Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Boardwatch Magazine Volume VII Issue 3
$3.95
B O A R D W A T C H M A G A Z I N E
Guide to the World of Online Services
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor: Jack Rickard Volume VII: Issue 3 ISSN:1054-2760 March 1993
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1993 Jack Rickard - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Boardwatch Magazine is published monthly in printed form at an annual
subscription rate of $36. In most cases, the operator of the local system
carrying Boardwatch Online Edition can process your subscription order.
Editorial comment may be addressed to Editor, BOARDWATCH MAGAZINE, 7586 West
Jewell, Suite 200, Lakewood, CO 80232. (303)973-6038 voice, (303)973-4222
data, (303)986-8754 fax. This file may not be posted on electronic bulletin
board systems without written permission of the publisher.
SUBSCRIPTION VOICE ORDER LINE - 1-800-933-6038
EDITOR'S NOTES
==============
1 The Emerging Third Party BSS Software Market
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
=====================
2 Many Thanks for the MAC Write-up
3 Graphics and the BBS
4 Measuring Success
5 Internet Works
6 I Left a Message, and YOU Called
7 Thanks for the Tapes
TELE-BITS
=========
8 Corrections
9 Rumors
10 AT&T Intros sysop Deal on 14.4Kbps Modems
11 Hayes and Multi-Tech Bury Legal Hatchet
12 Prodigy Sends Mail to Solmalia - But Eliminates 250 Employees
13 Boardwatch 100 Readers choice BBS Contest Update
14 File Compression Wars Revisited - PKWare Version 2.04c of PKZip
15 ZyXEL USA Names Winners in BBS Contest
16 McAfee Associates Announces Shareware Contest
17 Digital Photograhy Advances Bit-by-Bit - Kodak Photo CD
ARTICLES
========
18 Education in the Matrix: The FrEdMail Network
19 Major Changes at the Electronic Frontier Foundation
MACINTOSH BBS NEWS
==================
20 Without A Clue
21 Why Are We Doing This
22 MAC BBS of the Month
LEGALLY ONLINE
==============
23 A Surprising Reverse on Reverse Engineering
INTERNET NEWS
=============
24 Denver Free-Net Introduced
25 Oklahoma University BBS - Connecting DOS-Based BBS to the Internet
26 Privacy and Anonymity on the Internet
27 New E-Mail Address Directory Announced
28 ARRL Information Server
BBS LISTS
=========
29 This Month's LIst: Chicago Illinois
30 List of 605 Chicago Ares BBS
31 FrEdMail BBS Network List
32 Sysop Modem Discount Programs
33 BOARDWATCH List of BBS List Keepers
34 BOARDWATCH National List
35 Reader's Choice 100, 1993 Contest
==============
EDITOR'S NOTES
==============
In the never ending quest to hammer BBS software into a proper form to be all
things to all people, a somewhat remarkable thing has happened while none of
us were actually looking. Most authors of BBS software packages can barely
make a living while essentially four packages have developed into companies
of sufficient size to form a bare niche. But another element has developed in
the past year that we just frankly didn't expect - third party developers.
These are entrepreneurial software programmers that produce add-on utilities,
door programs, etc. to enhance basic BBS software packages. The news is, some
of them are beginning to thrive.
For a number of years there has been a cadre of programmers doing door
programs for PCBoard and Wildcat, TDBS applications for TBBS, and add-on
modules for Galacticomm's The Major BBS. They've developed numerous utilities
to essentially extend the usefulness of the BBS software toward their vision
of what you ought to be able to do online with mail gateways, credit card
utilities, CD-ROM managers, file management utilities, and various enhancers
and fixers of bewildering variety. But until now, it barely made for a good
hobby. A couple of individuals did ok, including Sparky Herring with his .QWK
mail door, and a few others. But for most, it was a Spartan existence that
might provide a new machine every year or so - a very modestly profitable
hobby at best.
In the past year, there has been a little noticed sea change in this area
with some surprising results. The third-party software utilities market for
these BBS software packages has rather suddenly gained legs - economically
speaking. Major BBS now sports nearly 50 software developers clustered around
this popular BBS package. They offer a myriad of games and utilities to
further empower the Major, perhaps even promote it to Colonel. They've been
there for some time, but suddenly, they are starting to make a bit of money.
eSoft's TBBS got off to a bit of a slow start while the apostles contemplated
the uses of their dBASE clone TDBS language. But apparently, the waters
cleared on that front too as there are now hundreds of these dBASE
applications making the rounds to improve the TBBS chat function, offer
multiplayer games, and entire replacements for the userlog, message base, and
file management functions of the original software. This particular group
sports not only developers, but distributors, VARS, and installers all
competing vigorously, developing furiously, and cashing checks in the
process.
And we're seeing some similarly serious development in the third party group
supporting Wildcat! and PCBoard with mail gateways of impressive variety, the
ever present door programs, and more. And this trend continues to every level
of DOS and UNIX BBS software, down to the very smallest system.
The most amazing thing is that while the core BBS software developers can
hardly be measured software giants, this incredibly varied third party market
is thriving economically. Any number of them have quit the "day job" and are
developing add-ons full time. And for some, it is starting to pay off in a
good living out of a small shop with a minimum of form and an emphasis on
substance. We spoke with one distributor of these programs the other day and
learned that he had just done nearly $40,000 in a single month pandering
esoteric programs that if he TOLD you what they were, if you didn't actually
run the core BBS software, you still wouldn't know what it was they did.
Another who barely dabbles in the sport as a hobby venture whacked out an
online adventure game that caught on a bit quickly and somehow about $5000
showed up in his mailbox in the first 60 days. Hardly a living, and hardly
enough to get Philip the Kahn and Dollar Bill any more shook up than they
already are, but a watershed event in the BBS community nonetheless.
While the basic BBS software developer usually offers a handful of packages,
some of these third party alliances and groups are touting catalogs with 40
or more little utilities ranging from $39 up to three or four hundred dollars
each. One vendor just makes it a habit to offer "The Works" - meaning
whatever he's currently offering in a basket, at $1095. The point here is
that you can spend more on add-ons for BBS software than you did for the
original software, and potentially some of these third party "catalogs" of
utilities could become a more substantial business than the original BBS
software package.
And for BBS operators, it can all be a welcome embarrassment of riches.
Whatever limitation you chafe under using your current software, it is now
almost assured that someone else is chafing under the same little problem,
and probably either working on a solution or already offering one at $129.
And this leads to more varied and interesting systems dependent on the final
tapestry the BBS operator weaves from a combination of the original BBS
software and the add-ons they select.
For magazine editors, it's not quite so cozy. Whatever you THOUGHT a BBS
package was good for, or weak at, from testing the core vendor packages and
reading the specs - is becoming almost meaningless if you don't quite
thoroughly survey the entire third party market for that software as well. If
a program doesn't do FidoNet mail at all, but a third party developer offers
a remarkably slick package for $69 that allows it to carry FidoNet mail with
all the aplomb and acumen of an Opus system, then DOES the original package
essentially have the capability? Or does it not?
And no where outside of operating system software does such a robust market
exist. There have always been a few add-ons for Word Perfect and Lotus 123 to
provide macros and make life a little easier. But most of the BBS software
packages are in the realm of HUNDREDS of utilities ranging from the barely
noticeable to near replacements for the original package and several dozen
pretty serious developers clustered around each of the major BBS titles. We
met a small 4-man group at COMDEX that had escaped the horrors of hardware
retailing and was serious as a heart attack about developing add-ons for
Wildcat! They've got us persuaded they have a good thing going.
Most of these groups only sell a few hundred copies of each title, but the
prices have actually risen in recent years, and most of them are small
guerrilla style companies operating on a shoestring with low overhead and
chumming out half a dozen titles or more in a year. For the one to five man
shop, it's a living - and a lot of fun. And some of them are starting to
sprout product support lines, offices, and all the trappings of real
companies. If word gets out that there is a living in all this somewhere, get
clear of the main thoroughfares. It could catch fire pretty quickly. If it
does, all bets are off on what the real limits are to what BBS operators and
callers can do online, and a very interesting and exciting new period of
innovation could be in the offing. We could live with that...
This issue marks the beginning of or seventh year of publication. The first
Boardwatch was published in March, 1987.
Jack Rickard
Editor Rotundus
=======
LETTERS
=======
Bill,
Many thanks for your very complimentary write-up in the December Boardwatch.
After Thanksgiving, I stopped by a Tower Records store here in Chicago that
carries the magazine. I read through it and had to chuckle: you really did a
wonderful job of writing up our board. I am grateful, and the article (along
with the increased number of calls your article has lead to) are inspiring me
to make the board here even better.
Here is a quick update on how the board has changed since you last called:
Through a fortunate mishap (customer returned the machine) the board now runs
on a Quadra 700. I have installed a Hurdler II Quad card and the modem lines
run off of that. Two USR V.32bis modems answer the (312)702-2146 line, and I
added a 2400 USR to answer a new line at (312)702-3395. Many callers dial in
using 2400 bps and even 1200 bps modems, and it didn't seem desirable to tie
up the high-speed lines in that way.
I also added the "NetConnect" module which has made the maintenance of the
board much easier for me, as well as giving users scattered around Campus the
opportunity to connect directly to the board and take advantage of Ethernet
transfer speeds which run anywhere from about 3500 cps to 14000 cps. Now I
can FTP files from my machine (say from the Stanford archive) and zip them
right over to the Quadra. In the Summer I had to do all of this via 800K
diskette and it limited the amount of material that I could get to in a
single day.
A lot of people have called since your article and I know that a number of
them called specifically as a result of reading your review. Again, my
warmest thanks. The interest level has taken off thanks to you.
I have ordered all the parts for the FidoNet node: Tabby v3.0, F1, and TF
Link. To date, only TF Link has arrived. But the time schedule for linking up
to FidoNet appears to be either the end of December or sometime in January.
The host edition is now V3.0B22, and there are very welcome advantages in
terms of handling multiple lines. In addition the sumex-aim.stanford.edu
Info-Mac CD-ROM is on it's way, and it will be available as soon as it gets
here. I post the Info-Mac digests as they arrive by electronic mail.
Looking ahead, I have started gathering the information that I will need to
make this into a FidoNet/Internet gateway. Currently there is no such gateway
in the Chicago area. All of this has another TF sysop, Eric Vann of
Beezodog's Place, very excited. He has extended a great amount of help and
encouragement to me. He would like to put together a comprehensive
Chicago-land Fido echo and I'm all for that.
In the meanwhile, many of the text information files and price lists are
being munged so that they are in a suitable format for a Gopher Internet
server. That should happen this week. Gopher is an amazing Internet
"distributed search and retrieval system" developed at the University of
Minnesota. The links and ease-of-use for first time users are truly
astounding. All of this is very exciting and it is keeping me quite busy.
Gopher will run simultaneously on along with the TF hosts on the Quadra.
It's been a wonderful experience so far. I am learning more about the
Internet, about FidoNet, and about Telecomputing from all the people I meet
in my electronic travels.
Now all I have to do is send in my subscription check to "Boardwatch"!
Happy Holidays
Eric Hoffman
Campus Computer Stores
University of Chicago
Dear Jack,
I have been reading with interest the growing trend toward graphical BBS's
being seen in various places throughout Boardwatch over the last little
while. Paging around the December issue, I can find at least three separate
systems for graphics, NAPLPS, FracTerm, and RIP. In the January issue, you
answer a letter on this issue with the comment that NAPLPS will most likely
become the de-facto standard.
I thought I would comment on this issue myself. I think it is very important
to note that none of these systems are GUI BBS's. While the creators may
disagree, it really comes down to the definition of "graphical".
Let's say I write a terminal program that looks in the data stream for the
GIF header, and if it sees it, it will clear the screen and display the GIF
as it comes through the line. Presto, I've recreated the basic concept behind
all of the systems mentioned above. In fact, I know of at least one such
software gadget for my Mac that does just this, regardless of the terminal I
use. Does this make it a graphical system? If it does, why spend time and
money trying to standardize on a newer system when I can simply add GIF
(arguably the only real de-facto standard for computer graphics) and be done
with it?
Well one reason is that such a system would not be a GUI. There's a lot more
to a GUI than pictures. Adding Harvard Graphics to your DOS machine doesn't
turn it into Windows either. While the technical issues are important (NAPLPS
can draw a screen faster than GIF for example) the real issue remains, I feel
people want a GUI, not just graphics.
If all we want is graphics, we already have it. If we want a GUI, none of the
systems above really help out. Even if all the technical issues were solved
today and all terminal programs supported NAPLPS tomorrow, I think the
problems would still persist. NAPLPS is an old system (the first major public
article I know on the subject is in Feb '83 Byte) and would simply make your
command line look a little nicer. BBS's based on NAPLPS would still be quite
modal, single window, and for all intents and purposes, a more colorful
version of the PC-ANSI systems we have today.
With the acceptance (finally!) of GUI based operating systems, I see the
marketplace for real GUI based BBS's becoming larger over the next few years,
and the problems noted in Mr. Turner's letter will most likely get far worse
before they get any better.
Maury Markowitz, SoftArc Inc.
maury@saolgate.softarc.com
Maury:
Overall I agree, it's just the facts and particulars of your letter I have to
take exception to.
I suppose I did state that NAPLPS has the inside shot at a graphical
interface for bulletin boards. Truth is, I haven't a clue. It could be
NAPLPS, could be one of the other contenders, or it could be something else
we haven't heard of yet. If I had to pick a winner right now, I would guess
NAPLPS because it seems to be gaining a rabid band of followers. But I'm not
wed to a particular solution, I'm just hoping someone does one.
All of the graphic solutions we have mentioned, and you mentioned in your
letter, simply don't operate the way you apparently think they do. I'm a
little disappointed in this in that we apparently have not done a good job at
conveying what they do do. They are nothing like GIF images, although I'm not
sure what's wrong with GIF images. And not to digress, but GIF is NOT the
only de facto standard even for that type of bit-image graphics. I'm going to
guess that the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) standard for bit-image
graphics shows promise as a long term winner even there. GIF files are simply
too large even with today's high-speed modems.
NAPLPS and RIP certainly wander far afield from your characterization of
simple graphics display. Primarily in that they include provisions for mouse
control, sound, and in the case of NAPLPS, animation. Further, NAPLPS
contains provisions for DRCS table extensions for other (foreign) alphabets
and looks like it will include JPEG bit images as well. Ultimately we do want
the type of low overhead control structures embodied in what is usually
termed a GUI, but we also want bit images incorporated seamlessly into that
interface to show pictures of houses, cars, ourselves, what we're selling,
what we're looking for, and more. A control interface without realistic
graphics or realistic graphics without a control interface are neither the
solution. And ultimately, we want sound and motion in there as well.
We have tried to do an article on RIP for three issues in a row now and are
still failing. The group(s) behind this are not terribly well defined at this
point and the "final version" is always just around the corner. It is not
quite as flexible as NAPLPS, but it does offer some fascinating features that
I think are pretty novel. It will work with most BBS now and basically it
allows a BBS to provide the terminal program with icons and buttons that are
essentially communication "objects." The BBS can actually reprogram these
objects from a distance. The caller clicks on them with a mouse and the
"object" responds by transmitting some command string out the serial port.
This can be a simple text command string usable by almost any BBS. And as I
said, the BBS can "reprogram" the object to issue a DIFFERENT string the next
time it is clicked at the caller end. Fairly detailed background graphics are
possible with this system. I can tell you that RIP too is gaining a following
and Galacticomm, Searchlight, and Synchronet BBS packages are about to
announce full RIP support. Telix, one of my personal favorites in the
terminal program field, is probably going to announce support for RIP as
well.
Both NAPLPS and RIP have quite interactive communications functions. I guess
perhaps I don't fully understand your somewhat pedantic definition of GUI,
but these two technologies have virtually nothing in common with transmitting
GIF images - either in concept or execution. In fact, as they stand now, one
of my primary criticisms is that they don't incorporate photo-realistic
graphics adequately. I would nominate JPEG as the way to do this and it
should be made part of both RIP and NAPLPS.
I would like to see a more graphical interface capable of hiding the many
arcane technical detritus of our communications heritage become ubiquitous
online. And I think that with regards to modem speeds, we are finally at a
point where we can seriously discuss this for the first time. What it's
ultimate initials are (GUI or not) is not particularly important. But some
consensus is. And if something more powerful does come along and develops a
following, I would drop the NAPLPS theme like a hot rock.
Jack Rickard
Dear Jack:
Thank you very much for your wonderful response to Jim Dunmyer's letter in
the November issue of Boardwatch. I have run a very successful BBS for a mere
6 months. By successful, I mean that the experience has been rewarding on a
personal level, not on a financial level. Total contributions to the support
of the board have amounted to less than the cost of a box of floppies! But I
have made friends in such faraway places as Belgium and the UK, have
experienced the trauma of a profound hard disk crash which, in one tragic
gesture, wiped my entire slate clean. I have added my voice to the fray on
FIDO, have opened the world of the Internet to my callers, and have watched
in agony as abusive users, failing to hearken to my patient warning voice,
finally felt the cyberaxe of sysop lockout.
Through all of it I troubled myself with questions of the deepest nature: do
I have what it takes? Am I going to survive this mentally and emotionally
intact? What of my marriage? Will my wife and kids someday pack whilst I am
clickety clacking away in the den? Is that REALLY one month's phone bill?
You put it all in perspective for me Jack. I am a pioneer pushing a handcart
through what can sometimes be considered dangerous and at least unfriendly
digital frontiers. I follow in the footsteps of some of the greatest, and
hope to help pave the way for those that follow. I may not be CompuServe, but
dammit, I won't ever think of myself as small again!
Thank you Jack, for helping me put it all together. This is why I buy your
magazine. Keep up the good work!
Tom Davidson
Osgiliath BBS
1:312/20
(801)374-9633
Tom:
There are many ways of measuring success. Currently, there is a lot of
interest in running a BBS for profit, and we share what we know. But if money
was required to drive all this, it never would have happened. Many, many BBS
operators worked long and hard for the privilege of paying money INTO this
hobby and they are rarely the ones taking money out of it. As Bob Mahoney,
sysop of EXEC-PC and one of the small group that DOES actually operate a
system quite profitably says, "It takes a more complex set of goals than
making money to make money with a BBS."
There are many good reasons to run a BBS that don't have anything to do with
money. As to expense, line up your phone and hardware bills with the hobby
costs of any really serious bass fisherman, avid golfer, or sailing
enthusiast, and then consider the profound changes likely to be wrought on
our entire society by more bass fishing, golf, or sailing. BBS operators are
really, to my way of thinking, the heroes of our age - the Thomas Paines and
Ben Franklins of the 1990s.
That said, lighten up. Include the wife and kids in the online experience,
and maybe take a night off once in awhile to take them to a movie. BBSs are,
after all, mostly for fun. If you miss an evening at the fire hose of e-mail
gushing through your RJ-11 jack, I promise you, it will still be there
waiting for you a day later - in full flow. And some callers were just
genetically designed for deletion.
And Jim Dunmyer has spent nearly ten years building his system. But every
time I see him, and I do once every year or so, his wife is there with him.
Given Jim's enthusiasm for bulletin boards, there IS talk in Toledo of
petitioning the Catholic Church to canonize the woman I understand, but
nonetheless, they do try to share the activities to the level of their mutual
interest.
My point is, many of the pioneers, though they do sport more than a few
arrows in their back, do hold home, hearth, and family together. Indeed, the
drive to make a living from bulletin boards revolves around the dream of the
home family business. I would urge you to consider coming to the ONE BBSCON
this August and meeting some of these people. It will put it much further in
"perspective" just what it is you are doing alone in the den.
Jack Rickard
Dear Jack:
Thanks for publishing the letter from Arcady Khotin of St. Petersburg,
Russia. Although I'm a charter member and avid user of America Online, the
only time I've ever tried AOL's Internet Gateway feature was one instance
when I sent a message to you. That was until I tried making contact with
someone on the other side of the globe, Mr. Khotin in Russia.
Much to my great satisfaction and EXCITEMENT, the Internet address for Mr.
Khotin published in your January, 1993 issue WORKED!! And darn quickly too.
I've got to check the exact times more carefully, but I believe it was within
24 hours of transmitting through AOL's Gateway that, bingo, I had a very
cordial response from Arcady.
My new Russian acquaintance asked a number of questions which I've already
responded to and I look forward to a very interesting (to say the very least)
pen-pal relationship with someone completely on the other side of this
"global village."
Your magazine served as the catalyst for my new adventure in global
communication. 'Course, I give myself credit for having the good sense to
read Boardwatch regularly, even though I'm most definitely a "user" rather
than an operator of a BBS. I've glanced at a couple of BBS type pubs but none
of them make it interesting for "users" like Boardwatch does. Keep up the
excellent, worthwhile and productive work!
Now, if I can only figure out what all those addresses mean that are listed
under "headers" (on the transmission I received from St. Petersburg). Maybe
you or some real Internet guru can translate that listing for me. Or maybe I
can dig it out of the book I bought recently, at the suggestion of your
magazine: "The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog."
Another quick PS - I just love Bruce Sterling's book, "The Hacker Crackdown,
Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier." I ripped the ad out of
Boardwatch about a month ago and asked my wife to get it for me for
Christmas. Which she did. I sent Mr. Sterling an e-mail note yesterday (he's
also an AOL member) telling him how much I am enjoying it. Man! Between
Sterling's new book and my exciting Internet contact in Russia - Santa Claus
was super to one hopelessly addicted cybernut.
Sincerely,
Larry Gauper
onehorse@aol.com
Larry,
It does sound like the online bug has bitten pretty hard at AOL. But I am
most pleased to hear from someone putting our modest efforts to good use. And
after some 14 years online, I too never have quite gotten over it either.
I did see a fascinating documentary series on public television covering the
civil war. One item caught my eye nearly every evening this show was on. As
part of the documentary, they would read letters mailed home by some poor
private on one side or another. These letters were drafted by rather modestly
educated soldiers of agricultural background. And each was so powerfully and
poetically written, I couldn't help but contrast them with the many hundreds
of letters and memorandums I had rewritten during my "corporate" years for
functionally illiterate company presidents, division, and department heads -
all of whom sported graduate degrees in something or other but couldn't
actually write themselves traveling directions home with any hope of ever
getting there.
I also recall a letter from my grandfather, a railroad engineer and rancher,
that I received while I was in the Navy. It was not only well written, but
actually poetic - from a different age and time. Today, our current corps of
professional NEA educators would perhaps go further in their never ending
quest for prestige, money, and power, if they bothered to teach the majority
of students the basic rudiments of reading and writing. And the concept of
powerfully, even poetic writing is completely and totally beyond the current
debate. It is unthinkable. It is today rare in individuals. Yet we have
forgotten that there was a time when much of our communication was by written
letters and the ability to write with a "fine hand" was prized most
universally and most thoroughly. Every mother in the land desired for her
children enough education to deal with "letters" and we had reached enough
success in this country through Horace Mann's public education system by the
time of the civil war that common foot soldiers quite commonly possessed this
skill of artfully communicating in writing. And not the writing of novels,
newspaper articles, or business correspondence, but specifically the writing
of letters of correspondence.
I have a tiny dream that of all the changes wrought by this increasingly
global electronic mail medium, the one thing that will come out of it is a
maturation beyond flame wars, to the point where the ability to write a good,
moving, powerful, and persuasive letter - to write with a "fine hand" is
again a prized skill sought and obtained by many. That with great convenience
we can send correspondence to countries on the other side of the globe and
have them there the next morning with a reply within 24 hours is indeed a
remarkable technical feat. But it may be that the success of our children in
dealing with a global economy may be measured by their ability to express
themselves and communicate artfully by letters. And it may be that just
establishing pen-pal relationships such as yours, dealing with the
misunderstandings and foibles of communicating entirely by written
correspondence, and in many cases communicating with people of differing
linguistic and cultural backgrounds, might provide the impetus to a needed
re-valuation of this skill. Dealings between nations are changed forever when
individuals within those nations can easily and immediately communicate
directly with each other - as you and Mr. Khotin are doing now. I would hope
we all take the time and make the effort to learn to do it well...
Jack Rickard
Dear Jack,
I was surprised when my December BOARDWATCH issue never arrived from the U.S.
Snail-Mail. I waited and called your office. You were out and I left a
message on your answering machine explaining the problem. The next business
day there was a message from you on my answering machine.
I was shocked an Editor/Publisher would take the time to call back a
subscriber, long distance no less. I was blown away a few days later when I
got my missing issue direct from you with no hassles.
You are one hell of a Editor/Publisher to check on a small single
subscriber's complaints. I run the NorthCoast Message Center BBS
(216)961-1621 9600 v.32. It is one of the smallest BBS's in the 216 exchange.
Yet the kind of service you provided made me feel as if my BBS was as big and
as important as the Big Guys.
Thanks Jack, for taking care of the little guys too.
Sincerely,
David L. Bly
Sysop: NorthCoast Message Center BBS
Cleveland, Ohio
David:
Boardwatch started as a little newsletter for a handful of friends. In the
process of growing it up to a magazine with a readership of some 55,000
online enthusiasts, the process has gotten a little more complicated. I
suppose if I was a better "editor/publisher" you wouldn't have missed your
December issue in the first place. And if I was better at running a business,
we wouldn't be in a more or less constant state of war with printers, mailing
houses, the USPS, etc. etc. But I become very irritated when retailers, mail
order firms, etc. appear to be taking advantage of me or have irksome
procedures for accomplishing apparently simple tasks. When it appears that
somehow we at Boardwatch are visiting these same sins on OUR customers, I do
quite go into a rage, and while I don't recall your particular case, it was
probably one of those "I'm-quitting-to-go-write-a-rice-recipe-cook-book-and-
leaving-you-all-with-this-ragged-little-magazine-if-you-don't-stop-screwing-
these-people-over" tantrums I throw periodically here in the office that
caused the apparent personal attention and efficiency. I'm afraid it isn't
quite the normal operation. I simply can't call every subscriber on the phone
given the current numbers of people involved. And the truth is, we're not
doing very well at taking care of our readership these days. You just about
have to beg for a renewal form as it stands today.
But the basic philosophy is as you perceive it. With the 60 pounds of mail
hitting most people's mail boxes each week, it is a profound privilege to
even be READ, much less supported by the community we serve. And while we do
sometimes stumble in performance, we are cognizant of the responsibility to
at least make sure everyone got what they ordered and paid for. As to your
size, the truth is that I've got no way of predicting whether you will close
your BBS and disappear online forever this spring, or wind up running the
whole global network 10 months from now. It's that kind of a world online.
Jack Rickard
Dear Jack:
You can't imagine the range of emotions I felt when I recently opened a box
"from the States" and found 100 cassette tapes from the ONE BBSCON.
Surprise - I thought, at best you might send a FEW TAPES. (I actually had
given up hope of even that.)
Gratitude - I know it's not the same as "being there," but just listening to
the dozen or so I've played already has given me priceless information I
really, really needed. Your generosity and thoughtfulness has made me a Jack
Rickard fan forever. I think a lifetime subscription to Boardwatch Magazine
would be perfectly in order at this point...now if I can only find the
financing. And to think I almost believed some of the terrible things they
say about you!
Guilt - I AM the great procrastinator. I always meant to send these Belgian
Chocolates, I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Durn yer hide for beating
me to the punch!
It is with great shame and gratitude that I offer this small token of my
appreciation to you, your magazine, and whatever members of your staff/family
prodded you into doing this. Please supply me with their names, and I'll see
they get one (smaller, of course; after all, you're the whale boss) each.
Soon as I get around to it.
Or maybe I'll just wait until August and deliver them in person.
Nah...once you've tasted them (and passed them around, I hope) it would be
far too sadistic to make you wait 'til August for more. Let me know how long
it takes you to inhale these, and I'll try to set up a regular CARE package
(within reason, of course).
You WILL see me in August, I swear it! Nothing (well almost) will stand in
the way THIS year! Part of the problem is you keep wrapping this thing around
my wife's birthday, 8/28. In the meantime, hope you and the family had a nice
Christmas and that you all have a GREAT new year.
Thanks again Jack, enjoy!
Ted Fletcher
Brussels, Belgium
PS. I log on to the board at least once a month, so you can leave the list of
names there. Even if I hand carry them, I need to know whose name to put on
the box!
Dear Ted:
The best present you can bring our way is to come to the ONE BBSCON this
August with tales of the BBS world as it stands in Belgium. Bring photos -
BBS lists, and tales of the online. But Peg Coniglio, our ONE, Inc. staffer,
is the one who actually made audio tapes show up on your doorstep.
For those unfamiliar with the situation, Ted is a noted BBS operator in
Belgium who had paid a full registration for ONE BBSCON this LAST August and
due to circumstances beyond his control, was unable to make the trip to the
U.S. to actually attend the event. Rather than refund his registration, we
sent him the full set of over 100 audio tapes of sessions held at the ONE
BBSCON. His letter was accompanied by an astoundingly delicious box of
Belgian Chocolates.
Jack Rickard
========
TELEBITS
========
CORRECTIONS
-----------
In our February issue, we mentioned a Canadian company titled Merlin Systems
that were working on a software gateway to link PCBoard BBS to the Internet
via UUCP. We incorrectly listed their telephone number as (613)236-1136.
Correct contact information for Merlin Systems is:
Roy Pereira
Merlin Systems
PO Box 3043, Station C
Ottawa, Ontario K1Y 4J3 Canada
(613)236-1138 voice
(613)236-1481 fax/BBS
Internet: info@merlin-systems.on.ca
Similarly, in our story on Dave Hughes trip to Russia, we listed Andrey
Sebrant's Internet address as asebrant@glas.apc. The correct address is
asebrant@glas.apc.org.
RUMORS
------
The move to an online graphics standard may be picking up steam. The big
rumor of the month.... a PROMINENT PROfessional COMmunications terminal
software developer located deep in the heart of Missouri's corn country is
rumored to be setting up a secret "summit meeting" of BBS software developers
for sometime in February. They're actually bringing in these developers to
discuss ONLINE GRAPHICS PROTOCOLS AND STANDARDIZATION. If they reach
consensus on a protocol, this group is influential enough that what they
decide is pretty much what we will see on future online screens.
Meanwhile, Galacticomm, Synchronet, Searchlight Software, and Telix are all
rumored to be making announcements regarding the RIP graphics program.
Few online may realize it, but U.S. modem manufacturers are a bit hampered in
that modems featuring speeds above 9600 bps are still actually under
technology export controls. A move is afoot in the U.S. Department of
Commerce to lift this restriction. One of the reasons cited is ZyXEL USA.
ZyXEL's U-1496 modem is actually manufactured in Taiwan, doesn't use either
the Rockwell or AT&T chip set, and their modems actually do 16.8kbps
connections with 19.2kbps capability within days of availability. If high
speed modems are already available overseas from other manufacturers, then
why are we shackling our own, or so the reasoning goes....
Electronic Democracy? The full U.S. House of Representatives, or all those
that desire to, will have access to the Internet by April or so we hear.
And on the REALLY bizarre and exciting rumor front...wouldn't it be a very
strange thing indeed if an alternate "internet" for bulletin boards was
developed across the U.S. to backbone all FidoNet, RIME, ILINK, etc. mail for
all the BBS networks now in operation? Offering full Internet Protocol
connections to those BBS that wanted them at a fairly realistic cost? It
ain't there yet, but we can tell you there are some very interesting people
working on something along those lines...even... as...we... speak. Sounds
like a real live garden party....
AT&T INTROS SYSOP DEAL ON 14.4kbps MODEMS
-----------------------------------------
While the majority of modems currently offered on the market use the Rockwell
Chipset, AT&T Paradyne develops their own modem chip sets and they have
historically been good ones. The Telebit Trailblazer we reviewed last year
used an AT&T chip set and it serves flawlessly at the 9600 bps speed it was
designed for.
But AT&T Paradyne also makes modems - historically somewhat pricey modems for
the corporate market. Recently, they've apparently had a change of heart with
a line of modems titled the DataPort Family available at more reasonable
pricing. And since AT&T Paradyne modems are virtually unknown in the BBS
community, we were surprised to find they have introduced one of the most
usable sysop modem discount deals we've ever seen - as their first effort.
And more to the point, they're touting one of the best prices for a quality
modem we've seen as well.
Their DataPort 14.4/Fax Modem leads the line with a list price of $555
featuring 14,400 bps V.32bis data rates with V.42bis/MNP 5 error
correction/compression features. This has become pretty standard online. The
modem does support fax transmission at up to 9600 bps as well. Their claim as
the most compatible modem available is hard to prove or disprove. But we
connected to a wide variety of modems without incident or failure and it
appears to be one of the most reliable units we've tested. It also features
an unusual LIFETIME warranty and toll free support - with people on the other
end.
One thing we confess to knowing a bit more about than we quite understand is
termed Optical Phone Line Interface (OLI). This looks like a way of
decoupling the modem electrically from the telephone line and appears to
allow the modem to operate at high speeds on poor lines. In any event, it
also seems to work. We were routinely getting full 14.4 connections on long
distance calls to boards we can rarely raise at anything higher than 12000
bps.
The modem case is attractively designed and relatively small. The motherboard
inside could be sampled in circuit board design classes - an unusually low
component count and superb workmanship throughout. The modem runs quite cool
at 5.7 watts.
The BBS sysop discount program is available to all bulletin boards, hobby or
commercial, that have been in operation for at least six months and intend to
be in operation for at least another six months. They do verify the bulletin
boards by calling them, but claim to ship within 3-4 weeks. They conveniently
accept money orders, Master Card, Visa, and American Express in payment. Like
most BBS discount programs, this one is designed to advertise the AT&T
Paradyne modem and BBS operators are required to note during the logon
process the use of AT&T Paradyne modems on the system. Operators may order as
many modems as they have actual lines running on the system.
Three models are offered under the program.
DATAPORT 14.4/FAX EXTERNAL. Model 3710-A1-201. This modem sports a list price
of $555 and a BBS operator discounted price of $222.
DATAPORT 14.4/FAX INTERNAL. Model 3721-B1-001. An internal model offering the
same features as the external V.32bis model. List price of $505 is discounted
for BBS operators to $202.
DATAPORT 14.4 EXTERNAL. Model 3710-A1-211. This modem is the same as the
14.4kbps V.32bis external model, but without fax capability. It features a
list price of $515 discounted for BBS operators to $206.
Since most multiline BBSs will have little use for fax capability on every
line, this means AT&T Paradyne, one of the most respected modem manufacturers
in the industry, is also the current BBS discount price king in the V.32bis
class at $206 - a very unusual situation. And after playing with this modem
for a week, we have to rate it as one of the best bargains currently
available for BBS operators.
The modems come with QuickLink II communications and fax software for both
DOS and Windows. A Macintosh version should be available soon.
We normally have a terrible time dealing with, or even getting information
from corporations the size of AT&T. Surprisingly, AT&T has a PEOPLE running
their BBS sysop discount program. His name is Scott Frazee and we were
pleasantly surprised to find he speaks almost exactly the same dialect of
American English we learned early in life. This immediately put us on common
ground. According to Frazee, AT&T thinks they have a superb modem, and
absolutely no visibility in the BBS market. They're hopeful that their BBS
operator discount program can turn that around and establish a presence in
the BBS community. We think they're speaking the right language - in this
case a combination of decimal ($206) and V.32bis. They have a BBS in beta
test and should be announcing the number soon.
For more information, contact Scott Frazee, AT&T Paradyne, Mailstop LG219,
8545 126th Ave North, Largo, FL 34649; (800)554-4996 voice; (813)530-8276
international; (813)530 -2398 fax; Internet: s.frazee@pdnis. paradyne.com
HAYES AND MULTI-TECH BURY LEGAL HATCHET
---------------------------------------
Modem manufacturers Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc., of Norcross, Georgia,
and Multi-Tech Systems, Inc., of Mounds View, Minnesota, announced the end of
a four year-old legal battle this past January 11.
The battle began in November 1988 with a letter from Hayes Microcomputer
Products demanding royalties for use of the "improved escape sequence" Hayes
had received a patent for on October 25, 1985 as U.S. Patent Number
4,549,302. Commonly referred to as the Heatherington 302 patent, it
incorporated an escape sequence developed by Dale Heatherington that used a
guard time in conjunction with escape commands to cause the modem to escape
into "command mode" allowing callers to send commands to the modem. It
decreased the incidence of modems "accidentally" escaping when they
encountered similar strings in data that was being transferred. The
technology was actually developed in 1981 and by the time the patent was
issued in 1985, virtually all modem manufacturers used this escape sequence
technique.
Rather than pay royalties, Multi-Tech filed suit in December 1988 seeking to
have the patent ruled invalid. In February 1989, Hayes filed a counter suit
charging infringement of the patent. In December of 1990, Multi-Tech filed
additional claims charging false advertising and unfair competition. And so
the battle raged. The most recent battles have centered on Hayes
advertisements calling into question the Time Independent Escape Sequence
(TIES) that Multi-Tech had subsequently adopted.
Just two weeks earlier, Hayes won a resounding victory when a United States
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington denied a request by
three California-based modem manufacturers to overturn the results of a San
Francisco court jury trial that found the Hayes patent valid. With the San
Francisco case decided just two weeks prior to their own court date,
Multi-Tech finally agreed to settle the dispute. The out of court settlement
between Multi-Tech and Hayes did involve payment to Hayes of an undisclosed
amount of cash, and Hayes agreed to make some changes to their "white paper"
with respect to the TIES escape sequence. All other terms of the settlement
remain confidential.
But the legal imbroglio, now settled between Multi-Tech and Hayes, still
continues on other fronts. Hayes has pending litigation against Cardinal
Technologies, Inc. of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Zoom Telephonics, of
Boston Massachusetts. These cases are scheduled for U.S. District Court in
Atlanta Georgia for later this year. But with the precedent set in San
Francisco, it is unlikely either will come to trial.
Multi-Tech reported sales of $81 million for 1992 and has been in the
business since 1970. Multi-Tech Systems, Inc. 2205 Woodale Drive, Mounds
View, MN 55112; (612)785-3500 voice; (612)785-9874 fax. Hayes Microcomputer
Products, Inc., 5835 Peachtree Corners East, Norcross, GA 30092;
(404)840-9200 voice; (404)441-1213 fax; (404)446-6336 BBS
PRODIGY SENDS MAIL TO SOMALIA - BUT ELIMINATES 250 EMPLOYEES
------------------------------------------------------------
Prodigy Services Company has been busy lately. Early in January, the service
announced that it had reached the 2 million account milestone with over a
million households online and was currently enjoying over 700,000 connects
per day. In further statistics, the service claims some 2.5 million monthly
electronic mail messages and over 150,000 BBS messages per day. The service
recently expanded the number of BBS topic areas to over 400.
Prodigy recently added an interesting service. Callers can now track the
voyage of Great American II, a trimaran sailing ship that's attempting to
better the sailing speed record from San Francisco to Boston set by the
clipper ship Northern Light in 1853. Satellite and telephone uplinks permit
members to ask questions of the crew throughout the voyage and receive
answers. Great American II's log will be available online.
The service also plans online question and answers with Rick Berman, producer
of Star Trek and Deep Space Nine, and will soon add Patrick Stewart, who
plays Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Most interestingly, the service has added a connection allowing people with
relatives and friends serving in the U.S. Armed Forces in Somalia to send
e-mail messages to them free of charge. Prodigy prints out the messages and
the Armed Forces Mail System actually makes delivery - usually within 48
hours. Titled USA CONNECT, the service will be free and run until February
28. But even better, you don't have to have an account on Prodigy to use the
service. The company has entered into an alliance with the Software Etc.
store chain that will make terminals available in some 260 mall stores across
the country where anyone can enter a message. Those interested are asked to
call (800)328-4646 to find the location of the Software Etc. store closest to
them. Letters must be addressed to a specific individual. Prodigy helped
deliver over 200,000 messages during the Operation Desert Storm two years
ago.
But even Prodigy is starting to catch on to the fact that implementing new
features and competing in today's online world can be difficult through
layers of bureaucracy. On January 11 they announced a major reorganization
that included the elimination of 25% of their work force - some 250
positions.
According to Prodigy President Ross Glatzer, "What we've done today is make
the company leaner and more agile, and focused its resources on identifying
and responding rapidly to the changing needs of our members. We expect to
continue to lead the online marketplace. These reductions were painful but
necessary in order to reduce our costs and operate more efficiently," Mr.
Glatzer said. "We're doing everything feasible to ease the impact of the
reductions on those who are leaving and those who remain."
One of the ways Prodigy is reducing overhead is by outsourcing all membership
services to SPS Payment Systems Inc. Approximately 65 Prodigy employees are
being offered positions at SPS Payment Systems.
The company still plans on introducing an electronic mail gateway to the
Internet before the end of the first quarter of 1993 - allowing Prodigy
members to correspond worldwide with the rest of the online community.
Additionally, the company is developing more powerful user software for
drafting messages offline, and is experimenting in a number of areas
including delivery by cable television, wireless e-mail, and other products.
BOARDWATCH 100 READER'S CHOICE BBS CONTEST UPDATE
-------------------------------------------------
This year's Boardwatch 100 Reader's Choice BBS Contest got off to quite a
start on opening day, January 1, 1993. BBS enthusiasts from around the
country immediately flooded our fax machine, BBS, and mailbox with ballots
for their favorite bulletin board system. As of the close of the first week
of balloting, we have received and processed some 764 ballots and already
some interesting items are starting to appear.
First, the breakdown by sex indicated 673 male voters and some 91 female
voters with none confused. This 86.5% male to 13.5% female ratio of online
participants is almost PRECISELY what the final breakdown was over the course
of last years 11,152 total contest votes. It would appear we are on VERY firm
ground estimated female online participation at around 13-14%.
The average age of voters was again so far this year right at 34 years of
age. The breakdown to date:
AGE VOTES
---------------------
0-9 14
10-19 184
20-29 186
30-39 199
40-49 192
50-59 60
60-69 24
over 70 5
We asked a couple of new questions this year. One was "Have you installed a
second telephone line for modem use". A total of 299 said yes, 462 said no,
and 3 asked what a telephone line was. This indicates that 39% of BBS
aficionados have installed second telephone lines specifically for data
communication purposes. The telephone companies are all quite thrilled with
this statistic.
We also were curious where the Microsoft Windows program stood with the
online crowd. Windows programs and utilities have become very common in BBS
shareware libraries. Some 417 of 764 votes cast indicated some regular
Windows use while 345 don't do windows. Two respondents asked what a window
was. Windows penetration among the online crowd would seem to be about 55%.
Although I do quite a bit of Windows myself, I found this surprisingly high
for some reason. For those who pooh-pooh dollar Bill and the group in
Redmond, note which way the window is blowing here.
Modems used by callers - pretty early to tell but U.S. Robotics still looks
like a favorite online.
MODEM VOTES
--------------
U.S. Robotics 140
Hayes 69
Supra 44
Zoom 42
Practical Perph 37
Intel 24
Cardinal 24
Boca 22
Comp Periph 16
Best Data 16
Everex 13
ZyXEL 11
Packard Bell 10
Multi-Tech 10
88 others 286
With regards to terminal communications software packages, Procomm retains an
overpowering lead with 266 of 764 votes or 34.82% of the market. But Qmodem
seems to have overtaken Telix by the narrowest of margins for the number two
spot at this stage with 152 callers for a 19.90% share while Telix took third
position at 150 callers for 19.63%. Last year, Telix had a firm hold on the
number two position but Qmodem seems to be overtaking it. A newcomer that is
gaining attention is Winfred Hu's TELEMATE program with 38 callers making all
ten digits count with this program for a 4.97% share. Though callers have
specified over 70 different comm packages already, these four programs
account for 79.32% of the market.
As it stands now, six lucky voters will receive modems in this year's contest
although several other modem manufacturers have expressed preliminary
interest. ZyXEL USA has donated two top of the line U-1496 models featuring
fax and their highest data speed - likely 19,200 bps by the award ceremony at
the ONE BBSCON in Colorado Springs, August 25-29th, 1993. Likewise, Hayes
Microcomputer Products, Inc. has weighed in with support consisting of two
Hayes Optima 14.4 modems with Fax, and U.S. Robotics, long a favorite in the
BBS community, has pledged two U.S. Robotics Courier Dual Standard modems.
Six qualified ballots (qualified by being completely filled out and received
1 January 1993 to 23:59:59 June 30, 1993) will be drawn at random by
representatives of these three companies at ONE BBSCON to determine the
winners. A similar drawing last year produced some surprised but happy
dialers in the BBS community.
Additionally, the BBSs themselves are vying for the top spot, in many cases
by offering their callers incentives such as modems, software, extended time
on their systems, etc. for voting. Several are running parallel contests.
While they can't handle voter ballots in any manner after they are completed,
several are asking voters to send them photocopies of the ballot the voter
mailed directly to Boardwatch. These photocopies are being used as entries in
the local contests. We have determined this is a valid technique for the
purposes of this contest.
If the current pace of the contest continues, we project a total ballot count
somewhere in the 20,000 to 30,000 vote range. The ballot is floating around
on the bulletin boards in the file CONTEST.ASC. Callers can download this
file, print it out and mail or fax it in, use the printed ballot in
Boardwatch itself, or vote electronically on the Boardwatch BBS at
(303)973-4222.
FILE COMPRESSION WARS REVISITED - PKWARE RELEASES VERSION 2.04c of PKZIP
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the early days when the BBS community first began forming, one of the
ongoing topics of discussion has been file compression/library programs. The
reason is that this particular utility segment is central to the distribution
of software programs by modem.
Most software programs for IBM compatible personal computers are made up of
numerous files - documentation, help text, overlays, configuration files,
etc. that all interact as a "program". Any software installation requires any
number of files and some products come on as many as a dozen diskettes
required for installation.
In the BBS community, early efforts consisted of simple library routines to
combine all the necessary files a particular program needed into a single
file for storage and transport. In this way, callers could download a single
file entity, and then extract all the original component files to install the
software. Combining files into a single file entity made the process of
transferring "programs" by modem a manageable task.
Given the slow 300 bps modem speeds of the day, a natural improvement to
library management software was compression. Early compression software
worked on the principle of replacing redundant strings of data with reduced
symbols - a series of 30 space characters could, for example, be replaced
with three or four bytes noting that the character was a space, and there
were 30 of them.
One of the best early efforts was a program titled ARC - short for ARCHIVE -
developed by Thom Henderson - an early participant in the International
FidoNet. ARC handled both the library (archive) function and provided some
pretty advanced data compression. Not only could programs be stored in a
single file entity, but it was smaller as well - decreasing the storage space
required for the program on the BBS, and at the same time decreasing the
amount of connect time required to download the file.
ARC became a standard in the bulletin board community that was considered
nearly unassailable. And a number of competing products sprang to life to
deal with the ARC file format.
One of the most successful was a program written by a computer science
graduate named Phil Katz in Wisconsin. Titled PKARC (Phil Katz ARC program)
the program was fully compatible with existing ARC files, and also made ARC
files much more quickly than the original ARC program. The program was so
successful that Katz formed a small shareware company titled PKWARE, Inc. to
promote it.
Henderson asserted that PKARC contained original source code from the ARC
program and filed suit alleging copyright infringement. He also claimed
ownership of the .ARC file extension. The matter was settled out of court,
largely to Henderson's advantage. But opinion in the BBS community ran
against Henderson and he was perceived as competing in court rather than on
performance issues.
In any event, Katz soon released a new version of his file compression
program that used a different file format titled PKZIP. It not only used a
different format, but a different file name extension - .ZIP.
Many in the BBS community point to the support Katz had politically as a
result of the lawsuit as the reason PKZIP became the ascendant archive
format. Actually, it had nothing to do with it. The reason PKZIP caught on
was entirely technical. PKZIP made smaller archives than ARC. BBS operators
across the country tested the new program and found that if they converted
all their ARC files to ZIP files, they could gain tens of megabytes of
additional hard drive space. It was as if someone had offered them free hard
disk drives to convert. So they did.
The BBS community has never regained the situation of having a "standard"
archive program since ARC was dethroned. A Japanese group released a free
program titled LHARC that gained some popularity. More recently, a program
titled ARJ has gained a following. But generally speaking, the vast majority
of bulletin board files are stored as .ZIP files.
The last release of PKZIP was in March of 1990 and the PKZ110.EXE file is
ubiquitous on BBS around the world. This is known as a self-extracting .EXE
file in that it contains compressed component files, but you do not need a
separate compression utility to extract them. Simply download PKZ110.EXE and
run it and it will self-extract a series of documentation and utility
programs that make up the PKZIP program. These files include PKZIP.EXE, used
to create ZIP archives, and PKUNZIP.EXE used to unzip files downloaded from
bulletin boards. This allows you to use programs on bulletin boards stored in
the .ZIP format.
Well, kind of....
In late 1991, PKWARE released an "alpha" version of PKZIP in the file
PKZ193A.EXE. This new version caused some confusion in the BBS community as
some users adopted it and began creating ZIP files, while others didn't since
it was not an official release. The result was an incompatible mix of .ZIP
files that brought many BBS operators to the point of exasperation. Bob
Mahoney, operator of one of the nation's largest BBS systems, EXEC-PC, issued
an open letter on his system this past December lambasting PKWARE, Inc. for
having an alpha release out for over a year with no further activity.
This past December 28th, PKWARE, Inc finally released version 2.04c of PKZIP
in the file PKZ204C.EXE. The release has caused near hysteria in some
quarters online.
Part of the problem is that the new version of PKZIP really IS a dramatic
improvement in some ways. The program has abandoned one of its primary
compression algorithms, known as "imploding" for a new one they call
"deflating". It results in significantly smaller archives - at least 5%
smaller than the previous version.
But the program also offers some other attractive features. It will
automatically detect and use EMS and XMS memory as well as free memory in
upper memory blocks (UMBs - the area between 640KB and 1 MB of the first 1MB
address space). It will also automatically detect and use 386/486
microprocessors in a 32-bit mode. The result is that the new deflating
technique not only creates smaller archives, but it does so dramatically
faster.
In a test compression of a subdirectory containing 62 mixed text, .EXE, and
.ZIP files requiring 1,888,256 bytes of disk space, we found the PKZIP
Version 1.10 created a ZIP of the directory in a time of slightly over two
minutes (2:04) with a .ZIP size of 790,629 bytes. The new version 2.04c
reduced the same directory to 745,120 bytes. It not only created a .ZIP that
was 45,509 bytes smaller, but it did it in 1:24 - a full 40 seconds faster on
a 20MHz 80386 machine with 4MB of RAM.
On a test directory of 25 purely text files occupying 1,404,562 bytes, the
results were similar. Old ZIP: 428,220 bytes in 1:17. New ZIP: 399,217 bytes
in 0:53.
And on a test directory of 37 .EXE files occupying 1,476,608 bytes the new
zip again showed its colors. Old ZIP: 756,859 bytes in 1:21. New ZIP: 722,243
bytes in 1:15.
The new version also sports some significant new features - most notably
the
ability to create .ZIP files spanning several diskettes. In this way, PKZIP
virtually becomes a backup utility. You can designate a subdirectory for
backup, and PKZIP will compress the files and subdirectories intact over a
series of diskettes. They can then be reconstituted - including the
subdirectory structure - using PKUNZIP. This is not an entirely effective
backup strategy. To recover, you must have ALL the diskettes originally
written to, and they must be inserted in the proper order. If any are
missing, partial data recovery is not feasible. Most backup utilities are
enormously forgiving of damaged data. One demonstration we saw of a backup
utility, the salesman actually punched a hole in the diskette with a paper
punch and STILL recovered the data. PKZIP is not nearly so robust.
And all is not roses in ZIPville. In fact, the new release has caused chaos
in the BBS community for a number of entirely separate, but critical reasons.
First is the issue of backwards compatibility. The new PKZIP WILL unzip files
created with earlier versions. But it cannot CREATE files in the old format
at all. The convention in the past in such utilities is that some command
line switch is provided to make old format files, while the default is the
new "improved" file format. The new version of PKZIP ignores this convention
entirely - largely because they have abandoned the earlier IMPLODING
compression method entirely in favor of the new DEFLATING method.
The reason this is important has to do with other software widely in use in
the BBS community. PKWARE has made programming libraries available for
sometime allowing programmers to incorporate PKZIP into their own programs.
Most of the BBS community has become enamored of the offline mail concept and
offline mail .QWK packets are almost always ZIPped. And while many offline
mail readers shell out to a copy of PKZIP itself for these duties, others
have them built in internally.
The situation is worse for the mail door programs themselves that run on
bulletin boards. If they can recognize and unpack only version 1.10 .ZIP
files uploaded by callers, they will not be able to handle the new version
2.04c packets many callers will inevitably try to upload.
Sparky Herring's QMAIL door, for example, actually uses PKZIP and PKUNZIP to
process packets. But QMAIL uses quite a bit of memory, and early test
revealed some significant problems with the new .ZIP. When it works at all,
it tends to create corrupted .QWK packets with CRC errors. And due to an
apparent conflict with QEMM, the new PKZIP apparently causes some computers
to simply reboot in mid-process.
Similarly, eSoft, Inc. had just finally released a .QWK mail program for
their TBBS product this past November. And in January, TBBS operators face
the growing possibility of having to explain to their callers why they can
NOT upload .QWK packets created with the new PKZIP version 2.04c.
To add to the mounting confusion over the new release, it turns out that
Norton's Anti-Virus program falsely detects a Maltese Amoeba virus in the new
PKZ204C.EXE component files themselves. Thousands of callers across the
country are calling BBS operators in a fury, accusing them of carrying a
virus-infested program. In truth, the PKZ release contains NO virus we can
find at all, and a new version of Norton's Anti-Virus program should fix the
false alarm. But this does nothing to alleviate the confusion and the
thousands of telephone calls to BBS operators.
There are also many reports of unexplained corrupted files and CRC errors
reaching near hysteric proportions online. And some complaints from owners of
Northgate and Gateway computers about reboots etc. garnered responses from
PKWARE representatives that the individual should replace their computer.
This would appear to be the WRONG answer from the reaction it received.
The result could just be a period of chaos until the other software
developers can bring their products in line with the new format, and PKWARE,
Inc. gets some of the bugs worked out of the new release. On the other hand,
if the confusion gets bad enough, developers and proponents of programs such
as ARJ, LHARC, and other contenders are ready to pitch their compression
utilities as the way to sanity. We could enter a new period of "compression
wars" that will endlessly complicate life in the BBS lane.
The initial reaction of some of the major BBS operators is that the headaches
aren't worth the space. Major systems such as Andy Keeves Executive Network
in New York, Kevin Behrens Aquila BBS in Chicago, and others seem to have
taken the position that PKZ110.EXE is good enough until the bugs get fixed. I
t's starting to look like the ultimate impact of PKZ204C.EXE may be deafening
indifference married to a small dose of frustrating confusion. In general,
it appears the boards will use the new 2.04c to UNZIP but the previous 1.10
version to ZIP files.
For those willing to wage the battle, there is a bit of help. Norton has
released a "fix" for their Anti-Virus program that modifies the .DEF file to
prevent it from inaccurately reporting the Maltese Amoeba virus in
PKZ204C.EXE. It is widely available in the file, 20A10.ZIP. Quarterdeck has
released a new DPMI for QEMM386 that eliminates some problems, in the file
QDPMI101.ZIP. And there is a conversion program that will help you do a mass
conversion to the new .ZIP files titled ZZAP66A.ZIP. Two hot alternatives
these days include ARJ (ARJ239B.EXE) and SQUEEZE (SQZ1082E.EXE).
PKWare, Inc., 9025 N. Deerwood Drive, Brown Dear, WI 53223; (414)354-8699
voice; (414)354-8599 fax. CompuServe users can access the PKWare support area
by entering GO PKWARE. Internet users can reach PKWare at
pkware.inc@mixcom.com. Callers can download the shareware version of
PKZ204C.EXE directly from the PKWare support BBS at (414)354-8670.
ZYXEL USA NAMES WINNERS IN BBS CONTEST
--------------------------------------
ZyXEL USA, a leading supplier of high-speed data/fax modems and compatible
products, announced the winners of its first ever Bulletin Board System (BBS)
ANSI Screen contest.
The contest was held to increase awareness of the ZyXEL fax/modems among BBS
system operators. Entrants were required to submit color ANSI log-on screens
noting the systems use of ZyXEL modems. The winning entry was submitted by
David Foy of Santee, California. Foy operates the Foy's Trading Post BBS at
(619)562-3438 using RoboBoard BBS Software (FidoNet 1:202/1301). Foy's
winning screen consisted of a ZyXEL modem inside a window frame surrounded by
a fishnet background.Foy spent two months and created more than 70 ANSI files
in the generation of an image. Foy's BBS provides callers with on-line games,
graphics, and an international message board.
Foy was awarded a check for $2500 and ZyXEL's U-1496 top-of-the-line,
high-speed fax/modem bundled with ZFAX and WinFax software. Second prize,
consisting of $1500 and a ZyXEL U-1496E fax/modem, was awarded to Bernal
Schooley from Aurora, Illinois. Ten runners-up were also selected and
received a U-1496E modem.
According to Alan Bryant, director of marketing for Denver-based eSoft Inc.
and one of three judges for the contest, the judging panel looked for
originality and creativity. "We were looking for that "wow" factor. Foy's use
of color and interesting background bowled us over."
ZyXEL is committed to the BBS market - offering a discount on modems to BBS
operators and was the first to offer BBS operators modems capable of
receiving fax and data on a single telephone line. "Our modem's high-speed
and standard features provide BBS system operators with a greatly reduced
phone bill and assures them of reliability as well as compatibility with all
makes of modems," said Munira Brooks, marketing manager for ZyXEL USA.
ZyXEL's U and U-plus series of modems come with an array of standard features
that include caller ID, voice mail, distinctive ringing, and remote
configuration. The U-plus series runs at speeds up to 19.2kpbs. Winning
entries in the contest can be viewed by calling ZyXEL's support BBS at
(714)693-0762 and downloading the file WINNING.ZIP. ZyXEL is also one of the
sponsors of the Boardwatch 100 Reader's Choice BBS Contest - providing two of
their U-1496 modems as prizes to be drawn at ONE BBSCON, August 25-29 in
Colorado Springs Colorado. Two contest ballots will be drawn from the votes
received for ZyXEL modems. ZyXEL USA, 4920 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim, CA
92807; (714)693-0808 voice; (714)693-0705 fax; (714)693-0762 BBS.
MCAFEE ASSOCIATES ANNOUNCES SHAREWARE CONTEST
---------------------------------------------
McAffee Associates appears to be the first shareware company to complete a
public stock offering (NASDAQ:MCAF). Last October they completed an initial
public offering raising some $46 million and according to founder John McAfee
the company is claiming annual sales in excess of $20 million. Additionally,
rumors abound regarding their possible acquisition of one or more BBS
software developers.
In January, McAfee Associates announced their sponsorship of the "First
International Shareware Contest." The goal of the contest is to promote the
shareware concept and heighten public awareness and encourage new shareware
authors.
The contest is open to authors of new shareware programs for MS-DOS, Windows,
and OS/2 environments. A prize of $1000 will be awarded to the best program
in each of six categories with a grand prize of $2500 awarded to the program
selected as the "Most Innovative Shareware Program." The six categories
include:
Best DOS Business Application
Best DOS General Purpose Utility
Best Windows Business Application
Best Windows General Purpose Utility
Best OS/2 Business Application
Best OS/2 General Purpose Utility
To qualify, the contestant must be the author of a new shareware program
released after December 1, 1992. Programs must be submitted to McAfee
Associates prior to March 1, 1993. Awards will be announced April 15, 1993.
Submissions may be sent through the mail or uploaded to McAfee Associates'
bulletin board system (BBS). Submissions must include the author's full name,
address, and daytime telephone number.
McAfee Associates' BBS number is (408)988-4004. Upload submissions to the
Contest Area on the main area of the BBS, or mail to Attn: Shareware Contest,
McAfee Associates, 3350 Scott Boulevard, Building 14, Santa Clara, CA 95054;
(408)988-3832 voice; (408)970-9727 fax.
McAfee Associates, founded in 1989, develops, markets and electronically
distributes software for personal computers and networks. McAfee Associates'
primary product line consists of anti-virus software, and the company has
recently released several general purpose utility products.
DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY ADVANCES BIT-BY-BIT KODAK PHOTO CD
------------------------------------------------------
by Nick Anis Jr. and Jack Rickard
According to industry estimates, there are 250 million 35 millimeter cameras
worldwide snapping some 60 billion plus photos each year. The conventional
wisdom outside of the PC world seems to be that Eastman Kodak, The Yellow
Giant from Rochester, has produced a terrific new fun toy for affluent
yuppies to view family photos on TV - that has a very limited market. The
Wall Street Journal, for example, is not as convinced as Kodak that consumers
en mass will plop another $400 box on top of their VCR, abandon their photo
albums all together and turn their TV into a slide projector. And they are
likely correct. Kodak's push to revolutionize how we view photographs is
probably destined to flop on the large scale. But for desktop publishing and
multimedia applications for the PC community, it just might be a hit.
While American companies have long since lost the quality camera market to
various Japanese, German and Swedish competitors -- Nikon, Canon, Olympus,
Minolta, Leica, Rolleiflex, Hasselblad, etc. -- Eastman Kodak remains as a
world leader in film technologies and processing materials, along with Fuji,
the German company Agfa, and the British company Ilford. These four companies
have long since adapted the old Gillette strategy: "give away the razor, in
order to sell the blades." Each of these four companies has invested millions
in the development of "electronic imaging" systems and processes. For the
moment, it appears that Kodak has a lead in the race to market. In fact,
Fuji Film and Konica have already signed onto the Kodak bandwagon.
Photo CD is a digital image process layered on top of conventional 35mm film
negatives. For 20 bucks you can have a 24 image roll of 35mm film developed
at any of nearly 100 PhotoCD workstations scattered across the country and
transferred to CD-ROM. A $100,000 Photo CD workstation scans the developed
35mm negatives and records them digitally to a Photo CD-ROM in five different
resolutions. You can view them on your television with a $400 Photo CD
"player," but more to the point, you can access them on your personal
computer with any CD-ROM drive that's Photo CD compatible.
These digital images can be viewed directly from a Photo CD or read into a
computer and converted and saved to hard disk in common PC image formats,
such as TIF, EPS, PCX, BMP, RIFF, GIF, and so on. Off the shelf digital image
editing software already available can be used to manipulate the images
including doing color separations, and converting them into half tones and
grey scale images, and if desired, printing them on dot-matrix, laser, or
high-end photographic printers.
Kodak has done an impressive job in launching Photo CD on the photographic
and computer side of things. They have successfully created a sophisticated
digital image and compression format based on several widely accepted
standards. They have also wisely created a turnkey system for photographic
developers (it's $100,000 price tag is about the same cost of a one hour
mini-lab), and provided all the critical computer and photographic support
necessary for creating a whole new desktop digital imaging industry.
Photo CDs and digital imaging have a lot going for them. To start with they
reduce or eliminate the notorious handling problems associated with film
negatives because they are almost indestructible. They can be duplicated an
unlimited numbers of times without any loss of resolution. They may not quite
attain the resolution possible with film, but their digital images can be
viewed and manipulated easily and relatively inexpensively on a personal
computer. Once read into a personal computer, Photo CD images can be saved as
new images in more traditional PC image formats on a hard disk without loss
of resolution. These images can also be transmitted to other systems by
modems, removable cartridge disks drives, and flopticals. Finally, prints
made from Photo CD images do not look substantially different than prints
made from film negatives.
Each image on a Photo CD is assigned a 3-digit ID number, and each Photo CD
itself has an 4-digit ID number. Photo CD images are easy to transfer to and
from other Photo CDs. To get a print made, you just send in a Photo CD and
tell them which images to print: "Give me a 5 x 7 of #059." As part of the
image transferring process 1 to 4 CD-sized sheets of numbered thumbnail
prints are returned with the Photo CD to help you with this.
Each image is stored in a single compressed file containing all five
resolutions.
The digital images of Kodak's Photo CD may currently only support resolutions
of up to 3072 x 2048 using 24-bit color for over 16.8 million different
colors. This offers sufficient resolution to create excellent photographic
prints that look the same as those made from photographic negatives. Prints
are normally made from the BASEX4 resolution.
Each image file set hogs a whopping 18 megabytes in uncompressed form -
typically compressing to a final archive of about 5 MB. A fully loaded Photo
CD can only between 105 and 140 compressed images. . But each file contains
all five different image resolutions, all saved to a single archive file The
first three resolutions are embedded directly, since they aren't that large.
The remaining two, which do take a lot of space, are compressed before
storage to achieve the final 5 MB storage size.
Kodak has been working closely with video display adapter manufacturers to
ensure the next generation of co-processor cards, which will be available the
first quarter of 1993, will be optimized for Photo CD. On top of all that,
Kodak is already developing a Photo CD Professional with higher resolution of
up to 4000 x 6000 pixels for professional publishing applications requiring
top grade resolutions. This should be available by summer.
PhotoCD is notable in that we can have all the benefits of digital imaging
while still using our existing 35mm cameras. And for personal computers it's
great that after years of laboring with scanners, frame capture boards and
whatnot, snapshots can be taken and developed on Photo CD through stores,
such as Fedco, and Long's Drugs (in California), and easily be read into
personal computers. (Kodak has an toll-free number for locating Photo CD
processing centers in your area: (800)242-2424 ext 36.
So far, because of Apple's QuickTime software version 1.5, the Macintosh
platform has a leg up over IBM compatibles with Kodak's Photo CD technology.
QuickTime on a Mac recognizes the Kodak Photo CD format. (The current version
of QuickTime only has drivers for Apple's CD300 drive, but Transtor, and FWB
are about to release drivers that will allow other drives to be used.)
QuickTime 1.5 creates phantom folders, a slide show script, and a Mac-based
image viewer that all seem to be on the CD, but actually are part of the
QuickTime software.
QuickTime's image viewer can be configured to call the image processing
software of your choice. In fact, more than one program can be linked through
the slide show viewer's Preferences menu. QuickTime makes the images on the
disk appear to be PICT images in these phantom folders. The images don't
actually exist until they are accessed by image viewer. The image viewer
calls the current linked application, which is tricked into recognizing Photo
CD files as a PICT file. In this way image applications Mac users already own
and can access Photo CD image files.
Kodak is trying to get PhotoCD off the ground by promoting the development of
software that uses the images. They offer $695 tool kits available for
software developers to directly access photo CD images for Windows,
Macintosh, and UNIX. Kodak also offers a $139 Windows product titled Kodak
PhotoEdge to manipulate PhotoCD images. And a scaled down version of Kodak
search-and-retrieval product Shoebox is bundled with several Photo CD
compatible CD ROM drives and is also available ($399) from software retailers
and directly from Kodak. And basic software to display images from CD-ROMs
titled Photo CD Access is available for $39.
So far, Adobe Photo Shop ($895) appears to currently be the most popular
application for working with Photo CD images on Mac or PC. The advantage of
Photo Shop 2.5, which is due to be released January 1993, is that the PC
Windows and Mac versions will be identical.
But all the major image software publishers have indicated they will be
supporting Photo CD. Programs currently supporting the technology (on PC and
Macintosh) include Aldus' entire product line, and Adobe Systems Inc.'s
PhotoShop image editors. Aldus will release a module for PhotoStyler. On the
PC, Micrografx Inc.'s Picture Publisher, Media Cybernetics Inc.'s Halo
Desktop Imager, and Corel Systems, Inc.'s CorelDraw drawing program. And most
off-the-shelf Macintosh software is supported anyway because of QuickTime
1.5.
From a PC perspective all you need to get started is your existing personal
computer with a 24-bit video card (often referred to as TrueColor - capable
of displaying the 16.8 million colors), a Photo CD compatible CD ROM drive, a
copy of Adobe Photo Shop, version 2.5, a 35mm camera with film, and $20 bucks
to send the film to be developed and transferred to CD-ROM.
There is an issue regarding CD-ROM drives. Any "XA" rated CD-ROM drive will
actually read the PhotoCD disc. And the files are stored on the CD-ROM in
standard ISO 9660 format so most systems will display the first directory.
However, the discs themselves are in some sense "reusable" in that you can
take your existing CD to a developing station with a roll of exposed film,
and the pictures can be ADDED to your existing CD. This is referred to by
Kodak as "multi-session" in that more than one picture taking session is
recorded on each CD. This actually is done by creating additional file
directories on the CD-ROM. Standard CD-ROM drives won't be able to read these
added file directories. But a number of CD-ROM manufacturers are now coming
out with "multi-session" CD-ROM drives that can. If you are shopping for a
CD-ROM drive just to take advantage of PhotoCD, (or just shopping for a new
CD-ROM drive), it is worthwhile to go ahead and get a multi-session model.
Six companies are already offering CD ROM drives compatible with
multi-session Photo CD including Apple Computer with their model CD300,
($599) Sony (the actual manufacturer of Apple's drive, is shipping their
models 31A ($299), and 7305 ($499). Toshiba has an internal drive, the
XM-3301BSP40C0, and external drive the XM-3301E1P10Z0. Mitsumi is shipping
their CRMC-LU005S drive for OEMs. Genesis Integrated Systems is shipping the
GENSTAR 5000I. Other units announced but not shipping yet include Pioneer's
multi-disk drive, DRM-604X with a list price of $2,000 and Phillips's CDD
461.
Kodak, by the way, has worked closely with Philips to make Photo CD
compatible with Philips's Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-I) specification. A
Photo CD player can NOT play CD-I discs, but CD-I players CAN play discs in
Photo CD format. This is because the Photo CD "XA" format is CD-I compatible.
Besides recording and playing picture data, the Photo CD "XA" format can
record and play interleaved audio text and image data. The specifications for
this format, which Kodak calls the "Portfolio Format" are due to be released
sometime in 1993. The extraordinary capabilities of Photo CD are not merely a
new and interesting consumer technology, they are a powerful means of
publishing interactive photographic images, text, and audio -- in other
words, multimedia presentations.
Kodak also maintains a list of compatible CD-ROM models and suppliers. You
can call the Kodak Information Center at 800-242-2424 ext 53 to get a current
list of compatible drives and suppliers. Some information is often available
on the CompuServe CD-ROM forum as well.
As an interesting side note, Kodak makes a premium grade of color film titled
EKTAR. It is great for enlargements but it is available in a restricted
number of film speeds. Apparently, the film exhibits less "exposure
lattitude" and this translates to smaller file sizes for the same picture
resolution. But the Photo CD process will work with ANY 35 mm slide or print
film. Only 35mm film is supported at this point. They expect to be able to
handle the 4X5 format by this summer.
More interesting yet, Kodak is apparently working furiously on a largish
Unix-based online information service they are tentatively titling the Kodak
Picture Exchange. This online service will feature a fairly hefty connect
time charge and some requirement to use a Kodak terminal program. But it is
directed at stock photo houses. Some of these photo houses are warehousing
MILLIONS of photographs using aging technology to keep track of what is what.
Kodak would like to have them store images on this online service. Art
directors, advertising designers, etc. could then dial the system, and view
the low resolution thumbnail images right online. Once they browse through a
few million photos by modem and find the one they like, they will be able to
order, pay for, and download the high res version from the system, or order
transparencies/negatives/whatever from the stock photo house directly. If
Kodak can position this as stock photo exchange central for the industry, and
who better than Kodak could, it may well revolutionize the way people buy
publication rights to photographs, and the way stock photo houses warehouse
pictures. They are targeting a summer 93 launch date. Note too Unix and
TCP/IP technology. The whole thing could eventually be available globally on
the Internet.
And while the idea of viewing family photos on the television set may not
catch on, the PC world is already moving toward CD-ROM as a standard storage
medium. As more CD-ROM drives adopt Kodak Photo-CD compatibility, moving
photographs from the 35 mm camera to the PC in very high quality scans is
likely to become a lot easier.
=============================================
EDUCATION IN THE MATRIX: THE FrEdMail NETWORK
=============================================
by J. Scott Christianson and Ava L. Fajen
The Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992 called for an
expansion of the United States computer network in order to "improve
education at all levels, from preschool to adult education." The frontier of
using computer networks in education is already being pioneered by a network
of BBSs called the Free Education Mail (FrEdMail) network.
Since its inception in 1986, the FrEdMail network has been developing virtual
classrooms - places where students from around the world can meet
electronically to share information and collaborate on learning projects.
FrEdMail was founded by Al Rogers, a former elementary school teacher and
education technology consultant to the San Diego County Office of Education.
Mr. Rogers is currently the Executive Director of the FrEdMail Foundation, a
non-profit group that was created to manage FrEdMail after it grew so large
that it was impossible for one part-time person to maintain.
Mr. Rogers describes FrEdMail as "an informal, grass-roots,
telecommunications network that helps teachers and students exchange
information freely and simply. With over 150 nodes, it lets teachers share
experiences with student assignments, distribute teaching materials and
curriculum ideas, promote the development of effective reading and writing
skills, and obtain information about workshops, job opportunities,
legislation affecting education, and new nodes of the growing network.
"Its primary function is to transmit student writing from one place to
another, thereby opening up distant audiences for students. FrEdMail is more
properly thought of as a writing tool, one which can be used effectively at
any grade level and in any subject. The purpose, and emphasis behind FrEdMail
is to provide real audiences and real purposes to motivate writing!"
A TEACHING TOOL
There are over 150 FrEdMail BBSs (in the United States, Australia, Puerto
Rico, United States Virgin Islands, and Ireland). Last year, approximately
5000 teachers used this network to conduct classroom learning projects.
In a recent issue of the FrEdMail newsletter, teacher Dennis Cowick explained
how he uses FrEdMail to compliment the CNN Newsroom program (a short news
program that teachers can to tape to show their students): "I have been using
the daily broadcast of CNN Newsroom for several years now and have found it
extremely beneficial to my 7th and 8th graders, especially when I have the
daily lesson plans that are available on FrEdMail. I set my VCR to record the
fifteen minute Newsroom when it comes on at 12:45 AM and then view it in the
morning before class. One of my students calls a FrEdMail board at the
beginning of the day and downloads the 4-6 pages of lesson plans, worksheets
and handouts that go with the video segment for that day.
"One particular lesson involved a special feature on an episode of CNN
Newsroom that showed students visiting their parents in prison. We used
several of the suggested discussion topics from the lesson plan we downloaded
for that day. But what really capped all this off was a writing assignment
idea in the daily lesson plan.
"The writing assignment suggested that students write to their own parents
and describe what they, as children, really wanted and needed from their
parents. The resulting letters were so heartfelt and insightful that they
were published in our year-end literary magazine."
In another project, called Experts Speak, a group of students assumes the
persona of an historical figure. Other students on the network direct
questions to the group, until they can identify the historically important
person.
In the Acid Rain project, students collect rain and snow fall, measure the
acidity of the precipitation, upload their data and compare it with the
measurements of students in different areas of the country.
Students participating in the Commercially Speaking project record data about
the television commercials that they watch. This data is then entered into a
database that is transmitted through FrEdMail to other classes. After several
classes have uploaded their databases, students can learn about demographics
by analyzing when certain commercials are broadcast in different regions of
the world.
These are just a few examples of the hundreds, if not thousands, of learning
projects that have been successfully completed through the FrEdMail network.
THE NETWORK
Although any computer can be used to dial into a FrEdMail BBS, all FrEdMail
BBSs are Apple II computers. Although the Apple II computer lineage may seem
primitive by today's standards, it is well suited to this education-oriented
network for several reasons. First, almost every school in the nation has one
or more Apple IIs; since school districts can use existing hardware, it isn't
expensive to set up a FrEdMail BBS. A school that doesn't have a spare Apple
II can purchase one cheaply. In addition, most sysops on FrEdMail are
teachers, who are already familiar with the use of Apple IIs. With FrEdMail,
the sophisticated BBS software makes up for the old hardware.
The network was named the Free Education Mail network because there are no
charges for dialing up a local FrEdMail system or for sending netmail
(although the BBSs pay an annual subscription fee, see below). The FrEdMail
network is constructed along the lines of other BBS networks. The network is
divided into regions and sub-regions; regional and sub-regional mail hubs
coordinate the distribution of mail and echo coordinators oversee the
distribution of network conferences.
INTERNET CONNECTIONS
The FrEdMail network is linked to the Internet through gateways between
individual FrEdMail BBSs and UNIX computers at institutions of higher
education. These UNIX computers are in turn connected to regional networks,
which provide access to the Internet. The first network to establish a
gateway with FrEdMail was the California Education and Research Federation
network (CERFnet). CERFnet links over 300 of the leading research and
education centers in California at data transfer rates of up to 1.544
megabits-per-second (T1). The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a
$226,000 grant for the development of a gateway between CERFnet and FrEdMail.
Stephen Wolff, Director of NSF's Division on Networking and Communications
Research and Infrastructure says: "The NSF is committed to improving the
performance of students in math and science, and CERFnet is serving as a
conduit for education. The National Research and Education Network (NREN) is
pushing the development of gigabit speeds for academia and industry and, at
the same time, pulling all levels of education towards the inherent benefits
of connectivity to the national infrastructure. The development of this
gateway will facilitate a national network of academic computing hubs that
act as local file servers to their regional K-12 FrEdMail sites, via existing
facilities and transportation networks."
Sid Karin, Director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) also
commented on the gateway between FrEdMail and CERFnet: "While the SDSC and
CERFnet are quite correctly identified with the higher education and high
technology communities, we are the perfect springboard for this initiative
with FrEdMail. Classrooms across America should have access to the
computational tools of the Information Age to stimulate the minds of American
youth. The needs of educators, scientists and engineers have driven the
development of this technology which is now available to K-12 teachers and
students on an affordable basis."
The FrEdmail Foundation estimates that there may be 50,000 teachers on the
Internet. By uniting the Internet community of teachers with the K-12
teachers on FrEdMail, a FrEdMail-Internet link allows both groups of teachers
to share resources and collaborate on projects. Besides CERFnet, several
other networks and computing sites are now serving as conduits for mail
between FrEdMail and the Internet.
HOW THE GATEWAY WORKS
A FrEdMail-Internet connection works by using college and university UNIX
computers as mail servers for local FrEdMail BBSs. Instead of maintaining
accounts on the UNIX computer for every user on the FrEdMail BBS, all the
mail for people on the BBS is stored in one account on the UNIX computer.
Once a day, the FrEdMail BBS dials up the UNIX computer, receives a mail
packet from the UNIX system and sends an outgoing mail packet to the UNIX
computer. The FrEdMail BBS software then sorts the mail packet it received
and distributes the mail to individual user accounts. The UNIX computer
extracts mail from the packet it received from the FrEdMail BBS and sends the
messages out through the Internet.
To setup a UNIX-FrEdMail gateway, the UNIX-FrEdMail Gateway software must be
installed on the UNIX computer (the BBS requires no additional software). The
UNIX software consists of two files: freduucp.tar.Z and fredux.tar.Z and is
available via anonymous FTP from nic.cerf.net (in the fredmail directory).
These files are copyrighted by Gregg D. Brekke
(greggb@pro-fred.cerf.fred.org) and the FrEdMail Foundation. There is a $250
licensing fee for the software, which helps cover costs of technical
assistance. For more information on the UNIX gateway software send an email
message to: arogers@bonita.cerf.fred.org.
SCHLnet
The FrEdMail Foundation has recently initiated several moderated newsgroups
that are distributed through the Internet, FrEdMail, UUCP and other networks.
These newsgroups (seven so far) are collectively referred to as SCHLnet and
are distributed together as a "boxed set" of newsgroups. SCHLnet was created
to distribute "ideas, resources, opportunities, and information of specific
relevance to teachers and their students, without the extraneous and
sometimes offensive distractions posed by Usenet newsgroups."
Because the conferences are moderated, the foundation charges a fee for
receiving SCHLnet. The current fee structure is based on the number of
teachers and adult users that will have access to the SCHLnet newsgroups: $25
per year for 1-4 people, $250 per year for 4-300 people, $450 per year for
300-700 people and $750 per year for 700-1500 people. The FrEdMail Foundation
will give free one-month trial subscriptions to those who are interested in
receiving SCHLnet. For more information about SCHLnet contact:
fred@acme.fred.org.
SETTING UP A FREDMAIL SYSTEM
All FrEdMail BBSs must use the FrEdmail BBS software produced by the FrEdMail
Foundation. The latest version (1.3) costs $149 and runs on Apple IIe, Apple
IIgs, and Apple IIplus computers (or a Macintosh LC with an Apple IIe
emulation card). It will not work on an Apple IIc computer because of a
problem with the IIc's serial port.
Each BBS on the FrEdMail network pays an annual consortium subscription fee
of $150 to the FrEdMail Foundation for network maintenance, technical support
and software updates.
The FrEdMail Foundation has designed their BBS software to be easy to use.
Most of the sysops are classroom teachers, many of whom have no special
technical skills nor the time to learn a complicated BBS program. Like
several other BBS programs, the FrEdMail BBS software supports calls from
people who use a Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) to communicate.
(TDDs operate at 110 and 300 baud.)
In addition to the FrEdMail BBS software, the FrEdMail Foundation sells
several good teaching materials. The foundation's book, Telesensations: The
Educators' Handbook to Telecomputing ($34.00), is an excellent resource that
contains over 100 telecomputing activities for students and lots of helpful
technical information. The foundation also offers a prepackaged teacher
training workshop called "T 'n T: Telecomputing and Teachers" ($249). This
package includes: syllabi, overheads, 150 pages of handouts, three video
tapes, and a FrEdMail simulation program. (The simulation program is
available separately for $25.) The foundation also publishes a quarterly
FrEdMail newsletter ($10 per year).
We asked Al Rogers what the long term goals for the FrEdMail Network are. He
says, "Long range, the Apple II stuff will disappear. However, the FrEdMail
content, in the form of Usenet style newsgroups, will be our mainstay. We'll
get out of the technical support stuff and focus on what we do best:
curriculum and instructional content and support."
FrEdMail's adventure in computer-mediated education has blazed a trail for
the future of educational networks. Global virtual classrooms can expand the
walls of the traditional classroom and provide students with a uniquely
dynamic learning environment.
To order the FrEdMail BBS software or more information contact: FrEdMail
Foundation, P.O. Box 243, Bonita CA 91908; or at 619-475-4852 (voice); or at
arogers@bonita.cerf.fred.org.
[ J. Scott Christianson (Internet: jsc@igc.org) is a Research Specialist at
the Mason Institute of Ophthalmology in Columbia, Missouri, and the assistant
sysop of the Coin of the Realm BBS (data: 301-585-6697). Ava L. Fajen is a
Research Associate for the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education
in Jefferson City, Missouri, where she works to improve math and science
education in the state (Internet: ava?cbhe400%admin@admin.mocbhe.gov). The
two are engaged to be married. -Editor]
===================================================
MAJOR CHANGES AT THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION
===================================================
Cambridge, Massachusetts
eff@eff.org
Wednesday, January 13, 1993
The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in July, 1990 to assure
freedom of expression in digital media, with a particular emphasis on
applying the principles embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
to computer-based communication.
EFF has met many of those challenges. We have defended civil liberties in
court. We have shaped the policy debate on emerging communications
infrastructure and regulation. We have increased awareness both on the Net
and among those law enforcement officials, policy makers, and corporations
whose insufficient understanding of the digital environment threatened the
freedom of Cyberspace.
But we've found that Cyberspace is huge. It extends not only beyond
constitutional jurisdiction but to the very limits of imagination. To explore
and understand all the new social and legal phenomena that computerized media
make possible is a task which grows faster than it can be done.
Maintaining an office in Cambridge and another in Washington DC, has been
expensive, logistically difficult, and politically painful. Many functions
were duplicated. The two offices began to diverge philosophically and
culturally. We had more good ideas than efficient means for carrying them
out. And an unreasonable share of leadership and work fell on one of our
founders, Mitch Kapor.
These kinds of problems are common among fast-growing technology startups in
their early years, but we recognize that we have not always dealt with them
gracefully. Further, we didn't respond convincingly to those who began to
believe that EFF had lost sight of its founding vision.
Against that background, the EFF Board met in Cambridge on January 7, 8, and
9 to revisit EFF's mission, set priorities for the Foundation's future
activities, adopt a new structure and staff to carry them out, and clarify
its relationship to others outside the organization.
1. EFF'S CAMBRIDGE OFFICE WILL CLOSE.
We will be shutting down our original Cambridge office over the next six
months, and moving all of EFF's staff functions to our office in Washington.
2. JERRY BERMAN HAS BEEN NAMED EFF'S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
In December, we announced that Mitch Kapor would be leaving the job of
Executive Director. He wanted to devote more time and energy to specific EFF
projects, such as The Open Platform Initiative, focusing less on
administrative details and more on EFF's strategic vision. We also said that
we would conduct a search for his replacement, appointing Jerry Berman as our
Interim Director. Jerry's appointment is now permanent, and the search is
terminated.
3. CLIFF FIGALLO WILL MAINTAIN EFF'S PRESENCE ON-LINE, AND WILL DIRECT THE
TRANSITION PROCESS.
Cambridge Office Director Cliff Figallo will manage the EFF transition
process, working out of Cambridge. He is now considering a move to Washington
for organizational functions yet to be defined. In the meantime, he will
oversee our on-line presence and assure electronic accessibility.
4. STAFF COUNSEL MIKE GODWIN'S ROLE TO BE DETERMINED
We recognize the enormous resource represented by Mike Godwin. He probably
knows more about the forming Law of Cyberspace than anyone, but differences
of style and agenda created an impasse which left us little choice but to
remove him from his current position. EFF is committed to continuing the
services he has provided. We will discuss with him a new relationship which
would make it possible for him to continue providing them.
5. COMMUNICATIONS STAFFERS GERARD VAN DER LEUN AND RITA ROUVALIS WILL LEAVE
EFF.
Despite the departure of the Cambridge communications staff, we expect to
continue publishing EFFector Online on schedule as well as maintaining our
usual presence online. Both functions will be under the direction of Cliff
Figallo, who will be assisted by members of the Board and Washington staff.
6. JOHN PERRY BARLOW WILL ASSUME A GREATER LEADERSHIP ROLE.
John will replace Mitch Kapor as Chairman of EFF's Executive Committee, which
works closely with the Executive Director to manage day to day operations.
Mitch will remain as Board Chairman of EFF. All of the directors have
committed themselves to a more active role in EFF so that decisions can be
made responsively during this transition.
7. EFF WILL NOT SPONSOR LOCAL CHAPTERS, BUT WILL WORK CLOSELY WITH
INDEPENDENT REGIONAL GROUPS.
We have labored mightily and long over the whole concept of chapters, but, in
the end, the Board has decided not to form EFF chapters. Instead, EFF will
encourage the development of independent local organizations concerned with
Electronic Frontier issues. Such groups will be free to use the phrase
"Electronic Frontier" in their names (e.g., Omaha Electronic Frontier
Outpost), with the understanding that no obligation, formal or informal, is
implied in either direction between independent groups and EFF. While EFF and
any local groups that proliferate will remain organizationally independent
and autonomous, we hope to work closely with them in pursuit of shared goals.
The EFF Board still plans to meet with representatives of regional groups in
Atlanta next week to discuss ideas for future cooperation.
8. WE CLARIFIED EFF'S MISSION AND ACTIVITIES
In undertaking these changes, the board is guided by the sense that our
mission is to understand the opportunities and challenges of digital
communications to foster openness, individual freedom, and community. We
expect to carry out our mission through activities in the following areas:
POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND ADVOCACY.
EFF has been working to promote an open architecture for telecommunications
by various means, including the Open Platform Initiative, the fight against
the FBI's Digital Telephony wiretap proposal, and efforts to free robust
encryption from NSA control.
FOSTERING COMMUNITY.
Much of the work we have done in the Cambridge office has been directed at
fostering a sense of community in the online world. These efforts will
continue. We have realized that we know far less about the conditions
conducive to the formation of virtual communities than is necessary to be
effective in creating them. Therefore, we will devote a large portion of our
R & D resources to developing better understanding in this area.
LEGAL SERVICES.
We were born to defend the rights of computer users against over-zealous and
uninformed law enforcement officials. This will continue to be an important
focus of EFF's work. We expect to improve our legal archiving and
dissemination while continuing to provide legal information to individuals
who request it, and support for attorneys who are litigating. Both the board
and staff will go on writing and speaking about these issues. Our continuing
suit on behalf of Steve Jackson Games is unaffected by these changes.
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT.
We have started many projects over the years as their need became apparent.
Going forward, EFF will allocate resources to investigating and initiating
new projects. To ensure that our projects have the greatest impact and can
reasonably be completed with the resources available, EFF will sharpen its
selection and review process.
IN CONCLUSION...
We expect that the foregoing may not sit well with many on the Net. We may be
accused of having "sold out" our bohemian birthright for a mess of
Washingtonian pottage. It may be widely, and perhaps hotly, asserted that the
"suits" have won and that EFF is about to become another handmaiden to the
large corporate interests which support our work on telecommunications
policy.
However plausible, these conclusions are wrong. We made these choices with
many of the same misgivings our members will feel. We have toiled for many
months to restore harmony between our two offices. But in some cases,
personal animosities had grown bitter. It seems clear that much of the
difficulty was structural. We believe that our decisions will go far to focus
EFF's work and make it more effective. The decision to locate our one office
in Washington was unavoidable; our policy work can only be done effectively
there.
Given the choice to centralize in Washington, the decision to permanently
appoint Jerry Berman as our Executive Director was natural. Jerry has, in a
very short time, built an extremely effective team there, so our confidence
in his managerial abilities is high. But we are also convinced of his
commitment to and growing understanding of the EFF programs which extend
beyond the policy establishment in Fortress Washington.
We recognize that inside the Beltway there lies a very powerful reality
distortion field, but we have a great deal of faith in the ability of the
online world to keep us honest. We know that we can't succeed in insightful
policy work without a deep and current understanding of the networks as they
evolve -- technically, culturally, and personally.
To those who believe that we've become too corporate, we can only say that we
founded EFF because we didn't feel that large, formal organizations could be
trusted with the future of Cyberspace. We have no intention of becoming one
ourselves.
Some will read between these lines and draw the conclusion that Mitch Kapor
is withdrawing from EFF. That is absolutely not the case. Mitch remains
thoroughly committed to serving EFF's agenda. We believe however, that his
energies are better devoted to strategy and to developing a compelling vision
of future human communications than in day to day management.
The difficult decision to reject direct chapter affiliation was based on a
belief that no organization which believes so strongly in self-determination
should be giving orders or taking them. Nevertheless, we are eager to see the
development of many outposts on the Electronic Frontier, whether or not they
agree with us or one another on every particular. After all, EFF is about the
preservation of diversity.
This has been a hard passage. We have had to fire good friends, and this is
personally painful to us. We are deeply concerned that, in moving to
Washington, EFF is in peril for its soul. But we are also convinced that we
have made the best decisions possible under the circumstances, and that EFF
will be stronger as a result. Please cut us some slack during the transition.
And please tell us (either collectively at eff@eff.org or individually at the
addresses below) when we aren't meeting your expectations. In detail and with
examples. We don't promise to fix everything, but we are interested in
listening and working on the issues that affect us all.
[This article was authored and transmitted electronically by the EFF. We have
reprinted it with permission, and thought our readers might find it
interesting reading in full text. - Editor]
==================
MACINTOSH BBS NEWS
==================
by Bill Gram-Reefer
WITHOUT A CLUE
--------------
You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes or a Greek interpreter to figure out
that the ponderous fast-changing world of telecommunications services is
about to mutate into a totally new animal. And it will take more than a
scandal in Bohemia to stop it. Faster than a silver blaze, the slippery
beast, has jumped out of the cardboard box with Apple's recent announcement
that it will use technology developed by America Online (AOL) to deliver an
enhanced version of AppleLink and other Apple-branded information services
that the company will market in the near future. Essentially, the agreement
gives Apple a license to access AOL's communications software.
It's not like Apple has never competed with its own third-party developers
before. First it was the peripheral manufacturers, then it was the software
guys, so Apple had to spin off Claris. And, more recently, it has even begun
to compete with its resellers. Seemingly, Apple just couldn't be happy with
selling computers and supporting customer-service SIGs on major boards and
every user group BBS! Oh, no; now it's got to go and compete with service
providers like General Electric, H & R Block, Pac Bell, Disneyland for all we
know, Dow Jones News Service, BMUG, and MCI -- not to mention every poor Mac
sysop trying to run a BBS dedicated to "local Macintosh support."
The key to understanding such a gruesome plot that only an evil genius like
Moriarty could devise, is the fact that Apple -- through its Apple Online
Services (AOS), a business unit of Apple's Personal Interactive Electronics
division (PIE) -- desperately needs to ensure the successful introduction of
its Newtonand other brands of personal digital assistants (PDAs) soon to be
dumped on an unsuspecting market.
So the game is afoot. Just as MacWrite and MacPaint came bundled with the
original 128K Macs, Apple, through AOS, plans to give consumers the illusion
that there is actually something useful to do with these new PDA gizmos. And,
even if it's his last bow, John Sculley intends on making it quite clear as
to how PDAs should be done rather than allow three-dozen former Galacticomm
hacks, Hermes zealots, Bill Atkinson, or worse -- Microsoft, confuse addled
consumers with neat, but not-quite-right variations on the PDA theme. So
Apple picked AOL's painfully slow graphical user interface (GUI) to burn into
Newton's ROM, while threatening to incorporate it as an additional module
within future versions of AppleTalk, Apple's equally slow networking
protocol. To sum up, Apple is going to use AOL's GUI and other technologies
to create a foundation to accelerate the adoption of a "common services
platform" for PDAs. Could this be the BBS interface standard we've all been
waiting for, or merely Apple's answer to Gameboy?
Rather than building PDAs around applications like spreadsheets or Donkey
Kong, Sculley predicts "content and services," as the focus for PDAs. But
what does he really mean? Look at it this way. Just as Nintendo successfully
barred third-party software providers like Atari from writing games for its
proprietary system without license, Apple, through control of the essential
OEM hardware design, dictating the software interface for the primary PDA
application (communications), and by initially providing some of the core
content and services, means to freeze independent software and hardware
developers from cashing in on the early PDA action unless the right players
say "pretty please" and mean it. How would Sony say that, I wonder?
It also means that if you run a Macintosh-based BBS, don't expect too many
calls from PDA owners. It's a different industry, don't you know; at least
according to Sculley. Not quite the record business, and not quite the
computer business. Life's tough. Yet, all of this should be no Boscombe
Valley mystery to anyone who runs a commercial service, a modest hobbyist
system, or even a budding network, because, if you run a BBS, it's all a case
of identity; you already know that "content and services" is your business,
don't you?
For the final problem, as you walk down technology's valley of fear, is a
study in scarlet that ponders the macabre question: what threatens the
existence of your BBS? If you're as smart as the Reigate Squires, you know
it's not just a PDA problem, but more a matter of keeping up with INNOVATION
and constantly learning how to SPECIALIZE and ADD VALUE. But if, like the man
with the twisted lip, you chant the same-old: "Colonel Mustard, in the
kitchen, with the lead pipe," answers, your BBS is destined to become a
worried bone for the hound of the Baskervilles to gnaw on.
So forget Newton and PDAs for now. Because the best thing you could do for
your BBS is this: instead of running yet another tiresome "local Macintosh
support" board, why not turn your BBS, for instance, into a system dedicated
to the work of Sir Arthur Canon Doyle, offering an online, or even a
play-by-email, detective-oriented role-playing game. Why? It's elementary, my
dear Watson -- ka-ching is the cash-register-like sound a successful BBS
makes. And if Apple's going to offer online "content and services" in spades,
then you'd better come up with a couple of good reasons why people should
call your number.
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?
----------------------
In case running a networked BBS is your thing, and you aren't all that
terribly happy with FidoNet or RIME, several new distributed Macintosh
networks have been slowly taking shape and deserve some attention for their
scope, vision, and, in most cases, execution. Interestingly, each of these
budding networks is built around a different proprietary Macintosh host
software program. NovaNet is based on ResNova's NovaLink Professional, and
OneNet uses SoftArc's FirstClass.
NovaNet is just one of the features of NovaLink Professional. It offers wide
area sharing of files and messages through a hierarchical network structure
which is administered by ResNova. Each server has a supervisor node directly
"above" it in the hierarchy. These nodes can exchange mail, messages, and
files. Then, the supervisor node passes the information onto a network hub,
which distributes it to other points on the network. Since messages from one
server can be shared with other servers worldwide with only one phone call to
one other server, calls to many different servers are eliminated.
Public message forums and file libraries can also be shared over NovaNet. One
server is designated as the "master" node for each particular forum or
library. All other nodes that subscribe to a forum or library pass their
messages through the network to the appropriate master node, which
distributes all of the messages to all of the other servers.
A critical feature of NovaNet is that ResNova, developers of the NovaLink
Professional host software that is used on the network, also administrates
and maintains the network hubs which act as centers of distribution. ResNova
also registers all NovaNet nodes and distributes an updated list of NovaNet
nodes to all servers.
Companies that choose to use NovaNet for their own business communications
can establish their own private point-to-point or hierarchical networks using
the NovaNet system, allowing cross-country or worldwide corporate
communications.
The OneNet Member Network, on the other hand, originates at OneNet Los Altos
(CA) and is propagated throughout North America and Europe, claiming 90
systems hooked up through primary and secondary gateways. Total number of
users, according to OneNet literature is a very approximate 25,000 to 40,000
people.
Unlike NovaNet, OneNet and all of those systems connected to it are
volunteers without any formal ties to SoftArc or Apple Computer, but you need
to buy FirstClass host software and an Apple Computer to join the club. The
base conferences available to a level one operator are FirstClass News,
FirstClass Support, FirstClass Systems, FirstClass Admins, Modems, FirstClass
Suggestions, OneNet Member, and Ask Apple. Over 75-100 conferences and a
start-up logo indicating your board's OneNet membership are available to a
level-two operator. Level-two operators also may publish or originate
conferences for general subscription. A third level of the system, designed
to function as pass-through feeds to lower-level systems, is planned for
implementation by mid to late 1993. Hopes for regional super Hubs have been
projected into 1994.
"We want to grow a Macintosh-based distributed network system that provides
low-cost, high-quality access to information, tools, and community," asserts
Scott Converse, executive director of the OneNet Member Network. "It's about
creating an online, virtual community of people connected to share knowledge
and resources. Our goal is to serve as one of the methods you can use to glue
the various networks in the world together into the OneNet, our word for the
ubiquitous global nervous system that's slowly forming around low-cost
servers, networks, computers and the upcoming PDAs," states Converse.
Unfortunately, at this writing, the new breed of Macintosh host interface
software programs are not modems, in that they do not have any common
standards beyond ASCII, TTY, and ANSI that ensure interoperability. Funny
thing, actually, that Apple let it get that far along. For it appears that,
because of the idosyncratic ways in which NovaLink and FirstClass implement
their GUIs and internetworking gateways, there can be no mix-and-match,
plug-n-play, seamless integration when world building with Mac-based BBS
software.
That said, however, just as there are DOS networks like FidoNet, and UNIX
networks like the Internet, we heartily applaud these efforts to establish
Macintosh internetworking in its own right. It is certainly time for, and
there is certainly room for a Macintosh-oriented network that every sysop or
caller could tune into. But, when you imagine having to buy NBC's own brand
of television so you could receive and retransmit just NBC's network
programming, it becomes clear that no matter what kind of high-minded
non-profit spin you put on it, NBC, before all others, is going to benefit
nicely. . .as long as they got Cosby.
ResNova Software, Inc., 16458 Chica Street, Unit #193, Huntington Beach, CA
92649; (714)840-6082 (voice); (714)840-8641 (BBS). OneNet Member Network,
4546 El Camino Real, Suite #127, Los Altos, CA 94022; (415)948-5086 (voice
and fax); (415)948-1349 (BBS).
MAC BBS OF THE MONTH
--------------------
Over the past year I have written exclusively about Mac-based BBSs that
represented the new breed of graphical-based host software packages now
available. However, I still catch no small amount of criticism for this
capricious snobbery. Here-to-wit, let it be known that I repent and will
widen my sights to include any Mac-based BBS for consideration in this
section. Why? Here are my reasons.
1. That developers like TeleFinder, FirstClass, or ResNova offer a "user
program" for use on a Macintosh and threaten same for the Windows-platform is
a fine service to provide. But the fact of the matter is, a good seventy
percent of my callers are DOS users. And, even Macintosh callers, until they
download or otherwise acquire the user program are looking at a TTY or ANSI
command-line-interface; so it better be a good one.
2. The factors that go into evaluating a BBS go far beyond the host software
used. Admittedly, making it easier for beginners to get around is a credit to
the software, as is making the sysop's administrative tasks more manageable.
I maintain that a GUI interface can help tremendously. But it is not the
beginning or end of the story. If interface were the only criterion, then the
WELL would forever get two thumbs down, cause it looks and feels gawd-awful.
Yet, the sense of place established on that system over a period of years
goes far beyond interface.
So in this new spirit of I'll-look-at anything-once, I pass on to you, dear
readers, the following information forwarded to me concerning MacConnections
BBS, a Mac-based (cough) BBS located in America's heartland, Indianapolis,
IN.
MacConnections BBS is a free public system dedicated to "local Macintosh
support." It is FidoNet Node 1: 231/480. Barry Skidmore is the sysop of a
system built around a Macintosh II ci loaded with 32-Mb of RAM and a 240-Mb
internal drive. He also uses a 12-inch monochrome monitor, a PLI 200 Turbo
external hard disk, and a CD Technology Porta-Drive CD player that offers
AMUG's BBS in a Box. Offering 1,200- through 9,600-bps access, Barry went
first class all the way on the modems with Hayes ULTRA SmartModem 9600.
Running system 7.0.1, MacConnections BBS employs Second Sight 2.1 BBS
software from Freesoft, makers of the popular White Knight telecommunications
package. The system also hooks into FidoNet via Tabby 2.1 network mail
software by Michael Connick.
Now for the sexy part. No, Mark, not the GIFs. For in addition to the 1.3
gigs offered on CD, MacConnections offers an interesting array of general
files for downloading including specific sections for Ham, packet, and
short-wave radio, and science related files. A full range of conferences are
provided as well, including FidoNet echoes on the Mac, telecom, HyperCard,
System 7, and short-wave and ham radio. Mac-oriented Usenet conferences
include a wide array of the usual suspects including hardware, programming,
digest, and announcements. Tidbits for the kids, too. Local
private and
public mail is available in addition to private FidoNet mail capability. A
voting booth feature is used to poll callers on a variety of topics.
Overall, this appears to be a fairly well-developed piece of BBSing that
deserves calls from Macintosh and DOS users alike, if only to check out all
the radio-oriented files. So dust off your old TTY- communications software
and get in line. Thanks to Barry for passing this info along: MacConnections,
(317)290-1762 BBS;(317)298-3532 voice.
==============
LEGALLY ONLINE
==============
A SURPRISING REVERSE ON REVERSE ENGINEERING
-------------------------------------------
by Lance Rose
For years, the home video game manufacturers have quietly maintained an iron
grip on the development of software compatible with their systems. They would
set up arrangements where no one was allowed to develop compatible software
except under license. Standard license terms required the developers to turn
the finished software over to the game makers for incorporation into official
game cartridges, which would then be sold back to the developers for sale to
the public. The game makers always claimed this was done to keep up the
quality levels of compatible game cartridges through their supervision, but
anybody with a handle on basic human motivations could see the game makers'
real goal was making high profits on the software development work of others.
Nintendo is credited with being the first to set up such a regime, centered
on its wildly successful original video game console. Its main method for
preventing competition by outside software developers was fairly clever. It
developed a novel software-based locking mechanism, called "10NES", which all
game cartridges needed to engage to operate on the Nintendo console. The lock
was not impossible to copy, but the real protection lay elsewhere - it was
copyrighted! Anybody who marketed a Nintendo- compatible game cartridge
without a license from Nintendo was slapped with an infringement lawsuit.
Nintendo won all the early legal rounds against its would-be competitors. No
matter that every time, the defendants shouted that Nintendo was misusing its
copyright to monopolize the software used with its game consoles. The trial
court judges, many of them quite tolerant of predatory commercial practices,
bought Nintendo's excuse about quality control and treated these cases as
plain vanilla copyright infringements, making Nintendo the winner. In the
most recent case however, Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America Inc., a
federal appellate court less impressed by Nintendo's raw aggression announced
an important software law principle which will ultimately lead to the end of
the kind of software industry dominance exercised by Nintendo.
Atari was an authorized Nintendo game development licensee, but chafed under
the requirement of handing over a large share of its profits to Nintendo. It
surreptitiously sought to reverse engineer the 10NES code, so that it could
develop game cartridges outside of the Nintendo license that would be fully
compatible with Nintendo's console. This effort, involving chip mask peeling
and object code decompilation, proved very difficult, but after obtaining a
copy of the Nintendo code deposited with the Copyright Office, Atari finally
pieced together the secrets of 10NES and developed a compatible program.
Atari then put out unlicensed but compatible cartridges for Nintendo games,
and soon found itself in court with Nintendo.
Based on comparison of Nintendo's and Atari's programs, it was highly
doubtful that the Atari program violated Nintendo' copyright. However,
Nintendo had another kind of copyright claim: that Atari had violated
Nintendo's copyright in the 10NES code by making copies of the code in the
process of reverse engineering it, even if those copies were used only for
study purposes. The trial court bought this argument, and declared Nintendo
the winner.
The appellate court in Washington, D.C. didn't accept this argument by
Nintendo. Instead it declared, for the first time by a high federal court
anywhere, that making software copies as necessary to reverse engineer
another's program is perfectly legal. Although making unauthorized copies
would ordinarily infringe the copyright in the copied software, it will be
deemed a legal "fair use" when done for the purpose of reverse engineering.
As the court said:
When the nature of a work requires intermediate copying to understand the
ideas and processes in a copyrighted work, that nature supports a fair use
for intermediate copying. Thus, reverse engineering object code to discern
the unprotectable ideas in a computer program is a fair use.
This statement harks back to the basic trade-off embodied in the Copyright
Act. Creators of copyrighted works have the right to prevent unauthorized
copying of the expression contained in those works, but in exchange, any
ideas in their works are open to the public. Permitting software owners to
lock up the ideas as well, by distributing their programs only in object code
form and permitting them to sue reverse engineers for copyright infringement
merely for producing research copies of the code, would deprive the public of
its half of the copyright bargain. Accordingly, the production of such copies
will be exempt from infringement as a fair use.
The case was not free of disappointment, however. In a truly bizarre turn,
Nintendo managed to win this particular court battle, even as it lost
important ground in the long term war over reverse engineering. Right after
its ringing confirmation of the fair use right to reverse engineer, the court
denied Atari the benefit of its holding because Atari had bent the truth
somewhat in obtaining a study copy of the 10NES code from the Copyright
Office. Copyright Office regulations required those requesting copies of
software deposited by copyright registrants to state their reasons for
requesting the software. Atari had stated its reason as anticipated
litigation, though its immediate reason for the request was not litigation
itself, but to use the software copy to aid in its reverse engineering
project. This small falsehood, according to the court, caused the software to
become an "unauthorized copy" which was "purloined" by Atari from the
Copyright Office. Indignant with outrage, the court stated that although
reverse engineering is okay now, this does not permit Atari to "commercially
appropriate" copyrighted source code through illicit means, and Atari could
not claim fair use in these circumstances.
This holding makes little sense. Grand principles of fair use aside, the
court chose ultimately to spotlight Atari's failure to be scrupulous in
observing a minor bureaucratic regulation by entirely denying fair use
treatment to Atari. This holding favoring Nintendo put a small cloud over the
case, sending the message that reverse engineering might be okay, but you'd
better be a very good little boy if you want to stay out of trouble (It also
shows what a crap shoot litigation can be even when you have the best of
cases). It also raised the disturbing thought that without even claiming its
software is a trade secret, a company could use copyright law to keep others
from studying its software to learn how it works. The better approach would
have been a slap on the wrist to Atari, and a suggestion to the Copyright
Office that they should freely provide copies of deposited software to anyone
who says they want to study it for reverse engineering purposes.
Luckily, however, Nintendo's major video game competitor and copycat, Sega
Enterprises, lost its own similar case in the federal appellate court in
California a month later, in Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade Inc. This
time, the same fair use/reverse engineering principle announced in the
Nintendo case was not only endorsed by the Sega court, but was used to hand
would-be monopolist Sega a loss. Sega, like Nintendo, used proprietary
interface code to assure that only Sega-licensed game cartridges could be
used with its consoles. And Accolade, like Atari, was a licensed developer of
Sega game cartridges that sought a way to keep more of the profits by
developing its own Sega-compatible cartridges outside the license, through
reverse engineering that required the production of interim copies of Sega
software strictly for study purposes. Accolade managed to accomplish its
reverse engineering without purloining any software from the Copyright
Office, and the court held that Accolade's game cartridges were entirely
protected from infringement claims by fair use.
With the Sega decision, fair use treatment for reverse engineering of
software is now firmly established under copyright law. Two of the most
respected federal appellate courts, officially referred to as the Federal
Circuit and the Ninth Circuit, have grounded this approach in sound legal
analysis, and in one case it was used to entirely excuse a technical
copyright infringement arising from production of intermediate study copies.
Thus, not only have the efforts of video game manufacturers to establish
hardware-specific fiefdoms stalled out in the upper reaches of the federal
court system, but they have resulted in a new breath of freedom in the larger
field of software development. Software producers can now learn more freely
from their competitors' products and more effectively advance innovation in
the industry, in contrast to producing a stream of competing black boxes
containing perpetually reinvented wheels. Investment should buy greater
advances in technology, productivity should increase.
In a related development, "copyright misuse" as a legal defense against
software infringement claims also seems to be picking up some steam. Based on
the well-established defense of patent misuse, it holds that copyright
enforcement should be denied where a company does not merely seek to enforce
its copyright, but wrongly tries to use its copyright as a lever to gain a
legal advantage beyond the exclusive rights spelled out in the Copyright Act.
It first gained attention in the 1990 case Lasercomb American v. Reynolds,
where the court refused to enforce a software vendor's license provision
prohibiting the licensee from selling competing software products. If the
licensee's competing software does not violate the copyright in the vendor's
software apart from any license, the vendor cannot use a non-competition
condition in its software license to turn it into an infringement.
In PRC Realty Systems v. National Association of Realtors, decided last
August, the provider of an online realty listing service had designed the
service to prevent users from printing out the listings at their terminals.
Anyone wanting a printout could only buy it from the listing service
provider, which created bound copies for a fee and delivered them by mail.
One of its licensees, which agreed in the license to use best efforts to
promote the listing and publishing service, developed and marketed a desktop
publishing software package that permitted users of the service to capture
the listings at their terminals and make their own printouts, thus bypassing
the listing provider's printing-and-mailing racket. The listing service
provider sued, among other things, for copyright infringement. The court,
echoing the Lasercomb decision, threw out the claim as copyright misuse,
stating that to enforce the copyright in this kind of case would prevent
software licensees from implementing their independent ideas, and defeat the
limits built into the Copyright Act.
The new fair use right of reverse engineering, and the defense of copyright
misuse, stand as examples of how copyright doctrines can be adjusted to meet
the needs of new technologies and new kinds of product markets. Progress is
slow, there can be reverses along the way, and some poor companies have to
spend an awful lot of money in order to achieve these results. But these
developments demonstrate that we do not need to throw out the copyright laws
to achieve a wider and more effective diffusion of technology throughout
society, as heartily recommended by those on the fringes of the commercial
software industry or at the bottom of its food chain. Sometimes, if you just
stay patient, things will turn in the right direction all by themselves.
[Lance Rose is an attorney practicing high-tech, computer and intellectual
property law in the New York City area, and is available on the Internet at
elrose@well.sf.ca.us and on CompuServe at 72230,2044. He works with shareware
publishers, software authors, system operators, technology buyers,
interactive media developers, on-line database services and others in the
high technology area. He is also author of the book SYSLAW, a legal guide for
bulletin board system operators, available from PC Information Group
(800)321-8285. - Editor]
==============
INTERNET NOTES
==============
DENVER FREE-NET INTRODUCED
--------------------------
Colorado has actually been quite progressive with regards to electronic
networking. Progress is never fast enough when it's in your own back yard,
but realistically Colorado is in many ways light years ahead of much of the
country when it comes to networking. The Colorado Alliance of Research
Libraries (CARL) has become a model for automating libraries and putting
library card catalogs online. For over six years Colorado residents have been
able to access most of the libraries statewide via a free local modem call.
It doesn't require registration or even a logon name to access the service,
though I library card can come in handy when accessing some of the databases
that aren't open to those without one.
Today CARL sports over 40 libraries and some 5,868,078 records. In addition,
they've added a number of specialized indexes and reference databases to the
system. One of our favorites is the database of Internet Resources that
allows you to look up services using keyword searches. But the service also
has magazine and periodical indexes, and information on the Denver area.
The system runs on a fourteen processor Tandem CLX minicomputer with over
1500 public terminals, 16 dialup lines operating at 2400 bps at
(303)758-1551, and free access via Internet telnet login at pac.carl.org or
192.54.81.128. Online storage includes some 23.2 GB spread across 72 hard
drives AND a jukebox system with that much or more again available.
The CARL system has become such a model for libraries, that a big part of the
business CARL is in is installing systems for other libraries around the
country. The Information Ohana system at the University of Hawaii at Manoa
uses the CARL system and the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library just selected CARL
in a competitive bidding process to do their next generation integrated
automated library system. Systems in Los Angeles and Maryland have also
recently been installed. The CARL staff has grown from 16 in 1990 to 49 by
the end of 1992. CARL Systems, Inc., 3801 E. Florida, Suite 300, Denver, CO
80201; (303)758-3030 voice; (303)758-0606 fax; (303)758-1551 data; Internet:
info@carl.org
While Colorado sports an unusually educated and technically oriented
population, some of the credit for Colorado's forays into networking have to
go to the Colorado Advanced Technical Institute (CATI). This was actually
established by the state legislature early on in 1986 to foster high-tech
industry in the state. One of the offspring of CATI was Colorado SuperNet.
Originally setup under the National Science Foundation Network program to
connect supercomputers and computer science departments across the state to
the Internet, Colorado SuperNet has evolved, is evolving, is somehow
changing, from a state public entity into a self supporting service group
that could eventually become an independent corporation. Today, it not only
connects schools and universities to the Internet, but businesses large and
small and even individuals across Colorado to the Internet. They offer a wide
array of connection types from individual shell accounts on their SunOS
network to UUCP connections, SLIP connections, and full IP links at up to T1
speeds. It offers some of the lowest cost connections to the Internet in the
country, and we think they run one of the tightest ships in the Internet
shipping business. Boardwatch makes the connection through SuperNet. For more
information, contact info@csn.org.
But K-12 education in Colorado has not done particularly well at getting the
younger population online. We've found most of the K-12 educators to be
almost obnoxiously vented with the Not Invented Here syndrome whenever it
comes to telecommunications issues. A few brave and lonely classroom teachers
have put up bulletin boards and manned communications projects, but
generally, K-12 has lagged far behind University and library activity in the
state. Enter ACCESS Colorado. This is a new program headed by Susan Fayad
(sfayad@csn.org) to establish statewide access to schools and children
throughout the state. While the Denver area is one of the largest local
dialing areas in the Country, Colorado contains a wide expanse of rural areas
with small towns and mountain villages largely isolated from the metro area
in the east. Access Colorado establishes local access points, and in some
cases 800 numbers within the state. Callers can then access CARL and Colorado
SuperNet with a local call. The program is just now getting off the ground.
Concurrently, the Colorado Health Sciences Center School of Nursing, with
funding from the Colorado Trust, a Denver based philanthropic organization,
unveiled a new free public service titled Denver Free-Net on January 12th.
Patterned after the Free-Net community bulletin boards pioneered by Dr. Tom
Grundner, founder of the Cleveland Free-Net, Denver Free-Net will offer
community news and communication free to all with the sense to dial. Denver
Free-Net runs on a SunOS system using the same FreePort Software developed by
Case Western University for the Free-Nets in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Peoria
Illinois, and Youngstown Ohio. This network of community Free-Nets now
operates loosely under the banner of Grundner's National Public Telecomputing
Network.
Denver's Free-Net is the brainchild of project director Dr. Diane Skiba of
the UCHSC School of Nursing. Skiba wrote the grant for Denver Free-Net based
on her experience with NurseLink, a local BBS for nurses.
For dial up callers, Denver Free-Net initially sports five lines at
(303)270-4865. Callers will be greeted with the Unix login prompt and new
callers can enter guest at the prompt for immediate access to the system -
no password required. Once on the system, you can register by entering name,
address, telephone number and you will be assigned an account on the system.
This is one area we find fault with the Freeport software. I've been known as
Jack Rickard for as long as I can remember. I don't think I will ever quite
adjust to being called ab312 - at any price.
Once you have an account, you receive full access to the system. Despite the
Unix heritage, the Freeport software provides a very easy to use, if spartan,
interface. The basic menu is patterned after a community, with different
buildings housing different services. The ARTS building, for example, sports
information on the Denver Symphony, the Museum of Natural History, the Denver
Chamber Orchestra, and other local cultural attractions.
With the roots this system has in the University of Colorado Health Sciences
school, it is not to surprising that the system has quite a bit of health
information. But we found substantial resource in the listings of support
groups for victims of HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's Disease. There
was also a full statewide listing of hospitals, and a senior support center.
The Teleport provides links to other systems on most Free-Nets and the Denver
system lacked links to the other systems in Ohio. But it did offer a
connection to the University of Michigan Weather Underground system in Ann
Arbor. Reviewed in earlier issues of Boardwatch, this service provides one of
the best free weather reports available online for cities around the country.
The system is really a full featured Internet site. In addition to the five
dialup lines, Denver Free-Net sports another 15 ports onto the Internet
through Colorado Supernet. In this way, callers from around the state can
dial into SuperNet through Access Colorado, and then telnet to Denver
Free-Net at freenet.hsc.colorado.edu (140.226.1.8).
This does provide the world access to Denver Free-Net, but the reverse is
also true. Anyone registered on the system, entirely free of charge, gains
their own Internet e-mail address. It's not a fancy one or one easy to
remember, but it works quite well. Ours is then
ab312@freenet.hsc.colorado.edu. The e-mail functions are quite well
explained, easy to use, and at the same time offer a pretty good selection of
power tools to saw up those e-mail messages with - including an online
spelling checker, editable signature files (files containing information
about you and your contact information normally appended to every e-mail
message you send) and even aliases and forwarding. You can conceivably create
a forwarding address if you are going to be in another city and the system
will forward mail to you at your new Internet address THERE.
The system sports file uploads and downloads and each caller is given their
own work file area. We also found it a bit unexpected that the system sports
a feature they call the Public Square. This is basically an online chat
function allowing callers to chat in real time. We think Dr. Skiba will soon
discover that local BBS people can tie up a five line chat system pretty
thoroughly. But it is a nice touch.
We were thoroughly charmed with a feature we understand now appears on all
the Free-Nets. It's titled the Freedom Shrine and it contains the full text
of the Constitution of the United States, with the Bill of Rights, all
amendments to the Constitution, and the letter George Washington sent with it
to the Congress. There was also an area listing nearly 20 post Constitution
documents such as the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln's Second
Inaugural Address, ML King's "I Have a Dream" speech, The Monroe Doctrine,
and many more. There is also a PRE Constitution documents area that ranges
back to the Magna Carta of 1215, the Mayflower Compact, and many more there
as well. The result is virtually all of the revered documents pointing
toward, and subsequently in support of our rather unique heritage as a
democracy under the principle of individual liberty. It is a very effective
Freedom Shrine at that.
Academics cannot seem to restrain themselves from falling into a kind of
verbal diarrhea of fairly grandiose self-aggrandizement whenever they ponder
the implications of actually doing something that might prove useful. And
this mildly cloying preening tone is more than abundant on the Denver
Free-Net. But for all that, we can see why they might feel a bit charmed with
themselves. The service is rather marvelous in that it offers every resident
of Colorado with the strength to dial all ten digits a fairly complete and
free access to the global Internet, and in conjunction with Access Colorado,
this free access is available very nearly from every remote corner of the
state. When you consider it, this is actually no mean feat. With
participation, it actually could become a focal point for community
communication and information.
The most valuable element to this particular Free-Net is the way it fits into
a greater Colorado Networking puzzle that includes Colorado SuperNet, Access
Colorado, and the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries to weave a fairly
cohesive networking tapestry spanning the state. And we must applaud the
artful planning this obviously takes. It will inevitably lead to corollary
systems in cities such as Boulder, Pueblo, etc. and ultimately, Colorado
could become one of the most networked states in the country an - altogether
appropriate state of affairs given Colorado's vast rural areas, relatively
educated population, technically inclined work force, and need for relatively
clean high technology industry. We would offer it as a model for other states
to emulate. For more information on Denver Free-Net, contact system
administrator Drew Mirque at University of Colorado Health Sciences Center,
School of Nursing, 4200 East Ninth Ave., Campus Box C-288, Denver, CO 80262;
(303)270-4300 voice; (303)270-8660 fax; (303)270-4865 data.
OKLAHOMA UNIVERSITY BBS - CONNECTING DOS-BASED BBS TO THE INTERNET
------------------------------------------------------------------
Ronnie Parker first took an interest in bulletin boards in 1984. As a data
communications technician in charge of the telephone system at Oklahoma
University, he put up an RBBS-Pc bulletin board for telephone switch
technicians to swap information about the trade - divestiture being a hot
topic at the time. The switch techs didn't fall swoon to the idea, but the
local PC enthusiasts did and Ronnie wound up with the BBS bug in a pretty big
way.
Today he is the leading data communications tech at OU in charge of the
entire campus Internet backbone. But he still carries a fascination for
bulletin boards and the combination of BBS and Internet interest may prove a
boon to the BBS community at large. Parker has made no small headway in
marrying the two worlds.
The OU BBS today uses the 64-line TBBS multiline software running on a 40MHz
386 system with 4 CD-ROM drives, and several Gigabytes of hard drive space.
Parker actually runs FOUR separate bulletin boards on the same system by
taking advantage of a peculiar feature of TBBS that allows you to direct
callers to a specific BBS at logon based on their userlog settings. As a
result, he can run quite private bulletin boards on the system for the OU
Library School, the Climate Survey, and the OU College of Education as well
as a completely free BBS open to the public in Oklahoma. The three private
BBSs are all funded by the individual college departments they serve, and the
public system is more or less an economic side effect.
The local calling area around the University is quite large - nearly 2500
square miles and the public system has caught on. Callers dial in to one of
the eight telephone lines to chat in real time conferences, download files
from the extensive shareware collection, or play one of several quite
colorful online games the system sports. They also carry the USA Today daily
newspaper, and our own Boardwatch Magazine online. The system features some
very artfully done ANSI menus.
But what caught our eye was something else. Ronnie Parker has set up one of
the first TBBS systems ever to allow telnet access over the Internet. By
entering telnet oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu or telnet 129.15.3.15 from any
Internet shell account anywhere in the world, you can access one of two ports
connected to the BBS and logon as if you had dialed into the system - more or
less. The result is a regular constituency of international users who can can
logon from England, Finland, and elsewhere at essentially no international
long distance telephone cost.
The system is not as smooth as a regular dialup due to the packet nature of
the Internet Protocol. And file downloads don't work quite the same as a
dialup system - the only protocol that appears to work well at navigating the
7-bit internet packet link is KERMIT. In dialing into our Colorado Supernet
shell account and telneting over to the OUBBS, we found we could download
files at about 145 characters per second - using a 14.4kbps V.32bis modem. So
for heavy file sucking, you may be better off to dial the service directly at
(405)325-6128. Four of the dialup lines feature US Robotics 14.4 modems while
the other four use Twincom 14.4kbps modems. But for browsing about, chatting,
playing games, the OU BBS is one of the most colorful BBS services on the
Internet. No plain ascii UNIX minimalist presentation - you get the full IBM
ANSI color screens, play games, chat with other users, and if you must,
download a few files with KERMIT.
The system uses a device termed a "terminal server" to make the link between
a DOS BBS system and the campus network backbone. These devices are actually
for the purpose of connecting dumb terminals to an Internet Local Area
Network. But by connecting the terminal server RS-232 serial ports to the
Digiboard serial ports on the TBBS system with null modem serial cables, and
connecting the Data Terminal Ready line from the terminal server to the
Carrier Detect line on the BBS serial port, Parker is able to allow telnet
logins from the Internet. The terminal server connects to the campus network
using a standard ethernet port.
The particular terminal server used is the Datability VCP1000 Communications
Server. This chassis ($1000 list) accommodates an Ethernet TCP Network
Interface Card ($1499 list) on the one side and up to four asynchronous
serial port cards on the other. Serial cards are available in 8-port ($1299
list), 16-port ($2099 list), and 32-port ($3199 list) configurations for up
to 128 serial ports total. Using two 32-port asynch serial cards, the server
could connect up to 64 simultaneous telnet logins to the TBBS system.
According to Parker, the OU BBS currently has just two serial connections to
the TBBS system in operation.
The accompanying diagram shows the basic setup. A full IP connection to the
Internet usually involves a leased telephone line to the Internet service
provider. A device termed a CSU/DSU (Channel Service Unit/Digital Service
Unit - typically $600-$700) services the line much after the fashion of a
modem - usually at a data rate of 56kbps but in some installations at T1
rates as well. A second device termed a router is connected to the CSU/DSU
and acts to read IP packet addresses and forward packets to their intended
destimation. OU uses a router from Wellfleet. Routers are relatively
expensive - typically starting at about $3000. The router is connected by
ethernet cable to the communications server. Datability is working on an
internal router card for the VCP 1000
So connecting a TBBS system, or for that matter any DOS BBS system to the
Internet is possible without running a UNIX system intermediary. But the cost
is pretty prohibitive at this point. A basic 8-port Datability Communications
Server carries a total list price of $3798, though distributors often
discount this by as much as 25%. Router's are typically available for around
$3000, and a CSU/DSU is typically around $700. A leased 56 kbps telephone
line is typically $400-$600 per month, and a full IP connection to the
Internet usually starts at about $7500 per year. The bottom line is that you
can do a full IP connection to the Internet for about $7000 in equipment and
$1200 per month in fees. Naturally, University departments and companies that
already have routers, leased lines, and IP connections can use these
communications servers to put a DOS BBS online on the Internet for a more
reasonable $3000 or so. Datability, One Palmer Terrace, Carlstadt, NJ 07072;
(800)456-7844 voice; (201)438-2400 international; (201)438-2688 fax.
PRIVACY AND ANONYMITY ON THE INTERNET
-------------------------------------
by Matthew Rapaport mjr@netcom.com
I recently discovered a new (to me) kind of service now available to those
with Internet accounts. It is called a Privacy, Anonymity, or Alias Server, I
call them 'Aservers' for short, and they act to forward electronic mail
anonymously.
There are some situations where it may be desirable to send anonymous
electronic mail. Suppose you were an engineer with a large Government
contractor. You find some monkey business and you want to blow the whistle,
but for the sake of your family (or other interests), you don't want it known
that YOU blew the whistle. You could post your whistle blowing evidence all
over the world in a few hours via the Usenet, but the world would also know
from whom the revealing message came.
Enter the Aserver. Instead of sending your message direct to the Usenet, you
send it to the Aserver along with instructions to pass it along to specified
newsgroups. The Aserver removes all the header data your message accumulated
on the trip between your site and the Aserver. By eliminating this, and the
original From: information, the Aserver has covered your message's tracks. It
then constructs a new set of headers that make it appear as though the
message originated at the Aserver with a meaningless From: line (for example
A239). To the newsgroup that reads you, you are now A239@Aserver.what.ever.
If a user replies to your message, the Aserver connects the alias (A239) with
a real user name (mjr@netcom.com) and sends you the reply. It also "Aliases"
the respondent (automatically), so that you do not know who he/she is unless
they tell you in the body of their message. Replies from you go to their
alias, and thence to them, etc. As far as it goes, the system works. The
whistle blower is now anonymized as far as newsgroup readers are concerned,
but there are some problems.
For one thing, your message may travel through dozens of machines on its trip
from your site to the Aserver. Your sensitive material can be intercepted and
linked to you anywhere along this chain. At least one Aserver I've found
addresses this concern by supporting automatic public key
encryption/decryption of your messages, and their replies. PGP, reviewed in
the Feb. 1993 issue of Boardwatch and widely available in the file PGP21.ZIP,
has become the defacto international Internet standard for public key
encryption. Here's how it works.
You send a special message to the Aserver that says you want to register your
public PGP key in the Aserver's database. The Aserver responds by giving you
an alias corresponding to your key registration, and a copy of its own public
key which you keep. Now when you want to send a message through the Aserver,
you first encrypt it in their public key. Only they can decrypt it, so it is
safe from prying eyes all the way along the trip. Replies to your message are
encrypted at the Aserver in your public key. Since only you can decrypt this,
the message is again safe on the trip from the Aserver to you. An intercepter
knows some message is going to you, but not what it contains. If
correspondents on each side of a mail link have all registered their public
keys with the Aserver, then messages will be encrypted end-to-end, except for
the encryption translation that takes place on the Aserver.
Ok so far, but the weak link is the Aserver! Their database is potentially
compromising to everyone. A solution to this problem is available by using
two Aservers with special characteristics. One, call it Aserver-X, must
support re-direction of mail. That is you must be able to send it mail (which
gets aliased) and then forwarded to another e-mail address. This function was
not available on early Aservers which were set up dedicated to some Usenet
newsgroup, but it is now. The second server, call it Aserver-Y supports
encryption/decryption. Now you use your account on Aserver-X to register your
public key on Aserver-Y.
Once you do this, you can send encrypted messages through Aserver-X, which
aliases you, to Aserver-Y where they are decrypted, and you are aliased a
second time, before your message is sent along to its final destination
(possibly re-encrypted).
Returning replies go first to Aserver-Y because of the second Alias. This
server encrypts the reply in your registered public key, strips its alias for
you, and sends it along to Aserver-X, your registered alias address.
Aserver-X now takes the traffic, de-aliases it, sending it back to you, still
encrypted! By using this technique, neither Aserver alone can compromise you.
Aserver-X knows who you really are. They have your real address in their
database, but they don't know what you are saying in the traffic you pass
through them because it is encrypted for Aserver-Y. Aserver-Y knows what you
are saying in your messages. They have the key that unlocks your messages to
them, but they don't know who you really are! All their data base shows is
that your public key belongs to A239@Asever-X!
While this is possible now in theory, I'd like to prove that it really works.
I had found two Aservers that might work together in the necessary way, but
the first (my Aserver-X) mangled the headers of the PGP key I sent through it
to Aserver-Y. The system administrator at Aserver-X recognized the problem
and the potential of what I was trying to do. Before he fixed the problem,
however, my Aserver-Y was shut down by its regional network after getting
complaints from NASA regarding mail volumes and a philosophical (read:
political) disagreement over the goals and purposes of the research networks
and their attitude toward aliased mail in general.
I'm also interested in who is using these Aservers (I can imagine, but I'd
like to gather some statistics). Right now I am collecting data and will have
something more to report on this in the future.
For further information send an e-mail message to help@anon.penet.fi. It
doesn't matter what, if anything, you put in the body of the message. It will
automatically respond with an e-mail message back to you containing
documentation on the use of this alias server.
There is also a widely read mailing list used to discuss alias servers,
cryptography, and privacy on the Internet. To subscribe send mail to
cypherpunks-request@toad.com with the subject "subscribe". To send mail to
this list once subscribed use: cypherpunks@toad.com
[Matthew Rapaport describes himself as a "Philosopher/Programmer At Large."
He is also the author of the book *Computer Mediated Communications*
published by John Wiley and Sons. Rapaport and can be reached either at
mjr@netcom.com or 70371.255@compuserve.com - Editor]
NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS DIRECTORY ANNOUNCED
--------------------------------------
The National Science Foundation has awarded a contract for an Internet-wide
directory system to list electronic mail addresses, hosts, ftp sites,
servers, and numerous other Internet services. The service will include a
CCITT X.500 e-mail address database, electronic "white pages" and "yellow
pages" for the Internet. The $12 million contract was characterized as a
"cooperative agreement" in that it goes to three main contractors, AT&T,
General Atomic's CERFnet, and Network Solutions, Inc. The new service will
replace the existing Network Information Center (NIC) and the cooperative
group will be known as INTERNIC.
The contract actually calls for directory and database services for NSFNET,
the National Science Foundation national data network that is part of the
Internet. The Internet is comprised of more than 6,000 computer networks that
facilitate collaboration among members of the research and education
community. The Internet, and in particular NSFNET, is projected to serve as a
basis for evolution to the National Research and Education Network (NREN).
Under the terms of the agreement, AT&T will develop and maintain a Directory
of Directories which will serve as a pointer to numerous resources on the
Internet. It will include lists of FTP (File Transfer Protocol) sites, lists
of various types of servers available on the Internet, lists of white and
yellow pages directories, library catalogs and data archives. The Directory
of Directories will enable even novice users to obtain references to
information they need through simple, easy to use interfaces. AT&T also will
provide white and yellow pages type directory services, such as names of
users, organizations and resources on the Internet, using X.500 technology,
the current standard specification for distributed information storage and
retrieval.
Initially, access to all services will be provided through several currently
popular in-use interface methods; with time, it is anticipated that X.500
will become the primary method of access.
In providing these services, AT&T will work cooperatively with two other
organizations: CERFNet, a General Atomics project, which was awarded a
similar agreement for information services, and with Network Solutions,
Inc.(NSI), which was awarded a similar agreement for registration services.
The three corporations will collaborate under a common concept called
INTERNIC.
"We all feel intuitively that the domestic Internet and the distributed
collaboration that it facilitates are rapidly creating a national 'workplace
without walls'", said Steve Wolff, Director, Division of Networking and
Communications Research and Infrastructure, NSF. "These three awards to
geographically dispersed organizations for Network Information Services will
both exploit and demonstrate the success of the network in enabling
distributed collaboration."
"These directory and database services are essential components of the
emerging national information infrastructure," said Erik Grimmelmann,
Marketing Director, Internet/NREN, AT&T Data Communications Services. "This
agreement marks an important step for the Internet as well as for AT&T
because services such as these and the related ones to be provided by our
INTERNIC collaborators will make the Internet even more useful than it is
today."
The cooperative agreement is for a five-year period, with annual reviews.
Under the award some $4 million plus with go to CERFnet, $5 million plus to
Network Solutions, Inc., and slightly over $2 million to AT&T. AT&T actually
estimates the cost of the directory services it provides at over $6 million
and says it expects the NSF award to cover a third, AT&T itself will
contribute a third of the cost, and about a third of the costs will be
derived from "user fees". The exact definition of these user fees has caused
a great deal of comment in discussion groups on the Internet. Technically,
any access of the directory not originating within the Research and Education
community is subject to fees. But as a practical matter, it would appear user
fees will revolve around specialized database services, yellow pages "ads"
for various services, and so forth. The user fees were part of AT&T's
proposal, which was evaluated by an NSF review panel and approved by the NSF.
The bottom line is that within a few months we should begin to see some
progress toward the development of directory databases available to look up
electronic e-mail addresses.
AARL INFORMATION SERVER
-----------------------
The American Radio Relay League (AARL) operates a useful Internet information
service titled the ARRL Information Server. It provides a wealth of
information about amateur radio issues, but it also illustrates the concept
of an information server.
Servers on the Internet are devices that respond to inquiries automatically
without operator action. The most fascinating aspect of servers is that they
are accessible to anyone with an electronic mail address reachable via the
Internet Domain Name System (DNS) electronic mail addressing. You can
retrieve information from a BBS account, a CompuServe account, an account on
AOL, or anywhere in the world where you can send and receive an Internet mail
message. You don't need to logon to anything, simply send an e-mail request
and the information you requested shows up in your mail box a little later.
The address of the ARRL info server is, logically enough, info@arrl.org. The
basic premise is that e-mail sent to this address is acted on. In the message
body, you simply enter HELP on a line by itself. The server will reply with
an e-mail message containing instructions on how to use the service. If you
enter the command "index", they will respond with a file listing all the
information files available from the server.
Finally, once you receive the index and select a file to retrieve, simply
send an e-mail message with the command SEND FILENAME on a line by itself in
the body of the message. The system will send the file by return e-mail. You
can put multiple send file commands in a single message and terminate it with
the command "quit" on a line by itself. For example, a message sent to
info@arrl.org with the following text in the body will get you both the help
file and the index.
help
index
quit
Your messages are not actually read by humans. Just a few of the files
available include:
PROSPECT - How to get your Amateur Radio license.
EXAM-SCHEDULE - Current FCC examination schedule listing cities, dates,
times.
EMAIL - list of ARRL headquarters e-mail addresses if you DO want to send a
message to a human.
HIRAM - Information about the ARRL landline BBS.
FCC-COMM - How to receive an FCC commercial license.
PACKET-NEW - Overview of packet radio
FCC-CONTACTING - how to contact the FCC.
ADDRESSES - 16k file listing manufacturers and vendors of radio/electronic
companies.
BBS - List of HAM related bulletin boards
===================================
THIS MONTH'S LIST: CHICAGO ILLINOIS
===================================
Our list this month presents some 605 BBS serving the greater Chicago
Illinois Metropolitan Area. In the nation's heartland, Chicago is a good town
for bulletin boards, and with good reason. It is the home of Ward
Christensen's CBBS, the first bulletin board system online running on a
personal computer. Started in February 1978, this first BBS is still in
operation, and a 15th birthday party is scheduled at a local pizzeria
February 16th, 1993. Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss, founders of the
original BBS, will attend.
The list keeper in Chicagoland has in the past been a young college student
named Peter Anvin and the CBBSList was kept on the Colby Jordan's Stillwaters
BBS. Jordan's system still runs on an 80286 with a single telephone line. But
Anvin has given up the list, and Jordan wants to try other things with his
BBS. Given the 150 calls daily he receives from those looking for the list,
this has proven a bit difficult.
As a result of all this, several changes to the Chicago list were made in the
past month or so. First, the list maintenance has fallen to a group headed by
Paul Chartraw with research contributed by Dave Ellenwood, Max Kohn, and Andy
Peterson. The "home system" of the CBBSlist is now Chartraw's Hideaway BBS
1:115/748 at (708)748-1911. This is a two-line Searchlight BBS that also acts
as a local Fidonet Echomail Hub. As a result, Chartraw has set up a network
of some 15 Fidonet systems around the Chicago area where he delivers the
Chicago BBS list by Fidonet mail. This helps spread the load as far as list
access and the files are distributed within an hour or so of release.
Chartraw is a big fan of Searchlight BBS, citing its flexibility as one of
the main reasons. He serves as Searchlight support for Indiana and Illinois
and speaks highly of the software. He previously ran PCBoard, and RBBS and
actually put up his first system in 1985. He works as a programmer for a
local commodities firm.
One of the reasons we are running Chicago this month is that in the
transition of the list, Chartraw actually verified over 600 bulletin boards
to start with a good list. This is a lot of work, but at times, longstanding
lists fall into general disrepair. The authors tend to count on local BBSers
to bring the information to them about new systems and down boards, and if
the list is well known, this works pretty well. But the best lists actually
have someone dialing them, and it is unusual to get a list the size of
Chicago's that is freshly verified.
The 605 bulletin boards listed do comprise one of the larger BBS metropolitan
lists available. But note Chicago is the third largest metro area in the U.S.
after New York and Los Angeles. And Chicago is actually not that chock full o
f bulletin boards. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce's State and
Metropolitan Area Data Book 1991, the Chicago area sports a population of
some 6,069,974 people. This works out to 10,033 people per BBS which is
actually a very low density of bulletin boards compared to most cities we
examine. Likewise, some 103 Fidonet systems operating in two local networks
in the Chicago area comprise but 17% of all bulletin boards - an
uncharacteristically low percentage of systems connected by FidoNet.
Chicago is also home to some of our favorite systems. Kevin and Kristie
Behrens run a BBS as a full time occupation titled AQUILA BBS in the Chicago
suburb of Aurora. Behrens runs 32 lines under PCBoard software and is
currently experimenting with ISDN access - one of the few bulletin boards in
the country to actually sport ISDN access lines.
George Matyasek has operated a multiline TBBS system in the area for a number
of years and has done some interesting things with advertising on cable
television. He also sports a special conference for ferret owners. We assume
this refers to people who OWN small animals as pets. George regularly calls
to request that we mention his system - Chicago Syslink. Herein do we so
mention, George. Actually, George has amassed an impressive collection of
over 70 online games on his multiline Chicago Syslink system.
The "BBS title of the month" award has to go to Nun-Beaters Anonymous. We
don't know. We don't want to know.
1984 708-849-0073 2400
1BBS 708-470-0199 14400 RBBS
20/20 312-275-1785 9600 TBBS
3KG Utica Community 815-667-5020 2400 RYBS
A Space Oddity 312-477-0716 9600
A/V 312-906-0698 9600 WILD
ACES 219-875-3960 2400 PCBB
ADMAXX Information Systems 708-683-3540 2400 TBBS
Adline USA 708-260-8818 2400 DLXB
Adult 312-889-0089 14400 SPIT
Advocate/Nowar 312-939-4411 2400
After Five 219-262-1370 PCBB
After The Bars 312-262-3626 2400 DLXB
Agima 815-744-5579 9600 CNET
Amalgamated 708-991-7112 14400 WILD
American Archive 312-276-3603 9600 PCBB
Amiga Doc 708-351-8815 9600
Amiga Network 708-983-6435 14400 CNET
Antelope Freeway 708-455-0120 2400 RBBS
Apple Core 815-633-0188 2400 ANET
Apple Tree Computer Club 708-597-6942 2400 GBBS
Applied Computer Services 708-614-4914 9600 PCBB
Applied Research 708-639-8853 9600 WAFF
Aquarian 708-892-0399 2400 BBPC
Aquila 708-820-8344 14400 PCBB
Archimedes' Screw 312-761-4480 14400 SPIT
Area 88 CBIS 312-929-0422 9600 OSIR
Arena 708-367-6885 14400 PCBB
Arlington Heights Public Library 708-392-0188 1200
Art of Luck 708-848-9298 2400 RACC
Arte' Graphics DTP 708-259-0215 2400 WILD
Assembly Not Needed 312-263-0924 14400 RBBS
Assoc. of Individual Investors 312-280-8764 2400 RBBS
B&B Electronics 815-434-2927 2400 QBBS
B.S. 708-788-8158 1200 CL64
BBS-Chicago ][ 312-342-0015 9600 OPUS
BYTE DEMOLINK 312-616-1071 2400
Bad Connection 219-663-3107 9600 SLBB
Badman's 708-754-1722 2400 TRIB
Baha'i National Center 708-869-0389 2400 TBBS
Beacon 708-615-0845 2400 RBBS
Bear's Den 312-561-2382 2400 FSTP
Bear's Woods 708-854-2944 9600 PROB
BeeLine Super 219-874-2074 2400 DBBS
Beezodog's Place 708-668-8287 14400 TELF
Beginners 708-492-9932 2400 LABB
Bell Microcomputer Club 312-727-5043 9600 PCBB
Beta Connection 219-293-6465 2400 PCBB
Big Den's Pen 312-582-2458 9600 SPIT
Big Flipping Penguins 708-458-6221 2400 WILD
Bionca's Toy 708-223-5308 2400 WWIV
Bit Bucket 708-759-0569 14400 WILD
Bit Wiz 312-935-6809 14400 OPUS
Bits & Bytes 708-953-0396 2400 SPIT
Bits and Bytes 708-759-0569 9600 WILD
Black Forest 708-359-8761 9600 VBBS
Black Magic 708-481-1157 300 ONLN
Blood & Guts 708-969-9380 9600 PCBB
Blue Moon 708-457-2219 9600
Blue Shamrock 708-771-7070 14400 SPIT
Board Room 708-916-7138 2400 WILD
Bog 312-225-9711 14400 CELE
Books & Bytes Online 708-416-9932 2400 RBBS
Bozo Board 708-948-5754 9600
Breeze Resort 708-215-8889 2400 ORAP
Brickie's 708-858-5876 2400 PCBB
Bu$ine$$man's $pecial 312-736-5415 9600 WILD
Bubblehead 708-688-0649 14400 WILD
Bulletproof 708-894-1126 14400 RACC
Byrd's Nest 815-477-9338 14400 SPIT
C.C.B.S. 708-674-6502 2400
CAEUG 708-530-0194 2400 RBBS
CAPPS Remote 708-672-7611 2400 RBBS
CHART-Board, First 815-337-0279 9600 TBBS
COM*ONE 708-717-9370 9600 FALK
COPH 312-436-0559 2400
CPSnet 312-535-8512 2400 MGPE
Cactus Ranch 708-234-8169 9600 SPIT
Camac Online 815-838-8734 2400 WILD
Captain Video 708-272-0943 1200
Carnal Knowledge 708-818-9569 2400 WILD
Castle Anthrax 815-748-2539 9600
Cellblock 708-455-9488 14400 WILD
Cess Pool 708-352-9231 9600 SPIT
Chemical Warfare 312-725-2758 2400 TLGD
Chess Board 312-784-3019 9600 SPIT
Chicago 708-297-1591 9600 RACC
Chicago Board of Trade 312-239-1889 14400 PCBB
Chicago Byte House 312-889-6813 9600 SPIT
Chicago Computer Society 312-879-9021 14400 RBBS
Chicago Machine 312-233-9607 14400 FRST
Chicago Matchmaker 708-388-3630 2400 MEPS
Chicago Megaphile 312-283-4035 14400 SPIT
Chicago Online!! 708-895-4042 9600 WILD
Chicago PC Jr User Group 708-894-9989 2400 OPUS
Chicago Programming Society 312-794-9075 9600 TLGD
Chicago Syslink 708-795-4442 9600 TBBS
Chicago TI-99/4a User Group 708-862-0182 2400
Chicago Transfer Authority 708-447-3857 9600 NVLP
Chicken Coop 708-658-1545 14400 SPIT
Chinet 312-283-0559 2400
Christian Connection 219-464-9164 9600 PCBB
City 708-299-3310 2400 DBBS
City Limits 708-966-2342 9600 SPIT
Clip Heaven II 708-453-5589 14400 PCBB
Club 708-671-9665 2400 DLXB
Club Sierra 708-816-3231 14400 SPIT
Coal Valley PCUG 815-634-2791 9600 VBBS
Coconut Club III 312-281-6887 2400 TAGG
Code One 708-789-3610 2400 PROB
College Town 815-899-4702 9600 PCBB
Comic Scene 815-434-3742 1200 RYBS
Commlink 219-662-0986 2400 SLBB
Compact Disc Connection 312-751-2447 9600
Compu-Graphics 708-933-0456 2400 TLGD
CompuErotica 312-902-3599 2400 NITE
Computer Connection 708-388-1723 9600 VBBS
Computer Direct 708-382-3270 2400 TBBS
Computer's Plus More 708-882-5903 9600 WILD
Computers for Christ #11 708-362-7875 9600 TBBS
Continuum 708-395-6749 9600 RNGD
Continuum Foundation 312-248-0234 9600 TLGD
Coordinate Axis 708-968-0149 9600 GTBB
Cooter's Garage 312-271-7348 2400 SLBB
Corporate Desktop Publishing 708-858-4469 14400 WILD
Corporate Headquarters 815-886-3233 14400 PCBB
Cosmic's Universe 312-583-0053 2400 SLBB
Crossroads (A) 815-933-5390 2400 WILD
Crossroads (B) 312-587-8756 14400 TLGD
Crown Point 219-663-9177 2400 CNET
Crystal Palace 219-929-4254 9600 PCBB
Custer's Last Stand 708-810-9860 2400 CL64
Cyber Quest 708-548-1052 2400 TLGD
Cyclops 708-839-5002 2400 TBBS
Dark Castle 815-729-0188 2400
Dark Image 708-355-5412 2400
Data Storm 708-724-6641 9600 SPIT
Database II 708-439-4708 2400 COLI
Datacom of Highland 219-923-2377 14400 PCBB
Dave's Hideout 708-705-5049 1200 RBBS
Daze Inn 708-437-8387 14400 RACC
Ddsw1 312-248-0900 14400 AKCS
Dead Zone 708-223-6408 9600 TAGG
Deep Space Nine 708-752-1783 2400 TLGD
Defcon One 708-249-2183 2400 RBBS
Depot 815-834-0460 9600 TLGD
Destruction's Realm 708-474-4280 9600 SLBB
Dial-Your-Match 102 708-799-7756 2400
Dial-Your-Match 206 312-764-1699 300
Dickie's Place 312-252-0642 9600 XZOT
Digital Contraband 815-942-8573 14400 VBBS
Digital Dynamics Online 708-991-3830 14400 AUNT
Digital Systems 708-307-9097 9600 WILD
Distant Fingers 312-777-0240 14400 TLGD
Distortions 708-823-0628 9600 TLGD
Dog House 708-830-8805 9600 CNET
Dolph's World 708-759-7039 2400 TLGD
Dragstrip 708-489-0031 9600 PCBB
DuPage Library System 708-232-7577 1200
DuPage Project Associates 708-964-0526 9600 PCBB
Dudes Home 708-257-3399 9600 TLGD
DynaMIKE 708-520-2659 9600 SPIT
E.T.'s 219-674-6243 2400 QBBS
EMPIre 708-473-2364 9600 PCBB
EMTech Systems' 708-705-7094 2400 GAPP
Eagle's Nest 815-282-9248 9600 OPUS
East Village 312-777-2574 2400 TRIT
Electric Estates 708-424-6136 9600 RBBS
Electropolis 708-213-1666 1200 MAJR
Elgin Area Professional PC UG 708-888-7381 9600 PCBB
Elk Grove Repeater 708-529-1586 9600 EZCM
Emergency 312-631-3467 2400 MAJR
Emergency Nurses Association 312-649-0490 2400 TBBS
Emporium 708-551-9275 9600 RACC
Enchantica 708-747-6311 1200
Equinox 312-631-2172 14400 PCBB
Erotica 708-208-5958 9600 WILD
Errogenous Zone 708-535-1040 9600 MAJR
Evanston Public Library 708-864-6720 9600
ExIS Inc. DataEase Support 312-380-7603 9600 SPIT
Excaliber 219-923-7611 2400 PCBB
Excalibur 708-957-0313 1200 XLNK
Executive Region 312-267-4749 14400 PCBB
Extraneous Redundancies 312-808-9576 14400 SLBB
Eye Resources Network 708-299-1296 14400 RACC
F.U.B.A.R. 708-513-0138 9600 WILD
Fantasy Island (A) 219-696-6904 2400 TLGD
Fantasy Island (B) 815-727-1559 14400 TLGD
Fantasy Island (C) 708-916-1286 9600 GAPC
Faster Disco 708-232-8140 9600 VBLS
Feminist 312-624-8771 1200 GBBS
File Depot 815-455-7279 9600 WILD
Final Frontier 312-334-8638 2400 ORAP
Financial 708-931-7478 2400 RBBS
Fire Department 219-447-3011 2400 WILD
Firm Foundation 708-485-3928 2400 TBBS
Flat Cat Alley 708-746-0548 14400 OPUS
Forbidden Realms 312-774-1447 2400 VBLS
Fourth Dimension 312-284-7133 14400 PCBB
Fox Valley 708-377-5988 9600 PCBB
Fox Valley CS 708-888-1112 2400 QBBS
Fox Valley CBM UG 708-851-4252 2400 PCBB
Frankenstein's Lab 312-631-1233 2400
Free! Board 312-275-0848 14400 RBBS
Fremen Mountain 312-764-0719 2400 FRMN
French Connection 708-755-0087 1200
Funeral Home 815-723-2522 2400
G & B Adult System
815-465-2292 2400 SPIT
GCG Programming 708-689-4793 2400 WILD
GIF(t) Exchange 708-780-9287 2400 PCBB
GREGdoor 708-904-2149 9600 XZOT
Gagme 312-282-8606 2400 UNIX
Galactica 708-739-3022 9600 VBBS
Galaxy 708-690-4958 2400 TLGD
Game Dungeon 708-215-1543 9600 WILD
Gamer's Guild 708-799-9569 9600 RNGD
Gatez of Paradise 312-764-6772 14400 TLGD
General's Army 708-668-1009 2400 TLGD
Glenside 708-587-9837 2400
Glenside's Cup of Coco 708-428-0436 2400 COCO
God's Country 708-964-5281 300 DIAL
Gospel Outreach Download Sys 708-934-1649 2400 PCBB
Gothic Folly 312-528-4724 2400 SLBB
Graphicon 708-634-2828 2400 MTRO
Great Cavern 708-683-3666 14400 PCBB
Great Lakes Region CAP 708-532-8209 2400 RBBS
Great Northern 708-632-0884 14400 WILD
Greater Chicago AutoCAD U.G. 708-587-5389 14400 RBBS
Greater Chicago Diving Board 708-259-1146 2400 RYEB
Grey Matter 708-208-0662 14400 WILD
Ground-ZERO 708-690-1781 9600 TLGD
Grundy-Files 708-801-6645 2400 TLGD
H.U.R.K. 708-801-0823 14400 SPIT
Halls of the Video Warrior 708-742-9206 2400 RNGD
Hard Drive USA II 708-755-0192 2400 SPIT
Hardware Shoppe 708-653-0958 2400 TLGD
Harvester Network 708-887-7685 14400 TBBS
Hat Trick 708-717-9726 14400
Hazardous Materials Info Exch 708-972-3275 14400 PCBB
Heaven - A Gamer's Paradise 708-844-1177 2400 TLGD
Hell Pit 708-459-7267 9600 TLGD
Hemisphere 708-255-0002 9600 GBBS
Hidden Treasures 708-599-1063 2400 TBBS
Hideaway 708-748-2095 14400 SLBB
Hispanic Bell Mgmt Association 312-727-4868 2400 WILD
Holy Grail 708-222-1540 2400 RBBS
Hook, Line, and Sinker 815-723-2801 2400 TLGD
Hopefully Heaven 312-523-6351 1200 CNET
Hot Mix 708-516-8679 9600 WILD
Hotel Amiga 708-653-6089 9600 CNET
House of Kinks 708-289-0034 2400 DLXB
I Can! 312-736-7388 2400 SLBB
I.C.I.X. 815-459-0825 14400 SPIT
IBEW Local 1220 708-292-1223 2400 WILD
IBM Christian Connection 708-540-9383 9600 SPIT
Illinet Online/Carl Uncover 708-295-0077 2400
Illinet Online/Carl Uncover 312-362-5368 2400
Illinois Byte Exchange 708-228-9427 9600 SPIT
Illinois CPA Society 312-993-3475 2400 PCBB
Impact V: The Immortal Realms 312-784-1752 2400 TLGD
Indiana Online 219-762-3775 2400 VBBS
Info=Power 219-762-2141 2400 SLBB
InfoComm Co 312-751-1503 2400 RRDH
Infoplus 708-537-0247 14400 WAFF
Information Exchange 708-885-2151 14400 IBBS
Innovators 708-918-1231 14400 FRST
Insane Domain 312-274-9515 9600 FRST
Integrated System Solutions 708-481-4177 9600 WILD
Intercept 708-345-7202 9600 GTBB
Interstellar Overdrive 708-991-4879 14400 TLGD
Intimate Mansion 708-934-3045 2400 DLXB
It's a Free Country 708-752-0174 14400 WILD
JBS-BBS 312-583-1674 14400 SPIT
Jail House 708-596-7556 14400 WILD
Jay's Place 708-759-7302 2400 TLGD
Jesus People USA - CFC #43 312-878-6030 2400 TBBS
Jim's FlyInn 312-881-1142 9600 MAXI
Jokertown 312-907-0047 300 DIAL
Junk Shop 708-934-0252 2400 TLGD
Kaos 708-263-9561 14400 HRMS
King's Court 708-860-2496 9600 SLBB
Knight's Quest 312-271-4733 2400 VBBS
LOOP Premium Graphics 708-675-5667 14400 PCBB
LUG 219-269-9459 2400 PCBB
Lake Effect 219-929-5574 2400 SLBB
Lake Zurich Wildcat 708-438-5351 14400 WILD
Lakes Region 708-872-8086 9600 PCBB
Lambda Zone 708-827-3619 9600 TBBS
Lambda Zone 312-693-7871 9600 TBBS
Laran Communications 708-690-9860 9600 WILD
Laser Stuff 708-469-4850 9600 PCBB
Last Chance 708-362-1088 2400
Last House on the Left 708-428-0519 2400
Late Night 708-595-4132 14400 PCBB
Lattice 708-769-4084 9600 DBBS
Law MUG 312-661-1740 9600 RBBS
Law View 312-427-6291 2400 RBBS
Learning Resources Ctr of CoD 708-790-2332 1200
Library 708-564-1339 2400
Life After Death 708-824-7620 2400 TLDG
Lighthouse 219-464-0411 9600 TLGD
Line Noise 708-520-0095 9600 SPIT
London Underground 708-680-9420 14400 TLGD
Lone Star 708-223-6990 9600 TAGG
Looney Bin 815-942-5015 14400 TLGD
Lost 312-474-0410 14400 XZOT
Lug Nutz 219-845-5673 2400
MACropoedia 708-295-6926 14400 SSIT
MOM 219-277-5565 1200 TBBS
Mac'Effects 708-360-1981 14400 HRMS
MacCentre 708-831-1142 9600 NVLP
Macinations 708-352-9282 9600
Magic Gateway 815-398-4678 2400
Magic Lantern 219-659-2711 2400 RACC
Magrathea 708-759-7908 14400 RACC
Main Street 815-478-5026 9600 SPIT
Mainframe 708-223-2344 14400 SPIT
Majestik Moose 708-843-2871 14400 PCBB
Malachi Brothers 312-283-8564 14400 RNGD
Marantha 708-628-0330 9600
Marist BBS 312-881-5355 2400 RNGD
Masquerade 708-963-4551 9600 QBBS
McHenry 815-385-5031 14400 PCBB
McHenry Wildcat 708-497-4956 2400 WILD
Medfirst 708-429-9160 9600 PCBB
Melting Point 708-698-1774 2400 MAJR
Mermaids Cove 708-424-6065 2400
Metro 708-742-2798 14400 TLGD
Micro Overflow 708-355-6942 2400 PCBB
Micro Systems 708-695-1251 9600 WILD
MicroLink 312-631-7191 2400 MAJR
MicroTech Amiga 708-851-3929 14400 CNET
Micrographics 312-648-1981 2400 RACC
Microsource 708-350-7863 2400 PCBB
MidWest 708-513-1034 9600 PCBB
Midas Touch 312-764-0591 14400 PCBB
Midnight Connection 312-594-0813 9600 PCBB
Midrange System 708-776-1062 14400 RACC
Midwest Biomedical Society 312-227-7455 2400 RBBS
Mike's Mess 815-634-2186 9600
Mills Brothers 708-690-3808 9600 PCBB
Missile Silo 708-581-1735 2400 TLGD
Missing Link 312-221-2879 14400 PCBB
Mod City 708-464-0120 2400 TLGD
Monsoon Hotel 312-927-9534 14400 PCBB
Moon Light 708-328-6852 2400 SLBB
Mortgage Market 708-834-1450 9600
Mount Prospect Library (A) 708-253-0566 2400
Mount Prospect Library (B) 708-253-6224 9600 WILD
Mouse 219-674-9288 2400 BBSE
Mulligan's Place 708-566-6183 2400 MAJR
Multi-Level Mania Info Srvc 708-658-9321 2400 QBBS
Multi-Link 815-963-9717 2400 FALK
Murphy's Place 708-428-6125 2400 SPIT
Music Emporium 708-960-9703 2400 CL64
My House 708-739-9355 9600 TRIT
N9CSA N.A.B.S.A. 312-776-5561 14400 WILD
NABET International 312-427-5454 9600 PCBB
NEWTON 708-252-8241 14400
NIU CEET 815-753-2308 2400 WILD
NIU Connection 815-753-1800 2400
NW9J 708-825-7106 2400 RYBS
National PC and MIDI Data Bank 708-593-8703 2400 SPIT
NeWare 708-665-9876 9600 PCBB
Nessy Games System 708-356-6897 2400 CUST
Network 21 312-784-2852 RACC
New Dawn 708-459-8498 9600 PHOE
New Universe 708-629-3051 14400 UBBS
New World 708-510-1071 2400 PCBB
Nezuld's Domain 708-559-0513 9600 PCBB
Night Link Chicago 312-873-6752 14400 TRIT
Night Owl 708-426-9738 2400 IMAG
Night Train 708-395-0991 2400 MAXI
Nightline 708-854-9492 2400 SPIT
Nightmare Cafe 708-677-1221 9600 TLGD
Nix Pix Windy City 708-564-1069 2400 WILD
NixPix Person-To-Person 708-223-4802 2400 ORAP
Nocturnal 708-513-6358 2400 TLGD
North Lake NixNet 219-659-7205 9600 WILD
North Pole 312-436-2261 2400
North Suburban Library System 708-459-4878 1200
Northern Star 219-289-0282 2400
Northwestern University Library 708-491-3070 9600 LUIS
Not So Perfect 312-237-8365 14400 PCBB
Nuclear Greenhouse 708-998-0008 2400
Nun-Beaters Anonymous 708-251-5094 2400 TLGD
O'Hare Oasis 708-298-4121 9600 TAGG
OPOWD Crowd 708-885-8865 9600 WILD
Oak Lawn 708-964-2710 9600 PCBB
Oak Lawn Sound Machine 708-425-6665 14400 RNGD
Oaknet 708-425-8739 2400 UNIX
Obloid Sphere 708-965-3098 2400 TLGD
Off the Wall 708-372-0094 9600 GTBB
Olivet! 815-939-5187 2400 WILD
Omega 312-573-1657 14400 CNET
Oracle 815-744-7363 14400 CNET
Oracomm #103 312-523-4904 2400 ORAP
Orgasm! 312-772-2452 2400
OutHouse 708-672-3668 2400 TLGD
Outback 708-366-0882 2400
Overdrive 312-761-0274 9600 TRIT
Oz 219-853-9710 2400
P.S. Meeting Room 708-232-6339 14400 WILD
PC Gremlins 708-532-5877 9600 RBBS
PC-Link 708-755-7126 9600 PCBB
PCPS Support 708-307-8596 14400 PCBB
PUB Desktop Publishing 312-376-9872 9600 PCBB
PYROtechnics 708-991-9403 9600 TLGD
PalNet 708-359-8080 2400
Panoptic Net 219-674-5292 2400 CNET
Panther Post 708-397-9243 2400 SPIT
Paradise Towers 312-583-8481 14400 PCBB
Park Place 708-892-3449 9600 RACC
Parrothead Supplies 708-887-0449 2400 PSEA
Patrick's Compatibles 708-587-3358 9600 TAGG
Pegasus (A) 708-623-9570 2400
Pegasus (B) 815-433-0787 2400 MAJR
PepperGrass Express 219-288-8586 9600 TBBS
Phantom Express 815-877-0414 2400 RBBS
Phoenix Fantasy Hide-Away 708-526-4161 9600 WILD
Photo Exchange 708-331-4494 2400 SUPR
Picture Perfect 219-942-8204 9600 PCBB
Pirates Cove 708-830-2597 2400 TLGD
Pisces Financial 312-281-6046 14400 TBBS
PitStar 708-687-4413 14400 PCBB
Planar Board 219-325-0033 2400 PCBB
Pleaser's Playground 708-795-1270 9600 RACC
Point 312-338-0632 9600
Point After 708-432-3267 2400 VBBS
Point Zero 708-432-9028 300 DIAL
Precision Board 708-391-8773 14400 WILD
Prime Time 708-741-1995 14400 HRMS
Prince Charles Message Svc 708-462-7560 1200
Pro-Ren 815-728-0455 9600 PLIN
Profit Margin 708-356-7895 9600 RBBS
Psycho Ward 708-279-8547 300 DIAL
Purple Dungeon 815-722-3531 2400 XZOT
Python 708-680-5105 9600 BPRO
QX-Link Chicago 708-455-9193 2400
R.C.S. Multi-Node 708-390-6594 2400 PCBB
RBBS of Chicago 708-352-1035 9600 RBBS
Racer's Edge 708-653-9076 14400 WILD
Radio Daze 219-256-2255 2400 GAPC
Radio Free Illinois 815-729-9793 2400 RBBS
Radio Hill 708-537-4663 2400 IMAG
Raganrok 312-622-3313 9600 TLGD
Random Access 708-489-1542 9600 VBLS
Rational Tech Info Center 708-378-0045 14400
Razor's Edge 312-202-8066 14400 TLGD
Real Estate Forum 312-743-1769 2400 RBBS
Recovery Room 708-963-5496 14400 PCBB
Reflections 815-477-2888 2400
Remote Control 708-223-8384 9600 XZOT
Renegade 708-629-9293 9600 RNGD
Resource 708-895-8140 2400 XZOT
Resputed 708-295-9133 9600 SPIT
Rest of Us MUG 708-291-6660 14400 OPUS
Restaurant at the End of Univ 815-455-9783 9600 TLGD
Resting Place 815-786-6240 9600
Restoration Rock 219-926-2060 2400 PCBB
Revelations 815-727-3398 2400 GENE
Revenge 708-869-2136 14400 HRMS
RichWare Shareware 708-395-1253 14400 PCBB
Rick's Cafe 815-834-1914 2400 FREM
Riff Raff 815-937-5217 2400 WILD
Ripco II 312-528-5020 9600 SLBB
River City 815-434-4430 14400 RACC
River Styx II 708-432-2659 9600 BPRO
Robbie's Retreat 708-526-8545 9600 PCBB
Rock-N-Roll Hangout 219-942-6746 2400 CNET
Rockin K's Software Studio 708-679-6338 2400 TLGD
Round Table 312-777-9480 2400 SLBB
RuneQuest 312-728-7784 14400 BPRO
S.C.U.G. 708-852-1292 2400
SGS-Thomson Apps Lab 708-517-1898 300 RACC
SQLBBS 312-589-0508 9600 RBBS
ST Center 708-456-6875 9600 FREM
ST Outpost 219-289-9123 9600 FREM
Sahakian's Business Info 708-982-0005 2400 TBBS
Salem's Lot 708-439-4811 9600 TLGD
Samson 708-394-0071 9600 FIDO
Sandwich C.U.G. 815-785-2699 1200 CL64
Satalite 708-636-8259 14400 PCBB
SaveWare 708-724-2449 2400 TLGD
SaveWare Computer Shopping 708-724-2427 14400 RNGD
Scan-A-Mania 708-831-0456 2400 SBBS
Schaumburg Township Library 708-885-9983 1200
School Board [Teachers only] 312-604-8715 2400
Scintillation 708-953-4922 9600 PCBB
Scruncher 708-830-6387 14400
Security 708-587-2398 2400 RBBS
Sex Asylum 708-635-5620 2400 PCBB
Shadow 708-513-5932 9600 HRMS
Shangri-La 708-596-3648 9600 HRMS
Shareware Library 815-727-6072 9600 TLGD
Ship to Shore 708-670-7940 9600 WILD
Shop 708-426-8228 9600 PCBB
Shoppe 708-888-0078 14400 PCBB
Silence of the Sysops 815-795-2075 2400 WILD
Silent Society 708-365-2155 14400 TLGD
Silky's Chambers 708-403-4090
Silver Tongue 708-759-1916 2400 GBBS
Simple 708-724-2600 9600 RRDH
Singularity Station 708-356-7107 14400 RACC
Skyway 312-871-9942 2400 SPIT
Snarf's Music Studio 708-290-9993 9600 TLGD
Snow's Dorm 708-566-4083 9600 WILD
Software Express 708-749-2162 2400 SPIT
Sometimes 219-763-2031 2400 TLGD
Sound Management 708-949-5397 14400 PCBB
Source 219-836-9665 9600 TLGD
SouthDog 708-323-4711 2400
Space City 708-748-4025 9600 PCBB
Special Needs 219-659-0112 2400 WILD
Spectrum MACinfo 708-657-1113 14400 OPUS
Squirrel's Next 708-433-7509 2400 TLGD
St.Charles Graphics Xchange 708-513-8945 14400 WILD
Star Base 428 708-442-8020 2400 TLGD
StarFleet Mainframe 708-757-7528 2400 TLGD
Starship 815-838-2821 2400
Starz 312-348-3508 2400
Stillwaters 708-403-2826 9600 RBBS
Straight Board 708-689-1980 14400 GTBB
Straight Board II 708-689-0119 2400 PCBB
Stuff! 815-663-1653 2400
Suburban 708-681-4690 14400 PCBB
Suburban Chicago Atarians 708-231-7227 2400 MICH
Suburban Library Dial Access 708-459-8375 300
Suburban Software 708-636-6694 14400 PCBB
Sun, Surf & Serenity 708-453-6630 9600 WILD
SunValley Amateur Radio 708-838-8929 9600
Suzie's Place 708-759-7953 2400 XZOT
Swan System 708-325-9272 1200
TECH - Tech. Advantage 312-784-1752 2400 TLGD
TIP Express 219-453-4046 2400
Talkback! 708-640-6759 14400 TLGD
Tashbaan 708-749-1103 2400 PYRO
Tears of Isis 708-888-3936 14400 HRMS
TechLine 708-674-1989 9600 RBBS
Techno Head 708-843-2868 2400 TLGD
Tele-Rag 815-935-5020 2400
Telstar 219-845-3886 9600 PUNT
Temple of Pong 708-268-1591 9600
Terrapin Station 708-657-9543 9600 TBBS
Thunderbolt (B) 708-653-4163 2400 SPIT
Thunderbolt (C) 708-689-4763 9600 GTBB
Thunderbolt, Inc. 312-248-0109 2400 MAJR
Tiger Claw 708-223-2886 2400 SLBB
Tiger's Den IV 708-730-0840 9600 TLGD
Timber Lake 708-487-1093 9600 WILD
Time Vortex 815-741-3544 14400
Toolkit 219-696-3415 9600 PCBB
Top Gun 312-768-5853 9600 RBBS
Trading Post 708-941-7095 2400 RBBS
Treasure Chest 219-287-4326 2400 TBBS
TrendTec 708-759-9214 9600 HRMS
TurboSof 708-778-8620 9600 SPIT
Twilight Zone 219-374-8856 2400 SLBB
Twister 708-849-3343 9600 WILD
U.S. Robotics Tech Support 708-982-5092 14400 TBBS
UBU-Midwest 708-766-1089 2400 RBBS
US BBS 219-262-0910 9600
Uncle Bob's 708-265-0698 14400 SPIT
Under The Influence 815-942-2930 14400 DIGI
Underground 708-835-0316 2400 XZOT
Underground Conspiracy 708-991-3488 2400 HRMS
United 708-473-5334 2400 RACC
Up All Night 312-646-6615 14400 PCBB
Used Books 708-957-3546 1200 RBBS
Uumeme 708-893-9428 2400 UNIX
VARO Chicago Property Mgtt 312-353-2382 2400 PCBB
Vertigo File 815-224-3604 9600 CELE
Video Tron 708-458-3188 2400
Villa Straylight 708-359-2088 9600 TLGD
Village (A) 312-581-1111 14400 PCBB
Village (B) 219-980-4619 2400 EXPR
Vineland 708-931-4505 2400 RNGD
Virtual FX 708-653-7092 14400 VBBS
Vpnet 708-833-8126 9600 AKCS
Ward Board 708-849-1132 2400
Ward and Randy's 312-545-8086 9600
Warp Speed 708-965-4662 9600 SLBB
Washington Towne Crier 708-548-2481 9600 MAJR
Watch City 708-931-7966 2400 EXPR
Water Tower 708-597-2684 9600 RBBS
Waukegan Public Library 708-623-1125 14400 TBBS
Well of Souls 708-960-3141 9600
Wheaton File Exchange 708-462-1509 14400 WILD
Wild Side 312-777-4184 9600 CNET
Wild West 708-879-8703 2400 TLGD
Windmill 708-232-1015 9600 PCBB
Windy City 312-275-7492 9600 TRIB
Windy City GIF Cache 312-929-0824 9600 1BBS
Wolf's Werehouse 219-256-1357 2400 GAPC
Wooge City 312-262-7125 2400 HRMS
Working with Works 708-260-9660 2400 RRDH
Workstations Unlimited 312-404-0549 2400 SLBB
WorldBridge 815-725-8742 9600 XCHG
WorldBridge 815-725-8727 14400 XCHG
Writer's Block 219-287-5020 2400 WILD
You Can Call Me Ray 708-358-5611 9600 RBBS
Zarethian Empire 708-473-1006 2400
Zen Arcade 708-934-6224 2400 TLGD
Zlink-Com1 708-808-2264 2400 TBBS
Zoo 312-907-1831 2400 DLXB
FrEdMail BBSs
Location System Phone bps
------------------- -------------------------- ------------ ----
Sydney, Australia Cabramatta E.R.C. +26072986 2400
Guilford County, NC Guilford County 919-271-0649 1200
Sydney, Australia A Normanhurst B.H.S. +24897785 1200
Kankakee, IL Kennedy Elementary 815-932-7980
Onslow, NC 991-455-8705
Rialto, CA Rialto School Dist 714-820-6865 2400
San Diego, CA FrEdMail Central 619-587-7993 9600
Sydney, Australia Australia FrEdMail +26075286 2400
St. Thomas, USVI Caribbean CUE 809-777-4026 1200
University of Puert Orillas en Puerto Rico 809-763-3925 2400
New Haven CT New Haven 203-777-5008 2400
North Arlington, NJ North Arlington Schools 201-955-6050 2400
Springfield, NJ Springfield Public Schools 201-376-9025 2400
Irvington, NJ Irvington Public Schools 201-371-1247 2400
Newarrk, NJ Newark School District 201-705-3787 2400
Berkeley Heights, NJ Berkeley Heights Schools 908-464-8929
Larenceville, NJ Lawrence Township Schools 609-538-1347 2400
Lakehurst, NJ Manchester Schools 908-657-8883 2400
Scarsdale, NY Scarsdale Middle School 914-721-2653 1200
Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn BBS 718-783-6723 2400
Mineola, NY Nassau BOCES 516-877-1095 1200
Wyong, Australia Wyong High School +043511093 2400
East Petersburg, PA Lancaster/Lebanon IU 717-569-9289 2400
East Petersburg, PA Lancaster/Lebanon IU 717-270-2942
Pocono Mts., PA Pocono Area Educator's Tec 717-424-3226 2400
Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia 215-233-0240 1200
Reading, PA Reading 215-926-8540 2400
Wilmington, DE St. Marks HIgh School 302-738-0572 9600
Hunt Valley, MD 410-666-2811 2400
Arlington, VA Long Branch School 703-841-9598 1200
Winston-Salem, NC Forsyth Cnty Bd Educ 919-727-2213 1200
Asheboro, NC Asheboro City Schools 919-625-3520 2400
Burlington, NC Micro-5 Users Gp 919-222-9348 2400
High Point, NC High Point Schools 919-888-2561 2400
Davidson Co, NC Davidson Co Bd Ed 704-956-1254 2400
Sanford, NC Lee County School District 919-776-7135 2400
Micro, NC Johnston County Schools 919-284-4736 2400
Roxboro, NC Person Co Schools 919-597-8528 2400
Raleigh, NC Wake Co Schools 919-850-8951
Durham, NC Durham Public Schls 919-560-3815 1200
Greenville, NC East Carolina University 919-757-4154 2400
Swan Quarter, NC Hyde County Bd of Ed 919-926-0953 1200
Washington, NC Washington City Schools 919-946-4934 2400
Wilson, NC Wilson Co BdofEduc 919-243-1601 9600
Monroe, NC Union County Schools 704-283-3538 1200
Wadesboro, NC Wadesboro MS 704-694-4523 2400
Rowan, NC Rowan-Salisbury Schools 704-639-3068 2400
Charlotte, NC Charlotte-Mecklenburg Scho 704-343-5366
Carthage, NC Board of Educ 919-947-3954 2400
Bladen County, NC Bladen County Schools 919-862-8998 2400
Rockingham, NC Rockingham Jr. Hi 919-895-1416 1200
Hickory, NC Catawba Co Bd Ed 704-256-8136 2400
Boone, NC Appalachian State Univ 704-262-3094 2400
Taylorsville, NC Alexander County Schools 704-495-8806 1200
Bryson City, NC Swain Co Schools 704-488-2290 2400
Asheville, NC Buncombe Cnty Schls 704-255-5992 1200
Charleston, SC Morningside Middle School 803-566-1812
Newnan, GA Heritage School 404-251-4904 2400
Palatka, FL Jenkins Middle School 904-329-0627
Knoxville, TN Knoxville Ed Computing 615-539-6252 2400
Tupelo, MS Tupelo Public Sch. Dist. 601-841-8857 2400
Jenkins, KY Jenkins High School 606-832-2185 2400
Paragon, IN Martinsville School Distri 317-537-2277 2400
Mt Clemens, MI Mt. Clemens Comm. School 313-469-5805
Novi, MI Novi Woods Community Schoo 313-344-8870 2400
Pontiac, MI Oakland County Schls 313-858-1873 1200
Mt. Pleasant, MI Central Mich Univ 517-774-7704 9600
Portland, MI Oakwood Elementary 517-647-7474 9600
Allendale,MI (G.R.) Grand Valley State Univ 616-895-3202
Cedar Falls, IA Area Education Agncy 7 319-273-8248 1200
Bayport, MN Stillwater High School 612-439-1064 2400
Eagan, MN Rosemount Apple Vally Eaga 612-683-6832 2400
Minneapolis, MN Minneapolis School Dist 612-627-2170 2400
Detroit Lakes, MN Detroit Lakes JHS 218-847-9509 2400
Morton, IL Morton Unit School Distric 309-263-2168 1200
Peoria, IL Bradley University 309-667-3686 2400
Urbana, IL Urbana School Dist 217-384-3554 2400
Champaign, IL Univ of Illinois 217-333-2246 1200
Chamgaign, IL University of Illinois 217-244-3368 9600
Danville, IL Danville High School 217-431-5885
Edwardsville, IL SOILED Net (So. IL Educ Ne 618-692-3595 2400
Springfield, IL Springfield District 217-525-3349 2400
Zeigler,IL 310-391-4299
Florissant, MO T.E.N.(Technology Educ. Ne 314-831-7368 2400
St. Louis, MO Regional Consortium 314-894-5592 2400
Lee's Summit, MO R-7 Lee's Summit Schools 816-524-5239 1200
Columbia, MO Columbia Public Schools 314-886-2784 2400
Springfield, MO Southwest Missouri Consort 417-895-2721
McPherson, KS McPherson USD #418 316-241-1250 9600
Lincoln, NE Lincoln Public Schls 402-436-1416 1200
Lincoln, NE Pershing Elementary School 402-436-1471 1200
Sulphur, LA JJSouthwest Louisiana 318-625-3440 2400
Monticello, AR Univ of Arkansas 501-460-1965 2400
Little Rock, AR Univ of Arkansas 501-569-3268 2400
Colorado Springs Rocky Mt. Ed. Computing Co 719-593-1914 2400
Cheyenne WY Wyoming Dept Educ 307-777-5945 2400
Las Vegas, NV Las Vegas CUE 702-898-8552 9600
Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles Unified 310-391-4299
Torrance, CA Torrance Unified District 310-542-5378 1200
Centralia, CA Centralia School Dist 714-562-9211 2400
Anaheim, CA Anaheim UHSD 714-220-4088 1200
Cypress, CA Lexington JHS 714-761-8949 1200
Pomona, CA Cal Poly Univ 714-869-2328 1200
Chino, CA Chino High School 714-591-1329 2400
Claremont, CA Claremont High School 714-621-2310 2400
Corona, CA Corona-Norco USD 714-588-3020 1200
Glendora, CA Charter Oak 818-963-2095 1200
Ontario, CA Ontario Montclair SD 714-986-9890 1200
Bonita, CA FrEdMail Central 619-475-4852 2400
Encinitas, CA LaCosta Hts Elem 619-944-4383 2400
Encinitas, CA Mission Estancia Elem 619-943-2012 2400
Oceanside, CA Jefferson JHS 619-757-3180 2400
Lakeside, CA Lakeside MS 619-390-2689 2400
El Cajon, CA Cajon Valley USD 619-588-0948 1200
Encinitas, CA Park Dale Lane Elementary 619-944-4398 1200
Encinitas, CA Encinitas Union 619-944-4316 2400
Escondido, CA Escondido Union 619-432-2420 1200
Los Angeles, CA Pepperdine Univ 213-568-5551 1200
San Marcos, CA San Marcos Unified 619-774-8547
Ramona, CA Ramona School District 619-788-5082 1200
San Diego, CA San Diego USD 619-295-9591 2400
San Diego, CA Pacific Beach MS 619-483-2097 2400
San Diego, CA San Diego State Univ 619-594-3428 1200
San Diego, CA US Internat'l Univ 619-693-4582 1200
Imperial Valley CA El Centro USD 619-339-6401
Indio, CA Desert Sands USD 619-564-6142 1200
Lake Elsinor, CA Lake Elsinore Unified SD 714-245-0408 2400
Redlands, CA Redlands Unified School Di 714-793-9858 2400
Elsinor, CA Elsinore School District 714-678-9395 1200
San Bernardino,CA Azusa Pacific 714-888-0047
San Bernardino, CA San Bernardino City Unifie 714-888-1573 2400
Hemet, CA Hemet FrEdMail Center 714-925-0836
Moreno Valley, CA Vista Heights Middle Schoo 909-485-5550 2400
Fullerton, CA Sunny Hills HS 714-870-3423 9600
Newport Beach CA Newport Mesa USD 714-556-3177 2400
Orange County, CA Orange County Office Ed 714-966-4313 1200
Orange County, CA Orange County Office Ed 714-966-4313 1200
Norwalk, CA Norwalk-La Mirada USD 213-868-4773 1200
Fullerton CA Fullerton Elem 714-447-7496 1200
Garden Grove, CA Pacifica High School 714-663-6064
Orange, CA Orange USD 714-997-6387 1200
Mission Viejo, CA Saddleback Valley Unified 714-586-6297 2400
Madera, CA Alpha Elem 209-674-4801 2400
Fresno, CA Fresno Unified School Dist 209-237-2839 2400
Antioch, CA Antioch District 510-778-2722
Pleasant Hill, CA Contra Costa County Office 510-934-5041
Solano County, CA Solano County Office Educ 707-427-1268
Livermore, CA LawrLivrLabSciEd 415-373-1231 1200
San Leandro, CA San Leandro USD 510-895-1785 9600
Oakland, CA Oakland USD 510-834-2636 2400
Sausalito, CA Autodesk Foundation 415-721-0680 2400
Cupertino, CA Cupertino Unified 408-253-5385 1200
San Jose, CA Morrill MS 408-942-1425 2400
San Jose, CA Berryessa USD 408-946-7325 2400
San Jose, CA Piedmont Middle School 408-259-6855 2400
Austr Bargo, Australia Wirrimbirra F.S.C. +46841701 2400
Irela Dublin, Ireland FrEd Dublin +353-1-597343
AT&T Paradyne Dataport 14.4FAX $555 $222 No BBS
AT&T Paradyne Dataport 14.4 $515 $206 No BBS
ATI Technologies 9600 ETC-E $499 $275 416-756-4591
Cardinal Technologies 9600V42 V.32 $699 $269 717-293-3074
Computer Peripherals Viva 9624e V.32 $349 $249 805-499-9646
Digicom Systems ScoutPlus V.32bis $389 $210 508-262-1412
Digicom Systems Scout V.32 $299 $195 508-262-1412
Galaxy Networks UFO V.32bis $999 $299 No BBS
GVC Technologies FM-9696/144V V.32bis $689 $413 201-579-2380
GVC Technologies SM-96V V.32 $599 $329 201-579-2380
Hayes Microcomputer Ultra 144 V.32bis $999 $499 404-446-6336
Hayes Microcomputer Optima 144+Fax $519 $299 404-446-6336
Hayes Microcomputer ISDN System Adapter $1199 $650 404-446-6336
Image Communications Twincomm 9600 V.32 $299 $279 No BBS
Intel Corporation 14.4EX V.32bis $549 $269 503-645-6275
Intel Corporation 9600EX V.32 $599 $299 503-645-6275
Multi-Tech Systems MT932BA V.32 $869 $435 612-785-9875
Multi-Tech Systems MT1432BA V.32bis $899 $450 612-785-9875
Practical Peripherals PM14400FXSA V.32bis $549 $250 805-496-4445
Quadralink Technologies 1496V+ $360 $320 416-538-9999
QuickComm Sprit II V.32bis $249 $220 408-956-1358
Supra Corporation SupraFAX V.32bis $399 $249 503-967-2444
Supra Corporation SupraFAX V.32 $299 $199 503-967-2444
Telebit Corporation T3000 V.32bis $949 $399 No BBS
U.S. Robotics Courier DS V.32bis/Fax $1295 $449 708-982-5092
U.S. Robotics Courier V.32bis/Fax $695 $299 708-982-5092
U.S. Robotics Courier HST V.32bis/Fax $995 $349 708-982-5092
Ven-Tel EC96 V.32 $699 $439 408-922-0988
ZyXEL U-1496 +V.32bis $989 $549 714-693-0762
ZyXEL U-1496E+V.32bis $649 $399 714-693-0762
ZyXEL U-1496E V.32bis $469 $299 714-693-0762
96 List - 9600+bps BBS Downtown BBS (213)484-0260
AC 516 Free Shareware BBS Long Island Exchange (516)385-7882
Airline Pilot/JUMPSEAT BBSs ChicAAgo Hangar (708)980-1613
Alaska AC 907 Alaska Pirate Soc. (907)562-1854
Apple II BBS with Internet con pro-sol (619)670-5379
Area Code 517 - Mid-Michigan Wolverine BBS (517)695-9952
Arkansas Area 501 The Gaslight BBS (501)444-8420
ASP BBS Member List PBS-BBS (317)856-2087
Astronomy/Space BBS Starbase III BBS (209)432-2487
Atlanta Area 404 OASIS (404)627-2662
Atlanta Area 404 INDEX System (404)924-8472
Austin Area BBS List AC 512 -=ACE*BBS=- (512)258-9553
Autocad Related BBS Alacrity BBS (206)643-5477
Baltimore Area 410 Network BBS (410)247-3797
BBS With Handicapped Focus Handicap News BBS (203)337-1607
Black Run/Oriented BBS BDPA BAC BBS (707)552-3314
Business/Professional BBS Delight The Customer (517)797-3740
California AC 310 Illusions BBS (310)804-3324
Central California AC 209 Zen Den Systems (209)675-8436
Central California Area 805 His Board (805)652-1478
Chicago HURK BBS (708)801-0823
Chicago Stillwaters (708)403-2826
Cleveland Area 216 Wine Cellar (216)382-2558
Commodore 64/128/Amiga BBS Scream BBS (818)287-4570
CompuCom Modem BBS List Referral Market BBS (803)297-4395
Connecticut AC 203 Creative Edge BBS (203)743-4044
Conservation/Nature BBS List Coin of the Realm (301)585-66
Dallas/Ft Worth Area 214/817 Second Sanctum (817)784-1178
Darwin National USBBS List Bob's BBS (916)929-7511
Desktop Publishing BBS Infinite Perspective (301)924-0398
Detroit Area 313 Tony's Corner (313)754-1131
Ecology/Conservation BBS EarthArt BBS (803)552-4389
Engineering Related BBS Computer Plumber (319)337-6723
Geneology Related BBS NGS-CIG (703)528-2612
Graphical User Interface BBS The Gooey (GUI) BBS (212)876-5885
Ham/Amateur Radio BBS 3WINKs BBS (301)590-9629
Handicapped Issues BBS HEX BBS (301)593-7357
Houston Area 713 Atomic Cafe BBS (713)530-8875
Kansas City Area 816/913 Sound Advice (816)436-4516
Kitsap County Washington Quicksilver BBS (206)780-2011
List of Gay/Lesbian BBS S-TEK BBS (514)597-2409
Macintosh BBS Fort Mill Tabby (803)548-0900
Medical Issues BBS Black Bag (302)731-1998
Milwaukee Area 414 Priplanus (414)442-0170
Minnesota Twin Cities AC 612 Abiogenetic BBS (612)489-7983
National 800 Number BBS List Hayes Online (800)874-2937
National Adult BBS List Titan BBS 1:3612/140 (904)476-1270
National BBS List Ameriboard (412)349-6862
New Jersey AC 609 The Casino PCBoard (609)561-3377
New Jersey Area 201/609/908 Praedo BBS (609)953-0769
New Orleans BBS List Southern Star BBS (504)885-5928
Ontario Area 705 Cottage Country BBS (705)835-6192
Open Access UNIX Site List LGNP1 (login:BBS) (215)348-9727
Orlando Florida AC 407 London BBS (407)895-1335
OS/2 BBS Systems OS2/Shareware BBS (703)385-4325
OS/2 Related BBS LiveNet 1:170/110 (918)481-5715
Pennsylvania AC 215/609/302 DSC/VOICENET (215)443-9434
Pittsburgh AC 412 Quad-Tech Systems (412)262-4794
Portland Oregon BBS DawGone Disgusted (503)297-9145
Raleigh NC Area Code 919 Micro Message Svc. (919)779-6674
Republic of South Africa Catalyst BBS (041)34-1122
Rhode Island Area 401 Eagle's Nest (401)732-5292
Rochester NY AC 716 Logan's Run (716)256-2659
San Diego AC 619 General Alarm (619)669-0385
San Diego, CA AC 619 ComputorEdge (619)573-1675
San Francisco Area 408/415/510 Bay List BBS (510)339-1045
Seattle AC 206/West Washington Eskimo North (206)367-3837
Selected BBS J&J's BBS (513)236-1229
South Florida Area 305/407 Silicon Beach BBS (305)474-6512
Southern California SOCAL Corner (213)422-7942
St. Louis AC 314 Offworld BBS (314)579-0700
Tacoma Washington AC 206 AmoCat BBS (206)566-1155
Technical Support BBS List Digicom BBS (812)479-1310
Tulsa Oklahoman Area BBS List Access America (918)747-2542
U.S.S.R. BBS List Court Crimson King 7-3832-356722
Virginia AC 703/804 TOSOR BBS (703)366-4620
Washington DC BBS List Interconnect (703)425-2505
Wildcat! BBS Wildcat! HQ (805) 395-0650
Wisconsin 608 JW-PC Dataflex-HST (608)837-1923
-Press Any Key-
