BTN: Birmingham Telecommunications News COPYRIGHT 1992 ISSN 1055-4548 September 1992 Volume 5, Issue 8 Table Of Contents ----------------- Article Title Author Policy Statement and Disclaimer................Staff Publisher's Corner.............................Mark Maisel Editorial......................................Lurch Henson Letters to the Editor.......................... Of Cars, Toasters, and Computers...............Brian Anderson The Scene......................................Scott Hollifield Grocking The Gestalt...........................Scott Pletcher BBS Spotlight: Southern Stallion..............Eric Hunt untitled.......................................The Bishop The Amiga Connection...........................Jeff Vaughn Special Interest Groups (SIGs).................Barry Bowden Known BBS Numbers..............................Staff ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer and Statement of Policy for BTN We at BTN try our best to assure the accuracy of articles and information in our publication. We assume no responsibility for damage due to errors, omissions, etc. The liability, if any for BTN, its editors and writers, for damages relating to any errors or omissions, etc., shall be limited to the cost of a one year subscription to BTN, even if BTN, its editors or writers have been advised of the likelihood of such damages occurring. With the conclusion of that nasty business, we can get on with our policy for publication and reproduction of BTN articles. We publish monthly with a deadline of the fifteenth of the month prior to publication. If you wish to submit an article, you may do so at any time but bear in mind the deadline if you wish for your work to appear in a particular issue. It is not our purpose to slander or otherwise harm a person or reputation and we accept no responsibility for the content of the articles prepared by our writers. Our writers own their work and it is protected by copyright. We allow reprinting of articles from BTN with only a few restrictions. The author may object to a reprint, in which case he will specify in the content of his article. Otherwise, please feel free to reproduce any article from BTN as long as the source, BTN, is specified, and as long as the author's name and the article's original title are retained. If you use one of our articles, please forward a copy of your publication to: Mark Maisel Editor, BTN 221 Chestnut St. BHM, AL 35210-3219 (205)-956-0176 We thank you for taking the time to read our offering and we hope that you like it. We also reserve the right to have a good time while doing all of this and not get too serious about it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- F R E E B I E : G E T I T W H I L E I T S H O T ! The following boards allow BTN to be downloaded freely, that is with no charge to any existing upload/download ratios. ADAnet One Alter-Ego Arkham Asylum Channel 8250 Little Kingdom Joker's Castle Crunchy Frog Owl's Nest The Bus The MATRIX Abject Poverty Hard Disk The Outer Limits The Round Table Kiriath Arba DC Info Exchange Owlabama BBS Safe Harbor Amiga Alliance ][ Martyrdom Again?! Lemon Grove Medicine Man F/X BBS Thy Master's Dungeon Playground Teasers If you are a sysop and you allow BTN to be downloaded freely, please let me know via EZNet so that I can post your board as a free BTN distributor. Thanks. MM ----------------------------------------------------------------------- N E W S F L A S H Crunchy Frog is moving! The new numbers are not yet available. As soon as they are, BTN will publish them and post them in prominent places. Monty tells me that the Frog may be down for a week or so during the move, but I doubt she'll be able to stand it for that long. MM ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Publisher's Corner by Mark Maisel THEN NOW America Online 300-2400 The MATRIX Nodes 1-10 300-2400 Birmingham BBS Node 1 300-1200 The MATRIX Nodes 11-14 9600-14400 Birmingham BBS Node 2 300-1200 The MATRIX Node 15 9600 Amiga Alliance 1200 Southern Stallion 300-14400 Bus System BBS 300-1200 Bus System 300-2400 Channel 8250 300-2400 Channel 8250 Node 1 300-14400 Channel 8250 Node 2 300-14400 Magnolia BBS 300-2400 Magnolia BBS 300-14400 ST BBS 300-1200 ST BBS 300-2400 Sperry BBS 300-2400 Sperry BBS 300-2400 The Connection Node 1 1200-2400 ADAnet One Nodes 1-3 1200-2400 The Connection Node 2 1200-2400 ADAnet One Node 4 9600-14400 "THEN" represents bulletin boards that were in the first BTN listing. "NOW" represents bulletin boards that are in this issue, #50. There have been some changes; names, baud rates, and in some cases, the number of lines. The first one, board(s) run by Rocky Rawlins and Tom Egan, have been through many changes that have lead to the current state of affairs with The MATRIX. Amiga Alliance, run by Richard Foshee, was up for a while, down for a while, and back up today. Channel 8250 was initially run by Ed O'Neill. Randy Hilliard, the current sysop, was Ed's co-sysop and took over the board when Ed decided to give it up. Magnolia is pretty much the same board it has always been as is Sperry. ST has gone through some changes too but it has remained through all this time. The Connection got new direction with the passage of the ADA and the entailing confusion it has caused among business and the disabled. ADANet has become a communications organ for the Disability Law Foundation to disburse information helpful to those on both sides of the disability issue. There were and are some bulletin boards that didn't make the first list that were up and running, but I wasn't able to collect them all for that first issue. Ziggy's comes to mind. That bbs has been around in Birmingham since before I can remember and Ziggy keeps right on plugging along. Things have changed quite a bit since that first list and the time before it. The audience is considerably more diverse than it was when issue #1 was released, and larger. Offline mail readers have given more people a voice, sometimes a much more voluminous voice than some oldtimers would like. The big message networks have changed the face of bbs use too. Competition is pretty fierce in most cities. Birmingham has not yet been particularly affected by this but the time is coming. Rocky Rawlins, sysop of The MATRIX, recently returned from a week long convention sponsored by Boardwatch Magazine, a magazine supportive of bulletin boards and similar services. Modem and bbs software vendors were there to "wow" sysops with their latest offerings. Various gimmicks for attracting users (read subscribers) were presented in conferences and on the showroom floor. Rocky told me about one company that sells equipment and software for a bbs to provide up to the minute weather information including color radar images. How'd you like to be able to call up your local bbs and get a GIF image of the weather in your area no more than a minute old? The networks are no longer enough. The race is on. BBS' are becoming businesses and sysops, in an increasingly competitive market, are looking for ways to increase their market share. Look for this in Birmingham soon. It has been happening for the past few years in other places, both smaller and larger than Birmingham. It is going to be interesting to watch. I can't say I entirely welcome it all as I'm used to my habits and like them. There are still plenty of boards in Birmingham where an oldtimer can keep up their telecommunications habit without being exposed to the new stuff coming along. They are becoming fewer, however, and will continue to do so. Adapting to the changing "scene" will be easy for some, irrelevant to the many new folks who continue to sign on each month, and tough for some of the folks who've been at it for a while. I remember several who have dropped out. One who seems to have come back is a fellow who goes by the handle, Bernie Starchaser. He caused a small stir on Crunchy Frog when he recently reappeared. Only a few folks knew who he was, or claimed to be. He appears to have adapted nicely to the new ways as he is using an offline reader, anethema to some of the folks who've been using the boards for a while. Not all of them will do so well. Speaking of change, most of you have either heard or read about the various changes going on around my house. I am finally moving. I will be getting into the new place around the end of September. It will be much more convenient for Kathy getting to and from work, and I'll have lots more space for my toys. I won't have any more time to play with them though. Business is still doing well. I've been talking with my regulars for the past few months and we've been talking about changes in BTN. I've made a decision on one of those and it has potential to be very interesting and entertaining. Scott Hollifield approached me about the editorship of BTN and offered his service. I thought about it and it seemed like it could work. Yeah, yeah, I know, Scott is the one who wouldn't know a deadline if it smacked him in the face... I am going to give him full rein and see what happens. I'll write articles just like anyone else and he will do what I've done for the past 50 issues. If you leave me messages and articles, they will be forwarded to him. You can save that step and send them straight to him. Crunchy Frog is still the best place to send articles, and if you are in BTNWA there, then upload publicly in there and let him know the article is ready. Nothing is constant but change so lets invoke some ourselves and see what happens. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial B T N or Look who made it to #50! by Lurch Henson I haven't been in the BTN community as long as most of you (though many will say I've been here far too long already), but I've enjoyed the majority of the time I've spent here. When my trips to Birmingham began to look like they'd last awhile, and I brought my computer up here to sniff around the boards and see what's out there, BTN was one of the first things I stumbled across. It was BTN, it's parties, and Mark Maisel that made me feel most welcome here in Birmingham. Through Mark, and his BTN parties, I met most of the people that I've grown very fond of (as well as a few of you I'd rather not have met in the first place, but we won't go into that here) in the past two years, and made several friends I'll never forget. I even found a friend that I'd lost track of quite a few years back, and renewed my friendship with him. I met people that helped me get over a messy divorce that I didn't know was still bothering me at the time, and even met and lost the love of my life, all more or less through the existence of BTN, and Mark Maisel. For a long time it seemed like there was an attitude of "if it ain't a BTN party, it ain't a party", if that shows you anything of the effect this publication has had around here (and believe me, I've heard Mark complain a few times about that type of comment before, too). People tend to look forward to the next BTN party more than they do the Second Coming.....and based on some of the conversations I've had the pleasure to be involved in at a few of them, I don't blame them one bit. One thing you can say about a BTN party, it's rarely boring.....for long, anyway...... I have no idea how Mark came about deciding to put out this little venture of his....why he decided to put up with the constant aggravation of hounding all the people that promise him articles, then never deliver.....or why he decided to donate such a large portion of his time, and space on his hard drive, to maintaining this beast (no, not Beast, that's Kathy) each month.....but for whatever the reason, here it is. Somehow, for ever how long this thing has run, it managed to climb it's way up to #50, something that several electronic magazines I've seen spring up here in Birmingham will never do, because I've watched many of them fold up after an issue or three, without ever being noticed by most of the people reading this now. BTN did "Something" right. It has that special "Something" that the others never quite seemed to manage to find. Whatever it is, I hope it never leaves...without it, BTN would be just one more thing people pass by rapidly on the way to the GIFs and games in the download section. Just another file taking up valuable space that could hold yet another version of "Tank Battle", or some other inane program I'll never download, ignored by all but the die-hard few that wait to see if "it" will ever come back. Too many things have passed away this year.....I hope whatever adds the fire to BTN isn't one of them. (Oops, getting a little "down" there, gotta watch that!) Something else BTN has been doing for quite awhile is this right here....what you are reading..... BTN makes people that wouldn't normally sit down at their computer and hack out stuff for "publication" (yes, this is REALLY being published, even if it IS just electronic (just try and take a clipping to send to a publisher, though)) do so. I myself write very little (could tell, couldn't you?), except for erotic tales on various Adult Networks out there, most of which have been well received, but Mark got me to write something non-sexual for a change. He got me to sit down and write up an article for BTN not too horribly long after I met him...then another after that. I like to think that both of them were at least passable. After that, there was a long break while I didn't write much of anything...had too many personal troubles to deal with, and then the Hannah Home article came out. I wasn't too happy with it at all, so I decided to try and make up for it with this, something closer to my style, a little lighter in tone. If Mark accepts this one, this will make four....four Published articles from someone that would never have bothered if it hadn't been for BTN, and Mark. Makes me wonder sometimes how many of the other names you see in the table of contents of this magazine would never have written anything if Mark hadn't asked them to, and how many of them will now, only because Mark got them to in the first place, go on to write elsewhere. I myself may FINALLY sit down and collect up all of the stories I've written and submit them somewhere. I already have with one of them, and though it was accepted for publication, it never made it into hard copy (never found out why, either). I never would have bothered if I hadn't gotten positive response from my first two articles in here. (Someone told me I made them smile, that was enough for me.) To a lot of people out there this might just be a text file.....to me, and many others, this is a magazine, and a real one, not just a simple jumble of bits & bytes. It's something dreamed up by a Hell of a guy, slapped together in his rapidly dwindling spare time, and spread around the world (at least as far as Scotland, from what I once heard) to a lot more people than I ever thought would be reading anything I wrote. And, as much as BTN, and Mark, Kathy, and Sarah have come to mean to me, I'm sure they mean a lot more to others out there, since I've only been involved them for such a short period of time........I'm glad they've been around, and hope they stay. I'm going to miss it all if/when I finally have to leave. So, Happy, Bloody, Number 50, Mark! Enjoy the Hell out of it, I know I have...... Lurch Henson 9208.16 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Letters to the Editor As promised, here are the responses I've received that seem to belong here. If you wish to make it here, please feel free to leave Scott Hollifield a message on either the main message base of THE MATRIX or in any EZNet message base. He'll get it one way or the other. MM You people must be utterly satisfied. We don't have any letters to share with you this month. MM ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Of Cars, Toasters, and Computers by Brian Anderson Wanna do something scary? Go through old magazines, like the Computer Shopper. And we ain't talkin' 1952 here. Year before last is just fine. I had loaned a Shopper to my almost-boss (his girl Friday), and some years later (1.5), she returned it to me. She felt it necessary, but that's another story. I was going to toss it, but I remembered that some articles were in it that I wanted to read again. Maybe. Anyway, I proceeded to turn the pages on this monster publication. The things I saw and refreshed in my mind were funny enough to make me laugh out loud, even though I was completely by my self: pg. 338 "286 SCREAMER!! Blows the competition away!!" pg. 20 "The Swan 386SX. The wave of the future." $1899 32meg drive, 1mb memory, mono graphics. pg. 138 "sim/sip 1MBX9-80NS only $155.00" pg. 48 "This Thoroughbred Is Built For SPEED!" 16 MHZ 286 with 40 MEG HARD DRIVE Or how about the ad from APE (Applied Progressive Electronics) that headlines a "Battery Powered" laptop? As opposed to what? Or the Zeos ad with the headline "DAZZLING PERFORMANCE." A 286-12 machine, 32mg drive, 512k mem (truly generous), mono display. And they list a clock/calendar as a "feature". The ad has a clip from a review of the machine that says, "If you're looking for one of the fastest rides around at a down-to-earth price, don't pass up the ZEOS. Solid construction, flexible design and escape-velocity performance make it a top flight choice." This is short term thinking at it's best. If a 286-12 has "escape- velocity" speed, what in GOD's name does a 486-50 have? I'm scared to find out. It must be illegal, whatever it is. To be sure, the people who wrote these ads back then were mainly trying to sell, seLL, SELL! But if they sold computers THEN with those types of phrases, what are they saying NOW to those same customers? "This comes with a drive bay air bag, nuclear mouse, and clocks in at warp factor 9. Don't buy it if you can't handle the wind generated by the display speed, although for a small additional amount, we can sell you the xturbo-super-zga- hyperstraps if you need them." Well, no. That's not what they're saying. At least, I don't think so. What they're saying is much the same as what they said before. Just different products, and a wealth of new buyers. So, is there a problem here? Not really, just the same old sales flap that people have to watch out for. But I wonder if people watch out for computer sales flap like they do when they are buying a car. Most people know that when they buy a new car, they have to have their guard up when they walk in the door. Car salesmen have a bad reputation for bull, and maybe it's justified, maybe not. I don't know, except for what I see on the TV. Judging from that, I think the rep is justified. What I'm afraid of is the future. Think of people buying computers as casually as they buy toasters. Actually, I think that is a nice progression of times in itself. But maybe the "toaster" salesman will trick you into buying whatever toaster makes him the most money, or whatever toaster he needs to move because he has a zillion of them. Maybe not. Are you ready to try and figure out the facts when it comes time to buy? If you thought computer purchasing would become easier as the popularity of the beast improved, guess again. Progress seems to naturally bring more options to consider. Sounds depressing, but there is hope. One difference in these analogies of cars, toasters, and computers is the attitude of most computing folks. I was recently on a BBS, and a fellow wanted to chat. I accepted the chat, and he was curious about ".fli" files, and how they work. I explained to him that he needed quickfli.exe to view these files, and he was appreciative. This exchange was short, but got the job done. Here was a person in need of info, and he got it. And the nice part is that this is not unusual at all. It seems that most "online people" are far more than willing to help than the toaster guy. The point here is that you probably have a lot more honest and knowledgeable help in buying a computer than you would buying a car, or other things. Of course, you can't go online to get help if you have no machine yet. But when you talk to people you know who are into computing, you will probably find help that you just can't get when trying to buy the ultimate vehicle. Why? I don't know for certain. Maybe there is something about computers that pulls people together. It could be that computing is something that crosses a whole lot of boundaries without really trying. Or maybe it's triumph over sales tactics we all hate that makes us want to help. Buying direct has done in a lot of computer companies and stores, and that might be because we know what we want, rather than the toaster salesman telling us what we need. Whatever the reason, people can and will help. I have always had a problem with advertising. It makes me cringe to know that someone would buy Diet Coke just because Ray Charles said "Uh-HUH". (Ray is my favorite singer, so it's not what you think.) I firmly believe we should make sure that the people who are buying Diet Coke because of this ad should pay extra, to cover the cost of the ad. The rest of us should get an "intelligence discount", and not have to suffer the higher product price resulting from any such advertising. In another example, certain heads of car dealerships will get in front of the television camera and do non-car-related stuff, hoping to draw in customers. But would you really buy a car from a guy that was on TV wearing nothing but a barrel? Is this the guy you want to give over $10,000 of your money? OK, now we have sales people doing crazy ads for computers. Are you going to buy a machine from people in barrels saying "EVERYTHING MUST GO!!! ALL UNITS 400% BELOW COST!!" I hope you don't without proper consideration. Check with your fellow computer users. They will most likely steer you in the right direction, given your needs. Just don't believe all the ads you read. Several times I have seen companies with multi-page, full color ads disappear the next month. (I guess the lifetime guaranty on those ZGA-Hyperstraps is null and void.) We find from this that some claims are definitely too good to be true. Again, check with your computer friends. If you don't have any computer friends, find some. We're actually a pretty good bunch. And easier type of friend to find than a toaster friend. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** THE SCENE ***** by Scott Hollifield "How fitting that the universal convocation to breach a passage, the word 'ENTER', should also be the largest [key on a computer keyboard]." allegedly attributed to an member of the Dalai Lama's entourage while touring an IBM facility in the 1970s -------------------------------- It was the darkest and rainiest day of the year for the Scene. Somewhere, nine-minute old water drops zinged like bullets into the cables and antennae that powered the underspace of the Scene. A silvery burst of line noise slashed through my report. I swore and muttered something uncomplimentary about fiber optics. I was filing my most recent dispatch for the Birmingham Telecom Net, the first and last of the great floating infopowers in town. The work in it, like any collection of information these days, tended to be obsolete by the time someone bothered to type it, but BTN survived gamely on its name and reputation. BTN didn't make it through the Collapse intact; nothing did. But it was still around. I put a pause-lock on my report and left to roam the scene for a little while, to stretch my legs as it were. All around me, cyber-ruins pulsed dimly and system kids built newer and flashier ways to tell you what time it was. 16:52/081396 said the most eye-catching display; it repeated the time and date, like an advertising sign, in hexadecimal and Japanese. Jesus, I thought suddenly. Tomorrow would be seven months to the day since the Collapse. How can a place change so much in seven months? I punched into a local system, Z-Slash Trader, for my mail. Three pieces popped up; one was an automatically generated reminder from BTN concerning my deadline, and another was a stodgy data catalog for some old line of compressionware that everyone knew was an intelligence worm for state law enforcement. The third piece made me pause. No header, no tags, no system ID. Just raw text in the format of organized system mail. It said: MAHOGANY OMEGA LATERAL HUNGRY SAMIEL NOIZMONGERS SEAGREEN PIPES SEVERED PERIWINKLE BITTERSWEET OMEGA LAUNDRY HICCUP PLUSH WONDER I frowned at the message as if it were an Escher drawing. If it was some kind of junk mail, an advertisement for something, it wasn't coming across. It could be a gang print of some kind; local system gangs had been known to drop confusing mail in people's boxes as a lark. But the lack of any tags, of any signature proclaiming its maker, was decidedly non-gang. The only word I recognized as significant was "omega", which probably meant omegaModem, the transfer protocol that blew ZModem out of the water and became the local standard literally overnight. It also happened to be self-destructive over a gradual period of time, tethering users to periodic updates. A couple of the other words sounded vaguely familiar, like elements of a dream weeks old, but after staring at it a full minute with no further recognition, I decided to save it for later. After spending about three hours wandering the Scene, catching new files, reading new graffiti and maintaining contacts, I tried to finish my report, which was ostensibly a morphography of the offline mail programs of the last year, but ended up, like most of my contemporary writing, as rambling nonsense. Net-heads ate it up, particularly the drug culture themes of the mail reader articles. Offline mail readers began as a hyped and revolutionary way for users to spend less time grounded in the Scene and more time in reality, but before long, it became clear that all a mail reader really did was to trap the user in the Scene even while he or she was standing in reality. The readers had spawned a culture of mail addicts who kept a continual link with their sites, calling six or seven times a day to get their packet fix. The new thing in mail circles was retro-packing: constantly resetting the conference pointers so that the system would always deliver new mail. It didn't matter that the mail was old, used, and quite unhealthy; for mail junkies, it was just another fix. I sighed to myself as I wrote two more paragraphs. I had done a lot of mail a few years ago, and even enjoyed it, back before The Matrix collapsed, but when I became a serious BTN employee, I had to quit. Now I only did mail when I had to, just enough to keep me going. I had friends who did mail all the time, and there was never any thought of doing anything about it. They were legal adults. Besides, it was better than the door-fiends who spent their days and nights plugged into Esterian Conquest. Those guys were *completely* gone. I couldn't finish the article. My thoughts kept drifting back to the cryptic message I had received. Hell with the report, I thought to myself - the BTN computer wouldn't notice if I was a little late with it; I'd just use an intrusion clock and set my official deadline ahead by a few days. That never would have worked with Mark, I thought to myself wryly. He never should have turned the thing over to a system. In the meantime, I decided to call Birdie. Birdie was the best source an infohound could want. He/it was a floating data structure whom I had run into, quite by accident, a couple of years ago. Whether Birdie was a powerful AI or simply controlled by somebody who got around amazingly well, I didn't know, and didn't care either, too much. He was a cybertectic chameleon, shadowy and self-disguising; sometimes he'd pop up as an inconspicuous private conference on one BBS, and be on another system the next day as an extra hidden node. Supposedly he'd even floated for a short while, some years ago, as one of the Matrix's USA Today doors. One thing was always consistent - you didn't actually seek out and find Birdie. He found you. We'd worked out a kind of code, some time ago, in case I ever needed his help. I logged onto what was left of the Bus System, still running (barely) after all these years, and left a private message to an imaginary user named Rita Smith, ostensibly for the purpose of a romantic proposition. The more lurid the details in the fake message were, the faster Birdie seemed to call back. I made it good. The call came seventeen minutes later, nearly a record. The data in it instructed me to log into a minor WWIV system out in the suburbs somewhere. Minor was right - WWIV was nearly unheard of for years, especially in the innerscene. Besides, I knew the system. It had a user log of six people, and was part of a file-running ring that distributed homemade game doors and system mods to the south Atlantic coast. I'm sure it spooked the sysop whenever he saw me poking around, which was rare, but somehow, my account still existed. Such a system would make it too dangerous for Birdie to hide the file section, so I picked the most obvious place, the spot in the board which was least likely to ever be used: the mail door. Bingo. BIRMINGHAM INFORMATION RETRIEVAL DOOR GREETINGS GOT YOUR MESSAGE FEELING IMAGINATIVE TODAY ARE WE Up your bypass, I replied. I told him about the message, and zapped him a copy of it. What do you think? OMEGA IS PROBABLY OMEGAMODEM UNLESS DELIBERATE MISDIRECTION INVOLVED No kidding. Anything else? SEVERAL KEYWORDS CORRELATE MAHOGANY SEAGREEN PERIWINKLE BITTERSWEET DESIGNATIONS OF INDIVIDUAL CRAYOLA CRAYONS Hmmm. Might be something, might be nothing. What else? NOIZMONGERS IS NEW GANG FORMED FROM ASHES OF OLD AMIGA TERROPIRATES RECORD PRETTY CLEAN SO FAR NOTHING THEIR MOTHERS COULDN'T BAIL THEM OUT OF Must have been pretty damn new, I thought. In Birmingham, a cyber gang generally didn't consider itself the real item until its members had slashed self-promotion graffiti across the face of every system in town. STAND BY NEW DATA BEING PROCESSED I jumped a bit. Birdie was quick enough that he rarely needed time to process anything. He must be onto something, I thought. He was silent for a full minute before beginning again. HICCUP PLUSH WONDER LAST THREE WORDS IN MESSAGE Yeah? So what? SAME THREE WORDS ENTERED IN FINAL MESSAGE ENTRY ON MATRIX EIGHT THIRTY-SEVEN A.M. JANUARY FOURTEENTH NINETEEN NINETY-SIX He paused for emphasis. SEVENTEEN SECONDS BEFORE COLLAPSE I shuddered. This was getting creepier all the time. I knew from the start that it was going to be a strange one, but I had no idea it was connected with the Matrix. What was the conference, I asked. Who sent it? Was it online or part of a packet? UNKNOWN I was silent again. Birdie must have snatched the reference out of some data shrapnel he had lying around since the Collapse; stuff was probably dustier than a 3.5" disk. I started thinking about the Collapse again, how it had changed the city. How it had changed everything. By the end of 1995, Birmingham was the fifth largest data center in the country. The number of local systems had just topped 250, and at least a third of those were working off CD-ROM drives, with a dozen nodes or more. It was a prosperous time. I was working for BTN, of course. The Maisels had picked up and left town under mysterious circumstances in mid-'94; no one knew where they went. It's possible Mark saw something coming, something he didn't like. The Scene was becoming more industrialized, bustling with life and activity, but at the same time, it was also moving away from the leisurely pastime of years past and transforming into something new, something strangely impersonal and automated. Something big. So Maisel turned BTN over to a self-sufficient data factory which needed no human involvement to edit and publish. It didn't matter much, by that point; systems without sysops were already becoming all the rage. No one denied that the Matrix was virtually single-handedly responsible for the Birmingham boom. It was a towering monolith, a skyscraper of a system amid a cybercity full of other smaller structures. It was the single biggest data station in the Southeast and had been for some time. Towards the end, it was virtually a city unto itself. Other systems were built around it by enterprising kids as entry points and waystations; illicit groups of hackers and file pushers made their nests inside the Matrix's mighty shelves of data, only to be swept out in a matter of days by the system's ever-vigilant (and expensive) security force. Finally, on a cold sunny morning in January of '96, the Matrix fell. It was the work of a net bomb, expertly timed and tuned. The resulting destruction of data was felt on systems for miles around, as operators of boards that weren't even hit by the explosion reported transmission gaps and file dropouts. The sheer force of the shockwave surged outward and along the interstate lines of dozen different networks; sites in Washington, Dallas, Atlanta, Detroit and Chicago suffered peripheral damage caused by the outer ripples of the blast's devastating inertia. The Matrix itself was completely obliterated, leaving only a smoldering ruin of garbled ANSI fragments and useless, burnt circuitry. Nine other major systems announced retirement due to data loss on the spot; countless others faded away without anyone realizing they'd been there. In a matter of weeks, the Scene was changed from the para-urban sprawl it had been into a hopelessly depressing modem ghetto, with illegal data trading and other vice rising to the surface like scum in an old glass of water, now that the Matrix could no longer run things. It was the last time I saw Dean. I'm still not sure why he came back, that one final time. It had only been about eighteen months since he'd given up his dead-end career as an environmental engineer and tried his hand at cleaning up a different sort of environment, the data-choked ecology of the cyberscenes. The change of jobs didn't seem to improve Dean's life any, but at least the work seemed to suit his temperament now. He petitioned for - and got - the assignment he wanted: to return to Birmingham and investigate the Matrix's collapse. "Christ, Scott," he told me upon arriving, "can't you people keep a lid on your own garbage?" He sounded despondent at having to come back to town, but I knew that under other circumstances, he'd be quite enjoying himself. He spent two weeks in town - had to stay in a hotel, of course, complaining about it all the while - and finally arrived at the official conclusion that the Matrix had in fact self-destructed because there was nothing that seemed to link it to the outside. "Ain't no traceables in that bad boy," he said. Dean seemed to be of the opinion that the Matrix was experimenting with some new forms of data warfare for the purpose of combatting the gangs or maybe some other darker, more hidden agenda, and that it had simply, literally, blown up in their faces. He seemed confident that the bomb program - "nukeware", he called it - was detonated from the inside. It sure made HIS job easier; he could fill out a two-page report and return to D.C. for a new assignment. No messy loose ends. And that left me, stuck in this shadow of a town, rambling away into the void the way old-time foreign correspondents used to do. Only now it looked as if there was a real story. It was beginning to look like there was more to the Matrix's collapse than had been officially reported. Roused from my reverie a soft clicking noise, I noticed that Birdie had left me, silently and without interruption. I didn't mind. Likely, he had already told me as much as he could. Probably went off to some old PCBoard dinosaur filebase to hide as a .GIF directory. What next? I pored over the message again. I supposed that I could try tracking down the Noizmongers, but my gang connections weren't what they once were, and I'd be just as likely to get a credit strip for my trouble if I knocked on the wrong doors. That had nearly happened to me once before, when I was doing an expose' on the local Windows underground; I'd come back home to find my Visa limit slashed and an MCI pink note pinned threateningly to my bank accounts. Eric Hunt called the next day to apologize. Besides, I didn't know where to look. If this was a new gang, they were being pretty coy about their debut. No, the only lead I had, if you could call it that, was a corpse. I had to visit what was left of the Matrix. Not that there was anything left, just a burnt-out square of blue-white jagged ruins in the middle of the Scene. People had already combed through it a million times since the collapse, I knew; still, it was the only option left. When I approached the area upon where the Matrix had once set, a restriction field flashed across my path. Transmission time slowed down, meaning there was a crowd of users accessing the vicinity. Stopped from going further, I popped into one of the outerlying boards. to see if I could get some answers. It was a heavily modified Tenth Planet set-up with layers of clumsily hung meta-ASCII in the intro to make it look like an old Virtual system. The sysop's name was Doctor Plasma; he was seventeen years old and like everyone else, had entirely too much time on his hands these days. He sprang into sight like cardboard tied with a rubber band, as soon as I came in. >>What's going on here, I asked him. <>KNet? Since when does a network come in here and run things? <>Ever hear of a new bunch called the Noizmongers? There was a brief and somewhat amused pause. <>You're sure about that? < My high school principal was like all other high school principals. They're all the same. Same motivational speel. Same hair cut. Same clothes. Kinda makes you want to say, "Hey cool cat, those are some -keen- duds, Mr. !" and hope that he doesn't say "Why thank you, student." I wonder if he is the best principal he can be. Probably not. With those words, Mr. Gary Quick dismissed the 1992 graduating class of Gardendale High School. Immediately, people who never spoke to you, except to bum a pen, are blubbering all over saying how much they'll miss you. Yeah...right. They'll miss me about as much as I'd miss that strange rash in my genital area. Well, I'm now a high school graduate. Nowadays, high school graduates have five basic avenues of opportunity. 1) Enter a skilled trade. Most people who take this avenue have some form of vocational training. Many are educated by taking vocational courses. This explains why three-quarters of all malcontents in your class disappeared during your sophomore year. They were experiencing a phenomena known as shop class. Consequently, they will probably go to work this summer making $20+ an hour. The money isn't bad as long as you don't mind working like a Geritol vendor at an AARP convention. 2) Enlist in a Military branch. During your senior year, the Armed Forces suddenly become immensely concerned about your future. They harass (for lack of a better word) you to no avail via mail, phone calls, and unsolicited front-door visits. Sorta makes you wish you had actually gotten your mother to sign that form excusing you from taking that military vocation test in 10th grade. This post-graduation route is not all that bad. After all, you get free lodging, clothes, food, and they pay you too. In exchange, you must give them your hair and four to six years of your life. 3) Work full-time at Denny's. It doesn't necessarily have to be Denny's to qualify. Krystal's, the Phillips 66 Quicky-Mart or just about any place middle-aged bleached-blonde chain-smoking women in red Firebirds frequent will suffice. This one has always befuddled me. Sure, this is kosher to get money for college or technical school, but as a profession? Well, I guess someone has to do it. Huh?...oh, yes. I'll have the Grand Slam breakfast and a large orange juice. Thanks. 4) Go to college. This concept is fairly simple. You pay a college thousands of dollars to use their faculty and facilities to "learn". After about four or five years of this, they hand you a piece of paper called a diploma. Supposedly, you are now entitled to a steady, well-paying job were you will use your knowledge to improve/worsen the human condition--or so they say...... I wonder if Denny's is hiring. 5) Become governor of Alabama. Hey, if Guy did it, so can I! "To hell with state ethics laws!" That's what I always say. Eighth grade. That age-old question presses like a can of Spam on your frontal lobe..."What shall I do with my pathetic existence?" Well, this is what I did. At the end of eighth grade after months of consideration and conferring with my loving father ("Damn it boy, you ARE going to college!"), I decided to register for all college-prep courses. In high school, I was christened the Official School Computer Guru. Too many times, I would be summonsed to the office to fix their "network" of two dumb terminals, similar to those seen on those outdated PBS specials, linked to a 286. It's amazing how plugging-in some coaxial cable can make you a deity to the office ladies. I hated this. Do you know how embarrassing it is when office ladies ask you computer questions when your scarfin' with your best buds at lunch?! I guess this is one reason I have chosen to pursue Computer Engineering...to make computers serviceable to office ladies so some poor high school shmuck wouldn't have to be tormented as I was. Anyhow, I was popular. "Hey Scott, can you change my F in Government to a B on that computer in the office? Ten bucks?"--that's popularity, isn't it? The University of Miami, Auburn and the University of Alabama in Huntsville were the finalists for college. Miami...expensive($18,000/year)...likely to be mortally wounded..nah. Auburn..................................nope. Huntsville....Cray.....Cray?......CRAY!............well, o.k. Ok, I admit it. The Cray made me do it! The housing at UAH is pretty kosher too. It's like this. You live in a 4-bedroom two bath apartment. Each person get's his own bedroom, so you don't have to deal with some guy's dirty underwear/turbans, snoring, or constant female-felching. It also works in reverse. You can tack your socks up on the bulletin board, and pick you nose and wipe it on the wall if you want. Heck! You can even grow corn in your room for all I care. Yep...I think I'm going to like college... Look for monthly updates on "Scott Goes to College" (Geez...sounds like the title of a cheap porno) in future issues of BTN. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Bulletin Board Spotlight Questions 1) Name of the BBS: Southern Stallion [Formerly Amiga Alliance II --EPH] 2) Name of the sysop: Richard Foshee 3) BBS software used: PCBoard 14.5A 4) How long have you been sysoping: Seven Years 5) Are you a subscription only / completely free / hybrid of the two BBS? COMPLETELY Free 6) How many incoming phone lines and approximate disk space? Do you support high speed modems? If so, what type(s)? Single line, 300 Meg of disk space, and a ZyXEL 14400 V.32bis modem 7) Is your BBS primarily a files BBS, primarily a message based BBS, or a combination of the two? Combination of messages and files 8) If you've sysop'd more than just this BBS, briefly list previous endeavors and their life spans. Used to be CoSysop of Apple Valley (AKA Pinson Valley), The Connection, and current CoSysop on Joker's Castle. 9) What made you decide to take the masochistic plunge and become a sysop: I needed a hobby, besides I enjoy meeting people and making new friends. And I *LOVE* hard drive crashes! 10) What is the general 'thrust' or area of specialty for your BBS: Thrust is a fitting word, the board is mainly dedicated to the Gay community but the wider scope is adult entertainment both gay and straight. [Southern Stallion is also an excellent place for the general public to go to for information regarding AIDS and AIDS treatment. --EPH] 11) (optional) What is your regular job/career to support this leeching hobby of sysoping? I manage a medical supply warehouse 12) What are your plans for the coming year? I plan to upgrade the size of the hard drive on the system, and purchasing a new HST Dual Standard modem. I'm also looking into carrying a national net called GayCom. 13) Where would you like your BBS to go over the next 5 years? I'm pretty comfortable with it as it is, just a group of people having fun. 14) What do you feel the highlights of your BBS are? If I had to pick one thing I'd have to say the vast selection of .GIF files we have available. 15) What is your personal vision of the 'ideal user?' Someone that enjoys getting involved in conversations and making friends. And someone that's not afraid to ask questions if they don't know something. 16) What is the thing you've enjoyed most about providing your BBS? I've managed to meet all sorts of people (Some of them scary!), but meeting people is the reason I started the thing after all.. 17) What is the thing you've enjoyed least about providing your BBS? Nothing really about the BBS, but the hardware problems that crop up on occasion are my BIGGEST headache. 18) What is the funniest story you can tell about your BBS and/or your users? If BTN were an adult oriented newsletter, I could tell ya, but I don't think I want to get BTN in trouble with THAT story! Here's a space to write a paragraph or two to cover any points/details/questions I missed, yet you feel should be addressed. The board is a great place for people that just like to get together and talk or maybe read some of the messages on the ThrobNet network, or to make new friends. And we're pretty open minded about it, we do allow heterosexuals also <>...... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- untitled by The Bishop It's been too long. I haven't slept in over 18 hours. I need it. It calls to me, but I am unable to reply. It steals its way into my head and implants the desire, but I am unable to muster the resources. I know I will get it somehow. I must. It is what I seek. It is an oasis in my desert of consciousness. I am merely a child -- a child so innocent. Holding out my hand as if to grab something - anything. But my hand comes back empty. I clench my fists to show my anger but my strength has long since left my body. I look around. Things are not the same as they were. Everything has taken on a hazy look, as though I were gazing across a deep valley after a long rain. I knew it once. There was a time when I could conjure it up almost at will. Now, my abilities have diminished to the point where I can only remember it and what it felt like. I knew it once. It evades me. Like two children playing in a meadow, it runs away from me. I give chase, but it is too quick. It is too elusive. I think that I shall never see it again. But when my spirits reach their lowest, it returns - begging me to play that insane game with it. It is the hunted, I am the hunter. It is my prey, I must capture it. I have been put into a game where the rules are made by my opponent - not a person, not an animal, yet it is an entity. I talk with it often. It speaks as though we will soon be one, but when I turn to look, it fades away, like a vapor trail in the heavens. It taunts me. It taunts me! It makes promises to me - promises that it will not keep. Things that it knows that I want - I need - to survive. It is the host, I am the parasite. I must feed off it in order to live, but it does not give me enough. It mocks me! My need for it is its sole purpose for resisting. I try to ask it why, but its reply does not come back. I as again, hoping that my actions shall not be made in vain. Again, only silence greets me. It has taken cover in the shadows in which I am afraid to dwell. It calls me from beyond my boundaries. It is free to roam - I am the caged. It tortures me! It knows my lust - it has been my lover. A thousand times I have known what it is to be one with it, yet it chooses to leave me. I must wait until the night falls to meet this creature. I have named it - I shall call it 'Vampyr', for it disappears with the sun and returns with the night. A light breeze sweeps away the dead leaves that have fallen from the trees. The leaves are my life - both shall end and not return. I think that I shall welcome whatever lays claim to my soul - be it good or bad, it will be transferred to that which is not myself. It shall assume the responsibility - I have competed my task. I must move on - I MUST! It is the way of things, it is not my place to dispute it. I am pushing the boundaries - I am exploring that which has been given to me. I imagine that I am away - far away - from where I am. I am the emperor. My kingdom is nothing more than my mind. I must escape from its control. It tells me what to do - I am its unwilling servant. I must find some way to capture it - to enslave it - to make it mine. My emancipation must be quick, it must not know that I am gone. I shall know soon, what is to come - what has passed. I shall continue my quest until I can do so no longer, until my journey becomes that which once was - until I am a distant memory. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- __ / / The Amiga Connection / / / / Written By - Jeff Vaughn __ / / \ \/ / Transmitted originally from Labyrinth BBS \ / \/ (205) 681-0002 Hello again. Jeff here. About four months ago, I bought an Amiga 500. I'll be 100% honest. I was thoroughly impressed. The machine I bought had an internal 1 megabyte of RAM, 880k floppy, and other impressive features. The system has built-in VGA, HIGH stereo quality sound, voice synthesizer, and a windowing system years ahead of the IBM compatible series. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't intend this to be a "IBM is rank and Amiga rulez!" article. Nope, that's not it. I just put up a bulletin board system for Amiga people and I figured i'd write this little article for all our followers to see. God, that sounds typical, doesn't it? "Followers". I know Amiga users are smug, very arrogant. Not all of them, but i've met quite a few. A lot of us have a good reason for acting like that. The Amiga is an incredible machine for a very user-friendly price. A lot of go around saying "The Amiga blows the IBM". It one BIG way, it does, the price. The Amiga goes right now for $299.00. Of course, that's the basic set-up (512k ram, 880 floppy, etc). You can add-on another 512k and 1 more external drive for $109.00. The big problem is the additional stuff like a hard-drive controller. That runs about $219.00 on the norm. The problem is the majority of Amiga's buyers are European (corporations, etc.) and Commodore has decided not to dive into a big promotion in America when they know their big buyers are in Europe. Commodore computers have several software and hardware items that make the Amiga extremely compatible and user-friendly. There are several companies that have developed software and hardware to make the Amiga emulate the Macintosh & the IBM compatible. Unfortunately, they're experimental & don't work 100%. The games on the Amiga are incredible. Amiga has several games converted from IBM compatible, but they have ventured to make several of their own games. Some of them make you think the programmers were on an acid trip at the time. I've read that Amiga is on the way to %100 IBM compatibility. Hopefully, we can get up there in the big time with you PC people. Oh yeah, the BBS will TRY to deal with questions any of you Amiga people might have about the system and it's functions. We are working on files sections for the BBS. Amiga public domain is getting to be quite impressive. There is also an on-line Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign going on. The BBS will be featuring Amiga's incredible Sky-Pix (Pictures for the BBS while you're on-line). %100 Amiga BBS in Birmingham : Labyrinth 681-0002 running C-Net Amiga v2.17 The Missing Link 853-1257 running C-Net Amiga v2.18 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SIG's (Special Interest Groups), Computer Related ------------------------------------------------- BEPCUG CCS Birmingham East PC Users Group Commodore Club South Jefferson Sate Jr. College Springville Road Library Ruby Carson Hall, Rm 114 2nd & 4th Tuesday (C64/C128) 3rd Friday, 7-9 PM 3rd Monday (Amiga) Paula Ballard 251-6058 (after 5PM) 7:30-10 PM BCCC BIPUG Birmingham Commodore Computer Club Birmingham IBM-PC Users Group POB 59564 UAB Nutrition Science Blg Birmingham, Al 35259 RM 535/541 UAB School of Education, Rm 153 1st Sunday (delayed one week 2nd and 4th Sundays, 2 PM if meeting is a holiday) Rusty Hargett 854-5172 Marty Schulman 967-5883 BACE FAOUG Birmingham Atari Computer First Alabama Osborne Users Enthusiast Group Vestavia Library, downstairs Homewood Library 2nd Monday, 7 PM 1st Saturday, 1PM Benny Brown 822-5059 Ed Purquez 669-5200 CADUB BGS/CIG CAD Users of Birmingham Birmingham Genealogical Society/ Homewood Library Computer Interest Group 3rd Tuesday, 6:30PM-8:30PM Birmingham Public Library Bobby Benson 791-0426 3rd Floor Auditorium 3rd Sunday, 2:30 PM Robert Matthews 631-9783 or Bone Yard BBS RAHSPCUG Ramsay Alternative High School PC Users Group Ramsay High School 1800 13th Avenue South last Wednesday of each month (September-April) from 3:02-3:35 Lee Nocella 581-5120 SIG's, Non-Computer Related --------------------------- BBC Birmingham Astronomy Club Blue Box Companions Subject: Astronomy Subject: Dr. Who Red Mountain Museum Annex Hoover Library 4th Tuesday, 7:30PM 1st Saturday, 2PM-5PM If you belong to or know of a user group that is not listed, please let us know by sending E-Mail to Barry Bowden on The Matrix BBS. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Known BBS Numbers For The Birmingham Area NAME NUMBER BAUD RATES MODEM BBS SOFTWARE SUPPORTED TYPE 129 ADAnet One Nodes 1-3 854-9074 1200-2400 PCBoard 14.5 129 ADAnet One Node 4 854-5863 9600-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 1 Alter-Ego BBS 925-5099 300-9600 USR HST PCBoard 14.5 4(0 Arkham Asylum 853-7422 300-14400 USR DS VBBS 5.50 ( Asgard 663-9171 300-9600 V.32 WWIV 4.11 Baudville Node 1 640-4593 300-2400 Major BBS 5.3 Baudville Node 2 640-4639 300-2400 Major BBS 5.3 Baudville Node 3 640-7243 300-2400 Major BBS 5.3 Baudville Node 4 640-7286 300-2400 Major BBS 5.3 13 Bus System 595-1627 300-2400 PCBoard 14.2 17+ Byte Me! 979-BYTE! 2400-14400 USR HST WWIV 4.12 CM(ee) BBS Node 1 655-4059 300-2400 Oracomm Plus CM(ee) BBS Node 2 655-4065 300-2400 Oracomm Plus Camelot 856-679 300-2400 Telegard 2.5 16 Channel 8250 Node 1 744-8546 300-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 16 Channel 8250 Node 2 744-5166 300-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 $ Christian Apologetic 808-0763 300-14400 V.32bis Wildcat! 3.00 13_ Crunchy Frog Node 1 956-1755 300-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 13_ Crunchy Frog Node 2 956-0073 300-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 DataLynx 933-1974 300-9600 V.32 WWIV 4.21 Deep Space 9 980-1089 300-2400 Wildcat! Disktop Publishing 854-1660 300-9600 V.32 Wildcat! 3.02 Drawing Room 951-2391 300-2400 Wildcat! 3.02 EcoBBS 933-2238 300-2400 WWIV 4.21 Elysian Fields 620-0694 300-2400 Telegard 2.7 -^ F/X BBS Node 1 823-5777 300-14400 USR DS PC Board 14.5 -^ F/X BBS Node 2 822-4570 300-14400 V.32bis PC Board 14.5 -^ F/X BBS Node 3 822-4526 300-14400 V.32bis PC Board 14.5 12 Family Smorgas-Board 744-0943 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5 Final Frontier 681-6148 300-2400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 Genesis Online 4 Nodes 620-4144 300-2400 Major BBS 5.3 Graphics Zone Node 1 870-5306 300-2400 MNP4 TBBS 2.1(16) Graphics Zone Node 2 870-5329 300-2400 MNP4 TBBS 2.1(16) Hacker's Corner 674-5449 1200-2400 MNP4 PCBoard 14.5 1 Hard Disk 987-0794 300-9600 V.32bis PCBoard 14.5 $* Hardeman's BBS 640-6436 1200-2400 Wildcat! 3.02 Hoots With Owls 520-9540 300-2400 TriBBS 3.0 2 I.S.A. BBS 995-6590 300-9600 USR HST Remote Access ( Infinite Probability 791-0421 2400-9600 V.32 VBBS Intruder Enterprizes 969-0870 300-9600 V.32 VBBS 5.5 2 Island 870-4685 2400-9600 V.32 Hermes 2.0 13 Joker's Castle 664-5589 300-14400 USR DS PC Board 14.5 Killing Fields 780-8845 300-2400 WWIV 4.21 4( Kiriath Arba 681-8374 300-2400 WWIV 4.21 Labrynth 681-0002 300-2400 CNetAmiga 2.17 Lemon Grove 836-1184 300-12000 V.32bis Searchlight Lion & Unicorn 856-2464 300-9600 V.32 WWIV 4.21 15 Little Kingdom Node 1 969-0007 300-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 15 Little Kingdom Node 2 969-0008 300-2400 MNP4 PCBoard 14.5 1- Magnolia BBS 854-6407 300-14400 USR HST PCBoard 14.2 # Medicine Man BBS 664-5662 300-14000 V.32bis GTPower 17.00 29 MetaBoard 254-3344 300-14400 USR DS Opus Missing Link 853-1257 300-2400 C-Net Amiga 2.18g ^&* Night Watch 841-2790 1200-2400 TriBBS 2.11 + Nirvana 942-6702 300-2400 WWIV 4.21 # Owlabama BBS 856-2521 300-2400 GTPower 17.00 13_ Owl's Nest 680-0851 300-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 ^&* Party Line 856-1336 300-14000 V.32bis TriBBS 2.11 &* Playground 836-4200 300-2400 TriBBS 2.11 Pooh's Korner 980-8710 300-14400 USR DS Wildcat! 3.5 % Pro-Electric 980-8836 300-9600 V.32 Proline 2.065 # Safe Harbor Node 1 665-4332 300-2400 GTPower 17.00 # Safe Harbor Node 2 665-4355 300-14400 USR DS GTPower 17.00 1!_ Southern Stallion 631-0262 300-14400 V.32bis PCBoard 14.5 Sperry BBS 853-6144 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5 1 ST BBS 836-9311 300-2400 PCBoard 14.2 + Teasers 987-0122 300-2400 WWIV 4.20 2 The Bone Yard 631-6023 300-9600 USR HST PCBoard 14.5 The Castle 841-7618 300-2400 C-Base 2.0 The Den 933-8744 300-9600 USR HST ProLogon/ProDoor 1378-% The MATRIX Nodes 1-10 323-2016 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5 1378-% The MATRIX Nodes 11-14 323-6016 9600-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 1378-% The MATRIX Node 15 458-3449 9600-14400 V.32 PCBoard 14.5 The Monster 967-4839 300-2400 Telegard 2.7 2 The Outer Limits 425-5871 1200-9600 USR HST Wildcat! 3.01 The Quiet Zone 833-2066 300-9600 V.32 ExpressNET The Safety BBS 581-2866 300-2400 RBBS-PC The Song Remains ... 995-0794 300-2400 VBBS ! The Wanderer 836-0603 300-2400 Wildcat! 3.00 ( The Word 833-2831 300-2400 WWIV 4.12 Thy Master's Dungeon 940-2116 300-9600 V.32 TriBBS 2.11 ! Torch Song 328-1517 300-2400 Wildcat 3.01 + Wild Side 631-0184 300-1200 WWIV 4.20 Willie's DYM Node 1 979-1629 300-2400 Oracomm Plus Willie's DYM Node 2 979-7739 300-2400 Oracomm Plus Willie's DYM Node 3 979-7743 300-1200 Oracomm Plus Willie's DYM Node 4 979-8156 300-1200 Oracomm Plus Ziggy Unaxess 991-5696 300-1200 Unaxess The many symbols you see prior to the names of many of the bbs' in the list signify that they are members of one or more networks that exchange or echo mail to each other in some organized fashion. 1 = EzNet, a local IBM compatible network 2 = FidoNet, an international network, multi-topic 3 = Metrolink, an international network, multi-topic 4 = WWIV-Net, an international network, multi-topic 5 = Intellec, an international network, multi-topic 6 = Uni'Net, an international network, multi-topic 7 = ThrobNet, an international network, adult oriented 8 = ILink, an international network, multi-topic 9 = ADAnet, an international network dedicated to the handicapped 0 = VirtualNet, national network, multi-topic - = RIME, an international network, multi-topic = = TcNet, not certain at publication time ! = STUDNet, a local homosexually oriented network @ = # = GTNet, an international network, multi-topic $ = WildNet, a national network, multi-topic % = InterNet, an international network, linking businesses, universities, and bbs', multi-topic ^ = City2City, a national network, multi-topic & = TriBBS Net, a national network, multi-topic * = Dixie Net, a regional network, multi-topic geared toward the south eastern United States ( = MAXnet, a local network, connecting WWIV and VBBS systems ) = PlanoNet, a national network, multi-topic _ = LuciferNet, an international network, adult oriented + = ANet, a local network, adult oriented If you have any corrections, additions, deletions, etc., please let us know via EzNet.