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Volume 2, Number 38 4 November 1985
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| _ |
| / \ |
| - Fidonews - /|oo \ |
| (_| /_) |
| Fido and Fidonet _`@/_ \ _ |
| Users Group | | \ \\ |
| Newsletter | (*) | \ )) |
| ______ |__U__| / \// |
| / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / |
| (________) (_/(_|(____/ |
| (jm) |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
Publisher: Fido 1/1
Editor in Chief: Thom Henderson
Review Editor: Matt Kanter
Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings
Fidonews is published weekly by SEAboard, Fido 1/1. You are
encouraged to submit articles for publication in Fidonews.
Article submission standards are contained in the file
FIDONEWS.DOC, available from Fido 1/1.
Disclaimer or don't-blame-us:
The contents of the articles contained here are not our
responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them;
everything here is subject to debate. We publish EVERYTHING
received.
Table of Contents
1. EDITORIAL
Settling In
2. NEWS
The Dirty Dozen
Ripping off Tom Jennings, and all of us
Any Libertarians out there?
3. COLUMNS
FidoNet Route Files Explained, Part 1
4. WANTED
Kurzweil 4000 computer wanted
5. NOTICES
The Interrupt Stack
Death and Corporate Politics
A Warning to Quadram Owners
============================================================
EDITORIAL
============================================================
Settling In
Well, I'm finally getting settled in my new location. We
recently sold our house and ended up not buying a new one,
but that's another story (and a very long one). We're now
living in an apartment.
It still doesn't feel like home, but it's getting there. At
least I no longer have to mow the lawn or shovel the snow.
I won't really be comfortable though until I get some
shelves up and unpack all my books. One thing moving proved
to me -- I own too darn many books.
Moving my hardware was less of a hassle than I'd expected.
I backed up everything, ran SHIPDISK, and took the whole
thing apart. After trucking it across town I set it up
again and turned it on. Everything was fine. I was down
about two hours.
We had some hassle with the phone numbers, but 1/1 has the
right number in the new node list (I checked it personally).
I know at least one person out there is trying to send us an
article -- my phone has been ringing off the wall every
night from four to five for a week. Maybe now he'll get
through.
I hope so. This change of phone numbers has had it's bad
points. We've gotten almost no submissions this week. We
had a couple on file, and Ben Baker starts his column on
routing this week, so it's not a total loss, but I'll be
glad when things get back to normal.
That's right, folks! We need your input. Start writing
those articles and sending them in. Get your hands on node
list 305 and mail your article to node 1/1. If you want a
copy of the technical specs, drop us a line and we'll mail
it to you.
We're not really a bulletin board here, so don't count on
much if you call. We've got a little thing running to pass
out the newsletter and such, but it isn't up often. We do
all our work by netmail, generally.
So go write something and netmail it to us!
------------------------------------------------------------
Fidonews Page 2 4 Nov 1985
============================================================
NEWS
============================================================
THE DIRTY DOZEN
Issue #3: Oct 30th, 1985
Compiled by Tom Neff
Recently, many unlawfully copied or modified programs have
appeared on various IBM PC bulletin boards across the
country. THE DIRTY DOZEN is a list of known examples.
There are three major categories of "bogusware": commercial
pirate jobs, unauthorized "hacks" of otherwise legitimate
freeware programs, and malicious "TROJAN" programs which
damage your system. A more detailed explanation of each
category is given below.
Sysops: Please be careful with the files you post in your
download libraries! Be suspicious when an uploaded game or
disk utility appears to be of professional quality, yet
doesn't include the author's name, address, and distribution
policy. Such programs are probably NOT public domain!
The BBS community is already under legislative threat at the
State and Federal level. We cannot fight this trend
effectively while our directories sit stocked with "cracked"
Sega games, 1-2-3 copiers and Wargames dialers! Let's
demonstrate a little social responsibility by cleaning up
our download libraries. If you have any of these files on
your system, please delete them and post "blocking" dummy
file entries like this one:
ZAXXON.COM DELETED!! NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN!!
A final word on TROJANS: I have been hearing more and more
reports of these "worm" programs, from all directions.
While I don't doubt their existence (and all that I have
heard of are listed below), let's not get hysterical.
Remember, a Trojan rumor is a lot easier to START than it is
to STOP. Some people have accused "legitimate" *joke*
programs, like DRAIN (which pretends to be gurgling excess
water out of your A drive) of being "killers." Even if a
program locks up your system, it isn't necessarily Trojan;
it might not like co-residing with Superkey, or your
graphics card. Ask around a little before you announce
something as Trojan. I would appreciate a bagged specimen
of any Real trojan program you find.
Name Category Notes
-------------- -------- ---------------------------------
1DIR.COM PIRATED This is "The ONE Dir," a
commercial shell sold with a Hard
Disk subsystem.
21C.EXE PIRATED From the IBM Game Library
ARC.COM HACKED Someone keeps running SPACEMAKER
or a similar EXE squeezer on SEA,
Fidonews Page 3 4 Nov 1985
Inc.'s ARC archive program, then
uploading the resulting COM file
to BBS's without the author's
permission. Not kosher, whoever
you are. SEA won't support the
COM version -- this is an
unauthorized modification.
AXX.EXE PIRATED really AUTODEX, a commercial file
manager
BUSHIDO PIRATED
COPYRITE PIRATED Really Quaid Software's COPYWRITE
DEB88.EXE PIRATED DeSmet "C" debugger
DIGGER.COM PIRATED
DOSKNOWS.EXE *TROJAN* I'm still tracking this one down
-- apparently someone wrote a FAT
killer and renamed it
DOSKNOWS.EXE, so it would be
confused with the real, harmless
DOSKNOWS system-status utility.
All I know for sure is that the
REAL DOSKNOWS.EXE is 5376 bytes
long. If you see something
called DOSKNOWS that isn't close
to that size, sound the alarm.
More info on this one is welcomed
-- a bagged specimen especially.
EGABTR *TROJAN* BEWARE! Description says
something like "improve your EGA
display," but when run it deletes
everything in sight and prints
"Arf! Arf! Got you!"
F15 PIRATED
FILER.EXE *TROJAN* Labelled "Great new filing
system" - wiped out 20 meg HD.
Looking for confirmation on this.
GREMLINS PIRATED
HARDHAT PIRATED
JOUST PIRATED
KONG PIRATED
LIST60 HACKED Vern Buerg's LIST 5.1, patched to
read 6.0.
NOVATRON PIRATED
PCBOSS PIRATED
POOL.ARC PIRATED Really PC-POOL, commercial game
PSHIFT PIRATED really MEMORY SHIFT
PSRD.ARC PIRATED IBM utility (redirects PrtSc)
QMDM110.ARC HACKED ONLY versions 1.10 and 1.10A!
QMDM110A.ARC They are copies of 1.09, hacked
to read 1.10. There have been
rumors of a worm in 1.10, but I
haven't seen any evidence of it.
Other versions are OK.
ROBOTRON PIRATED
ROGUE.EXE PIRATED
SECRET.BAS *TROJAN* BEWARE!! This may be posted with
a note saying it doesn't seem to
work, and would someone please
try it; when you do, it formats
Fidonews Page 4 4 Nov 1985
your disks.
SEE PIRATED DeSmet editor
SFX PIRATED really AUTODEX (again!)
SM.COM PIRATED Realia's SPACEMAKER utility
SMAP PIRATED IBM Internal utility, with the
copyright notice blanked out and
real author's name () replaced by
"Dorn W. Stickle".
SPYHUNT PIRATED
STARGATE.EXE PIRATED Hacked to say "PUBLIC DOMAIN BY
ATARI," but don't you believe it!
Don't confuse this 57K EXE file
with the public domain STARGATE
MERCHANT game, which is a little
12K BASIC program by G. E.
Wolfworth.
STRIPES.EXE *TROJAN* BEWARE SYSOPS!! This one draws an
American flag (nice touch), but
meanwhile it's busy copying your
RBBS-PC.DEF to another file
(STRIPES.BQS) so Bozo can log in
later, download STRIPES.BQS, and
steal all your passwords. Nice,
huh!
TREED.COM PIRATED Really DOS TREE DISPLAY (IBM utility)
VDIR.EXE *TROJAN* This is the disk killer Jerry
Pournelle told us about in BYTE
Magazine. I have never seen it.
XDIR PIRATED Pre-release version of DOS FILE
TRACKER, an IBM "Personally
Developed" program.
ZAXXON PIRATED
If you have any additions or corrections for this list, send
them to me (Tom Neff) at any of the following places:
* CompuServe User ID [76556,2536]
(via Easyplex electronic mail or
the IBM Novice Forum, GO IBMNOV)
* Atlantic Palisades RBBS (718-238-7855)
* DEC-WARE Fido (Net 107/Node 1)
------------------------------------------------------------
Fidonews Page 5 4 Nov 1985
Paula Giese
Fido 14/999
Ripping off Tom Jennings, and all of us
Billion-dollar corporations are ripping off Tom Jennings,
author of the Fido software that all of us are beneficiaries
of. This software was written by Jennings and is
copyrighted by him, and a great deal of work was done by a
small number of others, some of whom have copyrighted
utilities, some of whom just pitched in. Moreover, one
billion-dollar corporation is ripping off hundreds of
SysOps, potentially everyone who has put his or her own
time, effort and money into running a BBS, and, for bad
measure, everyone who's ever shared a utility or program
they worked on by uploading it to a BBS library, and
everyone who's helped just by "passing on" good things to
make them available on BBSes other than where you got them.
I'm going to give two examples of this. Both of the
corporations involved have revenues in the billions, and
neither of them has contacted Jennings for permission,
license, or paid any fees to him. Neither has the first
giant pirate contacted any of *us* or offered us any say in
whether we want to be raw material--the only raw material it
has to market.
I want to encourage every Fido SysOp and every Fido user to
collect transcripts from any corporate users they know
about, so that Jennings and his lawyers may collect fees and
damages from them. Secondly, I want to encourage everyone
with a modem to spread this article and its associated files
to every BBS in the country, in particular all of those
which are listed as raw material, the products, that GTE is
marketing; but every other BBS is fair game as well.
GTE TELENET
If you subscribe to Byte or PC Magazine (and many others)
you can see the ad that rips off both Jennings and every
SysOp. In the October Byte it's on page 365. In the
October 29 PC Magazine, it's on Page 90. Full-page ads
both.
They show a guy touching the ground and say "Now you don't
have to pay this much to access information with your home
computer." How much? "Now for only $25 a month (plus a
one-tme installation fee of $25) you'll be able to reach
othr PC subscribers free. Free local databases and bulletin
boards..."
When I accessed the number given--800-835-3001--I made a
transcript of my interaction. It shows Fido 10m in use,
with several thousand callers already. I was mad already on
Jennings' behalf.
But when I examined the limited files area i could access
without paying those fees, I really hit the ceiling. What
Fidonews Page 6 4 Nov 1985
are these free databases? Boys and girls, it's us they're
selling for $25 a month and a $25 installation fee. If
you're a SysOp, they want you. You may not want a bunch of
users who are paying a billion-dollar company for all the
work you do maintaining your BBS, you may not want a bunch
of freeloaders who'll siphon off all your downloads and
block your regular and valued users from access. But, see,
you're part of the merchandise. I'd have no hesitation at
all about suing GTE if LawSIG, predecessor to Fido LawCAT,
were on that list. No doubt they'll catch up to Minnesota
soon. PC Pursuit is what General Tel and El calls their
service, and folks, they're after us.
Now, how about you BBS users who *aren't* sysops? Quite a
few of you are the "communicators" who make BBSes the
overwhelming *private* and *person-to-person* communications
successes they are. You are always willing (and often able)
to help out another user with hardware and software tips,
advice, encouragement. You often upload aids and utilities
you developed yourself, just because you want to share them
with others, for the general good of computing. Sometimes
you've written fairly elaborate applications, which you
distribute through BBSes, relying on fairness of those who
find your package useful to pay you a fair fee--and you
don't think Lotus, MicroSoft, and the Big Money software
giants are charging fair fees, in the big bks$ that pay for
all their ad campaigns.
Okay, so your software is part of what GTE is marketing for
just $25 a month and a $25 "installation fee" whatever that
means. Do you suppose many GTE subscribers will also pay
you? I am damn sure that no GTE subscribers who access my
system will ever send me any little sums "to help out with
your costs and to thank you for doing this for all of us,"
and I'm pretty damn sure I won't get any thankyous from the
GTE crowd whose corporations are paying that tiny fee for
them.
I don't like having my hard work and love of these systems
exploited by a multibillion dollar corporation. So how do
you feel about it, fellow SysOps? Users who upload as well
as download, how do you folks feel about this violation and
exploitation of our community?
Now let's look at another problem, the private corporate
piracy that's ripping off someone all we Fido users have
greatly benefitted from. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of
corporations have picked upthe Fido software and set up
their own private in-house nets. Did they contact Tom
Jennings, whose copyright and address cannot be avoided when
you run Fido? They did not. Did they pay the modest $100 he
initially asked for "commercial" use of Fido? Don't be
silly.
There is some financial institution in the Twin Cities which
is using Fido; the banker proudly boasted on Fido LawCAT
that he is a follower of Ayn Rand's "money=goodness"
philosophy. "Why should I pay for what others get for
Fidonews Page 7 4 Nov 1985
free?" he said. I can't give his transcript, because he
left it in a message, which he later snuck back on and
killed.
I do have a transcript of my interaction with a private
corporate Fidonet. This one's operated by Honeywell, Inc.,
a multibillion-dollar corporation headquartered in
Minneapolis, which, unlike many of them, has extended a
periscope into our national Fidonet--although you can't get
onto it, and they don't reply to Fidomail sent to them.
Unless you've been authorized by company security, you get
shunted right off that system. They have the nerve even to
use the trademarked "Fido" hound John Madill drew. The
Military Avionics Division of Honeywell, which pirated this
software, is responsible for approximately $390,000,000 of
Honeywell's annual revenues. You'd think they could afford
to pay for it, instead of stealing it, as they have done.
Jennings told me that he and others know of scores of
corporate ripoffs. These include Southwestern Bell, which
attempted to charge a 15-year-old $100 a month, because he
had a modem on his home phone to run a BBS two years ago.
They include 3M, another multibillion-dollar Minnesota
giant, whose corporate employees contacted local Fido SysOps
for setup help, because they didn't know enough to earn
their salaries carrying out their theft unaided by their
victims.
Because we're all their victims, victims of these corporate
thieves. How long can the BBS culture, which we created
ourselves, last in the face of this massive exploitation?
Who will want to give away his or her work, only to see
gross profits racked up from it by giant corporate
exploiters?
WHAT WE CAN AND SHOULD DO
First collect any information you can get about commercial
users. Jennings knows who has paid him (all 11 of them) and
who hasn't, so don't attempt to find that out; just collect
their names and phone numbers. If possible, collect
evidentiary transcripts, as I have done, as complete as
possible, if you can get on the system at all. Send these,
together with a statement as to how you know who the
corporate or government users are to me at Fido LawCAT
14/999. The statement should be like mine; it should ID
yourself, and give contact information (address/phone). If
Jennings can afford to hire a lawyer, the lawyer can use
such transcripts as evidence to collect for the unauthorized
use of the copyrighted software.
What is a "commercial user"? Jennings defined for me what
he had in mind as "Who can use it for free," it is those who
are creating Fidos "in the public interest." In general,
anyone who operates a BBS accessible to the general public
is doing that, whether there is a registration fee or
"special interest group" limitation. A store that runs a
Fidonews Page 8 4 Nov 1985
public BBS, a company that operates a public BBS as a good-
will gesture, are examples of "public interest" users who
can use it free.
A government agency, a corporation, or an individual who
expects to make a profit from the use of a private Fido, or
Fidonet, or to use it for internal convenience of its staff,
or in the carrying out of its mission or duties--these are
examples of Fido users who must pay a license fee for the
first node, and another for each additional node, as set by
Fido Marketing. Both GTE, which intends to make a profit
from using Fido to exploit all the rest of us, and
Honeywell, which intends "for the convenience of its
employees" to maintain a private Fidonet, are excellent
examples of users who must and should be made to pay Fido
Software's fees.
Any group which is in doubt about its status should apply to
Jennings at Fido 125/1 for clarification as to whether it
qualifies as a public interest group, or not. In general,
every "private" Fido, to which access cannot be gained by
"normal" registration by responsible users should probably
apply to Jennings, and should expect to pay a reasonable fee
for its use of his software.
In fact, the issues raised by widespread corporate and
perhaps governmental piracy of Jennings' copyrighted
software are relatively simple to resolve. All he needs is
money to hire a lawyer; there would be no problem collecting
fees (and costs and perhaps damages) from both Honeywell and
GTE--if Jennings could afford to hire the help he'd need to
do it.
Some of you who've enjoyed and benefited from your use of
Fido might think about that and send Jennings a little money
to help do that. Lawyers don't come cheap.
THE OTHER ISSUE
There is a much more difficult issue raised by GTE's
commercial exploitation of all BBSes and of virtually
everyone who uses a BBS. We are all resources for each
other, in BBSes, whether networked like Fido or not. The
knowledge and talents of each user are part of a pool of
resources we all share by means of these systems. It is
exactly that--US--that GTE is selling. I'm not sure what I
can do about it, unless and until they list my Fido LawCAT.
Should they do so, whatever it costs in time and money, I'll
sue them.
How do the rest of you feel? Let's have some discussion of
this exploitation, while there are still BBSes alive to do
it on. I feel that this commercial exploitation of our work
will so disgust a great many SysOps that the system will be
destroyed by these sharks who are moving in to profiteer off
of it.
It should be discussed on all BBSes. I invite SysOps and
Fidonews Page 9 4 Nov 1985
users to contribute ideas to the "Issues" message/discussion
section (Msg Area 10) on Fido LawCAT, 612-872-2352; or
FMAIL--I'll see if I can recopy it and post it--at 14/999.
Though there are relatively few modem-using lawyers, it has
been my intention since 1982 to educate them to "computer
law issues" by involving them in discussions with the
computer community, and exposing them to specific legal
problems computers raise. Software piracy is an issue
LawSIG has done a lot of educating on over the years. Now
we have a new one, I don't even know how to describe it.
GTE wants to steal *all of us* in effect, and piracy of Tom
Jennings' software is a means to that larger theft. What
kind of a crime is that? How can lawyers help us prevent
it?
I appologise for the length of this piece; I feel the issues
are urgent, and the matter needs to be spread around
quickly.
(Paula Giese, aka SysOp Fuzzy, Fido LawCAT, 14/999; 612-872-2352)
------------------------------------------------------------
Fidonews Page 10 4 Nov 1985
Any Libertarians out there?
Daniel Tobias, FIDO 129/13
I am presently attempting to put together, for future
publication, a directory of Libertarians who are reachable
by electronic mail. Someday, computerized communication may
take its place alongside the telephone and the postal system
as a commonplace form of communication, butcurrently only a
select group of forward-thinking individuals enjoys this
powerful communication tool. Since those supporting the
Libertarian philosophy of personal and economic freedom and
drastically limited government are also forward-thinking
people, it is reasonable to suppose that many of them are
already making use of computerized communications. The
intent of the directory is to put all such people's names
and computer mail addresses together in one place, to
facilitate communication and informal networking among them.
If you wish to be listed, please send me the following
information, in the order given:
a) Your name.
b) Your computer mail address(es). Include here the
addresses which can be used to send you computer mail.
These can be on any computer system or network, including
FidoNet, ArpaNet, UUCP, BitNet, or CompuServe. If you
have computer addresses on several different networks,
include all of them.
c) Include, if you wish, a single line describing your
occupation, position in Libertarian organizations,
special interests, or anything else you feel is
descriptive of yourself so that prospective electronic
"pen-pals" who do not know you by name can find people
who share common interests.
You have several ways of getting this information to me.
You can send it by FidoMail to 'Daniel Tobias' at FIDO
129/13. I also can be reached as DT04@TF.CC.CMU.EDU on the
Arpanet. Or, if you prefer a more old-fashioned means of
communication, you may send it on paper to:
Daniel Tobias
4730 Centre Ave. Apt. 212
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Thank you for helping make this project a success!
Disclaimer:
Although this post originates from a Fido BBS run by a
member of the L-5 Society, the L-5 Society is not a
Libertarian organization and does not in any way endorse the
content of this post. I am just a user of this BBS; I'm not
the sysop, although I hope to someday start a Libertarian-
oriented BBS when I have the proper equipment.
Fidonews Page 11 4 Nov 1985
------------------------------------------------------------
Fidonews Page 12 4 Nov 1985
============================================================
COLUMNS
============================================================
FidoNet Route Files Explained
Part 1 -- The Many Faces of FidoNet
by Ben Baker, Fido 100/76
There is no aspect of FidoNet more universally mis-
understood than routing. It is the intent of this foru-
part series to clear some of the fog.
The justification for nets and routing has been
discussed many times and will NOT be discussed again here.
Given that routing is good, how is it done? What's the
meaning of the various statements that go into route files?
Indeed, what's the meaning of route files?
Let's first take a look at "the network." But how do we
do that? In reality, there is no "the network." FidoNet is
a different thing when viewed by each different Fido! The
only formal definition of FidoNet is the node list, and it
serves as an adaquate view of "the network" for most
independent Fidos but only the members of some nets.
Consider the hypothetical node, Fido 21/7. He's an
independent member of a "Region." To him, "the network" is a
couple of hundred other independent nodes to whom he sends
messages directly and another couple of hundred to which he
has access through 36 defined "Hosts." If he receives a
message not addressed to his node, his Fido "orphans" it.
He has no intention of forwarding someone else's mail. They
can pay their own phone bills! When he sends a message to
18/3, Fido knows (from the node list) that is another
independent and sends the message direct. When he sends a
message to 100/76, Fido knows (from the node list) that is a
member of net 100 and sends it to 100/0. Fido 21/7 executes
only schedule A during the national mail window. He has no
use for ANY route files.
Another hypothetical node, Fido 201/4 is a member of an
"inbound only" net. Since the sysop has used the '4'
command properly, Fido knows he is a member of net 201 and
will treat other members of that net as though they were
independent nodes. When he sends a message to 201/5, Fido
will send it direct and not to 201/0. Messages headed out-
side net 201 will be handled for 201/4 just as they were for
21/7. Fido 201/4 executes two schedules, A during the
national window followed immediatly by B when he just sits
quietly and waits for 201/0 to send him any mail he
received. He has no use for ANY route files.
Everyone else has a view of "the network" more
complicated than Fido can discover from just the node list.
If you're a Southern California Hub, or a local node in the
New York Megalopolis, or maybe the host of a modest network
in Memphis "the network" looks different to you than to
Fidonews Page 13 4 Nov 1985
other sysops. It is the function of route files to modify
Fido's view of "the network" to conform to yours.
If your Fido is executing any mail event and any other
Fido calls it up and offers it a mail packet, your Fido will
graciously receive that packet and at the end of the mail
event, he will unpack it into messages. These actions have
nothing whatever to do with route files!
Reread that last paragraph two or three times until it
sinks in. It is a very important, very misunderstood point.
Route files do not and cannot control the way you receive
mail. ROUTE FILES CONTROL ONLY THE WAY YOU SEND MAIL!!!
After all, that's when you're paying the phone bill.
Furthermore, what you say in ROUTE.B has absolutely
nothing to do with how Fido behaves in schedule C. I will
come back to this point later.
Ever since we first began routing FidoNet messages to
places other than their final destination, route files have
used three basic commands to mold Fido's view of FidoNet to
correspond with your view. In part 2 we will look at
SCHEDULE, ROUTE-TO and ACCEPT-FROM and see just how they
influence Fido.
Part 3 will examine a bevy of new routing commands
available with Fido V11 and see how they have made automatic
distribution at last possible.
LISTGEN V2 is capable of generating route files auto-
matically. Part 4 will discuss how ROUTE.CTL statements map
to route file commands.
Stay with me for the next few weeks and maybe we can
burn off the fog and find a bright sky, a calm sea and clear
sailing. (And don't throw away your newsletters, you'll
want to refer back from time to time.)
------------------------------------------------------------
Fidonews Page 14 4 Nov 1985
============================================================
WANTED
============================================================
Hello to all the Fido News readers south of the border !!
I am writing this in an attempt to find out if there is a
chance that there might be a similar machine to the one that
we are looking at purchasing (and or leasing.)
I guess I should explain what it is that I am planning on
leasing (or purchasing, I can dream I guess!) The system is
called the Kurzweil 4000 and comes from Kurzweil Computer
Products in Massachusetts and is an excellent optical
character recogntion system that uses artificial
intelligence software.
The person running the system "teaches" the system the font
or type style in a learning session, (the learning session
can take from 5 to 30 mins depending on the type style or
condition of the document read). Once the learning session
has taken place the system can retain what it has learned
for future use on the hard drive that comes with the system.
The 4000 can handle type setting or word processing codes,
ligatures, and special formatting instructions. The 4000
analyzes each character by analyzing its shape, it can
recognize any type font in sizes ranging from 6 to 24 point,
including multiple fonts within a single document.
Now that you know what the system is capable of (and no I am
not a Kurzweil salesman!!!) You might know of a similar
system ( I cant really say clone system with its power!)
that is slightly lower priced!
You see Xerox Canada has grabbed this and have priced the
system at approx $85,000 with all the bells and whistles!
In the States it is priced at about $40,000 U.S. !!!!! Even
with the exchange Xerox is taking myself and other
interested parties for a ride!!!!
Would you believe they want $7,550 for a *&*&!!@ sheet
feeder !! Well you get the point I will not bitch any
longer.
You say why not buy it from Kurzweil directly! Well Kurzweil
stands firm on Xerox and will not sell one to us as it under
contractual obligation to Xerox !!!
If you have any information about a similar product in the
States or anywhere else for that matter I would appreciate
you dropping me a line at Fido 111/608.
(please note that the system has changed its number and has
yet be updated in the latest nodelist. The number is
1-416-231-7113.)
Thanks for your time
Fidonews Page 15 4 Nov 1985
Rob Benner
Sysop DiSC2: The Information Exchange
Net 111 Node 608
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Fidonews Page 16 4 Nov 1985
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NOTICES
============================================================
The Interrupt Stack
23 Nov 1985
European sysop conference -- Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Contact node 3101 for details.
27 Nov 1985
Halley's Comet passes closest to Earth before perihelion.
24 Jan 1986
Voyager 2 passes Uranus.
9 Feb 1986
Halley's Comet reaches perihelion.
9 Feb 1986
Diana Overholt (109/74) has another birthday.
11 Apr 1986
Halley's Comet reaches perigee.
19 May 1986
Steve Lemke's next birthday.
24 Aug 1989
Voyager 2 passes Neptune.
If you have something which you would like to see on this
calendar, please send a message to Fido 1/1.
------------------------------------------------------------
Am sad to report the death of fido 17/2 on Monday the 27th
of October. The death will be caused by an overdose of
corporate oversight. Said impending death was reported to me
by the DJ today. The company could no longer see any profit
other than goodwill and so issued the notice of execution.
Neal Curtin, BECS FIDO
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A Warning to Quadram Owners
If you own a Quadram board with an on-board clock that is
over a year old, BEWARE! The batteries on some of these
boards have been reported to go bad and leak, dripping acid
on the motherboard.
Fidonews Page 17 4 Nov 1985
The batteries to worry about are those with a green stripe.
The batteries with a black stripe are okay.
Quadram is reportedly aware of the problem, and taking steps
to deal with it.
------------------------------------------------------------
Fidonews Page 18 4 Nov 1985
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