Hello mark.

 ml> an additional unspoken point that i was also subtly making is that in
 ml> case of an emergency, one can move their message bases to a DOS v3-v6
 ml> machine and be able to retain them without loosing those oh so
 ml> desirable long filenames... an excellent point for maintaining a
 ml> backup of the BBS installation so that if the current box does
 ml> experiance catastrophic meltdown, one can take that old DOS box,
 ml> connect it to the phone line and get back online with little loss...
 ml> sure, some stuff would be lost but you'd be able to get back online
 ml> and limp along rather than being shutdown until such time as the main
 ml> system could be repaired or replaced... i used DOS in this paragraph
 ml> but i'm also speaking of being able to pop back under DOSEMU on linux
 ml> if necessary...

That is an interesting point, if I had a functional DOS or DOSEMU system
:> But as I don't if the BBS machine happened to suffer a meltdown, I
guess I'm in some trouble :>

 ml> sure it does... remember, there are extensions on the message base
 ml> data files... your example above would actually result in...

 ml>  c:\bbs\ele\msgbase\usenet\alt\bbs.jdt
 ml>  c:\bbs\ele\msgbase\usenet\alt\bbs.jdx
 ml>  c:\bbs\ele\msgbase\usenet\alt\bbs.jhr
 ml>  c:\bbs\ele\msgbase\usenet\alt\bbs.jlr
 ml>  c:\bbs\ele\msgbase\usenet\alt\bbs\lists.jdt
 ml>  c:\bbs\ele\msgbase\usenet\alt\bbs\lists.jdx
 ml>  c:\bbs\ele\msgbase\usenet\alt\bbs\lists.jhr
 ml>  c:\bbs\ele\msgbase\usenet\alt\bbs\lists.jlr

good Point. I forgot about extensions. You have made a very valid point
here. I will have to do some careful considerations about this. I'd still
like to find a mail tosser that can read Nodelist flags, but that is a
lower priority :>


 ml> OB-)   see? no conflict...

Indeed I do see :>

 DE>> I have always found one central location to be very easy to
 DE>> manage.

 ml> yup, me too... mine are all currently based off of G:\JAM but i have
 ml> had them spread all over C:\JAM, D:\JAM, E:\JAM, F:\JAM, G:\JAM,
 ml> H:\JAM with some several hundred areas in subdirectories in each...

 DE>> And I admit, names like FE981252 are not the most
 DE>> descriptive. But I can live with that. Call me lazy. I don't
 DE>> mind those since *I* don't have to remember what they are. I
 DE>> do slowly convert them into more meaningful names, but it's a
 DE>> low priority item.

 ml> hey! i do that too! >  just adjust them in FE and
then in RA...
 ml> one open in one screen and the other open in another screen... i could
 ml> manually update FM (frontdoor's editor) but i generally run a util
 ml> that handles that one for me... its been quite a while since i've done
 ml> that, though...

He he he :>  I guess "Great Minds think alike" :> J/K.
Seriously though, it's good to know that someone uses the same type of
logic I do :>


 DE>> The only time the tosser has to deal with HMB is for Netmail
 DE>> or for message base maint. ALL Fido echos go to JAM bases.

 ml> FWIW: /ALL/ my message areas are JAM... netmail, local, usenet, echo,
 ml> mailing lists, etc...

I've considered this, but considering that it creates a HMB file set
ANYWAY, regardless of wether or not they are used, I figured why not use
them :>

 ml> knock on wood, its been quite a few years...

Deffinetly. Keep the fingers crossed.

 DE>> That would be ONE BIG MESSAGE BASE DATABASE! :> What, all
 DE>> messages from all echos for the past 20 years or something? :>

 ml> hehe, could be... in this network... however, consider a system with
 ml> the space that just simply doesn't pack and purge... they elect to
 ml> keep all messages in all areas... a live archive... i've seen it done
 ml> in RAID 5 setups with some 100+gig of storage capability... it was a
 ml> large setup for a large international company, though...

Yea. I have done similiar things for customers of mine. But they still
purged things out after 10 years. IT just got to 50+GB because of 10 years
of email for 25+ people, some of it personal, some of it with attachments
:>

 DE>> I would not use 4GB in an intel based machine. Thats
 DE>> rediclous. 1GB is plenty.

 ml> hunh? and here we are today with IDE drives in the 100+gig range and
 ml> some coupled on RAID5 setups... there are times and situations where
 ml> one does need that much storage capacity...

I was referring to MEMORY, not HDD space :> This machine that I'm typing
this on has 120GB of space (1 40GBHDD 1 80GBHDD) on the DRIVES, but only
512MB of RAM.


 ml> yeah, that's what i was thinking... its been a while since i dug
 ml> about
 ml> in that code stuff... but it is that 13rd larger increase that i was
 ml> speaking of >
heheheheheheh :>


 DE>> See my comments above.

 ml> yah >



 DE>>>> 2) Has a message base pack/purge/sort/index/etc.. feature

 ml>>> commonly available...

 DE>> I would hope so :>

 ml> hehehe...



 ml> AIR, in RA, its a simple matter of the RDX file... ISTR that you
 ml> delete the RDX file and let a new one be created with all the empty
 ml> records being deleted from the message base definition area...
 ml> however, that would toss FMail for a loop, though... its one reason
 ml> why i've stayed with FE...

Which I will to unless I find a tosser that fits #4 below :>

 DE>>>> 4) (optional. Nice, but not necessary) Read a fidonet nodelist
 DE>>>> (text/v6/v7/etc...) and allow routing commands for mail based
 DE>>>> on nodelist flags, or lack thereof.


 ml> ummm... sure, that could be done... but then you also have to look to
 ml> see if they are CM and/or be able to take into account their online
 ml> times if they are not... this is one reason why routing should have
 ml> been more stable that it has been over the years... in my case, i
 ml> simply mark those as DIRECT and they can't be routed... but that also
 ml> depends on your mailer, too... FD types can do it but BSO types have
 ml> to be done another way...
since Argus has decided to use Binkly outbound all routing has to be done
in the tosser/scanner. I would prefer Fido style outbound (like FD uses),
but Argus's author elected not to follow that route.

 ml> true... many of the new mailer (and bbs packages) still have a long
 ml> way to go to catch up to the capabilities that the DOS mailers have
 ml> had... its another reason why i've stayed with FD and RA and just run
 ml> them via telnet with a virtual modem shim... i've yet to find anything
 ml> that approaches them in their capabilities in this area... at least to
 ml> my satisfaction...
FD is good, but I like the ability of doing a Binkd session :> Call me
silly :> Also, since I could never get COM/IP to work for EleBBS, I
finally gave up and am using SyncFoss for telnet modes (which reminds me,
need to post a message to the elebbs email list about SyncFoss problems I
am experiencing.)

 ml> if you are thinking about that possible directory and filename
 ml> clash, i showed how that won't happen at the very top of this message
 ml> >

So you did :> And I agree :> Now if I can just get the stupid
problems with SyncFoss worked out, I'll be set. For some reason it seems to
not want to execute the batchfile for the Full Screen Editor. Executes
other batch files fine, but for some strange reason, it won't execute the
FSE's batch file. Go figure.

Dan

... * <-- Tribble     ^*^ <-- Vulcan Tribble
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