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CITANEWS/A national newsletter for room-based BBS systems
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Issue No. 3
July/August 1987 (grand combined issue)
Compiled and sort of edited by Steve Yelvington
(George Jetson @ The Lake US 612 426 1374)
In this issue:
* FCC PROPOSAL THREATENS COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS
* A CITADEL-LIKE SYSTEM FOR THE APPLE II
* A COMMERCIAL CITADEL FOR THE COMMODORE 128
* SECURITY FOR THE CITADEL-86 NETWORK
* TURBO HEAVEN AND BAD JUJU
BUT FIRST, A NOTE ABOUT CITANEWS
This is the third "monthly" issue of CitaNews, an electronic
newsletter for users and operators of room-based BBS systems.
Submissions for the next issue may be made at the Lake (US
612-426-1374), which maintains somewhat erratic hours but is up most
of the time. The Lake is in networking mode (C86-compatible) from 3
a.m. to 3:45 a.m. daily, and can handle net-uploads and downloads.
For various reasons, this issue combines two months, but we hope
to be better in the future.
We would like to run, in a future issue, a complete list of
room-based BBS software, authors and where to obtain the programs. If
you have written such a system, please contact us at the Lake.
...AND A PLUG FOR ANDY MEYER'S LIST
Andy Meyer is maintaining a comprehensive list of room-based
BBS systems. If you're a sysop and you're not on the current RSYS
list, you can contact Andy at Sony Technical Citadel, US
201-930-6483. He also can be contacted through the shared sysops'
room mentioned above. Andy wants to know the system's name, number,
hours, policy (open, closed, etc.), and software including version
number. For the preferred format, see the current RSYS list.
FCC SETS ASIDE COMPUTER FEE PROPOSAL
In June, the Federal Communications Commission proposed -- in
its words -- "elimination of interstate access charges exemption for
enhanced service providers." That gobbledegook really meant that the
FCC wanted to allow local telephone companies to collect an "access
fee" from computer data transmission services and data retrieval
systems (such as CompuServe, GEnie, Tymnet and PC Pursuit). This fee
would be above and beyond the charges these services already pay for
local telephone lines, and would have added $4.50 to $5.40 per hour
to the cost of those services.
PC Pursuit, which lets folks like us call cross-country for a
very low monthly fee, would simply have been shut down. Home and
noncommercial computer users would have been economically booted out
of nationwide telecommunications.
Thanks to a blizzard of paper from computer users directed
against the proposal, the Federal Communications Commission has
backed down for the time being, according to a Citadel network
message from Vince Quaresima at K2NE Software. We'll continue to
watch the situation.
SETTING UP AN AMIGADOS CITADEL
If you have not been able to get Amigados Citadel-68K to run,
try placing "Stack = 20480" in your startup sequence. This seems to be
the single biggest stumbling block to the program. If you get an error
message "unable to find ctdlbad.sys," ignore it; the file is not
crucial. These two points have generated so much difficulty that Jay
Johnson has added them to the opening banner at the Phoenix, the home
base of Citadel-68K.
While the Phoenix continues to operate, Jay has withdrawn from
active participation and the future of his Amiga Citadel program is unclear.
MODEMS AND CITADEL ON THE ST
A number of new sysops have had difficulties getting their
modems to work properly with Citadel-68 (st), more popularly known as
STadel. The key usually is the fact that STadel relies on hardware
for carrier detect and forces the modem to hang up by dropping the
DTR (data terminal ready) signal. These signals are transmitted by
dedicated pins in the serial connection.
Assuming that you have a proper cable for your modem, the
first thing you should check is the DIP switches. Most modems are
delivered with these functions disabled or "forced on," as they are
not essential for calling out with most terminal programs.
If you have an Avatex HC modem, all the switches should be up
(off) except for 3 and 8, which should be down (on).
TURBO MAGIC AND BAD JUJU
Hue, Jr., author of Citadel-86 for PC compatibles and the
Zenith Z-100, thought he had died and gone to heaven when he began
converting the program from the C86 compiler to Borland's new Turbo C.
Code size shrunk dramatically, the compiler ran like a rocket and the
programming environment was a dream.
After a couple of weeks, it began to appear that heaven was
not involved at all. Some installations reported savage bugs --
private mail popping up in public rooms, for example. The new code
would run perfectly on one machine, then go insane on another. It
wasn't simply a matter of "IBM compatibility;" the Z-100 installations
did not experience the worst of the problems. It was, Hue declared,
Bad Juju.
Work is proceeding -- slowly -- on rooting out whatever Turbo
library bugs or variations from C86 might be responsible for the
problems. It has prompted Hue to threaten to spend the rest of the
summer at the beach.
SECURITY FOR THE CITADEL-86 NETWORK
Citadels tend to be open systems with little or no "access level"
and other "system security" nonsense. users for little purpose; BBS
users are a much nicer group of people than the general public would
believe.
However, it only takes one malevolent, socially retarded jerk to
screw things up. Such a twit recently surfaced in the Twin Cities,
posting an obscene counterfeit network message using the name of
another user.
As a result, the Citadel-86 network is being modified to allow
(optionally) a secret system password requirement that is exchanged
by each networking pair of Citadels. This modification is being
installed in both Hue, Jr.'s Citadel-86 and orc's STadel software.
A BLURB ON BABEL
T'an T'u is well-known to most Seattle users of Citadels;
he's been a sysop about as long as anybody. He runs a multiline BBS
called Polarserv; his software is called Babel, and it runs under the
multitasking operating system Unix. Here's a note he posted at the
Lake.
87Jun05 12:05 am from T'an T'u
Hiya folks; saw the citanews on a local BBS here in Seattle, and thought I'd
drop a note on some work that I've been doing that might be interesting to
Citadel hackers.
There are several BBS networks out there that're running; one of the largest
in Seattle is the Stonehenge network, a net of Citadel derivatives that allows
the automatic xfer of files, messages and commands (to be executed on the
remote node) from one 'henge node to another.
I 'ported Citadel to Unix 5 two years ago, and have been running a
timesharing system for the last 8 months with three Citadels online, serving
as the main message centers for technical stuff, conversations about games
(the main stock-in-trade of the system) and general topics.
To increase the amount of interesting stuff on my system, I wrote a 'henge
net interface, so that my system could send & recieve messages from any
stonehenge node, and I've written a readnews parser to be able to input
messages from selected (Usenet) news groups into the message base.
I'm interested in the uucp-compatible stuff. What I'd like to do is get
someone with a unix machine in the midwest and the east coast both. I get a
few hundred K of messages a week now from the hengenet & usenet, and keep them
online in citadel message format; is there any interest in having me bundle
these up into a message & xferring it to another system? (I suppose we could
even mail them via Usenet, but I am loath to tie up usenet resources. ) What
would work best is to find someone with a few meg (about 10) free, and
preferably a Unix machine, who's conversant with parsing and would like to do
some work with networking, and I'd feed them directly from my machine. The
first step in a nationwide network with real response times.
Comments?
I can be reached at:
uw-beaver!microsoft!bruceki
or, direct to polarserv,
uw-beaver!tikal!camco!happym!polari!bruce (or root, or admin)
Or, voice, 206-782-4444 after 8pm pdt. Y'all can probably guess where I
work; please do not call me there.
AN AMIGA GATEWAY TO USENET
Compucations is an Amigados Citadel-68K system in California.
Sysop Craig Lindstrom has developed a program that lets Citadel
exchange messages with Usenet.
We don't have any feedback yet on how well it works.
Craig can be contacted at US 805 967-0895 at up to 2400 bps.
The following message was received at Images in Twilight, another
Amiga system in Bloomington, Minn.
87Jun02 12:59 am from Craig Lindstrom @Compucations
******* GREAT NEWS *******
I have set up a UUCP gateway for temporary testing. It is up and
running as of 06/02/87.
The UUCP netserver will be running every morning from 3am - 4am
PST.
Here's how it works:
To leave a message on UUCP all you have to do is put the
routing(bang style) code in the message you want to go thru UUCP.
("@%%" presage thru UUCP to Scott at Berkeley, all I have to do is put
the following line IN the message (anywhere).
@%%ucsbcsl!ucbvax!scott
UCSBCSL must always be the starting route. The "@%%" tells the
netserver that the next set of characters is a UUCP address. It then
checks its validity and if its valid, it will submit the message thru
UUCP.
(This message will now be sent to ucsbcsl!ucbvax!scott, since I put
a @%%
in this message.
You can do it in ANY room (if you want tos the message to SYSTEM,
then put the address of the person ANYWHERE in the message using the
@%% qualifier.
This may seem a bit confusing (it is a little) especially when Im
explaining it.
People at Images: You may also send UUCP messages, Enter a NET
MESSAGE on Images, and just place @%% anywhere in the
message and the netserver will pick it up at 4am and send it.
MAKE SURE THAT "UCSBCSL" is the starting router node.
If I put another UUCP address in: @%%ucsbcsl!ucbvax!kathy
Now this message is going to go to Kathy on UCBVAX.. But I don't
have any clue if Kathy is there, so I'll set it back to Scott.
@%%ucsbcsl!ucbvax!scott The @%% will not appear in the UUCP
message so don't worry about that.
Now.... You can also send a message from UUCP to Compucations.
The address for this BBS from UUCP is
ucbvax!ucsbcsl!stiils!compucations
You can direct a UUCP message to a particular person by putting a
@%%n from UUCP to Compucations, I would place a @%%nCraig
Lindstrom. Anywhere in the UUCP message.
It will then send it to Craig Lindstrom on Compucations in the
Mail> room.
You can also have it put a UUCP message in ANY room.
Just place a @%%rLobby. anywhere in the
A "." is the terminator for the @%%n specification.
A "." is also the terminator for the @%%r specification. (It's Case
insensitive by the way)
RUNNING CITADEL ON A COMMODORE 128
There are two ways to run Citadel on a Commodore 128: use the
CP/M mode to run an upgraded version of Cynbe ru Taren's original
Citadel, or get Citadel-128 from K2NE software.
Citadel-128 is not Citadel, strictly speaking; it's not
written in C and it's not free. However, it looks a lot like Citadel
and is very popular in New Jersey. The price is fairly low.
Vince Quaresima @ Jersey Devil Citadel provided the following
description of the software:
---
The Citadel-128 BBS software is available for purchase for either floppy-
disk- or hard disk-based Commodore 128 systems. The software is totally
configurable by the system operator, at any time, and is virtually 100%
self-contained. It includes a complete set of system utilities which may be
called up from the system console, which eliminates the need to "take down"
the BBS, or loading another program to perform system maintenance.
FLOPPY VERSION:
The floppy version will support up to 4 drives, at least one of which MUST
be a Commodore-1571. The others may be 1541's or clones of the 1541. We do
not recommend the use of IEEE drives, but they MAY work (these have not yet
been tested).
The floppy version allows up to 26 room-slots, and supports "our version"
of networking (see .help LOCALNET for more information). Use of a printer
is optional.
Required hardware:
one Commodore C128,
at least one Commodore-1571 drive,
one of the following modems:
Commodore 1650, 1660, or 1670
-or-
an RS232 interface and
any RS232C Hayes-compatible* modem
(Hayes Smartmodem 1200, Volksmodem-12 and Avatex 1200HC
have all tested okay.)
* Hayes-compatibility requires result codes 0, 1, 3 and 5 in non-verbose
mode, and must support DTR for end-of-session disconnect.
HARD-DISK VERSION:
Required hardware:
one Commodore C128,
one Commodore-1571 floppy drive,
one (or more) ICT DataChief hard-disk units (10 meg minimum).
one RS232C interface board and
one Hayes-compatible modem (see above).
Modem support for the hard-disk version is limited to RS232C modems only,
although rumor has it that the Commodore-1670 does work (I have not person-
ally seen this, but one of our systems has tried it and reports that it
does work, but not as reliably as a "real" modem).
Hard-disk version supports 51 room-slots, networking ("our" way), and use
of a config-overlay to set the system as "private", "controlled", or "open"
as in the CP/M or MS-DOS Citadels.
GENERAL NOTES:
Citadel-128 is an EMULATION of a mixture of CP/M CITADEL, CITADEL-86 and
IDEATREE (sorry, but they DO have much better ".A" commands, and most of
them have been incorporated here). The system is coded using BASIC 7.0
with several machine-code overlays to handle modem I/O and fileserving,
in addition to a totally machine-code "online terminal" (we do not use
CHATmode as the terminal...at least, not yet).
The price for either version is $49.95, and owners of the floppy version
may upgrade to the hard-disk version at NO COST provided they supply the
disks. Upgrades are provided free, and are normally available for
XMODEM downloading (the ML overlays are not available online, which helps
us eliminate 'pirate' systems, since the code is useless without them).
The package is provided with NO copy-protection and we encourage backups.
We accept personal checks as well as bank or postal money-orders.
In the case of foreign orders, payment must be in U.S. funds.
Please specify which version (floppy or hard-disk) when ordering.
Write to:
K2NE Software
PO Box 289
Chatsworth NJ 08019
Or for more information, call The Jersey Devil BBS: 609-726-1565
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANOTHER CITADEL-LIKE PROGRAM FOR THE APPLE II
Pseudodel has been around Minnesota's Twin Cities for a
couple of years, but isn't well-known nationwide. Here's a history
written by the author of the program.
PSEUDODEL -- A SHORT HISTORY
By Shadow Warrior
Pseudodel, a derivative of Citadel for the Apple, originally started out
in April of 1985 as a program that looked more like Apple-Net than Citadel.
It had a menu-based structure with a very extensive "main menu" and a
rather rudimentary set of board commands. In July of 1985, since the message
subsystem needed some more commands for more flexibility, the basic New, Old,
Forward, Reverse, and Goto commands were added, and the message section was
revised to take out some of the "klunkiness". By the end of the summer, many
of the basic single-key commands of Citadel were in place, although from a
sysop's point of view, the system was a bit difficult to run. (For example,
old messages from each room had to be removed by hand with an editing
program. Each room had a separate message file, and rooms had to be created
and edited by hand.) That fall, changes were made to make things easy for the
sysop and aides, such as implementing a common message file that automatically
deleted the oldest messages to make room for new messages. By January of
1986, the program had reached most of its present form.
At its present state, Pseudodel supports all of the single-key commands
of regular Citadel except for Zforget, and many of the extended commands.
However, uploading and downloading are not available because of space
limitations. The sysop commands are vastly different from regular Citadel, as
are some of the aide commands, but it shouldn't matter to the regular user.
Because of the Apple's slow DOS, disk operations are somewhat slower than
regular Citadel.
There are four current operating nodes of Pseudodel. Second City,
the oldest, started on April 7th, 1985 as Splinter of the Mind's Eye BBS. It
has been rather popular since that time, although most of the users come from
other Twin Cities boards and not from the Citadels. Wolf's Den, the second
site, started in February of 1986 with Cryo Ruggie as the sysop. It has been
popular with a younger crowd and it has gained a reputation for laid-back
activity and occasional ruggishness. Pavilion of Dreams went up in June of
1986 with The Saint as sysop. It went down in March of 1987, but it is now
back up. Pavilion of Dreams has been a place of serious discussion and
reflection of life, and one of the features is a "friends list" -- users may
post their phone numbers on a list of "friends", and when they do so they can
get access to the list. Aaron Propes put up a fourth node of Pseudodel, called
The Monastery, in January of 1987, but the system has not been up very much
because of modem problems and abusive users.
Phone numbers of Pseudodels: (all area codes 612)
Second City: 533-9103, 300/1200 baud, 24 hours
Wolf's Den: 432-7929, 300/1200 baud, 24 hours
Pavilion of Dreams: 439-9656, 300/1200 baud, evenings
The Monastery: (temp down) 300 baud only
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
STADEL: A MINIMUM CONFIGURATION
It's possible to run Citadel on an Atari ST with a single disk drive.
At the Lake, we run a a RAMdisk-based system by using a boot disk with
a batch file. COMMAND.TOS, a PD command-line program, is installed
as a TOS application bound to a .BAT file type. Clicking on any .BAT file
then runs both the interpeter and the batch.
BOOT.BAT includes the following:
rtc12 (a utility that resets the system clock)
deskinit (a utility that sets screen colors without CONTROL.ACC)
del d:*.* (clears any junk out of the RAMdisk)
copy a:\*.sys d:
We then remove the boot disk, insert the runtime disk with CITADEL.TOS,
CONFIGUR.TOS (just in case) and the .blb and .mnu files, and click on
CITADEL.TOS.
After running Citadel, back up the RAMdisk by swapping back to the boot
disk and running SHUTDOWN.BAT, which contains the following commands:
del a:\*.sys
copy d:\*.* a:
This procedure leaves enough room on A: for net files, if needed.
Here's a very different method from Ken Badertscher that takes advantage
of a feature of GEM and the Atari ST's operating system:
Running STadel on a "plain vanilla" 520ST system
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes on saving disk space Ken Badertscher (kbad@JS BBS) 87Jun27
--------------------------------------------------------------------
When Bert L. Summer (sysop: BBR BBS, US 602 246 8745) expressed concern
over how much disk space his Citadel was taking on his 512K single-sided
single-drive 520ST, I felt moved to lend a hand. After all, the Citadel
executables, system files, and helpfiles take up just about all the space
on a 400k format single sided disk. He was afraid he'd run out of room if
he added the net files. On phase BBS, I had a convoluted configuration
that allowed me a whole floppy full of downloads and a humongous ramdisk
chock full of system files, so I figured I could come up with something.
The trick is to fool Citadel and Configur into thinking that there are
actually 2 drives in the system. Anyone who has tried to open drive B:
on a single floppy ST system is familiar with the alert box that pops up
asking you to 'insert disk B in drive A:'; this is a normal function of GEM.
So how to get Citadel and Configur to use it? Just change the extenders to
.PRG! Then you can set some of the directories in your CTDLCNFG.SYS to
b:\whatever. Here's the setup:
You need two disks for your "tiny Citadel". One disk is the boot disk,
and should be labeled "disk A". The second is the message/net/download disk,
and should be labeled "disk B". On disk A, set up your AUTO folder to do
whatever; mine starts up my clock chip, turns off write verify, installs
Dave Mumper's three-key coldstart rebooter, and most importantly, installs a
YARD ramdisk as drive D:. You do need a ramdisk, use whatever one you like,
but I prefer YARD since it survives a warmboot, and if you have problems,
it's easy to recover the system files on the ramdisk.
The other files that go on disk A are your #helpDir (containing all your
help files, shouldn't use much more than 40k), and #sysDir (containing the
room and log files, with a 50 user log, this uses about 60k), and CITADEL.PRG,
CONFIGUR.PRG, CTDLCNFG.SYS and CTDLTABL.SYS (after you've configured).
DESKTOP.INF will probably be there too, but I don't recommend having any
accessories on the boot disk (unless you're using the Intersect ramdisk).
Your ramdisk will have to be big enough to hold the #helpDir and #sysDir:
150k should be plenty.
On disk B, all you need is a folder for the net and message files. If you
want to have downloads (or net file-requests), you can make the message file
small enough to leave room on the disk for other files. Otherwise, your
#msgDir and #netDir can just be set to "b:" in ctdlcnfg.sys. Since your
message file is on a physical disk, you don't have to timeout to back it up,
but you will need to back up the #sysDir to disk A periodically. This scheme
also keeps the net files on a floppy where they belong.
With the disks set up, all you need to do is edit the ctdlcnfg.sys to
suit your tastes. If you don't want to bother with directory rooms, you can
set up a fairly large message base, since the net files won't take up much
space on disk B. You should also experiment with different size userlogs
to see what you can get to fit on your ramdisk (you should be able to go as
high as 200 users). An excerpt from the ctdlcnfg.sys I used for testing:
...
#define LOGSIZE 100
...
#define MESSAGEK 100
#helpDir "d:\help"
#sysDir "d:\log_room"
#msgDir "b:\msg_net" /* note: drive B: */
#define MIRRORMSG 0
#mirrorDir "d:"
#netDir "b:\msg_net" /* same as msgDir */
#define CALL-LOG 1 /* if you want */
#auditDir "d:"
...
Now, just boot of disk A, create a #sysDir on your ramdisk (and make sure
you have a #msgDir and #netDir created on b:, if they're folders, configur
will not* create them). Double click on CONFIGUR.PRG, and you're off!
Configur will read in ctdlcnfg.sys, you'll get the alert box to insert disk B,
and it'll go off and create the net and message files on disk B. When it's
done, the alert will pop up again; insert disk A, and Configur will write the
ctdltabl.sys to your boot disk. IMPORTANT: before you run CITADEL.PRG, be
sure to copy the #sysDir back to disk A! Also make sure you've copied your
#helpDir to the ramdisk.
Once that's done, double-click on CITADEL.PRG. It will read in and delete
CTDLTABL.SYS, the alert box will pop up and tell you to put in disk B, and
voila! Citadel is up and running. Whenever you go to exit the program,
GEM will give you the alert to stick disk A back in, so Citadel can write
the CTDLTABL.SYS back. Now that wasn't that hard, was it???
There are only 2 drawbacks to this scheme, one is that when you execute
Citadel or Configur from the desktop, they don't clear the screen. Big fat
hairy deal. The other "problem" is that Citadel doesn't explicitly enable
the TOS cursor when it starts, so you have no cursor in the BBS. This can
be a bit distracting, but it's easy to fix if you have the source and can
recompile it. Just add a call to enable the cursor somewhere in the startup
code. Otherwise you'll just have to live with it. It's really not all
that* horrible.
--------------
OTHER ST CITADEL NOTES
After taking some time off to enjoy the improvement in scenery
that arrives with summer when Minnesota women put their parkas and
boots into storage, orc has returned to the keyboard and resumed work
on version 3.1. He says his primary stumbling block at the moment is
that he can't quite remember what he was going to put into it, but
that will come back.
Because tech talk and downloading threatened to overrun both
Pell (US 612 377 9239) and the Lake, the STadel code has been removed
from public directory rooms. The best way to obtain STadel executables
and source code is to log onto either Pell or the Lake, .goto Mail,
and ask orc for his real name and address. For a paltry $5, he'll mail
you the whole thing on disk. That's probably much cheaper than
downloading anyway.
Meanwhile, off in the great State of Washington, where you
know it's summer because the rain is warm, a mutant ST Citadel has
been spawned. Ganelius @ Inner Sanctum (US 206 363 8592) has converted
STadel 3.0c from Alcyon to Mark Williams C, and begun tinkering with
its innards.
The most obvious change is the grafting of Dave Betz' ADVINT
adventure game interpreter onto Citadel. Betz' ADVSYS game-writing
system was described in the May issue of Byte, and has been available
for the ST and MS-DOS systems for more than a year. It is an
object-oriented language that makes it relatively easy to write an
Infocom-style text adventure game. A "compiler" crunches object and
verb descriptions into a set of data structures that are interpreted
by the runtime program.
An additional Citadel command (V) causes the program to
execute ADVINT, with its output directed to the modem port. On our
recent visit, the interpreter was running a game based (loosely) on
Citadel itself.
This may be good or bad, depending on your view of BBSing in
general and Citadels in particular. It certainly threatens to chew up
a lot of system time, and many sysops regard on-line games as an
attractive nuisance, like building a swimming pool. You never know
what sort of person it's going to attract.
Ganelius also has modified the file-transfer commands so that
Citadel can invoke an external program to perform the process. The
external routines were provided by Tom Zerucha of Southfield, Mich.,
author of several programs for the ST that provide Ymodem batch,
"windowed" Xmodem and Zmodem protocols, plus a kamikaze Xmodem variant
that sends an "ack" in advance to speed up transfers on packet
networks. Because of the number of options, downloading on Ganelius'
system is menu-driven rather than command-driven.
The software currently is labeled Inner Sanctum, a switch made
after it was discovered that the name Pseudodel was already taken.
---------------
COMING NEXT MONTH IN CITANEWS:
Who knows? Uploads are welcome at US 612 426 1374.
Until then, we're off in search of "Rooms with unread messages."
--------------
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