03 Mar 16 00:17, you wrote to me:   
      
    ml>> individual line breakdown:   
    ml>> 1. looking at the first line, there's a problem with the date on the   
    ml>> left and the number of messages on the right...   
      
    jl> The DOS version isn't Y2K comatible.   
      
   how is it not y2k compatible? does it emit or expect three digits for two   
   digit years?   
      
   eg: 2016 - 1900 = 116 when 16 is the expected result...   
      
    ml>> 4. the fourth line is missing the "BBS'" on the left side and the   
    ml>> following NOTE portion is missing the 6 bytes making up the "[cia] "   
    ml>> portion that is not even show on the right...   
      
    jl> The "[cia]" is for my own (stupid) uses. I just needed something to   
    jl> fill the space. It's basically just that, a "note" which is used   
    jl> throughout the board. The reason why it's different on the DOS   
    jl> version, is because, well, I haven't set it to something besides the   
    jl> default. The default is "Impulse Sysop" for the Sysop of the BBS.   
      
   so this is not a side by side comparison of the exact same message in the   
   exact same message base by two different flavors of the software???   
      
    ml>> 5. then there's the STAT line which doesn't even depict the same byte   
    ml>> values and on the right the "local" attribute is depicted with a EOF   
    ml>> character...   
      
    jl> I believe this is my fault. I used "pipe" codes to display the various   
    jl> attributes (to, from, subject, etc) of the message. And after those   
    jl> "pipe" codes, I used an "esc[7;1H" to anchor the message header.   
    jl> Somehow that ansi code at the end carried over to the "Origin" line.   
    jl> BTW, an EOF character is a arrow pointing to the right :)   
      
   oops... yeah... it was very late for me when i wrote that...   
      
    ml>> i'm not so sure that ansi is involved now that i look closer but   
    ml>> there is definitely a byte count problem somewhere... you need to   
    ml>> look deeper at what bytes are being seen by both flavors of the   
    ml>> tosser because something is not reading the bytes properly for   
    ml>> display or is not writing them properly to the message base... or   
    ml>> maybe both... that 4th line showing "[cia]" on the left and "impulse   
    ml>> sysop" on the right confuses me right now... one or both should   
    ml>> contain more or at least parts of the other... the real question is   
    ml>> what the original packed message in the PKT looks like and were does   
    ml>> that "[cia]" portion come from with... with or without the trailing   
    ml>> space...   
      
    jl> Again, that's for my arbitrary purposes. It has absolutely nothing to   
    jl> do with the message packet or bundle.   
      
   the point is that if the exact same message in the exact same message base is   
   depicted one way in one flavor of the software, it should be depicted pretty   
   much the same by another flavor of the software... if you are using two   
   different copies of the messages in two different versions of the message   
   bases then this is going to be really tough to diagnose... you really should   
   have one copy of the message in one message base that is read by both flavors   
   of the software... that way the differences between them can be easier to   
   see...   
      
    jl> Thanks for your time in studying this problem.   
      
   you're welcome but i'm not sure that i'm really being all that much help in   
   this case :(   
      
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