PE> Hey Rod, you said that you used the technical echos on
PE> the internet, they were far better than the fidonet ones.
PE> Therefore, I assume you read + write internet newsgroups.

One of the massive differences between the net and fido
is that you dont actually have to do it like that. You
can chase up a tech problem without actually reading or
writing to newsgroups by searching on the entire collection
going back years with something like DejaNews instead.

But yes, I do read and write in newsgroups too.

PE> 1. Do you collect your mail using UUCP

Nope. I do what most do, use PPP instead.

PE> or do you pay exorbiant amounts of money to read it online?

You can do that, and it doesnt necessarily cost exorbitant amounts of
money. You can get an unlimited account for $25 per month class money.

There aint just those two choices tho, any decent newsreader
will allow you to do your newsgroups offline. Without using UUCP.
It works pretty much like say a fido point does with just a bit
of difference on how you specify the newsgroups you want etc.

Most people use something like Agent, Netscape or the MS Internet News.

PE> 2. How do you cope without a "To" field?

Currently I just carry on regardless. My newsreader displays
the posts in a particular newsgroup with a nested threaded list,
with the font different for the ones I have read to the unreads.
A reply to me has an unread under one of my own usually.

I have been toying with the idea of doing a full newsreader
in a proper modern database system with a phantom To field
which it fills in from the message body at the time a particular
post is imported from the net. Certainly technically feasible,
but I havent done anything about that yet.
@EOT:

---