Path: utzoo!utstat!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!helios!bcm!rice!uw-beaver!milton!dali.cs.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!twg.com!david From: david@twg.com (David S. Herron) Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: Time for 8 bit news, isn't it?????. Message-ID: <7647@gollum.twg.com> Date: 22 Jul 90 23:35:16 GMT References: <1990Jul13.022224.25441@lth.se> <3119.269d97ea@mccall.com> <777@hades.ausonics.oz.au> <15688@bfmny0.BFM.COM> Reply-To: david@twg.com (David S. Herron) Organization: The Wollongong Group, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 33 In article <15688@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes: >In article <777@hades.ausonics.oz.au> greyham@hades.ausonics.oz.au (Greyham Stoney) writes: >I have never thought, and do not think now, that transmitting binaries >is an appropriate activity for Usenet... but a significant minority >disagrees, and since they can control who does and doesn't carry the >binary bandwidth, it's fine with me. Either way, 8 bit articles don't >fix anything fundamentally broken, so I'd concentrate energies elsewhere. Transmitting 8-bit files can be useful beyond the fairly narrowly defined thought of software packages. Think about all the multi-media gadgetry floating around in X.400. Voice, animation, still pictures in various formats, etc. This is something you'd need an Amiga to do justice to :-) But, no, it doesn't require 8-bit article formats to support all that. It can be encoded in 7-bit files, without too much problem and so forth. BTW.. I hafta make this warning.. BITNET won't be able to handle any 8-bit file format very easily. More than just bitnet, but also things like VMS will have problems. One of the better things about Usenet is that, since it's text files, it's immediately portable across all sorts of OS's. Non-text files tend to be non-portable. -- <- David Herron, an MMDF weenie, <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <- <- Sign me up for one "I survived Jaka's Story" T-shirt!