Reflections of a ModemJunkie
                       by Leonard Grossman
One of the true joys of the modem world is meeting the people
behind the screen.  This is of course one of the main benefits of
CACHE. I have been fortunate enough to carry it a few steps
further.  On more than one occasion we have had dinners at our
house with people from the GEnie network. One of the couples had
actually met on a bulletin board.  He was from Utah and she was
from Brooklyn!  There have been other occasions as well.  One of
the highlights of our vacation in Washington D.C. last month was
dinner with Leonard Nadler, a retired college professor who is a
revered storyteller on the RIME network.  Moral: If you're
travelling, don't hesitate to post a message to people in the area
for hints or even to seek personal contact with people you know are
in the area. 

The vacation took a chunk of time out of my rambles this month.
(Did I really go eight whole days without touching a keyboard? Or
did my daily trip to the nearest ATM fill more than a financial
need?) But still, a few observations:

The world of on-line communications is changing.  With new charges
in the offing for various activities on Plodigy, modemjunkies are
testing the waters elsewhere.  They are being well received on the
GEnie roundtables and after a little hesitance are getting the hang
of it. I'm sure they are showing up elsewhere as well. THE
IBM/Sears combo has never really understood the modem community and
this effort to bail out the service will be just another nail in
its coffin.  The single monthly charge was the best thing Plod had
going for it.

Of course, one of the biggest changes in telecommunication is the
sudden spread of access to the Internet.  With GENie, Compu$erve
and America Online offering direct gateways, and others, such as
Delphi, reportedly offering a greater range of Internet features, a
whole new world is opening.  Of course George is to be
congratulated for setting up special menus on Syslink to ease
access to the Fidonet/Internet gateway. His gateway is probably the
least expensive way to access the net. (BTW messages sent through
Fidonet to internet recipients are usually received very quickly.
But be patient, return messages may take several days.)  There are
several new files describing the Internet on Syslink.

For Compu$erve fans, there are a pair of new off-line readers from
England available: TeePee for DOS and Wig Wam for Windows. (Isn't
that cute?)  I hope they can help cut down on on-line costs. If
they can, C'serve may become accessible to us mortals. I have tried
OZCIS and found it cumbersome and wasteful for those of us with
limited hardware.  And I was unable to configure it to do what I
wanted. I have downloaded TeePee but have not yet had the
opportunity to configure it.  I'll give you a report when I do.  In
the meanwhile, If someone has had experience with TAPCIS, C'Serve's
own offline program, please send Phil a review.
The new files are available in the U.K. Computing forum (GOUKCOMP)
Library 10 "Wigwam/TP. TPEVAL.EXE and other relevant files should
be on Syslink by now, as well.

Next month: Discipline


Copyright 1993 Leonard Grossman