Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!occrsh!uokmax!servalan!rmtodd
From: rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Porting C News to MS-DOS?
Message-ID: <1989Aug1.234736.501@servalan.uucp>
Date: 1 Aug 89 23:47:36 GMT
References: <1143@mailrus.cc.umich.edu> <1989Jul28.232622.1036@servalan.uucp> <1989Jul30.022407.2361@tmsoft.uucp>
Reply-To: rmtodd@servalan.UUCP (Richard Todd)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Lines: 23

In article <1989Jul30.022407.2361@tmsoft.uucp> mshiels@tmsoft.UUCP (Michael A. Shiels) writes:
>Porting C news to the PC is not impossible.  I had an earlier version of
>Cnews running on my pc for ages until I found that doing my own message
>conversions was easier than running Cnews and then reading those messages
>for gatewaying to another system.  But IT'S NOT IMPOSSIBLE.  I was using
>Microsoft C 5.1 and a whole pile of porting libraries I have created over
>the last 5 years.
  I never said that it was impossible.  I just said it would be a royal pain,
and tried to give hints on what "features" of MSDOS are likely to cause trouble.
The fact that you needed a whole pile of porting libraries that you created
over a 5 year span says more eloquently than anything I can write how poorly
suited the PC is to running netnews, or any other serious program of the
modern age.  
  How long did it take you to port C News to your PC?  Three months? Four?
It took me 3-4 *hours* to get C News running on my Unix box, and most of that
was waiting for various makes to complete.  The advantage of having a real
computer instead of a PC cannot be overstated, not only in the time involved
but in the hassle.  As Peter da Silva points out, even an Amiga would be
an improvement; at least the Amiga has a multitasking OS.  
--
Richard Todd	rmtodd@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu  rmtodd@chinet.chi.il.us
	rmtodd@servalan.uucp
MMDF is a 4 letter word.