NA> In the fall of 2005 when I took over the D'Bridge code, you offered and
 NA> shared
 NA> some of your knowledge, which was appreciated but never went anywhere
 NA> into my
 NA> final code as I decided to take things in a different direction.

   Maybe you could have told me that? After all, this is one of many mail you
sent to me prior to that decision of yours:


(From - Thu Nov 24 04:01:58 2005)

Hi,

>    Got it OK (good old BinkP...). And of course I understand that I'm not
supposed to give anything away to anyone, unless you give me the permission to
do so. I just hope you will not claim exclusive  copyright for 70 years after
you're dead (I probably die before you anyway -- I'm 57 and I get the feeling
you're somewhat younger than me)? :)

LOL I'm exactly 30 years younger. :-)

>    Yeah, it sure is a mess. It seems that, in the end, the original author
resorted to cut&paste programming, judging from the massive amount of redundant
code (probably the main reason for our memory problem at the moment).

Yes, and I had a hell of a time even trying to design something so simple as an
extra menu for users to configure their BinkP settings; the "dynamic window"
code in the configuration menus (where you can type in multiple-lines of text)
is VERY picky. If you can understand how it works; I'm sure you'll agree its
very unstable.

>    I'll try to clean it up as much as possible, and also remove all the
quirks and extras added in the old TP5.5 days, no longer needed with BP7, since
it has most of those functions already built into the run time library.

Much appreciated. What kind of wine do you want me to ship you for christmas?
:-)

 NA>    If I understand you correctly, I can also remove all the registration
related stuff (that amounts to a lot of waste of computer resources)?

I was actually going to do that myself but if that will make it easier for you
to migrate to BP7, sure.

DBINIT and EDINIT (IIRC) make extensive checking of the license keyfile,
actually most of the code that has that CRC table in the beginning declarations
is pretty much for the anti-piracy features of D'Bridge.

I just remembered that the DB.EXE TSR that gets built by MDB.BAT also checks
for a Fossil TSR to be loaded; if not, it calls X00.EXE to load one, before any
of the mailer code gets ran. You'll also find extensive assembly stuff, mainly
CRC checking, in all of the Zmodem related code; although upon inspection it
should not be necessary to change it - its not making use of heap code or
pointers or anything to my knowledge. Its the swap-to-DOS stuff elsewhere in
the code that will keep your hands full I'm sure. :-P

There was actually several sections of code I removed that checked the license
"kee" file quite frequently, and two systems could not connect if they shared
the same serial number. If they did, both systems would crash quite horribly...
on purpose. I think this program was the first to use an activation system like
XP did. Pretty clever anti-piracy stuff for 1987.  :-)

 NA>    If you don't hear from me in a week or so, you know the reason why --
I'm into deep sh*t, up to my neck, trying to get out. :)

Oh it took me a few weeks to even figure out where to begin, once the original
author sent me the source code. He dumped everything into a ZIP file and
basically said "good luck". I must warn you about the TurboPower routines - The
ISAM stuff is used extensively for the nodelist compiler, queue system and
costbase - Changing any of that stuff causes "interesting" side effects. :-P

 NA>    Oh, I have no intention of breaking my 25 year long record of never
having failed a software mission, so I'll eventually have this thing working,
even if it's the last thing I do. :)

I totally agree as its my mission as well to have a functioning integrated
BinkP system in place and maybe some other "goodies" if it can be done. I've
been using this mailer for over 12 years and 12 years of using the same product
kinda grows on you after awhile. I even got my girlfriend Laura involved; she
handles the "tech support" side of things, personally answering all emails and
questions asked by newcomers to DB. We're actually getting quite the little
following going on now.

*Nick*







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