Text 3132, 46 rader
Skriven 2008-04-15 17:01:55 av Frank Reid (1542.fidoftscpubl)
   Kommentar till text 3117 av Björn Felten (2:203/2)
Ärende: Re: Proper nodelist format for Internet-only nodes?
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 FR> These types of arguments frustrate me.  If your goal is to keep
 FR> newcomers out of Fidonet by browbeating them on the nuances of
software
 FR> they can't change, you're succeeding.  Perhaps you should require
that
 FR> everyone joining Fidonet also know Morse code?

 > What makes you think that newcomers to Fidonet would try to find
MS-DOS
 > 6.22 or similar to install on their computers just to be able to join

 > Fidonet?

That's exactly my point, Björn!  They won't install MS-DOS, and they
certainly won't hunt the archaic software required to participate in
Fidonet.  That's why SBBS is important to this hobby today, as it is the
only viable choice available for new sysops.  With SBBS, a curious user
can have a fully functional BBS running smoothly under Windows Vista on
a quad-core machine in less than 30 minutes, including participation in
the QWK-based "DOVE-Net" network that's bundled in the configuration.
After spending an hour installing and configure Binkd, Argus or Irex,
they can also be importing and tossing the entire Fidonet echobone.
SBBS runs on every platform.  I've run it on FreeBSD/amd64 and now run
it on FreeBSD/i386.  I've also run it on Solaris.  While I don't use
Windows myself (for SBBS), most sysops run SBBS on every flavor of
Windows.  It's data files are extensible and shareable to multiple
platforms, if that's one's desire.

I know there are folks who still have a Pentium-60 with a 2 gig hard
drive and 32 megs of RAM who are happily running abandoned and
unsupported Fido software.  I actually also run a DOS-based node under
Windows XP (on another system 1:109/568) that runs the abandoned
Intermail and GEcho tosser, along with the required Y2KDATE and PKTDATE
utilities to address their poor Y2K compliance.  I have a RUN.BAT that's
mutated over nearly 20 years of "stuff" that I've put into the system.
I also have to run P5FIX to slow down my CPU to avoid dreaded Pascal
RTE-200 on various utilities that spawn.  I even have a DOS socket-based
(Waterloo TCP/IP stack) FTP client that I wrote largely myself to do
various file-box things before Irex and alternatives were available.

We simply aren't going to get new users to go through that to
participate in a message network when the Internet looms large.  Despite
the author's design decision to truncate quoted lines in his internal
editor, SBBS opens the door for newcomers.
--- SBBSecho 2.12-FreeBSD
 * Origin: BBS Doors, Upper Marlboro, MD (USA) (1:109/567)