mark lewis wrote to James Digriz:   
      
      
      
   ml>    
   ml> in today's world, the mailers operate, mostly, on their own port (24554    
   ml> default for binkp) and so there's no real need for the old style front end    
   ml> mailer sharing the same port as the BBS... it can still be done, though...    
   ml> i do it here with my frontdoor/remoteaccess setup running on OS/2... there    
   ml> are not very many systems out there doing this so there's not much mail    
   ml> being transferred over telnet mailer connections... the majority of    
   ml> today's systems are using binkd or have a mailer that offers the binkp    
   ml> protocol...   
   ml>    
   ml> i don't know if that answers your question(s) or not... hopefully it does    
   ml> help some...   
   ml>    
   ml> )\/(ark   
      
   Right, and I'm familiar with most of that. I remember for instance making a TI   
   S1500 (an old SVR3.3 32-bit Unix system without the available ethernet card)   
   accessible via telnet 15-20 years ago or so. So I'm not a stranger at that    
   sort   
    of thing. It's not too hard to make a strictly digital connection of some   
   kind, or to convert IP to serial connections.    
      
   You can fake dial-up, too. On the retro 4.3BSD UUCP network that Warren Toomey   
   of tuhs.org set up, we've used his tcpdial perl script for this. You could use   
   a flatfile like a nodelist for this, or use a distributed or shared database.     
      
   I probably wasn't clear enough, though.  The problem I'm looking at is  going   
   from serial    
   connections to analog and back, on both ends, over the PSTN, when there is no   
   copper, analog, or TDM. Where there is no POTS, only fiber, only IP data   
   networking underlying everything. It's not clear to me that such use of voice   
   phone lines will be univerally available. With or without the "repeal" of "Net   
   Neutrality", the economics appear to disencentive support for analog data.    
      
   Why would you still want to do this? Well, consider that the 2015 FCC decision   
   exempted dial-up ISPs (or BBS'es, if you stretch things, especially if they   
   route outside their local network) from the Net Neutrality regulations, some    
   of   
    which were both onerous, and offensive to 1st amendment sensibilities. May or   
   may not be a moot point now, but it could come up again easily enough.    
      
   Beyond that, analog is still a good choice for some applications and some   
   media.    
      
                                         
                                                                                     
                                                                                     
                                                                                    
      
       Greetings, James Digriz   
       email: jbdigriz@bbs.dragonsweb.org   
      
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