BTN: Birmingham Telecommunications News COPYRIGHT 1993 ISSN 1055-4548 October/November 1993 Volume 6, Issue 10 Edition 1 *- Under Remodeling Issue-* Table Of Contents ----------------- Article Title Author Policy Statement and Disclaimer................Staff From The Editor................................Scott Hollifield Letters to BTN.................................BTN Readers The Big 3-0....................................Lurch Henson Smiley's People................................Neal Stephenson A Conservative Estimate, Part II...............Bernie D. Starchaser Profile: Scott Kelley..........................The Bishop Embryo of Light II.............................Gwendolyn Norton Special Interest Groups (SIGs).................Eric Hunt Known BBS Numbers..............................James Minton ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Publisher, BTN 606 Twin Branch Terrace BHAM, AL 35216 (205) 823-3956 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. ADAnet One Alter-Ego Bus System The Castle Channel 8250 C.A.B. The Comfy Chair! Crunchy Frog DC Info Exchange Final Frontier Hardware Hotline The Holodeck Homewood's Hell Hole Joker's Castle Lemon Grove Lion's Den Martyrdom Again?! The MATRIX Milliways BBS The Outer Limits Owlabama BBS Owl's Nest Playground Safe Harbor Southern Stallion Starbase 12 Thy Master's Dungeon Weekends BBS (This list includes some systems which are not local to Birmingham and therefore not included on our BBS Numbers list.) If you are a sysop and you allow BTN to be downloaded freely, please let me know via The Matrix or Crunchy Frog so that I can post your board as a free BTN distributor. Thanks. *IMPORTANT!* Beginning this month, BTN is adopting an official "favored distribution policy" in regards to this list. Bulletin boards who offer BTN as a free download, with no file penalties, are listed here and receive each issue of BTN as soon after it goes to press as I can possibly upload it. I will *NOT* be uploading BTN personally to systems who are NOT on this list--instead, I now have a small staff of helpers to do that for me, and they will likely not upload BTN as fast as I will. We try to get BTN to all the systems we can, but if you would like to receive BTN and you are not getting it, please leave me mail on THE MATRIX or CRUNCHY FROG and let me know. Back issues of BTN are available on those boards as well. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- N E W S F L A S H ANSI AD CONTEST DELAYED YET ANOTHER MONTH! See "From the Editor" column. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From the Editor by Bernie Starchaser, Guest Editor Hi all! Bernie here, filling in for Scott so that he can get a little well-deserved rest and catch up on some personal business. This issue is a bit thin. You might say it's our "Under Remodeling" issue. Scott is considering a few administrative changes that will hopefully streamline future BTN issues and the production thereof. In the meantime, please be patient with us. Having found myself in this supremely important position, even though it may be temporary, I would like to ask a question of all you readers out there that I've been curious about for a long time. Your answer to this is more important than you may think, as it will help Scott and all his loyal assistants make a better BTN. What I need you all to do is simple: Either on the Crunchy Frog, The Matrix, or via Internet, send me a short message acknowledging that you have read this month's issue of BTN. I'd just like to get a feel for how big a readership this baby's got. As for the ASCII AD contest, you guessed it! Delayed yet again! Seems nobody sent anything in. If there are any entrants out there, let's get cracking, folks! Well, I've usurped enough of Scott's power and your time. Enjoy this issue! And that's an order! -Bernie D. Starchaser- I may be reached via the following means: Crunchy Frog: BERNIE STARCHASER The Matrix : CHRIS PHILLIPS Internet : chris.phillips@the-matrix.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Letters to the Editor Well, no one wrote us any letters, so I thought I'd write us one! Dear BTN, You guys are really doing a terrific job! Keep up the good work! -Starchaser- Now, if anyone out there wants to write us some REAL letters, send your messages to: Crunchy Frog BBS or The Matrix and direct them to: Scott Hollifield Bye! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BIG 3-0 by Lurch Henson Hello there everybody......been awhile, eh? Things happen, believe it or not, and articles don't get written like they should. Anyway, let's see if I can still do this..... Usually all my articles are "raves".....I run across something that pisses me off, and I use BTN to tell you all about it, and hopefully make a few of you think a little (something that's too rare these days), and maybe even get a few of you to change things when you see they are going "wrong". This time there's not much you can do about it, because what's bothering me now is personal..... What's bothering me this time is something that bothers most people sooner or later, but it's NOT bothering me in the way it bothers them. What's bothering me is........my birthday. No, I'm not getting old. Not in the way you'd think, anyway. Yes, my body is in worse shape than it used to be. Big deal. That can be fixed whenever I bother to get around to it. It's actually in a little better shape now than it has been the past couple of years. Yes, I do have more grey hairs than I did last year. That doesn't bother me either, my mother was grey long before now. Some people even tell me they like the grey I'm getting right up in front. Looks don't bother me at all. Nope, it's not the "getting old". What bothers me about it is harder to explain than that. You see, to me the 30th birthday is the single most significant one that you will ever have. To my way of thinking, to the philosophy that I believe in and follow, the 30th birthday is the one where you are now, truly, finally, 100% adult. As long as you are 20-something you still carry the stigmata of childhood with you. No one in their twenties is "truly" mature..... (I know this is not true, but it is often the way things are interpreted.) Once you turn 30 you (supposedly) shed your immaturity and take your place in society as a mature, respectable, contributing member of society..... (Again, I know this is not true, but it's the most often accepted (even if only subconsciously) viewpoint.) You are judged continually based on age, not ability. You are denied certain things because you are "too young" or "too flighty to be dependable". You cross 30 and attitudes change. It shouldn't be this way, but it is. People shouldn't pay women less money simply because they have different plumbing systems either, but they do (though that is a different gripe). But, this STILL isn't all of why it's bothering me...... This magical change is approaching. It will be here before the end of the year. (Here's the piece that bothers me.) When it arrives, I will be alone. Many years ago, I was a loner. Being alone was preferred. I did not require the company of others to be happy. Then I came back to the states, and ended up married. At the time I thought it was forever. I loved her, committed to her, and was expecting to grow old with her. Things didn't work out quite the way I expected, and I was alone again. It hurt, yes. More than I expected, but it didn't kill me. Being alone afterwards didn't either because it didn't last TOO long. After I came to Birmingham, I was too busy to be lonely, and then was involved with three lovely Ladies. One of them became much more to me than the others, and I found I had never experienced love to the degree I thought I had. In her, I truly found someone that was more important to me that life itself. She and I had something unbelievable together, and I was not lonely. I let myself believe that we would be together for a very long time, and it did look as though we might. I should have known better..... I still love her deeply, more than she will ever believe, but I am alone once again. When this time in my life arrives, it will be just another day. It shall pass with little notice. Members of my family will call, some will send cards, others will forget entirely, and the day will pass. There will be no celebration to mark the passing of this day, the supposedly most significant of my birthdays. If I have returned to Lower Alabama, my mother will bake me a Devil's Food cake with chocolate icing, make me a country-fried steak dinner, serve it to me and say "Happy Birthday", just like any other. The friends that I once had down there are either gone, or were too divided in the divorce, especially since I had to come up here right afterwards.....that made it easy for them to side with my ex-wife.....more comfortable for them. They will not remember the day, and those that do will not remember the age, and it's significance. A few will find out sometime near it, will remember to say "Happy Birthday", and that will be it. If I am still here in town, there will be no notice of it. On my birthday this year I will be attending the wedding of a friend of mine. Almost all of the people I know here in town will also be attending. I also can not not attend, as this Lady is about the closest friend I have left these days. If still here, I will be there..... I'm not complaining about that, I doubt she planned to be married on my birthday on purpose, I just find it ironic that the day which is supposed to be so special to me is going to have me attending someone else's "most special day". Other than the one I love, this Lady is the only other that would think to do anything to make this day remarkable for me in any way, and she will, of course, not be able to. On this day, a day I should be spending with someone special, or even many special someone's, I will be just another face in a crowd, taking up space at a wedding. If it were happening in a movie it'd be enough to make you smile.....and some of you probably will anyway. I am tired. I am alone. I am sad. The one person I could talk to about something as personal as this I can no longer talk to at all. Oh, I have friends I've told my troubles to before. I've friends I've told very personal problems to before. But to truly talk this particular problem out requires someone with a connection to my heart, and there is only one of those. Unfortunately, she has closed her heart. Locked it down. Sealed it off from me. I lost more than the Love of my Life, I lost the closest friend I've ever had, and that hurts in ways you'd never expect. The loner has been changed by the past three years. I now need someone to hold close. I now need someone to share with. I now need someone to be close to. And I am alone. A moral? A message? All of my articles seem to have one, don't they? Ok, if you need one here too, it can be a simple one. Don't do this to someone close to you. Don't let things important to them slip by you. Don't take them for granted, don't let them fade from your life. Remember them. Be there for them. Support those who are special to you. Love them. Happy Birthday Monster........ Lurch Henson 9309.30 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Smiley's People Neal Stephenson The online world has its own cliches and truisms, none so haggard and hackneyed as the belief that reliable written communication is impossible without frequent use of emoticons, better known as the 'smileys'. Emoticons are nothing more than characters that look like a face when viewed sideways. The original smily is :-), but there are innumberable variations such as :-O, :-(, :-;, and each can signify anything from facial hair to a particular emotional state. Emoticons are the electronic equivalent of spin doctors; commonly inserted at the end of a sentence that is meant to be interpreted as sarcasm, or, in generation, whenever the writer fears his or her prose may be about to jump the iron rails of literalism. With the eerie uniformity of airport cultists, emoticon users all proffer the same rationale for the smiley tic: since the streams of ASCII characters flowing across the Internet (usually described as "cold", "mechanistic", etc.) cannot carry body language or tone, the missing cues must be supplied through punctuation. The tendency of writers to bungle their attempts at sarcasm, and of the readers to bungle the detection of it, invariably leads (so the arguement goes) to hurt feelings, which in turn leads to network flame wars in which people insult each other in extravagant terms that would never be used face-to-face. Irony, it seems, is like nitroglycerin: too tricky to be good for much, and so best left in the hands of fanatics or trained professionals. Never addressed by such people is the question of how humans have managed to communicate with the written word for thousands of years without crudely fashioned ideograms being strewn across their parchments. It is as if the written word were a cutting- edge technology without useful precedents. Some users actually go so far as to maintain, with a straight face, a :-I, I guess, that words on a computer screen are different from words on paper-- implying that writers of e-mail have nothing useful to learn from Dickens or Hemingway, and that time spent reading old books might be better spent coming up with new emoticons. Other smiley partisans maintain that since many messages are tossed off extemporaneously, the medium has more in common with talking than writing, and hence the need for emoticons. This neatly sidesteps the awkward fact that what these people are engaged in is, in fact, nothing other than plain old writing and reading, and that, as always, they may have to invest some time and effort in the act if they don't want to mess it up. Scott Fahlman, who is credited with inventing smileys, has been quoted by "The Boston Globe" as saying that "I had no idea that I was starting something that would soon pollute all of the world's communication channels". The "Globe" does not record, however, whether he terminated this statement with a smiley. Jeremy Bornstein, a research scientist at Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group, thinks that a silent minority of people on USENET belong to the anti-smily camp, but that "experienced users realize that it's futile to rail against popular custom". Thus, members of the anti-smily underground constitute something of a secret subculture; they can find each other only through lengthy exchanges of smiley-free messages, growing more certain with each unadorned sentence that they have found a fellow traveler. The irony is, Net culture was unusually literate. The pioneers of the Net were hackers, people who routinely spend twelve to sixteen hours a day editing text, and whose favorite leisuretime activity is inhaling fantasy and science fictio novels by the palletload. These people are supposedly no strangers to words. Much has recently been made of the nascent revival of epistolary society that is supposedly growing up online. Such optimism is not entirely ill-founded, but innovations such as the smiley suggest that media-age writers may have a ways to go before they can compete with the average Civil War infantryman or Victorian diarist. The very ambiguity that when properly used gives words much of their expressive power is viewed by many Net denizens as a glaring but ineradicable flaw in an otherwise promising system. And this might be that which the hard-core users are rebelling against, in that they are used to precision in their way of communicating with things, either people or machines. Thus, in hacker argot, the emoticon is a 'kludge', a hasty and inelegant patch on a problem that's too difficult to solve just now. Unfortunately, people that program on the bare metal are somewhat on the rare side on Internet, so that explanation doesn't wash for most users of the smiley. Nearly all academic computers are on the Internet, so access is open to anyone having an account on such a machine, which is to say, any student who bothers. The Internet is, therefore, still very much a college town, and shares much the same ambience as Cambridge, Iowa City, or Berkely; a dysfunctional blend of liquored-up freshmen and dippy but earnest deconstructionists. The fact that these users should, for the most part, be the most literate could be an interesting indictment of the culture, but I am not prepared to discuss the disintegration of American higher education. The politically correct atmosphere may help to explain the generally frosty stance toward humor exhibited on USENET, where people either use it badly--at the level of toilet stall graffiti- -or categorically reject it: USENET is the kind of place where people can seriously (without smileys) discuss the proposition that humor is an intrinsically aggressive, nonconsensual act. In such an atmosphere, the very ability of the smiley to destroy a joke must be comforting. The addition of a smily can somehow turn even the sharpest bon mot into a clanking jape straight out of "Reader's Digest"; it is the written equivalent of the rimshot in a sad Borsch Belt routine. Some hope is to be found beyond USENET, in relatively literate lands such as the WELL, where it costs money to get in; the entry fee cuts down on the number of feckless grad students wanting to air their sexual peculiarities and leads to an air that is at once more diverse and more serious. On the WELL, I have actually seen smileys used in a way that made me laugh out loud, usually in an ironic sense that would confuse or irritate any dyed-in-the-wool smiley-slinger. It would be comforting to think that the smily will be eradicated from online culture, just as the genuine smily face has for the most part been vacuumed from popular culture. I am not optimistic, though. Most people, I suspect, go on the Net because its the only ticket to cyberspace. As today's ASCII-based hardware is replaced with broadband switched networks and telecomputers, many users may desert what they see as the limited capabilities of prose for the supposedly more expressive medium of video. If so, they may be in for a shock. As many a political candidate has discovered the hard way, the ability to emote on- camera is for most people no more natural than writing smily-free prose. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATE by Bernie D. Starchaser Hello again, everyone! As this begins to look as though it may become a habit with me, I have decided that I ought to preface each column with a disclaimer. Therefore: WARNING! This column contains material not suitable for the closed-minded, shallow, weak-principled, or for socialists or die-hard liberals. Read at your own risk! Also note: The opinions expressed by the author are his own, and may not neccessarily reflect the views of the editors. (How's that, Scott?) That said, here goes... I believe I wound up last month with an application of a scenario intended to demonstrate the potential damage of the new tax increase to small businesses, jobs, and the economy in general. I wish to finish that by reminding everyone that the Liberal Agenda is far from complete. I guarantee there will be more to come! Now, I want to bring my thoughts a little closer to home. In August, the Alabama Legislature was called into a special session on Campaign Ethics and Finance Reform. I have a lot to say about this issue. Indeed, it is my belief that it is this issue which will have to be the catalyst for any sort of improvement in government in general. I wish to begin by expressing my profound disgust for the results of the special session. They go in there and spend however long it took them and what do they give us? At best, a watered-down version of what we already had!!! WAKE UP, GUYS! I am tempted to mail each Legislator a copy of the page in Webster's which contains the definition of the word REFORM. It most certainly does NOT mean "make it easier to cheat." Here, for your viewing pleasure, are MY proposals for Campaign Ethics and Finance Reform. First, Finance. Here are the rules I would impose, in no particular order: 1. Only private citizens may make political contributions. Corporations, non-profit organizations, political action committees, labor unions, etc. may NOT make political contributions, although their individual members certainly may. 2. The maximum allowable political contribution which may be made by any one person to any one candidate in any one campaign is $50.00. No exceptions. 3. Candidates must maintain a list of all political contributors. This need not be a matter of public record. 4. In the event that there are unused funds remaining after a campaign is completed, the candidate must offer to divide these remaining funds among all contributors, provided such a division would not result in shares less than $1.00, and except in the case of a contributor indicating in writing at the time the contribution is made that he or she does not wish to receive a refund. In the case of the exception, the candidate may convert those funds to his personal use. Next, campaign ethics. My proposals all center around a single assumption: A person running for political office is no different than a person applying for a job. Thus, these rules would be applied: 1. It is absolutely prohibited to even MENTION YOUR OPPONENTS NAME in any speech or political advertisement. 2. The only media available for political advertising are: A. Newspapers B. Mass Mailing C. Handouts TV & Radio may not be used. 3. All candidates are required, in addition to any other advertising, to mail or publish in a newspaper a brief listing consisting of educational history, military service (if any), prior offices or employment held, and any other information which would demonstrate the candidates qualifications for the job/office in question. These ideas are all geared toward removing several aspects of the campaign process which are, in my opinion, quite negative. These are: 1. Campaigns as they are resemble beauty pageants more than they do job interviews. 2. With Radio and TV advertising, candidates are no longer required to meet large numbers of their constituents personally, thereby distancing the candidate from those he is to serve. 3. The candidate with the most money usually wins. Next Month: Reinventing Government (My Version) As always, your comments, criticisms, questions, and rebuttals are welcome, and may be directed to me at: Bernie Starchaser on The Crunchy Frog BBS, Argument Conf. Internet: chris.phillips@the-matrix.com GEnie: C.PHILLIPS1 Compuserve: 72633,1640 Until Next Month...BE INFORMED, BE INVOLVED, BE PART OF THE SOLUTION AND NOT PART OF THE PROBLEM. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ProFile by The Bishop ----------- The ProFile is a light-hearted attempt at allowing the BBS community to get to know the selected user or sysop better. The harassees...er... candidates for the ProFile are selected purely by random(or maybe not - read up on 'chaos'). If anyone has any suggestions for questions to be included in the ProFile or for users to be harassed by the ProFile, then feel free to E-Mail them to me(The Bishop on Crunchy Frog, or Aaron Dees on most other boards in town)... ----------- PRO FILE: Scott Kelley, author of several small programming utilites and YAMR. Age: 22, or thereabouts. It depends on when you read this. Birthplace: Your typical boring hospital room, in Mobile, AL. Occupation: Grad. Student / Computer Consultant / Programmer / Network Installer My hobbies include: Sleeping, eating -- no, those aren't hobbies. Hmm. Can I include programming here, too? Doesn't matter, I'll include it here anyway. I like writing programs which never get released. :) Not to mention playing pinball. I also like roller coasters. One summer, I'm going to go to all of the classic roller coasters in the US. Years telecomputing: Close to 5 years. Sysop, past/present/future of: Not a sysop, never a sysop. Perhaps, one day, I will open a hobby shop system, with a SLIP connection to the Internet, a UseNet interface, a MUD client, and make it private use only. It just depends. My oddest habit is: Writing alpha-test programs that never make it to beta. My greatest unfulfilled ambition is: To be a sucessful software writer, with several large packages on the market. Or just moderately successful, living comfortably. However, I'll probably end up poor and discontent, like the rest of the masses. And that's being optimistic. :) The single accomplishment of which I am most proud is: Graduating from college. And getting into the Master's degree program at UAB. My favorite performers are: Martin Kolbe, Ralf Illenberger, Michael Hedges The last good movie I saw was: I don't watch many movies; however, I recently went to the opening of _Jurassic Park_. Great movie, but don't sit too close to the speakers. The last good book I read was: I've read several books, but none were great. Terry Brooks is now a hack writer, so I stick to old SF. Jet Thomas had several good SF books I read, of which all the titles escape me. If they were making a movie of my life, I'd like to see my part played by: So, who does dry wit well? One of the Monty Python brothers, because my life should have been a comedy. My pet peeves are: Wot's a pet peeve? Ah. People who act like complete fools, just to get the attention. Microsoft software. Buggy programs. Unstable system configurations. Crashed hard drives, mine especially. Flaky motherboards. I'll stop. When nobody's looking, I like to: Do the exact same thing I would do when they were looking, but pretend I'm doing something horrible. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- An Embryo of Light II The woman crouched protectively over her cubs, her lips curling slightly back to reveal her sharpened teeth. Still, the mudskippers approached, intent on their feast to the great goddess of the river who ever so generously afforded them the mud which allowed the to beat out their pathetic existence. They must sacrifice the biped invader's children to appease her so that she would not flood them out with one great condescending monsoon. The human woman was attempting to slowly back away, but the mudskippers were confident of their territory, and knew that she could not successfully flee in that direction, or any other, for the land wanted flood no more than they, and would prevent their escape. The offspring made several pitiable cries and fought one another viciously for the position closet to their shared mother. Just as their capture and subsequent sacrifice seemed imminent, the mother in one great galup swallowed her entire litter. The mudskippers paused in confusion, allowing her just enough time to knaw off all of her extremities, including her own head. The mudskippers, sensing defeat, began to flee to escape the ensuing monsoons but found themselves hopelessly entangled in vindictive vegetation. The woman's torso began to squeem and pulse upon the muddy bank. In one frantic heave, the stomach burst open to reveal the children, who had been saved from their mother's digestive acids by a mucus membrane that she had managed to encase them in in their way down her esophagus. The children broke out of their shells by using egghorns that their bodies, thanks to a rarely witnessed instinct (the same one that had served their mother) that had formed egghorns upon their noses. Just as the offspring began to crawl about, still in great peril of the up coming floods, the torso once again began to heave. After several minute of carrying on in this fashion, the torso at last managed to give birth to the mother, who had already begun to form a new torso while in gestation. Feeding on her own afterbirth, the woman was once again whole and filled with just enough energy to make a raft out of the remained of her former shell, and to place herself and the children in it and push them off into the river. Her energy, and thusly her life, soon expired and she died content in knowing that she would afford she children a food supply. And so she did. For many days down the river, the unwise children feasted, throwing her bones to the fish. The children once again faced starvation as the had hurriedly diminished their nourishment supply. As they lay listlessly starving, one of them caught the aroma of their mother's skin and began knawing frantically on the sides of the raft. Within minutes of their newfound feast, the hull was punctured, and the unwise children slowly drowned, save for one who was found by a kind hearted family of aardvarks as they were drinking in the jungle's waters and continued to raise him to maturity. The boy, forever confused as to his origins, finally traveled up the river as an adult. Finding nothing but a lake, he grabbed a bird's nest making himself a crown out of it, and grabbed a hollowed vine, and fashioned himself a wife out of it, and proclaimed himself king of the lake and mastrobated for weeks to come until he died of dehydration in the same style of the shoemaker's children running barefoot. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIG's (Special Interest Groups), Computer Related ------------------------------------------------- BIPUG Alabama UniForum Birmingham IBM-PC Users Group Homewood Public Library UAB Nutrition Science Blg 1st Tuesday RM 535/541 Shawn Cleary 870-6130 1st Sunday (delayed one week if meeting is a holiday) Marty Schulman 967-5883 Birmingham Apple Core Informal breakfast meeting every Saturday, 9am - 11am @ Kopper Kettle, lower level Brookwood Village Mall Formal meeting held second Saturday of each month, location variable (to be announced at breakfast meetings and in the user group's newsletter "The PEEL".) President: Sam Johnston - 322-5379 Vice-Prez: Marie Prater - 822-8135 The SIG listing is being re-verified. If you know of an active Computer Related user's group, please let me know. I can be reached via Internet email at eric.hunt@the-matrix.com or drop me a note directly on the MATRIX. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Known BBS Numbers For The Birmingham Area Sysops, PLEASE check your listing to make sure everything is correct, especially the networks. Corrections should be mailed on the Matrix to James Minton or in a Sysop Comment on Outer Limits. *IMPORTANT* Starting this month a new BBS must be up and running for 60 days before being included in the list. I'll still take the information and verify the board as usual. Also, if anyone has any information about networks listed at the bottom with "uncertain at press time", let me know. NAME NUMBER BAUD RATES MODEM BBS SOFTWARE SUPPORTED TYPE ADAnet One (Nodes 1-3) 250-0013 1200-2400 PCBoard 14.5 [ez, fi, ad] ADAnet One (Node 4) 254-6050 2400-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 [ez, fi, ad] Alcatraz BBS 608-0880 300-9600 VBBS 6.0 [he, vi] Alter-Ego BBS 925-5099 1200-9600 USR HST PCBoard 14.5 [ez, mn] Baudville (Node 1) 980-1089 300-2400 Major BBS 6.10 [none] Baudville (Node 2) 991-2095 300-14400 Major BBS 6.10 [none] Baudville (Node 3) 991-9144 300-2400 Major BBS 6.10 [none] Baudville (Node 4) 995-0013 300-2400 Major BBS 6.10 [none] Bus System 987-5419 300-2400 PCBoard 14.2 [none] Byte Me! 979-BYTE! 2400-14400 USR HST WWIV 4.12 [ez, th, al] Castle, The 841-7618 300-2400 Image 1.2 [none] Channel 8250 (Node 1) 744-8546 300-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 [ez, un] Channel 8250 (Node 2) 744-5166 300-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 [ez, un] Cherry Tree 681-1710 1200-14400 TriBBS 4.01 [none] Christian Apologetic 808-0763 1200-14400 V.32bis Wildcat! 3.55 [ez, wi, bc, ru] Crocodile Country BBS 477-6283 1200-16800 USR DS Searchlight 3.0 *RIP* [sl] Crunchy Frog (Node 1) 823-3957 300-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 [ez, mn, lu, ll] Crunchy Frog (Node 2) 823-3958 300-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 [ez, mn, lu, ll] Crystal Village 856-3749 1200-2400 ??? [none] Den, The 933-8744 300-9600 USR HST ProLogon/ProDoor [ez, mn, il] Digital Publishing 854-1660 300-9600 V.32 Wildcat! 3.01 [pl] Electro-BBS 491-8402 300-14400 V.32/42 ?? [fi] Family Smorgas-Board 744-0943 300-2400 PCBoard 14.5 [ez, fi, mj, bc, fa, ic, cf, cd, np, ag, ve, ad] Final Frontier 838-5634 300-14400 VBBS 6.10 [al, he, re, fn] Flip Side, The 798-3961 300-2400 Renegade 8.27 [none] Genesis Online(Nodes 1-6) 620-4150 300-14400 V.32bis Major BBS 6.11 [mr] Guardian, The 425-1951 1200-14400 V.42bis VBBS 6.0 [vi] Hardeman's BBS 640-6436 1200-14400 Wildcat! 3.51 [wi, di, bc] Hardware Hotline 631-6629 300-14400 V.32/42 PCBoard 14.5 [mn, fi, ca] Homewood's Hell Hole 987-7823 2400-14440 V.32bis VBBS 5.6 [he] The Holodeck BBS 663-7229 1200-9600 V.32 TriBBS 4.02 [cc] Intruder Enterprizes 969-0870 300-9600 V.32 VBBS 5.6 [vi, al] Joker's Castle 664-5589 300-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 [ez, mn, un] KickAxis BBS 733-0253 1200-14400 USR DS VBBS 6.0 [he] Lions Den 969-5733 300-14400 USR DS Wildcat! 3.60 [none] Lumby's Palace 520-0041 300-14400 VBBS 6.0 [he] Magic City 664-9883 300-14400 USR DS Wildcat! 3.55 [cc, di, tr, wi] Magnolia BBS 854-6407 300-14400 USR HST PCBoard 14.5 [ez, mn] MATRIX, The (Nodes 1-14) 323-2016 300-2400 PCBoard 15.0 *RIP* [ez, mn, th, il, in, al, sh, sc, gl, ic, ri, fr] MATRIX, The (Nodes 20-23) 323-6016 9600-14400 USR DS PCBoard 15.0 *RIP* [ez, mn, th, il, in, al, sh, sc, gl, ic, ri, fr] MATRIX, The (Node 25-26) 458-3449 9600-14400 V.32bis PCBoard 15.0 *RIP* [ez, mn, th, il, in, al, sh, sc, gl, ic, ri, fr] MetaBoard 854-4814 300-14400 USR DS Opus CBCS 1.73 [fi, ad] MetroMac BBS (Node 1) 323-6306 1200-14400 V.32bis TeleFinder 3.1 [none] MetroMac BBS (Node 2) 252-0582 1200-14400 V.32bis TeleFinder 3.1 [none] Milliways BBS (Node 1) 956-3177 1200-2400 Major BBS 6.11 *RIP* [none] Milliways BBS(Nodes 2-6)956-2731 1200-2400 Major BBS 6.11 *RIP* [none] Missing Link 853-1257 300-16800 USR DS C-Net Amiga 2.63 [cl, cn] Neon Moon 477-5894 300-14400 TriBBS 4.0 [dx] Optical Illusion 995-9145 1200-14400 V.32bis VBBS 6.0 [al] Outer Limits (Node 1) 426-5611 1200-16800 ZyXEL Wildcat! 3.90 *RIP* [fi, do, ec, er, pn] Outer Limits (Node 2) 425-5871 1200-16800 ZyXEL Wildcat! 3.90 *RIP* [fi, do, ec, er, pn] Outer Limits (Node 3) 426-2939 1200-16800 ZyXEL Wildcat! 3.90 *RIP* [fi, do, ec, er, pn] Owlabama BBS 856-2521 1200-14400 GTPower 17.06 [gt, ez, mn, cc, tr, sc, ab] Owl's Nest 680-0851 300-14400 USR DS PCBoard 14.5 [ez, mn] Party Line 856-1336 300-14000 V.32bis TriBBS 4.0 [cc, tr, di] Penny Arcade 699-4625 300-2400 Running Force! 3.75 [none] Playground 681-5070 2400-14000 V.32 TriBBS 4.0 [tr, di, cc, ez, al, fr] Posys BBS 854-5131 300-9600 V.32 PCBoard [none] Programmer's Shack 988-4695 1200-9600 HST DS Renegade [ae, di, ws, fi, it] Quiet Zone 833-2066 300-2400 ExpressNet [none] Razor's Edge 995-0412 1200-2400 VBBS 5.6 [he, al] Safe Harbor (Node 1) 665-4332 300-2400 GTPower 17.06 [gt, ez, mn, il] Safe Harbor (Node 2) 665-4355 300-14400 USR DS GTPower 17.06 [gt, ez, mn, il] Sam's Domain 956-2757 1200-14400 VBBS 6.0 [da, he] Safety BBS 581-2866 300-2400 RBBS-PC 17.4 [none] Southern Stallion 322-3816 300-16800 ZyXEL PCBoard 15.0 [an, ez, lu, pr, th] Sperry BBS 853-6144 300-2400 V.32/42b PCBoard 14.5 [none] ST BBS 836-9311 300-2400 PCBoard 14.2 [ez] StarBase 12 647-7184 300-2400 TriBBS 4.0 [ez, mn, cc] The Light 979-0368 300-14400 V.32bis PCBoard 15.0 [ch, nl] Thy Master's Dungeon 940-2116 300-57600 V.32/42b PCBoard 14.5 [fr] Torch Song 328-1517 300-9600 V.32 Wildcat 3.6 [pr, se, st, do] Weekends BBS 841-8583 2400-16800 USR DS Wildcat! 3.9 [ca] Willie's DYM (Node 1) 664-9902 300-2400 Oracomm Plus [or] Willie's DYM (Node 2) 664-9903 300-2400 Oracomm Plus [or] Willie's DYM (Node 3) 664-9895 300-2400 Oracomm Plus [or] Willie's DYM (Node 4) 664-9896 300-2400 Oracomm Plus [or] Ziggy Unix BBS 991-5696 300-1200 UNaXess [none] *RIP* = BBS Software is RIP Graphics capable. You must be using a RIP compatible term software to view them. RIPTerm or QmodemPro v1.50 are the only two I know of that support it at this time. RIPTerm is shareware and can be downloaded from most BBS's. QmodemPro is a commercial product. The two-letter abbreviations you see on the line below 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. ad = ADAnet, an international network dedicated to the handicapped ae = ANet, uncertain at press time ag = AgapeNet, a national Christian network, multi-topic al = AlaNet, a local network, multi-topic an = AnnexNet, an international network, multi-topic at = AdultNet, a national network, adult-oriented bc = BCBNet, a local network, religion-oriented bh = BhamTalk, a local network, multi-topic ca = CafeNet, a local network, restaurant/dining, recipes, etc. cc = City2City, a national network, multi-topic cd = CDN, a national Christian network for file distribution cf = CFN, a national Christian network, multi-topic ch = ChristNet, a national Christian network cl = CLink, uncertain at press time cn = CNet, multi-topic cy = Cybernet, uncertain at press time da = DateNet, uncertain at press time de = DevNet, an international network for programmers and developers di = Dixie Net, a regional network, multi-topic geared toward the south eastern United States do = DoorNet, a national network for the distribution of BBS doors ec = EchoNet, an international network, multi-topic er = ErosNet, an international network, adult oriented, files & messages ez = EzNet, a local IBM compatible network fa = FamilyNet, an international network, multi-topic fi = FidoNet, an international network, multi-topic fn = FrontierNet, uncertain at press time fr = FredNet, a regional network, political discussion ga = GameNet, a local network, uncertain at press time gl = GlobalLink, an international network, multi-topic gt = GTNet, an international network, multi-topic he = HellNet, a local network, multi-topic ic = ICDM, an international Christian network, multi-topic ie = Intelec, a national network, multi-topic il = ILink, an international network, multi-topic in = InterNet, an international network, linking businesses, universities, and bbs', multi-topic it = ITCNet, uncertain at press time ll = LlamaNet, a national network, freeform correspondence lo = LocalNet, uncertain at press time lu = LuciferNet, an international network, adult oriented ma = MAXnet, a local network, connecting WWIV and VBBS systems mj = MJCN, an international network for Messianic Jews mn = Metronet, an international network which echoes RIME, multi-topic mr = MajorNet, an international network, multi-topic nl = NewLife, uncertain at press time np = NPN, a national network for new parents or = OraNet, a national E-mail network pl = PlanoNet, a national network, multi-topic pn = PoliceNet, an international network, law-enforcement only pr = PrideNet, a local homosexually oriented network rf = RF Net, a national network for ham radio users and hobbyists ri = RIME, an international network, multi-topic rb = RoboLink, a national network, multi-topic re = RealityNet, uncertain at press time rp = RPGnet, a local network for role-playing games rs = RoseNet, a national network, technically oriented ru = RushNet, a national network for Rush Limbaugh fans sc = Science Factor Net, a national network, science and technology oriented se = SEC, a regional network, homosexually oriented geared toward the southeastern United States sh = Shades N Shadows Net, a national network for role-playing games sl = SearchlightNet, a national network, multi-topic sm = SmartNet, a national network, multi-topic sn = ShadowNet, a national network for role-playing games st = StudsNet, a national network, homosexually oriented te = TECHnet, a local network, hardware and utility oriented th = ThrobNet, an international network, adult oriented tr = TTN, a national network, multi-topic un = U'NI-Net, an international network, multi-topic ve = VETLink, a national network for military veterans vi = VirtualNet, an international network, multi-topic wi = WildNet, a national network, multi-topic ws = WishNet, uncertain at press time ww = WWIV-Net, an international network, multi-topic The following boards were unable to be verified and were dropped from the list: Asgard The Bone Yard Boy's Room Lemon Grove Nirvana Venus BBS -----------------------------------------------------------------------