Roy, at 23:05 on Jan 01 1996, you wrote ...

RM>> It's caused a real flurry up here. At least half of the
RM>> local bbs's, including all of the ones I use, say they will
RM>> shut down if it goes ahead.

DD>> You could ring here, I didn't get a letter - it seems that 
DD>> my "hobby system" is not liable for business rates.

RM> Ta, but from here all the decent nonlocal bbs's are a max 
RM> std rate, and Paul's system works fine for straight mail.

OK :-)

DD>> What do you expect in a BBS?

RM> Hmm. The usual, I spose. In order:

RM> 1. Local chitchat with people I know, people I have a good 
RM> chance of meeting, and complete newbies who I and others can 
RM> help familiarize themselves with the setup so they don't turn
RM>  into Richard Borgs.

No local chit-chat between users at all here.  Some ring for QWK packets,
while others only download files.

I have to frequent AVTECH to find someone to chat to.

RM> 2. Up to date shareware. I found two of my most fave 
RM> programs, 4dos and Skymap, on bbs's. The one I use and point 
RM> off here (and who says he will shut down if Telecom doubles 
RM> his rental) has an 8 cd drive, and rotates various shareware 
RM> cd's - beats the heck out of buying the things myself. 
RM> Calling std as a point is economical. Calling a bbs std, 
RM> browsing its file areas, dnloading lotsa stuff for a maybe 3% 
RM> yield of long term usable stuff, gets on the wallet nerves a 
RM> bit...

I have 12 CDs online - I have a subscription to Hobbes OS/2 and NightOwl. 
Some stuff is uploaded by users to the hard drive and I freq things of
interest (to me).

RM> 3. A sysop I can talk to (preferably human).

I closely resemble a human with a bit of sheep chucked in.  I have been
known to utter intelligible speech.

RM> Ta again

:-)

David
@EOT:

--- Msgedsq/2 3.10