Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm
Distribution: world
From: tomc@support.ie.com (Thomas Clodfelter)
Organization: Information Electronics, Hammondsport, NY USA
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 10:53:43 EDT
Subject: Re: Mac BBS software.... what options are there ?

Bernard_D._Aboba@bmug.org writes:

>Not so. Postal Union has the following problems:

>1. Cannot handle batched and compressed mail.

Firstly I think you mean NEWS here.  There is no such thing as batched
and compressed MAIL.  Handling batched items in FC is a bit of a trick
and we were afraid that without considerable though it would be a poor
performer.  batched will be in a later release.  BTW: In response to the
compresion issue, lets get our facts right.  The compression used in
news is very close to the mehod used in MNP5, which is why MNP5 is a
poor choice if you are using news compression.  v.42bis does a much
better job than ANY UNIX compression method.  It is true that some utilities
such as Stuffit and DD get better compression, but those are not in use
in UNIX news so that is not going to do anyone any good.  The fact is
that is IS better to let the modem do it.  I have seen as much as 3:1
under v.42bis in normal use, with uncompressed news that is.

>2. Cannot take UUCP incoming; can only poll.

Well, the version that you have can take incoming calls?  This was a feature that we left out of the origional Lite due to the
fact that most people did not need it.  It was a feature reserved for
Deluxe.  We did add it to a later update.

>3. Is very slow; can only process around 1 message/second on a IIfx

This is a tough one.  Programs that can takeover machines don't hav eto
be nice to them.  Most PC UUCP's take over the machine.  PUL has to be
NICE to the machine since it MAY be running on the same machine as
FirstClass.   Maybe we went too far the other way, if so then we can
adjust that.  It is difficult to do high speed I/O on the mac when you
don't take over the system.  Read Apple's tech notes on the issue. 
Possiblt in a future version we will provide a hog adjustment.  The
slowness is caused by PUL cooperating with the OS so that it can
timeshare.

>4. Must be run on a separate machine

Not true at ALL.  It does require it's own comm device however.

>5. Is incompatible with the Comm Toolbox. Any comm toolbox connected
>lines will cause Postal Union to crash on callup. 

This is actually a problem with the Coomm Toolbox.  It is NOT designed
to help different programs share the same devices.  Again, read the
technotes.
It is documented that this version of PUL must own the comm device.  PUL
simply executes a CTB open.  If it crashes at thay point, the fault is
in CTB and your configuration.  Follow the directions and it will not
crash.

Besides, you guys were running a beta... If you are having crashed wre
are our beta reports.  No one reported any problems? :-}

  > I have run several UUCP/USENET gateways in my 
  > time. These include UFGATE and FredGate on 
  > the PC.

Did these pacjkages timeshare and allow other operations on the computer
while the connections were up?  This is one area where the mac is
difficult.

  >  Postal Union compares unfavorably with 
  > these packages (which are free, by the 
  > way).                                         
  >                                               

How much support do you get one these free packages?

Humm, I notice you are using PostalUnion?

 
***************************************************************************
 W. Thomas Clodfelter                   Information Electronics
  tomc@ie.com               520 West Lake Road, Hammondsport, NY 14840 USA
                            voice: (607) 868-3331       fax:(607) 868-3333

[ This message was sent from FirstClass(tm) by PostalUnion(tm) from I.E. ]
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm