-=> Quoting Bob Lawrence to John Tserkezis <=-

Hello Bob,

 JT> There are a million different message base format to pick from,
 JT> and not all software supports the one I use. A mail reader I
 JT> wanted to used at one stage used squish but not jam, and my
 JT> tosser does jam but not squish. I have to change both my
 JT> packages to do what I want. Sheeze.

 BL> There aren't a million, just three: Lotus, M$ and Borland.

 And how many of those are used by fido?  How many of those are used by unix
systems?  Of how many of those can you obtain messages base structures, with
APIs in Pascal and most usually C?  Freely?

 BL> Of course, anyone can write his own format if you want to stuff things up.

 If you choose to use your "own format" you can do all of the
above.  Freely.
 
 BL> The whole concept has changed... not minutes on the phone but
 BL> HOURS.
 
 JT> Stiff shit. When it gets to 15 hour transfer times, you can get
 JT> a full-time connection. That's what they did originally while
 JT> usenet was growing. You would spend more time on the phone,
 JT> than not.

 BL> Telephones are for talking, mail is something else.

 Er, that's what you're doing now isn't it?  That's the most cost-effective
system to use.  Store and forward.  You use the phone line in off-peak periods,
(where it is not used voice anyway) to transfer data.  Heck, you can transfer
HEAPS more data over that same line than you can talk.

 If the 'system' grows, and you are left with insufficient bandwidth on one
line, you get another and parallel it.  When it grow too big to manage, you
go for ISDN, where it's faster, and you have one line to manage.

 Lo and behold!  That's what everyone is doing now isn't it!?

 BL> I meant that the *computer* is online for hours, not us.

 So did I.  Mind you, how many hours during the small early hours in the dark
do you use your phone?  None?  Same here.  The computer though, uses the phone
when I don't.
 Yes, I have another line here, so in my case, that won't be an issue.  But I
*do* use it for fax, and if that's the case, it's a good idea, as people
usually send faxes during the day.

 OTOH, some people do just that- use a voice line for mail as well.  Voice
during the day, and data at night.

 I call that efficient usage of available resources.

John Tserkezis, Sydney, Oz. Fidonet: 3:712/610  Internet: jt{at}suburbia.com.au

... Thought links corrupted....Reformat brain (Y\N)?
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