ml>> why would you /have/ to renumber? the DOS 8.3 system can
 ml>> count from 0 thru 99999999 before wrapping... that's a lot
 ml>> of messages :wink: imagine that on a system that handles
 ml>> long file names... them numbers would get pretty large
 ml>> before a renumber was required...

 RJT> Because with *.MSG being stored one message-per-file,  the
 RJT> software (at least some of it) would look for each and every
 RJT> number,  starting from 1,  by way of dos filesystem calls,
 RJT> which was very slow and inefficient.  Putting them all
 RJT> together with consecutive low numbers does away with this
 RJT> problem.

that's outrageous! what's a highwater mark or lastread pointer in the userfile for??

 RJT> OTOH so would a linked list...

 ml>> FWIW: i have _not_ renumbered my message areas in almost a
 ml>> decade...

 RJT> And you're using *.msg?

i've a couple of them... the rest are all JAM bases... none have been
renumbered in at least that long...

)\/(ark