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By Stephen Leon
200 Winston Drive
Cliffside Park, NJ 07010
Shocks At SIG/M
Major changes at SIG/M as Steve
resigns his position as the group's disk
editor. Steve tells us what he expects
in the CP/M public domain arena. If
he's right, the outlook is bleak.
ever a dull moment in the world
of public domain software! The
recognition by SIG/M that the
rest of the world was shifting away
from CP/M (Micro C, Issue #32) was
applauded by most of us as the only
way to save the SIG/M library from
the fate of most other CP/M libraries.
We thought that for SIG/M to survive,
it had to expand to include both CP/M
and PC-DOS/MS-DOS material. We
wanted source code, hacker type
material, and certainly no beggarware.
After the initial decision was made
at a SIG /M meeting to go into· other
areas, a few of the diehards insisted
that, since SIG/M was a part of the
Amateur Computer Group of New Jersey, the ACGNJ Board. should have the
final say. The Board voted unanimously to let SIG/M expand.
Some people, unfortunately, never
give up, so the battle continued. When
it reached a point where, for me, it was
no longer fun being disk editor, I did
what every volunteer has the right to
do - I said forget it!
Keith Peterson, who runs the CP/M
SIG on Genie, agreed to take over the
job. I certainly wish him well - but I
have my doubts about what will happen.
Being a SYSOP on one of the services can pay very well. SYSOPs
receive a percentage of what SIG users
pay for access time and rumor has it
that some of them may be making close
to six figures. I suspect that what goes
into the library may well be determined by what sells, and to my mind
that means the end of SIG/M as we
now know it.
N
42
(Editor's note: On the other hand, if a
program's popular on Genie, there could be
a good reason for it.)
Great New SYSOP Software
Many Micro C readers have been
calling our BBS (201-886-8041), and
we've enjoyed chatting with you whenever possible. We now have 160 megs
of storage on a network consisting of
an AT and 2 Turbo XTs. All of you are
welcome to call. We have no
preregistration requirements, and you
get full access to the system the first
time you're on.
In addition to the SIG/M and
PC/BLUE libraries, we have plenty of
CP /M and PC-DOS public domain
software. We also have a very large
selection of Amiga software. The daily
time allocation is currently 90 minutes.
With more than 1500 files and 12
separate directories, I got ambitious
and wrote a dBASE3+ program (compiled with Clipper) which automates
the handling of BBS directories. The
program keeps a master data base of all
files on the system. Within each record,
you can select up to ten subdirectories
for that program. As new files are
uploaded to the system, you can read
in the upload file directory, edit the
entries to indicate placement, and then
create the various directory files. All
told, it takes the program six minutes
to generate my dozen directories Jor
the complete system and various
categories in alphabetic order. It also
generates a reverse chronological directory with a cutoff of any date.
It seems to work rather well. The
only problem I have is that it's so easy
to generate new directories, I sometimes generate them a couple of times a
day. The compiled program, the
database files, and the dBASE source
code can be downloaded from our
board as BBDIR.ARC.
MICRO CORNUCOPIA, #35, April-May 1987
Bulletin Board Changes
If you've called the Micro C board
lately (503-382-7643), you will have
noticed a shift to commercial bulletin
board software (PC Board). We've also
shifted - from the public domain
RBBS to Dan Doman's dBBS. RBBS,
from the Capitol PC User's Group, is
probably one of the finest pieces of
public domain software available
(PC/BLUE Volumes 249 and 250).
We were running two copies of
RBBS on one machine using Quarterdeck's DESQview. It worked fine but even with a Turbo Board the speed
left something to be desired. We therefore looked at both PC Board and dBBS
as true multi-user alternatives. We settled on dBBS on almost a toss of a coin.
The deciding factor was that the dBBS
people were in New York near us, but
the PC Board people were all the way
out in Salt Lake City. In addition, it
was much simpler to convert from
RBBS to dBBS than to PC Board.
The Last Shock Of The Column
The other day I sent a check for $35
to register my copy of ProComm
(PC/BLUE 269). Once before I've paid
for beggarware, but then I sent Tom
Rettig a check for a copy of dGenerate.
I treated that as a direct purchase.
Here, I've. been using ProComm,
having discovered the value of its
Ymodem Batch mode, without the
slightest guilt or hesitation. After all, I
have no legal obligation to pay for the
software (notwithstanding some of the
statements in some of the beggarware).
ProComm is just such a good piece
of software, it· made me feel good to
send them a check - so I did!
No New SIG/M Releases
With all the problems at SIG/M,
quite naturally, there are no new
releases to report. Whether there ever