came on the view screen, "Why Captain... You finally choose to return my calls! What can I do for you?" "I can not allow you to come within identification range of SCOR! You idiot! There communications may be repaired soon and we'll be hunted down like dogs! I'll stop your if I must!" Captain Baltine simply smiled, "Captain, captain, captain... You are in no condition to stop a Salinian show cat from biting, much less stop me! Move aside or I shall split you in two!" With a slap to his command chair arm, the channel was closed. "Sir, we are directly between SCOR and BONP. BONP's speed and course has not altered! Collision in sixteen seconds." Captain Johnson considered. Should he allow the BONP to destroy SCOR and make a run from this sector, disavowing his involvement in case SCOR should somehow get a message off? His time was running out. He knew a collision with BONP would be equally as disastrous to both ships. "Stand here, Maklin, let's see if he's got the guts for it!" Johnson considered counting the seconds but looked around the bridge. Several engineers from the lower decks had stopped their repairs and were watching the swelling ship coming at them at near light speeds. A count down was pointless. As BONP came close, it veered off under them, merging the FidoNews 6-18 Page 11 1 May 1989 defense screens on the less shielded portions of SANO. On BONP, the heavily shielded command sections brushed against the SANO's shields. Aboard both ships death blossomed. --- "What in Aernaths' name are they doing!" Captain Malcon watched the near fatal collision of the two distant ships. "Get a man top side on those gigasponders! I want to know what's happening!" Johnson called down to engineering, "Get me ensign Sanders!" A few moments passed and "Sanders! Know how to align the gigasponders on this ship?" "Of course, sir!" "Get on it, right away!" "Now sir?" The fear was evident in the ensigns voice. He knew that with a battle taking place in this sector, his chances of survival were slim if he took a gamma bath. "That's an order, ensign. Now!" And Johnson switched off. Ensign Sanders ran to the environmental lockers and drew out a full suit, taking time to check its functioning and still get in as fast as possible. ''I must be nuts'', he thought to himself. ''Climb outside with a battle taking place just meters from our hull! I should hide, that's what I should do, hide in the mess stores until planet fall. Then catch a shuttle to some commerce planet!'' Sanders grabbed the optical alignment tools he needed for the job, ''From there I could sign on as a food taster at some palace... Safer than this idiot nonsense!'' Sanders stood in air lock 17 and cycled his air out. The deck turned under him and the outer door opened, allowing him to face the stars. His suit was tugged a little as the remaining air shot into vacuum, At this speed, none could be seen to move. "Awww, fuck it!", he said, and reached overhead and rolled out of the lock until he was standing on the outer hull. Looking over the command bubble extending a hundred meters before him, he swore, "What a mess! What an Aernath mess!" The bubble was bent and had melted along the entire length of the command section. Out over the drive clusters, he could see the thrust guides had been bent clear out of alignment. It was clear to Sanders that this ship would never space again. "If it gets us to dock", he said to himself. Walking around jagged holes in the hull, he made his way forward to the gigisponder network. Though badly bent, it could still be made operational if he could align it. He checked his intrasuit monitors and noticed the radiation count as he walked FidoNews 6-18 Page 12 1 May 1989 forward. As he crested the bubble, the count rose to hazard levels and Sanders cursed again. Looking up, he cursed again. Screaming towards the SCOR, SANO and BONP's death embrace was clearly visible and growing perceptible larger even as he watched. High energy phasers shot out and cut through the two ships, slicing off huge streamers of high energy particles like curls of shaven wood. Immediately after the phaser strike, the attacking ship would follow with damaging torpedoes which dug deep into the enemy ships hull. Both ships were trailing huge chunks of unidentifiable wreckage. SANO turned over the BONP and raked the command sections with a withering score of phasers, pressing in close to affect the maximum damage possible. Quickly following with a barrage of torpedoes, BONP had learned dearly of SANOs' tactics and used its tractors to pivot, bringing its forward shields to meet the torpedoes. As it did so, SANO loosed a torpedo which went unnoticed into the void, directly heading towards SCOR. --- Captain Johnson was slammed down against the deck, almost black- ing out under the force of the other ships collision. Though it lasted only seconds, Johnson saw it all in slow motion; the liquid state components spraying down under the control consoles; crewmem dropping as if there legs had been chopped out from under them; and above all the noise, the quickly silenced screams from several crushed crewmen who had been unlucky enough to be caught in the path of the view screen. As BONP passed underneath, Johnson propped himself up and quickly fell on his face. He sat up and took his right hand in his left and stuffed his crushed arm into his jumpers pocket. "Maklin! Maklin! Drop shields and channel full power to the tractor beam! Lock onto that ship and stop them cold!" Maklin took a few swipes at the blood flowing from his nose and colored his console as he punched up the commands. When the computer had been programmed, Maklin got on an intraship channel, "All hand, stand tight! Ready captain!" "Do it!" As the captain held onto the arms of his chair, Maklin slapped in a button and the lights brightened then dimmed within a flicker of an eye lash. Immediately after that, the SANO was again subjected to high gravities in a forward direction. Before them, BONP snapped to a standstill and swung back, almost without loosing speed. SANO snapped forward and again they met. --- On the outer hull of the SCOR, Sanders was running away from the onrushing torpedo, trying in a vain attempt to get back into the safety of the air lock. He didn't need to turn around to know that he had lost his race as he felt the ship buckle under him a whisper before he knew nothing but blackness. FidoNews 6-18 Page 13 1 May 1989 Within SCOR, emergency bulkheads slammed down all over the ship, causing it to ring unbearably throughout. In the forward armory, the outer hull pealed away and a half a million tons of torpedoes leaped towards space. They didn't go very far, however, before the whole room exploded. SCOR was in its death throws now and very few survived. On what was left of the bridge, Captain Malcon was slowly waking up. Around him he could see no one but him was alive. Lying on his side, he watched the shattered view screen as one of the battling objects broke away from the other and came towards him. ''It's BONP, by Aernath! BONP come to save us!'' On the view screen, BONP came in, some sections of it glowing red. Behind it, SANO pivoted on its side and came up behind the BONP, again locking tractors with it. Puzzlement was Malcons expression as he saw BONP fire the final torpedo that would finish him. Realization slowly dawned as the torpedo swelled in the view screen, quickly blotting out the picture of SANO and BONP locked in death struggle. Malcons arm buckled under him and he fell back onto his side. The fires raging behind him and the blood pooling underneath him went unnoticed as his eyes closed then slowly opened. His lips opened, cracking through the dried blood and a small river of blood poured down his cheek. "It's Mayhem", he whispered, and the darkness took him. - The abandoned Part 2: It had long since stopped wondering where its companion had gone. Out here in the wilderness of space, the remote robot sensor could hardly remember the hyperspace radio link which had vanished so long ago; it only knew that it longed for something it had once had. --- Universal Mayhem Version 1 will be released in a week or so. The problems which have been reported have been fixed and many updates have been made according to what has been suggested by the beta test sites. As usual, I will mail the program directly to your system when the time comes. If you are not on my distribution list and would like to receive Universal Mayhem, let me know. I have mailed a package to Israel containing Beta Version 1. I have also mailed two packages of 16 floppies to a couple of nodes in Australia. All three of these nodes have sent me the postage for the floppies and I must thank them. I don't know, however, if they received them because I failed to attach any kind of customs form to them. If you guys didn't receive them, let me know and I will take them directly to the post office in Los Angeles and get them properly conditioned for intra-country transport. FidoNews 6-18 Page 14 1 May 1989 Fredric L. Rice 674 East Bridwell Glendora, California. 91740 By the way: If you are a ham radio operator and have the capability of getting packet into LADPX, (Los Angeles Duplex), try connecting to N6BGW-9 and leave me some mail! N6APD for now but looking forward to an upgrade soon. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-18 Page 15 1 May 1989 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= The Veterinarian's Corner Excerpts from the ANIMED GroupMail Conference by Don Thomson, 1:102/1005 Fleas! > Thought we had gotten rid of the problem, but are finding a few > [fleas.] Wife says they are coming from the yard. Have used a > flea spray from pet store, and diazanon, repeatedly, without > lasting success. Do not find the fleas in the house, seems like > they should be here? > [Orig Msg from Charles Holland on 02 Jan 89 12:21] That's one all too common problem, Charles. This year especially, the flea season seem to have lasted longer than usual, well into December. If you are having a flea infestation problem, then I would recommend a couple of things: 1) For the back yard alternate between diazanon and malathion at the dilutions stated on the back of the bottle. I generally recommend a repeat application every 3 weeks, usually as early in the morning as possible, while there is little wind and you can keep the animals in away from the spray. As the problem is controlled, and as the weather cools, you may increase the interval between sprayings. Do not let your pets into the yard until well after the spray is dry. Some pets, especially cats are sensitive to the effects of insecticide spays if absorbed through the skin or coat. Making sure the ground is dry before letting them out will prevent this type of problem. 2) If the problem is persistant in the winter months, I would worry that the fleas may have colonized your carpets and those favorite sleeping places of your pets. You will need to also have your indoors sprayed. ' I personally prefer a hand-held pump spray bottle that I can lightly ist 'high risk' areas like carpets, certain chairs, under beds, etc. Indoor premise sprays specially formulated to be safe in indoor areas such as homes, even resteraunts.... "Bombs" can be effective too, but because you have to leave the house for several hours, the spray is everywhere and the fact that your can't be sure the spray penetrated all areas, makes me prefer to use a hand held pump spray. With the hand spray, you can just do one room at a time, close the door to keep you pets out until dry. And dries completely in 20 minutes. Takes about 3 minutes to spritz the room. Just like the yard spray, repeat every 3 weeks until the problem is controlled and then you can increase the interval between FidoNews 6-18 Page 16 1 May 1989 sprayings. 3) For your pet, I use either a powder or a spray meant for pets. I feel that Pyrethrin based sprays are easy, effective, and have a very rapid bio-degradability time period - about 6-8 hours after application on your pet. Toxic reactions are extremely rare. DB Thomson, DVM 1:102/1005 9:871/16 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-18 Page 17 1 May 1989 The following is the second in a series of four columns Fred Grosby (a federal government employee, and a user on "The Falcon's Rock") has written. He deserves all the credit for writing them. I suggested that he upload them to my system, because I enjoyed reading them in our local Mensa newsletter, Capital M. I hope you enjoy reading them, too. The archive of all four is available for file request from 1:109/501 as BSOUTH.ZIP. Notes From Bureaucracy South (Part 2) By Fred Grosby, a user on 1:109/501 It is the beginning of the month. Budget Briefing time. Panic time. Preparing the monthly Budget Briefing is one of the most important things we do here at Bureaucracy South. Actually, I don't know why They call it Budget Briefing, because it doesn't have anything to do with the budget. It is really a program briefing. What happens is that our Deputy Administrator briefs the Administrator on the status of our Program Indicators. Now, you might think that the Administrator, or at least our Deputy Administrator, would decide what the Program Indicators are to be, right? Not quite. They are politicos, which means that they don't really know what we do, so we get to come up with our own Program Indicators. This sounds like a pretty good deal, except that what we come up with never seems to be quite what They want. We never know exactly what is wrong with it, only that They don't like it and we will have to come up with something else. It's sort of like being in the organizational equivalent of a singles bar: the other person says "Tell me about yourself," and you know that whatever you say is going to be grounds for rejection. No matter how hard we try, sooner or later we will get the dreaded word: They want more charts. Ah yes, the charts. Preparing material for the Budget Briefing involves taking raw data and portraying it in chart form. They call this Analysis. No, I am not kidding. Those charts are taken very seriously around here. Screw one up and you will hear about it. You have to follow the rules, of which there are several: Make sure your charts have lots of colors, the more the better. They are impressed by colors. Remember, the goal is to achieve a victory of style over substance. Some types of charts are better than other types. Pie charts are the best; exploded pie charts, with pieces pulled out from the rest of the pie, are extra good. Bar charts are good, because They are used to bar charts. Line graphs are not good. I don't know why, but They don't like line graphs. I suspect that They are confused by all those squiggly lines. Don't even think about those fancy scatter plots or stuff like that. One of my coworkers did a regression one time and they recoiled in fear. Don't call the regions, even if they have data that you need. They might think that we are spying on them. They might object to our Program Indicators. They might actually have a good idea. FidoNews 6-18 Page 18 1 May 1989 Whatever you do, DON'T CALL THE REGIONS!!! Always get your data from the computer. It is a basic tenet of life here at Bureaucracy South that computers are perfect. They never make mistakes. Therefore, if you can say that you got your data from the computer, it will never be questioned. Before we can do the Program Indicator charts, we have to do The Download, were we transmit our very raw data from the minicomputer in the computer room to the microcomputer in my office. Once we have it on the micro, the data is appended, replaced, sorted, and otherwise masticated into output suitable for being turned into charts. This is where the panic comes in. Remember, our computers are perfect. They never make mistakes. The fact that the mini is an obsolete clunker with a mind of it's own does not matter. The fact that our phone connections go through the GSA centrex (!) doesn't matter. The fact that nobody has checked to see whether the old update program will work on our brand-new micro doesn't matter. Our computers are perfect. They never make mistakes. That's why we don't have to worry about doing The Download until a couple of days before the charts are due. Well guess what. Every month The Download bombs out. The reasons are several. Lately, the mini has developed the nasty habit of refusing to download almost exactly half the data. Anyway, THe Download fails and the whole place goes into a blind panic. The clerks who do The Download panic because they fully expect everything to go perfectly and have no idea what to do when something goes wrong. One of my co-workers, an otherwise lovely woman who I call The Ultimate Bureaucrat, gets mad because without that raw data she will miss her deadline for preparing the charts. The supervisors run around with harried looks on their faces. The two people who are supposed to know everything about how The Download works run for cover, because they actually don't know anything. But for real world-class panic you would have to see Fluffy. Fluffy is our Deputy Director, and it is she who has overall responsibility for the Program Indicator charts. Fluffy does not handle adversity well. The least little setback sends her into a fit. When the Program Indicator charts are late, which is usually, she absolutely goes into orbit. Eventually, we always manage to persuade the computers to yield up their data and the charts are prepared and submitted, which leaves just one final task before the monthly Budget Briefing cycle is complete: assessment of blame. By definition, the failure of The Download cannot be blamed on the computers. Remember, the computers are perfect. They never make mistakes. The problem must have been caused by some dumb human. Fingers must be pointed at the person who caused the failure of The Download. Names must be called. Bucks must be passed. Only then can calm return to Bureaucracy South. Until next month. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-18 Page 19 1 May 1989 A Public Service Announcement Proper and Conscientious Use of ARCmail Although my system is ARCmail capable, I receive an amazing amount of mail from systems with whom I have never made contact that arrives in ARCmail form. Sure, my system can handle it. So why am I complaining? 1) ARCmail capability is NOT a requirement to have a node address. 2) Many systems in the network are not currently ARCmail capable. Generally, these are mailers that work on platforms other than the IBM PC and compatibles. When sending NetMail to another system in the network with whom you have NOT previously had contact, DO NOT SEND ARCMAIL. If that mail happens to be sent to a system that is not ARCmail capable, the system will not be able to unpack your mail. ARCmail should only be used on links with whom you have established ARCmail capability. In other words, unless you have verified in advance that a particular system is ARCmail capable, then you should NEVER send ARCmail to that system. In summary, the sending of ARCmail should NEVER be considered the default. Send ARCmail only to systems that you have verified as ARCmail capable. NOTE: This warning should apply equally to other archived mail forms that are making their way into common use: ZOOmail, ZIPmail, PAKmail, LHARCmail, and whatever other type of archived mail might be released tomorrow. A message brought to you by your local FidoNet watchdog. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-18 Page 20 1 May 1989 ================================================================= LATEST VERSIONS ================================================================= Latest Software Versions Bulletin Board Software Name Version Name Version Name Version Fido 12k Opus 1.03b TBBS 2.1 QuickBBS 2.03 TPBoard 5.0 TComm/TCommNet 3.4 Lynx 1.30* Phoenix 1.3 RBBS 17.1D Network Node List Other Mailers Version Utilities Version Utilities Version Dutchie 2.90C* EditNL 4.00 ARC 6.01 SEAdog 4.50 MakeNL 2.12 ARCmail 2.0 BinkleyTerm 2.20* Prune 1.40 ConfMail 4.00 D'Bridge 1.18* XlatList 2.90 TPB Editor 1.21 FrontDoor 2.0 XlaxNode 2.32 TCOMMail 2.2* PRENM 1.40 XlaxDiff 2.32 TMail 8901 ParseList 1.30 UFGATE 1.03 GROUP 2.07* EMM 1.40 MSGED 1.99 XRS 2.0* * 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 6-18 Page 21 1 May 1989 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 8 May 1989 Digital Equipment Corporations User Society (DECUS) will be holding its semi-annual symposium in Atlanta, GA. Runs through May 12. As usual sysop's will get together and chat. 15 May 1989 Denmark changes telephone numbers from 7 to 8 digits. 19 May 1989 Start of EuroCon III at Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Contact Hans Ligthelm of 2:500/3 for details. 5 Jun 1989 David Dodell's 32nd Birthday 24 Aug 1989 Voyager 2 passes Neptune. 24 Aug 1989 FidoCon '89 starts at the Holiday Inn in San Jose, California. Trade show, seminars, etc. Contact 1/89 for info. 5 Oct 1989 20th Anniversary of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" 11 Nov 1989 A new area code forms in northern Illinois at 12:01 am. Chicago proper will remain area code 312; suburban areas formerly served with that code will become area code 708. If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1:1/1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-18 Page 22 1 May 1989 OFFICERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL FIDONET ASSOCIATION Mort Sternheim 1:321/109 Chairman of the Board Bob Rudolph 1:261/628 President Matt Whelan 3:3/1 Vice President Bill Bolton 3:711/403 Vice President-Technical Coordinator Linda Grennan 1:147/1 Secretary Kris Veitch 1:147/30 Treasurer IFNA COMMITTEE AND BOARD CHAIRS Administration and Finance Mark Grennan 1:147/1 Board of Directors Mort Sternheim 1:321/109 Bylaws Don Daniels 1:107/210 Ethics Vic Hill 1:147/4 Executive Committee Bob Rudolph 1:261/628 International Affairs Rob Gonsalves 2:500/1 Membership Services David Drexler 1:147/1 Nominations & Elections David Melnick 1:107/233 Public Affairs David Drexler 1:147/1 Publications Rick Siegel 1:107/27 Security & Individual Rights Jim Cannell 1:143/21 Technical Standards Rick Moore 1:115/333 IFNA BOARD OF DIRECTORS DIVISION AT-LARGE 10 Courtney Harris 1:102/732 Don Daniels 1:107/210 11 Bill Allbritten 1:11/301 Mort Sternheim 1:321/109 12 Bill Bolton 3:711/403 Mark Grennan 1:147/1 13 Irene Henderson 1:107/9 (vacant) 14 Ken Kaplan 1:100/22 Ted Polczyinski 1:154/5 15 Scott Miller 1:128/12 Matt Whelan 3:3/1 16 Ivan Schaffel 1:141/390 Robert Rudolph 1:261/628 17 Neal Curtin 1:343/1 Steve Jordan 1:206/2871 18 Andrew Adler 1:135/47 Kris Veitch 1:147/30 19 David Drexler 1:147/1 (vacant) 2 Henk Wevers 2:500/1 David Melnik 1:107/233 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-18 Page 23 1 May 1989 __ 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 PO Box 41143 St Louis, Missouri 63141 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 second elected Board of Directors was filled in August 1988. The IFNA Echomail Conference has been established on FidoNet to assist the Board. We welcome your input to this Conference. -----------------------------------------------------------------