Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!umich!umeecs!msi.umn.edu!cs.umn.edu!thelake!steve From: steve@thelake.mn.org (Steve Yelvington) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Newsgroups Message-ID: Date: 24 Dec 90 07:51:46 GMT References: 76515 / 90Dec20 6:18 pm GMT (26 more) Lines: 84 [jimomura@lsuc.on.ca writes ... ] > I just received some messages at 'tndb' sent to > 'comp.sys.atari.st.tech'. Being a new group on my system they > were dumped in the catch-all 'letter.box' file that STadel creates > for undeliverable messages. My first reaction was to decide > that clearly I wanted to receive these messages. So I started up > STadel again and tried to create a "room" for this newsgroup name. > Unfortunately, STadel will not support a name this long. My peak > is 20 characters. I tried the STadel alias system before and it > didn't work on my version of STadel, so I can't alias the messages > to a shorter named room. As such, I'm considering dropping the > 'comp.sys.atari.st.tech' newsgroup completely. Here is an excerpt from the output of ";known floors" on the MAST BBS (Minnesota Atari ST users). [Port Atari].......... ctdl.sys.Atari.ST)* comp.sys.atari.st:* Atari8:* comp.sys.atari.st.t:* ^ | As you can see, the newsgroup name is truncated, but works. For further info, contact Tom Cook, sysop of the MAST BBS, at "tacook@moundst.mn.org". Aliasing works, too, although the docs are confusing. The room "ctdl.sys.atari.st" is so named at MAST for the benefit of neighboring sites that receive it via UUCP. Most Citadels call it simply "Atari ST." > But looking at the current newsgroups, the 'comp.sys.atari.8bit' > group is almost completely unused. Yup. 8bitters are history. Like it or not. > Actually, having watched the newsgroup for the last month > or so, I don't see the point in the 'comp.sys.atari.st.tech' > newsgroup at all. I haven't seen any *non*tech questions in > the current 'comp.sys.atari.st' newsgroup. Since there is > no "noise" in the newsgroup as it stands why do we need the > new newsgroup at all? The small amount of traffic doesn't seem > to warrant subdividing it. Heh.... stick around. Noise? You'll see plenty of it. comp.sys.atari.st periodically goes through horrid bouts of flaming, bickering about Atari Corp.'s marketing policies, etc. Such posts are explicitly forbidden by the charter of the tech group. comp.sys.atari.st also is open for discussion of applications and games, which .tech is not. Conversely, chatter about programming dialog boxes properly belongs in .tech, where it won't scare off the less technically inclined. Returning to the matter of STadel and BBSing: cmc@overmind.mind.org in Atlanta and Adrian Ashley up in Canada (sorry, Adrian, but I can't recall your net address) have source code to STadel and have developed their own mutations, Fortress and adel respectively. Bob Lee at Time Arts (the Lumena people) also has his own version, called b0badel, but I think it's only for PCs. Any of these folks can fix the roomname-length bug. A related bug/feature commonly truncates very long user names; I hope that one gets fixed, too. The author of STadel*, David Parsons, no longer is working on it, but is developing a portable BBS called bauble. You can contact him at "orc@jazz.sybase.com" or "akcs.orc@vpnet.chi.il.us". *STadel originally was the Atari ST version of Citadel. It was ported from Citadel-86, which was HAW's PC version of a program that originated under CP/M. STadel later was ported back to PC-DOS and also to Amigados. The Lake, now a UUCP system, originally was "The world's second Atari ST Citadel," so I know about these things. :-) ---- Steve Yelvington / P. O. Box 38 / Marine on St. Croix, MN 55047 USA INTERNET: steve@thelake.mn.org UUCP: plains!umn-cs!thelake!steve Merry Christmas to all, and to all a warm blanket. Or two. Or three. It's -10 degrees (F) outside. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!