mlwh@sphinx.UUCP (08/04/87)
I thought that I would give a quick tally of what I have received so far
on my tally of Online services.....nobody has mentioned MCI mail, while
they have nothing specific about Macs, I would be curious to hear
more....The actual responses follow the tally.
I have recieved 10 responses...(only 9 forwarded info). I added
my input to make it 10.
Genie 6
Bix 3
Compuserve 4
Delphi 3
Info-Mac 1
Echo-Mac(FIDO) 1
MCI 1
BITNET 1
Usenet * Almost every response mentioned this so I am
not including that in the tally.
General comments:
Most liked Genie because it was cheaper and had fairly upto date
information and PD programs.
Bix was popular for quality of info.
Compuserve was big.
Delphi had quality information.
I will update the tally if I get many more responses.
___________________________________________________________________________
From chuq@plaid Thu Jul 30 13:26:27 1987
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Date: Thu, 30 Jul 87 13:23:39 PDT
From: chuq@plaid (Chuq Von Rospach)
Message-Id: <8707302023.AA10802@plaid.sun.com>
To: sphinx!mlwh
Subject: Re: E-mail and On-line services
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
In-Reply-To: <24534@sun.uucp>
Organization: Fictional Reality, uLtd
Cc:
Status: OR
I use USENET, INFO-MAC and DELPHI. I used to use CompuServe.
Advantages of USENET: convenient. free. Has competent people and Apple
folks on it. access to new public domain stuff.
Disadvantages of USENET: lots of noise and idiots screaming. Lots of
repetition -- both too many people saying the same things and
having the same subject come up time after time. Once a program has
passed you by, its almost impossible to get a copy because of
archiving hassles.
Advantages of INFO-MAC: convenient. free. access to Public domain archives.
Disadvantages of INFO-MAC: not as reliable as USENET, sporadic availability
and occasional delays caused by moderator overload. Programs delayed
getting into the archive. requires ARPA access for archives.
Advantages of DELPHI: small, highly competent group of people. Very low
noise problems, active moderation. lots of programs, easy to access
archive. Availability of Apple released software (system, finder,
etc). Access to some Mac developers and companies
Disadvantages of DELPHI: costs money (~$6.00 hour non-prime time 1200 baud).
no Apple folks, occasionally the machine it is on gets overloaded,
Delphi software a bit primitive. not as many people -- not as many
viewpoints on things.
Advantages of CompuServe: the largest, the biggest, the best publicized, the
"standard" Mac online service/user group. Has everything ever
written for the Mac in the archives. Access to lots of developers
and companies.
Disadvantages of Compuserve: the largest, the biggest, the best publicized,
the "standard" Mac online service/user group. you think USENET has
noise problems.... Expensive ($12/hour 1200 baud non-prime time).
Primitive access software.
If usenet weren't free, I'd do all my Maccing on Delphi. Info-mac is a good
accent to USENET, but unreliable. I gave up on CIS because of the cost and
because it is so HUGE and noisy I had trouble finding any information of
use to me.
chuq
--
Chuq Von Rospach chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ
We live and learn, but not the wiser grow -- John Pomfret (1667-1703)
From dplatt@teknowledge-vaxc.arpa Thu Jul 30 18:04:37 1987
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From: dplatt@teknowledge-vaxc.arpa (Dave Platt)
X-Uucp: /decwrl|hplabs \
{ seismo|uw-beaver}!teknowledge-vaxc.arpa!dplatt
\ucbvax|sun /
X-Usnail: Teknowledge Inc., 1850 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto CA 94303
X-Voice: (415) 424-0500
Message-Id: <8707302317.AA27552@cygnus-x1>
To: mlwh@sphinx
Subject: Email and online services
Status: OR
I can suggest the following:
* GEnie has an extensive Mac users' group with numerous
roundtables and archives. Their rates are better than most
($6/hour last time I looked), and they turn the meter off when
you upload something to their libraries. Scott Watson's "Red
Ryder" has a support roundtable on GEnie.
* Compu$erve is the biggest of the online services, but their
rates are high and I've heard complaints about their service.
* Delphi also has an extensive Mac community.
* The "EchoMac" network of interconnected Fido bulletin-board
systems is a very good place to get the latest-and-greatest
public-domain and shareware uploads. Lots of good discussion
threads, also. The nearest Fidos to Sun (Mountain View) are
The Dog Labs in Belmont (415-594-0781), MacFido Tribune in SF
(415-923-1235), and MacQueue in SF (415-661-7374).
* There's a very good interface package for MCI Mail that runs on
the Mac; Jerry Pournelle reviewed it in a recent issue of
Byte. Very nice if you want to send email to people on MCI
Mail, or electronically- printed paper mail to folks who don't
have PCs. Even neater: if you use a little package called
"Glue", you can write up a MacWrite/MacDraw/WriteNow/etc.
document, print it using the Glue "printer" resource (which
captures the QuickDraw output on disk), upload the Glue file to
MCI Mail, and send it... the recipient can view it on his/her
Mac, or (for non-Macish recipients) will receive a
high-resolution laserprinted letter by U.S. Mail, graphics and
all! and according to Jerry P, there's _no_ extra MCI Mail
charge for this service!
From jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu Fri Jul 31 05:40:23 1987
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From: jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Joel West)
Message-Id: <8707310440.AA12540@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
To: mlwh@sphinx
Subject: Re: E-mail and On-line services
In-Reply-To: your article <24534@sun.uucp>
Status: OR
I like Bix, because it's got a great mix of technical groups.
Where else can you read serious discussions about C++ and
Smalltalk (by the experts) and pick up the source to an
Xmodem program in the same call?
For hard-core Macintosh coverage, it's hard to beat
CompuServe.
From @po3.andrew.cmu.edu:rs4u+@andrew.cmu.edu Fri Jul 31 06:12:35 1987
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From: rs4u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Richard Siegel)
To: mlwh@sun.com
Subject: On-Line Services
Cc:
Status: OR
The only on-line service besides Usenet that I use is BIX, the Byte
Information eXchange; it's a good service; the Macintosh conference
isn't quite as busy as comp.sys.mac, but it is a good conference.
--Rich
R-Squared Development Systems
134 Horseshoe Drive
Williamsburg, Virginia 23185
(804) 229-2152 [After 6pm eastern time only]
Arpanet: rs4u@andrew.cmu.edu
Uucp: {your fave gateway}!seismo!andrew.cmu.edu!rs4u
Disclaimer? I don't even KNOW 'er!
"Do you wanna be a cop or a lost cause?"
-- Sean Connery, in "The Untouchables"
From wes@ukecc.engr.UKY.EDU Fri Jul 31 07:48:03 1987
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Date: Fri, 31 Jul 87 9:48:23 EDT
From: Wes Morgan <ukecc!wes>
To: mlwh@sphinx
Status: OR
To: mlwh%sphinx@Sun.COM
Subject: Re: E-mail and On-line services
In-reply-to: your article <24534@sun.uucp>
News-Path: ukecc!ukma!rutgers!sri-unix!sri-spam!ames!amdcad!sun!sphinx!mlwh
Well, if you have access to BITNET, MACSERVE@PUCC is wonderful.
MACSERVE is a file server with a library of about 500 applications
for Mac. Everything from system tools <RESEDIT-type stuff> to
games <Crystal Raider and the like>, to text editors and DAs is
available. I've downloaded about 20 applications with no problem.
Everything is PD, and the only cost is that incurred by using your
BITNET system for the transfer. Of course, you'll need Kermit
<or RedRyder> and BinHex. A few programs are ARC'd; I haven't
downloaded any of those. For more info, just send an interactive
message <MACSERVE can't handle mail yet> such as:
<IBM> TELL MACSERVE AT PUCC DIR
Hope this helps......
Wes Morgan
ps) Oh, yeah; PUCC.BITNET is Princeton University. MACSERVE is maintained
by MAINT@PUCC; they accept mail queries.
---
Wes Morgan UUCP: !cbosgd!ukma!ukecc!wes CSNET: wes@engr.uky.csnet
ARPANET: wes@engr.uky.edu BITNET: wes%ukecc.uucp@ukma
" Disclaimer? Huh? You mean this was supposed to be *MY* opinion? "
--
Wes Morgan UUCP: !cbosgd!ukma!ukecc!wes CSNET: wes@engr.uky.csnet
ARPANET: wes@engr.uky.edu BITNET: wes%ukecc.uucp@ukma
" Disclaimer? Huh? You mean this was supposed to be *MY* opinion? "
From uhmanoa!uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu!mikeb@humu.nosc.mil Fri Jul 31 12:30:55 1987
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Date: Fri, 31 Jul 87 09:25:20-1000
From: mikeb@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Mike Burger)
Message-Id: <8707311925.AA21011@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
To: mlwh@sun.com
Subject: Online survey
Status: OR
mlwh@sun.COM
My roomate and I are both longtime Mac users. We both
subscribe to GENIE, the GE Information service and find it extremely
good. It has local Honolulu access, costs only $5.00 an hour in the
evening, at night and on weekends and holidays, and only costs $18.00
to join, which includes a very nice manual and a regular mailing of
a newsletter.
The billings are electronically deducted from our checking
accounts. We make extensive use of the Mac news and the large library
of programs and other goodies. I make some use of the CB simulator,
but we spend the vast majority of our time in CMUG, the Coffee Mug
or Mac User Group. We highly recomend it as a best buy.
It has numerous other features we haven't used, like airline
reservations and recently access to stock and investment info.
It also supports the (please forgive me) IBM PC and several other
machines.
mikeb@uhccux.UHCC
From seismo!bpa!vu-vlsi!ge-mc3i!ge-mc3i.UUCP!sterritt Sun Aug 2 20:37:25 1987
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Date: Sat, 1 Aug 87 16:36:44 EDT
From: seismo!ge-mc3i!sterritt (Chris Sterritt)
Message-Id: <8708012036.AA00608@ge-mc3i.UUCP>
To: mlwh@sphinx
Subject: Reply to your E-Mail and On-Line services stuff
Status: OR
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
In-Reply-To: <24534@sun.uucp>
Organization: General Electric Astro Space Div.
Cc:
Bcc:
Martin,
Hi! Just thought I'd reply to your question about what are the good
Mac E-Mail, etc. boards. My preferences are (with time I have spent on each):
GEnie (General Electric's Network for Information Exchange)
very good. I've been on for over a year, and it's the
cheapest of the ones I use at $5.00 per hour for 1200 baud.
No, I didn't join because I work for GE! I got on because of
the Red Ryder board; it's how Scott distributes RR updates
(Or used to :-) (I say that because I've been waiting for
version 10 for over a year!) It's a popular board, and PD
Software shows up quickly. They were the first to 'stop the
clock' on uploads so any uploading isn't charged to your
account. Only bad thing is that they charge $15.00 per hour
for 2400 baud. They also have a *Great* SF bulletin board.
DELPHI --
Second best. They have very good technical discussions, but
a great amount of it is repeated on USENET, and almost all of
the public domain stuff comes from Usenet! So if you're on
USENET, you really don't need DELPHI. I'm on because of the
MacNosy support group ('free' updates, etc.). They're $7.20
per hour for 3/12/24 hundred baud service. They have a strange
policy about time given back to you for uploading; you have
to request it, or some such. I also was reprimanded for
uploading a fairly large file in PackIt compressed form--they
uncompressed it in their archives, Naturally making it bigger,
and therefore more expensive to download. Wierd. They don't
seem to get the PD stuff as fast as GEnie, probably because of
this; most of their stuff comes from one guy who gets it from
UseNet and ArpaNet. I've been on about a year.
Compuserve --
Just dropped my subscription. They're the most expensive at
$12.50 an hour for 3/12/24 hundred baud. They used to be first
with all the hot new PD software, but everything gets to GEnie
nowadays in a day or two... they're also a legendary pain in
lots of ways; for example, if you upload something and don't
EXPLICITLY state that it is PD, and can be uploaded anywhere
by anyone, Compuserve claims a 'blanket copyright' on it, and
ONLY Compuserve people can download/use it!!!!! I've seen PD
Stuff that has the standard 'you may use this in any way' state-
ment, amended by 'EXCEPT YOU MAY NOT UPLOAD THIS TO COMPUSERVE,
BECAUSE OF THEIR "Blanket Copyright" POLICY'!!! They also
SEEM to fight any kind of packing, or faster versions of
XModem, but no doubt they'd sue me out of my back teeth if they
knew I said this :-).
AI-List from Arpanet --
the best for technical discussion, but since I am not on a
'real' arpanode, I can't ftp the goodies from them.
Good luck! Hope this helps.
chris sterritt
C.Sterritt on GEnie
CSterritt on Delphi
Sterritt%Scom15.decnet@ge-crd.arpa on Arpa
From malone@cod.nosc.mil Mon Aug 3 06:36:26 1987
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From: malone@cod.nosc.mil (John P. Malone)
Message-Id: <8708010052.AA25608@cod.nosc.mil>
To: mlwh@sphinx
Subject: Re: E-mail and On-line services
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Status: OR
In article <24534@sun.uucp> you write:
>What I would like to know is what are the e-mail and on-line services
>(other than USENET) that my fellow mac users find helpful.
--> I am not sure of your definition of USENET so the following info
may not fit your request exactly.
I access the following sites, via anonymous/guest-ftp, on the
internet. They all have Mac related files. Some Big-Some small.
site name directory involved
--------- ------------------
sumex-aim.stanford.edu <info-mac>, the grand-daddy of Mac
files, info & archives
sally.utexas.edu <mac>, some material, not new.
net1.ucsd.edu <mac or doc or pub, can't recall>
Limited, but nice & current.
simtel20.arpa <macintosh....> Complements and
expands on Sumex-Aim's archives.
I'm sure there are lots of others. Please publish the results.
tks Pat Malone malone@nosc.mil
From dorner@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu Mon Aug 3 09:41:23 1987
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From: dorner@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Message-Id: <8708031624.AA15328@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu>
To: mlwh@sphinx
Subject: Mac Services
Status: OR
I use GEnie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange). They
have all the features of the other biggies (CompuServe, etc). The difference
is that (at night at least, and until the FCC imposes their ridiculous $5
surcharge) GEnie costs $5 per hour at 1200 buad (CServe is $12). There
is an $18 registration fee as well.
I use GEnie for retreiving software. They have a large collection of stuff.
There are also product support groups on it (Red Ryder, for example, has
its own area), and a bulletin board system. I don't EVER read the bulletin
board, because the volume is just too high, with a very bad signal to noise
ration, and the entrie thing is clumsy to use.
But when I hear about a neat program, GEnie usually has it.
Steve Dorner
From ai5@i.cc.purdue.edu Mon Aug 3 14:01:33 1987
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From: ai5@i.cc.purdue.edu (Vik Lall )
Message-Id: <8708032044.AA05640@i.cc.purdue.edu>
To: mlwh@sun.COM@purdue.edu
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 87 15:44:36 EST
Subject: email services
Status: OR
Could you please send me a summary of what you received
in response to your posting looking for e-mail services?
I am thinking of going in for a SE but I am hesitant because
I do not know too much about it. Any info would be
appreciated.
Thanks,
Vik Lall
ai5@i.cc.purdue.edu or lall@purccvm.bitnet
----Martin L. W. Hall---- Sun Microsystems
HASA member in good standing
{allegra | hplabs}!sun!mlwh@sphinx or mlwh@sun.COMsysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) (08/05/87)
in article <24782@sun.uucp>, mlwh%sphinx@Sun.COM (Martin Hall) says: > > I thought that I would give a quick tally of what I have received so far > on my tally of Online services.....nobody has mentioned MCI mail, while > they have nothing specific about Macs, I would be curious to hear > more....The actual responses follow the tally. > > Here's another response. I regret not being able to mail it, but the software I'm using can't reverse the path for mail on anything that doesn't have a uucp address (the stuff with @'s in it won't work ...) At any rate, for Mac stuff I use USENET and CompuServe. If I need to send a message to Apple Developer Services using MCI mail, I actually send it from CompuServe. I'm new to USENET and hesitate to make judgements after only a couple of weeks. My first impressions are that people are earnest and knowledgeable, but that there aren't the vendors and developers that one finds on CompuServe. It is, however, the only way for me to get Mac PD software on my bbs computer (a 3B2), since my Mac won't talk to the 3B2 (modem problems). CompuServe has been excellent. I've gotten more work (writing) from contacts I've made there than all the money I've spent. For example, that's where MacUser found me and asked me to write a review of 4th Dimension for the November issue. The pay for that one article will be twice what I spend on CompuServe in a year ... I don't use their data libraries, since I get PD disks through the mail from the Boston Computer Society. Scholastech, the group for which I operate a bbs, has accounts on things like Biznet, Future, Channel and Softline, local bbs's which have MS-DOS PD software - the idea is to expand our collection - but I don't use them personally (having a built-in prejudice against anything that's not a Mac ...) Jan Harrington, sysop Scholastech Telecommunications seiso!husc6!amcad!stech!sysop A plea to all readers: please put uucp paths in your messages so people like me can mail responses to you !!!!