Hallo Tobias!

 TR> and did some testing with it. I like it very much but one thing keeps 
 TR> me from going on using it at the moment (which means I'm back with 
 TR> Y2K-dead timEd):

 TR> Doesn't above mentioned version of MsgED support charset kludges 
 TR> (like described in FSC-0054) or am I just to stupid to turn charset 
 TR> support on ? 

MsgEd 4.20 Beta 2 and 3 do not support FSC 0054 charset conversion. 

However, I have two pieces of good news for you:

The first is: You might want to use my edition of MsgEd, called MsgEd TE
04. It is based on MsgEd 4.20 Beta 2 (not 3), and adds FSC 0054 support,
Fidogate gateway support, and quite some other goodies and bugfixes to it.
You can freq this version using the MSGEDTE magic from my system or get it
from http://wwwcip.rus.uni-stuttgart.de/~phy27258/bin/msgedte.zip. The
archive is 300K in size and contains OS/2 and DOS executables, preliminary
documentation, and a source code difference file.

I have now established contact wiht Kim Lykkegaard and I am optimistic that
the changes I have made in my edition of MsgEd will also be migrated to his
mainstream version of MsgEd, so that you will in the future be abloe to
enjoy both my and his new features. :-)

The second is: You will probably not have to switch from timEd because of
Y2K. Together with Wilfried Brinkmann, I am currently developing a binary
patch for timed and netmgr to solve the Y2K issues. A preliminary version
can be freq'ed here using the ARTFIX magic. It is also available from
ftp.juge.com. This preliminary patch fixes only the most urgent Y2K problem
in Timed and Netmgr (FTS-001 date in Fido *.MSG messages broken) and only
applies to the DOS version. It has only been developed to show that it is
principally possible to patch the problem. In the meantime, we have
discovered other bugs and will supply a new patch for both the DOS and OS/2
versions. I can't say when, but it will be before the year of 2000. ;-)

And just to make a side note, MsgEd 4.20 beta 2 isn't year 2000 compatible
either. But the problem is much easier to fix there, of course. MsgEd TE 04
for instance, is Y2K compliant.

 TR> Personally I wouldn't need that kind of stuff anyway, 
 TR> but quite a lot of people in Fidonet region24 use special German 
 TR> characters for which IBMPC 2 charset should be used.

You will also need this feature if using an internet gateway running
Fidogate, which converts all national characters to the LATIN-1 2 charset,
which MsgEd displays incorrectly unless it has FSC-0054 support. That's the
reason why I implemented it for me. 

Viele Gruesse,
Tobias

--- Msged/2 TE 04