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(*) (*)
(*) The "official" cat ware review file (*)
(*) --- ---------- --- ---- ------ ---- (*)
(*) (*)
(*) Written by The Swordsman of (*)
(*) (*)
(*) The Apple Alliance (*)
(*) (*)
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I wrote this file because it will be very helpfull to new apple cat owners who
are confused by the huge variety of software now available for it. To begin
with some history on transfer programs. The first real cat xfer program to use
it's 202 1200 baud capability was Disk-Fer. It didn't pack, only sent full disk
sides, and was messy. But it was the first and only proram out for the better
part of 2 years, and it worked well over long distance, which even today the
latest cat xfer programs, sometimes do not. Sacrificing packing for accuracy.
Early in 1984 a program called Catsend was written by the Wombat and the Gonif.
It was used to send files which Disk-Fer could not, later more revisions of Cat
Send came out up to #3. They were all a step ahead of Disk-Fer, but the big
problem with them was that the code was incredibly messy. It escalated into a
giant 80 sector mess that totally refused to work over long distance. Sometime
in early 1985 another (There were about 50 of them) 3rd party patched Catsend,
this person was Die Katze, and while no one thought it would be anything more
then another patch that sector edited the author's name into the title page, It
was not. This final patch did work over long distance, and everyone was happy.
But it was nothing amazing, what it amounted to was a version of Disk-Fer that
was 9 times as long and added the ability to send files while sacrificing the
ability to work over long distance. The xfer prgram that Apple Bandit promised
in early 1984 was Disk-Fer ][, which according to him had 1200 baud catalog's,
and 2-way chat while sending like the old DFX ][. No one doubted that he could
do it, but as the months and then years dragged on since his promise, and Apple
Bandit stopped piracy altogether it became clear that Disk-Fer ][ was never to
be written, at least not by AB. During this time 2 more xfer programs came out.
One was a joke, but many people who never saw it thought it was real. This one
was written by the Atom and One Eye (They also did Disk Rigger, and wrote the
Thieve's Guild bbs software.) It was called Disk-Fer ]I[ and sent wares from
drive 1 to drive 2, funny, but people thought it was real. The other program
that came out was called Disk-Fer ][+, and was kind of a shorter version of
Catsend that would probably have caught on if it was written about 12 months
sooner then it's actual release date. Right around this time (The middle of
1985) 1 more xfer program was made, it was called Byte Blaster and came through
on one option that AB had promised, 2-way 1200 baud catalog's with lightbar
file selection. It lasted for about 2 weeks before the first version of a
program called Cat-Fur written by a guy who made the Catsend online run system.
The Micron's first version of the program was impressive, parts of it were real
slow (like chat) but it did everything AB said had Disk-Fer ][ would do. It had
1200 baud 2-way lightbar catalog's, and it had chat while sending. It also had
1 feature that was a great boon to bbs's, 1200 baud ack/nak for bbs's using
only the cat without the 212 card, so everyone with a cat using catfur could
login to the modified bbs's at 1200 baud! Only bad things about this are that
there is no terminal program that supports 202 in 80 columns, 1200 baud in 40
columns is way too fast to read word for word. The answer is that the bbs uses
a pause every 20 lines or so, altogether it's highly inferior to real 212 1200
baud, but also a lot better then 300 baud only, so if you have a 212 card, you
will not really care, if you don't, this will be really usefull to you. This is
the current state of the art in xfer programs, all the little bugs have been
worked out of it, and the newest revision is at 3.1. Now that the xfer history
lesson is over, on to the wares. They have been catagorised into different
types of program's.
Xfer Programs
+:+:+:+:+:+:+
Name: Cat-Fur 3.1
Comments: Read above, state of the art in 202 xfer's. Uses it's own protocol.
Written by: The Micron
Terminal Programs
+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+
Name: AE PRO, Ascii Express The Proffesional.
Comments: This is according to many the best terminal program ever written for
any computer or modem. It supports all modems, and is a commercial ware.
It is superior to anything on the market for the Apple //. This is a
definate must to get.
Written by: United Software Systems
Name: Black Market Express
Comments: This is a program to be used with cat-fur and cat-fur bbs's. It uses
the special 202 1200 baud protocol, and has a buffer to be used for text
messeges, send or view.
Written by: Night Owl
Name: Megaterm 4.0
Comments: A graphics terminal program that has a great autodialer. It has the
option to online run Catfur, Catsend, BME, Pixterm, or AE. Dials very
fast.
Written by: Mini Appler
Name: Pixterm 4.3
Comments: Another graphics terminal for use on HBBS's.
Written by: Mini Appler
Hackers, Scanners, Blue Boxes
+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+
If you want to call all over the country and not pay $5,000 phone bills you
need a way to avoid paying, so you can phreak. To phreak you need codes, and
other stuff. This is where these programs come in. There are 1,000's of them
so only the best ones are being listed, the others are just a copy of the
good ones with different print statements and 2 or 3 things changed around
anyways.
Name: The Cats Meow V
Comments: The ultimate tone maker for the cat, blue boxes, red boxes, grey
boxes, green boxes, white boxes, has a built in terminal program,
voice distorter, voice syntheziser, it's just awesome. The best tone
maker every written for the cat. Get it!
Written by: The Tempest
Name: Phantom Access 4.0
Comments: Unfortunately this program is not public domain, or even publicly
available. The author didn't want it distributed for some reason, and
the only way to get it is to know someone who will trade you a copy
usually they have to be a friend of the author, or just lucky, I got
a copy because a guy I know was desperate to get a new ware I had, so
he traded it to me with the condition that I don't give it out. In every
other way it is the ultimate hacker, scanner, even ascii hacker ever made
It does everything, better and faster then all the other stuff out. And I
only have about 8 of the programs for it, all together there are about 20
of them. It's hard to describe it because it's so different from anything
else out. It's like comparing Firmware to AE, or Disk-Fer to Cat-Fur.
Written by: Lord Digital
Name: Cat-Scan 4.0
Comments: A scanner, it searches for numbers with carriers. It's the best cat
scanner that's publicly available.
Written by: The Chip
Name: Cat Hacker 3.71
Comments: This is one of the first cat hackers. It's really slow, but it's also
reliable. Which most of the new cat hackers are not. See below.
Written by: Black Dog and The Exterminator
Name: HackPack
Comments: A audio detect hacker that tests codes fast, it would be good, but it
is extremely unreliable. Stick with cat hacker 3.71
Written by: The Klepto
Name: The Metro Express
Comments: Same as above.
Written by: Scarface
Name: Magic Dialer
Comments: Another scanner, this is one of the new kind that have a whole bunch
of routines stolen from beagle bros. disks that clear the screen in 50
different ways but don't work worth a shit. Stick with Cat-Scan 4.0
Written by: The Tracker
Name: Feline Phreaker II
Comments: What do you get when you write a copy of Cat hacker 3.71 in basic,
change the print statements, slow it down and make it unreliable. You
get this lousy program.
Written by: The Pawn
Name: Feline Phreaker III
Comments: The guy who wrote II has improved his programming by a lot, if you
want to use hackers that are not reliable. (HackPack and the others.) you
might as well pick this one, because it works best of the other's (That's
not saying much, but it is better.).
Written by: The Pawn
Name: Madd Hacker
Comments: Someone took HackPack and changed the print statements.
Written by: Klepto, changed to: Scotch and The Ronz
Name: H.A.C.K.
Comments: Another "fast hacker" from El Bandito. Like all the rest of them it
is totally unreliable.
Written by: El Bandito
Name: The Sprinting Cat ///
Comments: Sprint hacker, excellent sprint hacker.
Written by: Dr. Kracko
Name: Cat 2600HZ Dialer
Comments: Some guy changing print statements on Cats Meow, and adding a option
to call boards. Garbage.
Written by: Apple Man and the Hierophant
This is just a small fraction of the total hackers out there, but all of the
other stuff has 1 thing in common: It doesn't do what it's supposed to do fast,
or accurately. It's just some rodent trying to get his name on software. Most
of the programs that were mentioned fit into this category, namely garbage. If
you can manage to get Phantom Access, that's all you will ever need, if you
can't, then stick with: Cat-Scan 4.0, Cat Hacker 3.71 or Feline Phreaker III,
and The Cats Meow V.
BBS Remote Software
+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+
If you are considering putting up a bbs system. Here's a quick review of the
better program's out.
Name: Tele-Cat // V3.0
Comments: Probably the best bbs program ever written. Supports the Cat-Fur 202
1200 mode, and full duplex 300 and 1200. It has all the modifications you
will ever need, a excellent editor. And great dox, even including source
code for the obj files. Great software.
Written by: E&S Software: The Electron, The Surgeon, and The Byte
Name: Apple-Net
Comments: BBS program written by Apple Bandit. In it's normal state it is crash
proof, but be sure to get the real thing! there are 100's of people that
have made mods to it along the way, which do not work! and make your bbs
crashable.
Written by: Apple Bandit
Name: Nexus
Comments: Like a early Tele-Cat, don't bother, go with Tcat.
Written by: Barbarian Bones
Name: GBBS
Comments: Commercial bbs system. Lot's of backdoors made by the asshole author
when you had a choice between networks and this, the choice was for GBBS
but these days with Tcat, don't bother.
Written by: Greg Shaeffer
Name: Networks
Comments: The first commercial bbs program. Garbage.
Written by: Nick Niamo
Name: Online Run Catsend and Catfur
Comments: Boring bland, but functional if all you want to do is run a pw
catfur or ae system.
Written by: The Micron
Name: MegaBBS
Comments: Boring, see above.
Written by: The Necromancer.
That's about it for bbs software, the other stuff is just new print statements
on the above programs. Like Tele-cat 3.0, Tele-cat //+, 100,000's of Networks,
and other related garbage.
Disk Splitter's
+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+
This isn't really cat software but it's needed to split a full disk into send
able files on remote access boards.
Name: Dalton Disk Disintegrator DDD 2.1
Comments: The best, most efficient, most convienant and most widely used packer
out. The new version is 100% bug free. And I highly recommend it!
Written by: Dalton
Name: Disk Cruncher
Comments: Large, messy, forget it.
Written by: Bim
Name: Compactit
Comments: Written before DDD 2.0, was the best for about 2 weeks. Forget it.
Written by: ~{xn
Name: Disk Rigger 3.0
Comments: Accurate, but doesn't pack at all, and is very slow and clumsy to
use. Half of it consists of a spinning cursor routine. The old DDD had
a problem with track $21. I think the new one works it out, I have never
had any problems with it, but just in case always have this one around
for backup. For all it's faults it works all the time for everyone. DDD
seems to just not work for about 5% of the pirates. Whether they have bad
copies, or are just too stupid to work it is unknown. But have both.
Written by: The Atom
That just about cover's them all. A good "Toolkit" of Cat software should there
fore try to include the following:
Cat-Fur 3.1, BME 2.2, Megaterm 4.0, Pixterm 4.3, The Cats Meow, Phantom Access,
Cat Hacker 3.71, Cat Scan 4.0, Feline Phreaker III, AE Pro 4.2, DDD 2.1, Disk
Rigger 3.0, The Sprinting Cat ///, and Tele-Cat // v3.0. A guy called Red Devil
has just assembled most of the terminal programs mentioned in "Red Devil's Term
Package". This is a very good start.
Designer Awards
+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+
I just want to say thanks to all the people who have taken thier time to make
some of the really good programs out there. The Micron, Lord Digital and The
Tempest. I think these 3 people have done more for Cat wares then all of the
others combined. Also in this area is E&S software, who have really done a
great job on BBS program's, and Dalton for his excellent packer. Thank's Guys!
I also wanted to say this to all the people who crank out all the garbage files
about loser's, real pirate's, leeches, and all that stupid shit. Enough is more
then enough, the first Real Pirates Guide was a great new idea but now it looks
like every rodent in the world is busy making a loser file, half the time under
other people's names, and always taking stabs at so called losers who have done
more then the rodents making them will ever do in thier lives. If you think you
can do better, then do it, if not then shut the fuck up, because no one cares.
(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)
(*) (*)
(*) Cat Wares review by The Swordsman of The Apple Alliance. (*)
(*) (*)
(*) This file is accurate as of 10/85. Call these excellent Cat-Furs (*)
(*) ---- ---- -- -------- -- -- ------ ---- ----- --------- -------- (*)
(*) (*)
(*) Draco Tavern........................................707/745-5805 10 MB (*)
(*) The Prism...........................................201/637-6715 10 MB (*)
(*) Thieve's Guild......................................404/325-0358 10 MB (*)
(*) The Black Forest....................................617/431-7972 10 MB (*)
(*) The Observatory.....................................617/784-9047 12 MB (*)
(*) Smuggler's Revenge..................................617/581-5728 12 MB (*)
(*) The Bank............................................303/771-7531 10 MB (*)
(*) The Lonely Mountain (Proving Grounds XIII)..........205/967-5802 10 MB (*)
(*) (*) (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)
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