BTN: Birmingham Telecommunications News COPYRIGHT 1991 ISSN 1055-4548 November 1991 Volume 4, Issue 10 Table Of Contents ----------------- Article Title Author Policy Statement and Disclaimer................Staff Publisher's Corner.............................Mark Maisel FALL COMDEX 1991...............................Raymond Hugh Of Ghoulies, Ghosties..........................Ricky Morgan In The Beginning...............................Bob Crawford Party Review...................................Michael Walker Windows: Software Update......................Eric Hunt The Adventures of R.G. Strangemind & Herbert...Jeremy Lewis Notes From The Trenches........................Dean Costello ProFile: Judy Ranelli.........................Scott Hollifield Special Interest Groups (SIGs).................Barry Bowden Known BBS Numbers..............................Staff ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer and Statement of Policy for BTN We at BTN try our best to assure the accuracy of articles and information in our publication. We assume no responsibility for damage due to errors, omissions, etc. The liability, if any for BTN, its editors and writers, for damages relating to any errors or omissions, etc., shall be limited to the cost of a one year subscription to BTN, even if BTN, its editors or writers have been advised of the likelihood of such damages occurring. With the conclusion of that nasty business, we can get on with our policy for publication and reproduction of BTN articles. We publish monthly with a deadline of the fifteenth of the month prior to publication. If you wish to submit an article, you may do so at any time but bear in mind the deadline if you wish for your work to appear in a particular issue. It is not our purpose to slander or otherwise harm a person or reputation and we accept no responsibility for the content of the articles prepared by our writers. Our writers own their work and it is protected by copyright. We allow reprinting of articles from BTN with only a few restrictions. The author may object to a reprint, in which case he will specify in the content of his article. Otherwise, please feel free to reproduce any article from BTN as long as the source, BTN, is specified, and as long as the author's name and the article's original title are retained. If you use one of our articles, please forward a copy of your publication to: Mark Maisel Editor, BTN 221 Chestnut St. BHM, AL 35210-3219 (205)-956-0176 We thank you for taking the time to read our offering and we hope that you like it. We also reserve the right to have a good time while doing all of this and not get too serious about it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- F R E E B I E : G E T I T W H I L E I T S H O T ! The following boards allow BTN to be downloaded freely, that is with no charge to any existing upload/download ratios. The Connection LZ Birmingham Alter-Ego Channel 8250 Little Kingdom Joker's Castle Crunchy Frog Myth Drannor Posys BBS The Matrix Abject Poverty The Bus The Outer Limits Bloom County The Round Table DC Info Exchange Radio Free Troad Owlabama BBS Amiga Alliance ][ DataLynx Martyrdom Again?! Arkham Asylum If you are a sysop and you allow BTN to be downloaded freely, please let me know via EZNet so that I can post your board as a free BTN distributor. Thanks. MM ----------------------------------------------------------------------- N E W S F L A S H ----------------------------------------------------------- CORRECTION ----------------------------------------------------------- In last month's issue, I reported that the national BBS message echo of the OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis) was called "95Net". It is actually called "93Net". This may not seem like a big difference to you or me, but I'm told that 93 is a heavy number with the OTO and I just wanted to set the official record straight. BTN regrets the error, as do I. Scott Hollifield ----------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Publisher's Corner by Mark Maisel It sure has been a busy month. I've just returned from a trip covering Atlanta, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. I started in Atlanta taking Kathy to the Stone Mountain Scottish Highland Games. Whoopie! The people are very nice but I don't get much out of watching men run around in kilts, throwing things. From there, I flew to San Francisco to hook up with some Bytebrothers for a trip across the desert to Las Vegas and Fall Comdex. The trip to San Francisco revealed a very crowded but beautiful nonetheless, city that I didn't have nearly enough time to see except from the freeway. There isn't much to talk about there excepting the hospitality of my hosts. I got prompt pick-up service and a good dinner when I arrived. Las Vegas was definitely a different sort of experience. I've never seen anything quite like it. The desert didn't do much for me. The only really interesting thing I saw in the desert was when we finally arrived at the Nevada border, and were greeted with a harsh barrage of light from the border casinos. We drove on by those and continued back into the darkness. At night, there is an awful lot of that to be found in the desert. All of a sudden, out of the blackness, there appeared a HUGE body of light. It loomed larger and larger, as we approached. The light began to take on shapes and we recognized what appeared to be a substantial city out in the middle of "nowhere". The traffic got heavy as we approached, both coming and going. Finally we were able to see the famous "Strip" and we drove down it looking for our hotel, reserved for us by what we thought were the kind people at the Las Vegas tourist agency, or whatever they call themselves. We drove on and our hotel didn't appear, though we'd been told it was conveniently located to the Strip and thus allowed us easy access to the many Comdex sites. This was not the case. In addition, there were many vacancies advertised by the major resorts on the Strip, contrary to what we'd been told by the tourist agency. We had pre-paid so there was no possibility of forgetting about this place we couldn't find, and settling in on the Strip. At long last, and after two phone calls to the place, we finally found it. It was grubby to say the least, and was only convenient to the city jail which was located on the opposite corner. We got in there and settled in. We cleaned up and went out to see the Strip, eat dinner, and watch RayHugh try to donate money to the casinos. The next day, we hit the show. There will be many articles coming out of the show, or as a result of contacts made during it. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a serious interest in micro-computing trends. It is significantly larger and better attended than the Spring Comdex. Anyway, we registered and hit our first site. We met many folks in the industry, some of whom we'd talked to on bbs'. Our phone broke, due to a tangled cable, when I tried to pick it up for a call home. It took over a day to get it fixed. The pool was closed, as we found out when we went to soak our feet after a day on the show floor. We made our complaints known, and the next day, the pool, opened, was about the nastiest body of water in which I've swum. Things started to get bad after these events. We managed to get invited to quite a few of the private parties that occur through the week. These are the best way to make contacts. The "insider" parties we missed because the hotel front desk misplaced our messages till a full day after they'd beeen left. We became unhappy. We made up for the hotel by spending lots of time at parties, casinos, and hanging out with various vendors, Bytebrothers, and other folks we ran into while in Las Vegas. There will be reports, hopefully in this issue, and for certain in upcoming ones, on the Fall Comdex. There is lots to talk about so be patient as we will get there. Suffice it to say here that when I returned to Atlanta at 1:00 a.m., October 26th, I was exhausted. The total mileage one would have walked to have seen every exhibit at Fall Comdex is over 93 miles. I saw all but one of the smaller halls. I would have paid a tidy sum for a hot tub to soak in when I got off that plane. Valeria and Kathy picked me at Hellsfield and drove me to Val's condo for some sleep. We woke up the next morning for the drive to Birmingham for the annual Halloween party. We got home with about two hours to go till party time. We were all tired by then and sat around mindlessly. To my complete ignorance, a prank had been scheduled with me as victim, for the party that night. For those of you who had a hand in it, I am very flattered, and amazed that someone would go to all that trouble. For those of you who missed it, here goes... Some background is in order. I really stress costumes at the party each year, and there are many who don't want to get into the spirit as much as I'd like. In addition, I almost always dress in a t-shirt, sweat pants, and flip-flops. I drove over to Rocky's about 7 p.m. for the party, was ushered onto the porch, and what do you think I saw? There were about 15 folks dressed just like me, and they all had t-shirts that said "I came to the BTN party dressed as Mark Maisel". Not only was I taken completely by surprise, I was so stunned as to become totally disoriented. I swear I heard my jaw hit the porch. I tried to recuperate and get some sort of comment out but nothing came, although if it had, I don't know that my mouth would have cooperated. There was silence for a few minutes while I took the sight in, and then the response that came up was uncontrollable laughter. It was amusing and definitely different. The party was great fun and I lasted till 2 a.m., when Kathy called and asked me to come home. She'd been in Atlanta all week and was going to have to go back, so she wanted to spend some time with me prior to her return. I'm sure that she thoroughly enjoyed listening to me snore as I became very sleepy the minute I laid down. I really don't have much else to talk about as the only things I've been aware of have been these trips and the party. It has been mostly lots of fun but it sure has been tiring. I gotta go now as there is another party over in Stone Mountain, GA that requires my attention. Whew, what a life! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ......and now the long-awaited sequel..... FALL COMDEX 1991 or, How I Spent My Birthday Week by Raymond Hugh Since I wrote something for the Spring edition of this thingy, and since Maisel bugged me about it, I s'pose I'll write up a little something for Fall Comdex in sunny Las Vegas.... First off, DON'T drive from Daly City, CA, to Las Vegas! Especially not with the Bun-man and Maisel! TEN AND A HALF grueling hours....! The only redeeming thing about the whole drive was seeing the bright strip of lights from the highway as we're driving in. Reminds me of the Trashcan Man in Steven King's "The Stand" as he's walking into the city. As if the drive wasn't long enough, we took half an hour and *two* phone calls to the hotel before we found it. Either the people at the hotel didn't know where they are located, or Maisel can't write down directions. Take your pick... And what a lovely room it was: two queen size beds (Richard Foshee should be sorry he wasn't there), a pseudo-color TV (good thing we didn't come to watch any!), an elevator that took forever and a day to show up, and, to top it off, maids in drag. We found out how bad it was when we found Eric Rintell, who shall be known hereafter as MR. RINTELL. The reason will become readily apparent soon. He booked his room only the week before the show, and he got a room at Caesar's Palace, at half the price of ours, and with a jacuzzi in the room! This is a place where the operator greets him by name on the FIRST RING. Can you say MR. RINTELL? As for Comdex itself, well, it was like the one in Hotlanta earlier this year, only bigger...a lot bigger. It was so big there were several places where you can register. MR. RINTELL tells us where to go (can you blame him?) to register more quickly than going to the main registration area. As it was, we would've been out of there in no time if it hadn't been for the people behind the desk. They couldn't type to save their lives. The most memorable event that day was when Bundy mentioned Wildcat! to the PCBoard people. David Terry (the PCBoard author, for those of you who don't know him) looked like he was going to drop a cow. It was an amusing sight. By two o'clock, we had hit two of the smaller convention halls, and my two fellow compatriots were pooped. They went back to the hotel room from hell to relax and enjoy the pool. Little did they know of the excitement awaiting them.....I went to Caesar's Palace to check out some more exhibits, and to wait for them, since the US Robotics party was there. However, there were no exhibits at Caesar's, only one-armed bandits, blackjack tables, roulette tables, and assorted other instruments of money-grabbing. Having learned my lesson the previous night about the slots, I sat down at a blackjack table. There are not too many things you can do for three hours on $40 that is more enjoyable...well, maybe there are, but at least at the blackjack table, you don't have to worry about communicable diseases. At the US Robotics party, I found out that our pool was 'closed for cleaning,' our phone was broken (helped along by Mark), amongst other fun news. We talked to MR. RINTELL, who told us how he crashed the Hewlett Packard party, and the US Robotics party, and about his past exploits at the Spencer Katt parties. I think the Bun One popped a vein when he found out how high (and how utterly misplaced) MR. RINTELL's ethics were. Be sure to ask MR. RINTELL about it. We went to visit MR. RINTELL's room for a while, and listen to him regale us with tales of how he got this and that from the vendors, and how he would have to throw out some stuff because he just couldn't fit any more into his house. At about this point, Bundy received a revelation and found religion in MR. RINTELL. As we left the room, MR. RINTELL was going over the list of vendors to see what he was going to scam next. From then on, Bundy went around trying to get as much 'stuff' as he can, and comparing it to what we got. So what if I got two water bottles to his one, or two Maynard bags to his one, or a better US Robotics shirt than he did? It didn't make a difference to me.....hehehe...the only reason he got a copy of Wildcat! was because he knows Rick Heming. Anyway, the first day is pretty much a microcosm of the rest of the week. We ate at the breakfast buffet (no seconds for Mark!), hit the booths for a few hours, trying to get to as many places as we can, watch Bundy grab as much as he can, relax for a little while, go to a few parties, listen to MR. RINTELL tell some more stories, go to a casino and have Mark and Bundy watch me win at blackjack. There weren't too many exhibits that stood out like the one at Electrohome for Spring Comdex. But then again, we didn't hit all the halls. The most garish exhibit I saw was the one at Computer Asscociates (Kathy's favorite computer vendor). They had a mock heavyweight bout, complete with George Michael on tape, Fred Travelina (oops, forgot how to spell his name) doing Howard Cosell impressions, and Smoking Joe Frazier signing autographs. Another thing of note was the pullout by Compaq. Apparently, the Interface Group, the ones who runs these shows, knew beforehand that Compaq was not showing up, but held back the news lest attendees stay away. It seems Compaq wants to be a big fish in a smaller show, rather be 'just another vendor' at a show like Comdex. There were a few other no-shows, but none as big as Compaq. Speaking of no-shows, Mark Walker, the Marine from California, was supposed to set up a ByteBrothers dinner. But, of course, the West Coast No Show C@#$!*#$)(, did not show up. We could have had one anyway, but, alas, by the time we realized it, it was already too late, and we were having too much fun partying to care. All in all, I would say it sure was a fun week, and for those of you who missed out...it was your choice, so tough cookies! Next time, make sure you get there! Hahahahaha!!!! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Of Ghoulies, Ghosties and Hard Drives That Go Bump In The Night. by Ricky Morgan Many moons ago, I promised Mark Maisel an article for BTN. I have written one or two, in an attempt to convince him that he really didn't want me writing for him, seemingly to no avail. As things go, shortly after I promised him another article, real life interjected itself and I became forced to spend more and more time actively working for a living. The article I promised Mark was effectively shelved for quite some time. Which was okay since Mark quit bothering me and I just didn't have, what I felt was, a good topic anyway. Be that as it may, I'm fiercely loyal to promises made and the fact that I HAD promised meant that, sooner or later, I would have to sit down and cough out something. Strangely enough, when I was least expecting it, a half way decent topic; of which I'm fixing to get to, literally got dumped in my lap. So to Mark, here it is, better late than never. A month or so ago I purchased a brand spanking new 386 computer system, under the guise of needing it for work; which in its own way was true enough. But then that's probably another story. For four weeks I was in computer heaven; a 33Mhz 80386 computer at my beck and call all the time. The system ran flawless and I was beginning to think that life would be worth living. Then the hard drive bit the big one. Fortunately it gave enough of a warning that I was able to back up the entire drive before it finally went off into the tall grass; never to return. Now, at this point, you may be beginning to think that this is another of those horror stories about a bad computer system but it's not. Stay with me while I set this up. When the hard drive started going south, I grabbed my warranty information and called the tech support number. I talked my way through three technicians before I was able to find one knowledgeable enough to realize that I knew what I was talking about. After all, when a hard drive starts making KLUNK -- KLUNK -- SCREECH -- KLUNK -- KLUNK noises and partitions start to vanish, it's generally NOT a software problem. In fact I could probably write another story just on the conversations with these 'so called technicians' but I won't (at least until I'm forced into it by blackmail GIFs from Maisel). So after convincing the tech support people that I did indeed have a bad drive, they logged a service call and I was informed someone from the local warranty repair facility would be in contact. I promptly prepared to wait. Much to my amazement, someone called the next morning and we even managed to schedule a visit that afternoon. One point for their side. I was ecstatic. I meet the tech rep. at my house that afternoon and he had the new drive installed and up in mere minutes. Here is where it starts getting good. The new drive, apparently refurbished, already had DOS 4.01 installed, so the tech did a quick checkdisk and played with DOS Shell (gag) then, satisfied that all was well, left. Giggling maniacally, I set about restoring all the information from my back ups to the new hard drive. All proceeded well right up until I finished the restoration and rebooted the machine. Now because of the type work I do, I have to occasionally run Windows 3.0 and some other utilities that, were it left up to me, I wouldn't waste space on. Anyway, everything booted fine and I began checking to make sure that all was well. When I attempted to run Windows, I got promptly kicked back out to the system. When I ran Windows in reduced mode it would run okay but in standard mode. For those non Windows people; I couldn't get Windows to take advantage of my 4 meg of RAM, nor would it kick into 386 enhanced mode. This equates to something like running VGA programs on a CGA monitor. It may work, but you won't get what you really want. I played with my memory manager and several other things before I started noticing other problems. Primarily, every 3.5" 720 K floppy I placed in my B: drive reported the same track and sector bad. Norton Disk Doctor, as well as PCShell Version 7 Diskfix reported the same. "Hurumph," I thought to myself, "damn 3.5 drive is croaking out now. Just my luck." I began attempting to isolate whether it was the drive itself or the controller. I condemned the controller. Primarily because every utility I used seemed to think my 1.4 drive was a 360K drive. "Back to the tech support people and another service call," I told my wife. I placed another call, and was fortunate enough to get someone fairly knowledgeable. I outlined my problems to him and sat waiting. I expected him to want me to run a few utilities and give him the results. Boy was I surprised. "Any possibility that you have a virus?" The voice asked. "Virus?" I snorted back. "No way," I replied. "I run an electronic bulletin board and every file I bring in this house is scanned for viruses," I promptly informed the silly fellow. Virus indeed. "But," he whipped back, "you said the new drive already had DOS on it right?" "Er. . .yea," was my witty reply. "Do you have anything that will scan for viruses?" He asked. "Sure thing," I said reaching for a disk that had McAfee's SCANV80 on it. I shoved the disk in the drive and ran SCAN. I couldn't believe it. SCAN reported a virus. The Virus Joshi to be exact. Strangely enough I was excited. I explained to the tech that I knew a lot of people with computers and such but had yet to meet anyone that had actually gotten hit by a virus. I was rather proud of my little virus. Especially since the DOCS said it was fairly nondestructive and could be easily cleaned up with McAfee's CLEAN. I thanked the tech, who no doubt thinks I'm a bit strange; actually getting excited to find that my computer had a virus. I hung up and within 5 minutes had the computer virus free; once again running like a top. What's my point in writing this article? Well number 1: to fulfill my promise to Maisel. Number 2: To let everyone know that although they may be few and far between in this area, viruses do exist and, like the one that I found, can come in from some unexpected directions. Finally, number 3: it seemed like a good topic for the time of year; Halloween. If you are wondering, a virus is, in it's simplest form, a program that can write itself to another program and can affect the way your computer behaves. Symptoms can be nearly nonexistent to total failure of the system. Damage can range from nothing more than silly messages to a complete low level format of your hard drive. Contrary to some stories I've heard, a virus cannot physically damage your system. A virus CAN copy itself to another disk and I quickly found out that just about every diskette that I had put in my B: drive, and tried to use, was infected with Joshi also. I Cleaned those as well; save for two diskettes, one high density and one low density. I'm keeping those as souvenirs and conversation pieces. MSDOS 4.01 Copyright, MicroSoft Corporation Windows 3.0 Copyright, MicroSoft Corporation Norton Disk Doctor Copyright, Peter Norton Company PCShell Version 7 Copyright, Central Point Software SCANV80 Copyright, McAfee Associates CLEAN Copyright, McAfee Associates The Virus Joshi copyright, of some adolescent minded idiot ----------------------------------------------------------------------- In The Beginning......... In the beginning there was the transistor.........Uh, that goes a little too far back. Lets fast forward a bit......In MY beginning there was the TI 99-4a, my introduction to the world of computing. Of course, by todays standards, it compares to the stone wheel, but it did allow me to realize that computing was not as educationally out of my reach as I had feared. After all, math was not my best subject and I equated computing with monstrous mathematical calculation ability. So the good old TI opened the door and I stepped (fell?) in! As it came, the TI was limited and expansion was a costly proposition, and with a latent fear of the "IBM" logo and all the massive hardware configurations that were possible, my next computer was the Commodore 64. Completely convinced that it had all the memory and speed I would ever need, I set out to explore the world of computing to even greater depths. I just knew that the Commodore's basic language would allow me to do "everything I would ever need to do"! Armed with two hard drives and an Okimate 20 printer, I was sure I reached the pinnacle of computing power, at least as far as MY needs were concerned! Kindly notice that, so far, the above journey has yet to touch on the issue of "telecomputing"! Why should it? After all, I had a great selection of games, a word processing program that had a decent spell checker, and everyone knew that telecomputing was an "IBM thing", right? Sheesh!! Talk about "living in a cave"!! Having retired from Photojournalism in order to take up writing screen plays, I decided, in order to protect what sanity I still possessed, that the the Okimate 20's slowness had to go! And while I was at it, why not look into the dreaded IBM? After all, there ARE new worlds to conquer and as long as I was adventurous enough to give up one career for another, I may as well pay my nickel and take the whole ride! So my experience in the IBM world began, with a loaded XT and a handful of manuals, I spent months just getting comfortable with the damn thing! Most of the jitters that I experienced were of my own making, due to the "AWE" with which I viewed the separate components of the IBM compatible, and telecomputing was still a foreign subject. Two years of game playing and software buying later, I discovered the PC Sig service offered at the main branch if the Birmingham Library. All the programs I wanted and it was a "free" service? This was too good to be true! After Weeks of sitting in front of the Monitor there, I "found" a program called "Procomm"! Hmmmmm, a tele- communications program. Well, as long as it doesn't cost me anything to look! Now the REAL ride began!!! With my curiosity piqued and armed with this shareware program, a quick trip to Sam's Wholesale Warehouse was in order. $70.00 + tax and a few hours later, I found myself on the verge of a whole new universe! Little was I aware that it would change forever my views of computing and the power of the silicon chip! Here, before me, was access to everything and anything I might want or dream of! Being a fan of the Howard Hughes Social Life, I now had the opportunity to actually communicate with other human beings, inter-relate with them, and never have to leave the sanctuary of my home! THIS was a dream come true!! But alas, it would seem that every new experience is fraught with the dangers of inexperience. I found that the boards which I encountered were anything but equal, the differences in logging on alone were mind bending! NOTES!!! I had to take notes! Arming myself with a legal pad and plenty of new ink pens, I set about to learn every board I encountered! Literally copying the entire log on procedure for each board, along with the names of the "Sysops" (on top of everything else, I now had to learn a new language also!), I soon had a "beginners handbook" to the Birmingham, Alabama BBS Scene! The next few weeks were actually frightening! At one point I made the mistake of posting a message "To All" that I had a copy of a commercial flight simulator program that I would be willing to share with anyone who was interested! Being a flight sim fanatic, I merely wanted to give others the opportunity to get in on the fun! Hell!! I had no idea that what I had done was a major No No!! I suddenly found myself the object of LOTS and LOTS of E-mail (more new language!) and the majority of it was NOT from fans! In a matter of minutes, on line mind you (didn't know about slmr yet!), I was called everything one might imagine! The language ranged from mild to out & out abusive! These people were the first to respond to my act of ignorance. My first reaction was to tell these "fine folks" where to pack it and to loose that modem thing in favor of a new game controller card! I didn't need this crap from people I didn't even know!! After a few days of fuming, and no contact with the boards in any way, I decided to post a public apology and let it go at that! I had decided I could find a new hobby that would be less touchy! Imagine my surprise when I found an entirely new batch of E-mail that was much more understanding!! People who were actually offering advice and letting me know that they too remembered how it was "in the beginning"! There were even a few remarks from some of the abusive ones, apologies for their abruptness and harshness! Now THESE were the people I had hoped to encounter in the first place, people who had a certain sympathy for the "new kid on the block". I only wish those messages were the first I had received, after all, I almost gave up this world communication, I could have wound up taking up knitting or something! In the aftermath of all that, I have met some truly great people and even (shudder) left my home on occasion to attend a few BTN gatherings! I have found that the Sysops, for the most part, are a caring group of people who are interested in making it as comfortable as possible for the new users. I "bumped" into Doug Griffin (Colonel) on Willie's BBS one afternoon and found a guy who was willing to take his time to give me a few hints and "show" me around the board! Here was a stranger making an effort to help me understand! This, I thought to myself, is what it should be all about! Not long after our first encounter on Willies, Doug noticed that I was replying to my e- mail on Alter Ego and a few others, "on-line". Again he used his time to enlighten me to the existence of the Slmr20.zip program! There are many others who have "taken me by the hand" and made my BBSing a far easier journey; Mark & Kathy Maisel, Maggie Harden, Rayman (from Willie's), Willie Moore, Steve Wheeler and more. These are the folks that remember when they too looked at the monitor and wondered what the hell was going on? Thank you all. Today, long after the beginning, I am Co-Sysop of Baudville, Alabama BBS. The person most responsible for my being involved in BBSing is the SYSOP, Doug Griffin (yep, you can blame him for it all!) To those of you who initially cussed me out and basically jumped all over me, LIGHTEN UP! You were not born with that keyboard in your hand! I make a personal effort to let all of our new users know that any help they may need is only a message away. Doug is usually around the board during the daytime hours and has spent a lot of his time leading new users around the board, getting them comfortable with the Oracomm software. Perhaps if more of us made the same effort, our hobby would loose fewer participants. I have learned from some of the best in BBSdom, it's not the software or the Sysops that make a board, it's the Users, without them, you have only a monthly phone bill! And the journey continues................. Bob Crawford (Sysop2, Raff, Priest, matters not what you call me, as long as you call me! ) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Party Review by Michael Walker Hello. You may not know me. My name is Michael Walker, and I am pretty new at the bulletin board game. Mark Maisel got a hold of me at the party at Rocky Rawlins' house and asked me to write a review of the party. I figured why not, and went ahead and wrote this. I got to the party about 7:00. A lot of people were wearing T-shirts with "I came as Mark Maisel" on them. Mark got their at about 7:30 or so. He seemed kind of surprised by it, I think. Some person I had never heard of named Dean something warned me to watch his expression since he isn't amused by jokes like that. He looked amused to me, so I guess that Dean was wrong. There were an awful lot of people wearing costumes, more so then at many Halloween parties I've been at over the last couple of years. There was the usual selection of vampires, witches, two werewolves, and other traditional costumes. One of these, I believe his name was Chris, was a skull with a cape, cane, and top hat. He was singing show tunes in the front yard around 3am. There was someone dressed up as a radiation worker (it was Dean and it looked authentic). Someone, I think her name was Jan, who was in an innapropriate harem girl outfit. And, of course, the Pakistani Samurai warrior. One thing that suprised me was that there was an awful lot of people that came dressed solely in attitude. Or so it looked to me. I thought that those without costumes were much more revealing. Granted that I haven't been to many, well, any, of these BTM parties, it sure looked to me that a lot of people had chips on their shoulders the size of all outdoors. One older woman who chose not to dress up (I think) was angry with anyone that didn't pay attention to her. There was a very weird little person who was trying desperately to be clever by just having some silly message taped to his shirt. And a whole lot of people just clustered around Mark Maisel, didn't say much, just clustered around him. I took a couple of sociology classes in school, so it was interesting to watch such naked group dynamics in action. Mark Maisel struck me as a feudal lord who was holding court, and an awful lot of people were paying him homage. Kind of like this: Ralph Bolen: My lord, I kneel before thee. Mark Maisel: And a good job you did. Rise, my worthy companion, and be seated at my table. RB: I am unworthy of your honor, my liege. MM: I know. I can't figure out what it is that Mark has done to deserve such adoration, but he must have done something that the people perceive as being worth it. There were a couple other interactions that struck my fancy. Two people that arrived dressed as Rev. Jimmy Swaggart and a fetching young girl were interesting. When the fetching girl (who was by far the most attractive female in the bunch) arrived on the porch, the porch was immediately swamped by many less-than-attractive males who were staring at the fetching girl's very fetching thighs (she had on an extremely short little girl dress, and she was no little girl, either). But that was sex, not sociology. As I think of it, there was a lot of sex, or at least the pursuit of sex. One person, Scott Holyfield, was following around a fairly butch little girl for a lot of the party. A couple of older females got some drink in them and started acting like they were in heat. In fact, there was an arguement on the porch when an older female dressed in a flapper's costume went off with someone for 45 minutes. Kind of neat when the entire family went at each other. And the youngest boy had to be the 'mature' one of the bunch. There seems to be a series of individuals who act as attractors and who act as disruptors. The attractor is someone who gathers a crowd around her/him. Mark Maisel strikes me as someone who is an attractor, in that he didn't have to move, and people would come and pay homage to him. Others were also, to a lesser extent. Rocky Rawlins was one, but mostly from people who wanted something from him, usually more time on his bulletin board. I believe that Dean was one, but he usually only had a couple of people around him, and he seemed somewhat standoffish and surly. It seems that the Bolens (Ralph and his wife who didn't speak to many people, and when she did she talked about Star Trek) were also attractors, but the same three or four people were those that were attracted, and they talked about Star Trek except for the angry older female. And there are also disruptors. Some guy with a scraggly beard who dressed in black just stood around and pretended to be cool. I noticed that when he approached a group of people, the group almost always disintegrated in a couple of minutes. Someone else, dressed in some kind of quasi-fatigue outfit, worked faster in disintegrating groups. And I can't figure out why he comes since everyone I talked with seems to either despise him or hate him. If it is of any indication of the antipathy of the crowd, when he passed out he was covered with Jan's sanitary napkins. And I don't think that it was done out of 'love' either. I imagine that I am being unfair, but I just called it as I saw it. Mark asked me to do that, and so I did. Given the number of techno-geeks that were at the party, I was somewhat suprised at the number of drunken females that were there. One girl, Tiffany I believe, should be more careful about her drinking in the future or else the nerds who were staring so intently at her breasts are going to loose control and attempt to run a train on her. It was kind of a blah party from the interaction point of view since those that I spoke with only wanted to talk about the kind of computer I had and would I be inclined to trade copyrighted software with them. Tacky, tacky, tacky. Are people ranked by the speed of her/his microprocessor? I got that feeling. Its no wonder that they all stared at the drunken Tiffany's breasts if that is their level of social interaction. I think that I was missing something, but I attribute a lot of that to being new. As time goes on I imagine that I will become more aware of the social cliques and can watch things a little closer. I guess I was missing something by not being more active in the bulletin boards. But I just don't understand it. Maybe soon, but not yet. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Windows: Softare Update by Eric Hunt Windows 3.0 is entering it's "second generation" of life, in terms of both applications available, and current applications. Microsoft is busily working on a new update to the wildly popular operating system extension/GUI, and vendors are either poised to release major new applications for the environment, or are in the process of doing major overhauls of current favorites. And finally, some companies have flung new releases out the door, into the waiting hands of Windows fiends everywhere, many with mixed results. This article is intended to be a casual guide through this software sea, a guide that will possibly explain and inform you as to the status of your favorite application. Perhaps the biggest news of all is the "imminent" update for Windows 3.0: Windows 3.1. There has been more ink consumed, more bytes written about this upgrade than most everything out there, possibly including the new release of OS/2. For you bottom liners out there, here's the big fact: Windows 3.1 has been delayed until sometime in the first quarter of 1992. That means it might not be in your hands until March. Personally, I feel this is the better thing to do. Delaying a release until it has been adequately tested and debugged is a service more software companies should look into. Now, expected new features and perks in Windows 3.1. The biggest item is the addition of TrueType font rendering technology into the Windows kernal. TrueType is Microsoft's answer to PostScript Type 1 fonts. They are, for the most part, identical. Both allow for fully scalable typefaces, both allow you to print type at any size on *any* Windows 3.x supported printer, and both are amassing collections of publicly downloadable outline fonts!! The next major difference Windows 3.1 will introduce is a completely revamped File Manager. Needless to say, it's light years ahead of the current File Manager. Speed has been increased overall. A new direct method that bypasses the ROM BIOS completely to address your hard disk drive is said to constitute a large part of that overall speedup. Setup has been revamped, making it easier for novices and expert users alike to initially setup, or later change, Windows 3.1. The Program Manager has been given a cleanup, mostly cosmetic. The recurring problem with running out of resources has been addressed, although we won't know exactly in what manner until 3.1 is in our hands. Testers have indicated that resources for the most part are not a concern in 3.1, however. Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) is a new feature, allowing programs to more easily integrate among themselves, sharing data. Much much easier than the current DDE now. Several of the stock Windows 3.x utilities have been rewritten to make them OLE aware, including Paintbrush and Cardfile. Finally, aggressive changes largely invisible to the user have been taken to lessen or eliminate the infamous UAE. Instead of the cold dialog box simply telling you a UAE occurred, the box will pinpoint what program UAE'd and what instruction did the nasty deed. Additionally, DOS BOXES can be "rebooted" when they hang without rebooting your Windows session. A simple Ctrl-Alt-Del in the active DOS BOX window reboots it! Those are some of the mentionable highlights you can expect in Windows 3.1. Now, applications. Seems nowadays all anyone can talk about is either WordPerfect for Windows, or Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows. Additionally, Am¡ Pro 2.0 has been released, and Word for Windows 2.0 is expected to be released about two weeks after Comdex. WordPerfect for Windows. There's an interesting little tale. If you've got a sharp memory, you'll remember that WordPerfect demostrated this program at LAST FALL'S Comdex (COMDEX '90) and promised a shipping version by the next spring. Didn't work out. This past week at Comdex, WordPerfect demoed the program AGAIN, but had to announce another release date setback, this time to somewhere around the middle to latter part of November. Vaporware at it's finest, folks. (To be fair, it's not really vaporware, the second Beta of WordPerfect has gone out, to some critical acclaim by the testers. Seems Beta II didn't come with a Non-Disclosure Agreement! [really!]) Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows *has* been released, and the reports are not good. General consensus seems to be that it's slower than Excel 3.0, and that it is not a good Windows app. In fact, Lotus recently announced plans to "slipstream" a bug-fix version, but decided to put out an official maintenance release, 1.0a, that fixed several annoying bugs with the program. Lotus 1-2-3/W appears to be a program aimed squarely at users of the DOS 1-2-3, because it definately hasn't impressed current Excel 3.0 users at all. Am¡ Pro 2.0 is out as well, and this program is the other side of the coin for Lotus. Am¡ has been phenomenally successful! Let's just leave it at this: If you need heavy duty wordprocessing, or light page layout, or both, get Am¡ Pro. It is currently the best available Windows 3.x word processor. That might change, though. Read the next paragraph! Word for Windows 2.0 has been quietly sneaking up on us. For months, the buzz has been about WordPerfect/W and Am¡ Pro 2.0. Then someone asked if Word for Windows was being updated. No one knew! Seemed like that week, the news broke in the trade rags. Microsoft had been working on a new release for quite a while, and noone knew! In fact, the program is slated for release about two weeks after fall Comdex! Features are rumoured to be on par, or slightly below those of Am¡ Pro 2.0, but the overall user interface is much nicer. The traditional button bar is there, but it can be customized now. Additionally, powerful GUI tools for managing mail merges have been added, making a mail merge letter, or form letter, a breeze. Lots of other goodies are present. I predict Word for Windows 2.0 to take the Windows WordProcessing arena by storm. Finally, two more programs to discuss. Borland has finally publicly demonstrated their Windows version of Quattro Pro. It has a release date of the first quarter set as well. And lastly, the rumour mill has been actively reporting that Microsoft is working on a new release of Excel, due this spring as well. No word on a version number, however, it's still too early. I hope this little article has cleared up some questions regarding the most popular of Windows productivity tools. As always, feel free to drop me a note anywhere. I can be found on most local BBSs as Eric Hunt. I actively monitor the ILink, U'NI, Rime/MetroLink, USNetMail, and UseNet Windows conferences. My internet email address is 'bsc835!ehunt@uunet.uu.net' for those of you out there who are true net.junkies. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The Adventures of R.G. Strangemind and Herbert by Jeremy Lewis Copyright 1991 by Jeremy Lewis no reprints without the permission of the author Part VIII The glistening nose cone of the Imperial flagship "Split-Splat" became visible to the crowd that surrounded the Emperor's docking bay. The crowd cheered as the massive, fist-like, silver ship burst forth from the docking bay, glistening in the light of Slag's one and a half (It's a long story) suns. As the ship finally left the view-screen range the crowds cheered even louder. Emperor Splort was on his way, hopefully they thought, to his death. Back on the large gray spaceship, a claxon sounded. "Excuse me", said a pleasant but artificial male voice (The Ship's Computer),"but due to the lack of human direction, we are now heading towards an unknown star system. Strange...computer control has been overidden. I am now shutting down until called for. Thank you." Slob was worried about the announcement, but he was worried even more about the Purple Thing with a lot teeth that much to his dismay was all too real AND about the idiot who was standing in front of him. Fortunately the human turned and began to run. Slob being the intellectual alien that he was, grabbed Herbert's belt and held on for dear life. Herbert was running randomly down corridors trying to escape the purple thing. He had worried about the blue alien until he noticed the extra weight on his belt and looked back. "Good," thought Herbert, quite ignoring the aliens frantic warnings as herbert ran full speed into a wall. Ginger was chasing the two aliens when he saw the funniest thing he had ever seen. The taller pink skinned alien ran into a wall. He didn't laugh long, however, as a large rubber mallet came flying off of a nearby shelf and angrily hit him on the head. There was a strangely familiar blue flash and then everything went black. R.G. body glared at him. "You are the disciple and YOU SHALL NOT interrupt ME!" "I am R.G. Strangemind, the most intelligent being on the third planet from the dominant star in the Milky Way Galaxy! I have recently been kidnapped by aliens and chased down my body only to find that you have seized control of it to get my attention. I will not..." "Do you say MOST intelligent being?" interrupted Toastus. "Yes," replied R.G.. "Oh, well in that case, here's your' body. I must have gotten you confused with your' master Herbert. Carry on." It was then that R.G. finally found himself back in his body, dumbfounded and outraged. He stood there long enough to shut the large metal door before he became angry and set off in search of Herbert. Somewhere at this moment, a toaster exploded quite surprising the table upon which it had been sitting. This time, however, certain forces were stirred, angered... The Toastans of Melba were on their way! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes From the Trenches by Dean Costello "Have a Nice Life" Well, I write this a couple of days after the Halloween Party. I am not quite sure what to make of things, but I do know this: I won't be going to any more of them. Well, at least the ones open to the entire known population. It isn't so much that I don't like the people. Well, that's not completely true, since I really don't like most of the people. The simple fact is that I don't really like many of the people that I met. When I bothered to meet new people, that is. For better or for worse, I have a following at BTN gatherings. I really didn't notice it, since I was usually half- to full-out blasted, but Brett Thorn pointed out that there were a series of people that hung around me and followed me around at parties. And that's cool, since those are people that I would drive and have driven many miles to see. But the simple fact is that at the last party, many of the people that I came to the party to see were either not there, or were there for such a short period of time that it wasn't worth the drive. I had to drive about 7 hours after a day at work: for this? Not twice. Then again, I have a lot of problems with the BTN 'scene' these days. Some are understandable. Since I am forced to call long distance to make contact with Birmingham, and as a result I am not in 'the loop'. But I am not impressed with the changes that I see. Maybe it would be different if I were making daily contact, but given what I have seen, I don't think so. Oh well, these things happen. It occured to me that I am quickly becoming just a footnote on the BTN time line, and I am not going gently or gracefully into my just reward. I am of the Old School, and this is a new generation of users, who feel it is their divine right and duty to answer each and every piece of mail on the networks. But this is an old gripe. I also found out that I am on supposed to stay on this mission until the end of November. Kathy Maisel was bitching and moaning about being on the road for all of ten days. Try nine weeks (currently, and growing) and see how you like it. Holiday Inn was neat the first couple of weeks, but this is the third month, and the novelty is wearing off at a quick pace. And this isn't improving my corrosive disposition. I came across an interesting relationship at the Halloween party. Patricia Sullivan, for whatever reason, doesn't like me much. I can dig that, hell, I can appreciate that. But I didn't even do anything to her for a change. Anyway, she doesn't like me for whatever reason. She apparently spoke to Deborah Bolen, who also ignores me. And she (I think Deborah) then told Judy Ranelli. At least thats the way it seems to me. You see, I have exchanged a message or two with Judy in the last couple of weeks, and was curious to meet her, see what she's like, etc., etc. I walked up to her, introduced myself, she looked at me, said, "That's nice" (or words to that effect), and promptly ignored me. Aah. I haven't been rejected like that since an evil night at "Hoppers" at 5-Points. And for no reason, from what I can tell. After that, there really wasn't a lot for me to do than to slink away into the grass and gut myself. I checked into the interpersonal relationships, and I can see my premise as that which actually occured. These things happen, I guess... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ProFile by Scott Hollifield This will be the last ProFile with the original questions that Chris made up. Beginning next month, I will try a little experimentation to spice the old thing up a bit. If you've already turned a ProFile in, I'll be contacting you to get new answers. I'm sure it'll be well worth it in the end. If you would like a ProFile of your own (or know someone for whom it would make a lovely gift), leave me a message on Crunchy Frog or any other prominent local BBS. I've left off using a handle, so all you need to know is my name. Please be aware that I've been swamped with names in the illustrious Hat since Chris' abdication, and so there might be a bit of a backlog. Don't worry about it much, though; just sit back, relax, have someone bring you a piping mug of hot chocolate, inhale that wonderful November air, and read this month's ProFile, which throws the local spotlight on a hip guitar-playing kid we like to call Judy Ranelli. --------- ProFile on JUDY RANELLI --------- Age: 25 Birthplace: Birmingham Occupation: Musician and student My hobbies include: watching ST:TNG; collecting Phillip K. Dick novels, playing softball, looking up funny names in the phone book, and fishing. Years telecomputing: half a year, actually Sysop, past/present/future of: I don't understand the question. My oddest habit is: Well, there are several: mentally "dotting the I's" on traffic signs, cutting out the ads for weird food items and pasting them on the wall amidst posters, making up little songs with my friends (that have titles like "Love Bucket; Bucket of Love"), painting my toenails red, white, and blue for the 4th of July, collecting stories about rats (may put a few of them on computer so you-all can read them), and eating chocolate and potato chips together. My greatest unfulfilled ambition is: To be a truly great guitarist. The single accomplishment of which I am most proud is: Well, lessee, it could be getting a college degree, but I think I would say playing a concert at the Alabama theater, a place I love. My favorite performers are: Pete Townshend, Henry Rollins, Mike Watt, and John Lennon The last good movie I saw was: Well, the last good OLD movie I saw was Citizen Kane. The last good NEW movie I saw, well, I guess it was Henry and June. The last good book I read was: "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea" by Mishima. If they were making a movie of my life, I'd like to see my part played by: Phillis Diller. Other actors in the movie must include Soupy Sales, Nipsy Russell, and Kenneth Branaugh. My pet peeves are: condescension, ear infections, and people who don't understand why adults would watch Star Trek: The Next Generation. When nobody's looking, I like to: put "kick me" signs on their backs. I admit to a cruel sense of humor. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SIG's (Special Interest Groups), Computer Related ------------------------------------------------- BEPCUG CCS Birmingham East PC Users Group Commodore Club South Jefferson Sate Jr. College Springville Road Library Ruby Carson Hall, Rm 114 2nd & 4th Tuesday (C64/C128) 3rd Friday, 7-9 PM 3rd Monday (Amiga) Paula Ballard 251-6058 (after 5PM) 7:30-10 PM BCCC BIPUG Birmingham Commodore Computer Club Birmingham IBM-PC Users Group POB 59564 UAB Nutrition Science Blg Birmingham, Al 35259 RM 535/541 UAB School of Education, Rm 153 1st Sunday (delayed one week 2nd and 4th Sundays, 2 PM if meeting is a holiday) Rusty Hargett 854-5172 Marty Schulman 967-5883 BACE FAOUG Birmingham Atari Computer First Alabama Osborne Users Enthusiast Group Vestavia Library, downstairs Homewood Library 2nd Monday, 7 PM 1st Saturday, 1PM Benny Brown 822-5059 Ed Purquez 669-5200 CADUB CAD Users of Birmingham Homewood Library 3rd Tuesday, 6:30PM-8:30PM Bobby Benson 791-0426 SIG's, Non-Computer Related --------------------------- BBC Birmingham Astronomy Club Blue Box Companions Subject: Astronomy Subject: Dr. Who Red Mountain Museum Annex Hoover Library 4th Tuesday, 7:30PM 1st Saturday, 2PM-5PM If you belong to or know of a user group that is not listed, please let us know by sending E-Mail to Barry Bowden on The Matrix BBS. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Known BBS Numbers For The Birmingham Area NAME NUMBER BAUD RATES MODEM BBS SOFTWARE SUPPORTED TYPE * Alter-Ego BBS 744-7733 300-9600 USR HST ProLogon/ProDoor * American BBS 674-1851 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5 * Amiga Alliance ][ 631-0262 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5 ^ Arkham Asylum 853-7422 300-2400 WWIV 4.12 Baudville Node 1 640-4593 300-2400 Oracomm Plus Baudville Node 2 640-4639 300-2400 Oracomm Plus &)* Bloom County 856-0587 300-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 -* Bus System 595-1627 300-2400 PCBoard 14.2 *% Byte Me! 979-BYTE! 2400-9600 USR HST WWIV 4.12 CM(ee) BBS Node 1 655-4059 300-2400 Oracomm Plus CM(ee) BBS Node 2 655-4065 300-1200 Oracomm Plus Camelot BBS 856-0679 300-2400 Telegard 2.5 -*# Channel 8250 Node 1 744-8546 300-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 -*# Channel 8250 Node 2 744-5166 300-9600 USR HST PCBoard 14.5 { Connection Node 1 854-9074 1200-2400 PCBoard 14.5 { Connection Node 2 854-2308 1200-2400 PCBoard 14.5 { Connection Node 3 854-0698 1200-2400 PCBoard 14.5 { Connection Node 4 854-5863 9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 * Crunchy Frog Node 1 956-1755 300-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 * Crunchy Frog Node 2 956-0073 300-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 DataLynx 322-3425 300-2400 Oracomm5.L.30 Disktop Publishing BBS 854-1660 300-2400 MNP4 Wildcat! 2.55s Downgrade Evolution 823-4858 1200-2400 Vortek 1.49 Flip Side 798-3961 300-2400 Telegard 2.5i Graphics Zone Node 1 870-5306 300-9600 MNP4 TBBS 2.1(16) Graphics Zone Node 2 870-5329 300-9600 MNP4 TBBS 2.1(16) Hacker's Corner 674-5449 1200-2400 PCBoard 14.5 Hardeman's BBS 640-6436 1200-2400 Wildcat! 2.55s I.S.A. BBS 995-6590 300-9600 HST Remote Access -* Joker's Castle 664-5589 300-2400 MNP4 PC Board 14.5 *& Little Kingdom Node 1 969-0007 300-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 *& Little Kingdom Node 2 969-0008 300-2400 MNP4 PCBoard 14.5 Liverpool Connection 856-0267 300-1200 WWIV 4.12 * Magnolia BBS 854-6407 300-9600 USR HST PCBoard 14.2 @ Missing Link 853-1257 300-2400 C-Net ^ Myth Drannor 699-5811 1200-2400 MNP4 WWIV 4.11 Night Watch 841-2790 300-2400 Optical Illusion 853-8062 300-1200 C-Net Outside It's America 951-2473 1200-2400 MNP4 Vortek 1.48 Owlabama BBS 833-7176 300-2400 GTPower 15.00 Owl's Nest 680-0851 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5 Paradise City 853-1439 1200-2400 PCBoard 14.5 Pooh's Korner 980-8710 300-2400 Road Kill 987-0794 300-2400 Safe Harbor 665-4355 300-9600 USR DS GTPower 15.00 Sperry BBS 853-6144 300-9600 Hayes PCBoard 14.5 * ST BBS 836-9311 300-2400 PCBoard 14.2 + The Bone Yard 631-6023 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5 The Commodore Zone 856-3783 300-2400 Image1.2 ^ The Dragon's Hoard 833-3790 300-2400 WWIV 4.12 ^ The Edge of Oblivion 520-0230 300-2400 WWIV 4.11 The Madhouse! 428-3061 300-9600 USR V.32 Telegard 2.5i -*$(The Matrix Nodes 1-4 323-2016 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5 -*$(The Matrix Node 5 251-2344 2400-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 -*$(The Matrix Node 6 323-0799 2400-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 The Monster 967-4839 300-2400 Telegard 2.5i + The Outer Limits 985-1725 1200-9600 USR HST Ultra BBS ?.?? The Quiet Zone 833-2066 300-2400 ExpressNET + The Round Table 938-2145 300-2400 Telegard 2.5i The Safety BBS 581-2866 300-2400 RBBS-PC Willie's DYM Node 1 979-1629 300-2400 Oracomm Plus Willie's DYM Node 2 979-7739 300-2400 Oracomm Plus Willie's DYM Node 3 979-7743 300-1200 Oracomm Plus Willie's DYM Node 4 979-8156 300-1200 Oracomm Plus Ziggy Unaxess 991-5696 300-1200 Unaxess The many symbols you see prior to the names of many of the bbs' in the list signify that they are members of one or more networks that exchange or echo mail to each other in some organized fashion. * = EzNet, a local IBM compatible network @ = Image network, a national Commodore network + = FidoNet, an international IBM compatible network - = Metrolink, an international IBM compatible network ^ = WWIV-Net, an international IBM compatible network & = Intellec, an international IBM compatible network # = Uni'Net, an international IBM compatible network % = ThrobNet, an international IBM compatible network $ = ILink, an international IBM compatible network ( = TheoNet, a national IBM compatible network { = ADAnet, an international network dedicated to the handicapped ) = USNetMail, a national IBM compatible network If you have any corrections, additions, deletions, etc., please let us know via EzNet.