-=> Quoting Leonard Erickson to Scott Little <=-

 SL> I didn't mean protocols and junk. I don't think many sysops have the
 SL> funds to get FIBRE OPTIC links and SATELITE links. Normal telephones
 SL> cannot cope with large amounts of data (at least, not instantanious).
 LE> So? That has *nothing* to do with the *protocols* and standards.

What I was getting at was: the current means of communication, ie. telephones,
cannot cope with the amount of data that will follow with advanced systems
being used.

 
 LE> Sorry, but you are *wrong*. HTML only needs "permanent
links" for the
 LE> hot links to other sites. That is *one* feature out of the dozens in
 LE> html. RFC-822, and MIME are merely *formatting* standards, and I get
 LE> messages using both all the time over a cheap dial-up link. 

My mistake. I thought he was talking about HTTP.

 LE> HTML has all sorts of perfectly useful featurtes that we can use on
 LE> fidonet. Things like specifying type styles, text fonts, and being
 LE> able to have sound and graphicsa as part of a document. 

Double the average size of a message. With all this, mail lines will almost be
permanent from the amount of time needed to carry all the data.

 SL> Another thing, the internet protocols are also designed to
 SL> share a link. 1 cable or 1 satelite channel. Normal fone lines just
 SL> can't be shared, which means 1 user at a time, one way.

Read this bit again   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ now keep in mind
and then read the rest...

 LE> Wrong again. Phonelines are quite shareable. Most modems can send and
 LE> receive at the same time, it's just that most of our software doesn't
 LE> do that. But look at some of the software out there right now. You can
 LE> chat with someone while downloading files. And that's using cheap
 LE> software (ICEZmodem) on a regular BBS. 

Well, since were talking about HTML not HTTP (which I originally thought) this
is irrelivant.

**BUT** if we are talking about HTTP and permanent links THEN what I said was
quite true. 1 user at a time. They are not shareable (PABX, EazyCall and other
such facilities don't count). By "one way" I mean you can't take
an incoming
call and make an outgoing one at the same time on normal phone lines. I didn't
mean full duplex wasn't possible.

 LE> The fact that HTML is commonly used over "dedicated"
links does *not*
 LE> mean it won't work just fine in a Fido setup. It'll just be a bit more
 LE> limited. And the other stuff was *designed* to work over setups worse
 LE> than ours! (RFC-822 is *older* than Fidonet, and maybe even older than

Again, I thought we were talking about HTML operating with HTTP.

 LE> Try to find out the *facts* before crying about how something is "too
 LE> expensive" or "can't be done".
 
I'll add to that list, impractical. Can't be done isn't what I said (I hope not
anyway) anyting is possible, just not always practical... Lets take for example
if I connected to every Fidonet echo available from my host. (900 of them or
something). They gave me on average 30-40 meg or even 50Mb PER DAY. Now, if
HTML was added, the message size would increase, since people like playing with
new toys, most messages will have a lot of font changes etc. There is 100 meg
of mail. If you're the poor sod who calls STD to send/recieve the mail, your
phone bill will be huge, sending 30 meg of compressed mail daily.

"Try to find out the *facts*"? I'm looking at facts much deeper and much
further down the track than your are. Another point I'd like to add as 
well...

 SL> FIDOnet: 3:712/848        Internet: slittle{at}ozemail.com.au
 SL> HACKnet: 7:602/2          FREQ: HACKPAK for HACKnet info!!

That is a signature file. My internet sig file is about 6 times that size. The
fidonet sig is limited to 2 lines because sysops do NOT like to have to carry
those few extra bytes invlolved. HTML will add more than just that to every
message.

Regards,
 - SoNiC
 ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
 ³ FIDOnet: 3:712/848             Internet: slittle{at}ozemail.com.au ³
 ³ HACKnet: 7:602/2             FREQ: HACKPAK for HACKnet infopack ³
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... Why can't women remember to put the toilet seat back up?
--- FMail/386 1.02