1612 lines
83 KiB
Plaintext
1612 lines
83 KiB
Plaintext
BTN: Birmingham Telecommunications News
|
|
COPYRIGHT 1992 ISSN 1055-4548
|
|
|
|
January 1992 Volume 5, Issue 1
|
|
|
|
Table Of Contents
|
|
-----------------
|
|
Article Title Author
|
|
Policy Statement and Disclaimer................Staff
|
|
Publisher's Corner.............................Mark Maisel
|
|
Whatever Happened To...........................Tim Straughn
|
|
Music Revue....................................Joseph Ray
|
|
Review: Borzoi Online Handbook................Mark Maisel
|
|
The Reality of Love............................Shawn Trucks
|
|
THE OFFLINE READER MENACE......................Jet Thomas
|
|
Music Review...................................Michael Davidson
|
|
Notes From The Trenches........................Dean Costello
|
|
The Adventures of R.G. Strangemind & Herbert...Jeremy Lewis
|
|
The Meandering Themes of Colby.................Colby Gibson
|
|
Surprise! Surprise!...........................MoeDog
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
The Connection Alter-Ego Arkham Asylum
|
|
Channel 8250 Little Kingdom Joker's Castle
|
|
Crunchy Frog Myth Drannor Owl's Nest
|
|
MATRIX Abject Poverty The Bus
|
|
The Outer Limits Bloom County The Round Table
|
|
DC Info Exchange Radio Free Troad Owlabama BBS
|
|
Amiga Alliance ][ DataLynx Martyrdom Again?!
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
The First Annual
|
|
|
|
Birmingham BBSer's
|
|
|
|
Celebrity Roast
|
|
|
|
Okay, we have a few new developments, so pay attention!
|
|
|
|
FIrst the price of the tickets is $15.00.......a lousy $15.00!!!
|
|
For a great evening with people who are as deranged as you (you might
|
|
even learn a few new tricks!) this is indeed a small expense, so stop
|
|
being a tightwad and dig into your recess money and try to find
|
|
someone who can tolerate your company for an evening! For $30.00 a
|
|
couple you can have a few laughs and you might even get lucky in the
|
|
bargain!
|
|
|
|
We have been able, thru the good graces of Colonel's Corner in
|
|
Trussville Alabama, to set up a telephone ticket ordering service for
|
|
all of you hot shots who use that plastic money! Call 205-640-4139
|
|
and tell Doug your innermost secrets, then after he finishes laughing,
|
|
give him your Visa or Mastercard number and WHAMO!!!!!...Just like
|
|
that you'll have your tickets waiting for you at the door! If you
|
|
have to mail in the bucks, the address is Colonel's Corner......Route
|
|
#2, Box 108-K, Trussville, Alabama, 35173. Yes, at the Roast we'll be
|
|
accepting lots of grief, and we will be taking a lot of Personal
|
|
suggestions about boards and such, but we DON'T take American Express!
|
|
|
|
The Date is January 31st.......the time is 7:00, the place is the
|
|
Holiday Inn at the Airport exit of Interstate 59/20 in Birmingham,
|
|
Alabama. You need some help with something, call one of us!
|
|
|
|
Oh yeah, as if it really matters, you'll be eating Beef Tips in
|
|
some kind of sauce and a couple of veggies and something or other to
|
|
drink............Call now and start the new year right!
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Publisher's Corner
|
|
by Mark Maisel
|
|
|
|
The Night The Ole Hard Disk Died
|
|
|
|
My hardy and heavily used Seagate 251-1 had held up admirably.
|
|
Sometime in the past 3-4 months, it began to give me problems. Strange
|
|
things would happen: Programs that loaded just fine would mysteriously
|
|
bomb when loading, leaving me with a horrifying disk error. I'd run PC
|
|
Tool's DISKFIX and sometimes recover the program. Sometimes not.
|
|
COMMAND.COM would begin disappearing, leaving me to have to boot from a
|
|
floppy diskette. Data files that had been perfectly good would begin to
|
|
have errors and/or disappear entirely. The occurrences grew more
|
|
frequent as time passed. I wasn't sure what was the problem, but
|
|
assumed that a low level format might help. I decided to try DR DOS
|
|
6.0, a fine product, by the way, so I backed what was left of the data
|
|
on the drive, and then proceeded to low level format the drive. I then
|
|
went through the installation procedure and set up the whole drive as
|
|
one big partition. Guess what, the errors remained. My finances are
|
|
not as flexible as usual because of the upcoming expenses with Kathy. As
|
|
a result, I could not purchase a new HD. Mine worsened by the day.
|
|
Some days it would not boot, and I would have to run from a floppy. I
|
|
was getting desperate. I knew that my insane friend, Tom Egan,
|
|
sometimes tinkered with strange things like bad HDs. I called him to
|
|
tell him about the drive. He let loose with one his twisted sounding
|
|
cackles and said, "sure, bring it over. I'll fix it, I hope. If not,
|
|
oh well.".
|
|
|
|
Kathy and I showed up at Tom's place a few days later with drive in
|
|
hand. He cackled some more and started making all manner of
|
|
disconcerting noises and comments in regards to what he planned for my
|
|
drive. Someone not knowing Tom as well as I might have become very
|
|
nervous and decide to back out. I knew better and let him have at it.
|
|
We went down to his very dusty, dirty basement/workshop and he set to
|
|
work. He pulled out his tools and warmed up the oscilloscope. He
|
|
checked the drive circuitry and signals with the scope. All checked
|
|
out. He said, "lets crack the shell on this baby and see what we can
|
|
break!". He popped the top off of it and fired it up to watch what
|
|
would happen. Remember, this was not done in anything remotely
|
|
resembling the clean environment that is said to be necessary for HD
|
|
repairs. He was smoking and not paying much attention to his ashes or
|
|
smoke. I was watching with great interest as Tom tried to elicit a
|
|
reaction from both the HD and myself. Kathy watched for a while but
|
|
eventually became disturbed at his antics. I suggested that perhaps the
|
|
positioning band was lose and that was a cause of trouble. He checked
|
|
it and decided it needed tightening. While being tightened, it broke.
|
|
We went through Tom's HD grave yard to find a comparable drive from
|
|
which to take another band. One was found and while the drive was
|
|
disassembled, we played "Frisbee"(tm) with the platters. That was an
|
|
interesting experience. We used freon to clean the platters and then
|
|
canned air to dry them. Tom placed the platters back on the spindle and
|
|
applied power to the drive. It didn't spin up. He decided that the
|
|
spindle needed lubrication. Without removing the platters, he very
|
|
liberally sprayed "WD- 40"(tm) onto the platters and everywhere else he
|
|
could reach in the drive. The drive still refused to spin, but that was
|
|
now due to the thick sludge left by the lubricant on the platters.
|
|
Trails were left in the muck by the read/write heads when Tom manually
|
|
spun the platters. It was not a pretty sight. Tom again washed the
|
|
whole mess in freon, this time without removing the platters, so
|
|
basically, freon was poured over the platters and everywhere else in the
|
|
case. He then used the canned air to remove the freon residue and dry
|
|
the mess. He went overboard and didn't stop with the air till there was
|
|
about 1/8 inch of frost on the platters. Tom then proceeded to warm the
|
|
platters under a handy 150 watt flood lamp he kept on his workbench. He
|
|
eventually got it right and we were able to spin the drive back up to
|
|
speed. The new positioning band was installed, and the heads once again
|
|
were able to move across the platters.
|
|
|
|
We took the drive over to his computer, which conveniently had a
|
|
251-1 in it. He removed it and plugged mine in its place. It didn't
|
|
spin. He pulled mine back out and opened it again. He repeated his
|
|
diabolical abuse on the drive once again. He got it to spin once it was
|
|
placed back into the computer. He then proceeded to low level format
|
|
the drive. It had lots of errors but it had gotten too late in the
|
|
evening for us to keep working on it. Tom opted to keep the drive and to
|
|
tinker with it more the next day. This he did, and in the afternoon of
|
|
the following day, he called, triumphant; "Mark, I fixed the drive!
|
|
There was a bad head causing all of the errors. The drive formatted
|
|
error free so it looks healthy!". He brought the drive over shortly
|
|
after that and we installed it. I low level formatted it again with my
|
|
controller and it came up with no errors. I then ran Spinrite on it, at
|
|
its most rigorous setting. Spinrite found and marked 8Kbytes of space
|
|
on the drive as bad. All is well that ends well.
|
|
|
|
Now, I want to tell you a few things about this service of Tom's.
|
|
He does not do this for folks as a sideline or regular favor. He did it
|
|
for me only in the hopes that he could scare the hell out of me with his
|
|
antics. He knew I had basically written off the drive and anything he
|
|
might do that worked was a bonus. DO NOT ASK HIM TO REPAIR EQUIPMENT!
|
|
You will be taking your life into your hands if you do. He maintains a
|
|
frenetic pace in life and rarely stops to work on his own equipment, let
|
|
alone that of others. I related the story to you in hopes that you
|
|
would be entertained.
|
|
|
|
Oh yes, Rocky, your 600Meg'ers are next!
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
What Ever Happened To ....
|
|
by Tim Straughn
|
|
|
|
Things are different. What things? Things in general relating to
|
|
the Birmingham BBS community. Why are they different? I certainly
|
|
don't know, but I have some ideas and opinions. Are they better? In my
|
|
honest opinion, no. Who changed them? I don't know that either, but
|
|
perhaps I am not so innocent of being at least part of the cause of some
|
|
of the changes I don't like.
|
|
|
|
I remember days when one had to call several different boards in
|
|
town to keep up a good BBS social life and maintain some rapport with
|
|
the local sysops. Sysops helped sysops with problems, of any kind, by
|
|
answering comments from those sysops requesting assistance with a phone
|
|
call instead of comment reply. We heard each other's voices on more
|
|
occasions than we typed at each other. We were a very close knit
|
|
clique. Well, maybe not when I first got started in the BBS world, but
|
|
shortly thereafter when boards were springing up like weeds, one of
|
|
which was my own.
|
|
|
|
We used to call up the other systems, and invite a handful of other
|
|
sysops over for a few beers and bull sessions to compare notes on good
|
|
users and problem users and work together developing doors and system
|
|
maintenance programs. I even remember one such meeting which changed
|
|
from a programming consortium to a political discussion which resulted
|
|
in the two debators literally standing in chairs and shouting at each
|
|
other while others present were scrambling for cover. These invitations
|
|
usually had to be sent out at least a week or so in advance so the
|
|
parties concerned and invited could have time to plan to attend. One
|
|
such gathering took place on a farm some 20 miles south of Birmingham
|
|
where a lot of us that had never met face to face did so. Some of us
|
|
got blitzed, some of us cooked, most of us ate too much. Some of us
|
|
explored an abandoned milking barn whilst others chased chickens. Though
|
|
the majority of us had never met, we socialized like we'd known each
|
|
other for years, almost like a high school class reunion. Most
|
|
importantly, we had fun.
|
|
|
|
During that gathering, we also came up with a new concept for the
|
|
Birmingham area. Networking of the local message bases. Wow! Wouldn't
|
|
it be great if I could send a message from my system to another sysop
|
|
without anyone else knowing about it except he and I? On the very next
|
|
day, such a system came to be. It was dubbed EzNet. Channel 8250 and
|
|
The Bus System were linked privately for some six months with Ed O'Neill
|
|
and myself passing messages back and forth testing the system and
|
|
discussing the operation and making plans for it to become a public
|
|
system for all user's to enjoy. A single conference on two systems that
|
|
kept the same messages was created, and was considered the best thing
|
|
since shirt pockets. Then we went public with it, each of us leaving
|
|
just one public message to each other, and we were overwhelmed with the
|
|
reception of the idea. Several people had input into the design and
|
|
operation of the system, and we all were pleased with a local system.
|
|
|
|
Now, the programs and scripts and batches written for that system
|
|
are no longer in use because of the inability of the authors of the code
|
|
to support it. Not that they were inept, but real life kind of got in
|
|
the way, and the system gave way to bigger, better, faster, prettier
|
|
programs that all we had to do is set up, and not modify code for. That
|
|
private little network has now gone interstate (at least to Georgia) and
|
|
it is no longer Birmingham's private little network. I watched it grow
|
|
from 2 to 5 to 21 boards at one time, and I have no idea how many are
|
|
running an `EzNet' conference now. It isn't EzNet anymore. There's
|
|
nothing Ez about it anymore. I often thought of reviving the `real'
|
|
EzNet, but it was too much like re-inventing the wheel with little
|
|
expectation of any reward at all (like someone actually using it).
|
|
|
|
Am I saying that just because we don't use that program that I
|
|
helped write, that the EzNet system isn't as good? Not at all. The
|
|
programs now in use are much more efficient and goof proof than ever
|
|
before, and require a lot less sophisticated batch files. Is this
|
|
better? Maybe. The program wasn't EzNet. WE were EzNet. When I say
|
|
we, I refer to the original attendees of that party on Fred McMaster's
|
|
farm. For a major change in the BBS community, we introduced a new
|
|
concept. BBS's that cooperated with each other, versus every BBS
|
|
competing with each other trying to have the largest user file. That
|
|
was, I believe, the first time in Birmingham BBS history that many
|
|
sysop's were in one room without a shouting match starting about my
|
|
board's better than your board.
|
|
|
|
Then came BTN: a concept introduced by Mark Maisel and supported
|
|
by the same group of people. Its intention was and is to solicit all of
|
|
Birmingham for opinions, tutorials, and reviews in which anyone could
|
|
write about most anything. Mark was nominated as editor. He certainly
|
|
deserves the title because if nothing else, he has given his soul to it.
|
|
Without him, BTN would not have a Library of Congress number (ISSN, a
|
|
strong means of copyright protection for US periodicals). Without his
|
|
relentless badgering of the writers, the publication would have dried up
|
|
and withered away as have several attempts at a similar effort. It too
|
|
grew from a local newsletter to a national event. It too, like EzNet
|
|
has grown very large.
|
|
|
|
I guess what my missgivings amount to is whether or not bigger is
|
|
better. I see nothing wrong with BTN or EzNet being large. Being
|
|
large, however, takes away some of the sparkle of a small family of
|
|
boards and tight knit sysops. I don't feel nearly as close to either
|
|
BTN or EzNet as I used to. Since's BTN's growth to national
|
|
recognition, I have seen articles in it that I thought very unfitting
|
|
for a community publication of which the original intent was to promote
|
|
BBS'ing for all ages and show the public that the BBS community was not
|
|
some secret organization of phreaker's and hackers out to install a
|
|
virus in every computer in the world. There was even an occasion where
|
|
a third grader was given a copy to take to school by his grandfather,
|
|
which contained an article with several occurances of a four letter word
|
|
that is not quite suitable to be read to third graders.
|
|
|
|
Perhaps my dismay is founded on the fact that I didn't grow with
|
|
BTN and EzNet. I certainly was part of both from the onset, and have
|
|
contributed to both. However, an extended stay away from Birmingham on
|
|
a job disassociated me with both, considerably. I became a stranger
|
|
that everyone knew. There are people that I see at recent BTN parties
|
|
that know me, and I don't know some of them from Adam's housecat. I
|
|
have seen some less than desirable influences on both BTN and EzNet be
|
|
made celebrities, and have been condemned for speaking out against it. I
|
|
simply voiced an opinion, and that opinion was in difference to the
|
|
current majority associated with EzNet and BTN, so I squelched and
|
|
became a lurker.
|
|
|
|
What, or who has changed, me, or EzNet and BTN? I used to feel
|
|
quite comfortable at the BTN parties, but now feel almost like a fifth
|
|
wheel at them. I know only a very small percentage of the people that
|
|
come to them, and even they have proven that I am only acquainted with
|
|
them, and don't really know them, at least some of them have. I didn't
|
|
grow with all the other boards in town. I haven't spent lavish amounts
|
|
of money on my system on 9600 baud modems and extra phone lines and long
|
|
distance networks. I never thought I needed them. Was I wrong? Are
|
|
these now the criteria for a `great' BBS? Is it now necessary to have
|
|
200+ conferences networked all the way to Australia to have a popular
|
|
BBS? Is it now necessary to offend someone's sensibilities
|
|
intellectually to become a prominent member of this massive system? Is
|
|
it an absolute must for a message to have to travel all the way to New
|
|
York or Seattle to be worth writing? What really makes a board worth
|
|
calling?
|
|
|
|
On a regular basis, during the growth stages of EzNet, there was
|
|
strife and controversy. During those times, EzNet was very alive. Now,
|
|
EzNet is so full of apathy, even I cannot stir up controversy. EzNet is
|
|
so diluted with prattle it is impossible to carry on a serious
|
|
discussion of any kind in the conference. Oh no! I have suggested the
|
|
need for topic police! EzNet's a great place to go for testing one's
|
|
wit, but not much else. It is no longer a place to express opinions,
|
|
because a serious topic will be swallowed away by the tons of
|
|
meaningless drivel. By the time someone who may be otherwise interested
|
|
in a particular topic gets to it, his/her brain has been blitzed by so
|
|
many people trying to be funny. It isn't funny to me anymore.
|
|
|
|
Some of this may be misconstrued as bitter apples because my own
|
|
system has become a little known small board. Actually, I like a small
|
|
system with a close small group of regular callers. However, I do have
|
|
a large number of new users registering monthly, most of which only seem
|
|
interested in scrounging around in the file libraries. A good many of
|
|
them learn what it is like to ignore warnings about file transfers. I
|
|
have even given up conferences to other boards because the users of that
|
|
conference wanted a national echo. Calling into my system meant adding
|
|
one more day to the turn-around on a message, so suddenly, the users of
|
|
that conference simply started calling the Hub system to eliminate that
|
|
delay. I guess efficiency was the most important aspect of the
|
|
messaging of those conferences.
|
|
|
|
Perhaps another contributor to the mass of messages in EzNet today
|
|
is the development and widespread growth of offline readers. These
|
|
things make it too easy to answer mail to not answer a whole lot of it.
|
|
Too many messages without anything to say are entered pounding away at
|
|
anything of any importance or value, pummelling so deep into the dirt
|
|
that it's no wonder few topics survive long enough to receive any real
|
|
discussion. I remember long threads by Brett Thorn and Jet Thomas. I
|
|
could read these for hours, and never catch up. The best part of all,
|
|
though, was that the topics were interesting. There was quantity, and
|
|
quality, and a very good balance of both.
|
|
|
|
Perhaps I am looking for something a bit too serious in a
|
|
conference with an audience as diverse as EzNet. Perhaps I should
|
|
change like all the other boards and pick up national echoes. But
|
|
wouldn't this just make my system like all the others, giving very
|
|
little reason to be called, or at least no advantage to being called? I
|
|
don't like thinking so hard to come up with some gimmick that no one
|
|
else is using, to make the system so different from the others, but I
|
|
don't feel that being exactly like the others has any benefit either.
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Music Revue
|
|
by Joseph Ray
|
|
|
|
To each his own, I guess. But music is somehting that is endearing
|
|
to all of our hearts. We embrace each note as if it wre our very own. We
|
|
feel the rhythm coincide with each of our heartbeat. And some music even
|
|
consumes our breath.
|
|
|
|
Nirvana- "Nevermind"
|
|
|
|
Nirvana's "Nevermind" is one of those albums that consumes your
|
|
breath and spits it back out in the form of kick ass rock-n-roll. This
|
|
is not music for the wimps. The old farts hate this type of music and
|
|
wouldn't even consider it music. Then again, old farts do not like
|
|
anything that is going to vibrate their souls out of their jugular
|
|
veins.
|
|
|
|
This is music for the young at heart. Tunes such as "Smells Like
|
|
Teen Spirit" and "Come As You Are" clearly identify with the High School
|
|
crowds. Most of the songs carry similar messages along with a few that
|
|
comment on being on the psychotic edge. If you have the CD, be sure to
|
|
fast forward to the end of the last track. The titles themselves awake a
|
|
rude picture that would offend anyone who thinks that rock-n-roll is the
|
|
gateway to man's ultimate destruction.
|
|
|
|
Yeah, the old farts are pissed off at this one. But they know if
|
|
they say anything to us about it they can kiss their ideas of a
|
|
luxurious old farts home goodbye. This album strikes at the heart of
|
|
rock-n-roll : Anarchy, decadence, and an 'everybody fend for yourself'
|
|
attitude.
|
|
|
|
And let this be a lesson to ya you bunch of old coots!
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John and Bernie
|
|
Taupin" - Various Artists
|
|
|
|
The list of the performers on this album reads like a rock-n-roll
|
|
honor roll ( with a few exceptions ). Overall, this album is modern
|
|
renditions of EJ&BT's best tunes: not neccessarily the two or three
|
|
usuals you'd here over some "classic rock-n-roll" radio station. These
|
|
are songs which music connoisseurs consider to be some of EJ&BT's
|
|
greatest, not the ones that just happened to make it on the charts. Not
|
|
every great song is released as a single. One of the best artist's
|
|
choices is Tina Turner's decision to redo "The Bitch is Back." The voice
|
|
and personality combinations come together and express the message
|
|
better than the original. Other artist's choices aren't so excellent.
|
|
I'd much rather hear Kate Bush sing "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me"
|
|
than "Rocket Man," but she still does an appreciable modern version.
|
|
Eric Clapton, The Who, Sinead O'Conner, etc..etc..etc....This album has
|
|
a number of great artists performing a number of great songs.
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Review: The Borzoi Online Handbook for Writers
|
|
by Mark Maisel
|
|
|
|
Version : 1.0
|
|
Publisher : McGraw-Hill, Inc.
|
|
Requirements: IBM PC, XT, AT, PS/2, or compatible computer, DOS
|
|
2.1 or higher, minimum memory to allow for word
|
|
processor, 512K, 640K recommended. Will run from a
|
|
floppy or hard disk, no graphics required.
|
|
|
|
Dr. David Roberts, a Professor of English at Samford University,
|
|
here in Birmingham, sent me this product along with the Borzoi Handbook
|
|
and Workbook. Once I finally sat down with it, this software captivated
|
|
me more than any other writing tool I've ever used. For those of you
|
|
unfamiliar with the Borzoi books, they are used primarily by college
|
|
students for English composition courses. I love a good guide to English
|
|
because the language can be a confusing one for the budding writer. I
|
|
keep three books by my computer: a dictionary, thesaurus, and college
|
|
English text book. The dictionary and thesaurus are pretty easy to use.
|
|
The text book is a bit more difficult as it requires me to often spend
|
|
considerable time pondering what it has to say, plus the time it takes
|
|
to find answers to my specific questions. As a result, I often will
|
|
fake it if I can't find my answer quickly.
|
|
|
|
Dr. Roberts designed an online version of the Borzoi Handbook as a
|
|
TSR for IBM and compatible computers. What it does is allow quick and
|
|
easy access to the secrets of good English while you are using your word
|
|
processor. The interface is very simple and straightforward. The menus
|
|
are easy to navigate and finding your topic takes little time at all.
|
|
The "hot keys" that activate the program, once it has been loaded, are
|
|
the left and right shift keys, tapped simultaneously. This caused
|
|
absolutely no conflict for either QEdit or Word Perfect 5.1, the two
|
|
programs I use for writing. Help is available at any time, when the
|
|
program has been called into the foreground, so documentation is not
|
|
really needed.
|
|
|
|
The program takes approximately 112Kbytes of memory when loaded.
|
|
This is a hefty chunk of the lower 640K. There are no provisions for
|
|
customizing colors or any other frills. I asked about these things
|
|
during the course of my evaluation. Dr. Roberts explained that the
|
|
program is a TSR, and subsequently uses so much memory, because the
|
|
program must be able to run on machines that may have only floppy
|
|
drives. One drive must contain the DOS diskette, and the other must
|
|
contain the word processor being used. Since this product is primarily
|
|
aimed at students, it is easy to understand that many machines used by
|
|
them will only have floppy drives. About the questions of colors and
|
|
other frills, he said that in order to easily support the widest variety
|
|
of computer setups, these things were left out. As a result, the user
|
|
can proceed directly to using the program.
|
|
|
|
My opinion? This program is a must-have for anyone who writes
|
|
using their computer. It is well worth the memory used to have such a
|
|
resource handy. I use MARK and RELEASE in my batch file that calls
|
|
Borzoi Online and my word processor. This allows me to free up the
|
|
memory after I'm through editing or writing. Other than the memory
|
|
requirements and the lack of fancy frills, I can find nothing that
|
|
detracts from this software. There are no shortfalls or even an
|
|
annoyance to report to you. For the writer, this program is best money
|
|
you can spend on composition software, aside from your editor or word
|
|
processor. I have recommended to all of my regular contributors that
|
|
they purchase this package because it will make my job as editor much
|
|
easier. How much does it cost to get a package that makes Mark carry on
|
|
this way, I imagine you are asking. $50? $75? $100? These aren't even
|
|
close. The entire package with both books runs about $15, and will most
|
|
likely be found in a university book store. I understand that the
|
|
software alone may possibly be found alone for about $5. You may find
|
|
this difficult to believe. I certainly do, especially after having used
|
|
this thing for a while. If you write, GO GET IT!
|
|
|
|
Dr. Roberts has certainly done his homework in creating a truly
|
|
useful writing tool. What does the future hold? He has said that there
|
|
is a new version in the works for IBM and compatibles, a Macintosh
|
|
version compatible with System 6.0 and up, and possibly a Windows
|
|
version.
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The Reality of Love
|
|
or Shawn Trucks: A Hopeless Romantic, or Just Hopeless?
|
|
by Shawn Trucks
|
|
|
|
Recent developments in my life have led me to the conclusion that
|
|
the words "I love you," no matter how sincerely spoken hold about as
|
|
much sincerity as the words "Welcome to McDonalds! May I take your order
|
|
please?" The number of times that people casually use those three simple
|
|
but powerful words is exceeded only by the number of times they are used
|
|
without conviction. But there's nothing wrong with that. Is there? What,
|
|
or who is it going to hurt anyway? And if someone *does* get hurt, so
|
|
what? They'll get over it. Won't they? After all, shit happens.
|
|
|
|
Of course I haven't always felt this way. There was once a time
|
|
when I believed love was real and two people could overcome any obstacle
|
|
as long as they had each other, or some unrealistic fairy tale like
|
|
that. Even after being used and rejected countless times I for some
|
|
reason always naively believed that the next time was real. Each time I
|
|
was sure that she was "different" from the others. Each time I was
|
|
rudely awakened only to repeat the same pathetic procedure again and
|
|
again.
|
|
|
|
But as painful as these prior incidents were, they were but a
|
|
prelude to the devastation I was about to experience because yes, you
|
|
guessed it... I fell in love. Fell so deeply that I knew my heart would
|
|
be forever lost were I to lose her. This fear, coupled with my own
|
|
admitted insecurities about myself would cause me to worry constantly
|
|
that the relationship wouldn't last. It was this fear of rejection that
|
|
she eventually came to misinterpret as mistrust on my part. But it
|
|
wasn't that I didn't trust her. I simply didn't feel that I was good
|
|
enough to keep her for any extended period of time. These fears subsided
|
|
a great deal, but not completely when I asked her to marry me, and she
|
|
said yes.
|
|
|
|
I was engaged now for the very first time. I was also happy for the
|
|
first time in quite awhile. Our lives were filled with professions of
|
|
endless love and promises of things to be. Of course I was still
|
|
skeptical that the relationship would last, but as time went by I
|
|
eventually came to believe that maybe we were destined to be together
|
|
after all. Can you say "BIG mistake?" I knew you could.
|
|
|
|
Needless to say, as soon as I became secure with myself and the
|
|
relationship it was over so abruptly that I was in shock for several
|
|
days. I would think back to the times we spent together and wonder how
|
|
someone's feelings could change so suddenly. My normal everyday state of
|
|
depression increased drastically and contemplations of suicide soon
|
|
followed. After this period I began to write anything and everything I
|
|
could think of. Entries in my journal, poems, letters and eventually
|
|
this article, which has been an excellent catharsis for me. God only
|
|
knows if I'll have the nerve to actually submit it when it's finished.
|
|
|
|
I would like to make believe that I really feel the way about love
|
|
that I said I did in the opening paragraphs of this article. But I know
|
|
that when it happens again I'll eagerly dive in head first, eyes closed
|
|
and with no life jacket. And if my luck holds out the way it usually
|
|
does, I'll probably end up drowning again and again before I finally
|
|
reach the other side. But getting there *is* half the fun. And it does
|
|
at least give me something to write about. And who knows? Maybe
|
|
someday...
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
THE OFFLINE READER MENACE
|
|
by Jet Thomas
|
|
|
|
A long time ago, Brett Thorn started a vendetta against offline
|
|
mail readers. I thought he was being silly. People were going to use
|
|
the things whatever he said, so complaining about them was just a joke.
|
|
|
|
The thing is, it looks like he was right. Was he joking, and the
|
|
truth caught up with him? Was he prophetic? Did he correctly predict
|
|
the problems that the offline readers caused, or did he perhaps wrongly
|
|
predict other problems, and look good now because he wasn't very
|
|
specific? No one knows except Brett, and he may not remember.
|
|
|
|
Let me back off a little bit. A long time ago I got the chance to
|
|
watch some people doing operant conditioning on chickens. They taught a
|
|
chicken that when a green light went on, she could peck at a button.
|
|
Then a bell rang and a kernel of corn fell into a trough and she ate it.
|
|
If the chicken waited too long, the light turned off and nothing
|
|
happened until it came back on again. After a while the chicken spent a
|
|
lot of her time waiting by the button, watching the light. But she also
|
|
spent a lot of time scratching around, squawking, and doing the things
|
|
chickens do.
|
|
|
|
Then they started turning on the light more often, for shorter
|
|
times. The bell waited longer to ring, and the corn didn't come until
|
|
the bell. The chicken spent more time at the button.
|
|
|
|
Then they started turning on the light so often that sometimes it
|
|
came on a second time before the first bell rang. When that happened,
|
|
the chicken only got 1 corn. The chicken spent more time pecking and
|
|
less time eating. After some days of that, the chicken spent all her
|
|
time pecking the button. The light came on and she pecked. It came on
|
|
again and she pecked again. And again and she pecked. Sometimes when
|
|
the bell rang she went to the trough and ate all the corn she found
|
|
there. Sometimes she waited for another light. She started looking
|
|
frazzled -- frazzled for a chicken. I mean, BEWILDERED. She was
|
|
actually getting more corn than she could reasonably use, but she
|
|
couldn't stop to think whether she wanted to keep pecking that button or
|
|
not.
|
|
|
|
How does that relate to the offline readers? Like this: Back in
|
|
the old days, you got onto a BBS and read the mail. The number of
|
|
messages was self-limiting, because the more messages there were the
|
|
longer it took people to read them. The longer it took to read the
|
|
messages, the fewer new messages got left. And if each person spend 30
|
|
minutes on the board, that was a maximum of 48 people. But with the
|
|
readers, there's almost no limit to the number of messages. It's
|
|
perhaps limited more by hard drive space. So there are more messages
|
|
there. People read on their own time. Now, say two people each read
|
|
their own mail and answer every message. If one of them sends a message
|
|
to the other, the other will respond. There's a loop now, and they'll
|
|
keep sending messages to each other until something happens to disrupt
|
|
it. Suppose somebody else reads some of their public mail and answers
|
|
one of them. Now there's a second loop. And that process continues
|
|
until everybody is spending all their free time answering messages.
|
|
|
|
But of course people don't answer every message! They can't. So
|
|
they pick and choose. If you get 30 messages a day and you only answer
|
|
10 of them, some of the loops will get cut off. But if there are 2
|
|
other people reading the thread and they each answer 10, then the
|
|
message volume will stay at the same level.
|
|
|
|
With so many messages to read, no one can really keep up with the
|
|
various ideas. Was this last response about THIS, or was it about THAT,
|
|
or -- no, that one was on a different board, off a different network.
|
|
Quoting becomes important. Ideally, you should quote the whole message
|
|
including all the messages it quotes. Otherwise people will try to
|
|
guess what's going on by the little scraps of quotes, and they'll
|
|
respond just to those.
|
|
|
|
This serves as an idea filter. Anything the least bit complicated
|
|
gets filtered out as the quotes shred it. Then it gets forgotten
|
|
completely. People respond just to the immediate context. But what's
|
|
the easiest thing to keep track of from very limited quotes? Well, you
|
|
can remember a particular attribute to tag to each person. Mark Maisel
|
|
calls himself an asexual and calls Kathy "The Beast". Sarah can't spell
|
|
very well and has an alter ego who can. Bob Crawford is a photographer
|
|
with a hot tub. Erica Sullivan keeps her room messy. Judy Ranelli is
|
|
an android in a woman's body who plays in a rock band. Terry McCombs
|
|
attracts weirdness. And so on. So if you don't remember what the
|
|
message is about, you can just say something about the person's
|
|
attribute.
|
|
|
|
What kind of idea can punch through this amount of noise? Sexual
|
|
innuendo. In all the scraps of quotes there's bound to be something that
|
|
can be turned into a double entendre. And if there isn't, you can
|
|
pretend. If you write a message to a woman with a <nudge wink>
|
|
say-no-more attitude, she probably won't go back and see what she really
|
|
said. She may respond with a double entendre because she wants to be
|
|
witty, or she may do so by accident, or she may say she doesn't know
|
|
what you're talking about (and then you can start making veiled
|
|
blackmail threats, pretending she can be blackmailed). It doesn't
|
|
matter what got said before. You can write messages to men about things
|
|
they can sit on, and they can tell you they don't want to, and you can
|
|
take it from there.
|
|
|
|
See where the chicken fits in? When you have so many messages that
|
|
you don't have time to think, when you respond to a message that's a
|
|
long list of short quotes with a short meaningless answer (that will get
|
|
quoted itself), when you can't remember what the subject is or why
|
|
you're involved in it -- you've been conditioned!
|
|
|
|
You can't afford to spend much time on any one message, though, for
|
|
the same reason you get Call Waiting -- the next message may be much
|
|
more important. And you do want to keep answering your mail -- these are
|
|
your friends being friendly. If you give up your offline reader then
|
|
you won't have a chance in hell to keep up with the flood of messages.
|
|
And if you don't answer your share then people will gradually stop
|
|
answering you. It's a mess.
|
|
|
|
Here's a procedure that may help a little in the short run. Go
|
|
through your mail fast and mark the ones you really WANT to respond to.
|
|
Then go back to just those and answer them.
|
|
|
|
In the long run it would be good to have more sophisticated
|
|
offline-reader software. When you're looking at mail that isn't
|
|
addressed specifically to you, wouldn't it be nice if you could, say,
|
|
look at 2 randomly-selected messages from each user? And maybe an easy
|
|
way to adjust the mix -- you push one button and the program knows to
|
|
show you more from this user, push another to get less. Sort of an
|
|
adjustable twit-filter. And you could adjust the whole thing to give
|
|
you a preset number of messages, to fit your available time. I
|
|
personally wouldn't miss 90% of the messages I read now. But of course,
|
|
picking the remaining 10% by hand....
|
|
|
|
And I may have misunderstood. Maybe what people really WANT is
|
|
thousands of disconnected double entendres. Maybe the things that look
|
|
like junk to me are there because this is exactly the way people
|
|
consciously want it to go. I thought people made their habits by
|
|
accident and didn't think about changing them, but I could easily be
|
|
wrong. I dunno.
|
|
|
|
Brett correctly predicted something like this would happen. Now
|
|
he's pissed off about it and he wants people to give up their offline
|
|
readers. I haven't heard him say he expects that to happen, so he's
|
|
still predicting right. I can still remember that chicken pecking away.
|
|
But people aren't chickens. People can notice what's going on. They can
|
|
go out and get what they want. Can't they?
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Music Review
|
|
by Michael Davidson
|
|
|
|
With the consent of the editor, I'd like to start a monthly review
|
|
of albums, old and new. Mind you, these are going to be albums I have
|
|
or have heard, so don't be dissapointed if our tastes differ. This
|
|
month's selections are the two CD's Use Your Illusion 1 and 2 by the now
|
|
infamous Guns N' Roses. (My apologies to Jeremy Ray who I know did a
|
|
music article two months ago. I gave you a month, but you didn't use
|
|
it!)
|
|
|
|
I'll start with the album smashed by the critics, Use Your Illusion
|
|
1. I'll admit, it's not their greatest work, but it's still worth the
|
|
money. Part of the highlights are a nice remake of Paul McCartney's
|
|
"Live and Let Die", the original lyrics to "Don't Cry", The Garden (with
|
|
help from Alice Cooper), and "Don't Damn Me". "November Rain" is a nice
|
|
ballad, better than I've heard come out of this band. The song lengths
|
|
remind me of Best of the Doors. They are, for the most part, over five
|
|
minutes long. There aren't really any awful songs, but "Back of Bitch",
|
|
"Bad Obsession", and "Double Talkin' Jive" are as close to "filler"
|
|
material as any on the 76 minute CD.
|
|
|
|
Use Your Illusion 2 is definately the stronger of the two, as
|
|
reflected in its Billboard standing. The shortest song, the
|
|
minute-and-a-half "My World" is definately the most interesting. The
|
|
band does a great studio version of Dylan's classic "Knockin' on
|
|
Heaven's Door", and then follows it up with the expression of venom
|
|
towards the music tabloids with "Get in the Ring". "Civil War" is, in
|
|
my opinion, probably the best song on the CD. It expresses discontent
|
|
with the way society handles problems, namely with wars, especially thos
|
|
fought with ourselves. Of course it has ballads, headed by the
|
|
alternate lyrics of "Don't Cry", followed by "Yesterdays". If I had to
|
|
choose the best CD this year, I'd pick this one. Then again, I like
|
|
GN'R.
|
|
|
|
The only problem present in both albums is the constant use of
|
|
their 4-letter vocabulary. It's alright at first, but it grates at
|
|
one's nerves after a while. Still, the songs are good, and the band is
|
|
playing better than before. Even if they have half the population
|
|
alienated, in these CD's, Guns N' Roses definately lives up to the high
|
|
expectations set by the fans. I highly recomend them for any rock fans.
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Notes to the Wenches
|
|
|
|
It's not that important, but I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves.
|
|
|
|
Anyway, this is a convenient segue into this month's...
|
|
|
|
Notes from the Trenches
|
|
|
|
by Dean Costello
|
|
|
|
"So...You a Faggot, or What?"
|
|
subtitled:
|
|
"Ooooooh, I Need a Dirty Woman..."
|
|
|
|
I remember a couple of years ago, Mark Maisel and myself were
|
|
talking about something or another, and somehow it came up in
|
|
conversation how I was perceived by the BBS community. It seems that
|
|
some people in the BBS world thought I was gay. My first reaction was
|
|
to ask, "Who was it?" "Hmmm," being my second reaction. Mark,
|
|
unfortunately, neglected to tell me the people involved, so that was the
|
|
end of that. He currently claims not to remember the incident, but I
|
|
don't believe him entirely.
|
|
|
|
It does bring up the point that I have run into over the last
|
|
couple of years, ever since my father went up and over 50; the question
|
|
being why don't I date people. Mom, in a rare display of actual
|
|
feelings, and not something generated in order to conform to June
|
|
Cleaver platitudes, said when she heard that my brother was dating,
|
|
"Thank God they both aren't gay." That's tough stuff to hear from a
|
|
parent.
|
|
|
|
Usually when asked why I didn't date, I usually had smart-ass
|
|
remarks, in the neighborhood of 'I can't afford someone else', 'I have
|
|
to finish my Masters', 'I can't afford one', etc., etc. You get the
|
|
idea: basic sidestepping of a personal question, which is something that
|
|
I usually do.
|
|
|
|
Which leads me into something else, as I think of it. I don't tell
|
|
much about me. I usually keep a stock supply of curious stuff, some of
|
|
it pretty close to the truth, ready to go when asked something about my
|
|
background, or anything that I consider to be a touch more personal than
|
|
I am prepared to answer. However...
|
|
|
|
But it nonetheless does not answer the basic question of why I
|
|
don't date. And my answer is that I frankly don't know. I do have
|
|
feelings about it, though. I imagine rejection, being judged and found
|
|
wanting, is a big part of it. I am, by nature, a very insecure person,
|
|
and I don't like putting my emotional life on the line. I usually also
|
|
choke in the clutch so instead of being smooth and urbane ("So, I know
|
|
this little place in Jakarta; you up to get something to eat? Tell me
|
|
your name and I'll make the airline reservations." "Fuckoff? Oh, you're
|
|
Russian?"), I usually lose about 75 intelligence points and a goodly
|
|
part of my motor skills, my voice goes up, ooh, about an octave and a
|
|
half (and I don't have the deepest voice at the best of times), and I
|
|
start to act somewhat like Lon Chaney in the "Hunchback of Notre Dame"
|
|
in my speech and behavioural patterns, stature, and walk ("Do you find
|
|
me repulsive?)". To paraphrase, it isn't a pretty sight. It doesn't
|
|
take much in the way of psychoanalysis to realize that much of my
|
|
attitude is a defense mechanism ("Ahh, you find me repulsive, do you?
|
|
Well, you're pretty damned ugly, and you don't even have a nice
|
|
personality. And your car is crappy and your cat has the mange." One-
|
|
downsmanship, I guess.).
|
|
|
|
I figure that the last date-ish thing I went on was <desperately
|
|
consulting my "Life-at-a-Glance" calendar>, Holy Shit!, October 1989.
|
|
Good Lord, two years ago? I can't believe that! I remember it well,
|
|
now. Myself and a new incoming first-year graduate student at the
|
|
School of Public Health went to see Pink Floyd's "The Wall" when it was
|
|
showing at the UAB student center. Now, before you start gearing up on
|
|
me ("Oh, Dean, big spender, taking some poor girl to see a Floyd movie
|
|
at UAB. Gonna take her to "Steak and Egg" for something to eat next?"),
|
|
she was the one that wanted to go there. Nice time was had by the two
|
|
of us. It's been a while since I ran across a female that could sing
|
|
Pink Floyd lyrics, but whatever. Anyway, that was the last date I was
|
|
on. I guess I just haven't gotten around to doing more.
|
|
|
|
I have been in the company of females since then, principally with
|
|
Monica Usrey, the other person in my Master's program, and others; but
|
|
not in any way that could be linked to romance. Or at least that's the
|
|
way it turned out, regardless of planning and pipedreams. There have
|
|
been several people that I have met over my 2.5 years or so in
|
|
Birmingham with which a relationship would have been nice. Two of them
|
|
turned out to be born-again Southern Baptists and tried to gang-save me
|
|
(I believe I have spoken about this event before), one turned out to be
|
|
turned on by firemen, and Monica.
|
|
|
|
Monica is a curious creature. The night after I had my second knee
|
|
surgery, she was over, and happened to meet a large proportion of the
|
|
BTN gang, who decided that they had to come over and "cheer me up", when
|
|
all I really wanted to do was sleep and partake of recreational
|
|
pharmaceuticals. Monica and Jet Thomas got to talking, and apparently
|
|
it came up that she was living with me (and she was, but not in that
|
|
way), and she went to great lengths to demonstrate to Jet that she and I
|
|
were not romantically involved. I, being upstairs, really wasn't paying
|
|
attention to the conversation since at about that moment Sarah rolled
|
|
over my just-worked-on leg, but Jet, in a classic display of Jet Logic
|
|
[Jet Logic (adj.): A means of thinking, somewhat obliquely described as
|
|
a logical process, in which one takes a normal premise and generates a
|
|
totally ludicrous conclusion, yet seemingly supported by the premises.
|
|
Usually requires a fair quantity of biased observation to function
|
|
correctly...], was convinced that she was doing that so that he would
|
|
know that she was available. Later, it kind of hurt me that she was
|
|
willing to go to that much trouble to tell my friends that she was not
|
|
my girlfriend. Whatever, I guess. I later discovered that she was only
|
|
in search of a Mel Gibson look alike who had a LOT of money, and alas my
|
|
first name is Dean, and I still am paying off my student loans.
|
|
|
|
This reaction seems common in many social circumstances. I'm
|
|
apparently okay in the presence of the individual, but never introduce
|
|
me to other more 'proper', friends. I guess they assume that I would
|
|
drop my pants and begin to masturbate in front of them, or something
|
|
equally socially frowned upon. One of those things, I suppose.
|
|
|
|
I guess its only fair to hit on (damn, I do kill me) some of the
|
|
things I look for:
|
|
|
|
-Can speak in complete sentences. That sounds specious, I know, but
|
|
what that really entails is someone that is reasonably intelligent
|
|
to whom I can talk with for some length of time without having to
|
|
drop down into some kind of hackneyed conversational gimmick, i.e.
|
|
"How about the weather", "How about those Mets?" and such.
|
|
|
|
-Can fold a map. Another specious claim (it occurred to me that
|
|
anything that someone looks for in others would probably be
|
|
considered specious by others. My arbitrary measure is completely
|
|
reasonable and logical, but someone else's, say Scott Hollifield's,
|
|
has absolutely no bearing in the real world), but it has grounding
|
|
in logic <yeah, right; rationalization time in the big city>. F'r
|
|
instance, I noticed that to fold a map takes a margin of patience,
|
|
and the ability to observe and follow patterns, etc., etc. Also, I
|
|
like maps, so it would follow to me that being able to deal with
|
|
them is important.
|
|
|
|
-Not too superficial. One of the multitude of problems I had with
|
|
Monica was that she was real big on superficial stuff. Someone
|
|
asked me once why I didn't date Monica, and I replied, "Because
|
|
she's way too expensive". I like the finer things in life also, as
|
|
my apartment will attest, but my life is not exclusively American
|
|
Express Gold Card, at least not for a couple of months yet.
|
|
|
|
-Doesn't smoke. Sorry, kids, but I am allergic to cigarette smoke;
|
|
and I simply have problems with toleration of smoke. When I lived
|
|
down here, Randy Hilliard went to great lengths to limit my
|
|
exposure to smoke when I was over at his house. Most of the smokers
|
|
I know have more of an attitude, "It's my house, if you don't like
|
|
the smoke, leave!". More than one person has been knocked out of
|
|
the running due to smoke-related issues.
|
|
|
|
Whenever I meet a prospective female, I quickly run them through
|
|
the above list, and a couple of other things, in a bubble sort (for the
|
|
uninitiated, a bubble sort works like this: You put a factor in on top,
|
|
and it slowly works it way down through a series of determining factors.
|
|
For instance, if you wish to sort a list of numbers, you enter the bunch
|
|
of them on top. The bubble sort will take the first one and ask, "Is it
|
|
bigger or smaller than X", and continue with this until the number
|
|
reaches its proper place). Can they speak in sentences? Do they smoke?
|
|
What do they talk about? Are they ditzy? Do they work? Are they
|
|
educated? Where do they live? Are they pleasing to the eye? Are they
|
|
in a relationship? If so, how strong? What are their politics? Are
|
|
they very strong in their beliefs? Are they close to mine? Are they
|
|
tolerant? Do they say, "Ewww" about something minor? Anyway, you get
|
|
the idea. Now, obviously, there is more to it than this. Tolerance is a
|
|
very big positive thing in my book. As curious as I am, I'll probably
|
|
need someone who is extraordinarily tolerant of what I consider to be my
|
|
foibles, and what others would probably consider to be genuine
|
|
personality flaws. Also, just getting one of the above questions
|
|
'wrong' is not going to throw someone out of the running, just place
|
|
them in the correct ranking.
|
|
|
|
So, why don't I date? Or, more accurately, why don't I meet more
|
|
prospective people that I may wish to date? I'm not really sure. A
|
|
couple of points come to mind:
|
|
|
|
1). I don't have a social circle in Virginia yet, and given the
|
|
manner by which the office operates, I don't see gaining one at the
|
|
office in the near future. And being that most of my conscious
|
|
life is spent there, it cuts into other time. This, along with the
|
|
fact that I am on the road so much these days. Alas...
|
|
|
|
2). I am not a big fan of bars. I am violently allergic to smoke. If
|
|
you see me at a party, it is usually after I am ripped to the gills
|
|
on some strange creation of mine, and I don't normally mind smoke
|
|
when I cannot see anymore. Some strange metabolic pathway, I
|
|
reckon.
|
|
|
|
3). (and you've heard this one before) The traffic is so bad in the DC
|
|
Metro. area that I don't want to leave my apartment that much. And
|
|
if I am not inclined to leave my apartment after going hand-to-hand
|
|
with several hundred thousand other drivers, you can see that my
|
|
socialization ability drops to near zero.
|
|
|
|
As you can probably tell, between those three things I don't get a
|
|
chance to meet many humans, let alone prospective female mates. But, be
|
|
fair. What do I have to offer someone else? If I were female, would I
|
|
go out with me? Probably not. Would I even talk to me? I wouldn't
|
|
think so. The people that I know that are similar to me I despise with
|
|
all my heart and soul, so it follows that I wouldn't like me that much.
|
|
I don't think that I am in a position to accurately index my 'positive
|
|
qualities', since I have discovered that what I consider to be positive,
|
|
most people think are icky ("Oh, Dean? Well...ummmm...he has a
|
|
wonderful sense of humour...uhhh, a great personality, and he dances
|
|
real well. What does he look like? Umm...he's tall ...somewhat
|
|
lumpy...brown eyes...thighs like steel plates. Hold it, the thigh thing
|
|
is someone else's self-delusion. Did I tell you about his
|
|
personality?..."), besides this isn't a dating service, is it?
|
|
|
|
Given my wide-ranging beliefs about an awful lot of things, the
|
|
chance of finding someone to fit into my Greater Scheme of Things is
|
|
kind of minimal. Hell, for that matter, tolerant of my Greater Scheme
|
|
of Things, but I can live with that. I am not driven to reproduce, I
|
|
have no desire to have children, which I would assume follows, for the
|
|
most part; and I don't require someone else to be with ALL OF THE TIME.
|
|
I am, for the most part, satisfied with what I have, and I don't really
|
|
have a driving impulse to be with someone else. For instance, as I type
|
|
this, I am home for a <rare> weekend. There is a humongous mound of mail
|
|
in the living room (from the last three weeks), a pizza box on the floor
|
|
by the television, "Yes" playing on the stereo, and it is about 67
|
|
degrees in here. I am comfortable with this, it is my home.
|
|
|
|
I miss that there isn't anyone up here that I can just call
|
|
sometime and yak with, but its one of those things. I keep hoping that
|
|
after I've been here a while I'll start meeting all these neat-o people
|
|
that others describe as living in this region. I am underwhelmed by the
|
|
D.C. people that I knew before I left Alabama. I'm not sure as to their
|
|
attitude. It might be a function of the above thing about introducing
|
|
me to their friends..."Oh Christ, Dean's here, and he'll want to come
|
|
over, and meet my friends, and then he'll do something weird". Alas.
|
|
These things happen...
|
|
|
|
I guess I'm just another social misfit that drifted into the Maisel
|
|
circle; a pariah of society who finally found her/his proper level and
|
|
just simply didn't realize their social straits. It's not that bad, I
|
|
guess. At least few people are openly hostile, which from what I can
|
|
tell is far more than most people can reasonably ask.
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The Adventures of R.G. Strangemind and Herbert
|
|
by Jeremy Lewis
|
|
Copyright 1991 by Jeremy Lewis
|
|
no reprints without the permission of the author
|
|
|
|
Part X
|
|
|
|
It was a great moment in history, perhaps it was a miracle as well,
|
|
but whatever caused it, it was truly amazing...Herbert, had a thought.
|
|
Suddenly, distracted by the situation and ignoring Toastus, Herbert's
|
|
mind (Didn't think he had one. Did you?) set off in search of his
|
|
friend.
|
|
|
|
"I bet R.G. would know what to do. He always knows what to do."
|
|
|
|
Herbert's body turned to follow him, screaming, "I AM TOASTUS!!!
|
|
The Chosen one shall not run from me!" Herbert turned his head towards
|
|
himself as he ran directly into and through the wall in front of him.
|
|
His body, however, being about as material as something can get (and
|
|
having a predisposition towards colliding with walls anyway) ran
|
|
headlong into the wall and Toastus, for the first time in two millennia,
|
|
was knocked soundly and silenty (except for the loud noise) unconscious.
|
|
|
|
In that dark dark place that's so familiar to all super-beings, two
|
|
beings were yelling at each other.
|
|
|
|
"WE MUST KILL TOASTUS!!!"
|
|
|
|
"But Sir," said a much more rational voice," I can't kill some one
|
|
who hasn't done anuthing wrong and especially one that is an
|
|
inconveiniance at best"
|
|
|
|
"YOU DON"T UNDERSTAND", yelled a deeper voice," TOASTUS HAS FOUND
|
|
HIM!!!"
|
|
|
|
"Who?", asked the rational voice.
|
|
|
|
"THE GREAT MINDLESS ONE!!!", Shrieked the deep toned voice," THE
|
|
ONE WITH THE POWER TO BECOME GREATER THAN ALL BEINGS!!!"
|
|
|
|
Slob woke up with an incredible headache. He didn't know what had
|
|
hit him, but was suspisiously eyeing the wall when he noticed the large
|
|
human's and the purple thing's unconscious bodies. As he stood there,
|
|
now paying very close attention to the purple thing, he picked up the
|
|
mallet and smiled. Slob then raised the mallet and hit the purple thing
|
|
once for good measure, he then turned to the large human.
|
|
|
|
On the Split-Splat, Emperor Slport was impatient. He was busily
|
|
chopping a chair to bits with his axe hwne a steward entered the room.
|
|
The steward made a lovely and satisfying gurgling sound as he hit the
|
|
floor and by the time the fifth had been slain, a voice came ove the
|
|
intercomm.
|
|
|
|
"Your Majesty, we have a problem."
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
The Meandering Themes of Colby
|
|
by Colby Gibson
|
|
|
|
Things are a bit strange as of late, and I have read and read and
|
|
read more to understand why. A strange cult of users and abashed
|
|
swirling around in turmoil while everyone else sits reading messages
|
|
from Netusers and drinking week old tea. THIS is why I have decided to
|
|
write this article. This is more than likely what NORMAL people like
|
|
myself see as they such messages from their favorite system every day.
|
|
|
|
Confusion has made itself more and more obvious lately as I read
|
|
through messages and stuff and I found something that seems to be
|
|
something of a small clan war from what I see. Seriously, now, reading
|
|
through BTN042 I can see conflicting interests in the thoughts
|
|
portrayed by Judy Ranelli and Deborah Bolen, and Dean Costello has been
|
|
complaining about the former (Not really complaining, but making aware
|
|
his irritation) and from what has been displayed to the everyday user
|
|
is very strange.
|
|
|
|
In all truth, I can't really vouch for either party. I don't know
|
|
much about Dean and his obvious oppression for the adolescent and kid
|
|
kind. He has a somewhat calloused attitude toward thoughts put out
|
|
by myself and others such as Ricky Eanes (I'm not gonna start on it)
|
|
and other teenage writers that may have not studied the classics as
|
|
much as he has. However, I can't fathom why people would want to snub
|
|
Dean all over the place unless his attitude isn't just toward people
|
|
like me, but toward everyone. Not to slander Dean in the slightest,
|
|
he has been somewhat of a <Insert Favorite Noun here> toward me and
|
|
others.
|
|
|
|
Less is known about Deborah and Judy. From the slight bits that I
|
|
have talked to them they seem very intelligent in their reasoning and
|
|
they are very polite and understanding. Not only that, they love Star
|
|
Trek, which has absolutely no bearing here.
|
|
|
|
Now, I ask you this. What reason would the two I just spoke about
|
|
have to be mean to Dean? Obviously it's something I missed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Enough of that.
|
|
|
|
BTN has grown into somewhat of a cult. Really. Most of the people
|
|
that you see writing here and talking around about it are the ones that
|
|
would be the most "popular" in this BBS community. Mark Maisel has
|
|
grown into somewhat of a father figure for most of us. People crowd
|
|
around the guy in awe during the parties and wonder why he is revered
|
|
like that. Generally, it's because he's a nice guy.
|
|
|
|
Other people you see are more eccentric but different in their
|
|
own way, I guess. I would think about most of the people that also
|
|
submit here and are prevalent around are in sort of their own division
|
|
of the city. They do things differently than everyone else. There's
|
|
just more to them, I suppose. Most people you see are involved in
|
|
something that you don't see every day (Not saying that what they do
|
|
is bad. It could be from drinking some kind of Gourmet Tea to
|
|
practicing an obscure religion.) and they do things as a group. I can
|
|
see these things. They usually talk to the same people.
|
|
|
|
More and more debate grows over such things that go on at the
|
|
infamous BTN gatherings and spurious ventures taken by several users
|
|
that might decide to go to a movie (As such lately) and if one user
|
|
wants to criticize another for something. Most of us can't take it. I
|
|
can, however. And, Dean, if you will notice, not one paragraph in this
|
|
article begins with "I" (posessive sense). So figure upon that for a
|
|
moment. And such arguments over little things like CPU speed and
|
|
preferences in coffee can get us in heated debates. Personally, I hate
|
|
coffee and I use a 386sx 20, and I don't care if you have a 586 that
|
|
will to 43 teraflops. I'm not gonna get mad over it. I think that most
|
|
of us are just that kind that take pride in our work. We want to be the
|
|
best. That's okay by me.
|
|
|
|
A last point. A hidden system and network of friendships and
|
|
relationships permeates our BBS community. I'm not going to point my
|
|
fingers in any direction, but we have watched such things happen and
|
|
we know. If you were to go to the mall, and see a well known user,
|
|
you are probably going see another user with them. It's like that a
|
|
lot of the time, from what I have seen. It's strange how users in this
|
|
town do things with each other and talk to each other so much. It's
|
|
almost confusing. I can remember paying Mark Maisel a visit a while ago
|
|
and while I was there at least 5 different people were in and out of
|
|
the house. Probably a normal day for him. Friendship in this world is
|
|
something, I must say.
|
|
|
|
This article's not here to bore you. I wrote it because I wondered
|
|
about some of the stuff that's been going on behind the scenes lately.
|
|
Maybe you've seen some of it too.
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
SURPRISE! SURPRISE!
|
|
by MoeDog.(TrekNut)
|
|
|
|
StarDate Y161.253.1124
|
|
|
|
On board the Romulan destroyer "Consulate",on patrol of the Neutral
|
|
zone, Sub-commander Talor strides confidently to the officer's mess to
|
|
discuss the upcoming penetration of Federation space on a recon mission.
|
|
|
|
"These missions were done frequently so Federation ship rotation
|
|
could be monitored for possible use in the future.",Commander Talor
|
|
thought to himself.He had not been discovered in his last three missions
|
|
but that did not mean he would not be discovered this time.
|
|
|
|
A buzzing chime sounds over the ship's intercom system,"Commander
|
|
Talor, incoming message.Security level two." Talor uses his communicator
|
|
on his belt,"Message received.",he says.He turns around a corner and
|
|
passes the Cloak room where two Centurion guards stand watch.Talor
|
|
proceeds to his state room where he sits at his terminal to answer the
|
|
message.
|
|
|
|
Talor enters the four level security code and is greeted with the
|
|
face of Admiral Serus,"Greetings and salutations,Admiral.""As I to you
|
|
Commander.",The Admiral says with respect."What is so important that you
|
|
would have me break communications silence so close to the Neutral
|
|
zone?" Talor says.The Admiral responds,"The Federation has a 'New Light
|
|
Cruiser' which has just finished its testing period and is patrolling
|
|
within ten days of your present position.You are ordered to gain as much
|
|
knowledge of this new ship class as you can,then destroy it."Talor
|
|
says,"Would this not be an act of war?".
|
|
|
|
"Only if you fail,if you succeed we will deny that any of our
|
|
ship's were on such a mission and that all of our ships were accounted
|
|
for at that time frame.If you fail,they will find the wreckage of your
|
|
ship and we will deny the existence of your ship and suggest that
|
|
pirates may be responsible. "Admiral Serus replies.
|
|
|
|
"You are instructed to proceed to Base station 42 and pick up some
|
|
cargo that was taken from an Orion pirate ship,thus if you fail,the
|
|
remains of the cargo will be found amongst the debris of your ship."
|
|
|
|
"I will have the coordinates sent to you at the end of this
|
|
transmission, do not fail commander.That is all."Admiral Serus sends the
|
|
coordinates and the EOT code.
|
|
|
|
Talor sits and thinks for a minute."The Federation will know the
|
|
High Council ordered this course of action,but will not be able to prove
|
|
it." Talor leaves his quarters and proceeds to the Officers mess for the
|
|
briefing.
|
|
|
|
"We will proceed cloaked at warp 3 until we are just outside of
|
|
sector 212.Then reduce speed to half impulse and get an ECM fix on there
|
|
scanner emissions.After we get a bearing we will reduce speed to quarter
|
|
impulse and maneuver in front of them,then lie in wait for them to
|
|
pass.Does anyone have any objections?".Pause,"No?,good.I want all
|
|
phasors and torpedo tubes loaded,charged and holding before we get to
|
|
sector 212. End of mission briefing."
|
|
|
|
------------------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1345
|
|
|
|
Captains log NCC 708 Alverda:
|
|
Day twelve of boarder patrol and nary a peep of activity.
|
|
I've authorized more movies this month than I thought ever
|
|
existed.We need something to kill the boredom,I wish we were
|
|
exploring new territory.I'll never see that in this NCL though.
|
|
Only Cruisers are big enough to venture far enough away to
|
|
find anything no one has seen before.
|
|
--End Of Entry--
|
|
|
|
"Keep same course and speed lieutenant."Captain Metzler ordered.
|
|
|
|
"Weapons officer,long range scan of Neutral zone.Maybe we'll catch
|
|
some one with their pants down."Metzler said.
|
|
|
|
After a few minutes,"Scan shows nothing sir".
|
|
|
|
"I'll be in the ready room if anything shows up."Metzler said.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1402
|
|
|
|
"Commander!,Federation ship bearing 279 mark 300,Range 1,000 KM.
|
|
|
|
Scanner strength at 45.638 TeraWatts,return signal at 3.79
|
|
KiloWatts.
|
|
|
|
We are not yet detectable,your orders?",the helmsman said.
|
|
|
|
"Slow to quarter impulse,make a passive track and plot our course
|
|
to intercept,Weapons officer,status."
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Phasors charged and online,two 'F' type plasma
|
|
torpedoes and one 'G' type plasma torpedo charged and ready,shields at
|
|
maximum."
|
|
|
|
Commander Talor,"Good,execute course and stealth speed.
|
|
|
|
Science officer,record all actions and readings.And when their
|
|
shields are down I want a full scan."
|
|
|
|
"As you wish Commander",the Science officer says.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1458
|
|
|
|
Helmsman,"We are in position Commander.The Federation NCL is 100 KM
|
|
off our port side and closing,speed three quarters impulse."
|
|
|
|
"Full stop,all stations report ready status.",Commander Talor
|
|
orders.
|
|
|
|
"All stations ready sir."The weapon officer reports.
|
|
|
|
"Now we wait.",talor says.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1516
|
|
|
|
Helmsman,"NCL approaching within 40 KM,now 30 KM,now 20 KM."
|
|
|
|
Commander Talor,"Uncloak!,lock weapons on target and launch
|
|
torpedoes!"
|
|
|
|
After the eight second lockon delay caused by uncloaking the
|
|
Weapons officer announces,"Weapons lock! Firing all torpedoes!"
|
|
|
|
After a one second pause and then the weapons officer says,"Torps
|
|
away, locking phasors on target!"
|
|
|
|
Talor,"Fire two phasors at target!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Firing phasors! Both direct hits on shield number
|
|
two!"
|
|
|
|
Talor,"Damage!" Weapons officer,"NCL shield down to 62.5%,torpedoes
|
|
at 10 KM."
|
|
|
|
The torpedoes take two seconds to travel the 20 KM range.
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Direct hits by all torpedoes!"
|
|
|
|
Talor,"Damage to the NCL!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"There is too much cascading energy to scan at this
|
|
time."
|
|
|
|
|
|
-----------------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1516
|
|
|
|
Onboard the NCC 708 Alverda the ships computer automatically raises
|
|
the shields and sounds RED ALERT.
|
|
|
|
Captain Metzler,"WHAT THE HELL!?".Metzler begins running to the
|
|
bridge. Ten seconds later Metzler is in the corridor about to enter the
|
|
bridge when three plasma torpedoes slam into the number one
|
|
shield,collapsing it. The residual energy cascades across the hull of
|
|
the ship destroying equipment and consoles at random.Metzler tries to
|
|
get to his feet but more explosions keep knocking him down.After about
|
|
ten seconds of explosions and a lot of creaking and groaning he finally
|
|
makes it to his feet.Metzler enters the bridge and yells,"Damage report
|
|
and status!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Damage as follows,shield number one down,number
|
|
two still holding at 62.5%,three phasors out,two laboratories
|
|
damaged,bridge damaged, all auxiliary reactors down,major hull
|
|
damage,all shuttle bays damaged, drone missile launcher down,auxiliary
|
|
control damaged,impulse engines at 25% batteries out,left warp engine at
|
|
91.6%,right warp engine at 68.75%, total power output at 68.75%,sensors
|
|
damaged,Romulan KF5LR Destroyer off the starboard bow."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1517
|
|
|
|
Metzler,"Charge all torpedo tubes and get me some phasors
|
|
up,helmsman come to 300 mark 020,speed one quarter impulse."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1517
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Commander,scan completed.NCL has lost front
|
|
shield, three phasors,auxiliary power,75% impulse power,26% warp
|
|
power,drone missile launcher and has sustained major hull damage!"
|
|
|
|
Talor,"Fire three remaining phasors!"
|
|
|
|
Weapon officer,"Targeted and firing!"
|
|
|
|
Weapon officer,"NCL shield number three down to 45.8%!"
|
|
|
|
Talor,"Start charging torpedoes and phasors.Increase speed to half
|
|
impulse,perform lagging pursuit maneuver,I want to stay behind them and
|
|
reinforce shield number one by 30%."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1518
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"NCL decreasing to one quarter impulse,turning to
|
|
300 mark 020!"
|
|
|
|
Talor,"Slow to one quarter impulse and fire all phasors!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Firing all phasors,sir."
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"All phasors direct hits!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Damage to NCL as follows,one photon torpedo
|
|
out,sensor's damaged,all phasors out,one transporter out,100% impulse
|
|
power gone,100% auxiliary power gone,all labs out,one tractor out,right
|
|
warp power down to 33.3%,left warp power down to 58.3%,shield number one
|
|
and three down and shield number two holding at 62.5%!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1518
|
|
|
|
Metzler,"Fire all phasors!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Romulan ship is in the starboard arc only,firing
|
|
one phasor now,the other is damaged!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"A direct hit!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Romulan shields holding!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Romulan ship firing phasors brace for impact!"
|
|
|
|
The Phasors cut fissures across the NCL's hull causing a build up
|
|
of static and kinetic energy to cascade over the ship destroying more
|
|
components and equipment.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1519
|
|
|
|
Metzler,"Damage report!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"One photon torpedo damaged,sensors damaged,all
|
|
phasors damaged ,one transporter damaged,100% impulse power failure,100%
|
|
auxiliary power failure,all labs damaged,one tractor damaged,right warp
|
|
at 33.3%,left warp at 58.3%,shields one and three down,number two
|
|
holding at 62.5%!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Three photon torpedoes ready!"
|
|
|
|
Metzler,"Helm! Come around 180 degrees! Prepare to fire torpedoes!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"We have no impulse power to maneuver with we must
|
|
escape under warp speed!"
|
|
|
|
Metzler,"Go to warp two and come around to 180 mark 180!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1519
|
|
|
|
Talor,"helmsman stay behind them! Weapons! Charge phasors,status of
|
|
torps!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Torpedoes charged to 80%,one minute to charge
|
|
completion."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1520
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Commander,NCL is turning about,speed increasing to
|
|
warp one.They are crossing our path! I read three photon torpedoes
|
|
ready.
|
|
|
|
We have five phasors charged and ready."
|
|
|
|
Talor,"Fire all phasors before they bring those torpedoes to
|
|
bear!!"
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Firing all phasors sir!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1520
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"Three seconds until Romulan ship is in our forward
|
|
arc!"
|
|
|
|
Metzler,"Prepare to fire!"
|
|
|
|
At this moment the phasor's from the romulan ship rip through the
|
|
Federation ship causing so much more damage added to the previous damage
|
|
that the ship's internal structure buckles and collapses releasing the
|
|
antimatter resulting in a terrific bright explosion disintegrating the
|
|
whole ship.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time Index 263.1520.30
|
|
|
|
Weapons officer,"The NCL has exploded,front shield is at 65%."
|
|
|
|
Talor,"Bring us around and dump a little of the cargo to make it
|
|
look like they damaged the opponent they faced."
|
|
|
|
Talor,"Fire some phasors at the debris we jettisoned to scar it,to
|
|
make it more believable."
|
|
|
|
Talor,"Then cloak and plot a course back to Romulus so that we may
|
|
deliver the information we have gained here to day in person."
|
|
|
|
Talor,"Execute orders now."
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
CAD Users of Birmingham
|
|
Homewood Library
|
|
3rd Tuesday, 6:30PM-8:30PM
|
|
Bobby Benson 791-0426
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
1 Alter-Ego BBS 744-7733 300-9600 USR HST PCBoard 14.5
|
|
1 Amiga Alliance ][ 631-0262 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5
|
|
4 Arkham Asylum 853-7422 300-9600 USR DS WWIV 4.12
|
|
Baudville Node 1 640-4593 300-2400 Oracomm Plus
|
|
Baudville Node 2 640-4639 300-2400 Oracomm Plus
|
|
10-=! Bloom County 856-0587 300-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5
|
|
Bullseye BBS 942-9576 300-2400 Oracomm Plus
|
|
13 Bus System 595-1627 300-2400 PCBoard 14.2
|
|
17 Byte Me! 979-BYTE! 2400-9600 USR HST WWIV 4.12
|
|
CM(ee) BBS Node 1 655-4059 300-2400 Oracomm Plus
|
|
CM(ee) BBS Node 2 655-4065 300-1200 Oracomm Plus
|
|
Camelot BBS 856-0679 300-2400 Telegard 2.5
|
|
136 Channel 8250 Node 1 744-8546 300-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5
|
|
136 Channel 8250 Node 2 744-5166 300-9600 USR HST PCBoard 14.5
|
|
9 Connection Node 1 854-9074 1200-2400 PCBoard 14.5
|
|
9 Connection Node 2 854-2308 1200-2400 PCBoard 14.5
|
|
9 Connection Node 3 854-0698 1200-2400 PCBoard 14.5
|
|
9 Connection Node 4 854-5863 9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5
|
|
1 Crunchy Frog Node 1 956-1755 300-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5
|
|
1 Crunchy Frog Node 2 956-0073 300-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5
|
|
DataLynx 322-3425 300-2400 Oracomm5.L.30
|
|
Disktop Publishing BBS 854-1660 300-9600 V.32 Wildcat! 3.01
|
|
Downgrade Evolution 823-4858 1200-2400 Vortek 1.49
|
|
Empire 428-6074 300-2400 Image 1.2
|
|
F/X BBS 823-5777 300-2400 PC Board 14.5
|
|
12{ Family Smorgas-Board 744-0943 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5
|
|
Flip Side 798-3961 300-2400 Telegard 2.5i
|
|
Graphics Zone Node 1 870-5306 300-9600 MNP4 TBBS 2.1(16)
|
|
Graphics Zone Node 2 870-5329 300-9600 MNP4 TBBS 2.1(16)
|
|
Hacker's Corner 674-5449 1200-2400 PCBoard 14.5
|
|
Hardeman's BBS 640-6436 1200-2400 Wildcat! 2.55s
|
|
13 Hard Disk BBS 987-0794 300-2400 PC Board 14.5
|
|
2 I.S.A. BBS 995-6590 300-9600 USR HST Remote Access
|
|
13 Joker's Castle 664-5589 300-2400 USR HST PC Board 14.5
|
|
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 300-9600 USR HST PCBoard 14.2
|
|
29 MetaBoard 254-3344 300-2400 Opus
|
|
Missing Link 853-1257 300-2400 C-Net
|
|
Myth Drannor 699-5811 1200-2400 MNP4 WWIV 4.11
|
|
Night Watch 841-2790 300-2400 TriTel 2.0
|
|
Optical Illusion 853-8062 300-1200 C-Net
|
|
Owlabama BBS 833-7176 300-2400 GTPower 15.00
|
|
1 Owl's Nest 680-0851 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5
|
|
Paradise City 853-1439 1200-2400 PCBoard 14.5
|
|
Pooh's Korner 980-8710 300-2400
|
|
Safe Harbor 665-4355 300-9600 USR DS GTPower 15.00
|
|
Sperry BBS 853-6144 300-9600 Hayes 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 Commodore Zone 856-3783 300-2400 Image1.2
|
|
The Den 925-0707 300-9600 USR HST ProLogon/ProDoor
|
|
4 The Dragon's Hoard 833-3790 300-2400 WWIV 4.12
|
|
The Edge of Oblivion 520-0230 300-2400 WWIV 4.11
|
|
The Madhouse! 428-3061 300-9600 V.32 Telegard 2.5i
|
|
12378 The Matrix Nodes 1-4 323-2016 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5
|
|
12378 The Matrix Nodes 5-7 323-6016 2400-9600 USR DS PCBoard 14.5
|
|
The Monster 967-4839 300-2400 Telegard 2.5i
|
|
2 The Outer Limits 985-1725 1200-9600 USR HST Wildcat! 3.01
|
|
The Quiet Zone 833-2066 300-2400 ExpressNET
|
|
2@ The Round Table 938-2145 300-2400 Telegard 2.5i
|
|
The Safety BBS 581-2866 300-2400 RBBS-PC
|
|
The Word 833-2831 300-2400 WWIV 4.12
|
|
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 = USNetMail, a national network, multi-topic
|
|
- = RIME, an international network, multi-topic
|
|
= = TcNet, not certain at publication time
|
|
! = RF-Net, a national network, dedicated to amateur radio
|
|
@ = 93Net, a national network, dedicated to the occult
|
|
|
|
If you have any corrections, additions, deletions, etc., please let us
|
|
know via EzNet.
|