Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!emv
From: emv@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: $MESSagesystem (was Re: Editor for mail)
Keywords: MTS MTS/XA $MESSAGESYSTEM
Message-ID: <596@mailrus.cc.umich.edu>
Date: 30 Jul 88 18:20:09 GMT
References: <10359@ncc.Nexus.CA>
Sender: usenet@mailrus.cc.umich.edu
Reply-To: emv@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti)
Organization: University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor
Lines: 35

In article <10359@ncc.Nexus.CA> lyndon@ncc.nexus.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg) writes:
>[ Followups in comp.mail.misc ]
>
>On a related note, does anyone know if Confer or *FORUM have been
>taught about networks and remote sites yet? (I'm trying not to
>smile here :-)
>
Jon Zeeff (umix!b-tech!zeeff) wrote ConferLink, a program that
lets two Confer conferences or a Confer and a Picospan conference
(or multiples of either) be connected.  It ran on his unix system
for a while, but UM Computing Center management never picked up
on the usefulness of such a product so they never purchased a
license for it.  

It worked surprisingly well, considering how many hoops it had
to jump through to deal with what was then the difficulties of
getting network access to MTS.  It might be better now, at least
at Michigan, since MTS here does have $ftp and inbound telnet 
service.  Still, not a trivial task.

As much as I like the usenet, there's something to be said for
Confer and *FORUM (and by extension Picospan and similarly
organized communications media) - there's a very strong illusion
of community that is built up.  A bunch of picospan conferences
connected over the internet with Picolink/Conferlink would be
better for some types of discussions that the usenet.

Any picospan sites on the internet right now ?

--Ed
Edward Vielmetti, usenet/uucp admin, U of Michigan mail group

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