X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to opendos-bounces using -f Message-Id: Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:25:20 -0500 (EST) From: Gary Welles To: OpenDos Subject: Re: FreeDos, twenty four years later... Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com The product lifecyle for Fidonet may soon, if not already have, come to an end. Take MCI Mail which was decommissioned after 20 years. As a fee based message handling service it allow more and better access as well as more message delivery options as well as someone to say the time has come. Access: No access charges for 800 number in the US, at speeds down to 300 baud half duplex with a paper terminal. Also Z-modem, Y-modem, Kermit and a customizable proprietary protocol. Dial access in something like 110 other countries, as well as via the global packet switching network, and via the global telex network which would include radio telex. Maybe radio access via Motorola's EMBARC service. There was access via the Internet, but that was kept secret from their customers. Messages: MCI Mail, Internet, X.400, Telex, Fax send only (plain text, .TIFF, .PCL5, and PostScript), Worldwide postal or courier delvery (plain text or color PostScript). As long as you used ASCII text, the same message could go via all delivery options with one send. Everying worked better and faster, just not cheaper. After 20 years with MCI Mail, my laptop, a 1984(?) Sord IS-11C could live on through Fidonet. Kinda scary. -- Gary Welles | Date: Tue Jun 24, 2003 4:12 pm EDT | From: Help with MCI / MCI ID: 324-8333 | | Subject: Final MCI Mail Decommissioning Notice | | . . . The decision to decommission the MCI Mail service was not | made lightly, and resulted from careful analysis of MCI Mail's | maintenance costs and revenue trends. This analysis identified | that the product lifecycle for the MCI Mail service has come to | an end.