
BTN:  Birmingham Telecommunications News
COPYRIGHT 1988

May 1988    Volume 1, Issue 2

Table Of Contents
-----------------
Article Title                                  Author

Policy Statement and Disclaimer................Mark Maisel
Editorial Column...............................Mark Maisel
Transfer Protocols for PCB 12.1 and Others.....Ed O'Neill
Rebuttal to Michele's T and W..................Bubba Flaval
Telecommunications And Women, part 2...........Michele Cahoon
Gamer's Corner.................................Osman Guner
Known BBS Numbers..............................Mark Maisel

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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

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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Editorial
by Mark Maisel

The BBS community has been very responsive to BTN and I want to open
this months issue with a big THANK YOU! I am working on some way to turn
BTN into a CHEAP printed monthly for distribution through low cost
subscriptions and retail stores.  We will continue to remain primarily a
download based magazine, that supports and hopefully is supported by its
readers.  The comments that we have received have been all positive and
filled with good suggestions, many of which will be implemented over
time.

Our last issue certainly did arouse some attention.  Tyros' survey
results led the way in stirring up some interesting discussions. It
certainly was not a scientific effort in polling, but then again it was
never intended to be such.  One good thing that has come out of the
survey is that so many people have expressed an interest in it, that it
is going to become an annual event and hopefully will be more precise
and accurate due to so much more input from users as to methods and
questions.  Anyone who wishes to participate in the survey should
contact Tyros on Channel 8250 or myself on any public board in town.  I
think I have active accounts on most boards in Birmingham.  We will
probably start organizing the next survey over the summer and prepare
for a fall survey.

We found an ideal person willing to respond to Michele Cahoon's
Telecommunications and Women column and his reply to her first article
is right here next to her second installment.  Please read it over and
tell us what you think.  Who's right? If you have a similar or
dissimilar opinion, please let us put it in print.  We fully support the
idea of using pen names if you would like to remain anonymous or if you
just prefer to write under your handle.

Our Gamer's Corner should inspire some intense competition on the boards
that support game doors.  I hope to see some folks get out there and go
after our resident expert, Osman Guner.  He plays them all; how he has
time I don't know and his results speak for themselves.  For those of
you who don't know, Osman is the director of the ongoing chess
tournament on America Online.  If you would like a challenging match,
then contact him there for a good game.

Finally, if you are running a public bbs and would like some free
publicity, then get me your board name, phone number, and baud rates
supported, and I will see to it that you are added to our list of known
bbs numbers.  I want you to continue to enjoy BTN for a long time, so
don't just sit there, keep reading!

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Transfer Protocols for PCBoard 12.1 and Other Systems
by Ed O'Neill

PCBoard 12.1 does a number of different protocol transfers internally.
In addition to these, the SysOp can add protocol drivers as a shell, a
program that's run outside of a memory resident program. These shell
programs must meet three requirements: They must set the DOS ErrorLevel
to flag the success or failure of the transfer. They must leave the
communications port's settings intact on exit and they must be capable
of accepting complete DOS file specifications in the standard
Drive:\Path\Filename.Ext format. The parameters are passed to a batch
program and are defined in PCBPROT.DAT as follows:

                         A,I,128,ASCII
                         X,I,128,Xmodem Sum
                         C,I,128,CRC XModem
                         Y,I,1024,Ymodem
                         G,I,1024,Ymodem-G
                         I,I,128,Imodem
                         Z,S,1024,Zmodem
                         K,S,90,PCKermit
                         W,S,128,WXfer 4.0
                         N,I,0,None

The first letter denotes the selection you make when you register or
when you pick menu selection (T)ransfer Protocol. It's kept in your data
base record and is used each time you request a download. The second
letter can only be S or I to define Internal or Shell transfers. The
numeric defines the block size and is used to calculate the number of
blocks and estimate the time of each transfer. Then there is the
description you see when you make a selection.

ASCII - Is used to transfer text files containing only printable
characters or those in the ASCII numeric range from 32 to 127 or 32 to
255 on some graphic devices (know as Extended ASCII). In addition to the
printables, there will be some other "action" characters in the text: LF
(10), CR (13) and sometimes HT (09). Some text processors change the
individual bits in the words for pagination and may not be compatible
with your processor. Also, some text files may contain ANSI Escape (27)
sequences which will passively appear on your screen if your machine
can't process them for color, sound and cursor positioning. This
protocol will show as the most efficient (100%) but that assumes that
every character transmitted is necessary and there is no overhead bytes
for data integrity checks as associated with the other protocols. You
may use your ASCII upload to send a composed message to the message
bases or send an ASCII text file to the upload directory.

XModem Sum - This protocol was developed in 1979 by Ward Christensen for
the CP/M operating system and was know as MODEM and MODEM2. The simple
check sum is fairly accurate but there is a mathematical probability of
about 0.4% errors getting passed the check. The receiver must ACK
(acknowledged) or NAK (not acknowledge) each 128 byte block and the
sender must wait (half duplex) before sending the next block or
resending the bad block. The delay while waiting for the ACK or NAK
lowers the efficiency (Actual/Potential) of the transfer. On The
Channel, this protocol is 70% to 80% efficient depending on line quality
and the start-up delay. Yes! The clocks running while you type the name
and start the transfer and affects the efficiency.

XModem CRC - The CRC stands for Cyclical Redundancy Check, a polynomial
calculation produced from the sum of the bytes in the 128 byte block.
The result of the equation is passed as a two byte (16 bit) trailer to
the block and is recalculated and compared on the receiving end with the
NAK/ACK response. The efficiency of this transfer is consistently 5%
better than sum correction even though the packet length is increased by
one byte. I have no real explanation for this but I suspect that the
improved error checking eliminates a few false, bad block retransmits.

YModem - The most significant improvement with YModem is an increase in
the block size to 1024 bytes. The automatic reduction in ACK/NAK
handshaking with the larger data block automatically raises the
efficiency to about 92%. There is also provisions to send 128 byte
blocks to eliminate padding the last block to 1024 bytes. It uses full
16 bit CRC error checking and has an optional block zero to send and
receive file names, file path, file size and last modification date and
time to the receiver. This is the method used in YModem Batch mode and
overcomes XModem's and YModem's requirement of typing the name in on
both ends.

YModem-G - This is a stripped version of YModem for error correcting
modems. The ACK/NAK handshake is eliminated with the assumption that the
data coming from the port is corrected. There are several ways of doing
this but it is a hardware function and differs from one modem to
another. If the file transmission is not ACKed at the end of the
transmission or if an error is detected, this protocol just aborts and
must be restarted.

Imodem - I can't tell you much about this protocol. I do know that it is
designed for error correcting modems. It's available the national
services, in ProComm Plus and in QModem. I understand that it takes
advantage of the error correction of the newer modems and is very
efficient but, to date, I have not used it or been able to find any more
information on it.

ZModem - This is my personal favorite. It is a proprietary protocol
written by Chuck Forsburg of Omen Technologies and is only available in
his products. The good news is that DSZ, a IBM-PC/XT/AT compatible
product, is available from this BBS and others to add ZModem to your
transfer arsenal. This protocol is the best of all worlds. It
incorporates the superior concepts of XModem, YModem and Batch protocols
and implements them in a full duplex, streaming protocol. This means
that the sender is no longer required to wait for the ACK before sending
the next block. It just clips along, block after block, and resends any
bad ones after sending the entire file. The ACK/NAK procedure is done in
full duplex to further raise efficiency to 95% even over mediums with
huge propagation delays like satellite relays. The batch capability of
ZModem, also, lends itself to error recovery. It can actually restart an
error ridden, aborted transfer making DSZ and ZModem the state of the
art in protocols. The 32 bit CRC, twice the resolution of YModem's 16
bit one, practically eliminates the chance of an error sneaking past the
check.

PCKermit - Kermit is slow. It is, however, implemented on several
different types of PCs, minis and mainframes and should only be used in
the absence of another, more efficient, one. I have it only for those
that don't have anything else. The small packet size, 90 bytes, and half
duplex acknowledgements make it very inefficient but it is better than
nothing. Note that this shell program will not properly set the DOS
ErrorLevel and you will be charged with aborted downloads. Sorry! I'll
replace it as soon as I find a better one. Some system have a remote
Kermit file server but not this one. In all fairness, the server does
make Kermit more useful and desirable.

WXfer V4.0 - This is Marty del Vecchio's implementation of Windowed
XModem. A windowed protocol is capable of changing the block size based
on the transmission errors. If you have a clean line and get zero
errors, the software raises the block size in 128 byte increments. This
is really only good for large files on clean lines. With small files and
noisy lines, it's much more like XModem. This implementation of WXModem
is not fully compatible with ProComm Plus. I suggest that you get this
exact version if you want to try it.

None - Use this setting if you're trying out different protocols and
wish to be prompted when you request a download. Obviously, you cannot
download with your protocol set to NONE but you can use any of the other
letters to avoid getting the menu each time you download. The format is
- D FileName.Ext (L) - where (L) is the single letter protocol
designation desired.

How do you do it? Here are some sample command lines for DSZ:
dsz sz -w zcom*.zoo       (ZMODEM send, 4096 window for 1200b PC Pursuit)
dsz sz -r giant.arc       (ZMODEM crash recovery: resume interrupted transfer)
dsz sb  *.arc             (YMODEM (128 byte blocks) send)
dsz sb -k *.arc           (YMODEM-1k send)
dsz handshake on sb *.arc (YMODEM-g or YMODEM send, hardware handshake)
dsz sx -k naughty.bit     (XMODEM-1k single file send)
dsz rb -y                 (YMODEM receive, erase old file if any)
dsz handshake on rb -g    (YMODEM-g receive)
dsz rz C:/uploads         (ZMODEM receive with specified directory)
dsz rx -c foo.bar         (XMODEM-CRC or XMODEM-1k single file receive)
You simple pick the one you want and add a line to a batch that you run
from your communications package.

Here are the exact lines from the batch files I use for ZModem transfers
from ProComm Plus, the first for receiving and the second for sending.
They must be placed in a batch and the batch name added to your external
protocol list as ZMODEM-D.BAT and ZMODEM-U.BAT respectively. DSZ must be
available in your path or in your default directory and is called from
the batch.

    for downloading -> DSZ handshake both pB4096 rz -r
      for uploading -> DSZ handshake both pB4096 sz %1 %2 %3 %4 %5

Check you DOS manual if you don't understand the use of the %# in the
batch.

The others, PCKermit, SeaLink, MegaLink, WXfer, WXModem, ext. will
operate in a similar fashion. They, generally, will give you command
line examples by running them with a ? /h -h or other help switch. See
the documentation with each driver available in Conference 9 - Directory
2. You can, also, get command line examples from within the ProDOOR and
duplicate them on your end.

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Telcommunications and Women:
A rebuttal by Bubba Flaval

"Beg pardon?"

"I'm serious.  There is an article in the first issue of the BTN by some
woman about why we should get more women involved in BBSing."
Reluctantly, I sat my Budweiser down and transferred my attention from
this months Hustler magazine to the printout my friend had handed me.

"She can't be serious!"

"I think she is, though."

I reread the article and decided that whoever Michele Cahoon was, she
had some wrong ideas and it was apparently up to me to try and
straighten it out before she confused a lot of good people.  I looked
out the window where my new 4 X 4 sat needing another coat of wax and
decided that this dippy broad needed attention first.  I fired my system
up, loaded my word processor in, and started composing the Truth:

The small percentage of women involved in BBSing needs to stay a small
percentage.  The ones involved in it now are indeed fairly unobtrusive,
(for you women reading this that means they keep their heads down) which
is proper behavior for a woman involved in a man's field).  After all,
who wants to read a message base full of messages like "I think that the
Toni permanent is the best, don't you agree."

As far as women on bulletin boards using a man's name; Why not! As long
as they leave sensible messages.  I would rather read a message about
how to change the plugs in my RV or upload using a new protocol than
talk about permanents! If one of them forgets and logs a message about a
new hair care I ask the SysOp to check them out and delete them if
possible.

Teenaged boys are SUPPOSED to go through 'turbo hormonal changes.'
Because of these changes they do have a tendency to hit on women on the
boards (unless they are under a man's name).  This makes them a valuable
asset to telecommunications; They keep these 'free thinking' women from
infesting our boards.  Otherwise these young male 'hunters' would be
nailed into barrels and fed through the bunghole (of the barrel) until
such time as they gain more control.

Women SHOULD be intimidated by computers! They can't even follow simple
directions to the laundromat let alone the sophistication involved in
operating a terminal.  Here is a simple way to test this: Tell your wife
(or girlfriend) that DEVICE=ANSI.SYS and that this statement goes into
the CONFIG.SYS file and I guarantee her eyes will cross!

I suggest that she keep looking for the solutions.  I personally think
the solutions are for women to not concern themselves with these things
that are beyond their ken (understanding, for you women!) and that they
keep up with women type things, such as: Hair care, raising kids,
recipes, etc...

I'm pretty much of a free thinker and pride myself on being current with
the times so I'll not make the recommendation that my father would have
made ("Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant!") but at times I can see a little
of the wisdom of the saying.

Toni hair care, indeed! Now, if all of this is finally clear to
everyone... I have a truck I need to get waxed.

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Telecommunications and Women
Part two of ?
by Michele Cahoon

This issue we will address a cure for 'turbo hormones' of young boys.
One thing women, we must be very direct, firm and most of all quick to
cut the remarks of these young boys. If more of us would not play their
little games of flirting with one another they would be less apt to
continue with these comments. I have personally experienced alot from
these kids. Most of the "hits" have been when I was BBS-ing on a board
with two nodes. All of a sudden a chat request has been issued. There
are several ways to handle this:

1. When you first log on turn the availability for chat to unavailable.
The disadvantage to this is any friend who might try to chat will not be
able to reach me either.

2. You can ignore the chat request. This almost always leaves you with a
nasty message of protest because you didn't answer their request for
chat.

3. Answer the chat and when the second or third question is, "How old
are you?", respond with something like my favorite; "I'm 99 years old,
200 lbs and have 5 kids and 20 grandkids!".  You almost always get left
rudely in chat by yourself when the questioner is a kid.

These are just a few helpful hints and suggestions. Just remember gals,
we are people too and should be treated with the same respect. So if
more would get involved I think that the turbo kids will lay low after
enough women clip them off at the knees! If you have any little secrets
to help other women and the turbo kid dilemma. Send your response to
Channel 8250. We will definitely take notice of all!

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GAMERS CORNER

by Osman Guner

TIPS ON POWER STRUGGLE
----------------------

Supporting Board      Phone          Status
----------------   ----------------  ------
 Apple Valley      (205) 854-9661
                   (205) 854-9662     Up

  Magnolia         (205) 854-6407     Up

This game have some similarities to Trade-Wars and also some
differences.  It is played in a 3-dimensional universe (10X10X10 grid).
Unlike Trade-Wars one does not need to draw a map of the universe, since
sectors are given 3-dimensional coordinates.  The maximum amount of
cargo-hold one can obtain is 1000.  It is advisable to have this number
of holds since it will increase your trading capacity in a limited
number of turns per day.  The prices of items are fixed, so you might
want to find out which items will sell for more credits.  It is also a
good idea to purchase items in multiples of 10; otherwise you may end up
with bits and pieces of various items and can not take full advantage of
your 1000 cargo-holds.  With the credits, you can buy cruisers,
fighters, and ground troops.  Since cruisers are 8 times more expensive
than the fighters but 10 times more powerful, it may be advantageous to
build up on cruisers first.  Sooner or later, however, you will have to
build up on ground troops too, to be able to occupy (own) a planet.

There are 3 power planets located at sectors (4,4,4), (7,7,7), and
(10,10,10,).  When you are strong enough, you should try to invade and
occupy one of those power planets which produce the power product
Nebulae.  By keeping the production level of the planet above 1000, one
can build up on military power much more rapidly.  The production level
can be kept high by developing the planet with agricultural products.
The agricultural planets may be developed by industrials, the industrial
planets by mining products.  Hence, it is a good idea to keep the
neighboring planets well developed and even to protect them with some
ground troops.  If you use full 1000 holds and keep the power planet
developed making sure that it produces more than 1000 nebulae at all
times, you can build as much as 200 cruisers, or 1600 fighters, or 640
ground troops in a single day (50 turns).  The ultimate goal in Power
Struggle is to occupy all three power planets and to bring peace to the
universe by ending the power struggle...

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Known BBS Numbers for the Birmingham Area

NAME                        NUMBER        BAUD RATES SUPPORTED

68FREE                      933-7518      300,1200
APCO BBS                    226-1841      300,1200,2400
America Online              324-0193      300,1200,2400
American BBS                674-1851      300,1200,2400
Amiga Alliance              631-2846      1200
Apple Valley Node 1         854-9661      300,1200,2400
Apple Valley Node 2         854-9662      300,1200,2400
Birmingham BBS Node 1       251-2344      300,1200
Birmingham BBS Node 2       251-8033      300,1200
Bus System BBS              595-1627      300,1200,2400
Channel 8250                785-7417      300,1200,2400
Commodore Club-South        853-8718      300,1200,2400
Fortress BBS                664-9040      300,1200
LZ Birmingham               870-7770      300,1200,2400
Magnolia BBS                854-6407      300,1200,2400
Misty Mountain              979-8409      2400
Music Alley BBS             969-2416      300,1200,2400
Point of No RETURN          664-9609      300,1200,2400
ST BBS                      836-9311      300,1200
Southern Regiment           647-9176      300,1200,2400
Sperry BBS                  853-6144      300,1200,2400
The Connection Node 1       854-9074      1200,2400
The Connection Node 2       854-2308      1200,2400

This is hardly a complete list of local bulletin board systems but these
are a good start.  If you have any to add, please let me know.

