Mel Pheasant wrote in a message to Bill Shaughnessy:
 BS>Michele Marie Dalene's question as to whether or not there might be two 
 BS>versions of OPUS 1.73a in existence.  I also replied on the basis of my 
MP> ...
 BS>        Again, Willie, using a non-compliant mailer, why can I 
 BS>consistently pass mail to Stu, and just as consistantly, not pass mail 
 BS>to you, and especially when you and Stu presumably have identical OPUS 
 BS>1.73a packages?
MP> ...
 BS> has changed on my system - the only change has been from you to Stu. 
 BS>Granted this outlines a problem.  Since there is no change in my 
 BS>PCBoard setup, the problem has to be in OPUS - there is no other place 
MP> I'm not gonna suggest that I know for sure that all opus
MP> 1.73's are identical. I *do* however, know for sure that
MP> identical mailers behave *very* differently due to hardware
MP> and other software issues. I'm running my own homebrew
MP> mailer here, and have been for quite a few years. I can
MP> assure you that it is quite feasible, and even quite likely,
MP> that two mailers will respond differently, especially when
MP> connecting to non-compliant mailers. I have much experience
MP> with this. It has a lot to do with timeouts, retry counters,
MP> expected responses, etc. 
Mel:
     You are considerably more knowledgeable in this area than I am, so let 
me try to simply paraphrase what you just said.
     When a problem is poorly defined, the cause is dificult to establish, 
and may very well lie in a component or area where you would least expect it. 
 This "problem" is poorly defined. Mel, simply because it apparently only 
involves three (3) systems out of the many thousands of PCBoard and OPUS 
systems in use today in FidoNet.
     The PCBoard/OPUS incompatibility is very well known.  It has been 
pointed out many, many times in both this echo as well as the PCBoard sysops 
echo.
     The PCBoard/OPUS problem is version specific on the PCBoard side. To the 
best of my knowledge, no one knows whether the problem is version specific on 
the OPUS side.
     The well known PCBoard/OPUS problem can be stated in the following 
rds:
     1.  The PCB version 15.21 Fido mailer and the barefoot OPUS mailer
         will not connect with each other, and of course will not
         exchange mail.  Clark Development Company, the developer of
         PCBoard has not advised me of any deviations from this
         statement.
     2.  The PCB version 15.22 Fido mailer and the barefoot OPUS mailer
         will connect to each other, but except for a very few isolated
         incidents will not exchange mail. The isolated incidents are,
         to the best of my knowledge, two in number.  Both incidents
         involve my PCBoard mailer, and the barefoot OPUS mailer of two
         separate systems in Net 129.
     Without question, the overall problem of connectivity is well defined, 
and on the PCBoard side.  But, we do have those instances of PCBoard acting 
out of character by exchanging mail, and I would likewise consider this to be 
a well defined problem - computers generally are not known to malfunction in 
a random manner.  If it were important to determine the cause of this latter 
problem, I would start with the OPUS setups.  I suspect you would be the 
me.
MP> Anyway, I appreciate the fact you helped out in the past
MP> when there were problems, but I just thought I'd point the
MP> above out to you for your own enjoyment.
     Mel, unless I'm mistaken, the name of the game in FidoNet is that we 
help each other.  We don't always agree with each other, but I think this is 
beneficial.  In any event, if we all remain silent, none of us has a chance 
to learn something new.
                   Bill
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