Hi David



 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 my "hobby

 DD> system" is not liable for business rates.



Ta, but from here all the decent nonlocal bbs's are a max std rate,

and Paul's system works fine for straight mail.



 DD> What do you expect in a BBS?



Hmm. The usual, I spose. In order:



1. Local chitchat with people I know, people I have a good chance

of meeting, and complete newbies who I and others can help

familiarize themselves with the setup so they don't turn into

Richard Borgs.



2. Up to date shareware. I found two of my most fave programs, 4dos

and Skymap, on bbs's. The one I use and point off here (and who

says he will shut down if Telecom doubles his rental) has an 8 cd

drive, and rotates various shareware cd's - beats the heck out of

buying the things myself. Calling std as a point is economical.

Calling a bbs std, browsing its file areas, dnloading lotsa stuff

for a maybe 3% yield of long term usable stuff, gets on the wallet

nerves a bit...



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



Ta again



Cheers



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