FastEcho

FastEcho

Операционная система:

DOS, DPMI, OS/2

Текущая версия:

1.46.1

Дата выхода текущей версии:

1997 г.

Лицензия:

собственническое shareware

FastEcho Main Registration Site

FastEcho — эхопроцессор для Фидонета и других почтовых FTN-сетей. Он был создан и выпущен в качестве shareware Тобиасом Бурхардтом (Tobias Burchhardt) в 1991 году. Последняя известная версия программы, 1.46.1, была выпущена в 1997 году. FastEcho — одно из наиболее быстрых средств обработки фидопочты (отсюда и название программы, от англ. fast — скорый, быстрый).

Будучи доступен в трёх вариантах (для DOS, и для DPMI, и в качестве 32-битного приложения в OS/2), эхопроцессор FastEcho обладает достоинствами весьма желаемыми как для низовых узлов и пойнтов Фидонета, так и для крупных раздающих узлов.

System requirements

FastEcho's minimum system requirements were very easy to meet. It ran on IBM PCs, XTs, ATs or compatibles with optimized routines for 386, 486, and Pentium based and compatible machines. DOS v3.xx or IBM's OS/2 v2.x or v3.0 were the minimum required operating system platforms.

Some sort of archiver package was also needed to be able to open and seal the mail bundles. The list of supported archiver packages was PKZIP/PKUNZIP 1.10/2.04g, ARJ 2.30/2.41a, LHARC 1.13c/LHa 2.13, PKPAK/PKUNPAK 3.61, ARC 6.02, ZOO 2.10, PAK 2.51, SQZ 1.08, RAR 1.5x, and UC2 2.00. Optionally, an extractor program that automatically coped with the different decompression programs could be used. The two supported ones were General Unpack Shell (GUS) 1.90 or later and PolyXarc 2.1a or later.

Supported software

Numerous FTN mailers like FrontDoor, D'Bridge, and BinkleyTerm were supported. Also supported were various BBS packages like RemoteAccess, Maximus, QuickBBS, and T.A.G. Pretty much any BBS package could be used as long as it supported one of the three supported message base formats. They were the FTN MSG format, the HMB designed by Adam Hudson, and the JAM format. You could also use FastEcho if you were a BBS user and did all your mail stuff offline like QWK and Blue Wave users did. This method was a bit more complicated but allowed the BBS user to operate much like any other FTN mail system and reap the benefits of such.

Features

FastEcho had numerous features that were desirable on many systems. Mail distribution hubs looked for the ability to handle many downlinks as well as large numbers of message areas. FastEcho could handle up to 1024 downlinks and up to 3072 message areas.

• Support for multitasking environments such as Microsoft Windows, Quarterdeck's DESQview and OS/2
• Support for networking environments like Novell and LANtastic.

• Updating AREAS.BBS (BBS' message base configuration) with new message areas when they are created automatically.

The DOS version has a limit of 64 KiB per message, cutting any larger message down to that size. Worse, the default setting is 32 KiB. In OS/2 version, the maximum size is 512 KiB.

Also, by default, FastEcho transliterates German non-ASCII characters, using a certain popular character encoding as the source, so messages in other encodings get corrupted.

Since the release, many free (both as in speech and beer) alternatives emerged, but FastEcho was considered by some people one the easiest tossers to configure.

Availability

FastEcho is still available today. You can get it from any support site that is still in operation.

• The author's support site
• The NAFES FastEcho file area

Online support for FastEcho is also available at the North American FastEcho Support (NAFES) forum.

Registration keys are nowadays available for free on request from the author.^{[Источник?]}