Hi Kay,

 KS> Thanks.  I don't support any off line readers at the 
 KS> moment (another reason I want to change software), so 
 KS> at least I won't leave anybody hanging.  What OLRs do 
 KS> you know if that it works with?

Sorry, its been 6+ years since I last used anything other than the native
QWK support provided with Maximus. I know it can support several other
options, so I am sure other sysops can answer this question. 

 PK>Some issues have been raised over this BETA version, so it may 
 PK>pay to stay clear of it until you are happy with Maximus.

 KS> Fair enough - I won't *have* to until next year after all.

Being a person who does not enjoy unexpected pain, I chose to wait until
the howls of anguish die down too.......;-) 


 PK>I think it even includes a utility to convert an Opus 
 PK>User base into Maximus format!

 KS> Great!

From the Maximus 3.01 Docs -
             8.3. CVTUSR: User File Conversions

             8.3.1. Description

             CVTUSR converts foreign user files into the Maximus 3.0 user
             file format. CVTUSR can handle user files in the Maximus 1.0,
             Maximus 2.0, QuickBBS, RA 2.00, and Opus 1.0x formats.

 KS> I just picked up the TUB echo for just this reason.  
 KS> (BTW - know anything about Binkley?

IMHO - Binkley/Maximus/Squish go together nicely, that's what I use here,
although I run the OS/2 versions of them....;-). There are mountains of 3rd
party utilites availabe for supporting this combination of S/W, so most
needs can be supplied.

If you have previously not used Binkely, but have used FrontDoor, then
generally it seems harder for people to figure Binkley out, because
FrontDoor & Binkley are 2 completely different Styles of mailers. The
Binkley methodology uses "Static Outbound Areas" and FrontDoor
uses "Dynamic Outbound Mail". They both end up doing the same
work, just use different ways of doing this. 

In your case, if all you have "known" is Opus, then I dont think
you will have the same problem moving to Binkley, Bink & Opus use
fairly much the same concept.  However please note that its been so long
since I last saw Opus, I can't remember too much about its Mail handling.
The main point to note is that BInkely uses multiple OUTBOUND areas to hold
mail to send, each outbound is for a different ZONE. Mail for nodes in your
own ZONE is stored in the default OUTBOUND directory,  and the directories
for each ZONE would be known as (using MY Fidonet address of 3:772/1) -
   OUTBOUND                     Fido Zone 3
   OUTBOUND.001                 Fido Zone 1
   OUTBOUND.002                 Fido Zone 2
   OUTBOUND.004                 Fido Zone 4, etc...
   OUTBOUND.040                 Othernet Zone 64 (40 is HEX equiv of 64). 

So Binkely supports Zones from 1 through to 4095 (or thereabouts). Its also
worth noting that Squish also knows and supports this outbound structure,
so moving mail is fairly painless.

 KS> I'm going to need a FIDO & other fido tech net interface that 
 KS> can handle half a dozen nodes or more on a regular basis)

My system is a mail hub, and while it currently only has about 8 nodes
running off it now, it used to have over 20 nodes plus 30+ points running
from it. I dont currently have any Othernets, however it certainly can
handle them no problem as shown above.

I hope this helps........pk.


--- Maximus/2 3.01