Dialog Information Services —————————————- is owned by Knight Ridder and has more than 400 databases online. They offer a long list of newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle in full-text, Newsbytes, Information Access, the Japan Technology database, most major global news wires, Trademarkscan, USA Today, Teikoku Databank from Japan. Knowledge Index offers evening and weekend reduced-rate access to more than 100 popular full-text and bibliographic databases and 50,000 journals (1993). Dialog has gateways to other services, like CompuServe and iNet, making the databases available to a larger market. Many databases are also available on CD-ROM. In Europe, contact DIALOG Europe, P O Box 188, Oxford OX1 5AX, England. You can telnet to DIALOG.COM (192.132.3.254, US$ 3/hour in 1992).
Down Jones News/Retrieval ————————————- focuses on news for finance and business. DJN/R is the sole online distributor of The Wall Street Journal (with articles from the international editions), Barron's, Dow Jones and Telerate's newswires in full-text. Further, it has PR Newswire, many other newspapers in full- text, clipping service, online charting for investors, and gateways to other services like Info Globe (Globe and Mail in Canada). Address: P.O. Box 300, Princeton, N.J. 08543-9963. DJN/R is also accessible through a gateway from MCI Mail. You can telnet to djnr.dowjones.com . At the WHAT SERVICE PLEASE prompt, enter DJNR and press Enter. An ENTER PASSWORD prompt will appear. Here, enter your normal DJNS account password.
ECHO
——
European Commission Host Organization is accessible via CONCISE.
Telnet either to concise.ixi.ch (130.59.2.16) or concise.funet.fi
(128.214.6.181). Login: concise, password: concise. The NUA address
is 0270448112. You can also telnet to echo.lu . Login as echotest
or echo.
ECHO's I'M GUIDE is a free database providing information about
online services within the European Common Market. It includes CD-
ROMs, databases and databanks, database producers, gateways, host
organizations, PTT contact points, and information brokers in
Europe.
ECHO's other databases are classified under the headings
Research and development, Language industry, Industry and economy.
For information contact: ECHO Customer Service, BP 2373, L-1023
Luxembourg. Tel.: +352 34 98 1200. Fax: +352 34 98 1234.
Exec-PC Network BBS —————————- is based in Milwaukee (Wisconsin, U.S.A.). In August 1991, it had 238 incoming phone lines, 9 gigabytes of disk capacity, more than 100 new programs/day, 300,000 programs available for downloading (including the complete selection from PC-SIG California) and more than 130,000 active messages in its conferences. More than 3,300 persons called EXEC-PC each day. The service focuses on owners of IBM compatible computers (MS/PC-DOS, Windows, OS/2, Windows, Unix), Apple Macintosh, Amiga and Atari ST through over 200 conferences. You can access EXEC-PC through i-Com's outdial service, Global Access, PC-Pursuit, Connect-USA, and by direct dialing. Annual subscription costs US$60.00. You can sign on while online. Unregistered users get thirty minutes per day free.
FidoNet ———- was founded in 1984 for automatic transfers of files from one place to the other at night, when the telephone rates are low. FidoNet is one of the most widespread networks in the world. It consists mainly of personal computers (IBM/Amiga/Macintosh…). FidoNet systems exchange documents by using a modem and calling another FidoNet system. Communication can be either direct to the destination system (calling long distance) or by routing a message to a local system. Each computer connected to FidoNet is called a node. There are nodes in around 70 countries. In June 1993, the net had 24,800 nodes throughout the world (source: FidoNet nodelist). The number of nodes is growing at about 40 percent per year. Most nodes are operated by volunteers, and access is free. FidoNet is believed to have over 1.56 million users (1992). Conferences (called ECHOs or Echomail) are exchanged between interested nodes, and may thus have thousands of readers. A typical FidoNet Echomail conference gets 50 to 100 messages each day. Any connected BBS may carry 50, 100, or more echomail conferences. Net Mail is the term for storing and delivering mail. FidoNet users can send and receive mail through the Internet. The list of member bulletin boards is called the Nodelist. It can be retrieved from most boards. Each node has one line on this list, like in this example:
,10,Home_of_PCQ,Warszawa,Jan_Stozek,48-22-410374,9600,V32,MNP,XA
The commas are field separators. The first field (empty in this example) starts a zone, region, local net, Host, or denotes a private space (with the keyword Pvt). The second field (10) is the node number, and the third field (Home_of_PCQ) is the name for the node. The fourth field (Warszawa) is a geographical notation, and the fifth field (Jan_Stozek) is the name of the owner. The sixth field is a telephone contact number, and the other fields contain various technical information used in making connections. FidoNet has six major geographical zones: (1) North America, (2) Europe, etc., (3) Oceania, (4) America Latina, (5) Africa, (6) Asia. For information, contact the International FidoNet Association (IFNA), P.O. Box 41143, St. Louis, MO 63141, U.S.A. You can also write to postmaster@fidonet.fidonet.org . The FIDO subdirectory in the MSDOS directory on SIMTEL20 (on the Internet) contains extensive information, including explanation of FidoNet, guide for its nodes, gateways between FidoNet and Internet, and various programs and utilities. (See TRICKLE in Chapter 4 for more about how to get these files.)
Fog City Online Information Service —————————————————- is the world's largest bulletin board with AIDS information. Based in San Francisco (U.S.A.) it offers free and anonymous access for everybody. Call +1-415-863-9697. Enter "AIDS" by the question "First name?" and "INFO" by the question "Last Name?".
FT Profile ————— has full-text articles from Financial Times in London, from several European databases (like the Hoppenstedt database with more than 46,000 German companies), and the Japanese database Nikkei. Profile is available through Telecom-Gold, and can also be accessed through other online services. Clipping service. CD-ROM. Contact FT Information Services at tel.: +44-71-873-3000.
GEnie ——- General Electric Network for Information Exchange is GE's Consumer Information Service. GEnie gives access to many databases and other information services. It has around 350,000 users (1992). The basic rate is US$4.95/month plus connect charges. The surcharge is US$18/hour between 08:00 and 18:00, and US$6.00/hour for some services, like email, downloading of software, "chat," conferences, and multi-user games. Access to Internet email is available as a surcharged add-on service. (Addressing format: userid@GEnie.GEis.com) For information call +1-301-340-4492. GE Information Services, 401 N. Washington St., Rockville, MD 20850, U.S.A.