Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac 1993 September/September 93.iso/Community/BBS/Mac Australia BBS/Adam's Apple/Adams Apple

Text File | 1993-10-16 | 42.5 KB | 2,353 lines | [TEXT/R*ch]

Welcome to Adam's Apple BBS.



Adam's Apple BBS caters only for Macintosh computers. Anyone is welcome to

use this system, but if you don't use a Mac, you probably won't find

much of interest to you here. Feel free to look around, however!



You will immediately have Guest access to the BBS. Feel free to call as

often as you like to browse through the BBS. Once you have a feel for

the BBS, you may like to become a financial member - there is membership

information and a membership form on the BBS. Paying membership will give

you full access to participate in all world-wide message conferences, to

use the Internet mail facility, and to download files. Have fun!



Please print out this form, fill it in, pop it in an envelope

and post it to:

        Adam's Apple BBS

        PO BOX 856

        VICTORIA PARK WA 6100



If you want to pay by MasterCard or BankCard, just write me an email

message giving your card type and number, expiry date, and cardholder's

name.

________________________________________________________________________

                  ---==== Membership Form ====---



                            ADAMS APPLE BBS



Name: _____________________________________   Date:   ___ / ___ / ___



Membership options are:



(1) Standard Membership

    $30 gives you membership for one year, with a time allowance of

    60 minutes per day, and access to the hard drive file areas.



(2) CDROM Membership

    $40 gives you membership for one year, with a time allowance of

    90 minutes per day, and access to all file areas, including CDROM.



(3) Super Membership

    $80 gives you membership for one year, with a time allowance of

    180 minutes per day, and access to all file areas, including CDROM.





Tick ONE only:

   [ ]  $30 Standard Membership

   [ ]  $40 CDROM Membership

   [ ]  $80 Super Membership



In addition, I want to pay for $________ additional Net Credit.



Please contact the Sysop if there are any difficulties.







Signature:          ___________________________



________________________________________________________________________


History of Adam's Apple

-----------------------



Adam's Apple BBS was first started in August 1990 as a Macintosh only BBS.

At the time, there was no other Macintosh specific BBS. Nemo, run by

Graeme Platt, had been pinched by the Federal Police, taking away the

Macintosh support with it. MacBBS, a BBS running on a unix box by Ken

Taylor, had just started up about the same time, but its interface left

a lot to be desired. And so this BBS came into being.



Simon Holmes a Court bought a copy of Second Sight BBS software and set up

Adam's Apple on his SE/30 with a 2400 bps NetComm 1234 modem. For the first

couple of months, the BBS was primarily a private affair, online by request

only (not 24 hours a day), and was mainly a hobby for Simon as he became

more familiar and experienced with the software. Peter Broadribb was one of

the early callers using the BBS even before it went public.



The BBS soon grew - it went online 24 hours a day, became public, and

attracted a reasonable number of members. At this time Simon moved the BBS

to a Mac SE with 1 MB RAM and 80 MB hard disk, so that he could continue to

use the SE/30 for his own needs.  Simon bought Tabby, the only Fidonet

software available, and managed to set that up to get Adam's Apple part of

Fidonet. A NetComm M5 was purchased, which supported 9600 bps callers.



In February 1991, Simon talked with Matthew Simpson of The Great MacHouse

BBS (now skyNET) in Melbourne, and together they created Macnet - the name

given to a group of Fidonet echos that were specifically for Macintosh

users, and could be shared among the relatively few Macintosh specific

BBSs in Australia. Macnet later grew a little in size, to include a small

number of Macintosh BBSs, all exchanging the Macnet public conferences.



A 105 MB hard drive was purchased to allow for the growing number of files

online, and an Apple CDROM player was purchased in order to have the AMUG

"BBS In A Box" CD online for users.



In late December 1991, Simon decided that looking after the BBS was too

difficult with his other commitments, and perhaps the initial fun of

running a BBS had worn off. Peter Broadribb took over the BBS, and the

BBS was moved from Simon's home to the offices of Third Party Products,

where Peter worked, and so the BBS's phone number changed.



1992 saw no special additions apart from general small improvements and

increase in size. One of the major projects was to try to find some

alternative BBS software rather than Second Sight, which was very

archaic and difficult to use and slow. Many BBS packages were tried,

but frustratingly, none of them were good enough to run a BBS with.



In early 1993, the NetComm M5 was replaced by a PSI COMstation 3, which

supported 14400 bps and V42bis.



Mid 1993 saw the start of a series of big changes to the BBS, aimed at

making the BBS a larger, more accessible BBS:

* Changed from Second Sight to Hermes BBS software;

* Pulled out of Fidonet to enter the Internet as a uucp site;

* Put on a second phone line;

* Bought another 14400 bps modem (an Avtek MegaPlus V32bis);

* Changed the Mac SE to a Mac IIcx.



                                  WAMUG

                Western Australian Macintosh User Group



WAMUG is our regional Macintosh User Group.  We meet on the 1st

Tuesday of each month, at 7.30 pm, at:



Applied Geology Seminar Room

Geology Building (building number 312)

Curtin University



Membership is $30 for 12 months (Full time students pay only $15).



If you have any queries, please contact Donna Wood on [phone].



Please consider joining if you are not already a member.



This message was last updated on Sunday, 27 June 1993.




Adam's Apple robots

-------------------



To let you become more familiar with Adam's Apple's team of hard-working

robots, I thought I'd introduce them personally.



At the time of writing, there are four robots, three of which can talk, and

one which can't.



UUCP Robot is hard-working but silent. He's the one that gets all the

work done importing and exporting enormous quantities of news and your

mail. He ignores anything said to him, and only speaks when things are dire.

You shouldn't ever hear from him, but he's always working away.



The Credit Robot (called "credit" or "Credit Robot") is more

friendly. Send him a message and he'll totally ignore the subject and

content - but he'll send you back a friendly reply within 24 hours telling

you how much Internet credit you have left. Remember to address it to:

credit, 0/0

to tell Hermes to pass it out into the "network".



The Membership Robot (called "membership" or "Membership Robot")

is a sister to Credit. She'll also totally ignore the subject and content

of your message, but she'll send back a reply within 24 hours telling you

when your membership to Adam's Apple expires. Remember to address it to:

membership, 0/0



Listserv Robot allows you to join mailing lists. There is a separate

documentation file about Mailing Lists, so see that for full information.

You can send requests to Listserv to be added or removed from mailing lists

that Adam's Apple is subscribed to. Send mail to:

listserv, 0/0



Remember, all messages to and from the robots are free.



All Adam's Apple robots are written in Perl, run under MPW.



Peter Broadribb

Sysop, Adam's Apple BBS

28 Jul 93



If you think that part or all of this documentation could be clearer

and easier to understand, I will welcome your comments and submissions

of improved articles.




FTPing files by email

---------------------



FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is the standard way of transferring files

over the Internet. Many large computers on the Net archive publically

accessable files, and Internet users usually use a program called ftp to

get copies of files they want. Users who have Internet email access but

not ftp access (Adam's Apple BBS users fall into this category) must use

an ftp-by-mail server if they want to ftp files.



There are many ftp-by-mail servers on the Internet, but almost all of them

are elsewhere in the world. One Australian server is run by the University

of Wollongong ([e-mail]).



For Macintosh users, the main Internet archive site of interest is:

archie.au

which contains "mirrors" (exact duplicates, updated daily) of the two

major Macintosh archives in the world: mac.archive.umich.edu and

sumex-aim.stanford.edu.



On archie.au, look in:

/micros/mac/umich -- for the mirror of mac.archive.umich.edu

/micros/mac/info-mac -- for the mirror of sumex-aim.stanford.edu



To help you along, I have made available the directory listings of

the archie.au copies of the umich and info-mac archive sites. On

Adam's Apple BBS, look in the Non-members' Free Files area.



Since umich and stanford are both in the US, we don't want lots of

Australian users ftping lots of files over the Australia-US Internet

link. So instead, archie.au keeps copies of everything on these servers,

meaning that each file gets transferred over the Australia-US link only

once, and Australian users can access the files from archie.au. Please:

NEVER ftp files from umich or sumex directly; if you do, you are doing

the Australian Internet community a great dis-service.



So, how do I ftp a file?



Send email to:



ftpmail, 0/0



(Note that this is an alias, to make it easier for you to remember. The

alias gets expanded to "[e-mail], 0/0").



with any subject (the subject will be ignored). In the message body,

you can do one of two things:



(1) Get a directory listing of an ftp site. Example:



HOST archie.au

DIR /micros/mac/umich/util/comm



(2) FTP a file. Example:



PLAINMAIL

HOST archie.au

GET /micros/mac/umich/util/comm/eudora1.31.sit.hqx



The PLAINMAIL command prevents the file from being enclosed within a

unix shell archive - it will just be a plain uuencoded file instead.



If your ftp request is successful, the ftp-by-mail server will send

you back an email response with the directory listing or the file

that you requested. If unsuccessful, the server will send you back

a help file (see "ftp by mail help").



All files will be uuencoded. uuencoding is like BinHex, but different.

A Macintosh program that can uudecode a file is UUTool 2.3.2 - there

are others as well.



In addition to being uuencoded, the files will probably be segmented

into chunks. You will have to put the pieces back together

before you can uudecode the file.



After uudecoding the file, you will probably be left with a BinHexed

file, since most Mac files on the Internet are stored in BinHex (.hqx)

form. So, get out Compact Pro and unBinHex the file.



Then you'll probably be left with either a Compact Pro (.cpt) file, or

some form of StuffIt (.sit) file. Extract these as you normally would.



As far as I know, there is no way of telling the ftp-by-mail server

NOT to uuencode the file. It's a pain that it does so, since it increases

the size of the file (and therefore costs you more), and since it's

useless that it does so - since the files are already BinHexed, they

are already in a form suitable for transmission by email over the Internet.



Remember that ftp-by-mail is just standard Internet email, and so gets

charged at the standard rates of 1 cent per 1000 bytes.



For the new user, ftp-by-mail isn't easy. If you need more help, please ask.



Remember, only financial members can send and receive Internet email.



Peter Broadribb

Sysop, Adam's Apple BBS

21 Jul 93



If you think that part or all of this documentation could be clearer

and easier to understand, I will welcome your comments and submissions

of improved articles.







This is the file you get back when you send mail to the ftp-by-mail

server mentioned in the document "ftp by mail", which you should read

first.

------------

Welcome to the University of Wollongong MAIL to FTP gateway.



This message is the response the gateway sends when it does

not understand your request.



The gateway is a simple attempt to provide a service to those

people who have electronic mail but no access to Internet

for FTP.



Requests

========



        To access the gateway send mail to



        [e-mail]



The gateway software will examine the body of your mail item

(headers are ingored) and try to determine what machine you

wish to access and what file you want fetched.



It also implements a interface to the "archie" system

for locating files available for anonymous ftp.

Archie searches a database of files available for

ftp from a list of major archive sites.



For example, you may know of a product called

"amd" but not know where it is available on the

Internet. You could use the "archie" command to find out

where a copy of "amd" is available. Some information on using the

"archie" command is enclosed at the end of this document.



Using FTPMAIL

============



Normally, ftpmail attempts to connect with the target machine as an anonymous

ftp user. It is possible to override the user name ftpmail will use for the

connection as well as specify a password (see below).



If the above step is successful it then attempts the transfer in binary

mode and if successful mails the files to you. All files are sent uuencoded.

If the file is large it is split into smaller pieces and

each piece is sent separately.



Each request for a FTP action must contain a single

line of the form



HOST hostname



to specify the remote host you wish to access. The "hostname" field above

may be a INTERNET style domain name or an IP address in dotted notation.

Wherever possible, names should be used rather than IP numbers.

You may only have a single "HOST" line per FTPMAIL request.

If using dotted decimal notation, do not enclose the address inside

[] style brackets.



To specify the file to transfer your request must contain

a line of the form



GET filename-1 filename-2 ........



Each request can only contain one GET command but each GET command

may specify several file names.



If you wish to list the files available on a remote machine

your request should contain a line of the form



DIR directory-1 directory-2 .......

[Pause]< Richard Heppell has just logged on >



A request may contain only one of either a GET or a DIR line.



If you have a problem send mail to [e-mail]

or the postmaster. The system is experimental and probably contains

many bugs. If you find a bug, please notify the above address so

it can be fixed.



Ftpmail normally sends fetched files back to you as a series

of shell archives. If you are not on a UNIX system

(my condolences) you may specify you want the uuencoded segments

"raw" by specifying a line of the form



PLAINMAIL



in your request. In this case you may combine the uuencoded segments

by hand. There is no way to avoid the uuencoding or the

splitting of large files.





Large files are split into small pieces to avoid problems

with mailers that cannot handle large files. The default

chunksize is 60K. Users may override the default chunksize

with the CHUNKSIZE keyword. The number specified with the

CHUNKSIZE keyword is the size in Kilobytes. For example,



CHUNKSIZE 200



included in the mail body will set the chunksize to 200K bytes.

The lower limit on the chunksize is 20K and the upper limit

is 200K. CHUNKSIZE may be specified along with the PLAINMAIL

keyword.







Using a specified user name

===========================



Ftpmail allows the user to specify the user name and password

to use for the connection. If you use this facility remember that

the password you specify appears in the mail item as PLAIN

TEXT. Mail is not secure so sending plain text passwords should be

used with extreme caution. In general, only publicly available

passwords should be sent in this manner.



The commands for specifying a user name and password are



USER username      (no spaces allowed)



and



PASSWORD password     (no spaces allowed)



Ftpmail will attempt to connect to the specified server

(from the HOST command) and use the specified user name

and password.





Using ARCHIE

============



If your request contains a line of the form



ARCHIE parameters



then ftpmail will invoke the "archie" command with the parameters

specified. For example, if you sent mail containing the line



ARCHIE amd



then ftpmail will invoke "archie" with the argument amd.



The output from the command is mailed back exactly as it

is printed by the "archie" command.



The man page for "archie" follows.











ARCHIE(1)                USER COMMANDS                  ARCHIE(1)







NAME

     archie - query the  Archie  anonymous  FTP  databases  using

     Prospero



SYNOPSIS

     archie [ -cers ] [ -a ] [ -l ] [ -t ] [ -m hits ] [ -N level ] [ -h hostname ]

             [ -o filename ] [ -L ] [ -fB-V ] string



DESCRIPTION

     archie queries an archie anonymous FTP database looking  for

     the  specified  string  using  the  Prospero protocol.  This

     client is based on Prospero version Beta.4.2 and is provided

     to  encourage non-interactive use of the Archie servers (and

     subsequently better performance on both  sides).   This  man

     page describes version 1.3 of the client.



     The general method of use is of the form



          % archie string



     This will go to the archie server and ask it to look for all

     known  systems  that have a file named `string' in their FTP

     area.  archie will wait, and print out any matches.



     For example,



          % archie emacs



     will find all anonymous FTP sites  in  the  archie  database

     that  have  files  named  emacs somewhere in their FTP area.

     (This particular query would probably return a lot of direc-

     tories.)  If you want a list of every filename that contains

     emacs anywhere in it, you'd use



          % archie -c emacs



     Regular expressions, such as



          % archie -r '[xX][lL]isp'



     may also be used for searches.  (See the manual of a reason-

     ably good editor, like GNU Emacs or vi, for more information

     on using regular expressions.)





OPTIONS

     The options currently available to this archie client are:



     -c          Search substrings paying attention  to  upper  &

                 lower case.

     -e          Exact string match.  (This is the default.)

     -r          Search using a regular expression.







Archie (Prospero)  Last change: 9 January 1992                  1













ARCHIE(1)                USER COMMANDS                  ARCHIE(1)







     -s          Search  substrings  ignoring  the  case  of  the

                 letters.

     -ofilename  If specified, place the results of the search in

                 filename.

     -a          Output results as Alex filenames.

     -l          Output results in a form suitable for parsing by

                 programs.

     -t          Sort the results inverted by date.

     -mhits      Specifies the maximum number of  hits  (matches)

                 to return (default of 95).

     -Nlevel     Sets the niceness of a query; by  default,  it's

                 set  to 0.  Without an argument, ``-N'' defaults

                 to 35765.   If  you  use  -N  with  an  argument

                 between 0 and 35765, it'll adjust itself accord-

                 ingly.  (Note: VMS users will have to put quotes

                 around  this  argument, and -L, like "-N45"; VMS

                 will otherwise convert it to lowercase.)

     -h hostname Tells the client  to  query  the  Archie  server

                 hostname.

     -L          Lists the Archie servers known  to  the  program

                 when it was compiled, as well as the name of the

                 default Archie server.  For an up-to-date  list,

                 write  to  ``[e-mail]''  (or  any

                 Archie  server)  with  the  single  command   of

                 servers.

     -V          With the verbose option, archie will  make  some

                 comments  along  the way if a search is going to

                 take some time, to pacify the user.



     The three search-modifying arguments  (``-c'',  ``-r'',  and

     ``-s'')  are  all  mutually  exclusive;  only  the  last one

     counts.  If you specify -e with any of  ``-c'',  ``-r'',  or

     ``-s'', the server will first check for an exact match, then

     fall back to the case-sensitive, case-insensitive, or  regu-

     lar expression search.  This is so if there are matches that

     are particularly obvious, it will take a minimal  amount  of

     time to satisfy your request.



     If you list a single `-' by itself,  any  further  arguments

     will  be  taken  as  part  of  the  search  string.  This is

     intended to enable searching for strings that begin  with  a

     `-'; for example:



          % archie -s - -old



     will search for all filenames that contain the string `-old'

     in them.



RESPONSE

     Archie servers are set up to respond to a number of requests

     in  a  queued fashion.  That is, smaller requests get served

     much more quickly than do large requests.  As a result,  the







Archie (Prospero)  Last change: 9 January 1992                  2













ARCHIE(1)                USER COMMANDS                  ARCHIE(1)







     more  often  you query the Archie server, or the larger your

     requests, the longer the queue will become, resulting  in  a

     longer  waiting  period  for everyone's requests.  Please be

     frugal when possible, for your benefit as well  as  for  the

     other users.



QUERY PRIORITY

     Please use the  ``-N''  option  whenever  you  don't  demand

     immediacy,  or when you're requesting things that could gen-

     erate large responses.  Even when using the nice option, you

     should  still  try  to  avoid  big jobs during busy periods.

     Here is a list of what we consider to be  nice  values  that

     accurately reflect the priority of a job to the server.



          Normal              0

          Nice                500

          Nicer               1000

          Very Nice           5000

          Extremely Nice      10000

          Nicest              32765



     The last priority, Nicest, would be used when a  job  should

     wait  until  the  queue is essentially empty before running.

     You should pick one of these values to use, possibly modify-

     ing  it  slightly depending on where you think your priority

     should land.  For example, 32760 would mean wait  until  the

     queue  is  empty,  but  jump  ahead  of other jobs that have

     selected Nicest.



     There are certain types of  things  that  we  suggest  using

     Nicest  for,  irregardless.  In particular, any searches for

     which you would have a hard time justifying the use of  any-

     thing but extra resources.  (We all know what those searches

     would be for.)



ENVIRONMENT

     ARCHIE_HOST

             This will change the host archie will  consult  when

             making  queries.   (The default value is what's been

             compiled in.)  The ``-h'' option will override this.

             If  you're  running  VMS,  create  a  symbol  called

             ARCHIE_HOST.



SEE ALSO

     For more information on regular expressions, see the  manual

     pages on:



     regex(3), ed(1)



     Also   read    the    file    archie/doc/whatis.archie    on

     archie.mcgill.ca for a detailed paper on Archie as a whole.









Archie (Prospero)  Last change: 9 January 1992                  3













ARCHIE(1)                USER COMMANDS                  ARCHIE(1)







     Read the file README.ALEX distributed with this  client  for

     more information on what Alex is and how you can take advan-

     tage of it.

AUTHORS

     The archie service was conceived  and  implemented  by  Alan

     Emtage       ([e-mail]),       Peter       Deutsch

     ([e-mail]),        and        Bill         Heelan

     ([e-mail]).   The  entire  Internet  is in their

     debt.



     The  Prospero  system  was  created   by   Clifford   Neuman

     ([e-mail]);   write  to  [e-mail]  for  more

     information on the protocol and its use.



     This stripped client  was  put  together  by  Brendan  Kehoe

     ([e-mail]),  with modifications by Clifford Neuman

     and George Ferguson ([e-mail]).



BUGS

     There are none; only a few unexpected features.







































































Archie (Prospero)  Last change: 9 January 1992                  4







Which G-File (Q=Quit) ? 4

Internet email charges

----------------------



Whenever you send or receive email through the Internet, it costs the BBS

money. Adam's Apple gets charged by DIALix 1 cent per 1000 bytes for all

email sent or received through DIALix.



We pass this cost straight on to the users of Adam's Apple. We don't

charge less - since that would mean that it would cost us money every

time you sent a message - and we don't charge more, since otherwise you

might be tempted to get an account on DIALix yourself.



So instead, each Adam's Apple financial member starts off with $2.50

(that's 244K of email) credit in advance, taken out of your membership

payment. Each time you send or receive Internet mail, the cost of the

message is deducted at the rate of 1 cent per 1000 bytes, rounded up,

and deducted nightly. There is a 250 byte surcharge on outgoing mail,

and a 600 byte surcharge on incoming mail, to cover the Internet mail

headers which are prepended to the message. (No, 600 bytes of headers on

received mail is _not_ an exaggeration.)



If you want to be on a mailing list, you can arrange to have Adam's

Apple subscribe to the mailing list on your behalf, and the cost of

the receipt of the messages will be shared over the number of users

receiving the list. So if there are ten users wanting to receive the

mailing list, you will be charged only 0.1 cents per 1000 bytes!

Please contact me for more information. It's easy.



The first $2.50 credit is "on the house", to give you a chance to try

out the Internet without having to put any money forward. That $2.50

could last you a long time, if you're only sending and receiving small

messages! But once you use up that $2.50 credit, you will have to put

money forward, in advance, to continue using Internet email. You can pay

as much as you like or as little as you like. Send payments to:



Adam's Apple BBS

PO Box 856

VICTORIA PARK WA 6100



and make sure that you make it clear that it is payment for credit

(and not a membership payment), and whose account it is for.



Or write me an email message and pay by credit card.



If you want to know how much credit you have left, send a message to:



credit, 0/0



with any subject and any message content. You will receive an automatically

generated reply (from the Adam's Apple Credit Robot) telling you how much

credit you have left. Messages to the Credit Robot are free.



If you have any queries about how Internet email is charged, please

write me a message and ask.



Remember, only financial members can send and receive Internet email.



Peter Broadribb

Sysop, Adam's Apple BBS

18 Jul 93



If you think that part or all of this documentation could be clearer

and easier to understand, I will welcome your comments and submissions

of improved articles.





Mailing Lists

-------------



Mailing Lists are like a cross between public newsgroups and private email.

A mailing list is just like a regular paper mailing list that you might

receive mail through Australia Post. When there is a topic that a relatively

small, dispersed group of people want to talk about, a mailing list is

usually set up.



A mailing list is where when one person in the mailing list sends email

to the mailing list, the mailing list will send a copy of that mail to every

other person receiving that list. For example, there is a mailing list

run by the University of WA's Computer Club, allowing club members to keep

in contact. Any club member can send mail to the List, and a copy of that

mail message will be sent to all other club members.



A mailing list is used when the number of interested people is too small

to warrant having a newsgroup.



There are thousands of mailing lists on the Internet which you can join,

covering all sorts of topics. If you want to join any of these mailing lists,

you can do so directly, but you will be paying the full cost of all the

messages received. If other Adam's Apple members also want to receive that

mailing list, it's silly for the BBS to receive two identical copies of every

message that is posted, and for each member to have to pay for their copy.



Much more sensible is the idea that the BBS pulls in only one copy, and any

BBS members can receive a copy, and the cost is distributed among the members

receiving it. If there are five members interested in a mailing list, you

pay for only 20% of the cost of the list - a very substantial saving.



So don't subscribe to a mailing list directly, but instead send me a message

to ask that the BBS subscribes for you. In the absolute worst situation,

the cost to you will be the same as if you had subscribed directly, and it

can only get better from there.



To see what mailing lists Adam's Apple is currently subscribed to, send

mail to the Listserv Robot, by addressing the mail to:



listserv, 0/0



with any subject line and any message content. You will get an email message

back (within 24 hours) telling you what mailing lists Adam's Apple is

subscribed to, and a brief description of each. To begin receiving a copy

of any of these mailing lists, send mail to:



listserv, 0/0



with any subject line, but in the body of the message put:



add listname



where "listname" is the name of the mailing list you are interested in.

You will immediately begin receiving a copy of the mailing list, with the

cost shared among the number of people receiving the list.



If you want to stop receiving a mailing list, send mail to:



listserv, 0/0



with any subject line, and in the body of the message put:



remove listname



You will no longer receive the mailing list, and will not be charged anything

for the mailing list any more.



Peter Broadribb

Sysop, Adam's Apple BBS

28 Jul 93



If you think that part or all of this documentation could be clearer

and easier to understand, I will welcome your comments and submissions

of improved articles.






Writing Fidonet email

----------------------



Writing mail to a user on Fidonet is really easy on Adam's Apple BBS.





Introduction

------------

Adam's Apple is part of the Internet, a very large world-wide network of

computers. Fidonet is a much smaller, amateur network of BBSs world wide.

Fidonet is how most other BBSs exchange electronic private mail and public

messages.



Although we were originally part of Fidonet, we changed to the Internet

because of its vast superiority. You can still send email to any user on

Fidonet, however; our hard-working UUCP Robot is intelligent enough

to know when you are sending an email message to a Fidonet user, and to

address it correctly for the Internet.





Sending Fidonet email

---------------------

To send an email message to a Fidonet user, you need to know:

(1) The recipient's name, as they type in to their BBS to log in;

(2) The Fidonet address of their BBS.



Let's say that you want to send mail to Fred Smith on Multiline (whose

Fidonet address is 3:690/254). From the Main Menu of Adam's Apple BBS,

choose "[E] Send private mail". The BBS asks you "Enter user's name or

number", so enter the person's email address like this:



Fred Smith, 3:690/254



Notice that there is one comma, one space, and then the Fidonet address.

Make sure that you get their name exactly right, since there's no way to

check it.



If you are mailing to someone within zone 3, you can leave off the 3:

if you wish.



Our UUCP Robot will take this message and will address it correctly

to be sent through the Internet. (For those that are interested, it will

be changed to read:

To: Fred Smith <[e-mail]>

It's really a lot easier getting the Robot to do all the work for you!)



That's it! The message will be sent the next time Adam's Apple polls DIALix.

The good thing about sending Fidonet email through the Internet is that

it's usually faster and more reliable than getting Fidonet to deliver it!



If you receive netmail from someone else, you can reply to them just by

replying in the normal manner; the Fidonet address is filled in correctly

and it will be addressed correctly for the Internet.





Reliability and speed

---------------------

Mail to a Fidonet user isn't all that reliable, once the message enters

Fidonet from the Internet. Most message should get through correctly,

however. Although the Internet is very fast at delivering messages - they

usually arrive within seconds of being sent - Fidonet is much slower. It

may take up to a week for the Fidonet BBSs to pass the message on to its

correct destination.





Security

--------

Internet mail and Fidonet mail are NOT secure. Do not send confidential

or incriminating information in a human-readable form. Any system

administrator (Internet) or any sysop (Fidonet) on any computer between

Adam's Apple and the destination computer have the capability of reading

email passing through their system. Naturally, this isn't generally done

except for technical reasons, but you should be aware of it.





Concluding comments

-------------------

Like anything, sending email may seem tricky until you are familiar with it.

If you are having difficulties, select "[F] Send mail to sysop" and ask for

help. I can guide you through your problems.



Remember, only financial members can send and receive Internet email.



Peter Broadribb

Sysop, Adam's Apple BBS

21 Jul 93



If you think that part or all of this documentation could be clearer

and easier to understand, I will welcome your comments and submissions

of improved articles.







Writing Internet email

----------------------



Since Adam's Apple BBS is on the Internet, you can write email to other

users anywhere on the Internet, Compuserve, America On Line, AppleLink,

Fidonet, MCI Mail, and other major computer networks. Your mail will

arrive at its destination probably within 24 hours.



Internet email addresses are of the general form:



[e-mail]



For example, a user at the University of WA might have an email address of:



[e-mail]



Your own Internet email address, as a member of Adam's Apple BBS, is of

the form:



[e-mail]



That is, replace any spaces in your Adam's Apple login name with

underscores, and append "@italic.DIALix.oz.au" after it.



"italic" is the machine name of Adam's Apple BBS,

"DIALix" is the name of an organisation run by Jeff Johnson here in Perth,

"oz" is a catch-all non-category in Australia, and

"au" indicates that we're in Australia.



To write email to another user on the Internet, press the letter E from

the Main Menu of Adam's Apple BBS. When Hermes prompts you with "Enter

user's name or number", enter the person's email address like this:



[e-mail], 0/0



That is, you must append a comma, a space, zero, slash, zero on to the

end of the email address. This tells Hermes that you want to send a

"network" message (rather than a message to another Adam's Apple user),

and that the user you are sending to is at Fidonet address 0/0. (Hermes

doesn't know about the Internet; it only knows about Fidonet, so we use

Fidonet address 0/0 to mean the Internet.)



Hermes will then display: "E-mailing [e-mail] at node

0/0". Note that it munges the capitalisation - since Fidonet isn't

case-sensitive, Hermes tries to be helpful by prettying up the

capitalisation for you. Oh well. To attempt to compensate for this,

Adam's Apple will force the entire line back down to lowercase (this

happens behind the scenes, so you won't notice it), which is ususally

what you want.



If you need the address to be capitalised differently, there is a way.

Firstly, when Hermes asks "Enter user's name or number", type:



fred, 0/0



or some such garbage name. The important part is to have a comma, space,

0/0, so that Hermes will pass the message out to the UUCP Robot. Then,

as the first line of the content of the message (_not_ the subject line),

put a replacement "to" line like this:



To: [e-mail]



That is, you must have the word "To", then a colon, a space, and the

Internet email address. You DO NOT append ", 0/0" after it, since Hermes

has already worked this out from the To line that you gave before.

When the Adam's Apple uucp Robot receives this message, it will examine

the first line of the content of the message, and if it contains a "To"

line like is shown above, it will use this _instead of_ the address

you gave to Hermes.



For those Internet junkies out there, no you can't append further message

headers like cc: and reply-to: and so on. Maybe later.



You then get to give the message its subject and to enter the body of the

message, just as normal. Your message will be queued for delivery, ready

to go for the next time that Adam's Apple connects to DIALix - probably

sometime around 3 am the next morning. Your message will arrive anywhere

from seconds later, to some hours later, depending on the connectivity

of the network between here and the message's destination.



When the recipient reads your mail, they can simply reply to it in the

normal way, and the reply will find its way back here. If you need to

tell someone else your address, however, remember that it is of the form:



[e-mail]



You can also use a period, rather than an underscore, between the first

name and the surname, like this:



[e-mail]



If you choose, you can also arrange to have a more Internet-style email

address. Most Internet email addresses are entirely in lowercase, and

don't have underscores in them. For example, a more Internet-style

address for me would be:



[e-mail]



This is a lot shorter, is in lowercase, and doesn't have an underscore or

period in the username. Any mail I send out from Adam's Apple will have

this as the "From" address, and email sent to

"[e-mail]" will automatically be redirected back to

the Adam's Apple user called "Peter Broadribb".



You too can set up an alias like this. Just write me a message telling me

what alias you would like to use, and I will do it. It's very easy.



If you need any help addressing or sending mail, please ask.



Remember, only financial members can send and receive Internet email.

(Send mail to:

membership, 0/0

with any subject line and any message content to find out whether you are

a financial member of Adam's Apple BBS.)



Peter Broadribb

Sysop, Adam's Apple BBS

18 Jul 93



If you think that part or all of this documentation could be clearer

and easier to understand, I will welcome your comments and submissions

of improved articles.





Writing to other networks

-------------------------

The Internet is connected to most other major computer networks in the

world, meaning that you can write mail to users of these other networks

and they can write mail back to you. Here I describe how to send mail

to users of some of the other networks.





CompuServe

----------

You need to know:



(1) the person's CompuServe ID number (eg "12345,678").



To write mail to a CompuServe user, replace the comma in their ID number

with a period, and append "@compuserve.com".



So, to write to user 12345,678 address your mail to:



[e-mail], 0/0





Applelink

---------

You need to know:



(1) the person's Applelink account name (eg "AUST0156").



To write mail to an Applelink user, append "@applelink.apple.com".



So, to write to user AUST0156, address your mail to:



[e-mail], 0/0





Fidonet

-------

You need to know:



(1) the user's account name (eg "John Smith");

(2) the BBS's Fidonet address (eg "3:690/254.3").



To write mail to a Fidonet user, replace spaces in their name with periods,

and append "@pWWW.fXXX.nYYY.zZ.fidonet.org" where WWW = their point number

(zero if it's a BBS), XXX = the node number, YYY = the net number, and

Z = the zone.



So, to write to a user John Smith at 3:690/254.3, address your mail to:



[e-mail], 0/0





Concluding Comments

-------------------

If you wish to send mail to a network that is not in this list, please

write me email. I may know the answer or be able to obtain it for you.



Remember, only financial members can send and receive Internet email.



Peter Broadribb

Sysop, Adam's Apple BBS

2 Aug 93



If you think that part or all of this documentation could be clearer

and easier to understand, I will welcome your comments and submissions

of improved articles.




Membership Info

---------------



There are four levels of access:



* Guest    (free)

* Standard ($30 per year)

* CDROM    ($40 per year)

* Super    ($80 per year)



Guests:

* Have 45 minutes per day online time;

* Can read and post email;

* Can read and post messages in the Local message areas;

* Can see all the files on the hard drive and CDROM, but not download them.



Standard members:

* Have 60 minutes per day online time;

* Can read and post Internet email world-wide;

* Can read and post messages in the Usenet newsgroups;

* Can download any files on the hard drive;

in addition to everything a Guest can do.



CDROM members:

* Have 90 minutes per day online time;

* Can download any files on the CDROM.

in addition to everything a Standard member can do.



Super members:

* Have 3 hours per day.

in addition to everything a CDROM member can do.



In addition to paying for membership, you may also want to pay for some

Net Credit to allow you to send and receive Internet email. You can pay

for as much or as little Net credit as you like at the time of your

membership payment. There is a separate information file describing how

Internet email is charged.



To become a member of Adam's Apple BBS, fill out the Membership Form, and

send it in with payment to the address shown on the membership form.



Alternatively, you can pay using a MasterCard or BankCard. Instead of

sending in a membership form, write me an email message telling me your

card details and what you want to pay for.



If there are any questions or difficulties with membership, please don't

hesitate to send mail to the sysop asking for help or information.