Subj : In the future..
To   : Dan Richter
From : August Abolins
Date : Sun Aug 09 2020 12:05 pm

Hello Dan!

** On Sunday 07.06.20 - 10:48, Dan Richter wrote to Nick Andre:

 NA>> What would be really good is a mobile/tablet app that is so dumbed-
 NA>> down that it just focuses on messaging. Let the newcomer get their
 NA>> feet wet with that, and if they actually are techie or want a taste
 NA>> of nostalgia they can go ahead and experiment with mailers and BBS
 NA>> software.

 DR> Very good point. At this point, there really isn't even a good way to
 DR> access the technology via a mobile device. Granted, I haven't looked
 DR> at all of them, but from what I've seen, they are clumsy to work
 DR> with.

By now, you may have heard that at least one BBS is gating some of their  
local echos into and out of Telegram.

I've watched a few YT videos on what this thing looks like and how it  
operates.  I see a couple of shortcomings.

[1] Quoting.  Say goodbye to the traditional fidonet style quoting  
appearance. Most replies would seem to be either independent messages or  
top-quote.

[2] Related to the above, unless the gateway software can pull the message  
id of each Telegram message and convert to a fidonet MSGID/REPLYID,  
threading would get lost.

[3] Each account is tied to the phone number for the user. That might be  
fine for the user (analogous to a BBS user or a point), but inorder to  
work, the BBS sysop would have to sacrifice their phone's Telegram account  
to identify as the gateway-ID.

So, barring the secret sauce that the one fidonet BBS is using to gate  
into and out of Telegram, the Telegram app which is already available for  
iOS and Android may be a viable start.


  ../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.45
 * Origin: The future is not what it used to be. (2:221/1.58)

.