Re: METAL is now FREE!!!!!!

[fnet@backus.cba.csuohio.edu (Greg Boh)]

In article <24385@drutx.ATT.COM> dvac@longs.att.com (Daniel Vachon) writes:

>>Roy is talking about the difference between Acos and Metal. NOT the difference
>>between GBBS and FutureVision.
> 
>Boy...these METAL supporters are pretty flame-happy!  I hate to tell you guys
>this, but the average BBS user could care less how much code is being executed
>"behind the scenes".  They care about how long it takes them to read messages,
>play their games, etc... They are paying for the long distance phone call
>in some cases.  Like I have said MANY MANY times, METAL has a lot more to 
>offer...YES!  *BUT*, to do very similar things as far as message bases and
>games go between MY ACOS bbs, and MY FV/METAL bbs, the ACOS system went much
>faster.  Maybe it is attributed to the fact that METAL uses SMF's and that
>ACOS had built in message files.    I have done no benchmarking studies to

SMF is built into the core. It's internal like ACOS Message files. I don't
notice any kind of difference in speed between the ACOS MSG file format and
the METAL SMF file format. 

In fact, I'd venture to guess that ACOS would in fact, be slower because of
the "byte" packing algorithm.

>determine which BBS package can execute a given routine faster.  The FACT is,
>that the stock BBS program for METAL (Futurevision) runs TOO slow on an Apple
>//e (unaccellerated), while the ACOS system runs at least 5 times faster.
>I don't think any of you guys who run your BBS's on your souped up //gs's have
>any room to talk until you have tried to run an FV system on a 1.1 //e. 

I did. I ran METAL for over a year on a IIE. 

>Let me just calm down all the METAL-jock's hormones by saying Futurevision
>running under METAL is too slow on a 3MHz Apple //e from the system user's
>point of view.  My ACOS bbs (based on GBBS Pro 1.3) runs a lot faster for

Right here you state that FV under METAL is slow...but..

>message bases, etc.  Granted my ACOS BBS doesn't do EVERYTHING that FV does,
>nor does it need to.  It does have networking capability with something I 
>wrote myself.  Not as flexible, but it got the job done.  It doesn't have
>emulation all over the place, nor do I feel it needs it.  Really the ONE 
>thing that I miss from METAL/FV in ACOS is the editor.  Also, the
>METAL Spacer Quest ran painfully slow compared to the ACOS version.
>
>ALSO, I am in no way slamming TC or his great programming on METAL.  It is a
>great software package if you have a fast CPU that can handle it.

NOW you are saying that METAL requires a fast CPU. Not true. FV UNDER METAL
requires a fast CPU.

Run my MSH "bbs" program on a IIE. Guarantee it will be faster than hell. 

>>.... Futurevision on the other hand... it just does too much, and (atleast 
>> for my sanity's sake) requires an accelerator.
>
>That is my point! thank you.  

A good portion of FutureVision's "Time Intensive" code has been moved into
assembly for the 5.0 release. It's blindingly fast even with my Zip turned
off. In fact, for the most part, I wish I -COULD- run it at 1.1 Mhz so I could
test out some of my UUCP parsing routines. They pretty much haul ass even at
2.5. (Mails about 4 letters in ten seconds. This includes UUCP Control packet
parsing as well as name table lookups and routing. Not something to really
sneer at considering that it is also blasting status messages to the screen
for every process. It will be faster when I am through optimizing the code.)

To be honest, I didn't start this thread to argue about software. And I am
really sick of listening to people slam this and that. Like it was stated a
few posts back, run whatever the hell you want to. METAL has a hell of a lot
of advantages over ACOS, that's without a doubt. LLUCE attempts to close that
gap. ProLine has Usenet and E-mail support already. Whatever fits your needs
and budgets.

I want to see more BBS software written in METAL. A Smaller, "IIE" optimized
version of FutureVision would be a nice thing to see, but then again, it would
also be nice to see other software packages available for the platform. All
the people that are working on the FV 5.0 project are not doing it for pay. We
want to bring the most complete and powerful BBS software to the public for
free. The futurenet is, without a doubt, the second largest Apple based BBS
network and with the onset of our UUCP feeds should bring a heck of a lot of
FREE connectivity to our users. Plus, the ability to send and receive ALL
FutureNet data via UUCP should SEVERLY speed up the network and remove some
costly long distance calls. It's a lot nicer to call your local UUCP feed and
grab your FutureNet data then to call long distance.