     Volume 8, Number 15                                 15 April 1991
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     |        - FidoNews -                           (_|  /_)        |
     |                                                _`@/_ \    _   |
     |         FidoNet (r)                           |     | \   \\  |
     |  International BBS Network                    | (*) |  \   )) |
     |         Newsletter               ______       |__U__| /  \//  |
     |                                 / FIDO \       _//|| _\   /   |
     |                                (________)     (_/(_|(____/    |
     |                                                     (jm)      |
     +---------------------------------------------------------------+
     Editor in Chief:                                  Vince Perriello
     Editors Emeritii:                    Thom Henderson,  Dale Lovell
     Chief Procrastinator Emeritus:                       Tom Jennings
     
     Copyright 1991, Fido Software.  All rights reserved.  Duplication
     and/or distribution permitted  for  noncommercial  purposes only.
     For use in other circumstances, please  contact  Fido Software.
     
     FidoNews  is  published  weekly by and for  the  Members  of  the
     FidoNet (r) International Amateur Electronic Mail System.   It is
     a compilation of individual articles contributed by their authors
     or authorized agents of the authors. The contribution of articles
     to this compilation does not diminish the rights of the authors.
     
     You  are  encouraged   to  submit  articles  for  publication  in
     FidoNews.  Article submission standards are contained in the file
     ARTSPEC.DOC, available from node 1:1/1.    1:1/1  is a Continuous
     Mail system, available for network mail 24 hours a day.
     
     Fido and  FidoNet  are  registered  trademarks of Tom Jennings of
     Fido Software, Box  77731,  San  Francisco  CA 94107, USA and are
     used with permission.
     
     Opinions expressed in  FidoNews articles are those of the authors
     and are not necessarily  those of the Editor or of Fido Software.
     Most articles are unsolicited.   Our  policy  is to publish every
     responsible submission received.


                        Table of Contents
     1. EDITORIAL  ................................................  1
        Just Checking In  .........................................  1
     2. ARTICLES  .................................................  3
        World Policy - U.S. Constitution  .........................  3
        Just a few words about WorldPol  .......................... 22
        Comments on the WorldPol Debate  .......................... 23
        When and how to switch LD carriers for each call  ......... 25
        New Consumer Advocate Echo  ............................... 26
        Why do we need a WorldPol?  ............................... 28
        FidoCon '91 Update  ....................................... 30
        From Down Below  .......................................... 37
     And more!
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 1                   15 Apr 1991


     =================================================================
                                 EDITORIAL
     =================================================================


     Notes on the Editor's blotter --

     Boy oh boy oh boy. I've gotten a lot of mail regarding the
     Worldpol submission. Lots of mail and a number of articles.
     The one I like the best is an effort you'll be reading here
     which makes an attempt to adapt the United States Constitution
     to FidoNet. I think it's not such a bad idea, actually. There
     are flaws in it as it stands, but I see it as fixable.

     I also think that Worldpol is fixable. Many of its supporters
     agree with me that it's not perfect. The only area in which we
     seem to disagree is whether it's best to gene-splice now or
     cut off the extra arm and add the missing eye later.

     Regardless of how you feel about Worldpol -- I can't encourage
     you enough to get involved in the process. And make good and
     sure that your NC votes one way or the other. He/She is YOUR
     voice in this ratification process.

     We have brought a new program online here called AutoNews. It
     takes netmail addressed to AutoNews, and creates a file which
     contains the body of the message. You specify the name of the
     file in the subject line. We're still feeling our way out with
     this, but ultimately this should provide a neat way of allowing
     article submissions to be sent through FidoNet routing. ARTSPEC
     restrictions still apply. Wordwrap hasn't been implemented yet.

     We hear that Henry Clark is an RC now. We think that means that
     under the Freedom of Information Act, we can demand that .GIF
     file of Honey now. C'mon, Henry! We want to see who is talking
     you through it!

     I know that a few version updates came in this week. I'm just
     running too far behind deadline to get them in this week.

     Could the person who sent me an article under the name "Joe
     SysOp" please contact me via netmail? I'll publish your article
     under that name if you insist, but I have to know who you are.

     Vote early. Vote often. Vote against Worldpol. It needs work.
     And it needs that work NOW. Not later.

     Have a good week. We'll see you here again next Monday.
     Vince


     FidoNews 8-15                Page 2                   15 Apr 1991


     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 3                   15 Apr 1991


     =================================================================
                                 ARTICLES
     =================================================================

     Bob Dervishian, SysOp
     Richmond Computer BBS
     FidoNet 1:264/170

     To whom it may concern:

     FidoNet World Policy should not look like something more than it
     is, people simply having "access" to each other.  Anything more
     than mere "access", might cause a casual observer to think that
     FidoNet is some kind of club, legal entity, or organization.

     In order to preserve the open "access" we all enjoy, it seems
     appropriate for words like "members" and "membership" to be
     avoided.  It also seem imperative, that any FidoNet powers be
     expressly eliminated, and a clear statement be made, that all
     participants are independent unpaid volunteers.

     "Access" is the keyword, and it should continue to be the
     foundation upon which FidoNet rests.  Nodes are simply computer
     systems, and should not be seen as anything more significant.

     Otherwise, as worldwide electronic mail expands, FidoNet might
     innocently blunder into conflicts with the Laws of Nations and
     the complexity of world politics.

     On the other hand, it does not seem wise to think of FidoNet
     World Policy as some kind of academic or inconsequential matter,
     since the policy could become critical for open "access" to
     FidoNet in the future.  It seems necessary and appropriate, at
     this stage of FidoNet's development, to make a definitive and
     complete statement of FidoNet World Policy, in precise and
     appropriate terms, in order to insure "access" to FidoNet in
     today's world.

     The question, then becomes, "How does one draft a world policy
     document that can maintain free and open access to worldwide
     electronic mail?"

     Well, it appears that while establishing the framework for free
     "access" to the open interchange of information and
     communication, FidoNet World Policy could specifically adopt, as
     well as, encourage the individual rights and principles setforth
     in the Constitution of the United States, and encourage peace
     and freedom and democracy throughout the world.  If FidoNet
     World Policy, used the language of the Constitution of the
     United States, it could accomplish all of these goals and still
     preserve the rights and customs of peoples in the various Zones,
     and avoid conflicts with the Laws of Nations throughout the
     world.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 4                   15 Apr 1991


     I was pleasantly surprised to discover, that with simple
     modification, the Constitution of the United States, nicely
     lends itself to the needs of a FidoNet World Policy.

     Actually, the problems that might confront a FidoNet World
     Policy are of such a magnitude, that it probably couldn't be
     stated in a more simplified manner.  I hope no one will get
     upset because I have incorporated some language from the
     proposed POLVOTE.TXT, along with the modifications, as a
     proposed FidoNet World Policy document, for your consideration,
     as setforth below:

                             *************

                              WORLD POLICY
                                   of
                                 FidoNet

                      adopted:  ../../19..
                       effect:  ../../19..

                                 PREAMBLE

          We the Nodes of FidoNet, in Order to form a more perfect
     Network, establish Justice, insure Tranquility, promote the
     general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
     ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this World
     Policy for FidoNet.

                                Article I.

                                Section 1.

          FidoNet is a private amateur electronic mail system which
     exists only to provide electronic mail services, and all Nodes
     are unpaid volunteers.

          FidoNet is not a common carrier or a value-added service
     network and is public only to the extent the independent,
     constituent Node Operators may individually allow public access
     to the network on their system.

          Zone Mail Hour, which is the heart of FidoNet, shall be one
     hour of each day, which is reserved within a Zone, for the
     exclusive purpose of passing FidoNet mail between FidoNet Nodes.

          The English Language is the official language of FidoNet.
     All official FidoNet documents shall exist in English.  Zones
     may adopt a secondary language for convenience.  Translation
     into all languages is encouraged.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 5                   15 Apr 1991


          Access to FidoNet is open to any computer system,
     consistent with FidoNet World Policy, which fulfills the
     requirement of reserving Zone Mail Hour for the exclusive
     purpose of passing FidoNet mail between FidoNet Nodes during
     Zone Mail Hour, using the protocol defined in the current
     FidoNet Technical Standards Committee publication. (FTS-0001 at
     this writing).

          Node status shall be established by a computer system being
     shown as having the privilege of access to FidoNet in the
     Official FidoNet List of Nodes (NodeList), which is issued by
     FidoNet on a weekly basis.

          FidoNet is collection of volunteer Nodes which are
     addressed by Zone, Region, Network, Node, [and Point]. (i.e.
     1:125/111.5)

          The Seat of FidoNet shall be the Zone, wherein the World
     Coordinator resides.

          A Zone shall be a collection of Regions, which are located
     in a geographic area containing one or many regions, which may
     cover one or more countries.

          A Region shall be a collection of Networks, which are
     located in a well-defined geographic area containing Nodes which
     may or may not be combined into Networks.  A typical Region will
     contain many Nodes in Networks, and a few computer systems which
     are not part of the Network.

          A Network shall be a collection of Nodes, normally but not
     exclusively in a local geographic area.

          Node Operators (NodOp) shall formulate policy for the
     running their respective Nodes and dealing with their Bulletin
     Board Users.  The independent Node Operator voluntarily
     cooperates with the FidoNet Policy in order to access FidoNet,
     and to receive and send FidoNet mail consistent with FidoNet
     Policy.

          A Point shall not be a FidoNet Node, but is a computer
     system that is able to have access to FidoNet, through a FidoNet
     Node acting as a host.  A Point Operator (PtOp) may be any age,
     and the Point shall be addressed, by using the host Node's
     address shown in the NodeList, with a Point number affixed.
     (i.e.  1:125/111.6)

          System Operators (SysOp) presently existing in the Fido
     Network are hereby established as Node Operators (NodOp) of
     FidoNet, in the Zone wherein they reside.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 6                   15 Apr 1991


          The right of Node Operators, who have attained the Age of
     eighteen Years, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by
     FidoNet or by any Zone on account of nationality, race, color,
     sex, age, or otherwise.

          Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, shall exist
     within the FidoNet.

          The Right of Node Operators to vote in any election for
     World Coordinator or Vice World Coordinator, for Electors for
     World Coordinator or Vice World Coordinator, for Zone Senator or
     Node Representative, shall not be denied or abridged.

          No Node shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house,
     without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a
     manner to be prescribed by FidoNet.

          FidoNet shall make no Policy respecting an establishment of
     religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
     the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of Node
     Operators to peaceably assemble, or to petition for a redress of
     grievances.

          It being necessary to the security of a free world, the
     right of Persons to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

          The right of Persons to be secure in their persons, houses,
     papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
     shall not be violated and shall not be infringed.

          All Policy Powers herein granted shall be vested in a
     Congress of FidoNet, which shall consist of a Zone Senate and a
     Node House of Representatives.

          The enumeration in FidoNet World Policy, of certain rights,
     shall not be construed to deny or disparage any other Right
     retained, by the Node Operators.

          The powers not delegated to FidoNet by FidoNet World
     Policy, nor prohibited to it by the Zones, are reserved to the
     Node Operators or to the Zones respectively.

          FidoNet Congress shall not make or enforce any policy which
     shall abridge the privileges or immunities of Node Operators of
     FidoNet; nor shall FidoNet Congress deprive any person of life,
     liberty, or property, without due process of Law, FidoNet or
     otherwise; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal
     protection of the Law, FidoNet or otherwise.

          No Node Operator shall be a Zone Senator or Node
     Representative in FidoNet Congress, or Elector of World
     Coordinator and Vice World Coordinator, or hold any office,
     under FidoNet, or under any Zone, who, having previously taken
     an oath, as a member of FidoNet Congress, or as an Officer of
     FidoNet, or as a Member of any Zone Legislature, or as an
     Executive or Judicial officer of any Zone, to support the World
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 7                   15 Apr 1991


     Policy of FidoNet, who shall have engaged in insurrection or
     rebellion against any Nation, or given aid or comfort to the
     enemies thereof.  But FidoNet Congress may by a vote of
     two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

                                Section 2.

          The Node House of Representatives shall be composed of
     Members chosen every second Year by the Node Operators of the
     several Zones, and the Electors in each Zone shall have the
     Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous
     Branch of the Zone Legislature.


          Node Representatives shall be apportioned among the several
     Zones which may be included within this Network, according to
     their respective Numbers, counting the whole Number of Node
     Operators in each Zone, excluding none.  But when the right to
     vote at any election for the choice of Electors for World
     Coordinator and Vice World Coordinator of FidoNet,
     Representatives in FidoNet Congress, the Executive and Judicial
     officers of a Zone, or the members of the Legislature thereof,
     is denied to any of the Node Operators of such Zone, being
     eighteen years of age, and Node Operators of FidoNet, or in any
     way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other
     violation, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced
     in the proportion which the Number of such Node Operators shall
     bear to the whole Number of Node Operators in such Zone.

          The actual Enumeration shall be made within one Year after
     the first Meeting of the Congress of FidoNet, and within every
     subsequent Term of two Years, in such Manner as they shall by
     Policy direct.  The Number of Node Representatives shall not
     exceed one for every Hundred Nodes, but each Zone shall have at
     Least one Node Representative.

          When vacancies happen in the Node Representation from any
     Zone, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of
     Election to fill such Vacancies.

          The Node House of Representatives shall chose their Speaker
     and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of
     Impeachment.

                                Section 3.

          The Zone Senate of FidoNet shall be composed of two
     Senators from each Zone, elected by the Node Operators thereof,
     for six Years; and each Zone Senator shall have one Vote.

          No Node Operator shall be a Zone Senator who shall not have
     attained to the Age of twenty-one Years, and been three Years a
     Node Operator of FidoNet, who shall not, when elected, be a Node
     Operator of that Zone for which he shall be chosen.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 8                   15 Apr 1991


          The Electors in each Zone shall have the qualifications
     requisite for Electors of the most numerous branch of the Zone
     legislatures.  When vacancies happen in the representation of
     any Zone in the Zone Senate, the executive authority of such
     Zone shall issue Writs of Election to fill such vacancies:
     Provided, That the legislature of any Zone may empower the
     executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the Node
     Operators fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may
     direct.

          Immediately after the Zone Senators shall be assembled in
     Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as
     equally as may be into three Classes.  The Seats of the Zone
     Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration
     of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the
     fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the
     sixth Year, so that one-third may be chosen every second Year;
     and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the
     Recess of the Legislature of any Zone, the Executive thereof may
     make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the
     Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.

          The Vice World Coordinator of FidoNet shall be President of
     the Zone Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally
     divided.

          The Zone Senate shall chose their other Officers, and also
     a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice World
     Coordinator, or when he shall exercise the Office of World
     Coordinator of FidoNet.

          The Zone Senate shall have the sole Power to try all
     Impeachments.  When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on
     Oath or Affirmation.  When the World Coordinator of FidoNet is
     tried, the FidoNet Chief Justice shall preside:  And no Node
     Operator shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two
     thirds of the Members present.

          Judgement in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further
     than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and
     enjoy any Office of honor or Trust under FidoNet.

                                Section 4.

          The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Zone
     Senators and Node Representatives, shall be prescribed in each
     Zone by the Legislature thereof: but the FidoNet Congress may at
     any time by FidoNet Policy make or alter such Regulations,
     except as to the Place of Chosing Zone Senators.

          FidoNet Congress shall assemble at least once in every
     Year, and such Meeting shall begin at noon on the 3rd day of
     January, unless they shall by FidoNet Policy appoint a different
     day.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 9                   15 Apr 1991


          The terms of Zone Senators and Node Representatives shall
     end at noon on the 3rd day of January, of the years in which
     such terms would have ended; and the terms of their successors
     shall then begin.

                                Section 5.

          Each FidoNet House shall be the Judge of the Elections,
     Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of
     each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller
     number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to
     compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and
     under such Penalties as each House may provide.

          Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings,
     punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the
     Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

          Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and
     from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may
     in their Judgment require Secrecy to preserve the security of
     FidoNet or it's Node Operators; and the Yeas and Nays of the
     Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of
     one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

          Neither FidoNet House, during the Session of FidoNet
     Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for
     more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which
     the two Houses shall be sitting.

                                Section 6.

          The Zone Senators and Node Representatives shall receive no
     Compensation for their Services.  They shall in all Cases of
     Violation, until convicted, be privileged from censorship or
     expulsion during their Attendance at the Session of their
     respective Houses, and in going to and returning from same; and
     for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be
     questioned in any other Place.

          No Zone Senator or Node Representative shall, during the
     Time for which he was elected, be appointed or elected to any
     Fido Office nor Public Office under the Authority of any Nation,
     which shall have been created, and no Node Operator holding any
     Office under the FidoNet, shall be a Member of either House
     during his Continuance in Office.

                                Section 7.

          No Policy for raising Revenue shall originate in either
     FidoNet House.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 10                  15 Apr 1991


          Every Bill which shall have passed the Node House of
     Representatives and the Zone Senate, shall, before it become a
     FidoNet Policy, be presented to the World Coordinator of
     FidoNet; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall
     return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall
     have Originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on
     their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it.  If after such
     Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the
     Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the
     other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if
     approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a FidoNet
     Policy.  But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be
     determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Node Operators
     voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal
     of each House respectively.  If any Bill shall not be returned
     by the World Coordinator within ten Days (Sundays excepted)
     after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a
     FidoNet Policy, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless
     the FidoNet Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in
     which Case it shall not be a FidoNet Policy.

          Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence
     of the Zone Senate and Node House of Representative may be
     necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be
     presented to the World Coordinator of the FidoNet; and before
     the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being
     disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Zone
     Senate and Node House of Representatives, according to the Rules
     and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

                                Section 8.

          The FidoNet Congress shall have No Power:

     To make any Policy, in violation of the Laws of any Nation.

     To enforce any Policy in any Zone wherein a FidoNet Node
        resides, that is contrary to the Law of a Nation, that is
        embraced by that Zone.

     To establish any Policy impairing the Obligation of Contracts.

     To Censor any communication, Article, or otherwise.

     To establish Post Offices and post Roads.

     To provide for the common defense.

     To declare War or engage in any War among Nations.

     To raise or support any Army, Navy, or any other Militia.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 11                  15 Apr 1991


     To suppress or engage in and/or repel Insurrections or
        Invasions.

     To provide for the quartering of FidoNet Nodes in any place
        designed for the prosecution of War or Law Enforcement.
        (i.e.  any Fort, Magazine, Arsenal, dock-Yard, installation,
        or any place military oriented or otherwise.)

     To provide for any Punishment.

     No capitation, or Tax shall be laid.

     To lay a Tax or Duty on Articles imported or exported from any
        Zone.

     To lay or collect taxes on Node Users.

     To lay or collect taxes on Node Operators or Point Operators.

     To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.

     To borrow money on the credit of FidoNet.

     To regulate Commerce with Nations, or among the several Zones.

     To establish any Rule of Naturalization.

     To coin Money, or regulate the Value thereof.

     To establish ex post facto FidoNet Policy.

     To enter into any Agreement or Compact with any Zone, or with
        any Nation, or engage in any War, unless actually invaded, or
        in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

     To assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of or
        against FidoNet, or any claim, and all such debts,
        obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

          No Preference shall be given by any Policy of one Zone over
     those of another: nor shall any Article bound to, or from, one
     Zone, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.

          No Title of Nobility shall be granted by FidoNet:  And no
     Node Operator holding any Fido Office shall accept of any
     present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from
     any Nation, King, Zone, Individual, Commercial Business, or
     otherwise.

                                   Section 9.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 12                  15 Apr 1991


          The FidoNet Congress shall have the Power.

     To promote the Progress of Computer Science and useful Arts, by
        securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the
        exclusive FidoNet Right to their respective Writings and
        Discoveries.

     To define Software Piracies and infringements.

     To constitute FidoNet Tribunals inferior to the FidoNet Supreme
        Court.

     To make policy which shall be necessary and proper for carrying
        into Execution the foregoing World Policy.


                                   Section 10.

          Each zone has the right to adopt a secondary Language as
     its own official language, as a convenience.

          No FidoNet Zone shall adopt any Policy contrary to FidoNet
     World Policy.

          No FidoNet Zone shall, without the Consent of FidoNet
     Congress, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another Zone,
     or with any Nation, or engage in any War, unless actually
     invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

                                Article II.

                                Section 1.

          The executive Power shall be vested in a World Coordinator
     of FidoNet.  He shall hold his Office during the Term of two
     Years, and, together with the Vice World Coordinator, chosen for
     the same Term, be elected, as follows.

          No Node Operator except a Node Operator of FidoNet at the
     time of the Adoption of this World Policy, shall be eligible to
     the Office of World Coordinator; neither shall any Node Operator
     be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the
     Age of twenty-five Years, and been five Years a Node Operator
     within FidoNet.

          No Node Operator shall be elected to the office of the
     World Coordinator more than twice, and no Node Operator who has
     held the office of World Coordinator, or acted as World
     Coordinator, for more than one year of a term to which some
     other Node Operator was elected World Coordinator shall be
     elected to the office of the World Coordinator more than once.
     But this shall not prevent any Node Operator holding the office
     of World Coordinator when this World Policy was proposed, and
     shall not apply to any Node Operator who may be holding the
     office of World Coordinator, or acting as World Coordinator,
     during the term within which this World Policy becomes operative
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 13                  15 Apr 1991


     from holding the office of World Coordinator or acting as World
     Coordinator during the remainder of such term.

          Each Zone shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature
     thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole
     Number of Zone Senators and Node Representatives to which the
     Zone may be entitled in the FidoNet Congress: but no Zone
     Senator or Node Representative, or Node Operator holding an
     Office of Trust under FidoNet, shall be appointed an Elector.

          The Electors shall meet in their respective Zones, and vote
     by Ballot for World Coordinator and Vice World Coordinator, of
     whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same Zone
     with themselves.  And they shall name in their ballots the Node
     Operator voted for as World Coordinator, and the Node Operator
     voted for as Vice World Coordinator, and they shall make
     distinct Lists of all Node Operators voted for as World
     Coordinator, and of all Node Operators voted for as Vice World
     Coordinator, and of the number of votes for each, which Lists
     they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of
     FidoNet, directed to the President of the Zone Senate.  The
     President of the Zone Senate shall, in the Presence of the Zone
     Senate and Node House of Representatives, open all the
     Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted.  The Node
     Operator having the greatest Number of Votes for World
     Coordinator, shall be the World Coordinator, if such Number be a
     Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if no
     Node Operator have such a Majority, then from the Node Operators
     having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the List of
     those voted for as World Coordinator, the Node House of
     Representatives shall choose immediately, by Ballot, the World
     Coordinator.  But in choosing the World Coordinator, the votes
     shall be taken by Zones, the representations from each Zone
     having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a
     member or members from two-thirds of the Zones, and a majority
     of all the Zones shall be necessary to a Choice.  And if the
     House of Representatives shall not choose a World Coordinator
     whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the
     fourth day of March next following, then the Vice World
     Coordinator shall act as World Coordinator, as in case of the
     death or other disability of the World Coordinator.  The Node
     Operator having the greatest number of votes as Vice World
     Coordinator, shall be the Vice World Coordinator, if such number
     be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if
     no Node Operator have a majority, then from the two highest
     numbers on the List, the Zone Senate shall choose the Vice World
     Coordinator; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of
     two-thirds of the whole number of Zone Senators, a majority of
     the whole number shall be necessary to a choice.  But no Node
     Operator ineligible to the office of World Coordinator shall be
     eligible to that of Vice World Coordinator of FidoNet.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 14                  15 Apr 1991


          FidoNet Congress may determine the Time of chosing the
     Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes;
     which Day shall be the same throughout FidoNet.

          In Case of the Removal of the World Coordinator from
     Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge
     the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve
     on the Vice World Coordinator, and the FidoNet Congress may by
     FidoNet Policy, provide for the Case of Removal, Death,
     Resignation or Inability, both of the World Coordinator and Vice
     World Coordinator, declaring what Officer shall then act as
     World Coordinator, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until
     the Disability be removed, or a World Coordinator shall be
     elected.

          The World Coordinator shall not receive for his Services,
     any Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor
     diminished during the Period for which he shall have been
     elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other
     Emolument from FidoNet, or any of them.

          Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall
     take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear
     (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of World
     Coordinator of FidoNet, and will to the best of my Ability,
     preserve, protect and defend the World Policy of FidoNet."

                                Section 2.

          The World Coordinator may require the Opinion in writing,
     of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments,
     upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective
     Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons
     for Offences against FidoNet, except in Cases of Impeachment.

          He shall not have Power, except by and with the Advice and
     Consent of the Zone Senate, to make Treaties, provided
     two-thirds of the Fido Senators present concur; and he shall
     nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Zone
     Senate, shall appoint Fido Ambassadors, other Fido Ministers and
     Fido Consuls, Judges of the Fido Supreme Court, and all other
     Officers of FidoNet, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise
     provided for, and which shall be established by FidoNet Policy:
     but the FidoNet Congress may by FidoNet Policy vest the
     Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in
     the World Coordinator alone, in the Courts of FidoNet, or in the
     Heads of Departments.

          The World Coordinator shall have Power to fill up all
     Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Zone Senate,
     by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their
     next Session.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 15                  15 Apr 1991


                                Section 3.

          He shall from time to time give to the FidoNet Congress
     Information of the State of FidoNet, and recommend to their
     Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and
     expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both
     Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between
     them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn
     them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive
     Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that
     the FidoNet Policy be faithfully executed, and shall Commission
     all the Officers of FidoNet.

                                Section 4.

          The World Coordinator, Vice World Coordinator and all
     Officers of FidoNet, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment
     for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high
     Violations and Misdemeanors.

          The terms of the World Coordinator and Vice World
     Coordinator shall end at noon on the 20th day of January,

          If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the
     World Coordinator, the World Coordinator elect shall have died,
     the Vice World Coordinator elect shall become World Coordinator.
     If a World Coordinator shall not have been chosen before the
     time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the World
     Coordinator elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice
     World Coordinator elect shall act as World Coordinator until a
     World Coordinator shall have qualified; and the FidoNet Congress
     may by FidoNet Policy provide for the case wherein neither a
     World Coordinator elect nor a Vice World Coordinator elect shall
     have qualified, declaring who shall then act as World
     Coordinator, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be
     selected, and such Node Operator shall act accordingly until a
     World Coordinator or Vice World Coordinator shall have
     qualified.

          The FidoNet Congress may by FidoNet Policy provide for the
     case of the death of any of the Node Operators from whom the
     Node House of Representatives may choose a World Coordinator
     whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and
     for the case of the death of any of the Node Operators from whom
     the Zone Senate may choose a Vice World Coordinator whenever the
     right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

          In case of the removal of the World Coordinator from office
     or of his death or resignation, the Vice World Coordinator shall
     become World Coordinator.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 16                  15 Apr 1991


          Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice World
     Coordinator, the World Coordinator shall nominate a Vice World
     Coordinator who shall take office upon confirmation by a
     majority vote of both Houses of FidoNet Congress.

          Whenever the World Coordinator transmits to the President
     pro tempore of the Zone Senate and the Speaker of the Node House
     of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to
     discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he
     transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such
     powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice World
     Coordinator as Acting World Coordinator.

          Whenever the Vice World Coordinator and a majority of
     either the principal officers of the executive departments or of
     such other body as FidoNet Congress may by FidoNet Policy
     provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Zone
     Senate and the Speaker of the Node House of Representatives
     their written declaration that the World Coordinator is unable
     to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice World
     Coordinator shall immediately assume the powers and duties of
     the office as Acting World Coordinator.

          Thereafter, when the World Coordinator transmits to the
     President pro tempore of the Zone Senate and the Speaker of the
     Node House of Representatives his written declaration that no
     inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his
     office unless the Vice World Coordinator and a majority of
     either the principal officers of the executive department or of
     such other body as FidoNet Congress may by FidoNet Policy
     provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore
     of the Zone Senate and the Speaker of the Node House of
     Representatives their written declaration that the World
     Coordinator is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his
     office.  Thereupon FidoNet Congress shall decide the issue,
     assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in
     session.  If the FidoNet Congress, within twenty-one days after
     receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if FidoNet
     Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after FidoNet
     Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote
     of both Houses that the World Coordinator is unable to discharge
     the powers and duties of his office, the Vice World Coordinator
     shall continue to discharge the same as Acting World
     Coordinator; otherwise, the World Coordinator shall resume the
     powers and duties of his office.

                                Article III.

                                Section 1.

          The judicial Power of FidoNet, shall be vested in one
     supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the FidoNet
     Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.  The
     Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall be Node
     Operators of FidoNet and shall hold their Offices during good
     Behavior, and shall not receive for their Services, a
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 17                  15 Apr 1991


     Compensation, which shall not be increased or diminished during
     their Continuance in Office.

          No Node Operator shall be a Judge who shall not have
     attained to the Age of twenty-one Years, and been three Years a
     Node Operator of FidoNet.

         FidoNet judicial philosophy can be summed up in three rules:

            1) Thou shalt not lie, cheat or steal.

            2) Thou shalt not excessively annoy others.

            3) Thou shalt not become excessively annoyed.

                                Section 1a.

          The parties involved in a dispute are encouraged to solve
     their problems directly, without the intervention of a FidoNet
     Court.

          Any of the parties involved may request the intervention of
     the respective Coordinator: Network Coordinator (NC) if a
     dispute between members of the same network; Region Coordinator
     (RC) if a dispute between members of different networks on the
     same region; Zone Coordinator (ZC) if a dispute between members
     of different regions on the same zone; World Coordinator (WC) if
     a dispute between members of different zones.

          The Coordinator requested as "mediator", will ask each
     party to provide all the information before two weeks from the
     request and will make a decision within forty-five days after he
     received all the information from the involved parties.

          A Coordinator, unable to resolve a dispute, may name a
     third party who is a Node Operator of FidoNet to act as
     "mediator", provided the parties involved in the dispute agree.

          A mediator's decision may be appealed to the FidoNet Court
     immediately superior level if considered unfair: Region Courts
     handle appeals from decisions made by Network Courts;  Zone
     Courts handle appeals from decision made by Region Courts; The
     FidoNet Supreme Court handles appeals from decisions made by the
     Zone Courts; and appeals from decisions made by the World
     Coordinator.

                                Section 2.

          The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in FidoNet
     Policy and Equity, arising under this World Policy, the FidoNet
     Policy of Zones, and FidoNet Treaties made, or which shall be
     made, under their Authority; to all Cases affecting FidoNet
     Ambassadors, other public FidoNet Ministers and FidoNet Consuls;
     to Controversies to which FidoNet shall be a Party; to
     Controversies between two or more Zones; between a Zone and a
     Node Operator of another Zone; between Node Operators of
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 18                  15 Apr 1991


     different Zones; between Node Operators of the same Zone
     claiming right under Grants of different Zones, and between a
     Zone, or the Node Operators thereof, and foreign Zones, Node
     Operators, or Subjects.

          In all Cases affecting FidoNet Ambassadors, other public
     FidoNet Ministers and FidoNet Consuls, and those in which a Zone
     shall be a Party, the supreme Court shall have original
     Jurisdiction.  In all the other cases before mentioned, the
     supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to
     FidoNet Policy and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such
     Regulations as the FidoNet Congress shall make.

          The trial of all violations of FidoNet Policy, except in
     Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be
     held in the Zone where the said violations shall have been
     committed; but when not committed within any Zone, the Trial
     shall be at such Place or Places as the FidoNet Congress may by
     FidoNet Policy have directed.

                                   Section 3.

          Treason against FidoNet, shall consist only in levying War
     against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid
     and Comfort.  No Node Operator shall be convicted of Treason
     unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act,
     or on Confession in open Court.

          The FidoNet Congress shall have Power to declare the
     Punishment of Treason, but no conviction shall work Corruption
     of Blood, or Forfeiture, or be punishable or enforceable under
     the Laws of any Nation.

          No Node Operator shall be held to answer for a otherwise
     infamous FidoNet Policy violation, unless on a presentment or
     indictment of a FidoNet Grand Jury, except in cases arising when
     in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any
     Person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in
     jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any case to
     be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty,
     or property, without due process of FidoNet Policy; nor shall
     private property be taken for use, without just compensation.

          In all prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a
     speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the Zone and
     region wherein the violation shall have been committed, which
     region shall have been previously ascertained by FidoNet Policy,
     and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to
     be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory
     process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the
     Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 19                  15 Apr 1991


          In suits, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved,
     and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in
     any Court of the FidoNet, than according to the Policy of
     FidoNet.

          No bail shall not be required, nor fines imposed, nor cruel
     and unusual punishment inflicted, nor imprisonment held.

          The Judicial power of FidoNet shall not be construed to
     extend to any suit in Law or Equity of any Nation, commenced or
     prosecuted against one of FidoNet by Node Operators of another
     Zone or by Node Operators or Subjects of any Foreign Zone.

                                Article IV

                                Section 1.

          Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each Zone to the
     public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other
     Zone.  And the FidoNet Congress may by general FidoNet Policy
     prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings
     shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

                                Section 2.

          The Node Operators of each Zone shall be entitled to all
     Privileges and Immunities of Node Operators in the several
     Zones.  A Node Operator charged in any Zone with FidoNet Policy
     violation, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another
     Zone, shall on demand of the executive Authority of the Zone
     from which he flee, be delivered up, to and have the case
     removed to the Zone having Jurisdiction of the violation.

          No Node Operator held to be in violation of Policy in one
     Zone, under the FidoNet Policy thereof, escaping into another,
     shall, in Consequence of any FidoNet Policy or Regulation
     therein, be discharged from such Zone Policy violation, but
     shall be delivered up on Claim of the Zone, to such Zone, as may
     be due.

                                Section 3.

          New Zones may be admitted by the FidoNet Congress into this
     Network; but no new Zone shall be formed or erected within the
     Jurisdiction of any other Zone, nor any Zone be formed by the
     Junction of two or more Zones, or parts of Zones, without the
     Consent of the Legislatures of the Zones concerned as well as of
     the FidoNet Congress.

          The FidoNet Congress shall have Power to dispose of and
     make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory
     or other Property belonging to FidoNet; and nothing in this
     World Policy shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of
     FidoNet, or of any particular Zone.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 20                  15 Apr 1991


                                Section 4.

          FidoNet shall guarantee to every Zone in this Network a
     Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them
     against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of
     the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against
     domestic Violence.

                                Article V.

          The FidoNet Congress, whenever two-thirds of both House
     shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this World
     Policy, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds
     of the several Zones, shall call a Convention for proposing
     Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid, to all
     Intents and Purposes, as part of this World Policy, when
     ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several
     Zones, or by Conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or
     the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the FidoNet
     Congress:  Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to
     the Year Two Thousand shall in any Manner affect the First,
     Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Section of the first Article or affect
     the First and Third Section of the third Article; and that no
     Zone, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal
     Suffrage in the Zone Senate.

                                Article VI.

          All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before
     the Adoption of this World Policy, shall not be as valid against
     FidoNet under this World Policy.

          This FidoNet World Policy, and FidoNet World Policy which
     shall be made in Pursuance thereof, and all Treaties made, or
     which shall be made, under the Authority of FidoNet Policy,
     shall be the supreme FidoNet Policy of the Network; and the
     Judges in every Zone shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the
     World Policy or FidoNet Policy of any Zone to the contrary
     notwithstanding.

          The Zone Senators and Node Representatives before
     mentioned, and the members of the several Zone Legislatures, and
     all executive and judicial Officers, both of FidoNet and of the
     several Zones, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to
     protect, and support this World Policy; but no religious Test
     shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or
     public Trust under FidoNet.

                                Article VII.

          The Ratification of the Conventions of two Zones shall be
     sufficient for the Establishment of this World Policy between
     the Zones so ratifying the Same.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 21                  15 Apr 1991


          Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the Zones
     present the ___________ Day of ________ in the Year of our Lord
     One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety One and of the Fido Network
     the Eighth.

          In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names.


          North America / Zone 1                 Date:
          Europe        / Zone 2                 Date:
          Oceania       / Zone 3                 Date:
          Latin America / Zone 4                 Date:
          Africa        / Zone 5                 Date:
          Asia          / Zone 6                 Date:

          Ratified:  4/11/91 - ../../19..

                             *************

     Thanks - Bob Dervishian, NodOp    Submitted:  4/11/91
              Richmond Computer BBS
              FidoNet 1:264/170

     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 22                  15 Apr 1991


     Alexander Bochmann
     2:247/12@fidonet

     In the last issues of FidoNews, I saw a lot of people
     complainig about the new WorldPol - proposal...

     I just want to give them one thing to think about (and I hope I
     do not contradict the purposes of the writers of WorldPol, but
     that's what _I_ think about it).

     I see WorldPol as a document creating the background for the
     Zone/Region - policies, and not more.

     WorldPol has not to be proof against all the circumstances it's
     critics invent at the moment -- the future Zone/Region -
     policy-documents have to be!

     That's what WorldPol is all about: There can not be one single
     document defining the exact guidelines for several thousand
     Nodes in _completely_ different regions of the world. The
     guidelines given in WorldPol are flexible enough to make it
     possible to create new policy-documents for each zone and/or
     region that can exactly meet the local requirements.

     Policy4 is as flexible as a block of granite, that's why there
     are many people out of the US that just do not use it - but
     some folks in Zone 1 do not seem to realize that...

     Alex.

     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 23                  15 Apr 1991


     Mike Riddle
     1:285/27


                    MY COMMENTS ON THE WORLDPOL DEBATE


     We have seen a LOT of discussion of WorldPol in the last several
     "Snoozes."  We have also seen (in Volume 8, Number 14) a thoughtful
     article by Jack Decker on "The Unfulfilled Promise of Fidonet."
     Let me suggest that the Unfulfilled Promise is real (although I
     might not agree completely with Jack on the reasons), and that
     WorldPol addresses the major shortcomings that have brought the
     network to this point.  Let me share with you what I submitted to
     my NC when he {gasp} asked his net sysops for their input, and ask
     that you remember Jack Decker's comments as you consider this and
     other WorldPol discussion.

     > I recommend voting FOR adoption.
     >
     > 1.  This document explicitly recognizes the equality of the other
     > zones.  North America is not the only place with Fido technology,
     > and other countries/continents have different concerns.
     >
     > 2.  Within the framework established by WorldPol, each zone may
     > prescribe its own policy.  WorldPol explicitly provides that
     > current intra-zonal procedures (i.e., Policy 4) remain in place
     > until changed.
     >
     > 3.  Once WorldPol is in effect, all elections are really
     > elections, until a policy is established that changes that.
     > This means no more top-down dictates by the infamous *Cs.
     >
     > 4.  IMHO, our hobby network is better served by established zones
     > within a network, rather than by the ill-defined and poorly
     > thought-out domain system.  Maybe it can work someday, but right
     > now it's not.
     >
     > 5.  Some folks have criticized ambiguous language.  (1) They
     > didn't participate in the process of writing this thing, and
     > (2) some ambiguity is better in a document like this, since it
     > can be flexible.  I didn't see anything obnoxious in it.
     >
     > 6.  While WorldPol clearly anticipates geography as a major
     > factor in zone/region/net placement, it also clearly allows other
     > factors to influence the decision.  I think we know of an ex-node
     > or two that should have been in different nets/regions.
     >
     > That's enough for now.
     >
     > Mike
     >
     > "And that's the way it is, Monday, March 18, 1991. Say good
     > night, Chet."

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 24                  15 Apr 1991


     I have tried carefully to read the criticisms of WorldPol, and many
     of them are valid.  In my opinion, however, they are not persua-
     sive.  The two biggest difficulties with Policy 4 are its inflexi-
     ble administration and its North-American bias.  WorldPol would fix
     those problems, and would let Zone 1 retain those parts of Policy
     4 that seemed to fit.

     Pablo and others have pointed out the problems of geography in
     Germany and Holland.  Well, its not just Zone 2.  We had a member
     in our "local" (Omaha) network.  (He since removed himself from the
     nodelist.  More support for Jack Decker's latest comments?)  His
     physical (geographic) location was several hundred miles away from
     the Omaha area, on the edge of a different time zone, he obtained
     all of his net traffic long-distance, and telephone costs were
     /much/ cheaper if he were assigned to a net in Denver.  OOPS!
     Different region, different state, so sorry, geography rules!  The
     problem can exist right here in Zone 1, and I have seen it.

     But, you say, what about *C discretion?  Couldn't "they" have done
     something?

     Yes, even under Policy 4 "they" could have.  They didn't, and I'm
     not privy to their reasons.  From where I saw the action, it was
     another case of King Geography and Emperor Regional Boundaries,
     enforced by a *C structure that had no reason to be responsive to
     the sysops who form the network.

     WorldPol would have made it much easier to fix.  WorldPol would
     have given the *Cs more reason to be responsive to the valid needs
     of a sysop.

     There's nothing magic about Policy 4.  It grew from Policy 1 in an
     evolutionary process.  (Many of us thought the manner Policy 4 was
     "approved" was flawed, but it now has the blessings of time and
     usage).  There's no reason to stagnate now with Policy 4.  We can
     and must change for the good of the network that is our mutual
     hobby.

     Adopt WorldPol.  Zones, rewrite a Zone.Pol.n that will fill your
     needs, and get the sysops to approve.  Let's move on and try to
     expand and fulfill the potential of the network,

     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 25                  15 Apr 1991


     Dave Appel
     A user on 1:231/30

        WHEN AND HOW TO SWITCH LONG DISTANCE CARRIERS FOR EACH CALL

          Remember when AT&T sort of crashed a year or so ago?  Many
     businesses were out of business that day because their long
     distance calls wouldn't go through.  What the operators didn't
     tell you that day was that you could have *easily* used MCI or
     Sprint to complete your long distant calls, even if AT&T was
     your "default" or "dial 1" long distance carrier.  You sysops
     probably already know this, but this might make a good bulletin
     for your users or your local user group newsletter.
          If MCI is your long distance carrier you can easily switch
     to AT&T or Sprint on a call by call basis.  Ditto for any long
     distance carrier.
          Just remember these 3 simple numbers:
                      ATT    =  10288
                      MCI    =  10222
                      Sprint =  10333
          No matter who your "default" LD carrier is, you can specify
     that your call be carried by an alternate carrier by dialing one
     of the above numbers as a prefix.  Example: I have MCI as my
     "dial 1" or "default" carrier.  If I want to call my US senator
     using AT&T, perhaps because I want to see how AT&T's rate
     compares to MCI's, I would dial "10288 1-202-224-3121."  When I
     get my monthly bill from Indiana Bell, there would be an
     additional page at the end that bills me for all the calls I
     made via AT&T.  No surcharges, no special fees or additional
     costs.  It would be the same charge as if I had AT&T as my LD
     carrier, not taking into account any special calling plans.
          Suppose I am at a customer's site.  The customer has AT&T
     as their "dial 1" or "default" LD carrier.  I want to call
     home, and not have it billed to my customer. I have an MCI
     calling card, not an AT&T calling card. I have 3 options:
          Dial 950-1022 and use the instructions on my MCI card.
          Dial 1-800-950-1022 and use the instructions on my MCI
     card.
          Dial 10222 0-(area code + number) and use my card number at
     the beep, or wait for the operator and make it a collect call.
          Another reason for switching carriers on a call by call
     basis is line quality.  At one time MCI had a lot of line noise
     on its link between here and Louisville.  Customer support via
     modem was critical.  MNP was not available.  The best solution
     at the time was to use the 10288 prefix and use AT&T's lines for
     that particular connection.  It worked.

     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 26                  15 Apr 1991


     Doug Wittich
     1:261/1082

     The Consumer Advocate Echo is now available for distribution
     as noted below.

     This echo is a sibling of the Consumer Report echo.  It can be
     used for such things as discussing consumer rights and
     responsibilities.  This can be a far-reaching topic, including
     discussion of boycotts, letter-writing campaigns, and any
     other topic related to consumerism, but not directly related
     to the selection of products and services. There is already a
     lively debate of the Buy American topic going on.

     The moderator for Consumer Advocate is Al Thorley.  He may be
     contacted via netmail at 1:261/1056 or 1:261/1082.

     The Consumer Report echo, which has existed for over four
     years will continue to be devoted to the discussion of
     products and services, including the sharing of information
     for supporting purchase decisions, and helpful hints and tips
     for getting the most out of any product or service.

     Be sure to leave a message for your sysop in the private
     message area on the BBS you are using, asking to be connected
     to this new and useful echo. Refer him or her to this message
     for the following details they will need.

     The new echo, Consumer Advocate, is available from the
     following systems.  Please request a connection via the method
     indicated.   Note that this distribution method is temporary,
     until the volume can justify a request to put it on the Zone 1
     backbone.

      NODE       SYSOP Name    Connect to echo via  Delivery Mode
      ====       ==========    ===================  =============

      261/1082  Doug Wittich  request via netmail   Continuous Mail
      (Baltimore, Md)

      106/113   Rick Edwards  Areafix               Held for Polling
      (Houston, Tx)                                 (CM for locals)

      228/26    Glen Davis    request via netmail   Held for Polling
      (Grand Rapids, Mi)

      1:106/1555 is at 9600 and will serve as distributor to the
      NETWORK folks. His NETWORK address is: 8:7105/1555  or just
      7105/1555.   This of course is available to ANY sysop who
      participates in NETWORK echos.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 27                  15 Apr 1991


     BIG NOTE:  We are looking for someone to perform hubbing
     services in the Mountain and Pacific time zones.   Contact
     Doug Wittich at 1:261/1082 if you are interested.   This
     should only be necessary for a couple of weeks until the
     volume allows us to go on the backbone.

     The echo tag is C_ADVOCAT.  All bundles from 1:261/1082 will
     be done via ARCmail.   Those from 1:228/26 can be done by ARC
     or ZIP,  1:106/113 by any compression.  Specify your choice in
     Netmail to the sysop.

     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 28                  15 Apr 1991


     Don Benson
     Tribute Test Point 1:157/603

                     Why do we need a WorldPol?

     I have read with interest the debate in Fidonews since the
     publication of WorldPol.  The arguments fly back and forth, and
     both sides seem set in their decisions, yet one issue that I
     think is important has yet to come up.  Do we need an
     international "Policy" like WorldPol or Policy4?

     Fidonet has grown to encompass most of the world.  In doing so,
     it has absorbed people and technologies from many cultural and
     technological backgrounds.  To ask for one policy document which
     will satisfy all is an insurmountable task.  Yet this is what is
     being attempted in WorldPol.

     There are only two directions to move with such a document,
     either toward anarchy or dictatorship.  Some people complain that
     Policy 4 was too much like a dictatorship.  The opposite side
     claims the proposed WorldPol is too vague, and will promote
     anarchy.  A prime example of this is the debate over "western
     democratic standards."  If left in its vague form, it would
     prmote anarchy as people interpreted it as they liked.  However,
     changing the language to specific operational procedures would be
     forcing some people to adopt methods which aren't ideal for them.

     The crux of the situation seems to be that WorldPol tries to do
     too much.  Policy 4 had the same problem as Zones 2 through 6
     developed and flourished.  What needs to be done is to simply
     throw out anything that is not necessary on an international
     level.

     For example, the issue of geographical nets comes to mind.  What
     difference does it make to Joe Sysop in Anytown, USA if Jurgen
     Sysop in Jeneburg, Germany is not in a geographical net?
     Especially when sending netmail?  This is something that should
     be decided on the zone or even regional level, not
     internationally.

     Concerning elections, perhaps WorldPol should only decree how the
     IC is elected.  It should have no say or take any position on how
     any other *C's are elected.  This still leaves room for debate,
     since the specific method of an IC election will never please
     everyone.  However, it also doesn't place any weight on elections
     at lower levels.

     The trickiest area I see in defining a WordPol is handling
     international disputes.  In fact, this should be the main body of
     WorldPol, and have the most meaning.  Everything else should only
     be minimal procedural definitions for the sake of structure, which
     is necessary to keep the organization together.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 29                  15 Apr 1991


     One final point for anybody who is or wants to have an input on
     WorldPol.  I never knew one was being developed (mostly because I
     am a fairly new Fidonet node) until I saw it in the Snooze.  For
     those who are sending in suggestions, how about this one: Try to
     make any Policy reflect how things are actually working.

     In sum, I think that WorldPol could probably be reduced to a
     third of the current size, and we would end up with a smaller,
     more effective document.  Take a few moments and look at WorldPol
     again.  Ask yourself if each section is absolutely necessary to
     be controlled at the international level?  If not, why include
     it?

     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 30                  15 Apr 1991


      FidoCon '91
      August 16th through 18th, 1991
      1:1/91@Fidonet {or something like that}

      FidoCon '91 Membership
      P.O. Box 486
      Louisville, CO  80027
      Contact telephone (303) 426-1847

      FidoCon '91 VIP Membership: $104 US* Rate Changes July 15th
      Banquet                       25 US
                                   ===
                                  $129 US

          * Membership After July 15, and at the door
          *         $169
          * Banquet   25
          *         ====
          *         $194

          *NEW*
          A "No Frills", good from 9am to 6pm, for Seminar and
          Dealers Rooms ONLY membership (no Convention Hospitality
          Suite access or ticket for the SuperSystem Drawing) is
          available for $45 US for the three days or $20 US per
          day.  Full credit can be applied to a VIP membership if
          you elect to upgrade.
          *NEW*
          A "Supporting Membership" for those unable to attend, is
          available for $25 US.  Supporting members Will receive
          the progress reports and program book.

          Hotel:   Sheraton Lakewood
                   690 Union Blvd
                   Lakewood, CO
                   (303) 987-2000

      Rooms:

        Single/Double                  $59 US per night
        Adjoining Rooms (Pseudo-Suite) 118 US
        Triple/Quad                     78 US
        Adjoining Rooms (Pseudo-Suite) 156 US
        Suites from                    450 US

     Guests of Honor:

      Tom Jennings      -- FidoCon '91 Guest of Honor
      Tim Pozar         -- Gateway Guru
      Ray Gwinn         -- The Fossil master his self
      Vince Perriello   -- THE REAL President of Bit Bucket Software &
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 31                  15 Apr 1991


                              publisher of FidoNews.
      Alan Applegate    -- VICE-President of Bit Bucket, Writer of the
                              infamous Binkley Docs & Technical
                              Support for eSoft.
      Bob Hartman       -- From Bloom County to you.
      Phil Becker       -- CEO of eSoft .. publisher of TBBS/TDBS/TIMS
      Steve Jackson     -- CEO of Steve Jackson Games ..  Publisher of
                              GURPS CYBERPUNK and center of Secret
                              Service attention for over 8 months.
      John Perry Barlow -- Internet Guru and one of the founders of
                              the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

     Guests of Dishonor:

      Terry Travis      -- Vince and Alan's prime target in the SYSOP
                              Mud pie Fight

     Those indicating they will be attending:

      Tom Tcimpids
                         Several notable writers of computer columns
                         Several popular Science fiction authors
      Mitch Kapor        Founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

     Invited and not yet committed:

      Steve Wozniack     The WOZ, one of the founders of Apple

     Convention Hospitality Suite by:

     Kevin "DOC" McNeil and the FidoNet COOKING echo.

     Featuring: Seadog Casserole, Zip-Tarts, Pak-Man Cookies,
                Roast Opus

     Paid Memberships:

       George Peace &         Cheryl Whiston
       Christine Keefer       William M. Van Glahn &
       Eric L. Smith &        Janet Van Glahn
       Diane B. Smith         Steven G. See &
       Marshall Barry &       Pam See
       Michelle Weisblat      Steve Jackson
       Jim Burt &             Charlie Bass
       Karen Burt             Rodney A. Aloia
       Scott Munhollon &      Girard Westerberg
       Tammy Munhollon        Daniel D. Segard
       Peter N. White &       Russell Anderson
       Cheryl Gordon          Brian P. Bartee
       Thomas Pat Nefos &     Tom Jennings
       Judy Nefos             Ray Gwinn
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 32                  15 Apr 1991


       Peter Stewart &        Tim Pozar
       Michele Hamilton       Terry Travis
       Daniel L. Bonner &     Phil Becker
       Linda L. Bonner        Bob Hartman
       Terry N. Rune' &       Alan Applegate
       Wayne A. Rune'         Chris Anderson
       James H. Dunmyer &     Jeff P. Brothers
       Janice L. Dunmyer      Andrew Milner
       Mike Ratledge &        James F. Smith
       Donna Ratledge         Joaquim Homrighausen
       Michael Kanavy &       Joe Dehn
       Elizabeth Kanavy       Bruce H. Kirschner
       Bob Whiston &          Sam Saulys
       Ken Zen                George R. Cornell
       Ben Cunningham         Bill Bacon
       John P. Roberts Jr.    Zhahai Stewart
       Chris Rand             Michael Pratt
       Norman B. Henke        John Johnson
       Stanley A. Hirschman   Brenda Donovan
       John R. Souvestre      Ed Moore
       Steven L. Rusboldt     Mike Eckles
       Emmitt W. A. Dove      Don Marquart
       Fabian R. Gordon       Jeff Tensly
       Don Daniels            Thomas Lange
       Tony Goggin            Mark K. Kreutzian
       Steve Raymond

     Attending Banquet

       Jim Burt &             Charlie Bass
       Karen Burt             Rodney A. Aloia
       Peter N. White &       Girard Westerberg
       Cheryl Gordon          Daniel D. Segard
       Daniel L. Bonner &     Russell Anderson
       Linda L. Bonner        Brian P. Bartee
       James H. Dunmyer &     Tom Jennings
       Janice L. Dunmyer      Ray Gwinn
       Mike Ratledge &        Tim Pozar
       Donna Ratledge         Terry Travis
       Michael Kanavy &       Phil Becker
       Elizabeth Kanavy       Bob Hartman
       William M. Van Glahn & Chris Anderson
       Janet Van Glahn        Jeff P. Brothers
       Steven G. See &        Andrew Milner
       Pam See                James F. Smith
       Ed Moore               Joaquim Homrighausen
       Don Marquart           Ben Cunningham
       Mark K. Kreutzian      John P. Roberts Jr.
       Fabian R. Gordon       Norman B. Henke
       Don Daniels            John R. Souvestre
       Brenda Donovan         John Johnson
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 33                  15 Apr 1991


     Seminars:

      Surviving Government Scrutiny           The Ultimate BBS/BBSing
                                              in the future

      TBBS\TDBS\TIMS                          Getting the most from
                                              BinkleyTerm

      AMAX made easy                          Gateways - the
                                              internetwork connection

      Dealing with SYSOP burnout              BBSing in the 90's and
                                              beyond

      The Ethical Software Hacker             For this I gave up my
                                              Love Life?

      How to moderate an Echo                 Copyrights demystified

      Software Development Roundtable         DOS 4/5, Windows

      Developers Roundtable                   Modem Roundtable

      File your own copyrights for $10        XRS/RAX/QMX/SeX/XOR/
                                              OREO/MORE

      Association of Shareware                XRS (the Universal
      Professionals                           Offline Reader Editor

      BBS Role Playing Gaming Forum           Promoting your BBS

      BBS Business Sense                      MASS Storage/CD ROM's

     BBS Users Groups Activities:

      TBBS Users Group will be convening as FidoTUG '91 during the
      convention.
      AlterCon will be sharing the facilities.
           AlterNet Costume Banquet          Royal Court
           Meeting of the Dukes

     Fun Activities:

      Traditional Hard Diskus Throw           Floppy Fling
      The Big Three Brewery Bash              National SYSOP Mud Pie
                                              Fight
      Air Force Academy Tour                  Garden of the Gods
      Psychic and Physical Tours              Golfing Tours of
      of Colorful Colorado                    Colorado

     We are scheduling additional seminars and social activities.
     Fire off a message letting us know what you'd like to see and
     do.  If you would like to see someone special, let us know as
     well.
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 34                  15 Apr 1991


       *** FidoCon '91 Dealers Room will be open from 9:00 am to
       *** 6:00 pm Friday and Saturday, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm Sunday

     Manufacturers Invited:

       AAC Telecomm                            Adaptec, Inc.
       Alloy Computer Products, Inc.           American MiTAC
                                               Corporation
       Anchor Automation                       Artisoft
       AST Research, Inc.                      ATI Technologies Inc.
       Bit Bucket Software                     BIX
       Borland                                 Chesterfield
                                               Financial Corp.
       Clark Development Company, Inc          Coconut Computing,
                                               Inc.
       Compucom                                Connect Tech, Inc
       DigiBoard                               Everex Systems, Inc.
       Fujitsu                                 Galacticomm, Inc.
       Gates Distributing                      GVC Technologies Inc.
       GW Associates                           Hayes Microcomputer
                                               Products
       Hitachi                                 Microcom, Inc.
       Microsoft                               Motorola Computer
                                               Group
       Multi-Tech Systems, Inc.                Online Communications
                                               Inc.
       Practical Peripherals                   Prodigy Services
       Quarterdeck Office Systems              Searchlight Software
       Supra Corporation                       Surf Computer Services
       System Enhancement Associates           Telebit Corporation
       U.S. Robotics, Inc.                     VSI Telecommunications
                                               Inc.
       Western Digital                         Zoom Telephonics, Inc.

     Confirmed dealers

       Bit Bucket Software    CDB Systems              eSoft
       Mustang Software, Inc.

     Drawings & Prizes

       Including:

      16 Line TBBS/TDBS/TIMS Sysop Dream SYSTEM CPU with a 486 or
      a 386 at least 3/4 Gig disk, 16 ports and several modems
      .. depending on number of attendees.  A portion of the
      memberships go to purchasing this system.

      Autographed copies of the books that made Steve Jackson a
      household name, GURPS CYBERPUNK.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 35                  15 Apr 1991


      For the SYSOP that has everything
      300 baud acoustic Sysop Nightmare System

      All kinds of donated equipment and software, some even
      working.

     Hospitality Suites

        eSoft                   Bit Bucket Software

        More as it comes to being.  Subscribe to the FIDOCON_91 Echo.

        This will be THE BBSing Event of '91, BE THERE.

     ================== FidoCon '91 Registration Form ===============

     Name: __________________________________________________________

     Street Address: ________________________________________________

     City: ________________________ State/Province: _________________

     Postal Code: ________________________ Country: _________________

     Voice #: ___________ Work #: ____________ Net Address: _________

     Domain (FidoNet/AlterNet/RIME) _________________________________

     Membership types VIP $104  No Frills $45 Day $20  Supporting $25

     Name: ___________________ Membership Type: ______ Amount: ______

     Name: ___________________ Membership Type: ______ Amount: ______

     No. of T-Shirts: ___ Sizes(S/M/L/XL): _____  @  $15/ea =  ______

     Complaints (Print Legibly): _ Banquet Tickets: _ @ $25/ea= _____

                                                TOTAL $       _______

     Visa/Mastercard Number ____________________ Expire Date: _______

     Signature: _______________________ Date: ________

     Please make checks payable (in U.S.A. Dollars) to FIDOCON '91
     and Mail To:
      FidoCon '91
      P.O. Box 486, Louisville,
      CO 80027-0486


     FidoNews 8-15                Page 36                  15 Apr 1991


     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 37                  15 Apr 1991


     Dick Augustsson
     2:203/119

                       A word from down below
                      ========================

     Not until recently did I discover something called 'FidoNews'.
     I hooked on the echo, and have now automated printing of it.
     Once having read my first issue, it occurred to me that this
     thing was mandatory.

     - Does the blood really reach the capillaries?

     And what, to begin with, do I mean by this question? Well,
     you COULD say that this article is directed to the
     'management' of FidoNet, to point out some problems. For
     instance, it was not until VERY recently (before I took a
     stand in a local issue) that I even LOOKED at Policy4. Things
     had been working perfectly well without it, so why bother?
     And, it was not until I read it, that I understood I should
     have read it even before I received my node number.
     The same goes for FidoNews, and God knows how many FTS-* and
     FSC-*. Of course, it WAS listed at some place that having read
     Policy4 was an imperative to even be considered a node, but,
     as I said, who cares? There are rather often grudging about
     rules in some of the local echos, and these disputes more
     often than not ends when someone (a SysOp!) asks 'What does
     Policy say?'

     As recently as yesterday, I received a letter from a Hub
     Coordinator in net 2:201, who complained about my Origin Line
     in one of the less serious echos (My origin was "Well,
     <name>, there is some blood on the sheet...", a quotation
     which will be remembered for a long time for reasons I won't
     discuss here). He wrote, "How about using the Origin like it's
     supposed to, according to Policy?" And that's even a person
     in the coordinator structure! I replied, 'As far as I know,
     Policy [Policy4] does not mention Origin Lines. I assume
     you are referring to FTS-0004.' I still have no idea whether
     or not FTS-0004 deals with Origin Lines, I just know it deals
     with the basics of Echomail. One thing I DID know, was that
     all Policy4 mentions about Echomail is in section 9.9, where
     it is, in short, stated that echomail shall be considered
     equivalent to netmail when disputes arise. But again, this
     is not relevant, other than to show how little I know (and
     how little I CARE).

     So, what I mean by that question is this: Just how effectively
     does information from the 'top' reach the 'bottom' of the
     organisation (ie, FidoNet)?

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 38                  15 Apr 1991


     My response is 'poorly indeed'.

     When I upgraded from point to node in Feb '91, I had dealt
     with most of the technical problems. THOSE were something I
     cared about, something I tried to straighten out. At such a
     point, who really does care about what an IEC does? (I still
     do not know this. It wasn't until today I discovered there
     was a document called "echopol1" - I am now searching for it,
     and will have read it by the time this gets published.)
     Most of the sysops I know don't deal with this kind of stuff
     at all. Their attitude is, basically, "What's that to me?"
     And that is a VERY good question. Exactly what benefit
     comes to the reader of the official documents, apart from
     being able to refer to a particular section when someone
     comes with a Policy inquiry?

     People at root level are today expected to actively search
     for new information. It is not reasonable to demand this.
     The overall lack of knowledge regarding Policy demonstrates
     this in a perfectly simple and straightforward manner. What
     FidoNet needs is something that forwards information to THEM,
     and not the other way around. OK, we have FidoNews. But to be
     honest - how many people read FidoNews more actively than
     they read the morning paper? OK, I do, because I haven't seen
     so much of it yet. But I don't read the articles over and
     over, give them some thought, and then read them again -
     something that's needed if the information is to be passed
     down to root level effectively.

     But, to make myself clear - I am by no means saying NOBODY
     in my surroundings know what rules to follow. What I say
     is MOST, or at least MANY people don't. For example, I know
     one person in R20 whom I practically ALWAYS turn to when I
     need some TechRefs, and I know in advance he will give me
     the names of the needed FSCs and FTSs.

     - All this talk about WorldPol

     I haven't seen the thing. And the articles on it suggest to
     me I shouldn't. My first impression of FidoNews (much derived
     from the article on WorldPol, page 1, issue 8:13) was that it
     was something for the Elite, something that I needed not be
     concerned about. The article discussed various aspects of
     things I'd never heard about, and referred to things I didn't
     know existed. This, of course, further weakens the information
     chain.

     - Other, similar experiences

     I used to be engaged politically. In that organisation, we had
     a structure quite similar to the one of FidoNet: we had the
     (main) council (ZCC), districts (Regions), local associations
     (Nets) and individuals (nodes). For information to be passed
     down to EVERY (active) individual in the organisation, the
     following was required:
     o Lots of information in the magazine (of the organisation).
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 39                  15 Apr 1991


     o A literal bombardment of information AND STIMULATION! from
       every level above to the one immediately below.

     When compared to FidoNet's info chain, this would have meant
     every individual would have had to contact his 'superior', or
     participate in lots of administrative discussions, to get
     some information (FidoNews excepted) in my political
     parallel. It definitely wouldn't work - and it doesn't in
     FidoNet, either.

     Another example: When I added something to my NEWS file, it
     was rarely noticed by my users. They had the habit of
     impatiently pressing 'S' (for "Stop") to get to the main menu.
     So, having realised the problem (the News file wasn't an
     effective medium), I created an alternate information route:
     individual messages. Every time I have something to say, I
     write a letter and feed it into a program I wrote, 'NewsGen',
     which posts the message to all my users. And I must say, they
     really read it, the problem has been solved. And this
     is my suggestion for FidoNet as a whole, as well.

     - What to do?

     As I said, I suggest that every concerned individual get a
     personal message over the Net when something (say, an
     election) is about to take place. This is a fairly simple
     solution, yet easy to implement (more on this later), and it
     doesn't give anybody anything more to do, and only marignally
     increases phone bills - systems with Echomail won't know
     the difference.

     To be precise, if there is an election for a new REC in region
     2:20 (which is the case), let the RC write a message about it,
     and have it distributed to all persons involved. This way
     the information WILL reach them. And another thing, it would
     be everything but sane to publish such a thing in FidoNews,
     for such obvious reasons I won't even mention them. By
     'persons involved', I mean (depends on the situation) every
     SysOp, every point, every NC, HC...

     I will suggest a technical solution for this in the following
     section...

     - The BOMBRUN kludge: a proposal

     Syntax: <ascii 1>BOMBRUN [ Z | R | N | H | P  [ ZE | RE | NE ]]

     Purpose: To effectively spread information throughout concerned
     parts of FidoNet.

     Explanation: When this kludge is intercepted by a mailer,
     it will make copies of the message and distribute it as a
     personal message to every sysop downlink from the mailer's
     system.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 40                  15 Apr 1991


     Exception: If a letter is specified after the kludge, the
     message will never be distibuted below the corresponding
     organisational level, where Z = Zone Coordinator, R =
     Region Coordinator, N = Net Coordinator and H = Hub
     Coordinator. If no letter is specified, it will go to all
     nodes. If P is specified, it will go to points also.

     Exception to exception: If a second argument is used, the
     message will, before it is 'stopped' at the level indicated
     by the first letter, be copied to ZECs, RECs and NECs,
     respectively (for the arguments ZE, RE and NE).

     Further comments: It should be possible to remove the BOMBRUN
     kludge when the final copy is made, as to reduce processing
     at the level below (if the kludge needn't be intercepted, why
     send it?)

     Example: Suppose IC wants to announce an election of a new
     REC in R2:20. It should go to all NCs, plus the NECs and REC.
     What he does is to write a message to RC2:20, adding the
     BOMBRUN kludge with arguments N and NE. At RC level, it will
     be noted that this is the last copying level (the next level,
     ie NCs, do not need the BOMBRUN kludge), so it is removed
     on all outgoing copies. Furthermore, since the message is
     stopped here (BOMBRUN kludge removed), the second argument
     is taken into account, and a copy is also sent to all NECs
     and the REC in the region.

     Another example: A new policy has been adopted. IC writes
     a message to himself, and adds a plain BOMBRUN kludge. It is
     (from there) copied to the ZCs, where the kludge is
     intercepted, and the message is distributed to the RCs, and
     so on down to NC level, where the final copy (for the nodes)
     is made and the kludge removed from the copied messages.

     It should be considered, when writing a message about an
     election for a new REC or ZEC, for example, that everybody
     might not know the meaning of the term REC/ZEC.

     - Some final words

     The above proposal most certainly will meet lots of resistance,
     but I just could not sit here, watching on one hand the Elite
     in FidoNews discussing things I hadn't dreamed of, and on the
     other people down here who don't know who's IC. (I don't.)
     The two ought to discover each other. That was the purpose
     of this article. And, I wanted to supply a means as well.

     Comments are welcome to Dick Augustsson at 2:203/119.


     FidoNews 8-15                Page 41                  15 Apr 1991


                // Dick "Wur:Palainen" Augustsson, 2:35am, 10-Apr-91
     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 42                  15 Apr 1991


     Christopher Baker
     1:374/14, Titusville_FL_USA

                         MENSANS_ONLY Echo

     MENSANS_ONLY is open to any verified member, past or
     present, of any Mensa organization.

     MENSANS_ONLY is not connected with American Mensa, Ltd.
     [The High IQ Society], or any other Mensa organization
     anywhere. MENSANS_ONLY has no opinions. Any opinions
     expressed are those of the writer and any replier.
     MENSANS_ONLY exists solely to provide a convenient forum
     for electronic conversation between accepted members of any
     Mensa organization. Any other inference you may glean from
     perusing this Echo is all in your head, which is where it
     should stay.

     It is Hosted and Moderated from Rights On! in
     Titusville_FL_USA at 1:374/14. It is intentionally withheld
     from the FidoNet Backbone distribution system and is
     offered for point-to-point links only. Any Backbone system
     discovering this Echo traversing their system should
     immediately remove it and notify anyone sending or
     receiving it through them to desist unless said Backbone
     system is an active and verified participant of
     MENSANS_ONLY.

     Anyone may read the traffic in this Echo but only verified
     members may post in this Echo. Non-members interested in
     more information about Mensa are directed to the general
     Mensa Echo of the same name [MENSA] available from the
     FidoNet Backbone and Moderated by Dave Aronson of
     1:109/120.

     Sysops who link into MENSANS_ONLY agree to abide by the
     access restrictions above. The content of that Echo is not
     restricted to any single topic or idea.

     The number of systems linked to this Echo and the volume of
     traffic in this Echo varies. Traffic is generally light
     which is typical of non-Backbone, special interest Echos.

     Anyone interested in linking into MENSANS_ONLY, should send
     Netmail to: Christopher Baker at 1:374/14 {Rights On!,
     Titusville_FL_USA}.

     The following is a list of primary links for M_O:

     [Zone 1:] 109/120 109/506 109/508 114/18 114/70 114/72
     114/74 114/800 374/14 135/71 250/416 266/71 380/7 3610/98.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 43                  15 Apr 1991


     The Sysops of the above systems may link others into
     MENSANS_ONLY based on the acceptance of the restrictions,
     imposed above, by the link requesting Sysop.

     Anyone requiring a direct feed or further information
     should send Netmail to me at 1:374/14. Rights On! is a 24
     hour system currently at 9600+ bps. It is now at 9600+ on a
     USR Courier HST dual standard courtesy of their Sysop
     Purchase Plan.

     TTFN.
     Chris



     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 44                  15 Apr 1991


     Jack Decker
     1:154/8 Fidonet

     The Unfulfilled Promise of Fidonet (Part 2)

     In case you're wondering; no, this didn't start out to be a
     "mini-series".  It's just that after I sent in my article for
     last week's Fidonews, I realized that I had omitted one very
     important point.

     One of the main reasons I see Fidonet as an "unfulfilled
     promise" is due to the nature and quality of our echomail
     conferences.  I've sure we've all been sneered at by UseNet
     devotees at one time or another because they feel their
     conferences are of a much higher caliber, but there is some
     justification to their claims.  Read a Fidonet conference and a
     UseNet conference on the same topic, and in most cases the
     UseNet conference will contain much more "meat" and a lot less
     noise.

     Now, in part this is because almost anyone can get into
     Fidonet, while not everyone can access UseNet.  For various
     reasons, the typical high school kid is often going to find it
     easier to get into a Fidonet conference than a UseNet
     conference.  Our accessibility is a strength, since we make
     information available to those who otherwise couldn't access an
     information service, and I think few would want to change that.

     But there are other things about echomail that could be changed
     to our advantage.  Please consider that in many ways our
     current echomail technology is locked in at the "dancing bear"
     stage of development (you've heard the saying:  "The wonder of
     a dancing bear is not how well he dances, but that he dances at
     all."  The wonder of echomail is not how well or how
     efficiently it moves messages around the country, but that it
     does so at all?  Maybe that was true three or four years ago,
     but I think we're ready to improve the design now).

     One need only consider certain facts about echomail the realize
     that it's already a bit of a technological dinosaur.  When you
     see nine or ten lines of SEEN-BY's, and four or five "IFNA
     kludge lines" in a typical echomail message, you know there's a
     problem.  When you see all sorts of political restrictions
     being imposed to keep from creating echomail "dupe loops", you
     know there's a problem.  When you see a message in a very
     active conference saying, "Is this echo dead?  Nobody in our
     region has seen a message in this echo in two months!", you
     know there's a problem.

     Before I go on, I should point out that echomail doesn't always
     come out on the short end of the balance.  We've developed some
     highly effective ways of compressing and sending echomail
     bundles to other nodes.  The mailer programs developed for use
     in Fidonet are probably years ahead of any similar software
     developed for commercial purposes (on the IBM-compatible
     platform, at least).  Our problems are not so much with the
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 45                  15 Apr 1991


     transmission of echomail (except when you get two mailers from
     different authors that won't talk to each other due to a lack
     of standards, or enforcement of standards, as I discussed last
     week) as with the actual format of the echomail packets and
     messages that are sent, and the software used to import and
     export echomail messages.

     As I've pointed out, in many ways GroupMail technology is
     superior to echomail, although it has some deficiencies of its
     own (such as an 8K maximum message size).  But I did not really
     explain why.  One major reason is that you don't run into the
     "is this area turned on to us?" problem.  Consider that with
     echomail, every node in the path of an echomail conference must
     have the conference "turned on" to both the nodes that it
     feeds, and the node that it gets its feed from.  If the echo
     isn't turned on to the nodes it is supposed to be feeding, then
     those nodes (and the nodes they feed) won't receive any
     messages in the conference.  If the echo isn't turned on to the
     node it gets its feed from, then any messages entered on that
     node or any of the nodes it feeds won't make it out into the
     conference.  Now, some major conferences may touch several
     hundred nodes, all of which must have their AREAS.BBS (or
     equivalent) file set up correctly in order for every message
     entered in the conference to be received by every node in the
     conference.  Would it surprise you if I said that in many
     cases, this level of perfection is not achieved, and some
     messages don't get out?

     What is needed, and is only partially achieved in GroupMail, is
     a way to get a complete feed in both directions without too
     much chance of an improperly constructed control file
     disrupting everything.

     Another, much larger problem is twofold:  The difficulty of
     getting a new conference carried by many nodes, coupled with
     the inability to split existing conferences into subgroups.

     Let's take a hypothetical example.  Suppose you are a
     participant in the MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) conference and
     you discover that there are a number of Amway distributors
     there, and you'd like to talk about topics specific to Amway
     but not MLM in general.  However, the majority of participants
     in MLM aren't interested in Amway and would doubtless resent
     having to wade through 20 or 30 Amway-specific messages per day
     in order to find the general MLM messages.  On the other hand,
     if those folks interested in Amway tried to start an echomail
     conference called AMWAY, chances are that few systems would
     carry it, and the backbone nodes might even have some
     reluctance to carry it.  Now the point is not that I'm pushing
     for an Amway conference (which I'm not!) but rather that this
     is how MANY echo conferences become uninteresting to the
     original participants.  Consider the following scenario, which
     is the generic outline of the specific situation hypothesized
     above:

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 46                  15 Apr 1991


     1) An echomail conference on a general topic is formed.

     2) As time goes by, a number of people interested in one or
     more sub-topics of the general topic are attracted to the
     conference.

     3) Some of the original participants of the general conference
     decide that they don't have the time to keep up with the added
     message traffic generated by the sub-topic(s), and either
     complain or just drop out of the conference.

     4) Some of those interested in the sub-topics (perhaps with
     prompting by the conference moderator and/or other
     participants) attempt to form one or more new echomail
     conferences on the sub-topics.  However, the problem in this is
     that first of all, it is sometimes difficult to get a new
     conference on the backbone, and even if you succeed in that,
     there is no guarantee that the systems that carried the
     original conference will also carry the new one.

     5) Because in many cases the conferences on the sub-topics will
     not be carried by most of the boards carrying the original
     conference, those same sub-topics will continue to appear in
     the original conference, only now, in addition to the
     conversations on those sub-topics, there will also be the
     additional messages of "Why don't you take this conversation to
     the XXX echo?", and the responses such as "Because my sysop
     doesn't carry the XXX echo" or "Because the XXX echo isn't
     available in my Net/Region/Zone" or "Because there are no BBS's
     in my local calling area that carry the XXX echo".

     6) If a sub-topic conference happens to become successful, it
     will probably spawn some sub-topics of its own.  Recursively
     GOTO to #2.

     7) If a sub-topic conference becomes only moderately successful
     (not dead, but carried on far fewer boards than the original
     conference that spawned it), people will cross-post messages in
     BOTH conferences just to make sure they're seen by anyone who
     might be remotely interested, and thereby actually increasing
     overall echo traffic.

     Now, the real negative effect of all of this is that as the
     traffic in a conference (the number of messages per day) rises,
     the number of people who have limited time to read and
     participate in the conference decreases.  Furthermore, when a
     high percentage of participants in a conference are those who
     seem to have all the time in the world to read echoes, the
     number of messages with no significant content tends to
     increase (if their time isn't valuable to them, they probably
     tend to figure it isn't valuable to you, either).  Also,
     off-topic messages beget more off-topic messages, and there are
     those will post in certain messages in specific echoes simply
     because they are large echoes (the "please excuse this
     off-topic message but this is of such earth-shaking importance
     that I knew you wouldn't mind" type message...  which, of
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 47                  15 Apr 1991


     course, promptly generates about twenty royal flame-type
     messages from those who DID mind).

     We sometimes describe such a conference as having an
     unacceptable "signal to noise" ratio... that is, there is too
     much "noise" (messages of no real interest to the reader) and
     far to little "signal" (messages that contain at least
     SOMETHING worth reading).

     UseNet tends to get around this problem by having subgroups
     attached to the original conference.  As I understand it (and I
     could be wrong about this, so don't quote me) if you get a
     particular conference, you also automatically get all subgroups
     attached to it.  The reverse is not necessarily true, you can
     get a subgroup without taking the parent group, but not the
     other way around.  So, if someone wants to form a subgroup, all
     the nodes taking the parent conference automatically get the
     subgroup, yet users of a BBS can select whether they wish to
     read just the parent group, just the subgroup, or the parent
     and all subgroups combined.  The point is that you don't have a
     situation where you are told to "take this conversation to the
     XXX conference" but cannot because it isn't available on the
     BBS you are using (or, if you're a sysop, from the original
     node feeding the conference to you).

     Some sysops might object to this because they would see it as
     being forced to carry a conference they don't want.  That's the
     wrong way to look at it.  It really should be viewed as that
     you are carrying ONE large conference on a general topic, but
     the software gives users the ability to "categorize" their
     messages into a particular sub-topic so that those reading the
     conference don't have to read about certain sub-topics that are
     of no interest to them.  Think of it as pre-defined message
     threads within a topic, if that helps.

     Of course, this ability to subdivide conferences is totally
     beyond the capabilities of echomail.  And THAT, folks, is why
     some of our conferences are not of as high a quality as
     UseNet's.  Yes, the inability to have fully-moderated
     conferences is also a factor, as is the fact that Fidonet users
     sometimes come from slightly different backgrounds.  But, I
     feel that the inability to subdivide an existing conference,
     coupled with the difficulty in getting a new conference onto
     the backbone (and from there, onto BBS's around the network)
     tends to keep a lot of unrelated topics going in the larger
     conferences, and that causes some readers and participants to
     leave those conferences.

     The other related problem is that often someone will have a
     good idea for an echo conference, but unless you're the
     promoter type, it's far too difficult to get it started.  The
     biggest problem is getting it onto the backbone and then onto
     other BBS's.  Sometimes you just know that if a particular
     conference were carried on numerous BBS's it would be very
     popular, but sysops won't take it because it's not popular now,
     and it won't ever get popular if nobody carries it.  Catch 22.
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 48                  15 Apr 1991


     If you can get an echo popularized in Fidonet, you've either
     managed to pick a really hot topic, or you should consider a
     career in sales!

     Part of my reason for getting into Fidonet in the first place
     was because I saw it as a way to learn more about topics of
     interest to me.  Trouble is, it seems that all the topics I am
     interested in fall into one of three categories:  1) There's no
     echo covering it,  2) There's an echo covering it but it's a
     dead (or nearly dead) echo,  3) There's an echo covering it but
     it's so large and has so many off-topic or "useless" messages
     that I just don't have the time to keep up with it.

     This is a problem that clearly cries out for a technical
     solution...  a new format for echomail messages and/or packets,
     that allows fully-moderated conferences, and sub-topics (to as
     many levels deep as necessary) within the main conference.  But
     will our software authors ever be able to agree on any new
     standard that might be proposed along these lines?  I hope so,
     but only time will tell.  I do think that if this can be
     achieved it would make a major difference in the quality of
     echomail conferences, and perhaps some of the real promise of
     Fidonet would then be realized.

     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 49                  15 Apr 1991


     =================================================================
                                  COLUMNS
     =================================================================

     Henry Clark
     1:124/6120


     EPROM Programmer --

     Not merely content with regular old C programming, I decided to
     purchase an EPROM programmer from Modular Circuit Technology.
     This is a hot item !  I have used it to modify disk drive
     tables so that an exact match is available for newer, larger
     disk drives.  The software is good, and I can write and verify
     an EPROM in 1 minute.  I also got a UV light Eprom eraser (
     that takes about 3 minutes ).

     That's right, a lot of manufacturers' BIOS do not allow for a
     user defined disk drive type ( heads/cylinders/sectors ) ! They
     do that to inhibit 3rd party upgrades. HA !  There are endless
     other possibilities for changing your own bios in your own out
     of warranty machine.

     The last byte of the BIOS is a checksum byte.  When you add all
     the bytes in BIOS including the checksum byte, the result is
     zero.  The summation is kept as a 1 byte value, without regard
     to the overflow above 255. I noticed that with memory managers
     and shadow ROM facilities active ( I use QEMM myself ), that a
     look at the BIOS addresses with a program like DEBUG can be
     misleading.


     Tape Drive --

     As a result of the new programmer, a tape drive was secured to
     do the backup and restore of data from the old drive to the
     new.  The Mountain FS-8000 with Mach-2 board backs up at about
     2.6 megs per minute on my machine, and each tape holds about
     160 megabytes of my ( already ) compressed files.

     I haven't seen a tape error yet, and it's a pretty good buy.  I
     got the internal with controller kit to save money, but I
     mounted the drive in an external cabinet ( separate power
     supply ) and put the controller into which even machine I want
     to backup.

     I had a bug doing a backup in a Desqview task.  After writing
     all the files, the program rewound to update the volume info,
     and locked up on the next write.  Probably not a good idea to
     do tape backups in a multitasking environment anyway.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 50                  15 Apr 1991


     Disk Drive --

     I don't know diddly about Disk Drives, ask Bo.

     We looked around for a 3.5 inch size drive to replace a Conner
     100 in a Compaq Portable 386.  We found the Plus Development
     200 meg IDE drive to be compatible and fast.  Plus is coming
     with a 425 meg drive this fall ( seein's believin' ).  I run
     bulletin boards on ESDI, SCSI and MFM.  That's all I know about
     disk drives.

     We used FDISK and FORMAT on the new drive.  I don't like device
     drivers and especially device drivers for disk drives, and
     really especially don't like device drivers for >32 Meg.
     volumes that are boot drives.

     I got an extra 61 cylinders out of my Seagate drive, thank you.


     Taxing Situation --

     This 'snooze' arrives to most of the US on April 15th, so I will
     plug a tax package that I used, and you guys can say "Oh I paid
     $200 bucks to some accountant." or "I don't look at it, I don't
     know."

     AM TAX ( typically found as AMTAX90.huh ) has served me well for
     some 3 years now, and I have a moderately complex return.

     Ever since I started MY first BBS in 1987 I have had a bulletin
     #4 called "What's hot and what's Not".  This lists the cool
     programs you should use, and the crap I don't want uploaded
     onto my board.  One of those unwanteds is GAMES.  So to
     reinforce this point, I coined the phrase :

               "The best PC game is Tax Spreadsheet,
                   and the winning score is 0.00."

     Back in the mid-evil days, I did have a Supercalc spreadsheet,
     developed in 1985, that handled all the forms, including the
     Foreign Tax Credit and Foreign Earned Income Deduction.  These
     are the number one tax AVOIDANCE plans allowed by the US IRS.
     They're hell to calculate, though.  I used the modified "DeLux,
     Hasbeen and Sales" method (C) 1978;  wawl, I never been awdited
     yet.

     Here's what wrong with tax law :  when it gets into odd detail,
     it's a religious decision as to which method to use.  We try to
     keep religion out of politics.

     AM TAX does everything for me except the modified gross income
     on the Passive Loss Limitation schedule, ( it doesn't pull from
     S corp.  income ), but that's a simple change and it doesn't
     affect anything else cause my passive losses are not that high
     anyway.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 51                  15 Apr 1991


     God forbid I should have to limit my losses.

     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 52                  15 Apr 1991


     =================================================================
                              LATEST VERSIONS
     =================================================================

                         Latest Software Versions

                              MS-DOS Systems
                              --------------

                           Bulletin Board Software
     Name        Version    Name        Version    Name       Version

     DMG            2.93    Phoenix         1.3    TAG           2.5g
     Fido            12s+   QuickBBS       2.66    TBBS           2.1
     GSBBS          3.02    RBBS          17.3B    TComm/TCommNet 3.4
     Lynx           1.30    RBBSmail      17.3B    Telegard       2.5
     Kitten         2.16    RemoteAccess   1.00*   TPBoard        6.1
     Maximus        1.02    SLBBS          1.77A   Wildcat!      2.55
     Opus           1.14+   Socrates       1.10    WWIV          4.12
     PCBoard        14.5                           XBBS          1.15

     Network                Node List              Other
     Mailers     Version    Utilities   Version    Utilities  Version

     BinkleyTerm    2.40    EditNL         4.00    ARC            7.0
     D'Bridge       1.30    MakeNL         2.31    ARCAsim       2.30
     Dutchie       2.90C    ParseList      1.30    ARCmail       2.07
     FrontDoor     1.99c    Prune          1.40    ConfMail      4.00
     PRENM          1.47    SysNL          3.14    Crossnet      v1.5
     SEAdog         4.60*   XlatList       2.90    DOMAIN        1.42
     TIMS      1.0(Mod8)    XlaxDiff       2.35    EMM           2.02
                            XlaxNode       2.35    4Dog/4DMatrix 1.18
                                                   Gmail         2.05
                                                   GROUP         2.16
                                                   GUS           1.30
                                                   HeadEdit      1.15
                                                   InterPCB      1.31
                                                   LHARC         2.10
                                                   MSG            4.1
                                                   MSGED         2.06
                                                   MSGTOSS        1.3
                                                   Oliver        1.0a
                                                   PK[UN]ZIP     1.20
                                                   QM             1.0
                                                   QSORT         4.03
                                                   Sirius        1.0x
                                                   SLMAIL        1.36
                                                   StarLink      1.01
                                                   TagMail       2.41
                                                   TCOMMail       2.2
                                                   Telemail      1.27
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 53                  15 Apr 1991


                                                   TMail         1.15
                                                   TPBNetEd       3.2
                                                   TosScan       1.00
                                                   UFGATE        1.03
                                                   XRS           4.10*
                                                   XST            2.2
                                                   ZmailH        1.14


                                OS/2 Systems
                                ------------

     Bulletin Board Software   Network Mailers     Other Utilities

     Name            Version   Name      Version   Name       Version

     Maximus-CBCS       1.02   BinkleyTerm  2.40   Parselst      1.32
                                                   ConfMail      4.00
                                                   EchoStat       6.0
                                                   oMMM          1.52
                                                   Omail          3.1
                                                   MsgEd         2.06
                                                   MsgLink       1.0C
                                                   MsgNum        4.14
                                                   LH2           0.50
                                                   PK[UN]ZIP     1.02
                                                   ARC2          6.00
                                                   PolyXARC      2.00
                                                   Qsort          2.1
                                                   Raid           1.0
                                                   Remapper       1.2
                                                   Tick           2.0
                                                   VPurge        2.07


                                 Xenix/Unix
                                 ----------

     BBS Software                  Mailers         Other Utilities
     Name             Version  Name      Version   Name       Version

                               BinkleyTerm 2.30b   Unzip         3.10
                                                   ARC           5.21
                                                   ParseLst     1.30b
                                                   ConfMail     3.31b
                                                   Ommm         1.40b
                                                   Msged        1.99b
                                                   Zoo           2.01
                                                   C-Lharc       1.00
                                                   Omail        1.00b

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 54                  15 Apr 1991


                                   Apple II
                                  ----------

     Bulletin Board Software   Network Mailers     Other Utilities

     Name            Version   Name      Version   Name       Version

     GBBS Pro            2.1   Fruity Dog    1.0   ShrinkIt       3.2
     DDBBS +             4.0                       ShrinkIt GS   1.04
                                                   deARC2e        2.1
                                                   ProSel        8.65


                                 Apple CP/M
                                 ----------

     Bulletin Board Software   Network Mailers     Other Utilities

     Name            Version   Name      Version   Name       Version

     Daisy               v2j   Daisy Mailer 0.38   Nodecomp      0.37
                                                   MsgUtil        2.5
                                                   PackUser        v4
                                                   Filer         v2-D
                                                   UNARC.COM     1.20


                                 Macintosh
                                 ---------

     Bulletin Board Software   Network Mailers     Other Utilities

     Name            Version   Name      Version   Name       Version

     Red Ryder Host     2.1    Tabby         2.2   MacArc         0.04
     Mansion            7.15   Copernicus    1.0   ArcMac          1.3
     WWIV (Mac)         3.0                        LHArc          0.33
     Hermes             1.01                       StuffIt Classic 1.6
     FBBS               0.91                       Compactor      1.21
                                                   TImport        1.92
                                                   TExport        1.92
                                                   Timestamp       1.6
                                                   Tset            1.3
                                                   Import          3.2
                                                   Export         3.21
                                                   Sundial         3.2
                                                   PreStamp        3.2
                                                   OriginatorII    2.0
                                                   AreaFix         1.6
                                                   Mantissa       3.21
                                                   Zenith          1.5
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 55                  15 Apr 1991


                                                   Eventmeister    1.0
                                                   TSort           1.0
                                                   Mehitable       2.0
                                                   UNZIP         1.02c

                                   Amiga
                                   -----

     Bulletin Board Software   Network Mailers     Other Utilities

     Name            Version   Name      Version   Name       Version

     Paragon           2.082+  BinkleyTerm  1.00   AmigArc       0.23
     TransAmiga         1.05   TrapDoor     1.50   AReceipt       1.5
                               WelMat       0.42   booz          1.01
                                                   ConfMail      1.10
                                                   ChameleonEdit 0.10
                                                   ElectricHerald1.66
                                                   Lharc         1.30
                                                   MessageFilter 1.52
                                                   oMMM         1.49b
                                                   ParseLst      1.30
                                                   PkAX          1.00
                                                   PK[UN]ZIP     1.01
                                                   PolyxAmy      2.02
                                                   RMB           1.30
                                                   RoboWriter    1.02
                                                   Skyparse      2.30
                                                   TrapList      1.12
                                                   Yuck!         1.61
                                                   Zippy (Unzip) 1.25
                                                   Zoo           2.01



                                Atari ST/TT
                                -----------

     Bulletin Board         Network                Node List
     Software    Version    Mailer      Version    Utilities  Version

     FIDOdoor/ST    2.12*   BinkleyTerm   2.40l*   ParseList     1.30
     QuickBBS/ST    1.02    The BOX        1.20    Xlist         1.12
     Pandora BBS   2.41c                           EchoFix       1.20
     GS Point       0.61                           sTICk/Hatch   5.10*
     LED ST         1.00
     MSGED         1.96S

     Archiver               Msg Format             Other
     Utilities   Version    Converters  Version    Utilities  Version

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 56                  15 Apr 1991


     LHARC          0.60    TB2BINK        1.00    ConfMail      4.03
     ARC            6.02    BINK2TB        1.00    ComScan       1.02
     PKUNZIP        1.10    FiFo           2.1j*   Import        1.14
                                                   OMMM          1.40
                                                   Pack          1.00
                                                   FastPack      1.20
                                                   FDsysgen      2.16
                                                   FDrenum       2.10
                                                   Trenum        0.10



                                Archimedes
                                ----------

     BBS Software           Mailers                Utilities
     Name        Version    Name        Version    Name       Version

     ARCbbs         1.44    BinkleyTerm    2.03    Unzip        2.1TH
                                                   ARC           1.03
                                                   !Spark       2.00d

                                                   ParseLst      1.30
                                                   BatchPacker   1.00


     + Netmail capable (does not require additional mailer software)
     * Recently changed

     Utility authors:  Please help  keep  this  list  up  to  date  by
     reporting  new  versions  to 1:1/1.  It is not our intent to list
     all utilities here, only those which verge on necessity.

     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     FidoNews 8-15                Page 57                  15 Apr 1991


     =================================================================
                                  NOTICES
     =================================================================

                          The Interrupt Stack


     12 May 1991
        Fourth anniversary of FidoNet operations in Latin America and
        second anniversary of the creation of Zone-4.

     15 Aug 1991
        5th annual Z1 Fido Convention - FidoCon '91 "A New Beginning"
        Sheraton Denver West August 15 through August 18 1991.

      8 Sep 1991
        25th anniversary of first airing of Star Trek on NBC!

      7 Oct 1991
        Area code  415  fragments.   Alameda and Contra Costa Counties
        will  begin  using  area  code  510.   This includes  Oakland,
        Concord, Berkeley  and  Hayward.    San  Francisco, San Mateo,
        Marin, parts of  Santa Clara County, and the San Francisco Bay
        Islands will retain area code 415.

      1 Nov 1991
        Area code 301 will split.  Area code 410 will consist of the
        northeastern part of Maryland, as well as the eastern shore.
        This will include Baltimore and the surrounding area. Area 301
        will include southern and western parts of the state,
        including the areas around Washington DC. Area 410 phones will
        answer to calls to area 301 until November, 1992.

      1 Feb 1992
        Area  code 213 fragments.    Western,  coastal,  southern  and
        eastern portions of Los Angeles  County  will begin using area
        code 310.  This includes Los  Angeles  International  Airport,
        West  Los  Angeles,  San  Pedro and Whittier.    Downtown  Los
        Angeles  and  surrounding  communities  (such as Hollywood and
        Montebello) will retain area code 213.

      1 Dec 1993
        Tenth anniversary of Fido Version 1 release.

      5 Jun 1997
        David Dodell's 40th Birthday


     If you have something which you would like to see on this
     calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1:1/1.

     FidoNews 8-15                Page 58                  15 Apr 1991


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

