FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:25:51 Page 1 Volume 2, Number 30 9 September 1985 +----------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | - FidoNews - /|oo \ | | (_| /_) | | Fido and FidoNet _`@/_ \ _ | | Users Group | | \ \\ | | Newsletter | (*) | \ )) | | ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +----------------------------------------------------------+ Publisher: Fido 107/7 Chief Procrastinator: Thom Henderson Fidonews is published weekly by SEAboard, Fido 107/7. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in Fidonews. Article submission standards are contained in the file FIDONEWS.DOC, available from Fido 107/7. Disclaimer or don't-blame-us: The contents of the articles contained here are not our responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them; everything here is subject to debate. We publish EVERYTHING received. How We Do This I've been getting questions lately about how Fidonews is created. I know I've explained this before, but perhaps I'd better go through it again for the benefit of our newer readers. Everything in Fidonews is written by you, our readers. I generally try to cobble up an editorial for each issue, but everything else is submitted by readers. You write an article (or a want ad, or a notice, or whatever) on your own system using your own text editor and netmail it to us at node 107/7. After mail hour each morning an external event moves the files from our input area to a special news area. Every Monday morning another external event assembles all the articles to make the latest issue, which is then mailed out by Robot to most of the major inbound hosts. The whole point of this somewhat roundabout process is to make sure that the news goes out every Monday morning without fail. There are a bunch of technical specs that an article has to FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:25:54 Page 2 meet before it goes into the news. These are summed up in detail in the file FIDONEWS.DOC, which is available from node 107/7 (and probably many other places -- we've mailed it out many times). Most of these can be summed up in a few statements: 1) Flush left margin (we do the indenting here). 2) Right margin at column 60 or less. Less is tolerable, but more is not. 3) No funny characters. Not everybody has a graphics character set. (Not everybody has an IBM.) You also have to name your file properly. Our system detects news items by the filename extensions, like so: .ART An article .SAL A "For Sale" ad .WAN A "Wanted" ad Most submissions are articles, which can get very long. Ads can't get very big, but they really shouldn't anyway. A few folks have sent us very long ads that were thinly disguised as articles, but feedback received to date indicates that that tends to backfire on the advertiser. Our readers seem to feel cheated when they work their way through some lengthy article just to find that it's really a pitch for a product. The U.S. Robotics ad for the Courier 2400 was probably the best ad anyone has ever sent us. It was cute, catchy, flashy, and short. One last point, and I'll let you get back to reading the news. Fidonews, like Fidonet itself, is growing by leaps and bounds. We now have an estimated 30,000 readers. Fidonews is YOUR way of reaching your fellow users, and they want to hear from you. FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:25:55 Page 3 ============================================================ NEWS ============================================================ WARNING WARNING BURNOUT OCCURING!!!! Well thats just bout how I feel at the moment, I have seem to have burned out on the idea of bbs and telecomunications! I used to use my pc everyday now it seems to be every other day and latley once a weak! I'm not really sure what is going on either. After sitting infront of the pc for ten minutes I start to get sick and looking at it makes me feel, oh, depressed. (sigh) Maybe it has to do with the fact school starts for me on the 4th or maybe the fact that I'm heart broken? Who knows. It seems that nothing I do with the computer makes me feel good. I need a good challenge at the moment. Something that will be interesting but not to bland. I think I should stop using it for a week or two and see what happens. I had planned to put up a board at one time but couldn't because I lack the money for a phone line and my parents permission (sigh again) hmm one of these days I will get my own computer or, my parents will get another one (right) and I will finaly get to put up my own Fido!! Mike Ringer fido 437 net 117 soon to be the sysop of Ollie's board? ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:25:58 Page 4 FIDOGRAMS By Rives Mc Ginley, N1BIQ and Luck Hurder, KY1T Both on Node 105/Net 101(MassNet) CAPECOD_FIDO There is nothing that tickles our hearts better than to wake up in the morning, put on the coffee, and snuggle up to Fido to see what has come in via FidoMail from anywhere in the Country and the World. The only thing better, we shouldn't talk about, except it relates to the purpose of this article. We are talking about Amateur Radio. It seemed to us that with the flexibi- lity of Fido, and the vastness of the network, perhaps we can help Amateur Radio and FidoMail increase usage or traffic if you will. Amateur Radio has been sending "Traffic" or telegrams around the world since before 1920. The Traffic handlers, are dedicated, persistant in getting the message through, and at the moment feeling a little underworked. So why can't we of the Fido persuasion, gather some business so to speak for the Amateur Radio Traffic nets? The answer is that we can, and quite cheaply. All we need to do is to aquaint our Fido users about the Amateur Radio service, and they will slowly over time use it. You see the reason is that the service is free. YES ---- FREE The only "cost" is making the FidoMail call to Node #105 in Net 101(MassNet), and leaving a message for Luck Hurder, KY1T. He will then in his amazing morse code "fist" transmit the message to the radio traffic network, and the message will be delivered as soon as possible, by telephone to the addressee. Amateur Radio has been a wonder of modern electronics for all these years, why not have Fido, the new front- runner, add Amateur radio to the list of its services. After all Amateur Radio can do one thing Fido can't.....de liver a message to someone who does not have a computer, and do it for FREE. Ah ha you say, what is the long list of qualifications that will keep this idea from being useful? Well..... there is only one. Any message sent by FidoGram, must be only personal, no business use at all. If judged as business use, the Amateur FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:01 Page 5 Radio operator passing the traffic will not handle the message. It will lanquish in the round file. So what do you think? Is this a reasonable addition to Fido? If so send FidoMail to Node #105/Net #101 and by return FidoMail as well as by FidoGram you will get details to you for posting on your Fido. We think this is a fun activity, we are prepared to alert the Amateur Radio Community and its Media about it, and we think it provides a free public service that Fido can benefit from. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:01 Page 6 From: Jim Lynn, Sysop 129/0,129/384 Subject: Rewrite of FIDO Documentation We here in the Pitt-Net in Pittsburg are attempting the rewrite of the infamous FIDO Sysop and User Manuals. After a month of sorting out the original source files from TJ, we are starting on the rewrite process. This is a plea for information.... If you know something that is wrong about the manuals, even though you think that there must be thousands of other users or operators who are aware of the problem, send a FIDO-GRAM to me at 129/0!!!! If everyone thinks that everyone else will let us know about a bug, then it will be up to us to find and correct them all. If you have something that you think should be in the manuals, drop us a line also. One section that will be added is a hints and usage section where shortcuts and pit- falls will be documented. The finished manuals will be distributed as follows: USERMNAL.ARC The user's guide to happiness. SYSMANAL.ARC The light in the dark for sysops. Both ARC's will include a program which will take any released updates and automatically incorporate them into the manuals, adding the update number and date on the fly-leaf page. This will allow for downloading the manuals once and from that point on, only downloading update and correction files. If any one has any thoughts on this before the software gets too "firm", drop a line. As a last word, remember: this is your manual, you have to use them and your users have to use them to access your system and the new sysops in your area have to rely on them to get up and running. Please take an interest and help with a msg or bit of information. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:03 Page 7 ANNOUNCING THE FIRST EVER FIDO BULLETIN BOARD THAT IS KIND TO ANIMALS!! The KYFHO WILDLIFE BBS is a public service board for collecting and disseminating information on rehabilitation of wildlife and the related concerns of habitat preservation and conservation. KYFHO WILDLIFE BBS is operated by Bob and PC Hanes of Austin, Texas under the auspices of Wildlife Rescue, Inc., Austin. Basic care information is drawn from the Austin WRI Rehabilitation Course Manual and the separate works of its members. The objective of the Board is to provide a forum for the exchange of information with other groups and individuals regarding rehabilitation techniques, diets and problems that may arise from raising orphaned or injured wild birds and animals. PLEASE NOTE: The purpose of Wildlife Rescue, a non-profit, volunteer organization, and KYFHO is successful rehabilitation and RELEASE of wild creatures. In no way do we advocate the keeping of wild animals or birds as pets. This is harmful to the animal and can be dangerous to human beings. KYFHO WILDLIFE is a serious public service board. The sysops will not tolerate abusive or obscene language, jokes, sexually-oriented material or religious preachments. We have no public domain software, or hobby type use sections on this board. A listing of the information available will be sent upon request. If you have a question regarding care of a wild animal or bird, or would like to submit material to be added to our files for dissemination to other like-minded groups, we welcome your participation. We will attempt to answer all questions received over FIDONET on the next mail period after receipt. Emergency care information is available on the voice line as listed below. You can do us and the animals in your area a favor by providing this information to any group or organization in your area who would be interested. It might even generate some net traffic for your board. KYFHO WILDLIFE FIDO REGION 19 NODE 600 operates 300/1200 24 hours a day at 512/836-6881. Voice line 512/836-0915, 6:00pm - 10:00pm Central Time. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:06 Page 8 FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:07 Page 9 Tom Jennings Fido 125/1 12 Aug 85 BULLETIN BOARD ETTIQUETTE FOR NEW USERS AND OLD TIMERS Bulletin board etiquette is really no big deal, and I hope you don't get the impression that I'm trying to make an issue out of nothing. This is nothing more than an introduction to the ins and outs of figuring out just how the hell you have fun on a bulletin board. Of course, you probably figured out most of it, or you wouldn't be reading this article. Last but not least, this is merely my opinion, of which I have more than my share. In the dark ages of modems (pre-1982 or so) there were so few bulletin boards and users that there basically wasn't a problem. You somehow managed to get a modem (usually a set of ear muffs for your telephone handset; autodialers? You must be kidding!) got a bulletin board number from a friend, and started dialing. You got nervous and made a mess of the message base, and if you were real unlucky, crashed the board. Everyone knew you were "new", and so were tolerant while you learned how to get around. Crashers and trashers weren't really a problem, since most modem users were more or less hardcore techie types, and that was the reason for the things in the first place. These days, Hayes is probably selling more modems per month than were sold total to us hobbiests in 1982. Many are "non business" use, ie. the little sucker you are using right now. Instead of a trickle of new users, it's a torrential downpour. New users outnumber old timers on many boards, and that fact probably won't change. Nor would it even be desireable! Modem users are getting more and more diversified in their interests, things like specialty boards can now get enough support to be viable. Enough tech boards already! With the good comes some small problems; the previous "hack at it 'till you get it right" attitude doesn't work on today's overloaded boards that might handle 50 or more calls a day. For example, Fido 125/1 gets about 200 new callers per week. A person who uses a modem for the first time generally has no idea of what a bulletin board is like; that is part of the fun! There are thousands of boards, on almost any subject, each run by an individual with their own personality and ideas. FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:09 Page 10 Unfortunately, it frequently becomes a situation like a traveler to a foreign country who is totally unfamiliar with local customs. Visitors embarrass themselves by saying the wrong thing, or insult the locals with totally inappropriate reactions. Definitely not the way to get the locals to show you around and have a good time. The purpose of this thing is not to presumptuously teach you right from wrong, but to introduce you to one version of "etiquette", or how to get around bulletin boards minimizing damage. No attempt will be made to tell you how to run the bulletin board program or your telecom program. There are too many different ones anyways, and help is available for that. In face to face encounters with people that you don't know well, there are thousands of "unwritten rules" that just about everyone follows. Things like not interrupting a conversation, not asking questions that were just answered, minimizing rude noises, nose picking, not commenting on personal subjects not under discussion, etc. The more important ones seem to get even more obscure. A big problem with modeming is that you miss all non-verbal communication details; eye motion, facial expressions, and other cues that help convey otherwise difficult or embarrassing information. You have to make up for this in other ways. Since 99.99% of all BBS contents is text, read everything you can find. About the only hard and fast rule of BBSing is READ READ READ READ!!! You cannot read too much; read as many messages as you can, read the bulletins, read notices. Don't worry about memorizing the contents, just get familiar with what the system is like. After you do this on a half dozen systems you will have a better idea of what the "real world" (sic) looks like. Get an idea of what kind of people are typing things, and a feel for how "touchy" the crowd there is. People tend to congregate where the find similar sorts; you may end up on a board populated with grouches, because more open people left long ago for a friendlier place. Or, you may have run into that friendly place. Bulletin boards are no different than a local bar or whatever; a particular crowd develops, you just have to choose where you hang out. You may be comfortable in a VFW Hall, or maybe at the corner of Pine and Polk. Don't get mad at the people who you do find, just find a more compatible crowd. FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:11 Page 11 If you find a message or two you want to reply to, see if it has any replies already. This will save the embarassment of entering a long tedious message answering a question that was answered months ago. People are peculiar animals; remember that you are a newcomer. This is no different than joining a conversation at a party or cafe; you just can't jump in and blaze away with your wit, unless of course that's whats happening at the moment, otherwise it's the "excuse-me-I-have-to-go-to-the-bathroom"-then-leave situation. Not pleasant. Keep in mind that some things that are wonderful person to person can be absolute disasters in print. Sarcasm for instance. A simple expression like "You jerk!" is nothing but an insult when they can't see the smile on your face. A reply to a question, such as "Who knows? Why don't you look it up?" is also an insult when you can't see the head scratching, foot tapping and other things that would tell the person that you had thought for a few minutes before replying. Just keep in mind that bulletin board messages are like someone speaking in a monotone, with no pauses between words, behind a black curtain, recorded on video tape a week ago, and played on an out of focus black and white TV set with a dirty screen. From across the street. The majority of boards remain technically oriented; by sheer numbers CP/M and IBM PC dominate (I think, who knows?), but TRS-80 and just about anything else you can think of is out there. These are not the places to discuss philosophy and tell dirty jokes. There are more and more non-technical boards, which is a good sign. They are still somewhat limited, but growing extremely fast. In six months or a year there will be no shortage. These are not the places to discuss problems with your disk drive. Again, bulletin boards are no different than any other group of people, except the lack of fine detail and the time difference. As to messages, only one suggestion: keep it short. Since long messages scroll off the screen, it's nearly impossible to remember what the 17th question out of 30 was. The poor person answering the message needs an eidetic memory to keep track of it all, and you will usually get a terse response and a "I don't remember the rest". Better to enter two messages than one huge one. Speaking of time differences, keep in mind that people may call in every day, once a week or maybe never again. Be patient when waiting for a reply. After a while, you'll get an idea of who calls in how often, and when you FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:13 Page 12 can expect a reply. Don't harrass the guy if you don't see a reply when you'd like to. Occasionally, people have been known to do things other than BBSing, as hard as it is to believe, and it may take them awhile to get around to checking in. Though I won't go into downloading files here, if you are very new you should get as many lists of other bulletin board systems as you can. Most are just text, so you should be able to download or "capture" them on whatever you are using to call with. There are enough BBS's these days that you should have many to choose from, within your local calling area. No, I haven't forgotten the sysop. The sysop is the troll who happens to own the machine you are playing with. Most sysops are very strange people. Who else would do something like run a bulletin board? Depending on the person running the board you're on, the sysop may be involved on a daily basis or not at all. He may be standoffish, or run a tight ship, breathing down your neck. Be reasonable in making requests of the sysop. Usually there is no problem, but remember that after a while, running a BBS can get to be a drag (first hand observation here) and the sysop may be "on vacation". Getting angry at the sysop for not answering like you want him to is not the thing to do. Most bulletin boards are run as a hobby, and take a back seat to the sysop's real life. Personally, my involvement on Fido #1 varies from every day to once a month on and off. The more outside things I have to do or want to do, the more I ignore Fido. Also, if I know there are ten thousand questions awaiting me, I tend to avoid checking in. Sometimes I just want to do nothing at all, so that's exactly what I do. Also, again, remember that there is a human out there somewhere. Sysops are saints and assholes like everyone else, and they have the responsibility of keeping the system up and running. Getting angry at the sysop for not answering a request as quickly or as thoroughly as you want is definitely not the way to get in good graces on that board. Belaboring a point, (almost the end of the article anyway, just hang on) the only thing that makes a board interesting is the people who call it. I hope I didn't discourage you from taking part in the madness on a board; really, do just the opposite. Most people who peruse the message bases are looking for interesting people to "type" to, so if you have anything to say, even nothing, say it! Most conversations start with "hello". FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:15 Page 13 A good point was brought up by Dean Gengle (sp?) of Communitree in an article in Dr. Dobbs Journal (June 85 I think). Bulletin boards are not necessarily the totally anonymous things you may assume they are. Usually everything you see on your screen is also displayed on the bulletin board computer's screen; even messages you decided not to save. This may not be important, but is something to keep in mind. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:16 Page 14 BBS Laws and the Moral Majority By David Wollmann I have been doing my best to keep up with the BBS Law updates that are being circulated, and let me state that I agree, we must do our best to state our case, that Remote Bulletin Board Systems are a valid and important facility in our society. Not only are they important because they offer us the opportunity to expand our computing skills and abilities, but also because they enable us to express ourselves freely and at little expense to such a large and widely diverse a group of people. The news has recently featured reports of certain groups of individuals using BBS's for their own unlawful, and immoral purposes. The abuses have been highlighted, rather that the benefits. This kind of `mis-information' tends to cause the public to develop a prejudiced sentiment towards the subject matter, since most of us are forced to rely on the media for information from which we unavoidably and inevitably draw conclusions as to the morality, if you will, of a given subject or situation. The aspect of this situation that I would like to concentrate on now is the involvment of the Conservative element of our population, of which I am a member as I am sure are many of yourselves. The abuses of BBS's which have been reported most frequently seem to be those involving a BBS that was for the use of pedophiles (child molestors). This is a subject that strikes close to the heart of all of us, and is of great concern to the membership and supporters of the Moral Majority. In a nutshell, rather than becoming upset with the Moral Majority, let's do our best to educate them along with the rest of our nation, as to the benefits that BBS's carry with them. Why not point out to them how much a Fido BBS could do for their communications? How great an impact they might effect through a BBS in their community, and in fact, the U.S. as a whole? If the Moral Majority is interested in making changes for the better, and I believe they are, surely they will be quick to `go to bat for us' once they too see the potential for good in a BBS. Why not suggest to them that they get involved and help them set up a Fido System of their own? If no great General has said it, he should have, "Don't make an enemy out of someone if you can make him your friend with a few kind words." FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:18 Page 15 I may be reached for comment or question at Fido 900/15 PCjrUserGroup (918) 496-2055. 2400 baud ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:18 Page 16 Harv's Hideout Fido 125/77 PC Pursuit and Fido Mention has been made in previous issues of Fidonews about the flat-rate long distance service from GTE Telenet called PC-Pursuit. It uses a ringback scheme, which makes sense from GTE's point of view, but makes it pretty unacceptable for Fidomail. It has a great potential as a side method of transferring files, however, and could be very valuable in getting things like the nodelist and Fidonews distributed more widely and cheaply than at present. Following is a message to Tom Jennings on Fido #1 discussing it. --******-- The ringback and menu rigamarole can take from 1 to 4 minutes. Not too awfully bad for a connect, but a real waste for a busy. Only reasonable way to use it is with a script file to answer the prompts and do the waiting while you do something else. I'm surprised they're not targeting individuals & small businesses that presently send stuff via MCI Mail, etc that could be done with Pursuit instead. The 11 cities besides San Francisco are: Atlanta Denver New York Boston Detroit Philadelphia Chicago Houston Wash D.C. Dallas L. A. Unfortunately, it's one area code per city, so New York means 212, even though half the city is 718. Ditto for the LA area. Even at that, all that's necessary is to ship new stuff to one or two nodes in each area. Ideally, they would be volunteers that would mail the files to all local nodes and ideally they'd be different nodes than the already busy hosts. What I'll do is send a copy of this msg to Fidonews and see if there is any interest in doing it. Main thing is to do it without putting any additional work on you or any of the hosts. -harv --******-- Anyone using PC-Pursuit, or anyone in one of the above cities that is willing to receive files and pass them on to local Fidos, please send a message to Harvey Nehgila on Fido 125/77. If your system doesn't recognize that node, you're dealing with an outdated nodelist, and that's the very reason for setting up a distribution net for updates! (Use node FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:20 Page 17 125/1 if 125/77 is not yet on your list). Volunteers need not necessarily be running a Fido themselves, but an autoanswer modem and a host program that will receive XMODEM uploads are required. With minimal time from a few volunteers, we can use Pursuit to make the latest version of Fidofiles available to all the nodes for little or no expense. The nodelist and the newsletter are the two things that tie the net together. It'd be very nice if as many nodes as possible were using the latest versions. Timely distribution of updates of Fido and associated utilities could also be accomplished with Pursuit. Any takers? Harv's Hideout Fido 125/77 ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:21 Page 18 Bug in Newly Released RENUM Program by Bob Hartman Sysop 101/101 Recently I sent the new program RENUM (in the file RENUM.ARC) to all host nodes in the FidoNet. This program was a replacement for Tom Jennings' original version of RENUM which would not renumber the user list when it was finished renumbering the messages. Unfortunately the version of RENUM distributed has one minor bug in it. This bug causes the user list renumbering to be off by (usually) one message. Fortunately, it is off on the low side, and the worst that happens is that a user reads a message twice. This problem has been corrected in version 1.3 which is available for download from my Fido. If you are using this program and would like to update it, either call my board and download it, or send me FidoNet mail, and I will send you the latest version. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:22 Page 19 An Update on the Current State of Rover by Bob Hartman Sysop 101/101 The UN*X Gateway and Home of Rover First of all, the standard introduction to "what is Rover?" Well, Rovermsg is a standalone Fido Message Base system. It is usually run by the sysop of a Fido system from the console (or remotely via the '0' command). It is exactly like Fido with these exceptions: 1. The E)dit command from the Enter-Msg menu. If for message editing, you wish to use a standard editor that creates an ASCII text file (rather than a standard word processor file that has special types of characters in it), use the -e option for ROVERMSG. 2. The C)hange-Msg command from the Msg: or Edit-Msg menus. This option allows a user to edit an already existing message, thus avoiding the usual state where a message has been saved, and is dead wrong. 3. The '!' command available at the NET/NODE prompt when entering a RoverNet message. This command allows searching for a given string in the nodelist. It is a case-insensitive search, and it will look at the node name, city, and phone number. 4. The special node names */0 and n/*. The first will send a message to all hosts in all nets, and the second will send a message to all nodes in net #n. 5. When replying to messages the subject of the new message is automatically formed as 'Re: old-subject'. The subject can be changed with the subJ)ect command. Now for the real point of the article: I know, I know - I have been really screwing you all up with versions of Rovermsg coming out too fast. Well, I tried to delay this one as long as possible, but several events arose which made it impossible to delay it any longer. First of all, Fido version 11 will soon be out, and the old version of Rovermsg (2.0) will not be compatible with it. Secondly, (for those of you that experienced it) I really think that I tracked down the 'Goodbye' bug (it was obliging, and happened to hit me when I was running a debugging version of Rovermsg). Thirdly, I finally realized why Rovermsg would not run on certain non-IBM compatibles. The reason was that Rovermsg tries to change the timer interrupt. For non-IBM compatibles, this was not the same interrupt number, so when it got changed your machine would go south. If you are not using an IBM compatible, please use the '-t 0' option to disable the Rovermsg timer. Finally, the new version is 2.10 and FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:24 Page 20 it has the above mentioned problems fixed (the fix of using '-t 0' on non-IBM's will not work in version 2.0, just 2.1). If you call my board to download Rovermsg, you might also want to download RENUM.ARC which is a command line driven version of the Sysop only 2 and 8 commands. It is smarter than the original RENUM written by Tom Jennings in that it does in fact renumber the user list, and it can be used to delete old or received messages. I run it as an external event once a week to clear old messages from my board. If you are a Fido Sysop that uses Rovermsg, please send me a FidoNet message so that I can add you to my master Rover mailing list. I know that there are at least 25-30 sysops that user Rovermsg, and I only have about 115 in my master list. Also, please download the latest version from my board so that you don't get bitten by bugs that have been fixed. I placed this article in the FidoNews just so that all of you would see it and therefore not have the excuse that you did not know that you were supposed to send my a FidoNet message if you are a Rovermsg user. - Bob Hartman - FIDONEWS -- 09 Sep 85 15:26:26 Page 21 ============================================================ NOTICES ============================================================ An Exclusive Engagement! ======================== For a limited time only, this Fido sysop will be engaged - then onto bigger and better things! In only twelve short months, it will be the end of bachelorhood forever! Lets face it guys - Fido is nice but females are fabulous! Brian and Gilah Sietz Fido#107/17 ------------------------------------------------------------ The Interrupt Stack 28 Sep 1985 SoCal Fido beach party. 27 Nov 1985 Halley's Comet passes closest to Earth before perihelion. 24 Jan 1986 Voyager 2 passes Uranus. 9 Feb 1986 Halley's Comet reaches perihelion. 11 Apr 1986 Halley's Comet reaches perigee. 19 May 1986 Steve Lemke's next birthday. 24 Aug 1989 Voyager 2 passes Neptune. If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to Fido 107/7.