🚀 go-pugleaf

As you all know, the interface of BBS are usually poor : basically, it
consists in vt100 emulation, or at best color ANSI emulation. But now
that everyone has a personnal computer to connect to BBS, there are
opportunities for a change !

Lately, I have been working on a (small) project : trying to design a ne
protocl for use by BBSes. The features should be :

- only data is transmitted over the line, not presentation, so that the
  communication seems faster

- presentation is accomplished by a program running on the computer of t
  user (that is, the client)

- the protocol is independant of a given type of computers. Say the serv
  runs on Unix, any client, PC, or Macintosh, or Atari (and so on) shoul
  be able to connect to this server, with no difference (only the
  presentation would be up to the specific client, but not the data)

- the protocol should be easy to understand (so that is really simple to
  to develop a new application) and to program. It should allow for
  both interactive and batch capabilities.

Well, I know such things already exist, but I have not seen any in the
Public Domain, and they are usually for a specific server (compuserve,
AppleLink...).

I have already written the way the protocol handles things, and I have
written some specifications on how two applications (mail and
"main menu") could use it to transfer their data. All the Unix side
(in C language) of a corresponding server is written, and this
includes libraries that are common to clients and servers.

The specifications are also written (guess what: they were written
before the programs, oh boy!). Alas, they are right now in French
(translators welcome).

I would greatly like some help from the Net : people to read what I
have done, and say what they think about it. This is very important
for the basis of PSIM. After the base is considered good, anyone will
be able to port PSIM (client or server) to his own computer, and
anyone will be able to design new protocols for new applications.

If interested, please contact me at ULMO031@FRORS12.BITNET (or maybe
other addresses in my .sig, but they are not 100% sure).

The source code and specifications will be shortly posted somewhere on
the Net, right now they are only available on my BBS (in France!). By
the way, where should I post them ?

+ Alain Raynaud             ! E-Mail: alain@psmac1.frmug.fr.mugnet.org +
! SUPELEC Plateau de Moulon ! AppleLink: RAYNAUD                       !
! 91192 Gif Sur Yvette Cedex!                                          !
+ FRANCE                    ! psmac1 : +33 1 60 10 40 08 (v22bis)      +