From: larry@trauma.rn.com (Larry Snyder)
Subject: Re: Questions about TBBS
Organization: Gator Communications - Feeds-R-Us 219-289-3745 
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 14:37:37 GMT

kendelm@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (kendel m mccarley) writes:

>file downloads on multiple systems very well due to his implementation
>of the different file transfer protocols internal to TBBS.  Phil
>liscensed the zmodem protocol from the author and gives a full 

But then on the other hand, eSoft (TBBS) is very slow at adding enhancements
into their product.  Zmodem comes to mind - it took Phil and eSoft
almost 3 years to include support for zmodem into TBBS -- while the 
majority of the other packages supported it for years.  Phil claimed
zmodem didn't work, but no one else had problems..

>TBBS has built in text file searching capability.  The index to the
>listed files is stored in text files, so it wouldn't be that hard to 
>setup commands that search for text strings to locate files.  There 
>are third party TDBS (this is the option module that allows you to 
>write dBase III code and have it run online) programs that better handle 
>large file areas and have all of the file download lists, etc. features.

TBBS is very fast in searches, and the file area is very well laid out.
Likewise, the message area is very neat and easy to use.  The things to
keep in mind is that their is no support for external applications (doors)
unless they are written specifically for TBBS using the TDMS module
which is an additional $900 (the cost of the TBBS specific modules to run
under this $900 package are in addition to the $900 (on top of the $900
for TBBS itself).  Also, TBBS doesn't (as of this time) support the scanning
and tossing and gating of email in real time - - so for message processing
your multiuser machine needs to be off-line and unavailable for your callers
(which is hard to believe in these days of multiuser, multitasking systems).

>TBBS has a limit on the amount of text that the screen editing buffer 
>supports, so messages entered can only be around 16k or so.  There is 
>no limit on messages that come from other sources and are merely 
>displayed on the system.  The topic board feature with the new version 
>of TBBS will allow you to support up to 15,752,961 different message 
>areas (if you consider that limiting, well.......).  Again, there are 
>third party TDBS programs that support mail differently.  I'm quite 
>happy with TBBS's quoting, message upload, and offline (.QWK) support. 

But there still is a limit as to the total number of messages on-line
at any given time -- I believe that number is small -- around 65K.  65K
may sound large at first -- but take into consideration the size of a
backbone usenet newsfeed -- we have 210,000 messages on-line now.  That 16K
limit will also kill you since many of the newsgroups have messages larger
than that.  I'm not sure if the 15,752,961 message areas can all be used
for network echomail -- or if that number is limited to something smaller.

>The system doesn't have to come down to support incoming calls if TIMS 

That's just for folks calling in and dumping off echomail/email bundles -
the processing like you said is another one of those eSoft products that
is due out "in a couple of months" - which we have heard before..

-- 
Larry Snyder                                    internet: larry@gator.use.com
keeper of the Gator                                   uucp: uunet!gator!larry
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.misc