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• IP Fido Nodes Request
• A BBS Story

IP Fido Nodes Request
by Zorch Frezberg, 1:205/1701

I'm developing a proposal for the inclusion of FidoNet Technical Standards compatible nodes operating mailers, which are located on the InterNet within Zone 1.

To achieve this, I need to gather information from Zone 1 sysops that isn't available anywhere else I've been able to find.

For the purposes of this proposal, I must define key provisions that must be met for inclusion in this effort. These are:

1. The node must be operating a normal node, which is identified in the regular FidoNet Nodelist;
2. The normal node must not be a PVT node or Point System, and must be CM (CrashMail) capable;
3. The node located on the InterNet must have a 'static IP' address and be available during a specified time for connections;
4. The InterNet node must be accessible through a mailer front-end which accepts FTN/FTS-0001 standard connections.

If you are running such a node, please forward the standard information:

1. Your normal FidoNet nodelist entry, with flags.
2. The city and state where your system is located.
3. The static IP address to be used when contacting your system.
4. The node number, if different from above, assigned to the IP-based mailer.
5. Your hours of operation for netmail and/or files. Any BBS information is optional.
6. The type of connection you support (VMODEM, telnet, BinkP, etc.).
7. The type of front-end mailer software you are using.
8. Any specialized nodelist flags you feel should be included. (NOTE: Inclusion of such flags with your submission does not guarantee that these will be included in the final proposal, though reasonable and useful flags will be catalogued as well.)

For a variety of reasons relating to the proposal, this listing must be limited to Zone 1 nodes only at this time. I am willing to share the information with other Zones, and exchange lists as well, once the information has been processed and submitted with the proposal.

Please forward the above information, or any compiled lists for Zone 1 which you may have (any format) to me at 1:205/1701 or by E-Mail to: zorch@kumr.lns.com.

Thank you for your assistance, and let's find out what's out there!

### 30 ###

A BBS Story
Gregg Jennings, 1:331/109

After meeting at Coffee Obsession, the new trendy coffee shop, which they rated an excellent quiet place for two old friends to get together to discuss old times, Pat and John inevitably ended up talking about computers.

Old-timers, equipmentwise, after complaining about Windows 95, and speculating about Linux, John had mentioned that he had gotten a hold of an archive of a type he had not heard of.

"That damn ZAR program!" Pat laughed.

Seeing the quizzical expression on his friend's face Pat went on to explain. "This BBS I hang out at called it that when he first got it. He prefers using LZX and I guess felt bugged by having to make available yet another archiving program. ZAR is actually pretty good. It has menu based interface for viewing archives of most types as well as a command line interface. And although it does produce smaller archives, something related to solid archives where it concatenates files before compressing, it's native format has not caught on too well."

"Interesting," John said. "Kind of like a compressed TAR archive."

"The so called solid archive feature, yes. But as far as I know it's only DOS based."

And so they discussed various pros and cons of compression techniques and interfaces. John asked Pat, who was more of a programmer than he, if he had a copy of this infamous ZAR program.

"Gee," Pat grinned, patting his pockets, "Not on me." At John's groan Pat said, "No, I don't think I have it anywhere, but that BBS does. You can get it from there."

"What's the number? Is it local?"

"Yeah. Just remind me an I'll give it to you before I go." Pat told him.

"How 'bout if you come by my place after this," John said. "I haven't called a BBS in a while."

"Sure," Pat said and then finished his coffee. "Why not now?"

After John's trusty old 486 booted up John started his communications program.

"Wow! FidoTerm huh? Where'd you dig that up?" Pat asked.

"Someone from work gave it to me a long time ago," John said. "Requires a FOSSIL driver but it works quite well. Good enough anyway."

Taking the seat before the computer Pat asked, "Do you ever read any FidoNet stuff?"

"No," was John's quick reply.

"You should check it out. There's a lot of jerks, but hey, you find them everywhere. Check out this BBS." He sat back while the modem chirped away. He entered his login name and password. "It's actually pretty good," he was saying when there came a click and the modem hung up.

"Eh?" Pat said turning to the screen. "What's this?"

"'Phone number does not match your entry,'" John read. "'If you have any problems, please call back and login as HELP.'" "Damn!" Pat said. "What the heck is that all about?"

"Must be caller ID," John said.

"Must be," Pat said and re-entered the number. "I'll just turn it off this time."

Chirp, chirp, click went the modem.

"'Non-caller ID calls are unaccepted,'" Pat read this time. "O, fer crying out loud," John said. "What the..."

"How about calling back as HELP?" Pat asked.

"But that's not going to do you any good if I can't get access," John said. "I know. Why don't you call and set up a new account?"

"Okay," Pat said and took over the seat. When connected he entered his name and chose a password.

"Capture the text," John said. "If I recall correctly there are a few screens full of rules."

"Already did that," Pat informed him, hitting the return key several times. "Here we go. Blah, blah, blah... 'You have read-only access to the new user's forum only until you are validated.' What the...?"

"Strange," John said. "I don't remember that. Try accessing the filesbase anyway."

"How do I do that?"

"Type files."

"Okay," Pat said. After hitting return he read, "'Files access denied.'"

"Crap!" John said. "I could have sworn I got access when I first called."

"When was that?"

"Couple of years ago."

"Well," Pat said. "Things change I guess."

"I'll say," John said. "Well, it looks like I can't get you that program unless you want to come over to my place and I call from there. Man, I can't believe this."

"Well, it can wait I guess," Pat sighed. "It was only a game archive that I had."

"But that's not the point. I should be able to get this. Hold on. Look. Log off. I got a friend who lives nearby. I'll call him."

Putting down the receiver John turned slowly to his friend. "He says that you should just get an Internet account. You can find anything you need there without questions. Get into the 20th century he said."

"Gee. Can I get it tonight?" Pat asked sarcastically.

"Really," John said.

They both shook their heads and sighed.

"Hey," Pat said. "I've got this cool CD with a game called Shadow Warrior. It's excellent. Want to check it out?"

"Sure," John said. "Got nothing else to do."

"O yeah," he added. "My friend said that ZAR is shareware and that you'll have to register it. But that's another story."