From the FidoNews
Fido/Collie Sysops' Meeting in Japan in 1986
From FidoNews, Volume 4, Number 28 (27 Jul 1987)
FidoNet (r), International BBS Network Newslatter
Yoshi Mikami, November 26, 1986
FidoNet in Japan
[Editor's note: Sorry for the unusually long delay on this
article. It came to us via a very circuitous route.]
FIDO/COLLIE SYSOPS' MEETING
The November Fido/Collie Sysops' meeting was attended by
Tatsuyuki Arai, Yoshi Mikami, Maki Ohtoh and Junsei Yamada. It
was held on 11/14/86 at 7:00, at Renoir coffee shop (phone 03-
493-1454) near the east exit of Osaki Station in Tokyo. Arai,
Jun Moriya, John Takiguchi and Yamada had started this meeting on
every second Friday of the month from last August to discuss
common FidoNet issues and concerns. For Mikami and Ohtoh, it was
the first time to meet these people.
We jointly decided that we will write to International FidoNet
Association, St. Louis, Missouri, to get the FidoNet region
number for Japan. We do not want a host node under Pacific
Region 12, out of Honolulu, Hawaii, as other Asia-Pacific
countries such as Australia and New Zealand are operating.
Mikami will write the letter.
Arai wants to use the POLL and PICKUP functions on the receive-
only FIDO node in Tokyo from his FIDO at home. Those functions
do not work properly for him. Tom Jenning's 8/85 documentation
that he has does not explain in sufficient detail how to use
these functions. We will get assistance from Fido operators in
U.S.
We know that there is a Usenet gateway, run by Bob Hartman, on
FidoNet 101/101, according to the 8/86 Fido documentation. Does
anyone know how to contact a Usenet node in Japan?
Before switching to Fido, Arai ran Collie in October to find that
Collie handles the Japanese Kanji characters nicely. (Ohtoh and
Mikami have some Japanese messages in their systems.) However,
Collie has a minor problem in handling Japanese characters, in
the sense that some Japanese characters are interpreted as
Collie's control characters. We will write to D. Plunkett when
Jun Moriya returns from his trip to Australia to get the author's
help (because he knows the technical details).
Arai wanted to confirm, and all the meeting attendees agreed,
that FidoNet in Japan will be operated on a non-profit basis,
without discrimination of any kind.
The name of FidoNet Japan was authorized to be used on
Takiguchi's Fido BBS by Tom Jennings earlier this year, according
to Arai. (The Newsletter Editor doubt that this has any
significance, but it is documented here as this was discussed at
the meeting.)
Any would-be Fido/Collie sysops are welcome to attend this
monthly meeting. The next meeting is on December 12, at the same
time, at the same place. If English assistance is needed, help
will be provided.
COLLIE NET TEST IN KANSAI AREA
After some pioneering work in April and May 1986, the Fido/Collie
activities picked up in the Kansai area recently. Geki Hagiwara
provided the following experience report:
* * * * * * *
A BBS network FidoNet was formed and tested in Kansai area in
Sep/Oct 1986. Actually the software was Collie (Colossus)
which simulates FidoNet packet transfer protocol. One of the
reasons we chose Collie, not Fido, was that Collie resets the
modem every time the session is over. It is believed that
some modems cannot detect 1200/300 and CCITT/BELL in
particular sequences. In such case resetting the modem may
be effective. Through our experience Hi-Modem 1200C looked
working satisfactorily.
The members of TMCNET and their equipments are:
NET NODE Name Area Phone H/W
--- ---- ------------- ----- ------------ --------
001 001 Joe Takemura Osaka 06-674-1933 JX-5+HDD
002 K. Sawaguchi Osaka 06-XXX-XXXX JX-4
002 001 Geki Hagiwara Yasu 0775-86-0919 JX-4+HDD
002 Ken Iwamoto Kyoto 075-XXX-XXXX JX-5
003 Junji Tanaka Shiga 0778-XX-XXXX JX-5
First, each node operator entered messages to several members
and the other sysops; then we set Net mail time and watched
how Collie sends and receives packets. We had a hard time to
find the best combination of modem initialization commands
and DIP switch setting. (We were helped by Maki Ohtoh.)
We used the following MODMINIT.BBS file:
ATX1
ATH1
(one blank line - wait 2 seconds)
ATS0=1
ATV0
ATH0
The Collie startup command was:
A>COLLIE /2 /M2 /I1200 /C32
| | | |____ Carrier mask bit
| | |____ Modem init. baud rate
| |____ Modem type
|____ COM2 port
The modem DIP switch setting was:
SW1 DTR OFF
SW2 Result no effective
SW3 Return ON (should have no effect)
SW4 Echo no effective
SW5 Answer no effective
SW6 CD OFF
SW7 Tel.line OFF (depends on phone line)
SW8 Command ON
Although the modem operation was unstable like trying to call
while the modem is off hook, the test resulted in a great
success. We just tested the network formed by JX systems,
but this network would not be open to public until the mail
charge system is established.
* * * * * * *
For other details, contact Hagiwara or Joe Takemura at the BBS
sytem number (at night only) listed above.
FIDO/COLLIE SYSTEMS IN OPERATION
To our knowledge, the following five Fido/Collie BBS systems are
currently operating on regular basis:
017-653-5181 ext. 226-7408, Loki BBS (Fido), by Jon
Spelbring, 24 hours, 1200/300 (CCITT & Bell)
045-761-9406, SurfSide Net (Fido), by Tatsuyuki Arai,
24 hours, 2400/1200/300 bps (CCITT & Bell)
045-894-7656, Collie Yokohama, by Maki Ohtoh,
24 hours, 1200/300 bps (CCITT & Bell)
0466-27-2077, Big Blue BBS (Collie), by Yoshi Mikami,
10:00-11:30 PM Japan Std Time, 1200/300 (C&B)
082-842-6401, Strawberry Doughnut Net (Collie), by
Hitoshi Sugimoto, 10:30-11:55 PM JST, 200/300 (C&B)
Fido Japan 03-432-0185 by John Takiguchi is temporarily closed.
Mikami, Ohtoh and Sugimoto have been exchanging net messages very
successfully at 10:45-11:00 PM time slot, since early October,
between Fujisawa/Yokohama and Hiroshima, a distance of 500 miles.
After much experiment, Infotech's Hi-Modem 1200C among the
several JATE-approved Hayes-compatible (AT-command compatible)
modems was found to handle the Fido/Collie net message
transmission. They would like to hear other people's experiences
on other modems, because there definitely is a need here for good
modem competition.
Ken Sugimoto has translated most of the Collie .MNU files into
Japanese for easier operator interface, and has been operating a
Collie node since October, somewhere near the Fish Market in
Tsukiji, Tokyo. We'll get his phone number shortly.
We do not claim to know everything happening in Japan regarding
Fido or Collie. Please contact anyone of us to let others know
what's going on.
LETTER TO REQUEST JAPANESE REGION NUMBER SENT
A letter was sent 11/16/86 by Mikami to International FidoNet
Association requesting a region number for Japan, with copies to
Tom Jennings (author of Fido BBS software) and Dan Plunkett
(author of Colossus BBS sofware). A fifty dollar check was
enclosed as our donation. Copies were also sent to people
mentioned in Item 1.a. above.
*** INTERNATIONAL NEWS ***
MESSAGE EXCHANGE WITH HONG KONG
Katsu Shintani called FIDO BBS in Hong Kong 00852-5-893-7856 in
October. This is the nearest Fido/Collie BBS overseas that we
know of. In return, Fido Japan and Collie Yokohama received a
few messages from Hong Kong.
ASSISTANCE TO OTHER ASIAN COUNTRIES
There are several FidoNet systems running in Australia and
Indonesia according to the 3/86 nodelist. We would like to
identify other Fido systems that may be operating in this region
of the world. We also offer assistance if help is needed to set
up Fido or Collie BBS in the Asia-Pacific countries.
For those who may not know, Colossus ("Collie") is Fido-
compatible software that is beginning to be used this year.
Top of Page
The First Asian BBS Sysops' Conference
From FidoNews, Volume 7, Number 26 (25 June 1990)
FidoNet (r), International BBS Network Newslatter
Yoshi Mikami
Fido 3:720/13.12
RESULTS OF FIRST ASIAN BBS SYSOPS' CONFERENCE IN TAIPEI
- JUNE 9, 1990
-------------------------------------------------------
Note: The non-English special characters that you may see
below in this memo are Japanese characters in the
original text.
Date: June 16, 1990
To: Kyoo-myun Hahn, Honlin Lue, Toshiyuki Omi, and Other BBS
Sysops in Asia
From: Yoshi Mikami, now in Taipei, Taiwan
Subject: The Results of the First Asian BBS Sysops' Conference in
Taipei - June 9, 1990 (First Draft Report)
Dear Friends,
Six people from Japan (including one who lives in Keelung,
Taiwan), two from Korea and 45 from ROC/Taiwan attended the First
Asian BBS Sysops' Conference that was held at Taiwan University
Alumni Association Bldg. in Taipei on June 9, 1990. On the
agenda were:
1. Welcome & Intro H. Lue CΒΡ 20
2. BBS in Asia
Japan T. Omi εόrK 20
Korea K.M. Hahn Ψ\j 20
Taiwan B.L. Lin Ρ΄ 20
- - - - - Intermission - - - - - - - - - - - - 15
3. Multi-Byte Presentations of Asian Languages@
Taiwan C.C. Lee u¬ 20
Korea K.M. Hahn Ψ\j 20
Japan Y. Mikami OγgF 20
4. Special Topics: Relationship with Commercial Networks
TTN-Serve A. Liu «θΙΰ 20
5. Conclusion B.L. Lin Ρ΄ 5
We had good time, superb discussions that continued all through
the dinner time from 7:00pm till 9:00pm, and excellent experience
to share information on what we do in the three Asian countries
from which the attendees came from.
Honlin Lue and Jimmy Tsai presided over the conference. Honlin
kicked off the meeting at 3:30pm (it was a partially rainy day
towards the end of the late April-early June rainy season and
Taipei's taxicabs all disappeared), welcoming everybody and
introducing the participants from overseas and then from Taiwan.
We had about seven female participants. Among the participants
were a computer magazine journalist from Korea and a few
journalists from Taiwan. (Toshiyuki Omi was asked by the
Japanese computer magazines to write about this conference.) Tad
Sekineh, who lives in Keelung, Taiwan, provided simultaneous
translation over the mini-FM transmitter (that Yoshi Mikami had
brought from Japan), to which everybody listened with portable FM
radio.
Honlin had prepared a big signboad in the conference room and, to
everybody, a copy of the abstracts of the speakers. He had also
prepared for the foreign guests nice banners of his own design,
which showed Taipei's very artistic West Gate (Όε) that was
destroyed during Japan's occupation of Taiwan. If this kind of
brutality over the human culture ever happened at our time, we
would stop it in a swift island-wide protest against such a
stupidity, whether the government of that time felt the gate was
hazardous to traffic or not, using our telecommunications
network!
Toshiyuki Omi, Sysop of Foreign PC User Club (FPUC) BBS, in
Nagoya, spoke on the general BBS scene in Japan, which he
summarized in two words: competition and cooperation. He feels
that the Japanese telecommunications users, inspite of the recent
competition in domestic and international telecommunication
systems, cannot enjoy low cost telecommunications which the U.S.
users are used to. Toshiyuki mentioned that there is a great
deal of competition and cooperation among the 1,000 or so private
BBSes, the many non-profit regional systems and a douzen or so
big commercial networks, such as NIFTY-Serve, the Japanese
version of CompuServe. He brought with him a BBS Telephone
Directly (aardb ), a quarterly publication of all known
private/public/commercial BBSes in Japan. His BBS is networked
with unique 8-bit NetMail to about 10 other BBSes in Japan, one
of which can be dialed up through a digital packet network
(TYMPAS), domestically and internationally.
Toshiyuki was unique in his own way, not using the NEC computer
(which is the personal computer that most Japanese users have for
their home use) so much and rather liking to use foreign-made PCs
(such as IBM, Mac and Amiga) for their better user interface. A
question was asked which BBS host programs are typically used on
the NEC; his answer was many, not any one or two particularly
used.
Kyoo-myun Hahn (he always wrote his name as Hahn Kyoo-myun) of
Seoul, Korea, next discussed (in English) his EMPAL ("electronic
mail pal=friend") BBS which runs under Xenix, a UNIX vaiant. He
talked about how data communications over dial-up telephone and
modem (very expensive only a few years ago) had started in Korea.
Since he was so busy just before the conference, he was the only
one who had not submit the abstract of his intended speech.
However, his presentation was very clear and understandable.
As a third speaker of the BBS Scene in Asia, Bor-lon Lin near
Taichung, Taiwan, had prepared a lengthy paper on the Taiwan BBS
scene, mainly taked about the FidoNet of which Honlin and he play
key roles, calling overseas and coordinating the 75 or so FidoNet
BBSes in Taiwan. The FidoNet sysops in Taiwan had made
modifications to QuickBBS and other U.S.-made BBS host programs,
and FrontDoor and other mailer programs, so that the 8-bit
Chinese language (Big-5 Code) can be used in the message areas
and the mailer.
In the Q&A session, Bor-lon himself asked if he has to send a
large amount of data for the 8 or so small number of FidoNet
systems in Japan. (The FidoNet systems in Japan are under the
Taiwan-Korea-Japan area with Taipei as the area hub, which is
under the Australia-Far East Region with its regional hub in
Sydney.) I answered that Japan FidoNet's international connection
just started in January, 1990, and that some more patience is
required to see an increase in the number of systems. I pointed
out that his talk was rather biased to the FidoNet in Taiwan, as
if no non-FidoNet BBS existed in Taiwan and that his presentation
was better understood only in a FidoNet conference. (See *Note
below.) There was an abstract of Taiwan's BBS history written by
Honlin in Chinese, which I found was very instructive---I hope
someone will translate it into English soon.
We then proceeded to discuss the technical gutts of the BBSing in
Asia: the Multi-Byte Presentations of the Asian languages. As
we know well, the Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages use the
"Han" characters ("Chinese characters" if you like), which are
presented in a sequence of two or three bytes, in MS-DOS and UNIX
(AIX if you like). First, C.C. Lee made a well prepared
presentation of his view of the mult-byte presentation of Chinese
language, highlighting several key points. C.C. spoke in
Chinese and his abstract was written in Chinese---I wish his
abstract was translated into English soon.
C.C. spoke of a program written recently by Deng Lin, a 16-year
old high school student, which adds the "Eten" Chinese graphic
characters to the original Chinese character codes, that the
receiver can display the sender's original Chinese message in any
EGA-equipped IBMPC compatible (without any special "Chinese
character card.") I talked to Deng, the youngest BBS sysop,
during the dinner time. This kind of approach can be
experimented in the Japanese and Korean personal computers. The
source code is included in his package.
The second speaker of the Multi-Byte presentation was K.M. Hahn.
He talked about the two Korean character set standards and the
fact that his BBS supports both. K.M. also discussed the
somewhat emotional debate of whether the number of the
Korea-unique characters (Hangeul) should be increased from the
current 2,000, at the sacrifice of the Han characters.
Yoshi Mikami, then, spoke about how this Asian BBS Sysops'
Conference was organized (remembering his experience in the
oracle bones room at the National Palace Museum in Taipei two
years ago) and the Japanese view of the multi-byte presentation
of the Han characters. Although Japan uses one 7,500 JISCII
character set standard (sometimes called "Shift-JIS")
universally, it has its own unique problems such as the new,
additional 6,000 characters being defined in 1990. A set of 5
specific proposals, such as making one or two key BBSes in Taipei
bilingual, and defining the Chinese common names (such as Hau) in
the Japanese and Korean character sets, were made. Let's make
Honlin's Modem Way BBS 02-322-5113 and C.C.'s and Jimmy's BBSes
truly bilingual, Chinese and Englsh, so that the international
travellers in Taipei can talk to the Chinese people here!
Each speaker well exceeded the given time, eagar to communicate
what they want to say. The unique nature of the multi-byte
situation in each country seemed somewhat boring to some
participants. Next on the agenda was our relationshi with the
commercial networks. Taiwan Telecommunications Network (TTN)
sent five representatives, but three of them had left because it
was close to 6:30pm when Adam Liu started a well prepared
presentation of TTN's TTN-Serve, the Chinese language version of
CompuServe, using transparencies. He described where the
gateways are located in Taiwan, what PC character codes (Big-5,
TCA, etc.) can be used, which modem speeds (1200/2400 bps) and
file transfer methods (XModem and CompuServe B) are supported,
etc.. TTN-Serve's features, compared to the private BBSes, are
reliability and availability, and connectivity to CompuServe and
Japan's NIFTY-Serve, as I understood. To me, it was worthwhile
to discuss this first commercial network in this area, which will
start its service in July, 1990. I wish them a lot of success!
At 6:30pm, Bor-lon Lin concluded the conference, thanking
everybody for participation. (Or at least I guess that's what he
said, because Tad had to leave for Keelung a little before
5:00pm, and Adam who picked up the simultaneous translation made
his presentation in Chinese---I encouraged him to do so because
the majority of the audience was from Taiwan---and nobody
volunteered translation.) We proceeded immediately to the
buffet-style dinner in the same room, for NT$350.00. I would
like to thank Honlin, Jimmy and CC to prepare everything on the
Taipei side. I hope you understand by now that my pushing you to
get the abstract done, the attendees list propared, etc., etc.
from Japan was after all needed, in this kind of international
conference!
As follow-up, I will be getting from K.M. Hahn the
English-language summaries of the Korean BBS Scene and Multi-Byte
Presentations, and the Korean Telecommunications Environment,
which he said he would be sending to me. I would also would like
to collect copies of the articles of this BBS Sysops' conference
when they appear in the computer/telecommunication magazines in
each country.
I spent this Saturday morning at the hotel to summarize the
meeting results, as above, but if you feel that I am somewhat
biased, please feel free to contact me through Honlin's Modem Way
BBS, 02-2-322-5113, or James' INTERNET BBS 02-931-3045. I hope
to get your reactions by June 20, because I plan to make my trip
to Japan June 24-30 and to report the meeting results to my BBS
Sysop friends in Japan. I believe that Toshiyuki's article in
the quarterly NETWORKER magazine will appear in the September 18
issue---I may have to help him on that.
I will see you again in a similar meeting in Japan, Korea or
Taiwan (maybe, at the same time of the year and at the same
place?)! Happy BBSing!
Yoshi Mikami
Taipei, Taiwan
(*Note) In the following week, on June 14, I attended the June
monthly meeting of Taiwan Users' Group (TUG) that was held at
American Legion Bldg. in Hshilin 7:30-9:00pm, and reported the
results of this Asian BBS Sysops' Conference. TUG is a group of
people who share information in English about the members' useof
mainly IBMPC compatibles. It was an Amiga night, by the way,
that night. I met there with James Thomas who told me about his
GT-NET network in Taiwan, with about 25 or so BBSes, such as
INTERNET BBS 02-931-3045 (English only; TUG uses it as a club
BBS) and NIGHT CATS BBS 02-821-9910 (bilingual Chinese/ English).
Two of the GT-NET BBSes have gateway connection to FidoNet.
James takes care of calling the GT-Power network hub in
Washington, D.C., regularly, and distributes NetMail and EchoMail
to other GT-NET BBSes, now mostly in Taipei. So, I know now that
Taiwan's BBS scene is not synonymous with FidoNet.
We need eveybody's participation in what we do and therefore
value even a tiny, independent BBS. We live in a free world,
so multiplicity should be our mode of BBSing mentality.
End of File
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Created: Mar. 3, 1996. Last update: Apr. 18, 2003.