Hi Nightfox,
In a message to Fusion you wrote:

Yeah, I tend to prefer to read messages on the BBS myself. But it
seems to me there are a number of people who like to use offline
readers as well.

I've always been an offline mail user. For me it started when my BBS
was very busy and this way I didn't have to lose a node while I used
it.

For the last few years I've been using an old 16 bit windows program
called Sempoint. It is my "sysop reader" for the fidonet echo's as well
as it tosses QWK packets into squish areas for me. Why I want this now
I have no idea, but I set it up so I must have had a reason at one time.

... Tell me again how lucky I am to work here... I keep forgetting.


* SeM. 2.26 * paranoia: believing this tagline is about you.
--- SBBSecho 3.37-Linux
* Origin: _thePharcyde telnet://bbs.pharcyde.org (Wisconsin) (21:1/700)

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Tiny to Nightfox on Fri Mar 27 2026 06:23 am

For the last few years I've been using an old 16 bit windows program called Sempoint. It is my "sysop reader" for the fidonet echo's as well as it tosses QWK packets into squish areas for me. Why I want this now I have no idea, but I set it up so I must have had a reason at one time.

Yeah, these days it seems less important to have an offline mail reader, but back in the 80s & 90s, they were definitely useful. I actually never used an offline mail reader myself, as I tended to not read the BBS forums much back then, but if I spent more time doing that, I think I would have found an offline mail reader to be useful.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.37-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

On 27 Mar 2026, Nightfox said the following...

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: Tiny to Nightfox on Fri Mar 27 2026 06:23 am

For the last few years I've been using an old 16 bit windows program called Sempoint. It is my "sysop reader" for the fidonet echo's as w as it tosses QWK packets into squish areas for me. Why I want this n have no idea, but I set it up so I must have had a reason at one time

Yeah, these days it seems less important to have an offline mail reader, but back in the 80s & 90s, they were definitely useful. I actually
never used an offline mail reader myself, as I tended to not read the
BBS forums much back then, but if I spent more time doing that, I think
I would have found an offline mail reader to be useful.

some of the BBSes had pretty bad message editors too. even if external ones were available they might not have been installed.

then you'd see messages ending like this posted from that BBS:

/?
/?
?
s
/help
/ss
/s

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

Re: Re: New offline QWK mail
By: fusion to Nightfox on Fri Mar 27 2026 11:35 am

some of the BBSes had pretty bad message editors too. even if external ones were available they might not have been installed.

then you'd see messages ending like this posted from that BBS:

/?
/?
?
s
/help
/ss
/s

Yeah, I always liked having an external message editor available. One thing I like about Synchronet is that it allows multiple external editors to be configured and allows users to choose what they want to use. I tend to like to install a lot of things like that.. Back in the 90s, I liked setting up additional file transfer protocols as well, to give users options - but these days, it seems BBS file transfer protocols are a lot less relevant. It seems most modern BBS software supports the basics (X/Y/Zmodem and maybe Kermit in some cases?), I've heard file transfer protocols like that don't always work great over a TCP/IP network stack because those protocols were made for a raw serial data connection, and for TCP/IP networking, we also have FTP (although I'm not sure if FTP is supported in an old-style BBS terminal connection).

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.37-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)