🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 12 Jul 98 11:04:22 GMT, Chris Croughton <chris@keris.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Hi!  This is partly by way of a test (whether I can post) and also a
>request:
>
>Where are the sources to PCELM?  The limited documentation says that
>the sources to the original version are available from the authors (or
>rather were in 1994, I've tried emailing them but haven't had a
>response yet) but I gather Demon did some changes?  At least, Demon's
>PCELM 1.11 isn't the same as PCELM 3.21 which seems (from archie) to be
>the 'distribution' version...

The Demon version of PCElm is based an an older version of PCElm. Some
of the changes were incorporated back into the general PCElm by the
original author.

Our licence for the source code of PCElm does not permit us to make it
freely available. We can however share it with you if you obtain your
own source licence.

-- 
Malcolm S. Muir                                            Demon Internet Ltd.
Sunderland                                                 322 Regents Park Road
England                                                    London N3 2QQ

In article <35a8d47e.0@muir-et2.staff.demon.net>
           malcolm@demon.net "Malcolm Muir" wrote:

>The Demon version of PCElm is based an an older version of PCElm. Some
>of the changes were incorporated back into the general PCElm by the
>original author.

But not all, at least I couldn't persuade 3.21 to work...

>Our licence for the source code of PCElm does not permit us to make it
>freely available. We can however share it with you if you obtain your
>own source licence.

Fairy Nuff.

Thanks, I thought it might be something like that having seen that they have
source licences...

Chris C

On Sunday, in article
     <Snews.980712.110422.chris.10723@keris.demon.co.uk>
     chris@keris.demon.co.uk "Chris Croughton" wrote:

> Hi!  This is partly by way of a test (whether I can post) and also a
> request:
> 
> Where are the sources to PCELM?  The limited documentation says that
> the sources to the original version are available from the authors (or
> rather were in 1994, I've tried emailing them but haven't had a
> response yet) but I gather Demon did some changes?  At least, Demon's
> PCELM 1.11 isn't the same as PCELM 3.21 which seems (from archie) to be
> the 'distribution' version...

I've always assumed that Demon based "their" PCElm on the Siebeck and 
Freiss v3.0 and if so you need to pay for the source. However, if it's 
based on their earlier version, circa v1.9, the source is still freely 
available.
S & F lost interest around v1.9 and a chap called Kelvin Hill took over 
and brought out v2.0 - 2.2. I've never seen 2.2, but the source for 2.1 
is freely available (at least it was a couple of years ago). I've been 
told that v2.1 is only minor tweaks away from v1.9.
Of course, even if it is based on the 1.9 vintage, if Demon won't 
release their changes you're no further forward unless you just need 
somewhere to start.

In passing, what's so good about PCElm ? I started with it, but I don't 
remember being all that impressed.

Ian.
-- 

  |  Ian Smith             |  "The Moving Finger writes;
  |  ian@isis.demon.co.uk  |   and, having writ, Moves on."

In article <900272975snz@isis.demon.co.uk>
           ian@isis.demon.co.uk "Ian Smith" wrote:

>I've always assumed that Demon based "their" PCElm on the Siebeck and 
>Freiss v3.0 and if so you need to pay for the source. However, if it's 
>based on their earlier version, circa v1.9, the source is still freely 
>available.

Where?  I couldn't find anything that looked like source with a archie 
search.

>S & F lost interest around v1.9 and a chap called Kelvin Hill took over 
>and brought out v2.0 - 2.2. I've never seen 2.2, but the source for 2.1 
>is freely available (at least it was a couple of years ago). I've been 
>told that v2.1 is only minor tweaks away from v1.9.

Well, the Demon version claims to be '111' which I assume is 1.11 
(presumably Demon changes from 1.9).

>Of course, even if it is based on the 1.9 vintage, if Demon won't 
>release their changes you're no further forward unless you just need 
>somewhere to start.

Indeed.  I haven't heard back from the authors at all...

>In passing, what's so good about PCElm ? I started with it, but I don't 
>remember being all that impressed.

It's a darn sight better than View, it doesn't bomb out at 300 messages in 
a mailbox.  What I'd prefer is real elm, but I still haven't managed to get
the configure script to run all through even under Win95 (it complains of
running out of virtual memory, which is ridiculous, it doesn't need 128Mb
to compile even on a DEC Alpha).

BTW, I have modifications to POP3CLI and MAILCLI so that if you have lots
of POP3 mailboxes it doesn't try to kick them all at once.

What happened to the idea of having the Demon POP3 server add a header line
like X-POP3-Mailbox so you could d/l all the messages at once and then sort
them?

Chris C

On Wed, 15 Jul 1998 18:56:07 GMT, Chris Croughton <chris@keris.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>>S & F lost interest around v1.9 and a chap called Kelvin Hill took over 
>>and brought out v2.0 - 2.2. I've never seen 2.2, but the source for 2.1 
>>is freely available (at least it was a couple of years ago). I've been 
>>told that v2.1 is only minor tweaks away from v1.9.

S & F regained interest in 1992 and released version 3.0 based on
their old 1.9 The Hill versions were never incorporated in the
'main' source.

>Well, the Demon version claims to be '111' which I assume is 1.11 
>(presumably Demon changes from 1.9).

No, we are based on version 3.01 from Siebeck and Freiss. Our
first (public) release was Demon version 1.02

-- 
Malcolm S. Muir                                Demon Internet Ltd.
Sunderland                                     322 Regents Park Road
England                                        London N3 2QQ

On Wednesday, in article
     <Snews.980715.185607.chris.10745@keris.demon.co.uk>
     chris@keris.demon.co.uk "Chris Croughton" wrote:

> In article <900272975snz@isis.demon.co.uk>
>            ian@isis.demon.co.uk "Ian Smith" wrote:
> 
> >I've always assumed that Demon based "their" PCElm on the Siebeck and 
> >Freiss v3.0 and if so you need to pay for the source. However, if it's 
> >based on their earlier version, circa v1.9, the source is still freely 
> >available.
> 
> Where?  I couldn't find anything that looked like source with a archie 
> search.

It doesn't look like source - try looking for pcelm21.zip, about 117k.
It's for TC 1.5 and needed a bit of a massage to compile with BC 3.1 
Last year I started to update it, but it hasn't got very far at all.

....
> >In passing, what's so good about PCElm ? I started with it, but I don't 
> >remember being all that impressed.
> 
> It's a darn sight better than View, it doesn't bomb out at 300 messages in 
> a mailbox.  What I'd prefer is real elm, but I still haven't managed to get
> the configure script to run all through even under Win95 (it complains of
> running out of virtual memory, which is ridiculous, it doesn't need 128Mb
> to compile even on a DEC Alpha).

Blimey !  I archive my mailboxes at about 20 messages.

> BTW, I have modifications to POP3CLI and MAILCLI so that if you have lots
> of POP3 mailboxes it doesn't try to kick them all at once.

As I recall it, the POP3 client I based YAN's version on only ever 
kicked the first one it found for the specified servername. YAN's 
current version can kick (and drop) all "servers" for a servername or 
just one selected by username.
Which source did you base your client code on ?

Ian.
-- 

  |  Ian Smith             |  "The Moving Finger writes;
  |  ian@isis.demon.co.uk  |   and, having writ, Moves on."

In article <900660267snz@isis.demon.co.uk>
           ian@isis.demon.co.uk "Ian Smith" wrote:

>On Wednesday, in article
>     <Snews.980715.185607.chris.10745@keris.demon.co.uk>
>     chris@keris.demon.co.uk "Chris Croughton" wrote:
>
>It doesn't look like source - try looking for pcelm21.zip, about 117k.
>It's for TC 1.5 and needed a bit of a massage to compile with BC 3.1 
>Last year I started to update it, but it hasn't got very far at all.

Thanks, I'll have a look.

>> It's a darn sight better than View, it doesn't bomb out at 300 messages in 
>> a mailbox.  What I'd prefer is real elm, but I still haven't managed to get
>> the configure script to run all through even under Win95 (it complains of
>> running out of virtual memory, which is ridiculous, it doesn't need 128Mb
>> to compile even on a DEC Alpha).
>
>Blimey !  I archive my mailboxes at about 20 messages.

Since I get at least one mailing list which comes in at over a hundred per
day, archiving at anything under 300 is not really an option (although I do
now have an AWK script which archives only unread messages, this helps).

>> BTW, I have modifications to POP3CLI and MAILCLI so that if you have lots
>> of POP3 mailboxes it doesn't try to kick them all at once.
>
>As I recall it, the POP3 client I based YAN's version on only ever 
>kicked the first one it found for the specified servername. YAN's 
>current version can kick (and drop) all "servers" for a servername or 
>just one selected by username.
>Which source did you base your client code on ?

Yours, YAN 1.9 (I haven't looked at 2.0 yet to see if there's any
change in that area).  The problem is that if you need to kick the 
mailboxes (and I have over 20) on a 'per user'basis, when do you do it?
If you kick them all at once the system runs out of memory, if you kick
them on a timer you can still run out of memory (if they take longer to
d/l than the timer) or can sit around wasting time (==money) if they
d/l faster.

My version kicks the first <n> servers (at the moment 4, this should be
configurable), then when one finishes it kicks the next unkicked one
and so forth (actually there's a timer in there to do the kicking as
well).  I've also upgraded the 'popclient list' output to display for
each mailbox whether it is running or kicked.

An alternate method would be to make each client (possibly as few as one)
look at the next thing to do when it has finished and if there are more
mailboxes do the next one.  This would save on process creation
and termination.

Another thing I've done is make it stop at <n> messages retrieved and
save the messages (and do QUIT to delete them from the server), because
if the line drops after 300 out of 500 messages it's really annoying to
lose the messages - in fact at one time I found it impossible to get
any of the messages because my line was prone to dropping (not one of
Demon's, I hasten to add, this was retrieving mail while in Germany).
At the moment <n> is again fixed (at 20), this too needs to be configurable.

This sort of thing is why I'm using fewer and fewer things where I don't have
the source.  With the source I can make it (for it in almost*) do what
I need; if someone else finds it useful fine, if not well I'm happy <g>.

(Also, I'm a programmer for fun as well as for job.  I can't /not/ want to
tinker with things <g>...)

Again, thanks muchly to you and everyone else for making it possible for
me to do this...

Chris C

On Tuesday, in article
     <Snews.980721.204619.chris.10759@keris.demon.co.uk>
     chris@keris.demon.co.uk "Chris Croughton" wrote:

> Yours, YAN 1.9 (I haven't looked at 2.0 yet to see if there's any
> change in that area).  The problem is that if you need to kick the 
> mailboxes (and I have over 20) on a 'per user'basis, when do you do it?
> If you kick them all at once the system runs out of memory, if you kick
> them on a timer you can still run out of memory (if they take longer to
> d/l than the timer) or can sit around wasting time (==money) if they
> d/l faster.

Oh dear, hacking a hack :)
Don't bother with 2.0 for the POP3 stuff, it hasn't changed from 1.9.

> My version kicks the first <n> servers (at the moment 4, this should be
...
> This sort of thing is why I'm using fewer and fewer things where I don't have
> the source.  With the source I can make it (for it in almost*) do what
> I need; if someone else finds it useful fine, if not well I'm happy <g>.

You are obviously a hard-core POP3 user :)  I don't use it at all, but I 
got asked and I liked the idea of a more general application KA9Q rather 
than a Demon focused one.
I agree about the availability of source. Where's your POP3 stuff hidden ?

> (Also, I'm a programmer for fun as well as for job.  I can't /not/ want to
> tinker with things <g>...)

As you've probably realized I'm hardly a programmer at all :)

Apropos something completely different (although a part of the more 
general app theme), I have the feeling I saw something from you about 
direct posting of news. I've just added it to YAN and am in the process 
of testing it, but if you've done the same I'd like to compare notes.

Ian.
-- 

  |  Ian Smith             |  "The Moving Finger writes;
  |  ian@isis.demon.co.uk  |   and, having writ, Moves on."

In article <901101724snz@isis.demon.co.uk>
           ian@isis.demon.co.uk "Ian Smith" wrote:

>Oh dear, hacking a hack :)

Yep <g>.  Isn't that true of most of the code?  I know that's happened
with Snews, for example.

>Don't bother with 2.0 for the POP3 stuff, it hasn't changed from 1.9.

OK, so I can just slot my changes in and rebuild it (just checked, I do 
have BC++ 3.1 on this machine).

>You are obviously a hard-core POP3 user :)  I don't use it at all, but I 
>got asked and I liked the idea of a more general application KA9Q rather 
>than a Demon focused one.

I have to be, since Demon don't have a phone access in Germany, so I
have to use POP3 to get at my mailboxes.  If DEmon had implemented the 
idea I remember being proposed (adding an X-POP3-Mailbox header) then
I could d/l everything for keris.dcu and then filter it, but that seems
to have died.

>I agree about the availability of source. Where's your POP3 stuff hidden ?

On my hard disk <g>.  I'm away in America from tomorrow until 1998.08.11,
I'll work on it while I'm away and tidy it up then upload it to my web
site when I get back.  At the moment it really is a hack (and produces
far too much stuff on the screen for debugging).

>As you've probably realized I'm hardly a programmer at all :)

Hah!  I remember some other people saying that, and contributing far
more usefull stuff than me.

>Apropos something completely different (although a part of the more 
>general app theme), I have the feeling I saw something from you about 
>direct posting of news. I've just added it to YAN and am in the process 
>of testing it, but if you've done the same I'd like to compare notes.

Yes, I tried compiling it but there seemed to be some of the posting source
missing (I think it was supposed to be in GremNOS or DNOS according to the
documentation) and I never got round to making it work.  I found that
mail2news will accept mail from keris.dcu even if I send it from Germany
so that's working and I found the POP3 stuff to be more important for me.
If you've got it working I'll be interested in testing it when I get back
(and converting SNews etc. to use it - my initial idea would be to have
a pre-KA9Q filter which did the conversion, but that's the way my mind works
<g>).

BTW, a bugette in YAN - often (not always) when I switch sessions (with TAB
for instance) it clears the screen - have you seen this?  It happens with
'raw' YAN 1.9 as well as with my rebuild.

Chris C

On Wednesday, in article
     <Snews.980722.201325.chris.10775@keris.demon.co.uk>
     chris@keris.demon.co.uk "Chris Croughton" wrote:

> >Oh dear, hacking a hack :)
> 
> Yep <g>.  Isn't that true of most of the code?  I know that's happened
> with Snews, for example.

Well, it holds for me, but then I'm a cut-and-paste bandit. I like to 
think that the real pros are a little more creative and at least know 
what they're hacking at. Inspired guesswork has it's limits :(

> I have to be, since Demon don't have a phone access in Germany, so I
> have to use POP3 to get at my mailboxes.  If DEmon had implemented the 
> idea I remember being proposed (adding an X-POP3-Mailbox header) then
> I could d/l everything for keris.dcu and then filter it, but that seems
> to have died.

Did it ever live ?  I thought that was more of a wish-list thing.
Why can't you filter on the To: line ?

> On my hard disk <g>.  I'm away in America from tomorrow until 1998.08.11,
> I'll work on it while I'm away and tidy it up then upload it to my web
> site when I get back.  At the moment it really is a hack (and produces
> far too much stuff on the screen for debugging).

Sounds pretty normal to me :)
Away in America has a certain ring to it although if it's to the 
southern part perhaps sizzle is more the word.

[direct post]
> Yes, I tried compiling it but there seemed to be some of the posting source
> missing (I think it was supposed to be in GremNOS or DNOS according to the
> documentation) and I never got round to making it work.  I found that
> mail2news will accept mail from keris.dcu even if I send it from Germany
> so that's working and I found the POP3 stuff to be more important for me.
> If you've got it working I'll be interested in testing it when I get back
> (and converting SNews etc. to use it - my initial idea would be to have
> a pre-KA9Q filter which did the conversion, but that's the way my mind works
> <g>).

As I recall it, the hooks were in GremNOS, but not the code and I'm 
pretty sure DNOS doesn't use it. If it *is* in either, I missed it and 
wasted a bit of time :(
I've been running tests to d.s and I'm happy with it - it's pretty 
quick. I'm about to start using it routinely (always assuming nothing 
nasty crawls out of the woodwork it'll be in next month's YAN :)

If you know of a news server which doesn't honour NEWNEWS, you can test 
the alternative method of building the new news list as well since 
that's also in the code.
 
As for creating the files, I just hacked a version of JW's Snews to add 
the option of producing the direct post formatted files. Surprisingly 
perhaps, I thought that was the easiest way and *that's* the way *my* 
mind works :) Sad, innit ?
I'm a bit hesitant about making it available, though. There's already a 
plethora of Snews versions knocking about, it adds a couple of config 
file parms and I'm not sure how much demand there is for direct posting 
anyway. Hardly any, I'd have thought, from Demonites. Your way does 
reduce the confusion on that front.
Actually, I've probably made life harder by using a .nws suffix for the 
second file and a new directory to hold the direct post news items, but 
I like to keep things separate :) However, for me at least, it also 
meant changes to the session manager (since it monitors the outgoing 
queues) and the reviewer.

> BTW, a bugette in YAN - often (not always) when I switch sessions (with TAB
> for instance) it clears the screen - have you seen this?  It happens with
> 'raw' YAN 1.9 as well as with my rebuild.

Raw ! I like it. No, I can't say that I've had the screen clear with 
session swaps and that code hasn't changed for at least a year. As and 
when I do see it, I'm sure I'll view it as a serious bug. Any particular 
situations ?  What happens to the status lines ? 

Ian.
-- 
  |  Ian Smith             |  "The Moving Finger writes;
  |  ian@isis.demon.co.uk  |   and, having writ, Moves on."

-- 
  |  Ian Smith             |  "The Moving Finger writes;
  |  ian@isis.demon.co.uk  |   and, having writ, Moves on."

In article <901303977snz@isis.demon.co.uk>
           ian@isis.demon.co.uk "Ian Smith" writes:

>On Wednesday, in article
>     <Snews.980722.201325.chris.10775@keris.demon.co.uk>
>     chris@keris.demon.co.uk "Chris Croughton" wrote:

>> I have to be, since Demon don't have a phone access in Germany, so I
>> have to use POP3 to get at my mailboxes.  If DEmon had implemented the 
>> idea I remember being proposed (adding an X-POP3-Mailbox header) then
>> I could d/l everything for keris.dcu and then filter it, but that seems
>> to have died.
>
>Did it ever live ?  I thought that was more of a wish-list thing.
>Why can't you filter on the To: line ?

'cause the To: line doesn't necessarily represent who the mail was 
destined for when it arrived at Demon.

Parsing the first Received: header works though if you don't want to
resort to *ENV.

>[direct post]
>> Yes, I tried compiling it but there seemed to be some of the posting source
>> missing (I think it was supposed to be in GremNOS or DNOS according to the
>> documentation) and I never got round to making it work.

>As I recall it, the hooks were in GremNOS, but not the code and I'm 
>pretty sure DNOS doesn't use it. If it *is* in either, I missed it and 
>wasted a bit of time :(

The hooks are in GremNOS, I didn't included the nntppost.c source
since I was in the middle of tidying it up (and still am) following 
some discussions on the nntp lists (and, ironically, some more checks 
to prevent abuse).  There's enough broken news software out there as 
it is and I'm not in any hurry to add to it...

[ Another point I forgot to bring up about using SNews is the
  Newsgroups: and Follow-ups headers need fixing not to put one group
  per line for maximum compatibility (so1036, IIRC) ].

>> BTW, a bugette in YAN - often (not always) when I switch sessions (with TAB
>> for instance) it clears the screen - have you seen this?  It happens with
>> 'raw' YAN 1.9 as well as with my rebuild.
>
>Raw ! I like it. No, I can't say that I've had the screen clear with 
>session swaps and that code hasn't changed for at least a year. As and
>when I do see it, I'm sure I'll view it as a serious bug. Any particular
>situations ?  What happens to the status lines ? 

I should think this will happen when it gets exceptionally low on free 
memory - it certainly happens with other NOS variants, std DIS 2.16d
included.

Cheers, Graham.
-- 
Graham E. Kinns
Graham@grempc.demon.co.uk

Graham E Kinns <Graham@grempc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <901303977snz@isis.demon.co.uk>
>            ian@isis.demon.co.uk "Ian Smith" writes:
>>On Wednesday, in article
>>     <Snews.980722.201325.chris.10775@keris.demon.co.uk>
>>     chris@keris.demon.co.uk "Chris Croughton" wrote:
>>> I have to be, since Demon don't have a phone access in Germany, so I
>>> have to use POP3 to get at my mailboxes.  If DEmon had implemented the 
>>> idea I remember being proposed (adding an X-POP3-Mailbox header) then
>>> I could d/l everything for keris.dcu and then filter it, but that seems
>>> to have died.
>>Did it ever live ?  I thought that was more of a wish-list thing.
>>Why can't you filter on the To: line ?
> 'cause the To: line doesn't necessarily represent who the mail was 
> destined for when it arrived at Demon.
> Parsing the first Received: header works though if you don't want to
> resort to *ENV.

I can't speak for Demon as I've never used its POP3 service, but in my 
experience of other POP3 accounts the received line is a good, but by no
means perfect method of finding the recipient of a message. I currently
check the Recieved:, To: & CC: headers, in that order of preference, and
there are still messages which get through without a recipient on my system.

J.

In article <6pk03j$em5@bcrkh13.bnr.ca>, Jonathan McDowell <jonmcd@bireh0
55.europe.nortel.com> writes

>I can't speak for Demon as I've never used its POP3 service, but in my 
>experience of other POP3 accounts the received line is a good, but by no
>means perfect method of finding the recipient of a message.

Demon's "Received:" line is an accurate representation of the SMTP
envelope RCPT TO:  (the MAIL FROM ends up in Return-Path)

> I currently
>check the Recieved:, To: & CC: headers, in that order of preference,

good advice for a general package to be used with other systems

> and
>there are still messages which get through without a recipient on my system.

-- 
richard                       writing to inform and not as company policy
 http://www.demon.net/news/features/crypto/  for Demon's views on crypto
"Assembly of Japanese bicycle require great peace of mind" quoted in ZAMM

On Monday, in article <901568334snz@grempc.demon.co.uk>
     Graham@grempc.demon.co.uk "Graham E Kinns" wrote:

[direct post]
> The hooks are in GremNOS, I didn't included the nntppost.c source
> since I was in the middle of tidying it up (and still am) following 
> some discussions on the nntp lists (and, ironically, some more checks 
> to prevent abuse).  There's enough broken news software out there as 
> it is and I'm not in any hurry to add to it...

What file format(s) do you use ?
Assuming Snews as the reader, does it need modifying to produce suitable 
output ?

[session swap screen clear]
> I should think this will happen when it gets exceptionally low on free 
> memory - it certainly happens with other NOS variants, std DIS 2.16d
> included.

Thanks for that. It's no wonder that I've never seen it since I rule low 
memory right out of my life and it's easily done when you can monitor it 
on screen.

Ian.
-- 
  |  Ian Smith             |  "The Moving Finger writes;
  |  ian@isis.demon.co.uk  |   and, having writ, Moves on."

In article <901615093snz@isis.demon.co.uk>
           ian@isis.demon.co.uk "Ian Smith" writes:

>On Monday, in article <901568334snz@grempc.demon.co.uk>
>     Graham@grempc.demon.co.uk "Graham E Kinns" wrote:
>
>[direct post]
>> The hooks are in GremNOS, I didn't included the nntppost.c source

>What file format(s) do you use ?
>Assuming Snews as the reader, does it need modifying to produce suitable 
>output ?

I haven't made any mods to Snews in that respect; at the moment it's 
just a few lines of perl to find mail2news@, delete the .wrk file and 
rename the .txt to .nws.  As I mentioned in dis.pc the initial attempt
just posts all .nws files from mqueue to the first server that accepts
posting.

>[session swap screen clear]
>> I should think this will happen when it gets exceptionally low on free 
>> memory - it certainly happens with other NOS variants, std DIS 2.16d
>> included.

Of course what I omitted there is that 2.16d falls over shortly 
afterwards due to a NULL ptr deref in the command parser.  I've tested 
GremNOS down to zero free memory and recovered from it OK although 
what usually happens on-line is a resource deadlock and the idle timer 
expires...

Cheers, Graham.
-- 
Graham E. Kinns
Graham@grempc.demon.co.uk

On Thursday, in article <901827036snz@grempc.demon.co.uk>
     Graham@grempc.demon.co.uk "Graham E Kinns" wrote:

[direct post files]
> I haven't made any mods to Snews in that respect; at the moment it's 
> just a few lines of perl to find mail2news@, delete the .wrk file and 
> rename the .txt to .nws.  As I mentioned in dis.pc the initial attempt
> just posts all .nws files from mqueue to the first server that accepts
> posting.

I've now tried using POST instead of IHAVE and in use I can see no 
difference. However, the file needs of POST are simpler so, unless 
something nasty shows up, I'll stick with it.

I'm using a .txt suffix, but in a separate news post directory -  
~/spool/nqueue. I've hacked up an Snews to do the business.

Ian.
-- 
  |  Ian Smith             |  "The Moving Finger writes;
  |  ian@isis.demon.co.uk  |   and, having writ, Moves on."