-=> Rick Christian wrote to Tony Langdon <=-   
      
    RC> I only use free in terms of no cost. I never went or will go along with   
    RC> the silliness that a certain Linux group misueses words.   
      
   Have to be clear. :)   
      
      
    TL>  wasn't FD shareware?   
      
    RC> FD was/is shareware. I don't remember the what if any limit there was..   
    RC> If anythin I recall a commercial BBS needed a license, I had no BBS,   
    RC> and no commercial operations. My company only provide a home, power,   
    RC> and phone lines. :)  FD worked for me   
      
   Yeah, I thought FD was shareware, but I don't recall the specifics of the   
   licence either.   
      
    RC> I only ever used FD, and Terminate for a couple points that I needed to   
    RC> keep simple.   
      
    RC> Bink just makes no sense then or now.   
      
   Opposite for me. :)  Bink just seemed to work with my head. :)   
      
    TL> I don't remember that issue.   
      
    RC> I do alot with BBS's that were HST/HST+ and they wouldn't connect for   
    RC> Terminate   
    RC>  or Telemate or anything, or FIDO. I had a couple I had to route to   
    RC> their NC or   
    RC>  HUB to send stuff to.   
      
   Never had any of those issues down here.  The main BBS used to have links all   
   over the place, several international, without issues.   
      
    RC> These issues seemed to show up starting when the 14.4 and 28.8 stuff.   
    RC> Although I had a 33.6 external no name clone that did seem to work   
    RC> better than Zoom and other name band stuff. The biggest issue was   
    RC> making sure to get hardware modems, which is one reason I stuck to   
    RC> externals mostly, and I like blinken lights! :) ;) Made for great   
    RC> ambiance lighting! :) ;)   
      
   Yes, hardware modems were a must.  The "Winmodems" were a pain, and external   
   modems were the safest way to ensure one had a suitable modem.  And yes,   
   blinkenlighten are awesome! :D  By the time winmodems became prevalent, my   
   dominant OSs were Linux and OS/2, so I was very particular about having a   
   hardware modem.   
      
    TL> I programmed in BASIC, Pascal (generally Turbo Pascal), and various   
    TL> assembly languages, including 8080, 8086, 6809, and even PIC16F84.   
      
    RC> In a time long long ago. I started with BASIC on various things from   
    RC> VAX/VMS to   
    RC>  PDP's to Atari 4|800's to some CP/M based things. The PDP needed   
    RC> assembler to do some things, and that progressed into similar on   
    RC> various other chips. My EE project needed 68HC11 software, I had this   
    RC> really whizo emulator that I could do all kinds of things to create my   
    RC> software way quicker than those that had to   
    RC>  play with the actual testbed boards. I did PASCAL for my CIS class   
    RC> language as   
    RC>  I had TP and, again could do it all at home versus fighting for   
    RC> terminal time or calling into the mainframe. I just had to provide full   
    RC> source and with the binary.   
      
   I started with various BASIC dialects on microcomputers, both Applesoft (on   
   Apple IIs) and other dialects on various Z80 based micros.  I did dabble in   
   very small amounts of Z80 assembler then, but I did a fair bit more assembler   
   at university, mostly on the 8086 (various PC clones), but did do 6809.  The   
   6809 emulator was on one of the engineering mainframes.  I loved 6809   
   assembler, it made a lot more sense to me than 8086 (eww segment registers!) or   
   8080/Z80.  PIC has an addressing quirk not unlike segmentation, where you have   
   to switch address spaces fo   
      
    RC> I am not sure what GIGO did on OS/2, I never touched it. I only   
    RC> begrundignly used stuff passed DOS, as I was forced to. I needed an   
      
   Yeah, there was a server that was built for GIGO that ran on OS/2, worked quite   
   well.  I'd probably do things differently, need some more SMTP "smarts" to deal   
   with spam these days.  The way GIGO worked was that GIGO generated all of the   
   bounce messages, which means generating "backscatter" for the forged spam   
   that's around now.  I'd like to have a SMTP server than knows the valid users,   
   so it can reject obvious spam during the session, and also have the other anti   
   spam tools available.   
      
    RC> ICLID program and to get   
    RC>  the one I needed, it needed win 3.1. Then I needed network stuff so I   
    RC> got Wfwg. I ran that well into 90's. I probably was one of the last   
    RC> still running 10Base2. I even had this cute little hub that would take   
    RC> 10B2 and split to 10Base5 or Cat5 like today. I ran that well into   
    RC> 2000-2001. Ain't broke, don't break it! I even packed it all up 3 times   
    RC> and reset it up! I was limited to ISDN well into 2000's by location.   
      
   For a while, I was able to use work "hand me downs", as work upgraded from   
   10Base2 to 10BaseT hubs, then to 100Mbps switches over the years.  My first LAN   
   was 3 PCs linked by coax. :)   
      
    RC> Anyway. GIGO would definitely need to use SMTP and NNTP user accounts   
    RC> or full NNTP accounts, but a standard NNTP account from say NewDemon or   
    RC> something would   
    RC>  be the prefered route. There might be a few uucp places out there, but   
    RC> I've not had an actual modem on things in years. The AIO on the network   
    RC> does it all now.   
      
   Yeah I haven't used a real modem for close to 10 years myself, actually might   
   be even longer.  Still got plenty in the shed - more from work when they   
   decomissioned their dialin servers.   
      
      
   ... A man who buys a mobile home doesn't get a lot.   
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