ML>> yuck!! that's what happens when direct connections are
 ML>> the default ;-(

 GM> Yes, and I can understand his frustration. But I'm
 GM> surprised that the software didn't limit the number of
 GM> tries.

it probably did and wasn't set up for it properly... even frontdoor,
properly setup, can have this happen...

 GM> No, I'm not really surprised. When you consider the
 GM> amount of software that converted the year to two
 GM> figures by subtracting 1900, anything is possible.

this is true, too... i had stuff that i had tested and tested and tested
and still had problems... once i really started looking at it, i was able
to see where the problem really was and fix it... however, i know that some
of my stuff will break when 2100 rolls around but that was a conscience
decision to go that path... part of the problems stem from the two methods
of working with the numbers...

one method is mathematical... ie: 1993 - 1900 = two digit date of 93

the second method is string manipulation... convert the binary number 1993
to a string and then start at the 3rd position and copy the remaining
characters out...

  ie: copy('1993',3,2) = '93'  (starts at pos 3 and copies 2 chars)
      copy('1993',3)   = '93'  (starts at pos 3 and copies all)
      copy('19103',3,2)= '10'  (known bad date string done like 1st)
      copy('19103',3)  = '103' (with this, one can go two ways)

in the last one, the two ways are to convert to a binary number and add
1900 to get a year of 2003 which puts us back to a mathematical
manipulation instead of a string manipulation or we can continue with
string manipulation and see that we have three characters... if we have
three characters, then we look to see what the first character is, drop it
and prepend 20 + (the dropped number - 1)... still some conversion to
binary and mathematical work...

yeah, both have their uses and using strictly one or the other can cause
problems... even mixing string and mathematical manipulation can cause
problems... one just has to account for these and make adjustments as
necessary... back in the day, folk didn't worry so much about the future
and handle it then... why? some call it job security :wink:

 ML>> that depends on the software setup... some software is
 ML>> "stupid" in that it lets the modem answer the phone
 ML>> (ATS0=1) rather than the software telling the modem to
 ML>> answer the phone (ATA)

 GM> Yup. See above. I couldn't get logged on to my ISP a few
 GM> days ago. When I rang their voice line, I was told that
 GM> the system was down at the time.

 GM> I asked whether they could turn off the modems or something
 GM> when that happened so people wouldn't waste a local call fee
 GM> (currently 25c) by connecting but failing to log in. I don't
 GM> expect it to happen, but you can only try with these people.

hummm, in the case of an ISP, that's slightly different than a BBS... an
ISP's system answers and makes the connection... the login stuff generally
comes from authentication on another machine on their network... this
machine is generally known as a radius server... radius being an acronym
for remote access dial in user server IIRC... if the connection between the
"modembox" and the radius server is hampered, then you can't be
authenticated by the radius server and get your ip number assigned... this
hampering may be a cut cable, bad network card, or even a bad router...
i've worked with ISPs that have many POPS (points of presence) and the
radius server is located hundreds of miles away... all the modemboxes in
the POPs use the internet (kind of in a VPN mode) to talk to the radius
server...

just recently, a series of bad routers on AT&Ts network kept me from
reaching my DDNS server and updating my online status... as such, anyone
trying to get to my servers would have thought that my system was down when
it wasn't... it was only that the DDNS provider hadn't heard from my update
client in a certain amount of time and thus figured i was offline and
subsequently adjusted my domain's DNS record to point to one of their
boxes... using a webbrowser and going to my domain would have displayed a
page stating that my system was offline (it wasn't) but using any other
type of client (ie: ftp, telnet, smtp, etc) would have just timed out with
no message other than that the connection timed out...

)\/(ark