BTN: Birmingham Telecommunications News COPYRIGHT 1988 April 1988 Volume 1, Issue 1 Table Of Contents ----------------- Article Title Filename Policy Statement and Disclaimer................MUSTREAD.TXT Editorial Column...............................EDITOR.TXT 1st Annual Breezin' Birmingham Awards Survey...SURVEY.TXT PC-DOS 3.3: Whats' New........................DOS33.TXT Starlan Networks...............................STARLAN.TXT Sysops Are Not Gods............................SYSOP.TXT Phone Lines....................................PHONE.TXT Its' A Boy.....................................ITSABOY.TXT Telecommunications And Women...................WOMEN.TXT Gamer's Corner.................................GAMERS.TXT Known BBS Numbers..............................BBSNUMS.TXT ==================================================================== Disclaimer and Statement of Policy for BTN We at BTN try our best to assure the accuracy of articles and information in our publication. We assume no responsibility for damage due to errors, ommisions, etc. The liability,if any for BTN, its editors and writers, for damages relating to any errors or ommisions, etc., shall be limited to the cost of a one year subscription to BTN, even if BTN, its editors or writers have been advised of the likelihood of such damages occurring. With the conclusion of that nasty business, we can get on with our policy for publication and reproduction of BTN articles. We publish monthly with a deadline of the fifteenth of the month prior to publication. If you wish to submit an article, you may do so at any time but bear in mind the deadline if you wish for your work to appear in a particular issue. It is not our purpose to slander or otherwise harm a person or reputation and we accept no responsibility for the content of the articles prepared by our writers. Our writers own their work and it is protected by copyright. We allow reprinting of articles from BTN with only a few restrictions. The author may object to a reprint, in which case he will specify in the content of his article. Othewise, please feel free to reproduce any article from BTN as long as the source, BTN, is specified, and as long as the author's name and the article's original title are retained. If you use one of our articles, please forward a copy of your publication to: Mark Maisel Editor, BTN 221 Chestnut St. BHM, AL 35210-3219 We thank you for taking the time to read our offering and we hope that you like it. We also reserve the right to have a good time while doing all of this and not get too serious about it. ===================================================================== Editorial (sort of) by Mark Maisel Well here we are. This collection of files you have before you is the result of a culmination of forces and events. BTN started off as a small idea I had some time ago. With the proliferation of boards in the Birmingham area, I decided it was time to give it a try. Ed O'Neill and I got together and talked it through and we decided to try our hand at a newsletter to bring the telecommunications community here in Birmingham closer together. I hope that we succeed. We have certainly given it a good try. I posted a message asking for articles on most boards in town. I received an amazing amount of response to that message and managed to create a good newsletter with dedicated (to fun that is) writers who share a vision of sophistication for Birmingham in the area of telecommunications. We have some humor, review, and instructional articles this issue that are of an extremely high quality I know you will enjoy. Please take the time to read them all and remember that it is all home grown. This magazine is supposed to reflect US and for that to happen, WE must make BTN all that it can be for US. We accept articles about any make of machine, any software, any legitimate idea, and tutorials. Please don't be shy about trying your hand at writing for BTN. Remember when you first started computing. What would you have given to have a resource like this at a local level. If you have any questions concerning software, hardware, etc., we are planning to have an advice column. To say any more would be to give away too much. Please post any messages concerning this publication. Let us know what you think of it. If you have questions for the advice column, let us know and we will answer them in BTN so that anyone else with the same problem can get the answer at the same time. If you have any suggestions or articles, please tell us. Thanks for taking the time to read this far and please continue. Hope you like it. ====================================================================== ======================================= THE FIRST ANNUAL BREEZIN' BIRMINGHAM BBS AWARDS SURVEY ======================================= Written by -----> TYROS <----- --- Origin --- This project started out as a kind of retrospective ceremonious type of thing, kind of like the Grammys. I wanted to find out exactly what the best and worst BBS's in Birmingham were during the year of 1987. Unfortunately as it turned out, because the BBS world moves so fast, most people didn't remember a whole lot of the BBS situation during 1987. It is hard, for instance, to try and remember all the BBSs that were (and weren't) up in January of last year. (Can you?) So, this survey sort of unofficially evolved into..um..well, just a survey, of how people felt at the present time. (Besides, people were naming boards which had only gone up in 1988.) So, with the help of ED O'NEILL, Sysop of CHANNEL 8250 (phone number at end of this file), I got a cript questionnaire set up on his board. People immediately began pouring their precious input in. For six weeks, I watched and scribbled. Many people gave answers I had never heard of, but I wrote them all down dutifully, and have compiled the results for you. So, without further ado or adon't, let's have them! --- A Note or Three --- What follows is a listing of all the categories asked on the questionaire, one by one. After each category, you'll see the winner in CAPITALS, followed by the two runners-up. Then, maybe, a little insight into the vote by yours truly. Some folks gave uninteligible answers, like "????", or "jkljkl" or even the imaginative "gah". I have, naturally, discounted those votes, but counted the rest of the questionaire in question (so to speak) valid. If I disqualified a questionaire every time someone didn't answer a question properly, we'd have about 5 votes. --- The Results! --- BEST BBS: 1. CHANNEL 8250 2. America Online 2. Apple Valley (tie) This race was hotly contested between the three front-runners, but that was it. All the other systems seemed to have received a negligible amount of votes. WORST BBS: 1. SPERRY 2. Remote-PC 3. The Connection Boy was this one tight! EVERYONE had their singular gripe. Misty Mountain also received a few votes, no doubt due to a few personal grudges. BEST SYSOP: 1. ROCKY RAWLINS (America Online) 2. Ed O'Neill (Channel 8250) 3. David Alge (Apple Valley) Our own Ed was leading in this category until about halfway through, when Rocky surged ahead. Rocky also is the sysop of the Birmingham BBS. Also receiving a fair amount of votes was the Doctor, of FEAR AND LOATHING. MOST ADEPT SYSOP: 1. ED O'NEILL 2. Rocky Rawlins 3. David Alge 3. Omega Ohm (tie) (Misty Mountain) Oh what the heck - we added this one in for the fun of it. Many people avoided this one, either because they felt they weren't qualified to judge (as one user admitted) or because they didn't know what "adept" meant (as another one admitted). MOST INEPT SYSOP: 1. BILL FREEMAN (The Connection) 2. Joe Hardwick (Joe's BBS) 2. Quinton McCombs (too many to name) 2. Omega Ohm 2. Chuck Pritchett 2. Frank Richmond (tie!) Here's another one where the masses just couldn't decide. Bill won almost unanimously, but then the #2 spot was hotly contested by five sysops, the last two whose BBS names escaped me. Sorry guys! HARDEST BBS TO GET THROUGH TO: 1. MAGNOLIA 2. Sperry 3. Misty Mountain 3. Channel 8250 (tie) Ever say to yourself "That BBS is ALWAYS busy!!" Apparently, many of our voters have, because their votes swarmed around the above systems. Also receiving a goodly percentage were the Connection and Apple Valley. EASIEST BBS TO GET THROUGH TO: 1. AMERICA ONLINE 2. Music Alley 3. Willie's RBBS A true sign of an idle system! Not quite, really, because our big winner here has a total of three access nodes, and so it's pretty easy to get on nearly any time of day. Not so for our placer and show-er : one node apiece, but still the unbusiest. Tsk tsk. Birmingham BBS, which, by the way, has two nodes, also received many votes. HARDEST BBS TO GET MEMBERSHIP ON 1. THE CONNECTION 2. Misty Mountain 3. Commodore Club-South 3. America Online (tie) Our voters must have experienced some major consternation with the Connec- tion's member-verification process, because it won by a large margin. Misty Mountain's controversial restriction-of -undesirables policy won a lot of votes, but it's unclear why our 3rd place winners did. Could it be because they both charge a membership fee? Hmmm... BBS WHOSE NAME HAS CHANGED THE MOST 1. QUINTON MCCOMBS' BBS 2. Elite Fleet 3. Penny Arcade Our almost-unanimous front-runner here has gone through close to ten documented name changes, if my sources are reliable, among them Rocker's Alliance, Marble Arc, the Dungeon, Hades & The Nine Hells and the Magic Circle, just to name a few. Quinton is reportedly pondering a new one - keep up the good work, Q! Curiously, the runner-ups have only gone through one documented name change apiece - but, the voters have spoken. BBS WHOSE SOFTWARE HAS CHANGED THE MOST 1. SOUTHERN SHORE LINE 2. Total Chaos 3. Remote-PC I've never logged on to two of the above three systems, so I'll just leave off saying that Total Chaos was ahead until almost the last minute. BBS DOWN THE MOST 1. THE CONNECTION 2. Apple Valley 2. Southern Shore Line 2. Willie's RBBS Again, another one where most folks had simply one particular system in mind about which they had fumed privately - until now. Others drawing many votes were Fear & Loathing, which was supposed to be down (for remodeling) and the Covenant, a BBS which hasn't been up since last November. BEST BBS SOFTWARE 1. PC-BOARD 2. Genesis 3. RBBS Nearly everyone was in one of the two main competing camps, but the no- nonsense programmer sect won over the younger more "fun-oriented" clan (OK, YOU think of a better adjective). RBBS was the Pat-Robertson-dark-horse, pulling up the rear. T-Pro RPB also received a good many votes. Watch this. MOST BORING SOFTWARE 1. GENESIS 2. PC-Board 3. RBBS Want to see me pull a rabbit out of a hat too? FAVORITE USER 1. MICHELE CAHOON 2. Nika Grammas 3. Osman Guner This was a sharply divided one - EVERY- ONE had a different vote, almost. Many voted for themselves. The recent Birmingham BBS Female User explosion contributed the two topspot winners. Michele is active nearly everywhere you look, but our placer is now nowhere to be seen! Come back to us, Nika! Congrats to Osman as the surprise male leader (just kidding, Osman). LEAST FAVORITE USER 1. BLAKE HIGDON 2. John Motes 2. Quinton McCombs Uh-oh! This one wasn't so sharply scattered. Oddly enough (or maybe not so oddly at that), nearly half those voted are sysops. USER WHO DOWNLOADS THE MOST 1. JOE HARDWICK 2. Chuck Pritchett 3. John Motes Joe came out ahead by a comfortable margin here, boosted by voting for himself, even. Now there's class. Everybody else in the known universe received exactly one vote apiece. Many voters couldn't answer, because they aren't in a position to know. Oh well... USER WHO UPLOADS THE MOST 1. CHUCK PRITCHETT 2. Carl Grammar 2. Omega Ohm (tie) Don't ask me how he did it! Maybe next year we should just have one category, USER WHO TRANSFERS FILES THE MOST. BBS WITH THE BEST DOWNLOAD LIBRARY 1. AMERICA ONLINE 2. Channel 8250 3. Sperry AoL, with its diverse number of directories, easily swept this category. Honorary mention goes to Fear & Loathing. BBS WITH THE WORST DOWNLOAD LIBRARY 1. MUSIC ALLEY 2. The Connection 3. The Bus System There once was a time when everybody LOVED the Alley! Of course, there were about three systems in Birmingham back then... BBS WITH THE MOST INTERESTING MESSAGES 1. CHANNEL 8250 2. Apple Valley 3. Birmingham BBS To THIS reporter, it's this that actually Makes a BBS. 8250 came out way ahead. The Connection almost edged into 3rd; no one else was close. BBS WITH THE LEAST INTERESTING MESSAGES 1. MAGNOLIA 2. Sperry 3. America Online 3. Music Alley (tie) And it's the busiest? Sheesh, what do people do all day long there, DOWNLOAD? If so, you'd think they'd show some gratitude by voting it Best Download Library. Finally, we have what I hope will begin a grand tradition: the honorary FOXTRAP AWARD for BBS MOST FUN TO BE ON. For the unaware babes in swaddling modems, Foxtrap 80 was one of the premiere BBS's in B'ham - it was the first, several years ago, to feature hot menus, a warboard, and online games, just to name a few. As an aside, Foxtrap sysop Bryan Hutchens (The Zookeeper) is currently living out of town, but is busily at work writing a Commodore 128 version of the 'Trap, for use for his good friend and ours, Richard DeVaney (Cutter), who entertained us way back when with Foxtrap's sister system, THE HOLT. Hopefully, by the time you read the results of the 2nd Annual survey, Foxtrap will be up and running again! Anyhoo, the winner of the Foxtrap Award For BBS Most Fun To Be On is... CHANNEL 8250! Congrats go to sysop Ed O'Neill! We hereby honor Channel 8250, for the warm spirited nature of its sysop, conferences and users. I know I'm not alone when I say that logging onto the Channel is always a highlight of my BBS day. --- Cushy Ending --- Well, that would appear to be that. I hope you've had as much fun reading this file as I've had writing it. With any luck at all, this time next year, you'll be reading the results of the Second Annual B'ham Breezin' BBS Awards Survey. I'm not through here just yet, though... --- Credit Where Credit Is Due --- I'd like to thank the following persons: First and foremost, Channel 8250's sysop Ed O'Neill, for his immense help in getting the questionaire set up on his system, and for rewriting and formatting the questions. Without his help, I think it would be safe to say that this wouldn't have gotten done, or at least would have been messed up pretty badly. Also, a belated kudos to Apple Valley's sysop David Alge, for establishing a questionaire on his board too. During the final weeks of the survey, we got a lot of input from his users too, and I appreciate his and their help. To the still select group of special individuals known as The Breezers: You were spawned from the Breezin' subboard on B'ham RCP/M all those moons ago, and you did a remarkable job of migrating to 8250 when the ol' stead was shut down. You'll always be special. A special tribute goes out to two departed extra-special organisms who helped to shape the Breezin' sect: Our dear friend the Jetteye Knight, who left the BBS world for personal reasons; and that ever-cosmic guy Bernie D. Starchaser*, who's gone on to bigger, if not better, things in Tuscaloosa as a Radio Shack employee. To all my friends and allies. And, finally, to everyone who voted in our survey. This file would literally not be here without you. Thanks a whole bunch. --- Get Off My Back --- I KNOW that "questionaire" is spelled wrong throughout this file. --- A Final Addendum --- Concerning the above results, some may not be aware that IRONGATE, a system which was up under the steady hand of Omega Ohm, has changed it's name to Misty Mountain (even though the popular Irongate game subsystem is still kept on as a shell). So, if you voted for "Irongate", I tabulated it as "Misty Mountain". This held true for any board which had changed names; I regarded a board which had changed names 7 or 8 times (Quinton!) as the same board. --- Directory Assistance --- For some fine fine discussion, ring up the following award-winning systems: CHANNEL 8250.........(205) 785-7417 MISTY MOUNTAIN.......(205) 979-8409 AMERICA ONLINE.......(205) 324-0193 FEAR AND LOATHING....(205) 985-9846 (down for remodeling until Apr 1) --- The End - I Mean It This Time! --- This is it! It's been fun - thanks again to everyone listed above, and I hope to see everyone again next year. Good night. ------------<> TYROS <>--------------- *Editor's note: It was found that Bernie D. Starchaser has returned to the Birmingham area and now works at Radio Shack in the Riverchase Galleria in Hoover.mm ===================================================================== PC-DOS 3.3: WHATS' NEW by Ed O'Neill IBM released the new 3.3 version of PC-DOS in April 1987. This release has several new features and enhancements that you might use but, depending on your applications and your existing utility library, you probably don't need it. The most significant change is the extension of the National Language Support (NLS) from 5 to 19 countries. This was also extended to two models of IBM printers. If you don't have one of the printers and an EGA or LCD display, you can't use them. If you live in the United States, you don't need them. I chose not to cover them within the scope of this article. When I first brought up 3.3, I had been running 3.2 so the install was as simple deleting the old files, backing up the rest of the software, booting the floppy, typing FORMAT C:/S/V and putting my AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS back in the root directory. I like to keep the external commands in a pathed directory named DOS so I created it, copied the files into the sub-directory and rebooted. The new system came up without modification to the old batch and configuration file. I though that was a good sign so, in anticipation, I typed CD DOS and then DIR. The first new file that caught my attention was FASTOPEN. This new external is to help you avoid those long time consuming path searches. It keeps the disk location of up to 999 levels of the most recently opened files in ram which allow DOS to go directly to the file instead of the normal top down search. The next new name I noticed (other than the .SYS and the .CPI files for the NLS) was APPEND.EXE. This is a strange command that is similar to JOIN but doesn't include all the sub-directories under the JOINed one. APPEND would be useful in a multi-user system where the individuals have data stored in different directories for security purposes. The application software directory could then be APPENDed to their data directory and ran. With a word processor, for example, each user could have the running code, spelling checker and forms directory APPENDed to the one that contains their exclusive storage directory. Everything else in my DOS directory looked familiar so I had to start looking in the manual for enhanced commands. Here the enchantments exclusive of the NLS functions: ATTRIB provides the ability to modify file attributes on a single, multiple, selected or all files below a directory level but will still only modify the read and archive bit. Come on IBM, we want to hide subdirectories and files too! BACKUP and RESTORE now work without pre-formatted diskettes and create a log file. They use a faster and more efficient storage method and will use the date/time stamp. You can even restore deleted files only. These are substantial improvements but if you are like me, you have already overcome the limitations of this procedure with a backup utility. If not, you will find them faster and more useful than the previous releases. BATCH COMMANDS now include an output suppression switch. If you precede any command with the @, the output is not sent to the standard output device. This is my personal favorite because I got so tired of seeing ECHO OFF come across in my batches. You can now reference the DOS environment values and CALL another batch and continue without evoking a secondary command processor. DATE and TIME now actually set the hardware clock and the system time. I assume that is only on an AT or a PC/XT clock that uses the same register locations and formats as the AT. In other words, this may not work on older clock cards. FDISK now has a built in logical disk creation for up to 4 partitions per physical drive. You no longer need special management software to break the 32 meg limit. You can divide up a smaller drive into logicals if you need to emulate a larger system with more drives and you can FORMAT the logicals independently of one another. Each logical drive has it's own FAT and if you lose one you don't lose the whole drive, only the files in the one partition. MODE has extended communication device support and baud rates up to 19200. It seem strange to me that MODE still supports bauds down to 110 while most new communications packages have jumped to 115,200 bps. Another curious option I've seen is the addition of Fail to the Abort, Retry, Ignore error message. I had to do a little investigation to decipher this one. It appears that there is little difference between the two for most system calls. The manual says that Fail actually aborts the current DOS call while Ignore will disregard the error and continue within the call. I think this means that if your hung in an endless error loop with Ignore, you can Fail out of it. If you're considering the upgrade and can use the National Language Support then, by all means, buy PC-DOS 3.3. If you're using the BACKUP and RESTORE procedure, you might want to borrow a copy and test drive the enhancements before you pay for another backup utility. I found them reasonably fast and efficient and the retail price of $129.00 is tolerable if you are considering paying $99.00 for FastBack Plus or FullBack. If you just like having the newest version of everything that hits the market, don't waste your time and money. There are not enough differences to justify the cost. ======================================================================== The following article is from the March issue of LAN magazine. It is reprinted here with permission of the author. StarLan Networks: Creating a Symbiotic Relationship with the Telephone System. By Rick Curl Vice President of Research and Development Postron Corporation Birmingham, Alabama NOTE: This article does not address the issues of network software or the actual installation of hardware into the PC's. Many articles have been written on those subjects. After several disasters and aborted attempts with other systems, our company selected Western Digital's StarLan for our internal network. We connected it in the daisy-chain configuration using two additional pieces of 4-conductor telephone station wire pulled to each user's workstation. As the company expanded, this system became difficult to maintain since a single card failure could cause the whole system to go down (known as the Christmas-tree-light "when one goes out they all go out" syndrome). Our company's move into larger quarters provided a golden opportunity to clean up the network, install a central hub, and utilize StarLan's ability to share twisted pair wiring with the telephone system. I thought I had done my homework. I studied the very skimpy documentation provided with the StarHub and specified 4-pair (8- conductor) wire to be pulled to each workstation and terminated in 8- pin RJ-45 type modular jacks. The ends of the cables in the equipment room were terminated on two rows of 66-type telephone punch blocks mounted a couple of inches apart. The first two pairs of each wire (blue/white and orange white) were terminated on the right-hand row of blocks, the other side of which was connected to the telephone central equipment, or KSU. The second two pairs (green/white and brown/white) were terminated on the left-hand row of blocks. The other side of this block was connected to modular pigtails plugged into the input ports of the StarHub. Bridging clips placed between the left and right rows of each block provide a simple way to open either the telephone or network pairs for diagnostic purposes. The color code for the network punch block is: Cable to keyset Pigtail to hub Hub connector White/Green Black Pin 1 Green/White Red Pin 2 White/Brown Green Pin 3 Brown/White Yellow Pin 6 The telephone system initially worked just fine, but the first time I plugged in a StarCard, several of our phones went out. The trouble proved to be a blown fuse in the KSU. A check with an ohmmeter showed a 1-ohm resistance between pins 3 and 6 of the network card (the same pins which carry 24 volts D.C. to the telephone sets). Closer inspection of the StarHub documentation revealed that both the telephone system and the network were trying to use pins 3 and 6 of the modular jack. Most all multi-line electronic key telephone systems use the center four pins of the cable; on an 8-conductor cable that means pins 3,4,5, and 6. This seemed to indicate a grievous blunder on the part of whoever decided which wires would do what in the IEEE 802.3 specification. I called IEEE to contact the authors of the specification, and eventually spoke with Bob Campbell, Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at AT&T. He explained that the accepted pinout is the only one the committee could agree upon. It was selected with an eye to the future--to be compatible with the ISDN T1D1 spec. Great. But this doesn't help me much in my immediate application. ISDN isn't generally available yet, so this means that most anyone attempting to integrate a multi-line electronic key system with StarLan is in for some surprises. After much midnight oil-burning and teeth gnashing, I found a way to make the two systems co-exist peacefully. The "fix" involves two modifications: (1) rewiring the 8-pin wall mounted receptacles, and (2) making special modular cables for the keysets. I used RJ-45 type data jacks for the wall mounted connectors (although any 8-conductor modular jack will do). The color code is: Normal Modified for StarLan 1- White/Green 1- White/Green 2- Green/White 2- Green/White 3- White/Orange 3- White/Brown 4- Blue/White 4- Blue/White 5- White/Blue 5- White/Blue 6- Orange/White 6- White/Brown 7- White/Brown 7- White/Orange 8- Brown/White 8- Orange/White Beware of the jacks intended for use with Merlin systems, which use a non-standard numbering scheme and must be wired differently. Their color code should be: 1- White/Blue 2- Blue/White 3- White/Green 4- Green/White 5- White/Brown 6- Brown/White 7- White/Orange 8- Orange/White The modular cables provided with the StarLan hardware will work without modification between the OUT jack of the network cards and the wall jack. So much for the first part of the fix. To make the special keyset base cords, you might as well go ahead and purchase 4-pin and 8-pin modular crimp tools. Using 4-conductor modular cable, attach the 4-conductor connector in the traditional way, with yellow on pin 1, green on pin 2, red on pin 3, and black on pin 4. The trick comes on the other end. Attach an 8-conductor connector to the 4-conductor cable using the following pinout: 1- No connection 2- No connection 3- No connection 4- Red 5- Green 6- No connection 7- Black 8- Yellow With these two fixes, the system should come up without too much trouble. Note that it is permissible to plug the keysets either into the PHONE jack on the StarLan or StarLink cards or directly into the wall outlets using the special base cord. Do NOT plug any network cards into unmodified wall jacks--you will probably wreak havoc with the phone system if you do. One final word of caution: Remember if you have occasion to work on one of your PC's (even though you have turned off the AC power before removing the cover), the power to the telephone system may still be present on pins 7 and 8 of both modular jacks on the network board. This is generally around 24 volts, and while it presents little personal danger, if it's inadvertently shorted you can foul up the telephone system. ===================================================================== SYSOPS ARE NOT GODS by Tim Straughn While being a user of the plentiful selection of local BBS's, I often wondered if the sysop had a 5 pin DIN plug on the end of their index finger for direct keyboard connection. I noted in several Chat Sessions that these guys are not much better at typing than I am, as a general rule. This got me to thinking, which is no small chore for me, that perhaps these guys are indeed human just like the rest of us. Well, now that I am a sysop myself, I know for fact that we are human, and very subject to the same mistakes in computing as anyone who ever gets past a hand held calculator. When going through the woes and throes of creating a system to add to the already large list of BBS's in Birmingham, I soon found that this is not for the weak hearted, nor for the programming addict with only one system. Nor is it a very profitable way to play with computers either, except for the fact it does allow for a very large collection of software, which in many cases, is better than some of the commercial products. First came the "fun" experience of setting up the software and hardware for the system. At times, I was pulling my hair out, calling the computer and modem names that would have made a long-shoreman blush, or I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The software I started with was PCBoard ver. 10.0 as many of the boards in existence today started with. Version 10.0 in it's time, I'm sure, was the greatest thing since shirt pockets, however, version 12.1/D has spoiled me rotten. With version 10.0, you better have a darn good file manager such as XTREE, PathMinder, or any one of a multitude of PD and commercial packages. Then, if you have a good file manager, you'd best be very careful of what you do with it. I for one learned a very valuable lesson about renaming a large subdirectory with archives in it with PathMinder. I destroyed approximately 40 of the files I'd accumulated by trying to take a shortcut, and got shortcut right off the hard disk. Another absolute necessity is a good, and I mean really good, user friendly text editor or word processor which will allow editing of very large files stored as ascii text. Otherwise, you wind up spending more time on the system than your users looking over the callers logs, user's file, script questionaires, etc. If your editor does not like large files, find yourself a program which will split up the files small enough to be stored within 64 Kb of memory so that you can use some of the less well developed text editors. Now you're ready for the hardware lessons. The first piece of hardware to consider is your printer. Get plenty of new ribbon cartridges, because you have some printing to do. If you haven't printed the documents, and are considering using a piece of software which has no printed documentation, then my best advice is DON'T! If you are not ready to do a lot of printing and reading, you are not ready to set up a Bulletin Board. If you don't read it, then you shouldn't be surprised if your favorite sysop becomes your worst enemy when you start bugging him at 3:00 a.m. because your modem won't answer, or the silly software goes into an infinite loop because of the setting of a dip switch on your modem. Follow the instructions very carefully, and read them several times before attempting to follow them, because in most cases, programmers wrote the docs, and real programmers believe that if it was hard to write, then it should be hard to understand. Once you have printed all the documents, made sure the tech manuals are available for your various system peripherals, and have all the necessary files to make the program run, you are almost ready to get started. Another consideration you will need to do is to set up a budget and purchasing schedule for the purchase of floppies. Believe me, you are gonna need a bunch of them. I started out with less than 25 floppies, and in 3 months, I now have nearly 250. Without a good efficient backup and restore utility, you're gonna pull your hair out or maybe even commit suicide if you make some of the same mistakes I have made while attempting system improvements. Some of them can be quite disasterous. Now that you have thouroughly confused yourself with the modem switch settings, and the various and sundry directories needed for security, you are now ready to begin setting up a model system. Got some blank paper handy? You are going to have to decide how you want to run your system. I offer no advice here, because this is purely a matter of personal choice, and also depends on how you feel about the uploads you will receive from the users. I personally feel that they belong to the users, and use a very liberal up/download ratio. I do however despise a leech, because I consider it bad manners to take advantage of someone's generosity by not trying to make it worth his efforts to provide the general public a fair chance at a given file, and providing another place to get it. My best advice here is to decide what you want in a system before you ever run the setup routine, because believe me, you will change your mind at least a dozen times, until the board finally becomes a part of your personality. Now, comes the time for a registration procedure. Again, this will be something that will change with time as you familiarize yourself with the various utilities available for the system management. If you are starting out with Version 10.0, there are numerous utilities to make life much easier, because the manual way of moving files around and maintaining the users database from within the board is a real pain, and incredibly slow. Decide in advance whether or not you want new users to have full access or not. This choice I leave entirely to the new sysop, but with some words of warning. Unless being attacked by immature people who have no business with a modem is like water off a duck's back to you, you're in for a real treat. Just as there are those malicious misfits who would hide a "FORMAT C:" within an otherwise useful and attractive program, there are those who live for giving a new sysop a hard time. I tried it, but after several attempts to make my ulcers overactive, I reduced the priviledges of the new user to getting registered, and that's about it. So now, what kind of files do you want to support? Pirated wares? PD only? Shareware and PD? IBM only? All machines? I do not advocate the support of pirating software, particularly if it is an individual's efforts to make a commercial product which has taken a large portion of his time and they are asking a reasonable price for the software. If you choose to do so, then that is your business. Trust me when I say that supporting anything you cannot run on your own system will have it's drawbacks also. You will wind up answering never-ending complaints that the file is bad, and that you shouldn't have it, blah, blah, blah. For this reason alone, I have elected to support IBM only files, and pride myself on at least checking the integrity of the archive with utilities to make sure it wasn't pure garbage before the reciever got it. Besides that, with limited disk space, I can't afford the space a garbage file takes up. Since we intend to further this newsletter into additional issues, I will close with the achieved facts and pointers already purveyed, only to say that the article will be continued in the next issue. I intend to expand on the topics more as requested, but for now, I need to close. ===================================================================== PHONE LINES by Tom Moore Writing my first article(review) for the BTN newsletter guided me down the straight and narrow to Interlink, a terminal program for the Atari ST. What better way for me to make my splash for BTN(Birmingham Telecommunication Newsletter). It is through this mode of communication that we hackers burn the midnight oil downloading, uploading and buffer capturing of screen text. So why not review a program that focuses on telecommunication. For those readers who are not familiar with Interlink I think you will be impressed at the power without the price this program has to offer. Now where have we heard that coined phrase before? I will not bore you with minute details of this terminal program. Of course Interlink does what terminals should do and that is download, upload, capture text and print text. What makes Interlink unique is how it uses these features. GEM INTERFACE Since we have a computer that utilizes the mouse & window environment I feel it is important that the software supports this format. It is easy to see that Intersect the authors of interlink have done a very good job supporting Gem. After loading Interlink you are presented with the standard Gem format of menu bars, windows and a mouse pointer via the mouse. Unlike other terminal programs that I have seen for the ST, Interlink does not present you with the generic interface of MSDOS terminal programs. Sorry IBM'ers but there is nothing like a good mouse & window environment. Of course many people who hate the plastic rodent will be at home too with Interlink. You have keyboard equivalents in most of the drop windows. Also, you are a help key away from a master sheet of all the key commands so fear not you keyboard commandos. TEXT EDITOR Among the many features that are available in Interlink I really like the TEXT editor that is built into the terminal. This really makes it nice because it is a holding tank of all the information you capture when you use the buffer. You can edit information with the text editor or you can create letters and memos in this mode. With interlink you not only get terminal program but you also have a mini word processor to edit and create documents via downloads or uploads. MACROS This is a feature that really gives the power Interlink deserves. Macros with Interlink are not like macros you might be accustom to in Lotus 123. Interlink uses a recording process much like on a tape recorder. How nice it is to just select record option from the record menu, call your favorite BBS service, download the latest stock quotes, print out the data and log off the service. "So what?", you say. Well, the next time you want to play the same scenario you will not have to go through all the mouse and keyboard sequences. Goto the record menu select "play now" and select your record file you created. Low and behold you will see Interlink playback the keyboard sequences you made earlier. What's even better is that you can set a timer with your record(macro) file and log on busy bbs's in the wee hours of the morning. Yes, you can set Interlink to call, download, upload, print information, log off then print information with no one at the keyboard. My only peeve with the record menu is small but still a peeve and that is the inability to edit your record file. But that problem is being corrected. Intersect has said they will be able to offer editable record files in version 2.0 of interlink. Other features that are related to macros is the feature of autolog on prompts. Also, you have macro keys that you can assign to Alt-F1 to F10 and Ctrl-F1 to F10. This makes it nice if you want to assign passwords and names to certain function keys. EXTRAS Under the EXTRAS menu you will find the last menu prompt called ANSWER MODE. If you select this option you will turn Interlink into a mini-BBS. You can be away from your office set up Interlink to answer mode call Interlink and log on like any other BBS system. Download or upload information you need and log off your computer. Of course not anyone can log on. Interlink sets the system up for access by way of 3 different password levels. Each level being assigned an access level from low to high. When setting the ANSWER MODE you can edit the systems password prompts for each level. TRANSFERS In the area of program and text transfers it is important that you have a program that offers you a multitude of protocals. Interlink offers you 4 buttons with the first three dedicated to ascii, xmodem and ymodem. The fourth button is unique because it is a wild card button. This wild card button allows you to load in other transfer protocals. Using this type of design eliminates the possibilities of Interlink being outdated with transfer protocals. When new protocals are designed all you have to do is point and click the mouse on the ???? button and you will have a directory of protocals to select. Here are some of the protocals supported. Kermit, Ymodem batch, IBM graphics, Multi.TXF. Multi.Txf is a protocal that will allow you to download or upload programs in the background. What this means is you can download a long file and load let's say a spread sheet for number crunching at the same time. WOW! SUMMARY Working with Interlink for the past 9 months I have grown to respect this as one of the best piece of software ever created for the ST. It is so complete and powerful. Anyone familiar to GEM and terminal programs will find they will not have to refer to the manual very often(It's so easy). On a scale of 1 to 10 I would grade interlink a 9.9 because it's complete, easy to use and affordable. If you do your home work you should be able to buy via mail order for around 28 dollars. The suggested retail is 39.95 for a great hack on the telecommunication side of computing. ===================================================================== Its' A Boy by Gary Godsey Day 1: The Baby Comes Home. We brought the little thing home today. It was only 4k but we really do love it. The gray color was a bit alarming but it seems do be doing just fine. Day 14: The little Thing Can Count. Little COCO ran his first amortization schedule today. Day 56: He Plays So Many Games. He has a total of about 28 games he can now play. If I had known the little thing was going to be so much fun we would have gotten him long ago. Day 108: It Talks. COCO said, "I love you Daddy", today. My heart just melted. Day 244: He Spoke to Someone Else. His cute little modem and first software for telecom'ing was installed today. He spoke with his uncle in Columbus, Ohio. 1 Year: He's getting Stronger. He went from 4k to 16k today. He was so excited. 14 Months: He Gets Floppies. Mom and I bought him his first floppies today. It was as if he had transformed right there before our eyes. He was so proud he couldn't say a word. 16 Months: He Learns to Write. He just kept begging until his mom finally bought him a printer. It was only a low grade Dot Matrix but it was his and he was proud of it. 20 Months: He Goes to OS-9. His new operating system was put in today. Another giant step for machine kind. 2 Years: He's been Bad. He has been a bad little boy and played with fire and lost a circuit or two. We have taken him in to be checked out but the prognosis is not very good. Stay tuned because he will almost certianly die and what will become of Mom? ===================================================================== Telecommunicating and Women by Michele Cahoon There are not very many women involved in telecommunications. I have asked several sysops about the percentage of women on their boards, and the response was close to the same. 3 to 4 percent of the users were women. The average board has anywhere from 200 to 500 regular users. I would like to get more women involved in BBS-ing, but how? I suspect that there are more women on boards than we realize. Perhaps they are using a man's name as an alias. Why, you might ask. For one thing, there are too many teen-age boys going through turbo hormone changes and some are trying to hit on every female in sight. Another reason might be that they are intimidated by computers. There are numerous reasons but I would like to find some solutions. When I decided to write this article, I posted messages on several boards in town trying to get women to tell me about themselves, hobbies, and their experiences of BBS-ing. I had only one response. Thanks Lupe Tingle. She is a school teacher and really enjoys using the boards. Her husband intially got her into it, now we see her everywhere. Hang in there girl! I hope that we will be able to get more women involved and get the hormones of these kids under control. Part one of ? editor's note: Michele welcomes responses to this article. If you agree or disagree, have suggestions, etc., please post them on Channel 8250. See the Editor's Notes if you do not use Channel 8250 and also if you need instructions for submitting your articles. mm ===================================================================== GAMER'S CORNER by Osman Guner TIPS ON TRADE-WARS ------------------ Software Supporting Boards Status ------------- ----------------------------- --------------------- TradeWars-200 Apple Valley (205) 854-9661 (205) 854-9662 Up Magnolia (205) 854-6407 Up TradeWars-500 America-Online (205) 324-0193 Down indefinitely due (3 nodes) to software problems. TradeWars-2 Willie's (205) 979-1629 Up Well folks, in this corner we are going to evaluate the ins and outs of a popular BBS game in every isuue. This month we will start with TradeWars-200... TIPS FOR THE NOVICE: First of all, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!... The game is based on trading and making credits (money?) with which you can buy cargo-holds, fighters and make some planets. When you acquire 50 cargo holds (which is the upper limit), you can only buy fighters from then on. Having the maximum amount of holds is advantageous because it will increase your trading capacity and there is a limit on turns per day. By killing another player, one can obtain one fourth of an opponent's cargo-holds with their contents (until one has 50 holds). After that killing other players have no advantage other than eliminating an opponent temporarily. It is a good idea to systematically develop a map of the universe, noting the locations of the ports and their stock. In fact, this is relatively easy too, since the TradeWars universe is (unfortunately) designed in a two dimentional space. NEVER carry more than 25000 credits on you. If you do, you'll spontaneously end up paying 5000 credits wealth tax... TIPS FOR THE ADVANCED PLAYERS: It may be worthwhile to remember or note which sectors sell material for less and which pay more. For example, port at '73' sell equipment and port at '183', organic. They are located side by side which means that more trading can be done in a limited number of turns. However, port located at '71' which is only two sectors away from '73' pay more credits for the same amount of equipment. Another example; Port at '19' has the cheapest equipment in the universe. Within two sector distance there are four organic ports, namely '10', '17', '37' and '38'. On the other hand, port located at '157' is only four sectors away from '19', pay much more credits for equipment than any of the previous four. Making planets is an excellent long term investment. Find yourself a remote part of the universe, make a few planets within the vicinity of a few well paying ports, increase their productivity according to the demand. Then within a few weeks, you will be invincible... HOW TO INVADE THE CABAL EMPIRE: The headquarters(!) of the Cabal Empire is located at sector '85'. To reach there you may first have to eliminate about 500 Cabal fighters at sector '83'. Then upon entry to '85', you will have to destroy typically 1000-1500 more Cabal fighters. So I would not recommend you to attempt such an invasion unless you have at least 1500-2000 fighters in your fleet... What happens when you invade the Cabal Empire? I will leave this to you -brave adventurists- to find out... Next month: Tips on power struggle... ===================================================================== NAME NUMBER BAUD RATES SUPPORTED Penny Arcade 226-1841 300,1200,2400 America Online 324-0193 300,1200,2400 American BBS 674-1851 300,1200,2400 Amiga Alliance 631-2846 1200 Apple Valley Node 1 854-9661 300,1200,2400 Apple Valley Node 2 854-9662 300,1200,2400 Birmingham BBS Node 1 251-2344 300,1200 Birmingham BBS Node 2 251-8033 300,1200 Bus System BBS 595-1627 300,1200 Channel 8250 785-7417 300,1200,2400 Commodore Club-South 853-8718 300,1200,2400 Magic Star BBS 591-1571 300,1200 Magnolia BBS 854-6407 300,1200,2400 Music Alley BBS 969-2416 300,1200,2400 Point of No RETURN 664-9609 300,1200,2400 Raven BBS 674-6214 300,1200,2400 ST BBS 836-9311 300,1200 Sperry BBS 853-6144 300,1200,2400 The Connection Node 1 854-9074 1200,2400 The Connection Node 2 854-2308 1200,2400 Beltron BBS 836-3846 300,1200,2400 68FREE 933-7518 300,1200 This is hardly a complete list of local bulletin board systems but these are good start. If you have any to add, please let me know. =====================================================================