Subj : D'Bridge 4 status
To   : All
From : Nick Andre
Date : Thu Jan 25 2018 11:35 pm

Hi everyone, lets get our harmonicas ready as I'm afraid I'm singing the 
blues.... but no, I will not share the booze in the brown paper bag.

D'Bridge 4 is in total limbo at this point. I'm too busy with a school course
which I'm beginning to regret enrolling in, and holding down two jobs and 
raising the munchkin - Who may soon be the youngest RC/NC in Fidonet as I am 
giving serious consideration to letting her run my mail-hub system.

I had a phone call with Chris Irwin, the original author, and we both agree 
that the code may not be possible to port over to a "modern" compiler; because
there is a LOT of code specifically written for MS-DOS and the IBM PC/XT.

I managed to get DBUTIL compiled for Linux and Windows 32/64-bit, but the 
mailer, editor, nodelist compiler, etc. makes heavy use of a third-party 
library called Turbopower. The database code would need a complete overhaul to
say nothing about all of the assembler-code for EMSI/Zmodem, dialup, etc.

Its one of these things that needs time and perhaps someone to help me port 
the code over, if possible. I've contemplated paying someone to rewrite some 
of the stuff just to get the ball rolling, but not sure.

The program means so much to so many people, but I cannot trust anyone else to
work on it; nor can I open-source it as I made a gentlemans-agreement with 
Chris never to do so.

Nick

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
 * Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (1:229/426)

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