/*************************************************************************/ /* __ */ /* / ) __ ____ /| / __ __ */ /* / / / /| / | / /_ | / (_ */ /* (__/ _/_ / /-| / |/ /__ |/|/ __) */ /* */ /* The Electronic Newsletter for Citadels */ /* */ /* Issue 11 - April 1993 - News9304.txt */ /* */ /*************************************************************************/ /* Editor: Bill Karpowicz Aka Bill.K @ Sinkhole (C86Net) */ /* Karpowicz_Bill @ Tandem.comm (Internet) */ /* */ /*************************************************************************/ \ / \ / \ / \ / | \/ \ / \/ \ / \ / \ / | \ / \/ \ / \ / | \ / /\*/\ \/ \ / | \ / \/ \ / \ / /\*/\ /\*/\ Welcome To Sinkhole \/ /\*/\ Part of the Citadel Network /\*/\ 300 - 14,000 Baud 7 Days a week - 24 Hours a Day Home of The Room Oriented Bulletin Board List (Aka RSYSxxxx.LST) Look in the BBS list room for the latest issue of the list. NOTE: All updated and additions to the list must be received by the 20th of the month if they are to be added to the next release. Please provide: SYSTEM NAME, SOFTWARE, SYSOP NAME, MAX BAUD OPEN, CLOSED or PRIVATE system status. Also note if the system keeps weird hours /\ /\*/\ /\ / \ /\ / \ / \ /\ / \/\ /\ / \ / \ / \ / \/ \/\/ \ / \ / \ / \/ \/ \ H - Will give you help .EC - To change you configuration ? - Gives you a quick help menu (This issue's featured banner based upon Sinkhole's.) --------------------=============================---------------------- In this issue of CITANEWS: ----------------====================================------------------ Departments : - What is CitaNews? - Editor's Column - An index to past issues - Registering Your BBS - The Rsys list Features: Why do they do it ? : by Tony Preston This is the question posed to several Citadel sysops. Their answers may surprise even other sysops. Running a BBS on a dare : by Bill Karpowicz Truly defining the term "SUCKER" in regards to running a public Bulletin Board System Multi-tasking Citadel : by Tony Preston The operating systems, environments and their variables. Death of a Support Node: Round Table pulls the plug. System software : The latest version & where to get it.. Another version of Citadel? : Lost & found ... Where does your node fit in? Links - a Netmap as known to C-86 Test System - Kept By Hue, Jr. Gateways : By: Tom Kirkland (Bucco @ Cincidel _ Cinci) Life beyond the Citadel Network ************************************************************************* (All articles are written by the editor unless stated otherwise.) =============== = Departments = =============== -----------------=============================---------------------- What is CitaNews? -------------------=============================----------------------- Perhaps, a better question would be "why is Citanews?" As many of you know, Citanews is more than just a room on a Citadel type bbs. Citanews was once THE source of information on the net and was the most popular and perhaps the most shared room on the net. As time went on, those in the know, felt that Citadels and their users deserved a news letter of their own and the Citanews News Letter was born. I hope that you enjoy this issue of Citanews and that issue 11 isn't far behind. As always, submissions and suggestions are always welcome. --------------------=============================----------------------- Editor's Column -------------------=============================---------------------- First off, I'd like to thank the following people. Dominic Duvall for leaving me with a great format to work from. You may notice that I have "stolen" a lot of his ideas as far as the way Citanews is laid out, but hey, I'm not about to mess with success :-) Second, Hue, Jr. for shaming me into writing a Citanews news letter. I should have known better that to mention to him that " I'd like to take a shot at doing an issue." I'd also like to thank Tony Preston and Tom Kirkland (Bucco) for writing some of the articles you'll be reading in this issue. They took the time to answer my call and help make this issue of Citanews a reality. Last but not least, thanks also go to Bob Kifferly @ Gateway, for proof reading this issue. Ok .. so why do a Citanews at all ? Well, I've always felt that the Citadel network deserved a lot more recognition than it now gets. I think that compared to the larger BBS nets, such as FidoNet, The Citadel net houses users who are a endless source of information. More importantly, the Citadel net is not system dependent. You can run a one of the many variants on a DOS system, Atari ST, Amiga, etc. and still have access to the net, now that's what I call open. With all that in mind, onward to issue 11 of (drum roll please) CITANEWS ! ---------------------=============================----------------------- Index to back issues and their authors : 1-7 by Steve Yelvington (George Jetson @ The Lake). 8 by David Quick (The Badger @ Pell). 9 by Eric A. Griff. 10 by Wally Hartshorn (Dominic Duvall @ The Quest) File name Month of Issue Size Author -------------------------------------------------------------------------- News8704.txt ... April 1987 ......... 10K Steve Yelvington News8705.txt ... May 1987 ........... 10K Steve Yelvington News8706.txt ... June 1987 .......... 19K Steve Yelvington News8707.txt ... July/August 1987 ... 27K Steve Yelvington News8709.txt ... September 1987 ..... 33K Steve Yelvington News8803.txt ... March 1988 ......... 28K Steve Yelvington News8804.txt ... April 1988 ......... 39K Steve Yelvington News8805.txt ... May 1988 ........... 6K David Quick News8809.txt ... September 1988 ..... 10K Eric A. Griff News9108.txt ... August 1991 42K Dominic Duvall ---------------------=============================----------------------- Registering Your BBS --------------------=============================----------------------- Ahaa, one of my favorite subjects. Why you ask? Well as keeper of the Rsys list, I like to be as accurate as possible, not an easy chore when it come to the Citadel net. So, you want to run a Citadel BBS and maybe even join the net. This is a good thing, and nothing to be ashamed of, but wouldn't it be nice if the rest of the BBS community knew of your board ? Although there is no rule stating that you HAVE to register you board, it does have certain advantages. 1) You stand the chance of attracting new users to your system, after all, what good is a board without callers ? 2) By letting the rest of the Citadel community know you're out there, you stand a good chance of finding a system to net with when the time comes. Now that I've convinced you that registering is a good thing, you're asking, OK .. how do I go about doing it ? The simplest way is to call Sinkhole at 203-873-8518 and leave the following information to the sysop in mail > : Node Name Maximum baud rate System access c= controlled (Mail to Sysop) Software being used o= open Sysops name p= private (nominations) Phone Number (include area code) Codes #= headquarter system $= pay fee for access &= strange hours *= see REMINDER section The next best way to get this information to me is to use the net. This method is quite reliable and very few updates have fallen through the cracks. Sinkhole nets directly with C-86 Test System, Gateway, MAST, ENY, and The Expressway BBS. Mail can be sent through these nodes OR you can post a message with above information, in the Citanews, or BBS List rooms on these systems. That's all there is to it, I'll take care of the rest. On a final note, update must be received by the 20th of the month or they won't show up until the next list is published. =============== = Features = =============== ---------------------=============================----------------------- Why do we do it ? -------------------=============================----------------------- * Why I am a Sysop * by: Tony Preston BBS: The Amiga Zone (609) 953-8159 Amiga Citadel V.3.42.E9 State: NJ Modem: Zoom 2400/MNP V.42bis I run "The Amiga Zone", (609) 953-8159. I started running a BBS after I got a second phone line. I got the second phone line after my wife complained about my son and myself always using the phone line. Well, after a few weeks of a second phone line, I realized that I could accomplish two things by running a BBS. One was to get messages any time of the day, messages concerning commercial and shareware products I have written.The other was that I could connect up to the international networks. Now, I am on a pretty tight budget and did not know if I would make the BBS a permanent one so I wanted to start with something low cost... Well, Citadel is a FREEWARE project so that was as low cost as you can get! One thing lead to another and pretty soon I was up, running, and netting with several local systems. I started finding problems with the Citadel68K version 3.31.b2 I was running. I did some checking and found that Stallion, a user some place in MN was the support person so I started to complain to him about bugs and problems. Well, most of the problems were my setup and new versions did not seem to be very frequent. I had some second thoughts about the Citadel, I figured that if I was not getting any support for the problems, I might just have to go and buy something! I decided that I like Citadel enough, I would do my own port of the K2NE Citadel by Vince Quaresima. Vince is a local Sysop so I contacted him and he gave me his source. I started to work on it and to realize I would have a lot of work to do when Stallion sent me a mail message. He told me that he was not able to spend the time and would give me all the files if I would work on fixing the problems. Now, I had been complaining for several months and jumped at the chance to work on Citadel myself. I started serious work on Citadel in January, 1992. I have released several updates, some not always an improvement! I like "hacking" into Citadel to hunt down bugs. I am a chess player, an avid Science Fiction and Fantasy reader. I am a Systems Programmer by trade (my wife thinks I get paid to do my hobby!). I think Citadels and BBS systems in general are the Citizen Band Hobby of the 90's. With computers so cheap, everyone can run a BBS. It makes the networking sort of like an automatic computer controlled electronic mail system. It doesn't matter if you are short or tall, big or small. You are an equal with thousands of others. You can argue with someone across the country. Not all users are friendly, but most are. ------------------=============================---------------------- Running a BBS on a dare ------------------=============================---------------------- Greetings fellow Citadelians, As a sysop of Sinkhole, or just as a sysop in general, I have had people ask me "how did you get into running a BBS anyway?" Good question .. and I wish I had a good answer, but believe it or not I started Sinkhole as a response to a dare. I started working with computers in 1981, as a Field Engineer for Burroughs Corporation. I always had the craving to know just what made these things tick, but the PC age had just started and I didn't have a clue about BBS's and networks. I was stuck working on mainframes and their components and figured that was the most I'd ever know about computers. Then came the TI99/a, the super computer for home use. Yes, I spent many nights loading programs by tape and writing in basic. The time it took to do anything with the TI was an eternity, so I soon lost interest and gave up on home computing for the time being. Three years later, I went to work for Tandem Computers. They did things a bit differently here. I was encouraged to use the system and found a whole new world by using the internal mail system. Then one day a message came across the net about a new computer called the Atari ST. I had been looking at the Macintosh up until then, but the cost was a bit out of my range. I found a local dealer and within two weeks, I was walking in to my home with a 520st with one floppy drive. A friend had let me borrow a 1200 baud modem and armed with it and a shareware terminal package, I started dialing every board I could find. It was only a matter of time before I signed up for Genie and found a shareware BBS package for the Atari called STadel, written by some guy named "orc". It took a while to get it up and running but soon I had access to my system by remote and was leaving messages and files for a friend, code name DNS. The system was private and I'd watch him dial in from his IBM XT clone, leave files or mail for me to read when I got home. Then it happened, one day, DNS was on a LARGE bbs called Darwin, where a national list of BBSs was kept. He asked if I ever planned on making Sinkhole a public system, as almost to dare me to do so. Not wanting to seem like a coward, I said "sure". With that, right before my very eyes, I watch him enter my system information into Darwins' list. And so, Sinkhole was born. From there it has grown from a 512k, one floppy system running at 1200 baud, to a 1meg system with 88megs of disk space and a 14.4 modem. Amazingly enough, DNS and I are still good friends, but I never let him forget the monster he created by getting me into BBSing to the extent I'm into it today. Thanks Dave !! -------------------=============================---------------------- Multi-tasking Citadel --------------------=============================----------------------- Multi-Tasking Citadel by: Tony Preston I love my Amiga. One of the reasons I run a BBS is that I can run it and do other things at the same time. The reason is my Amiga, designed in 1985, comes complete with a multi-tasking, time slicing executive that only requires about 160K of memory to run. On my system, that leaves about 6.8 megabytes of memory to do other things! The Amiga Citadel runs on its own window and screen. The Screen is the basic display unit of the Amiga. You may have as many screens as you want. A window is associated to a screen. The citadel console window works just like a normal display except that you can move it to the back and ignore it! Citadel is a pretty good load for any system when a user is doing a file transfer or a net session is occurring. The Amiga has a priority scheme so I can raise the priority of my window (or lower Citadel's priority). It really is nice to be able to do compiles, edit files, and things without shutting down Citadel. I find it especially important to be able to play Perfect General or Empire without shutting down! Time to blow up that enemy tank! --------------------=============================----------------------- Featured System - Sinkhole -------------------=============================----------------------- Sysop - Bill.K Software - adel Hours - 7 days a week- 24 hrs/day Baud - 3/12/2400/4800/7200/9600/14000 Modem - SupraFax Modem Hardware - Atari 520ST w/1 meg memory Storage - 88megs Message Base Size - 1 meg Shared Rooms - 16 Name origin : The name Sinkhole refers to a hole in the ground usually caused by erosion. This also refers to a cave and since I'm a caver .. the name seemed to fit it's sysop. Systems Networked with: MAST,C-86 test system,DreamScape,FACTORY,eny The Mansion The Expressway BBS,Troy City,Gateway BPBBS,undermind Rooms shared : STadel*, Atari ST*, Net.Music*, GFA*, C*, BBS List* Citanews*, Macintosh*, NintendoRama*, Atari8, Lynx* Ecology*, Sysop Stuff*, Amiga*, fnordtech*, Esoterica* Citadel 68k*,Treknet*, Science Fiction*, Amiga* Classifieds,A/V Talk*, Astronomy*,net.jokes* -------------------===============================---------------------- Death of a Support Node ------------------=============================----------------------- Ok .. so you found a BBS program that runs on your system and you are up and running, netting with other systems and having a grand time. You report problems with the software, you get updates from those good enough to write the software in the first place. All is right with the world. Then one day, you read that the node that supports you is going down or already down, maybe to never been heard from again. You think "Oh no, not again !!" Well those who remember STadel and the disappearance of orc, can relate to this all too well. It looks like those who run adel may now be in the that situation again. With Round Table down and Mr. Neutron moving on to bigger and better things, what will happen to adel ? Right now, the way it sounds, Arther Dent @ The Only BBS may be taking over the source code and picking up where Mr. Neutron and Elim left off. If this is the case, let's encourage and support our new benefactors. More importantly, let's not forget that this a hobby and that these people do this for fun and entertainment. Those who support Citadel software don't owe us anything, but we owe them our support and our thanks. On a final note, a message came across the net as to the new adel development team. They are, Arther Dent @ only bbs, Captain Shenanigan @ only bbs and Pizza Thief, serving as beta tester. Good Luck Guys !!! ---------------------=============================----------------------- Listing of Active Software (corrections welcomed) --------------------=============================---------------------- Software Last known version Where to get it Author/s -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Asgard-86 1.49e, Hotel BBS Gary Meadows BabeCit unknown The babble on Babel Bob Perigo b0badel 1.18 Interface b0b Citadel-86e ENY Farokh Irani. Citadel-68k 3.41.e7 The Amiga Zone Tony Preston. Citadel-86 3.43 C-86 Test System Hue, Jr. Gremlin's Citadel /063 the grand illusion Matthew Pfleger Citadel:K2NE 5.17 The Jersey Devil Alan Bowen BBS-RTC, GEnie Vince Quaresima (keyword K2NE) Brian Riley by anonymous FTP from: quartz.rutgers.edu (/pub/citadel) wuarchive.wustl.edu (/mirrors/msdos/citadel) Fortress-PC v1e-73 undermind Chris Camacho (cmc) Fortress-ST vie-73 Draiden Bansted adel v1.32-51 The Only BBS Elim & Mr Neutron v1.32-58 and now taken over v1.32-58 (beta) by Arther Dent ---------------------=============================----------------------- Another Version of Citadel ? -------------------=============================----------------------- Looks like it. In going through Sinkholes message base, I came across a message referencing a piece of software called "MavenCit". The message also contained the phone number for two boards running this software so I gave them a call and was able to get through to "Road to Emmaus" at 206-647-0618. I was able to poke around a bit, but the board was secured and my access was limited, but it IS a Citadel. It seems to have feeds to Usenet and maybe other Citadels, but little is known about this software. If anyone can provide information concerning this new software, lets' hear from you. ---------------------=============================----------------------- Links -------------------=============================--------------------- Note: The following file was donated By Hue, Jr. @ C-86 Test System. It is called LINKS and is net requestable from the Network room. If you would like to help keep this map up to date, I'd like to encourage you to forward updates to Hue, Jr. Note2: The New Jersey section of the map was updated by Bob Kifferly. - International - - C86Net - <92Dec17> Top Level View (more or less) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Newfoundland | \ Ontario Alberta, Saskatchewan & Nova \ ___ British Columbia ___________________ Scotia \ / \ \ \ Wa. \ ___ Michigan, NC _\_______ New England Oregon \ / ________ Turkey / \ / \___ Twin /___________________ New York \ / Cities _________________________\ _\___/ / | \ / / / \ \ /__ /_____/ / / \_ New Jersey Cal. ____/ / / Colorado Indiana __________/ \ / Utah \ \_______/__________\____ SouthEast Illinois Alberta ~~~~~~~ (Edmonton) MTG (1) to / HIL-Vancouver \ / |--- B-14 (1) Purgatory (1) ---|--- Round Table (8) | Quincunx (8) ---|--- The Forum (1) \ Secret Service (8) to Metroplex \ | \____Kronos (Penhold) (1) | The / | \ \ | Warehouse (1) | The \ | | Holt (1) \ | (Calgary)| \ | | to to _________ Poopsie (8) _______Test System Mars Hill | | |--- PointsUnknown (2) Saskatchewan ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Metroplex (1) _______________ to Kronos British Columbia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ HIL-Vancouver (1) _________ to | Kronos, DogLink Lily Pond (2) ---|--- Alcatraz Prison (1) Split-Brain (?) ---|--- The Old Gnomestead (2) The Funky Chicken (?) ---|--- The Belfry (?) | Mars Hill (1) _________ to Poopsie Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ to \ _________to RT, \ / Beach Poopsie, \ Kronos /____to \ / undermind, Cincidel to ______Test System (1) ____________________to Hotel / | | The Mansion, Schizo / | |--- Free Lunch (1) to / | |--- Chez' Spaz (1) Class68 | |--- Nowhere (1) / |--- Illusions... (1) / |--- Avalon (2) / |--- Backfence (1) ------ Ivory Tower (1) to / |--- DogLink (1) -------- PC Tech, Inc (1) ______ to Data Drum |--- Callahan's (1) |_________ to Topkapi |--- The HUB (1) HIL-Vancouver (Turkey) |--- Bad Sector (1) |--- MAST (5) |--- Poof (5) |--- Wolf's Den (1) |--- MN-Mensa (1) |--- House of Cards (1) |--- Eye of the Storm (1) |--- Greylien (1) |--- Equine (13) |--- Kryl (2) |--- The Last Rose (2) |--- Radio Flyer (1) |--- Images at Twilight (2) | |--- MIDIapolis (5) Systems in this area interact chaotically. Cincinnati ~~~~~~~~~~ Cincidel (1) ____________ to Test System California ~~~~~~~~~~ (Sacramento) Hotel (10) _____________________________to | Test System Markland (?) ---|--- Dragon's Den 2 (?) SAC (?) ---|--- The Outer Limits (?) WebHunt (?) ---|--- The Jungle (?) Ummagumma (?) ---|--- Tobes of Hades (?) Omni (10) ---| TPT4 (13) ______________ to overmind Interface (5) ______________ to MAST | Time Arts (?) ---|--- Garbanzo (5) |--- Deep Thought (WWIV) Wild ASCII (1) ___________ to aardvark stew | WWWA (?) Michigan ~~~~~~~~ to _______________________ Beach (1) ___________ to Test System | aardvark stew Labyrinth (1) ---|--- Camelot (1) Au Contraire (1) ---|--- The Portal (1) --- Games Workshop (2) Black Hole (1) ---|--- KFM BBS (1) Havin' Fun (1) ---|--- Gene Pool (?) Foundation (1) ---|--- WildFire (?) New York ~~~~~~~~ to \ Sinkhole \ \_______ \ to ___________________ The Test Mansion (1) System \ |--- CNY Zoo (1) Electronic New York (12) ____ to Sinkhole | Generic (12) ---|--- Expressway BBS (12) to ____________Cygnus (5) Bauhaus | |--- Husker Du (5) |--- U.C.S. (5) Connecticutt ~~~~~~~~~~~~ to _________ Sinkhole (5) _______________ to The Mansion, MAST, Test System GatewayNJ Nova Scotia ~~~~~~~~~~~ TKC (1) ---|--- Central Fidelity (?) Force (?) ---|--- Nova (?) ---|--- Shadowland Sprawl (?) Lockheed (1) ---|--- BAUD (5) | Entropy (1) _________to ABC BBS / to / / Mars Hill / Newfoundland ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ABC BBS (1) __________ to Entropy New Jersey ~~~~~~~~~~ GatewayNJ (5) _______ to | Sinkhole JACS -------|--- SJ Net House | Atlantis_NJ --- Iconoclast | Jersey Devil (6) | The Amiga Zone (2) --- Eagle Annex (2) [ thanks to Bob Kifferly @ Gateway ] Oregon ~~~~~~ SouthEast ~~~~~~~~~ : : : : : : : : : | : :........................|....: to Byteways<---:-+ | +-:------>to dish : | | +-:------>to blade : | nevermind(13) | +-:------>to FWBBS to : | | | | +-:------>to Interface TPT4,<--------:-undermind(13)---overmind(5)-:------>to Test System, MAST NDP : | | | | +-:------>to devnull : | | | | +-:------>to 9_Hells ................:....|....|.........|... | :........................... Cheetah(13)___| : | | : |__uumind.mind.org Circuits2(13)___| : DarkRealm(5) : | | : : |___buggs.UUCP |___Cocotel(13) : : |___emory.mathcs.emory.edu : : |___luxomni.UUCP : : |___richnova.UUCP (compliments cmc) North Carolina ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Schizo ______________ to Test System | | |--- The Freeze (1) Mach's Mach (1) Tennessee ~~~~~~~~~ Smoky Mensa (1) _______ to Mensa-MN Utah ~~~~ overmind __________ only bbs (8) Colorado ~~~~~~~~ FWBBS (5) Ontario ~~~~~~~ NAU BBS (5) ----------------- Illinois ~~~~~~~~ to | | Test System | Data Drum (1)_______________ to | Mansion, aardvark stew |--- Synapse (2) Brazil (1) ---|--- Flamingo (1) Washington ~~~~~~~~~~ aardvark stew (1) ________ to Wild ASCII, Beach, Data Drum Bauhaus (5) _____________ to Cygnus, overmind Arizona ~~~~~~~ Class68 (1) _____________ to Test System Turkey ~~~~~~ Topkapi (1) ______________ to PC Tech, Inc LEGEND ------ 1 - Citadel-86 2 - Amiga Citadel-68k by Stallion 3 - Ami by Eric Griff 4 - NeoCitadel by Hue, Sr. 5 - STadel by David Parsons 6 - Citadel:K2NE 7 - AmiDel by Cole Calistra (C-68k variant) 8 - adel by Elim and Royce Howland 9 - Novucivitas by Brent K. Barrett (BKB) 10 - Asgard-86 by Gary Meadows 11 - Asgard-80 by Gary Meadows 12 - Citadel-86e by farokh irani 13 - Fortress-PC by cmc 14 - Citadel-86/TI [ Citadel-86 for the TI PC ] 15 - ElfBBS by Dino Nardini ? - Software is unknown CURRENT DOMAINS & SERVERS ------------------------- Domain Server Phone Location ------ ------ ----- -------- Alta Kronos CA (403) 886 4171 Alberta, Canada AZ Class68 US (602) 839 8327 Arizona BC Mars Hill CA (604) 589 0639 British Columbia, Canada CA Wild ASCII US (408) 261 0667 California Cinci Cincidel US (606) 282 9803 Cinci-Kentucky CT Sinkhole US (203) 873-8518 Connecticutt FL DarkRealm US (813) 393 4753 Florida GA Overmind US (404) 659 5720 Georgia IL Data Drum US (217) 529 8440 Illinois MI Beach US (616) 349 5887 Michigan (Kalamazoo) MN C-86 Test System US (612) 470 9635 Minnesota (Twin Cities) MtNC Mach's Mach US (704) 251 5729 Mountainous North Carolina NC Schizo US (704) 554 9239 North Carolina NF ABC BBS CA ?????????????? Newfoundland, Canada NS Entropy CA (902) 461 5126 Nova Scotia, Canada NY The Mansion US (315) 865 8081 Utica, New York Sac-CA Hotel US (916) 927 7680 Sacramento, California tackyWA aardvark stew US (206) 565 2926 Seattle-Tacoma, WA UT Only BBS US (801) 261 9372 Utah *Sask is actually being serviced by Kronos. PURPOSE ------- This map was constructed to show the major room sharing links of International C86Net, including major mail routing links (although the fact that a system or area is represented on this does not necessarily mean the system or area can be reached via any form of mail). There are of course many other links possible and working, mainly Mail> and file links. In the interests of clarity and/or sanity, these are not illustrated. DISCLAIMER ---------- It should go without saying that this map is both out of date and at least somewhat inaccurate in any number of ways. CREDITS ------- Bill Karpowicz of Sinkhole Utopia for his NetMap, which is a great help in keeping up a great big part of the net. cmc of overmind for info on all of his connections. Anyone else kind enough to contribute information ... UPDATES WELCOME --------------- C-86 Test System US 612 470 9635 USR HST 9600 -------------------=============================--------------------- Gateways - Beyond the Citadel Net -------------------=============================--------------------- The QWK Gate - or - Why Anybody in Their Right Mind Would Want to Connect to Another Net By: Tom Kirkland (Bucco @ Cincidel _ Cinci) US 606 282 9803 In October of 1992, a job transfer took me from a hotbed of Citadel activity, Minnesota, to a bastion of flashing ANSI and callback verify BBSs, Cincinnati. I plunged right in, advertising Cincidel, my new BBS, with full vigor, and was greeted by the local modem community with a chorus of yawns that could be heard in Nova Scotia. Why would anyone want to use a BBS that doesn't have To: fields and Subject: fields and message threading and high ASCII and ANSI menus? Few people in the Tri-State area had the faintest clue. Within a few weeks, I had my full complement of regular users: a former Quartz user, a former Citadel-68k sysop who had originally gotten his copy of Citadel-68k v3.1 from internet, a programmer who took on the Cit software as a challenge and fought with it until he mastered it, and a few others who were simply of an adventurous stripe. Then there were the three or four former users of my former BBS in Minnesota who would call late at night and try to encourage me. Basically, the opening of Cincidel was largely ignored by the local modeming populace. I had called over two thirds of the BBSs listed in the local "Jones" list, finding that one of the most popular packages used around here was GT, which had a couple of strong local "nets", a few decent local "echoes", and quite a few fun people on it. One of the GT boards I frequented was Information Exchange, run by John and Michelle Eicher. Michelle was pregnant (girl, Alyssa, born a few weeks ago), so I asked her if she'd like my set of archives from a room called "Advice for onion" which had run early in 1992 as a place to post funny stuff about parenthood and new babies and such. Anyway, I called there pretty regularly. I happened to ask Michelle if she and John would be interested in a gateway to another network, and it turns out John was very interested in pursuing it, and also happens to be a pretty talented QBASIC programmer. Since I also favor BASIC (is that a snarl I hear?) we had a lot in common and decided to begin researching how to make the gate happen. Research began in earnest in early December of 1992. By Christmas, John had hit upon the idea of using the QWK packet standard for off-line mail readers as our vehicle to make the transfers. He was already running a QWK door on his GT board, so I logged on and downloaded a packet, not having any idea what would be inside. Now, for those of you not familiar with the QWK standard, it is a set of rules for file construction used by people who call heavy-traffic systems such as GTs and WildCats and Spitfires and such, which gives them all the new messages from the conferences they select when they download the .QWK packet in compressed form, the messages then being displayed by an off-line mail reader program. Their posts, processed by the same mail reader, become what is known as a .REP packet, which is uploaded in a quick session to the QWK door. Just think of it like a manual network session for normal users. Anyway, John had a CD ROM on Information Exchange that had several mail readers on it, so I downloaded a few to play with. I froze the process of opening the packets at several stages and figured out how the mail reader worked. I also created .REP packets, and froze the process of creating them so I'd have several partially finished examples of the process of building a REP packet. At this point, in early January, I almost gave up. The whole deal looked like way too much work. Poking around John's CD ROM again, I found a freeware text converter for QWK packets. The program created human-readable text from the tangled QWK packets, and made it relatively easy to write a translator program to create Citadel format files that could be stuffed into my message base using MSGADD. Of course, at this point we had no idea how we were going to establish the gate, but we were pretty sure we could get a script for a comm program to call John's board, log on as a user, and grab a QWK packet. After many tries, I succeeded in writing a comm script that could do just that, and with my freshly written translator program, Cincidel became a "lurker" on three of the local Cincinnati-based "echoes" on about January 22. The rooms were originally set up as read only, and I just put the extra fields that were on the GT messages, like To: and Subject: in the first couple lines of message text. Now came the hard part - building the REP packets. It took a full weekend of hacking, but by January 26, I had a working gate program going the other way. One of the local echoes, called "Garrison Hilliard", named after a local writer, sort of "volunteered" to be our testbed. The first thing I found out was that in the automated script file process it was awfully easy to lose a REP packet if something went wrong. I tweaked and tweaked (and am still tweaking) and my comm script is now about twice as long as I thought it was going to be, but it now takes disasters on two consecutive sessions to cause any messages to be lost. This has only happened once since the gate went up, and hasn't been a concern for several weeks. In February, 1993, we undertook to create a way whereby any Citadel user could carry on a mail conversation with any GT net user. Now, this is not as mean a feat as you might think, as there are about 600 to 800 GT nodes running at any one time, and last estimate on the size of C86 Net was about 150 to 200 systems, I think. Anyway, we finally came up with a scheme to do it. Basically, a Citadel user would address private mail to the person they want to receive it on GT Net as @ GT-Gate(Info-Exch) _ Cinci, and then put the GT Net system address on the first line of the message as *AD:###/###, where the * is the first character of the message. For a listing of GT systems worldwide, call Cincidel or Last Call Jr. Anyway, it's only a little more complicated from the GT end. To all GT systems, C86 Net is a user on Information Exchange called, well, C86 Net. So a GT user would address mail to C86 Net at 006/025. Then on the first line of the GT mail message, they would have to put *TO: @ _ , where the * is the first character of the message. The gate does the rest. I know, I know, private mail is pretty kludgey. But it was *real* easy to program and didn't require that I jump through the political hoops required to get assigned a net/node number on GT net, which believe me was a very important design parameter. In a nutshell, how the gate works is: 1. Cincidel comes down and runs a batch file. 2. Batch file runs MSGOUT for GT-Gate(Info-Exch). 3. Batch file runs the CITQWK translator program. 4. Batch file archives the resulting .REP file. 5. Batch file runs the comm script. 6. The comm script calls Information Exchange and logs on as C86 Net. 7. The comm script opens IE's QWK door. 8. The comm script looks for a file called IE.OLD, and if found, uploads it to the QWK door. 9. The comm script uploads IE.REP. 10. The comm script asks for a QWK packet and downloads it. 11. The comm script logs off IE, and if anything went wrong it renames IE.REP to IE.OLD. 12. Batch file runs a program called QWK-TXT, which crunches the QWK packet to a text file. 13. Batch file runs the QWKCIT translator program. 14. Batch file puts the new messages in Cincidel with MSGADD. 15. Batch file runs Cincidel. This occurs three times a day on external preempt events, and so far I've only had one major glitch, when Information Exchange was down overnight and Cincidel just kept dialing and dialing, of course meaning Cincidel was down overnight. There are currently three local GT echoes being gated into Cincidel, and there are two Citadel rooms gated into GT. Religion goes as far as IE and stops, never to spread any further, but Phluffy's World is on request from the local net czar by a couple of Cincinnati area GT sysops. The GT hierarchy is dragging their feet a bit in allowing this strange foreign network to connect in, with it's unusual aliases and it's weird short messages, all of which are sent to "All" with a subject of "C86NetGate(Cincidel)", but many GT sysops in the Cincinnati area consider the gate a positive development. John and I hope to have the all clear from the GT honchos soon to create a C86-GT gateway echo-room that would span a good piece of both networks, to help publicize the existence of the gate and boost each network's awareness of the other. Other future plans include a pair of programs John Eicher is working on which would allow any BBS or user to call his BBS and upload .REP packets and receive .QWK packets immediately and automatically through the use of a GT Net maildriver emulator scheme. It has almost worked several times, but with the new baby and all it's been almost a month now since John has asked me to test a new version. Anyway, at least for connecting to GTs it would be a big improvement in stability over the comm program script. The gate software and a sample of my comm script will be made available on request to anyone who wants to beta test it. It's pretty stable, and is generic enough that it should be able to be used to connect to any system running a QWK door. I am aware of QWK doors for GT (of course), Spitfire, Searchlight, Telegard, Renegade, and Wildcat. I'd bet there are others. If someone really wants to take it on, a few of the people who've logged on here have asked me if I have a QWK door on my C-86 . After it's been stable for six months or so, and I've killed the few bugs I know of but haven't gotten to yet, I'll make it available as a single archive on Cincidel, and, following Hue, Jr.'s example, it will be free for the asking. In closing, let me thank Hue, Jr. for his patient answering of all my silly questions, Ty Konderoga for being a guinea pig and taking on a silly room called "Garrison Hilliard". Thanks to Garrison Hilliard for letting his silly echo be our gate testbed. John and Michelle are the greatest, and I look forward to meeting the new baby. And her mom and dad and older brother, for that matter. I also want to thank Richard D. Howard for writing QWK-TXT, which saved me a lot of work, and for giving me permission to distribute his software along with my translators. If you are interested in beta testing the gate, net mail me here at Cincidel. If you would like to try out the Garrison Hilliard room, it is available in the Twin Cities from Last Call Jr, and of course from Cincidel, if you're paying the LD. I'll announce the establishment of the gateway room in both Sysop Stuff and CitaNews when we get it started. In all, I've found my system is better with the gate than it was without it. Since putting up the gate, I've been averaging about 40 to 50 new callers per month, versus about 20 before it went up. More local users are getting a feel for Cincidel through exporting Phluffy's World and Religion, and the local echoes I'm piping in have helped to "Cincinnatize" my heavily Minnesota- influenced board. And in spite of the work, putting the gate together has been fun, and of course, why do anything as a hobby that's not fun? ***************************************************************************** In the next issue: (we hope) High speed networking - life in the fast lane : Modem types, configurations, problems and workarounds. Mapping the Net: Ya can't get thar from here Gateways : Yes there is more life outside the Citadel net ============ Final Note : ============ I hope you enjoyed this issue of Citanews. If you would like to write something for the next issue, I'd like to hear from you. Feel free to drop me a line either in mail or in the networked room, Citanews. ------------------------ end of file -----------------------------------