BTN:  Birmingham Telecommunications News

COPYRIGHT 1992            ISSN 1055-4548

September 1992    Volume 5, Issue 8

Table Of Contents
-----------------
Article Title                                  Author
Policy Statement and Disclaimer................Staff
Publisher's Corner.............................Mark Maisel
Editorial......................................Lurch Henson
Letters to the Editor..........................
Of Cars, Toasters, and Computers...............Brian Anderson
The Scene......................................Scott Hollifield
Grocking The Gestalt...........................Scott Pletcher
BBS Spotlight:  Southern Stallion..............Eric Hunt
untitled.......................................The Bishop
The Amiga Connection...........................Jeff Vaughn
Special Interest Groups (SIGs).................Barry Bowden
Known BBS Numbers..............................Staff

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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.

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         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.

ADAnet One              Alter-Ego               Arkham Asylum
Channel 8250            Little Kingdom          Joker's Castle
Crunchy Frog            Owl's Nest              The Bus
The MATRIX              Abject Poverty          Hard Disk
The Outer Limits        The Round Table         Kiriath Arba
DC Info Exchange        Owlabama BBS            Safe Harbor
Amiga Alliance ][       Martyrdom Again?!       Lemon Grove
Medicine Man            F/X BBS                 Thy Master's Dungeon
Playground              Teasers

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

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                           N E W S  F L A S H

          Crunchy Frog is moving!  The new numbers are not
          yet available.  As soon as they are, BTN will
          publish them and post them in prominent places.

          Monty tells me that the Frog may be down for a
          week or so during the move, but I doubt she'll be
          able to stand it for that long. MM

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Publisher's Corner
by Mark Maisel

THEN                                  NOW

America Online         300-2400       The MATRIX Nodes 1-10  300-2400
Birmingham BBS Node 1  300-1200       The MATRIX Nodes 11-14 9600-14400
Birmingham BBS Node 2  300-1200       The MATRIX Node 15     9600

Amiga Alliance         1200           Southern Stallion      300-14400

Bus System BBS         300-1200       Bus System             300-2400

Channel 8250           300-2400       Channel 8250 Node 1    300-14400
                                      Channel 8250 Node 2    300-14400

Magnolia BBS           300-2400       Magnolia BBS           300-14400

ST BBS                 300-1200       ST BBS                 300-2400

Sperry BBS             300-2400       Sperry BBS             300-2400

The Connection Node 1  1200-2400      ADAnet One Nodes 1-3   1200-2400
The Connection Node 2  1200-2400      ADAnet One Node 4      9600-14400

     "THEN" represents bulletin boards that were in the first BTN
listing.  "NOW" represents bulletin boards that are in this issue, #50.
There have been some changes; names, baud rates, and in some cases, the
number of lines.  The first one, board(s) run by Rocky Rawlins and Tom
Egan, have been through many changes that have lead to the current state
of affairs with The MATRIX.  Amiga Alliance, run by Richard Foshee, was
up for a while, down for a while, and back up today.  Channel 8250 was
initially run by Ed O'Neill.  Randy Hilliard, the current sysop, was
Ed's co-sysop and took over the board when Ed decided to give it up.
Magnolia is pretty much the same board it has always been as is Sperry.
ST has gone through some changes too but it has remained through all
this time.  The Connection got new direction with the passage of the ADA
and the entailing confusion it has caused among business and the
disabled.  ADANet has become a communications organ for the Disability
Law Foundation to disburse information helpful to those on both sides of
the disability issue.  There were and are some bulletin boards that
didn't make the first list that were up and running, but I wasn't able
to collect them all for that first issue.  Ziggy's comes to mind.  That
bbs has been around in Birmingham since before I can remember and Ziggy
keeps right on plugging along.

     Things have changed quite a bit since that first list and the time
before it.  The audience is considerably more diverse than it was when
issue #1 was released, and larger.  Offline mail readers have given more
people a voice, sometimes a much more voluminous voice than some
oldtimers would like.  The big message networks have changed the face of
bbs use too.  Competition is pretty fierce in most cities.  Birmingham
has not yet been particularly affected by this but the time is coming.
Rocky Rawlins, sysop of The MATRIX, recently returned from a week long
convention sponsored by Boardwatch Magazine, a magazine supportive of
bulletin boards and similar services.  Modem and bbs software vendors
were there to "wow" sysops with their latest offerings.  Various
gimmicks for attracting users (read subscribers) were presented in
conferences and on the showroom floor.  Rocky told me about one company
that sells equipment and software for a bbs to provide up to the minute
weather information including color radar images.  How'd you like to be
able to call up your local bbs and get a GIF image of the weather in
your area no more than a minute old?  The networks are no longer enough.
The race is on.  BBS' are becoming businesses and sysops, in an
increasingly competitive market, are looking for ways to increase their
market share.  Look for this in Birmingham soon.  It has been happening
for the past few years in other places, both smaller and larger than
Birmingham.  It is going to be interesting to watch.  I can't say I
entirely welcome it all as I'm used to my habits and like them.  There
are still plenty of boards in Birmingham where an oldtimer can keep up
their telecommunications habit without being exposed to the new stuff
coming along.  They are becoming fewer, however, and will continue to do
so.  Adapting to the changing "scene" will be easy for some, irrelevant
to the many new folks who continue to sign on each month, and tough for
some of the folks who've been at it for a while.  I remember several who
have dropped out.  One who seems to have come back is a fellow who goes
by the handle, Bernie Starchaser.  He caused a small stir on Crunchy
Frog when he recently reappeared.  Only a few folks knew who he was, or
claimed to be.  He appears to have adapted nicely to the new ways as he
is using an offline reader, anethema to some of the folks who've been
using the boards for a while.  Not all of them will do so well.

     Speaking of change, most of you have either heard or read about the
various changes going on around my house.  I am finally moving.  I will
be getting into the new place around the end of September.  It will be
much more convenient for Kathy getting to and from work, and I'll have
lots more space for my toys.  I won't have any more time to play with
them though.  Business is still doing well.  I've been talking with my
regulars for the past few months and we've been talking about changes in
BTN.  I've made a decision on one of those and it has potential to be
very interesting and entertaining.  Scott Hollifield approached me about
the editorship of BTN and offered his service.  I thought about it and
it seemed like it could work.  Yeah, yeah, I know, Scott is the one who
wouldn't know a deadline if it smacked him in the face...  I am going to
give him full rein and see what happens.  I'll write articles just like
anyone else and he will do what I've done for the past 50 issues.  If
you leave me messages and articles, they will be forwarded to him.  You
can save that step and send them straight to him.  Crunchy Frog is still
the best place to send articles, and if you are in BTNWA there, then
upload publicly in there and let him know the article is ready.  Nothing
is constant but change so lets invoke some ourselves and see what
happens.

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Editorial

                              B T N

                                or

                     Look who made it to #50!
by Lurch Henson

     I haven't been in the BTN community as long as most of you (though
many will say I've been here far too long already), but I've enjoyed the
majority of the time I've spent here.  When my trips to Birmingham began
to look like they'd last awhile, and I brought my computer up here to
sniff around the boards and see what's out there, BTN was one of the
first things I stumbled across.  It was BTN, it's parties, and Mark
Maisel that made me feel most welcome here in Birmingham.  Through Mark,
and his BTN parties, I met most of the people that I've grown very fond
of (as well as a few of you I'd rather not have met in the first place,
but we won't go into that here) in the past two years, and made several
friends I'll never forget.  I even found a friend that I'd lost track of
quite a few years back, and renewed my friendship with him.  I met
people that helped me get over a messy divorce that I didn't know was
still bothering me at the time, and even met and lost the love of my
life, all more or less through the existence of BTN, and Mark Maisel.

     For a long time it seemed like there was an attitude of "if it
ain't a BTN party, it ain't a party", if that shows you anything of the
effect this publication has had around here (and believe me, I've heard
Mark complain a few times about that type of comment before, too).
People tend to look forward to the next BTN party more than they do the
Second Coming.....and based on some of the conversations I've had the
pleasure to be involved in at a few of them, I don't blame them one bit.
One thing you can say about a BTN party, it's rarely boring.....for
long, anyway......

     I have no idea how Mark came about deciding to put out this little
venture of his....why he decided to put up with the constant aggravation
of hounding all the people that promise him articles, then never
deliver.....or why he decided to donate such a large portion of his
time, and space on his hard drive, to maintaining this beast (no, not
Beast, that's Kathy) each month.....but for whatever the reason, here it
is. Somehow, for ever how long this thing has run, it managed to climb
it's way up to #50, something that several electronic magazines I've
seen spring up here in Birmingham will never do, because I've watched
many of them fold up after an issue or three, without ever being noticed
by most of the people reading this now.  BTN did "Something" right.  It
has that special "Something" that the others never quite seemed to
manage to find.  Whatever it is, I hope it never leaves...without it,
BTN would be just one more thing people pass by rapidly on the way to
the GIFs and games in the download section.  Just another file taking up
valuable space that could hold yet another version of "Tank Battle", or
some other inane program I'll never download, ignored by all but the
die-hard few that wait to see if "it" will ever come back.  Too many
things have passed away this year.....I hope whatever adds the fire to
BTN isn't one of them.

     (Oops, getting a little "down" there, gotta watch that!)  Something
else BTN has been doing for quite awhile is this right here....what you
are reading.....  BTN makes people that wouldn't normally sit down at
their computer and hack out stuff for "publication" (yes, this is REALLY
being published, even if it IS just electronic (just try and take a
clipping to send to a publisher, though)) do so.  I myself write very
little (could tell, couldn't you?), except for erotic tales on various
Adult Networks out there, most of which have been well received, but
Mark got me to write something non-sexual for a change.  He got me to
sit down and write up an article for BTN not too horribly long after I
met him...then another after that.  I like to think that both of them
were at least passable.  After that, there was a long break while I
didn't write much of anything...had too many personal troubles to deal
with, and then the Hannah Home article came out.  I wasn't too happy
with it at all, so I decided to try and make up for it with this,
something closer to my style, a little lighter in tone.  If Mark accepts
this one, this will make four....four Published articles from someone
that would never have bothered if it hadn't been for BTN, and Mark.
Makes me wonder sometimes how many of the other names you see in the
table of contents of this magazine would never have written anything if
Mark hadn't asked them to, and how many of them will now, only because
Mark got them to in the first place, go on to write elsewhere.  I myself
may FINALLY sit down and collect up all of the stories I've written and
submit them somewhere.  I already have with one of them, and though it
was accepted for publication, it never made it into hard copy (never
found out why, either).  I never would have bothered if I hadn't gotten
positive response from my first two articles in here.  (Someone told me
I made them smile, that was enough for me.)  To a lot of people out
there this might just be a text file.....to me, and many others, this is
a magazine, and a real one, not just a simple jumble of bits & bytes.
It's something dreamed up by a Hell of a guy, slapped together in his
rapidly dwindling spare time, and spread around the world (at least as
far as Scotland, from what I once heard) to a lot more people than I
ever thought would be reading anything I wrote.  And, as much as BTN,
and Mark, Kathy, and Sarah have come to mean to me, I'm sure they mean a
lot more to others out there, since I've only been involved them for
such a short period of time........I'm glad they've been around, and
hope they stay.  I'm going to miss it all if/when I finally have to
leave.

     So, Happy, Bloody, Number 50, Mark!  Enjoy the Hell out of it, I
know I have......

                                              Lurch Henson
                                                   9208.16

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Letters to the Editor

     As promised, here are the responses I've received that seem to
belong here.  If you wish to make it here, please feel free to leave
Scott Hollifield a message on either the main message base of THE MATRIX
or in any EZNet message base. He'll get it one way or the other.  MM

          You people must be utterly satisfied.  We don't
          have any letters to share with you this month. MM

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Of Cars, Toasters, and Computers
by Brian Anderson


     Wanna do something scary? Go through old magazines, like the
Computer Shopper. And we ain't talkin' 1952 here. Year before last is
just fine. I had loaned a Shopper to my almost-boss (his girl Friday),
and some years later (1.5), she returned it to me. She felt it
necessary, but that's another story. I was going to toss it, but I
remembered that some articles were in it that I wanted to read again.
Maybe.  Anyway, I proceeded to turn the pages on this monster
publication. The things I saw and refreshed in my mind were funny enough
to make me laugh out loud, even though I was completely by my self:

 pg. 338 "286 SCREAMER!! Blows the competition away!!"

 pg. 20 "The Swan 386SX. The wave of the future."
       $1899 32meg drive, 1mb memory, mono graphics.

 pg. 138 "sim/sip 1MBX9-80NS only $155.00"

 pg. 48 "This Thoroughbred Is Built For SPEED!"
       16 MHZ 286 with 40 MEG HARD DRIVE

     Or how about the ad from APE (Applied Progressive Electronics) that
headlines a "Battery Powered" laptop? As opposed to what? Or the Zeos ad
with the headline "DAZZLING PERFORMANCE." A 286-12 machine, 32mg drive,
512k mem (truly generous), mono display. And they list a clock/calendar
as a "feature". The ad has a clip from a review of the machine that
says, "If you're looking for one of the fastest rides around at a
down-to-earth price, don't pass up the ZEOS.  Solid construction,
flexible design and escape-velocity performance make it a top flight
choice."

     This is short term thinking at it's best. If a 286-12 has "escape-
velocity" speed, what in GOD's name does a 486-50 have? I'm scared to
find out. It must be illegal, whatever it is. To be sure, the people who
wrote these ads back then were mainly trying to sell, seLL, SELL! But if
they sold computers THEN with those types of phrases, what are they
saying NOW to those same customers? "This comes with a drive bay air
bag, nuclear mouse, and clocks in at warp factor 9. Don't buy it if you
can't handle the wind generated by the display speed, although for a
small additional amount, we can sell you the xturbo-super-zga-
hyperstraps if you need them."

     Well, no. That's not what they're saying. At least, I don't think
so. What they're saying is much the same as what they said before. Just
different products, and a wealth of new buyers.  So, is there a problem
here? Not really, just the same old sales flap that people have to watch
out for. But I wonder if people watch out for computer sales flap like
they do when they are buying a car. Most people know that when they buy
a new car, they have to have their guard up when they walk in the door.
Car salesmen have a bad reputation for bull, and maybe it's justified,
maybe not. I don't know, except for what I see on the TV. Judging from
that, I think the rep is justified.

     What I'm afraid of is the future. Think of people buying computers
as casually as they buy toasters. Actually, I think that is a nice
progression of times in itself. But maybe the "toaster" salesman will
trick you into buying whatever toaster makes him the most money, or
whatever toaster he needs to move because he has a zillion of them.
Maybe not.  Are you ready to try and figure out the facts when it comes
time to buy?

     If you thought computer purchasing would become easier as the
popularity of the beast improved, guess again. Progress seems to
naturally bring more options to consider. Sounds depressing, but there
is hope.  One difference in these analogies of cars, toasters, and
computers is the attitude of most computing folks. I was recently on a
BBS, and a fellow wanted to chat. I accepted the chat, and he was
curious about ".fli" files, and how they work. I explained to him that
he needed quickfli.exe to view these files, and he was appreciative.
This exchange was short, but got the job done.  Here was a person in
need of info, and he got it. And the nice part is that this is not
unusual at all. It seems that most "online people" are far more than
willing to help than the toaster guy.

     The point here is that you probably have a lot more honest and
knowledgeable help in buying a computer than you would buying a car, or
other things. Of course, you can't go online to get help if you have no
machine yet. But when you talk to people you know who are into
computing, you will probably find help that you just can't get when
trying to buy the ultimate vehicle. Why? I don't know for certain. Maybe
there is something about computers that pulls people together. It could
be that computing is something that crosses a whole lot of boundaries
without really trying. Or maybe it's triumph over sales tactics we all
hate that makes us want to help.  Buying direct has done in a lot of
computer companies and stores, and that might be because we know what we
want, rather than the toaster salesman telling us what we need.
Whatever the reason, people can and will help.

     I have always had a problem with advertising. It makes me cringe to
know that someone would buy Diet Coke just because Ray Charles said
"Uh-HUH". (Ray is my favorite singer, so it's not what you think.) I
firmly believe we should make sure that the people who are buying Diet
Coke because of this ad should pay extra, to cover the cost of the ad.
The rest of us should get an "intelligence discount", and not have to
suffer the higher product price resulting from any such advertising. In
another example, certain heads of car dealerships will get in front of
the television camera and do non-car-related stuff, hoping to draw in
customers.  But would you really buy a car from a guy that was on TV
wearing nothing but a barrel?  Is this the guy you want to give over
$10,000 of your money?  OK, now we have sales people doing crazy ads for
computers.  Are you going to buy a machine from people in barrels saying
"EVERYTHING MUST GO!!!  ALL UNITS 400% BELOW COST!!" I hope you don't
without proper consideration.

     Check with your fellow computer users. They will most likely steer
you in the right direction, given your needs.  Just don't believe all
the ads you read. Several times I have seen companies with multi-page,
full color ads disappear the next month. (I guess the lifetime guaranty
on those ZGA-Hyperstraps is null and void.) We find from this that some
claims are definitely too good to be true. Again, check with your
computer friends.  If you don't have any computer friends, find some.
We're actually a pretty good bunch. And easier type of friend to find
than a toaster friend.

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                                 *****

                                  THE

                                 SCENE

                                 *****

                                  by
                                 Scott
                               Hollifield


              "How fitting that the universal convocation
         to breach a passage, the word 'ENTER', should also be
              the largest [key on a computer keyboard]."

                                   allegedly attributed to an member
                                   of the Dalai Lama's entourage while
                                   touring an IBM facility in the 1970s

                    --------------------------------

     It was the darkest and rainiest day of the year for the Scene.
Somewhere, nine-minute old water drops zinged like bullets into the
cables and antennae that powered the underspace of the Scene.  A silvery
burst of line noise slashed through my report.  I swore and muttered
something uncomplimentary about fiber optics.

     I was filing my most recent dispatch for the Birmingham Telecom
Net, the first and last of the great floating infopowers in town.  The
work in it, like any collection of information these days, tended to be
obsolete by the time someone bothered to type it, but BTN survived
gamely on its name and reputation.  BTN didn't make it through the
Collapse intact; nothing did.  But it was still around.

     I put a pause-lock on my report and left to roam the scene for a
little while, to stretch my legs as it were.  All around me, cyber-ruins
pulsed dimly and system kids built newer and flashier ways to tell you
what time it was.  16:52/081396 said the most eye-catching display; it
repeated the time and date, like an advertising sign, in hexadecimal and
Japanese.

     Jesus, I thought suddenly.  Tomorrow would be seven months to the
day since the Collapse.  How can a place change so much in seven months?

     I punched into a local system, Z-Slash Trader, for my mail.  Three
pieces popped up; one was an automatically generated reminder from BTN
concerning my deadline, and another was a stodgy data catalog for some
old line of compressionware that everyone knew was an intelligence worm
for state law enforcement.  The third piece made me pause.  No header,
no tags, no system ID.  Just raw text in the format of organized system
mail.  It said:

MAHOGANY OMEGA LATERAL HUNGRY SAMIEL NOIZMONGERS SEAGREEN PIPES
SEVERED
PERIWINKLE BITTERSWEET OMEGA LAUNDRY HICCUP PLUSH WONDER


     I frowned at the message as if it were an Escher drawing.  If it
was some kind of junk mail, an advertisement for something, it wasn't
coming across.  It could be a gang print of some kind; local system
gangs had been known to drop confusing mail in people's boxes as a lark.
But the lack of any tags, of any signature proclaiming its maker, was
decidedly non-gang.

     The only word I recognized as significant was "omega", which
probably meant omegaModem, the transfer protocol that blew ZModem out of
the water and became the local standard literally overnight.  It also
happened to be self-destructive over a gradual period of time, tethering
users to periodic updates.  A couple of the other words sounded vaguely
familiar, like elements of a dream weeks old, but after staring at it a
full minute with no further recognition, I decided to save it for later.

     After spending about three hours wandering the Scene, catching new
files, reading new graffiti and maintaining contacts, I tried to finish
my report, which was ostensibly a morphography of the offline mail
programs of the last year, but ended up, like most of my contemporary
writing, as rambling nonsense.  Net-heads ate it up, particularly the
drug culture themes of the mail reader articles.  Offline mail readers
began as a hyped and revolutionary way for users to spend less time
grounded in the Scene and more time in reality, but before long, it
became clear that all a mail reader really did was to trap the user in
the Scene even while he or she was standing in reality.  The readers had
spawned a culture of mail addicts who kept a continual link with their
sites, calling six or seven times a day to get their packet fix.  The
new thing in mail circles was retro-packing: constantly resetting the
conference pointers so that the system would always deliver new mail. It
didn't matter that the mail was old, used, and quite unhealthy; for mail
junkies, it was just another fix.

     I sighed to myself as I wrote two more paragraphs.  I had done a
lot of mail a few years ago, and even enjoyed it, back before The Matrix
collapsed, but when I became a serious BTN employee, I had to quit.  Now
I only did mail when I had to, just enough to keep me going. I had
friends who did mail all the time, and there was never any thought of
doing anything about it.  They were legal adults.  Besides, it was
better than the door-fiends who spent their days and nights plugged into
Esterian Conquest.  Those guys were *completely* gone.

     I couldn't finish the article.  My thoughts kept drifting back to
the cryptic message I had received.  Hell with the report, I thought to
myself - the BTN computer wouldn't notice if I was a little late with
it; I'd just use an intrusion clock and set my official deadline ahead
by a few days.  That never would have worked with Mark, I thought to
myself wryly.  He never should have turned the thing over to a system.

     In the meantime, I decided to call Birdie.

     Birdie was the best source an infohound could want.  He/it was a
floating data structure whom I had run into, quite by accident, a couple
of years ago.  Whether Birdie was a powerful AI or simply controlled by
somebody who got around amazingly well, I didn't know, and didn't care
either, too much.  He was a cybertectic chameleon, shadowy and
self-disguising; sometimes he'd pop up as an inconspicuous private
conference on one BBS, and be on another system the next day as an extra
hidden node.  Supposedly he'd even floated for a short while, some years
ago, as one of the Matrix's USA Today doors.  One thing was always
consistent - you didn't actually seek out and find Birdie.  He found
you.

     We'd worked out a kind of code, some time ago, in case I ever
needed his help. I logged onto what was left of the Bus System, still
running (barely) after all these years, and left a private message to an
imaginary user named Rita Smith, ostensibly for the purpose of a
romantic proposition.  The more lurid the details in the fake message
were, the faster Birdie seemed to call back.  I made it good.

     The call came seventeen minutes later, nearly a record.  The data
in it instructed me to log into a minor WWIV system out in the suburbs
somewhere.  Minor was right - WWIV was nearly unheard of for years,
especially in the innerscene.  Besides, I knew the system.  It had a
user log of six people, and was part of a file-running ring that
distributed homemade game doors and system mods to the south Atlantic
coast.  I'm sure it spooked the sysop whenever he saw me poking around,
which was rare, but somehow, my account still existed.

     Such a system would make it too dangerous for Birdie to hide the
file section, so I picked the most obvious place, the spot in the board
which was least likely to ever be used: the mail door.  Bingo.

    BIRMINGHAM
    INFORMATION
    RETRIEVAL
    DOOR

    GREETINGS
    GOT YOUR MESSAGE
    FEELING IMAGINATIVE TODAY ARE WE

     Up your bypass, I replied.  I told him about the message, and
zapped him a copy of it.  What do you think?

    OMEGA IS PROBABLY OMEGAMODEM UNLESS DELIBERATE MISDIRECTION
INVOLVED

     No kidding.  Anything else?

    SEVERAL KEYWORDS CORRELATE
    MAHOGANY SEAGREEN PERIWINKLE BITTERSWEET
    DESIGNATIONS OF INDIVIDUAL CRAYOLA CRAYONS

     Hmmm.  Might be something, might be nothing.  What else?

    NOIZMONGERS IS NEW GANG
    FORMED FROM ASHES OF OLD AMIGA TERROPIRATES
    RECORD PRETTY CLEAN SO FAR
    NOTHING THEIR MOTHERS COULDN'T BAIL THEM OUT OF

     Must have been pretty damn new, I thought.  In Birmingham, a cyber
gang generally didn't consider itself the real item until its members
had slashed self-promotion graffiti across the face of every system in
town.

    STAND BY
    NEW DATA BEING PROCESSED

     I jumped a bit.  Birdie was quick enough that he rarely needed time
to process anything.  He must be onto something, I thought.  He was
silent for a full minute before beginning again.

    HICCUP
    PLUSH
    WONDER
    LAST THREE WORDS IN MESSAGE

    Yeah?  So what?

    SAME THREE WORDS ENTERED IN FINAL MESSAGE ENTRY ON MATRIX
    EIGHT THIRTY-SEVEN A.M.
    JANUARY FOURTEENTH
    NINETEEN NINETY-SIX

    He paused for emphasis.

    SEVENTEEN SECONDS BEFORE COLLAPSE

     I shuddered.  This was getting creepier all the time.  I knew from
the start that it was going to be a strange one, but I had no idea it
was connected with the Matrix.

     What was the conference, I asked.  Who sent it?  Was it online or
part of a packet?

    UNKNOWN

     I was silent again.  Birdie must have snatched the reference out of
some data shrapnel he had lying around since the Collapse; stuff was
probably dustier than a 3.5" disk.

     I started thinking about the Collapse again, how it had changed the
city.  How it had changed everything.

     By the end of 1995, Birmingham was the fifth largest data center in
the country.  The number of local systems had just topped 250, and at
least a third of those were working off CD-ROM drives, with a dozen
nodes or more.  It was a prosperous time.

     I was working for BTN, of course.  The Maisels had picked up and
left town under mysterious circumstances in mid-'94; no one knew where
they went.  It's possible Mark saw something coming, something he didn't
like.  The Scene was becoming more industrialized, bustling with life
and activity, but at the same time, it was also moving away from the
leisurely pastime of years past and transforming into something new,
something strangely impersonal and automated.  Something big.  So Maisel
turned BTN over to a self-sufficient data factory which needed no human
involvement to edit and publish.  It didn't matter much, by that point;
systems without sysops were already becoming all the rage.

     No one denied that the Matrix was virtually single-handedly
responsible for the Birmingham boom.  It was a towering monolith, a
skyscraper of a system amid a cybercity full of other smaller
structures.  It was the single biggest data station in the Southeast and
had been for some time.  Towards the end, it was virtually a city unto
itself.  Other systems were built around it by enterprising kids as
entry points and waystations; illicit groups of hackers and file pushers
made their nests inside the Matrix's mighty shelves of data, only to be
swept out in a matter of days by the system's ever-vigilant (and
expensive) security force.

     Finally, on a cold sunny morning in January of '96, the Matrix
fell.

     It was the work of a net bomb, expertly timed and tuned.

     The resulting destruction of data was felt on systems for miles
around, as operators of boards that weren't even hit by the explosion
reported transmission gaps and file dropouts.  The sheer force of the
shockwave surged outward and along the interstate lines of dozen
different networks; sites in Washington, Dallas, Atlanta, Detroit and
Chicago suffered peripheral damage caused by the outer ripples of the
blast's devastating inertia.

     The Matrix itself was completely obliterated, leaving only a
smoldering ruin of garbled ANSI fragments and useless, burnt circuitry.
Nine other major systems announced retirement due to data loss on the
spot; countless others faded away without anyone realizing they'd been
there.  In a matter of weeks, the Scene was changed from the para-urban
sprawl it had been into a hopelessly depressing modem ghetto, with
illegal data trading and other vice rising to the surface like scum in
an old glass of water, now that the Matrix could no longer run things.

     It was the last time I saw Dean.

     I'm still not sure why he came back, that one final time.  It had
only been about eighteen months since he'd given up his dead-end career
as an environmental engineer and tried his hand at cleaning up a
different sort of environment, the data-choked ecology of the
cyberscenes.  The change of jobs didn't seem to improve Dean's life any,
but at least the work seemed to suit his temperament now.

     He petitioned for - and got - the assignment he wanted: to return
to Birmingham and investigate the Matrix's collapse.  "Christ, Scott,"
he told me upon arriving, "can't you people keep a lid on your own
garbage?"  He sounded despondent at having to come back to town, but I
knew that under other circumstances, he'd be quite enjoying himself.  He
spent two weeks in town - had to stay in a hotel, of course, complaining
about it all the while - and finally arrived at the official conclusion
that the Matrix had in fact self-destructed because there was nothing
that seemed to link it to the outside.

     "Ain't no traceables in that bad boy," he said.  Dean seemed to be
of the opinion that the Matrix was experimenting with some new forms of
data warfare for the purpose of combatting the gangs or maybe some other
darker, more hidden agenda, and that it had simply, literally, blown up
in their faces.  He seemed confident that the bomb program - "nukeware",
he called it - was detonated from the inside.  It sure made HIS job
easier; he could fill out a two-page report and return to D.C. for a new
assignment.  No messy loose ends.

     And that left me, stuck in this shadow of a town, rambling away
into the void the way old-time foreign correspondents used to do.  Only
now it looked as if there was a real story.  It was beginning to look
like there was more to the Matrix's collapse than had been officially
reported.

     Roused from my reverie a soft clicking noise, I noticed that Birdie
had left me, silently and without interruption.  I didn't mind. Likely,
he had already told me as much as he could.  Probably went off to some
old PCBoard dinosaur filebase to hide as a .GIF directory.

     What next?  I pored over the message again.  I supposed that I
could try tracking down the Noizmongers, but my gang connections weren't
what they once were, and I'd be just as likely to get a credit strip for
my trouble if I knocked on the wrong doors.  That had nearly happened to
me once before, when I was doing an expose' on the local Windows
underground; I'd come back home to find my Visa limit slashed and an MCI
pink note pinned threateningly to my bank accounts.  Eric Hunt called
the next day to apologize.

     Besides, I didn't know where to look.  If this was a new gang, they
were being pretty coy about their debut.  No, the only lead I had, if
you could call it that, was a corpse.  I had to visit what was left of
the Matrix.

     Not that there was anything left, just a burnt-out square of
blue-white jagged ruins in the middle of the Scene.  People had already
combed through it a million times since the collapse, I knew; still, it
was the only option left.

     When I approached the area upon where the Matrix had once set, a
restriction field flashed across my path.  Transmission time slowed
down, meaning there was a crowd of users accessing the vicinity. Stopped
from going further, I popped into one of the outerlying boards. to see
if I could get some answers.  It was a heavily modified Tenth Planet
set-up with layers of clumsily hung meta-ASCII in the intro to make it
look like an old Virtual system.  The sysop's name was Doctor Plasma; he
was seventeen years old and like everyone else, had entirely too much
time on his hands these days.  He sprang into sight like cardboard tied
with a rubber band, as soon as I came in.

    >>What's going on here, I asked him.
    <<big stuff going down.  turf battle between lampreys and merc
      rangers... k-net came in a little while ago to cut the area
      off..
    >>KNet?  Since when does a network come in here and run things?
    <<beats da fa outta me, man... they shut palomino's place down a few
      mins. before you got here... i'm thinkin of cutting off before
      they try pullin that shi with me

     Privately, I didn't think Plasma had anything to worry about.
Palomino's system, just down the way, had strong gang ties and was
practically run at times by the Merculoid Rangers.  Plasma's board on
the other hand had no such connection except for a snotty young former
co-sysop I ran into once, who did some part-time work for the defunct
ChristRapers a while back and hadn't been seen in a year.  Still, times
were such that paranoia was a virtue if you ran a system in the Scene.

     The network connection puzzled me, though; why KNet thought it
necessary, let alone appropriate, to run data fields all the way from
Missouri into Birmingham, was inexplicable.  In fact, the whole
situation was downright bizarre.  I'd been witness to gang skirmishes
before - mostly a lot of hit-and-run style slash files designed to
actively and unabashedly do serious disk damage, flying back and forth -
but having them fight over the site of the Matrix's demise was a bit of
a morbid coincidence. Before leaving the area, I asked Plasma one last
question.

    >>Ever hear of a new bunch called the Noizmongers?

There was a brief and somewhat amused pause.

    <<sure thing but they arent new... theyre one of the old groups,
      from before the scene.  phrackers who used to hang out around
      apples and commodores back in the early 80s

My heart skipped a beat.

    >>You're sure about that?
    <<no shi, man... my uncle was one of em.  they lasted about a week
      before one of em was thrown in jail for b&e some guys trailer

I almost had to laugh at the kid's smarmy nostalgia trip.  There were no
such things as cybergangs before the Scene; any groups that got made
were two-bit game-duping affairs by guys that played local league
baseball on Saturdays and went to midnight matinees.  Then one day,
everyone looked around and realized that all the games had already been
played; all the good codes had already been used and all the movies
sucked.  The scene became the Scene.

     I thanked Plasma and returned to base, so that I could get another
look at the message.

     Pieces of the puzzle swirled around in my head, but refused to lock
with one another.  Birdie had deliberately misled me, but why?  What
connection did the fall of the Matrix have to do with some wet-nosed
group of hacker punks fifteen years gone, or with me for that matter? On
a hunch, I pulled out an old box of disks which hadn't been opened in
over a year.  I tried to find the earliest issue of BTN I could, and
settled on Number 4 without looking further.  It wasn't quite as old as
what I was looking for, I guessed, but perhaps it would do.

     I read through the thing without managing to grimace at the
antiquity of it all.  Finally I got to the end, to the BBS list.  I was
about to eject the thing when something in the list caught my attention
and held it.

     Suddenly I knew the answer.  It was incredible, unthinkable - yet
it was obviously the solution.  It had to be.

     Maintaining my gaze at the list, I punched in the last number on
the page: 996-5696.

     It was perfect.  Omega.  Alpha and omega.  The first and the last.
A and Z.

     Z.

     I made connection, and wandered in, through the dark musty
pathways.

    /ZIGGY?  MR. POWERS?  HELLO?

    /ZIGGY, I KNOW IT'S YOU!  I KNOW YOU'RE BEHIND IT ALL


Then a small stereo click and an ANSI chuckle.

    *Took you long enough, kid.

The personna of Steve Powers, the erstwhile construct known as Ziggy, or
perhaps a hybrid thereof, stepped out and spoke.

    *What do you think?  Have I made a mess of things or what?

    /WHY DID YOU DO IT?  *HOW* DID YOU DO IT?  HOW DID YOU DESTROY THE
MATRIX?
    /

    *Ignorance is power, or haven't you heard?  Other people's
ignorance... ignorance of ME.

    /I DON'T UNDERSTAND...

    *Yes you do!  For years and years I ran a system, and it was a damn
good one too.  It didn't need any fancy doors or mailreaders.... and
people abandoned me simply because I didn't keep up with the latest
fashion in software.

    /SO YOU HIT THE MATRIX OUT OF JEALOUSY?

    *No, no - by that time I was far out of my jealous stage.  By that
time I had accepted my fate.  By that time - well, let's say that I
managed to make a few mods on my own.  In my spare time.

    /THE BOMB -

    *That's right, whiz kid.  The Matrix - what a joke.  It had
all that new-fangled security designed to stop this week's weapon, but
it didn't know Unix from squat.  I practically walked in and out without
a peep.  And you want to know why?

    *Because I was bored.  Because this thing you call the Scene had
gotten dull for me - once again.  Because I'm hooked into this damn
machine and didn't know how to do anything else!

    *I was a part of the original BBS scene, back when there were only a
half-dozen boards in town.  Rawlins, Maisel, that bunch - they were
jealous of ME.  And while they crippled themselves by strapping
themselves to networks and suffocated their message bases with offline
packet drivel, I watched, and waited.  And built.

    *It was I who kept punks like the Noizmongers out of trouble.  It was
I who came up with omegaModem and shook up everybody's lives.
Virtually instantaneous file transfer - if you didn't mind a few side
effects. And remember the Project conference on Crunchy Frog?  That was
Maisel's doing; he figured out what I was up to, and had the idea that
his little secret task force could shut me down.  It took me a while to
deal with him, but eventually... no more problem.

    /WHAT ABOUT THE MAIL I GOT IN MY BOX?

    *Oh, that.

    There was a pause, almost wistful.

    *Well son, the state I'm in these days - it isn't all peaches.
Every now and then, I lose track of my intelligence paths, and a little
too much juice gets out to one of the subroutines.  It breaks off and
gets a mind of its own, so to speak.  That message in your mailbox was a
piece of me - hobbling and distorted, sure, but it came from me.  Tried
to warn you in the only way it knew how, I guess.  Your infodoor - the
one you call Birdie - that's another piece of me, broken off from way
back.

    /BUT WHY ME?

    *Why not you?  Why not anyone?  Look, when you've evolved as far
along as I have, you get to the point where even you don't know why you
do all the things you do.  I expect I may even take a walk outside
today.  Spook the neighbors a little.

    *Look, kid - both you and I know that nothing's going to come of
this.  Do yourself a favor.  Take a vacation; see a little of the world.
The real world.

     With that, he cut the connection.

     The next day, I set my intrusion clock to run on a daily agenda, so
that my BTN deadline would stretch on infinitely into the future and
never be met.

     Chris Mohney called me up to tell me that he was coming back into
town to put up a straight BBS - no messing around, no under-the-counter
stuff.  It wouldn't be The Matrix, but it would be a start.

     KNet publicly revealed plans to take over a couple of the larger
systems in town as sites, hence their interest in what happens out in
the Scene.  Progess, I suppose.

     Somewhere, there was a man, whose occupation had started out as a
hobby, and whom somewhere along the line was ignored.  He was spending
his days proving everyone wrong about everything that mattered, and
mercifully let the world spin on, unaware of his work... a secret which
only I shared.

     As for me, I shut the machine off and went to the movies for the
rest of the day.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Grocking the Gestalt
by Scott Pletcher

     "Whether you decide to go to college, enlist in the military, or
enter a skilled trade, strive to be the best you can be."

     Ah...I remember it all too well.  It seems like yesterday. <Well,
o.k...it WAS practically yesterday.>  My high school principal was like
all other high school principals.  They're all the same.  Same
motivational speel.  Same hair cut.  Same clothes. Kinda makes you want
to say, "Hey cool cat, those are some -keen-<wink> duds, Mr.
<Principal's Name Here>!" and hope that he doesn't say "Why thank you,
student."  I wonder if he is the best principal he can be.  Probably
not.

     With those words, Mr. Gary Quick dismissed the 1992 graduating
class of Gardendale High School.  Immediately, people who never spoke to
you, except to bum a pen, are blubbering all over saying how much
they'll miss you.  Yeah...right.  They'll miss me about as much as I'd
miss that strange rash in my genital area. Well, I'm now a high school
graduate.  Nowadays, high school graduates have five basic avenues of
opportunity.

     1) Enter a skilled trade.  Most people who take this avenue have
        some form of vocational training.  Many are educated by taking
        vocational courses.  This explains why three-quarters of all
        malcontents in your class disappeared during your sophomore
        year. They were experiencing a phenomena known as shop class.
        Consequently, they will probably go to work this summer making
        $20+ an hour.  The money isn't bad as long as you don't mind
        working like a Geritol vendor at an AARP convention.

     2) Enlist in a Military branch.  During your senior year, the Armed
        Forces suddenly become immensely concerned about your future.
        They harass (for lack of a better word) you to no avail via
        mail, phone calls, and unsolicited front-door visits.  Sorta
        makes you wish you had actually gotten your mother to sign that
        form excusing you from taking that military vocation test in
        10th grade. This post-graduation route is not all that bad.
        After all, you get free lodging, clothes, food, and they pay you
        too. In exchange, you must give them your hair and four to six
        years of your life.

     3) Work full-time at Denny's.  It doesn't necessarily have to be
        Denny's to qualify.  Krystal's, the Phillips 66 Quicky-Mart or
        just about any place middle-aged bleached-blonde chain-smoking
        women in red Firebirds frequent will suffice.  This one has
        always befuddled me. Sure, this is kosher to get money for
        college or technical school, but as a profession?  Well, I guess
        someone has to do it. Huh?...oh, yes. I'll have the Grand Slam
        breakfast and a large orange juice.  Thanks.

     4) Go to college.  This concept is fairly simple.  You pay a
        college thousands of dollars to use their faculty and facilities
        to "learn".  After about four or five years of this, they hand
        you a piece of paper called a diploma.  Supposedly, you are now
        entitled to a steady, well-paying job were you will use your
        knowledge to improve/worsen the human condition--or so they
        say......
        I wonder if Denny's is hiring.

     5) Become governor of Alabama.  Hey, if Guy did it, so can I!
        "To hell with state ethics laws!"  That's what I always say.

     Eighth grade.  That age-old question presses like a can of Spam on
your frontal lobe..."What shall I do with my pathetic existence?"  Well,
this is what I did.  At the end of eighth grade after months of
consideration and conferring with my loving father ("Damn it boy, you
ARE going to college!"), I decided to register for all college-prep
courses.

     In high school, I was christened the Official School Computer Guru.
Too many times, I would be summonsed to the office to fix their
"network" of two dumb terminals, similar to those seen on those outdated
PBS specials, linked to a 286.  It's amazing how plugging-in some
coaxial cable can make you a deity to the office ladies.  I hated this.
Do you know how embarrassing it is when office ladies ask you computer
questions when your scarfin' with your best buds at lunch?!  I guess
this is one reason I have chosen to pursue Computer Engineering...to
make computers serviceable to office ladies so some poor high school
shmuck wouldn't have to be tormented as I was.  Anyhow, I was popular.
"Hey Scott, can you change my F in Government to a B on that computer in
the office? Ten bucks?"--that's popularity, isn't it?

     The University of Miami, Auburn and the University of Alabama in
Huntsville were the finalists for college.

Miami...expensive($18,000/year)...likely to be mortally wounded..nah.
Auburn..................................nope.
Huntsville....Cray.....Cray?......CRAY!............well, o.k.

     Ok, I admit it.  The Cray made me do it!  The housing at UAH is
pretty kosher too.  It's like this.  You live in a 4-bedroom two bath
apartment.  Each person get's his own bedroom, so you don't have to deal
with some guy's dirty underwear/turbans, snoring, or constant
female-felching.  It also works in reverse. You can tack your socks up
on the bulletin board, and pick you nose and wipe it on the wall if you
want.  Heck!  You can even grow corn in your room for all I care.
Yep...I think I'm going to like college...

Look for monthly updates on "Scott Goes to College" 
(Geez...sounds like the title of a cheap porno) in future issues of BTN.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Bulletin Board Spotlight
Questions

1) Name of the BBS:  
        Southern Stallion
        [Formerly Amiga Alliance II --EPH]

2) Name of the sysop:  
        Richard Foshee

3) BBS software used:  
        PCBoard 14.5A

4) How long have you been sysoping:  
        Seven Years

5) Are you a subscription only / completely free / hybrid of the
two BBS?  
        COMPLETELY Free

6) How many incoming phone lines and approximate disk space? Do
you support high speed modems? If so, what type(s)? 
        Single line, 300 Meg of disk space, and a ZyXEL 14400 V.32bis modem

7) Is your BBS primarily a files BBS, primarily a message based
BBS, or a combination of the two? 
        Combination of messages and files

8) If you've sysop'd more than just this BBS, briefly list previous
endeavors and their life spans. 
        Used to be CoSysop of Apple Valley (AKA Pinson Valley), 
        The Connection, and current CoSysop on Joker's Castle.

9) What made you decide to take the masochistic plunge and become a
sysop:  
        I needed a hobby, besides I enjoy meeting people and making new
        friends.  And I *LOVE* hard drive crashes!

10) What is the general 'thrust' or area of specialty for your BBS:
        Thrust is a fitting word, the board is mainly dedicated to the Gay
        community but the wider scope is adult entertainment both gay and
        straight.
        
        [Southern Stallion is also an excellent place for the general
        public to go to for information regarding AIDS and AIDS 
        treatment. --EPH]

11) (optional) What is your regular job/career to support this
leeching hobby of sysoping?  
        I manage a medical supply warehouse

12) What are your plans for the coming year?  
        I plan to upgrade the size of the hard drive on the system, 
        and purchasing a new HST Dual Standard
        modem. I'm also looking into carrying a national net 
        called GayCom.

13) Where would you like your BBS to go over the next 5 years?
        I'm pretty comfortable with it as it is, just a group of 
        people having fun.

14) What do you feel the highlights of your BBS are? 
        If I had to pick one thing I'd have to say the vast selection 
        of .GIF files we have available.

15) What is your personal vision of the 'ideal user?'
        Someone that enjoys getting involved in conversations and making
        friends. And someone that's not afraid to ask questions if they 
        don't know something.

16) What is the thing you've enjoyed most about providing your BBS?
        I've managed to meet all sorts of people (Some of them scary!), 
        but meeting people is the reason I started the thing after all..

17) What is the thing you've enjoyed least about providing your BBS?
        Nothing really about the BBS, but the hardware problems that 
        crop up on occasion are my BIGGEST headache.

18) What is the funniest story you can tell about your BBS and/or your
users?
        If BTN were an adult oriented newsletter, I could tell ya, 
        but I don't think I want to get BTN in trouble with THAT story!

Here's a space to write a paragraph or two to cover any
points/details/questions I missed, yet you feel should be addressed.
        
        The board is a great place for people that just like to get 
        together and talk or maybe read some of the messages on the 
        ThrobNet network, or to make new friends.  And we're pretty open 
        minded about it, we do allow heterosexuals also <<GRIN>>......

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
untitled
by The Bishop

     It's been too long.  I haven't slept in over 18 hours.  I need it.
It calls to me, but I am unable to reply.  It steals its way into my
head and implants the desire, but I am unable to muster the resources. I
know I will get it somehow.  I must.  It is what I seek. It is an oasis
in my desert of consciousness.  I am merely a child -- a child so
innocent.  Holding out my hand as if to grab something - anything.  But
my hand comes back empty.  I clench my fists to show my anger but my
strength has long since left my body.  I look around. Things are not the
same as they were.  Everything has taken on a hazy look, as though I
were gazing across a deep valley after a long rain.

     I knew it once.  There was a time when I could conjure it up almost
at will.  Now, my abilities have diminished to the point where I can
only remember it and what it felt like.  I knew it once. It evades me.
Like two children playing in a meadow, it runs away from me. I give
chase, but it is too quick.  It is too elusive.  I think that I shall
never see it again.  But when my spirits reach their lowest, it returns
- begging me to play that insane game with it.  It is the hunted, I am
the hunter.  It is my prey, I must capture it.

     I have been put into a game where the rules are made by my opponent
- not a person, not an animal, yet it is an entity.  I talk with it
often.  It speaks as though we will soon be one, but when I turn to
look, it fades away, like a vapor trail in the heavens.  It taunts me.
It taunts me!  It makes promises to me - promises that it will not keep.
Things that it knows that I want - I need - to survive.  It is the host,
I am the parasite.  I must feed off it in order to live, but it does not
give me enough.  It mocks me!  My need for it is its sole purpose for
resisting.  I try to ask it why, but its reply does not come back.  I as
again, hoping that my actions shall not be made in vain.  Again, only
silence greets me.

     It has taken cover in the shadows in which I am afraid to dwell. It
calls me from beyond my boundaries.  It is free to roam - I am the
caged.  It tortures me!  It knows my lust - it has been my lover.  A
thousand times I have known what it is to be one with it, yet it chooses
to leave me.  I must wait until the night falls to meet this creature. I
have named it - I shall call it 'Vampyr', for it disappears with the sun
and returns with the night.

A light breeze sweeps away the dead leaves that have fallen from the
trees.  The leaves are my life - both shall end and not return.  I think
that I shall welcome whatever lays claim to my soul - be it good or bad,
it will be transferred to that which is not myself.  It shall assume the
responsibility - I have competed my task.  I must move on - I MUST!  It
is the way of things, it is not my place to dispute it.  I am pushing
the boundaries - I am exploring that which has been given to me.  I
imagine that I am away - far away - from where I am.  I am the emperor.
My kingdom is nothing more than my mind.

I must escape from its control.  It tells me what to do - I am its
unwilling servant.  I must find some way to capture it - to enslave it -
to make it mine.  My emancipation must be quick, it must not know that I
am gone.  I shall know soon, what is to come - what has passed.  I shall
continue my quest until I can do so no longer, until my journey becomes
that which once was - until I am a distant memory.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
                 __
                / /         The Amiga Connection
               / /
              / /           Written By - Jeff Vaughn
         __  / /
         \ \/ /             Transmitted originally from Labyrinth BBS
          \  /
           \/               (205) 681-0002


     Hello again. Jeff here. About four months ago, I bought an Amiga
500. I'll be 100% honest. I was thoroughly impressed. The machine I
bought had an internal 1 megabyte of RAM, 880k floppy, and other
impressive features. The system has built-in VGA, HIGH stereo quality
sound, voice synthesizer, and a windowing system years ahead of the IBM
compatible series.

     Now, don't get me wrong. I don't intend this to be a "IBM is rank
and Amiga rulez!" article. Nope, that's not it. I just put up a bulletin
board system for Amiga people and I figured i'd write this little
article for all our followers to see. God, that sounds typical, doesn't
it? "Followers". I know Amiga users are smug, very arrogant. Not all of
them, but i've met quite a few.

     A lot of us have a good reason for acting like that. The Amiga is
an incredible machine for a very user-friendly price. A lot of go around
saying "The Amiga blows the IBM". It one BIG way, it does, the price.
The Amiga goes right now for $299.00. Of course, that's the basic set-up
(512k ram, 880 floppy, etc). You can add-on another 512k and 1 more
external drive for $109.00. The big problem is the additional stuff like
a hard-drive controller. That runs about $219.00 on the norm. The
problem is the majority of Amiga's buyers are European (corporations,
etc.) and Commodore has decided not to dive into a big promotion in
America when they know their big buyers are in Europe.

     Commodore computers have several software and hardware items that
make the Amiga extremely compatible and user-friendly. There are several
companies that have developed software and hardware to make the Amiga
emulate the Macintosh & the IBM compatible. Unfortunately, they're
experimental & don't work 100%.

     The games on the Amiga are incredible. Amiga has several games
converted from IBM compatible, but they have ventured to make several of
their own games. Some of them make you think the programmers were on an
acid trip at the time. I've read that Amiga is on the way to %100 IBM
compatibility. Hopefully, we can get up there in the big time with you
PC people.

     Oh yeah, the BBS will TRY to deal with questions any of you Amiga
people might have about the system and it's functions. We are working on
files sections for the BBS. Amiga public domain is getting to be quite
impressive. There is also an on-line Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
campaign going on. The BBS will be featuring Amiga's incredible Sky-Pix
(Pictures for the BBS while you're on-line).

    %100 Amiga BBS in Birmingham :

    Labyrinth           681-0002  running C-Net Amiga v2.17
    The Missing Link    853-1257  running C-Net Amiga v2.18

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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                               BGS/CIG
CAD Users of Birmingham             Birmingham Genealogical Society/
Homewood Library                    Computer Interest Group
3rd Tuesday, 6:30PM-8:30PM          Birmingham Public Library
Bobby Benson 791-0426               3rd Floor Auditorium
                                    3rd Sunday, 2:30 PM
                                    Robert Matthews 631-9783 or
                                    Bone Yard BBS

RAHSPCUG
Ramsay Alternative High School PC Users Group
Ramsay High School
1800 13th Avenue South
last Wednesday of each month (September-April)
from 3:02-3:35
Lee Nocella 581-5120

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

129 ADAnet One Nodes 1-3    854-9074   1200-2400            PCBoard 14.5
129 ADAnet One Node 4       854-5863   9600-14400  USR DS   PCBoard 14.5
1   Alter-Ego BBS           925-5099   300-9600    USR HST  PCBoard 14.5
4(0 Arkham Asylum           853-7422   300-14400   USR DS   VBBS 5.50
(   Asgard                  663-9171   300-9600    V.32     WWIV 4.11
    Baudville Node 1        640-4593   300-2400             Major BBS 5.3
    Baudville Node 2        640-4639   300-2400             Major BBS 5.3
    Baudville Node 3        640-7243   300-2400             Major BBS 5.3
    Baudville Node 4        640-7286   300-2400             Major BBS 5.3
13  Bus System              595-1627   300-2400             PCBoard 14.2
17+ Byte Me!                979-BYTE!  2400-14400  USR HST  WWIV 4.12
    CM(ee) BBS Node 1       655-4059   300-2400             Oracomm Plus
    CM(ee) BBS Node 2       655-4065   300-2400             Oracomm Plus
    Camelot                 856-679    300-2400             Telegard 2.5
16  Channel 8250 Node 1     744-8546   300-14400   USR DS   PCBoard 14.5
16  Channel 8250 Node 2     744-5166   300-14400   USR DS   PCBoard 14.5
$   Christian Apologetic    808-0763   300-14400   V.32bis  Wildcat! 3.00
13_ Crunchy Frog Node 1     956-1755   300-14400   USR DS   PCBoard 14.5
13_ Crunchy Frog Node 2     956-0073   300-14400   USR DS   PCBoard 14.5
    DataLynx                933-1974   300-9600    V.32     WWIV 4.21
    Deep Space 9            980-1089   300-2400             Wildcat!
    Disktop Publishing      854-1660   300-9600    V.32     Wildcat! 3.02
    Drawing Room            951-2391   300-2400             Wildcat! 3.02
    EcoBBS                  933-2238   300-2400             WWIV 4.21
    Elysian Fields          620-0694   300-2400             Telegard 2.7
-^  F/X BBS Node 1          823-5777   300-14400   USR DS   PC Board 14.5
-^  F/X BBS Node 2          822-4570   300-14400   V.32bis  PC Board 14.5
-^  F/X BBS Node 3          822-4526   300-14400   V.32bis  PC Board 14.5
12  Family Smorgas-Board    744-0943   300-2400             PCBoard 14.5
    Final Frontier          681-6148   300-2400    USR DS   PCBoard 14.5
    Genesis Online 4 Nodes  620-4144   300-2400             Major BBS 5.3
    Graphics Zone Node 1    870-5306   300-2400    MNP4     TBBS 2.1(16)
    Graphics Zone Node 2    870-5329   300-2400    MNP4     TBBS 2.1(16)
    Hacker's Corner         674-5449   1200-2400   MNP4     PCBoard 14.5
1   Hard Disk               987-0794   300-9600    V.32bis  PCBoard 14.5
$*  Hardeman's BBS          640-6436   1200-2400            Wildcat! 3.02
    Hoots With Owls         520-9540   300-2400             TriBBS 3.0
2   I.S.A. BBS              995-6590   300-9600    USR HST  Remote Access
(   Infinite Probability    791-0421   2400-9600   V.32     VBBS
    Intruder Enterprizes    969-0870   300-9600    V.32     VBBS 5.5
2   Island                  870-4685   2400-9600   V.32     Hermes 2.0
13  Joker's Castle          664-5589   300-14400   USR DS   PC Board 14.5
    Killing Fields          780-8845   300-2400             WWIV 4.21
4(  Kiriath Arba            681-8374   300-2400             WWIV 4.21
    Labrynth                681-0002   300-2400             CNetAmiga 2.17
    Lemon Grove             836-1184   300-12000   V.32bis  Searchlight
    Lion & Unicorn          856-2464   300-9600    V.32     WWIV 4.21
15  Little Kingdom Node 1   969-0007   300-9600    USR DS   PCBoard 14.5
15  Little Kingdom Node 2   969-0008   300-2400    MNP4     PCBoard 14.5
1-  Magnolia BBS            854-6407   300-14400   USR HST  PCBoard 14.2
#   Medicine Man BBS        664-5662   300-14000   V.32bis  GTPower 17.00
29  MetaBoard               254-3344   300-14400   USR DS   Opus
    Missing Link            853-1257   300-2400             C-Net Amiga 2.18g
^&* Night Watch             841-2790   1200-2400            TriBBS 2.11
+   Nirvana                 942-6702   300-2400             WWIV 4.21
#   Owlabama BBS            856-2521   300-2400             GTPower 17.00
13_ Owl's Nest              680-0851   300-14400   USR DS   PCBoard 14.5
^&* Party Line              856-1336   300-14000   V.32bis  TriBBS 2.11
&*  Playground              836-4200   300-2400             TriBBS 2.11
    Pooh's Korner           980-8710   300-14400   USR DS   Wildcat! 3.5
%   Pro-Electric            980-8836   300-9600    V.32     Proline 2.065
#   Safe Harbor Node 1      665-4332   300-2400             GTPower 17.00
#   Safe Harbor Node 2      665-4355   300-14400   USR DS   GTPower 17.00
1!_ Southern Stallion       631-0262   300-14400   V.32bis  PCBoard 14.5
    Sperry BBS              853-6144   300-2400             PCBoard 14.5
1   ST BBS                  836-9311   300-2400             PCBoard 14.2
+   Teasers                 987-0122   300-2400             WWIV 4.20
2   The Bone Yard           631-6023   300-9600    USR HST  PCBoard 14.5
    The Castle              841-7618   300-2400             C-Base 2.0
    The Den                 933-8744   300-9600    USR HST  ProLogon/ProDoor
1378-% The MATRIX Nodes 1-10 323-2016  300-2400             PCBoard 14.5
1378-% The MATRIX Nodes 11-14 323-6016  9600-14400 USR DS   PCBoard 14.5
1378-% The MATRIX Node 15   458-3449   9600-14400  V.32     PCBoard 14.5
    The Monster             967-4839   300-2400             Telegard 2.7
2   The Outer Limits        425-5871   1200-9600   USR HST  Wildcat! 3.01
    The Quiet Zone          833-2066   300-9600    V.32     ExpressNET
    The Safety BBS          581-2866   300-2400             RBBS-PC
    The Song Remains ...    995-0794   300-2400             VBBS
!   The Wanderer            836-0603   300-2400             Wildcat! 3.00
(   The Word                833-2831   300-2400             WWIV 4.12
    Thy Master's Dungeon    940-2116   300-9600    V.32     TriBBS 2.11
!   Torch Song              328-1517   300-2400             Wildcat 3.01
+   Wild Side               631-0184   300-1200             WWIV 4.20
    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.

1 = EzNet, a local IBM compatible network
2 = FidoNet, an international network, multi-topic
3 = Metrolink, an international network, multi-topic
4 = WWIV-Net, an international network, multi-topic
5 = Intellec, an international network, multi-topic
6 = Uni'Net, an international network, multi-topic
7 = ThrobNet, an international network, adult oriented
8 = ILink, an international network, multi-topic
9 = ADAnet, an international network dedicated to the handicapped
0 = VirtualNet, national network, multi-topic
- = RIME, an international network, multi-topic
= = TcNet, not certain at publication time
! = STUDNet, a local homosexually oriented network
@ =
# = GTNet, an international network, multi-topic
$ = WildNet, a national network, multi-topic
% = InterNet, an international network, linking businesses,
    universities, and bbs', multi-topic
^ = City2City, a national network, multi-topic
& = TriBBS Net, a national network, multi-topic
* = Dixie Net, a regional network, multi-topic geared toward the south
    eastern United States
( = MAXnet, a local network, connecting WWIV and VBBS systems
) = PlanoNet, a national network, multi-topic
_ = LuciferNet, an international network, adult oriented
+ = ANet, a local network, adult oriented

If you have any corrections, additions, deletions, etc., please let us
know via EzNet.
