/* * CITANEWS / The INTERnational newsletter about room-based BBS systems * April 1988 * This issue assembled by Steve Yelvington * This newsletter may be distributed freely. */ In this issue of CitaNews: * A NEW SUCKER, AH, EDITOR STEPS FORWARD * INTERNATIONAL REPORTS FROM CANADA AND ITALY * C86 GETS STATUS BAR, .READ USER COMMAND * STADEL CONVERTED FOR PC CLONES * LOTSA UDDER STUFF --------------------------------------------------------------------------- /* * A NEW EDITOR FOR CITANEWS * Dave Quick, a/k/a The Badger */ I, Steve Yelvington, being of sound mind and body, or at least good enough to fool most of the people most of the time, do hereby bequeath the title of CitaNews editor to Dave Quick a/k/a The Badger, who in an apparent lapse of good judgment has offered to take over the chores. Please note that "editor" does not equal "sole contributor." For CitaNews to work, correspondents are needed. If you run a BBS, have programmed a BBS, use a BBS or just can't control your urge to write, your contributions are needed. I've enjoyed compiling CitaNews from the start, but I find that I just don't have the time to do a proper job of it. Transferring the project to Dave in New York may help CitaNews escape the Minnesota geocentrism that tends to creep in. Dave is planning to get the "long legs" of PC Pursuit, which should help him stay in touch with systems across the USA. Dave will continue to monitor the CitaNews room at Test System, US 612-866-1804, as well as the net.gossip and other net rooms on Pell, US 612-377-9239. He also can be reached in Mail> on those systems; his username is The Badger. We also have the promise of a regular column from Canada and more contributions from Europe. With the C86 and STadel networks rapidly expanding, the several Unix projects and some two dozen forms of Citadel-based software running on systems as small as Commodore 64s and as big as multiuser minicomputers, there certainly is plenty to write about. I will continue to contribute to CitaNews, and urge you to do so as well. -- Steve Yelvington --------------------------------------------------------------------------- /* * PROMOTE YOUR BBS * Be sure you're listed in the national BBS list */ The national list of room-based BBS systems has been taken over by Bill Karpowicz @ Sinkhole Utopia US 203-873-8518. The deadline for the monthly list is the 20th. SYSOPS ONLY should leave a message for Bill and it should include the following information: System name number bps software sysop date Aardvark ! 902-454-0199 o 1200 Cit86 V3 Stuart Glen 87Dec ^ policy: o for open, etc. Bill can be contacted at Sinkhole Utopia, Pell (US 612-377-9239) or Funny Farm (US 317-842-7564). The list is distributed as RSYSxxxx.LST, where xxxx is the date (0488 for April 1988, for example.) Here are some new systems you might want to call and welcome to the Citaworld. The messages were monitored at various points. 88Mar02 11:47 pm from C.J. Linstruth @ Pell Hi all, there are two Citadels I'd like to make known Nationwide. The Genuine Aloha Ukelele US (804) 421 9134 CJ 300/1200 Nodename Ukelele Busted Flush US (804) 495 9549 Chuck 300/1200 Both are open systems and ukelele is just getting established. Busted Flush Nodename = Cocotel. 88Feb26 7:47 pm from kevin shumaker @ Pell Howdy! Just a note to let Y'all know there's a NEW STadel in Indy!... Luna Free State US (317) 298-8490 1200 STadel 3.1f Mycroft Holmes IV 88Mar13 2:44 pm from Eric Griff @ Utica College, NY All, USA (Utica Super AmigaDel) is now up in Utica, NY. The number is (315) 724-0624. It is only Part time, and not networked at this time. The hours are as follows Monday: 2AM-9:30PM Tuesday: 2AM-9:30PM Wednesday: 2AM-7:30PM Thursday: 3AM-6AM,11AM-3PM Friday: 2AM-7:30AM,9AM-2:30PM Saturday: 6AM-1PM Sunday: 6AM-1PM 88Mar15 11:02 am from laird popkin @ Pell BLADERUNNER BBS is up in Boston at 617/891-7338. I am working on what seems to be becoming a major hack--making STADEL vt52 dependent and doing some nifty screen effects. Has anyone else done this? Suggestions? Comments? Thanks. The name is Laird Popkin (mine). The BBS is running on an ST w/a 20Mb HD (for now, I can add 3 more of any capacity!) The software running now is unchanged, but I have the screen stuf in development. ----- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- /* * PAOLO VENTA'S REPORT FROM ITALY * Citadel Italiano? Si! */ (Contributed by Paolo Venta, sysop, ST-Log, Milan, Italy) It was the end of August when a friend of mine downloaded from Bix version 3.0c of STadel. When I first saw that piece of software I could not even understand where the files were gonna be, nor the way a user could download them! After reading docs, with some more knowledge on STadel, I called Pell just to look at the latest version orc was working on. He was at the keyboard, we had a chat, he promised me version 3.1a. I was contacted by ATARI ITALIA for their official BBS a week later, and we planned ST-log to be ready by 16 september 1987. ST-log was born on that day, running v3.0c, on a 1040ST with SH204 HD and a SX212 modem. Now, this is funny, you need to know that aside of the BBS there's a huge IBM/36 with its lousy printer and the console terminal. In those days both Atari and IBM were getting energy from the same plug, and everytime people powered on and off their stupid /36 the BBS were resetted. Soon STadel started having HD problems, sectors were formatted, data lost, finally the SH204 died. Too bad. Things changed once I got 3.1a from orc; new board, new plugs, new HD. I upgraded to 3.1c in November (don't remember exactly), and never changed until now (3.2a beta testing). I translated all of the help files Into italian, and my users could finally learn how to use STadel too. I added a second hard drive in genuary, and put up the network with pell sharing STadel) and Dumpster) daily. I had A LOT* of problems with those intercontinental calls: the most common was the not-established sessions due to timeout. It takes 45 secs to get the line with Pell at 4:30am here, and for that orc added a #timeout in ctdlcnfg.sys into 3.1c. Also the phone numbers structure is different from the US one: you've got "xxx-yyy-zzzz" syntax, we haven't got a defined one. sometimes prefix is 2 numbers long, sometimes 5 numbers. The phone itself can be 5-8 long. Moreover, to call Pell I need to put a 001 as international prefix.. Thanks to orc all of this is now solved, and the network really works daily. It usually takes 3-5 days to receive netmail from l/d systems. My users enjoy this kind of BBS, although they are used to Opus only. There are about 400 registered users here, and the BBS is busy for 90% of its time (lots of software to download!). I am using Pcommand as command interpreter, and i worked out a "reservation" calltime for aides, using events. One aide can book his call and be sure that on that time BBS will be free, waiting for him. What else? STadel is phunny to administrate, there are really few bugs, and here at ST Log things are always OK. I had no crashes since november 1987! What for the future? Two new BBS should start here in Italy in the next months: one in Napoli (Naples), another one in Torino (Turin). Maybe a third one in sicilia (Sicily), if "mafia" won't stop it (hehe). I am looking for other European STadels, with whom I would like to net. I would take charges to be the European gateway.. Greetings from ST-log in Milano, North Italy. 011-392-66010079 *changing to 011-392-6193757 in few weeks* 300-1200 baud CCITT (only bell 212 compatible at 1200 baud) Paolo Venta, SysOp --------------------------------------------------------------------------- /* * REPORT FROM CANADA * By our cold-weather correspondent, the Stainless Steel Rat */ 88Mar09 10:09 am from SSR @CHAOS II-Alberta CA to Steve Yelvington Great Citanews (0388) - Nice to see it return. Well, upon reading it; I figured I should add my two cents for what it's worth about some of the articles in there. (and clarify a few points). Here goes nothing: ______________________________________________________________________ I guess first of all Edmonton nodes update: Computer Works is now standalone doing no networking. A new system Forgotten Realms (CA 403 459 8025) 300 baud is up; this system is dedicated to RPG playing only and does a little local netting. (Not on the LD link yet, but we'll see). Quincunx (CA 403 455 1701) STadel 2400 baud is now on the net LD and all, in the short period of a month it's exploding with action. You've probably already noticed the banner floating in Gateway etc. Alkham Asylum (CA 403 277 4117) 2400 baud running C-68 (v2.14) in Calgary. It is linked up via Chaos II for backboning via Test System to the states. I guess in a way, Chaos has become the Alberta feed for Test System. Secret Service (2400 baud) is now backboning Pell up here for the ST users. Poopsie in Calgary appears to have disappeared. That's basically what's happening up here node wise, although we look forward to seeing a Red Deer, Alberta Citadel 86 going up in a few weeks, and possibly another citadel in Edmonton (Commodore 128). ___________________________________________________________________________ Multitasking C-86: I run a 12 Mhz AT clone and used Desqview sucessfully to run the board for a couple of months. However, Desqview (Ver 1.3 and 2.01) is a memory hog and I have recently changed to Double Dos. The basic report on this is that they both seem to have no problem running C-86 in a 275K window. It is VERY important that your window be this large otherwise you get real weird things happening. Right now Chaos II runs in the background with little fuss. The only complaint I have is that both program tend to jerk the output of the BBS while running heavy I/O tasks in the other windows (I guess I'm fussy?). If anyone is having trouble setting up a C-86 with either Desqview or Double Dos; I'll be more than glad to do what I can to get them going. (A side comment though: Multitasking a BBS on a PC should really only be attempted with at least a 8Mhz 8088 machine. A standard 4.77 Mhz machine is just going to spend too much time in overhead to make either application run properly speed wise) Anyhow, I guess that's my 2 cents. (which works out to about 1.6 cents American). Hopefully this time next month I'll have a comment on a new editor for C-86 that is in the works. (the idea is impressive; we'll see how the implementation goes). If you have any questions; want information, whatever, just let us know. I'm sure that I can manage to find a sucker (sorry I mean volunteer) to write a short column for Citanews from the Alberta perspective if wanted. Let me know. SSR - Sysop of Chaos II 88Mar09 11:39 am from SSR @CHAOS II-Alberta CA to Steve Yelvington I forgot one thing. I am currently carrying all the newest versions of the various Citadels on Chaos for downloading. (STadel, C-86 and C-68). I am open to putting any other versions of Citadel/Stonehedge etc software in their own areas if authors would send the various versions to me via mail or upload them. Mail address? Chaos II #1203 11111 - 87 Ave Edmonton, Alberta T6G 0X9 That should get it here. Anyhow, this applies mostly for people up north I believe, but someone mentioned that I should tell people down south as it looks like there's not a system with all versions/many versions on it. (STadel/C-86/C-68). I actively seek out updates on so there will always be a current version of those here. Any others, I will put up whatever gets sent. Be aware that Chaos is one of the systems using download limits, 30 minutes for 4pm 12am, 45 for 8am-4pm and unlimited during the night. If there is a request, I will open a net window early in the morning for file morning, otherwise the current net session is 3:00-3:30 (which is 4:00-4:30 Minnesota time). I don't know if any of this is really relevant, but there it is. P.S. (It looks like I've found a person who is willing to do about a page a month for a Edmonton contribution to Citanews; I'll let you know more after our weekly meeting) . SSR (Editor's note: A regular column from Canada is in the works.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- /* * BABEL BABBLE * A note from the USA's great Northwest */ 88Mar19 4:38 pm from bob perigo to sysop hi, i'd like to correct my listing in the nat rm sys lst: I've run Babel out in seattle (206-363-8969) @ 3-2400 baud continuously since Jan 1985. It started with the mod of cit211 by kerry kyes & maher. As soon as less than 1/2 of the code was as Jeff wrote it, i changed the name of the program to Babel. That was a year before bruce king took the name to use for his unix bbs. My bbs was always babel but used to greet the user with: "Welcome to the babble on Babel" Anyway, i'd appreciate it if you could correct my entry from babble to "Babel" I don't care what you put down for program. Cit would be ok since it still runs in CP/M but babel301.arc is how i've got the source posted on various boards. thanks bob perigo --------------------------------------------------------------------------- /* * NEW COMMANDS AND A STATUS SYMBOL FOR CITADEL-86 * CitVid dresses up the sysop's video display */ Hue, Jr.'s Citadel-86 has gained several new features recently. One is a status bar for the sysop's screen to dress up the display; the others are new commands that can search out messages written by any given user or containing any phrase (good for isolating that ONE message that you wanted to capture). From himself: 88Mar09 6:44 pm from Hue, Jr. to citadel hi, folks, this is V3.04 of Citadel-86 -- .Read User ... To use it, type .RU{NFGORA}, which means you can pick the direction of the search. (ex. .Read User Forward ) The system will then prompt for a name, which you supply, and then the messages in the room will be examined. Those which have authors matching the name you typed will be printed. You needn't specify the entire name, a fragment will do fine, such as "Jr." for Hue, Jr. 88Mar23 10:18 pm from Hue, Jr. to citadel We're now at V3.05 of Citadel-86, due to the addition of the .Read Phrase ... command. This lets you search the contents of a room for messages which match a phrase that you give the system. For instance, .Read Phrase Forward will cause the system to ask you for a phrase to search on, and then go through the room that you are in, looking at each message (in forward order) and printing those that have the phrase that you put in. Just another Feep brought to you by FEEP INTERNATIONAL, an DIVISION of TIMEWASTERS, Ltd., a group of people devoted to those who can find little to waste their time with. ------------ (And here's a description of the status bar modification.) 88Mar06 6:13 pm from Hue, Jr. @ C-86 Test System Steve .. GurgleKat of Kat's Alley (aka NO CARRIER) offered to write some video routines that would allow the sysConsole of C-86 to be prettied up. I, having no pride, accepted. V1 and V2 of the routines had the bugs that you usually get. V3 works on everything except PJ's and Biko's machines. V4 works on everything ... but performance during scroll is unacceptable on my machine -- you can actually see the memory copies taking place as it tries to scroll the screen in the window (V4 uses the Turbo C 1.5 window routines; the earlier versions uses custom code that he wrote himself). I quite like what Gurgly did, myself. Makes for a very handsome status bar across the top, and in the future I hope he'll make the info available for me to choose between inverse or normal video status bars. Generically, it looks like this: "Citadel-86 V3.03: