As the attached note indicates INFO-IBMPC is likely to die in a month.
 
Is there any interest in establishing an IBM PC oriented LISTSERV list?
 
One could expect it to be a very high usage list and might take
considerable effort by the list owners.
 
 
Date:  1 Jun 1987 17:56:58 PDT
Subject: Administrivia
From: Billy <[log in to unmask]>
 
I am resigning as editor of info-ibmpc as of 1 July 1987. The
position is up for grabs. There is nobody here at ISI who is willing
to take it over; so we need a new site as well. I will be
motorcycling in the Pacific Northwest at that time so I won't even be
around to answer the mail. I hope to be salmon fishing in mid July.
 
INFO-IBMPC has outlived its original purpose. When we started the
digest there was no source of technical information about programming
the PC. Dick Gillmann was the first to publish an assembly language
program. Many of us learned such basics as how to open a file from
copying this program.
 
Today there are dozens of well written books on DOS internals as well
as monthly magazines and on line information services that can keep
the serious programmer current on DOS and all its new variations.
INFO-IBMPC isn't really necessary anymore as a source of technical
information on PCs for computer scientists and career programmers.
 
Today INFO-IBMPC serves a different purpose. The PC has been taken up
by scientists of all sorts. A recent PBS documentary on "Chernobyl a
year later" brought this home to me. The interviewees were scientists
tracking radiation damage from the Chernobyl accident. From Poland to
Sweden all of the scientists interviewed had PCs or PC clones on
their desks.
 
I would like to see INFO-IBMPC move to some institution (preferably a
university) where it can be funded and make a serious attempt at
supporting those non computer scientists who are joining the net.
 
The net has also grown. When we started the digest there were less
than 200 hosts on entire network. The users were computer weenies or
military. Today we send the digest directly to nearly a thousand
sites, and many of those forward the digest on to other sites and
users. At that time the notion of a moderated digest was relatively
new having been pioneered by human-nets a few years earlier.
 
We have grown to the point that the digest form is too rigid. The
digest is already too long for everybody to read twice a week. I do
my best to cut down on the size of the digest by answering most of
the queries myself. If we had a staff we could answer more queries
call up the manufacturers and get definitive answers, publishing
only those queries and answers of interest to the general community
and keeping a database of all the answers.
 
I think something more on the model of MOSES or FAST is appropriate.
These are services consisting of programs and people built on top of
mail systems. I would like to see an INFO-IBMPC where we can make
greater use of data bases. The key word search function in our DLX
BBS is very helpful. Our digest database has long since grown past my
ability to remember digest discussions. It would be nice to keep a
database of users and their interests. This way users with similar
interests might be able to share information not of interest to the
wider community.
 
I am not satisfied with the digest in its present form. I would like
to see it grow to fit the needs of the larger community. We don't
have the resources to do that here. Also it is time for me to move on
and do something else.
 
An ideal situation would be to place INFO-IBMPC at a university that
already has a PC resources staff that provides service to the
university or group of universities. I have been negotiating with
some good candidates with excellent international reputations, but
everybody is short of money and can't afford a full time staff person
to coordinate the volunteers. If we could get funding we have a good
place to put INFO-IBMPC and can keep it going.
 
If you have resources at your site and would like to take over the
digest, you should have at least one full time paid staff member and
arbitrary numbers of student volunteers some of whom should be able
to read and write English. This is quite rare at universities as
witness many of the messages before editing. Good network connections
are essential. A university with Arpanet, Usenet, and Bitnet
connections is ideal; an Arpanet connection is minimal.
 
There is a lot more to one of these digests than just editing the
messages. For example I haven't been able to adequately deal with the
program library since our program librarian quit and got a paying
job.
 
Stories should be checked out. One of the nice things about editing
INFO-IBMPC is people from IBM, Microsoft, Ashton Tate, Intel, and
Lotus etc. know INFO-IBMPC and that it has some reputation for
fairness and will return phone calls and definitely respond
positively when people express legitimate complaints.
 
Most people should get a response to their query without having to
publish it in the digest. Not everybody cares about somebody's problem
hooking a Toshiba printer via a serial line to a PC. Usually the
editor can get an response and the query need not be printed.
Sometimes several messages go back and forth and the query still gets
printed. Most often the editor doesn't have time and the query gets
printed sometimes with an editorial comment.
 
I will not turn INFO-IBMPC into an automatic remailing list. I'd
rather see it go away entirely than watch it degenerate. Of course
the net is a free forum and anybody can do what they want. Please
send me your suggestions and offers. If nobody volunteers, INFO-IBMPC
will cease publication on 1 July 1987.
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[log in to unmask]            J. Philip Miller    (314) 362-3617
                                 Divison of Biostatistics - Box 8067
   Room 1108B                    Washington University School of Medicine
   706 S. Euclid                 St. Louis, Missouri 63110