From: jamesd@techbook.com (James Deibele)
Subject: Re: Offline Readers
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 00:44:40 GMT

vince@victrola.sea.wa.us (Vince Skahan) writes:
>there are simply no better *MSDOS* usenet news/mail/uucp packages available.

That's probably true.  I've never looked at FSUUCP, and UFgate is dog
slow.  But while that's important to sysops running MS-DOS Waffle, it's
irrelevant to UNIX Waffle sysops or <users> who are using a Waffle BBS.
And the important part is to get users, right?

>No, it's not 'real unix' so the modern news software like 'nn' doesn't work.

I run real UNIX - the AT&T copyright comes up when I boot.  Since this
machine is dedicated to the BBS, I could run Coherent, Linux, or BSD386.
Or OS/2 or Windows, for that matter.

>It's totally unfair to compare DOS Waffle to 'nn' and 'elm'.  There's no
>comparison because of the constraints of DOS.

No, it's not unfair.  Elm and other newsreaders are available for DOS.
Since I've got source, I can rewrite Waffle so it calls elm instead of
Waffle's mail program.  But then if I upgrade to the next version of
Waffle, I have to keep maintaining that.

Because I think Tom's design is towards a "BBS construction set", I'd
like to see him continue that trend.  Let Waffle keep an eye on time and
permissions, so it knows when to kick somebody offline or not let them
into the company newsgroup.  He can't write everything, so write the
"glue" and let other programmers write a better news section, a better
files section, etc.

>It gets the job done far better than anything else out there for DOS.

I can get two UNIX-like operating systems for free.  I can get another
one for about the price of a legal copy of DOS.  But I don't want to run
UNIX or Waffle on a small machine.  An offline reader fits nicely onto
laptops and systems with limited hard drive room.

>There are lots of hook-in replacements for Files, which is a tribute to
>Tom's design to allow such things.  The files section is very prominently 
>identified by Tom on the 'need to improve' list.  Yes, it could be better.  

Has been for a couple of years now.  I am not aware of a single "hook-in
replacement" for the UNIX Waffle.  Care to name one?

>setting up waffle to be a mail node and get a little news is trivial
>if you read a little...hell, the darn thing's plug-n-play out of the box.

Yeah, right.  I'd be real curious to see how much time people who say
that it's "plug-n-play" really spent on it.  Not that Waffle is that
much more difficult than most programs, but I find that after a few
months most people tend to forget the trouble they had. 

>Are they USENET compatible ?  I think not.

Some of them are, or are getting real close.  Two Mustang! systems in
Portland have announced plans to start Internet mail and (I think)
Internet news.  Jack Rickard of Boardwatch fame wrote an Internet mail
processor for TBBS.  There's uuPCB for PC Board.  And Waffle, UFgate,
and probably other programs do FidoNet<->Usenet.

>How many FidoNet floods of old/garbage news are there annually?

Three or four.  How many people misconfigure their news sites?  You
rarely see it because the big sites run big history files.  How many
news sites out there have been abandoned, but are still running?  Go ask
Henry Spencer or Geoff Collyer the number of sites running B news
because it still works, but there is literally nobody doing the admin
work.  It's a testimony to the attention paid to compatibility ...

>Yes, there is merit in what you'd like and I'm sure that he's working on
>at least some of it.  He's provided enough hooks for others to help too
>and people (like Rhys) have written some nice add-ons.

I'd like to see some sort of plan for the future from Tom.  I don't have
any intention of using Chrome, but I may be an untypical Waffle sysop.
Obviously most Waffle sysops are running under DOS, but I'd think they
wanted the same type of things I do.

>Look at 1.65 versus the functionality of 1.63 a couple of years ago and
>you'll see the improvements ARE there and are continuing to be there...

I doubt that I'll care if it takes much longer.  I'm already planning on 
bringing up a DOS BBS alongside my UNIX BBS to provide the functionality 
that Waffle can't deliver.  There'll be the shell for those who want it 
and the rest can spend their time more efficiently reading mail offline.

--
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