Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!micor!isishq!kesrith!rjbeeth
From: isishq!kesrith!rjbeeth (Rick Beetham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: How do I get email/news to a PC?
Message-ID: <606669847DN5.35B@kesrith.uucp>
Date: Sun, 06 Jan 91 12:23:36 EST
References: <1990Dec30.022715.14429@inel.gov>
Distribution: na
Organization: Distnet Beta Leaf Node
Lines: 84

In article <1990Dec30.022715.14429@inel.gov> 
(Linn Hower) writes: 

>   I would like to be able to receive email and possibly some news on
> my home computer.  I would greatly appreciate anyone's opinions/experiences/
> suggestions as to how to do this.  Is there uucp available for PC's?  Will
> it run unattended?  Are there other transport agents available?  And what
> about email agents and user interfaces?
> 
>   As you might be able to see, I am quite uneducated about all this PC
> stuff.  I will appreciate any input.

Linn,

I have been helping Beta Test a product that you might be interested
in. It is called DistNet and may give you a lot of the functionality
that you have been looking for. I have just recently been allowed to
start speaking publicly about it as they are now getting ready to
make their first "shareware" release within a month.

The person to talk to is Doug Thompson and he can be contacted via
several routes:

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 UUCP: isishq!testsys!doug             DNS:  doug@isishq.fidonet.org
 Voice: 613-722-4724                   Fido: Doug Thompson on 1:163/162
 POST: P.0. Box 3041, Stn C., Ottawa, K1Y 4J3, CANADA
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

They had two main goals in mind when DistNet was first envisioned.
1) give the users access to email and 2) make it simple to use.
Suffice to say that both these goals have been met and exceeded!

I originally ran their software on a clone 286 and am presently
running on a 386SX. It will just as easily run on an XT if you want
and yes it runs in DOS.

Their original plan did not include a NEWS feature but with
sufficient cajoling it has since been added. It will communicate with unix
hosts (uucp) and dos hosts (waffle) alike. I have been running
several versions (each one an improvement over the last) and each
one is more powerful and easier to use than the last. It is menu
driven, and can be used "as is" or if you are inclined you can
modify it to suit your own tastes. One nice feature is that it will
allow you to use the editor of your choice for mail/news creation.

It comes with uucp, uudecode & uuencode, compaction facilities,
another good feature is that it can be easily set up to dial up your
host in unattended mode (for lower rates and/or ease of access).

I have successfully requested several SIMTEL files via uuencode and
am presently acquiring about 750K/night of news from my host. I have
done this with a standard 2400 baud modem and will hopefully someday
be able to acquire a telebit (their recommendation) in order to
speed up the process. Your proposed configuration should be no
problem.

My only major complaint is that it depends heavily on having a large
DOS environment set in order to operate properly. This is not a
major issue for most people but I am also playing around with
windows and several other bits and pieces and so have to be
extremely careful to avoid running out of environment space. FYI it
is not (yet) written for windows but will work as a DOS application
under it (I usually put it into the backround where it runs
successfully).

I believe there are other packages available to you WAFFLE being one
that comes to mind. But I don't think any will be as easy and
straightforward to set up and use. Of course the software is only
half of what you need. You will also need a host or sight that will
allow you to transfer news and email to/from the network. I assume
that as you posted a message and hope to receive answers that that
is not a major concern for you.

Hope the above helps you a bit. You might like to contact Doug for
further information. He is also considering only releasing the email
portion at this time (you might like to add your 2 cents worth to
his releasing news as well)

Good luck

        Rick


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{...}isishq!kesrith!rjbeeth    | Nepean, Ontario
rjbeeth@isishq.fidonet.org