dell@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Thomas E. Dell) (10/29/89)
Did someone say PC<->Usenet software?
There have been a LOT of questions about PC<->Usenet software lately.
To date the only option has been to run Ufgate, which requires running
other Fido software. I won't say what my opinion of Fido software is.
Since 1985 I have been developing BBS software, as sort of a bizarre
hobby, or obsession. This has evolved into a viable PC<->Usenet link,
BBS software that runs under DOS, SCO Xenix, A/UX, BSD 4.3, SunOS, Ultrix,
and several other platforms. You can see the fruits of this by calling
+1 408 245 SPAM and poking around (warning- the system isn't exactly
something you would call a "normal" BBS. 60,000 calls & going strong).
In any event, in 3 or 4 days I will release a preliminary DOS version.
It features:
o Fully functional BBS program
o uucico that works fairly well and is stable. It needs a bit
more work on the error recovery stages though. Works as
dialin (slave) or dialout (master).
o Clean & consistent netnews and email interface that functions
quite well with Unix & Waffle systems.
o Clean & consistent interface with external programs
o File transfer section that works nicely with reasonable
external protocols
My original plans were to work on it a few more months before releasing
this. However, since there seems to be a high immediate demand for this, I
will put it up for anonymous FTP somewhere, sometime this week. Because
of this there may be some things missing in the documentation (There is over
150k of documentation). There is some functionality missing - it will not
handle compressed newsfeeds (batch is ok), it doesn't know enough about
message threads (it knows a little), doesn't do NNTP yet, and a few other
small (big?) nits.
Waffle is a $30 piece of shareware (and well worth it). Source code
will also be available for a bit more. A multiuser Unix/Xenix
version will also be forthcoming in the coming months (it works but there
are some logistics to work out with incoming mail).
Thomas Dell
root@vox.darkside.comsteve@thelake.UUCP (Steve Yelvington) (10/29/89)
In article <3618@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>, dell@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Thomas E. Dell) writes ... >Did someone say PC<->Usenet software? > >There have been a LOT of questions about PC<->Usenet software lately. >To date the only option has been to run Ufgate, which requires running >other Fido software. I won't say what my opinion of Fido software is. UFgate is/was not the only option. At least two versions of Citadel have been running Usenet news and UUCP mail on personal computers for a year or so. One is STadel, a shareware product for the Atari ST and IBM PC-clones. The other is Citadel-86, a free PC-clone BBS for which Paul Gauthier has written a UUPC gateway. Incidentally, the STadel <--> UUCP software also can be used in conjunction with a separate program that lets STadel network via Bix. There also are a couple of Un*x versions of Citadel, and I believe one of them knows how to speak the Citadel proprietary networking protocol. I have a strange setup. I run STadel as a personal node -- not as a BBS -- so that I can keep up with several STadel-networked discussion "rooms." I also run Dale Schumacher's UUMAIL, a separate UUCP-compatible mail program for the Atari ST, and have a home-brew gateway program move mail between them. For Usenet news, UUMAIL is the transport mechanism, and I've written an rnews (unbatcher) and a postnews utility. John Stanley's UUREADER provides the (very nice) user interface. Steve Yelvington, up at the lake in Minnesota ... pwcs.StPaul.GOV!stag!thelake!steve (Usenet) ... {playgrnd,moundst,class68}!thelake!steve (Citadel)