Subj : Re: Current Software Efforts
To : Steven Sheeley
From : Nick Andre
Date : Wed Oct 12 2016 08:52 pm
On 12 Oct 16 20:21:02, Steven Sheeley said the following to Nick Andre:
SS> I've not yet looked at Trapgate. Either one will have to be converted from
SS> Delphi Project into Lazarus. I've got the source code for both Taurus and
SS> Trapgate, just not sure which one is better, although Trapgate has newer
SS> source.
The biggest challenge you may run into would be the Nodelist compiler and any
assembly-language routines which do CRC-16 and CRC-32 calculations for Xmodem
and Zmodem. Nodelist compilers usually are written using a database module
such as Turbopower's B-Tree. However I believe there is a Delphi recompile
someone posted on Sourceforge which should take care of that. The reason why
B-Tree is commonly used is so the Sysop can do a poll-request, FREQ or other
function by name, or when browsing Zone, Region or Net segments.
Any code that references dialup modems... mehhh its your call but personally a
mailer is not a mailer unless it supports dialup and does FTS-0001 at the bare
minimum. Again I'm sure theres Delphi serial-port routines and probably a mess
of assembler or other stuff in Trapgate that needs to be rewritten.
When a mailer does everything "all in one" like D'Bridge does... mailer,
tosser, editor, nodelist compiler, etc etc; you can imagine that porting all
of that DOS code to a modern platform is VERY challenging given half is in
Pascal along with some fancy (and bizarre) assembler stuff thrown in the mix.
SS> As far as Help, I'd be thrilled to have someone else assisting on these
SS> projects. I'm relearning Pascal, last time I touched it was back in the Old
SS> BBS days when I was running T.A.G.
Let me know either way - nandre -at- net229 -dot- org or 1:229/426.
If Trapgate was written using Turbopower's TPCRT module, let me know as I had
to rewrite that for Freepascal and that was NOT FUN, a total nightmare I do
not wish on any other Fido developer. I'll gladly send you my work on that.
