Not to cast doubt on Michelle Marie Dalene, but when she first came 
here a few years back, she was running XT or AT level hardware with limited 
memory and questionable stability. She had a number of hardware related 
crashes and a number of crashes of similar origins before some of her 
hardware upgrades.  She was running Frodo as a front-end mailer, which may or 
not have contributed to any of her problems, and I believe she was running an 
oddball SCSI adapter - which uses memory for the driver. 
        I'm not trying to question her competance, just saying that there 
were other, known factors to some of her Opus problems, problems that other, 
more experienced Opus sysops weren't encountering.  Michelle Marie is a solid 
Opus-sysoptress now, but she still came to all this long after the original 
1.73A release, long after the time when LOTS of folks were shaking 1.73A down 
in here.
 BS> There very well may not be more than one version of 
 BS> OPUS 1.73a in use today.  But, when two sysops, coming 
 BS> from totally different directions, legitimately reach 
 BS> the conclusion that there are multiple copies of OPUS 
 BS> 1.73a around, we're no longer talking a possibility, 
 BS> but are talking a fairly high probability. 
        Or a certain stubbornness to admit that there may be other 
configuration or hardware factors involved here ... which is more common and 
much more likely than someone hacking a now little used ancient BBS program.
I offered my experiences in a previous message, and I'd venture to say there 
weren't many Opus Ops running an Opus system on the scale I once had - 
perhaps 
under 25 Opus systems ever got that large - and I still found configuration 
errors 2 and 3 years after I had done my original setup when I encountered 
newer systems.  Minor configuration differences are probably the largest 
reason for poor handshaking performance (excluding non-compliant software).
We all have them at one time or another, and sometimes it works anyway.
        If you suspect a non-standard copy of Opus, then grab a copy from me, 
Jan, or Chris Baker and substitute it to see what happens. Grab it from 10 
different sites and do some statistical research to see what variations you 
find before postulating the possible existnace of a hacked 1.73A. While 10 
isn't a statistically valid sample, its still better than just 2 or 3 sites.
 BS> Bev Freed (the major-domo of OPUS according the Web Page)
 BS>  walked out in a snit some time back.  It is entirely 
 BS> possible that our compassionate Pittsburgh Judge Machen
        This is an irrelevant shot at someone who did a LOT for this 
community and isn't here to address your comments. It cheapens your comments 
and weakens your credability. If a joke, its poorly done, if not, its in very 
bad taste.
 BS>         Instead of a Win-Lose situation, we can create a Win-Win 
 BS> situation simply by considering the problem in its proper context.
        Sure - gather data on the various copies of Opus that the readers 
here have in their archive or online and start your theory after that. Two 
sysops do not make a theory - simply an argument ...
        Lets not make this a flame-war - the community is too small for that, 
lets collect data and compare other factors such as configurations and see 
what possibilities arise.  I've got no ax to grind here, Opus was good for me 
and I have always shared any info I gathered with the Meadow openly.
 BS> If you are not being bothered by what you are running
 BS> today, then don't worry about it.  
 BS> If you are being bothered, then your best bet is to 
 BS> switch to MAXIMUS, along with your switch to Binkley.  
        Not a valid reason to switch to MAX - good reasons include freeing up 
drive space with the Squish message format and being able to run it under WIN 
- but Max has its own share of quirks to deal with ... and the Opus community 
has always been more supportive and open with each other. Its why so many 
have stayed all this time!  There truely is nothing like Meadow ...
                        -= )-(eather =-
--- Maximus/NT 3.01b1
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