Msg: 5225 *Conference*

07-28-94 20:15:13

From: RICHARD HANSON

To : COMET _

Subj: REPLY TO MSG #5219 (MEMBER?)

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You're right ... it's pbs not baud but that's getting too technical for a
general audiance.  In fact, unless you're doing development work at the event
level, you might as well refer to it as baud.  However, if you're into
networks, or professional computing environments, with time slicing, paging,
multiplexing, etc., then pbs "is" the correct term.  In the micro world it's
not.

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A graphics program sounds like fun... can't wait to see your result.

Speaking for programming: Have you taken the opportunity to check out some of
the music programs online?  I, personally, transcribed the GREEN.BA, GREEN2.BA
and GRENUP.BA programs.  GRENUP.BA is an alarm clock that calls GREEN2.BA at
the desired time.  Also, the WELTEL.BA program is the very best representation
of music on the Model 100/102/200.  It's well worth getting.  Oh, and don't
miss getting the HURON series--speaking of graphics--it will knock your socks
off ... assuming you use socks, of course. (grin)

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You want a what?  ...a hard copy listing of the message base?  Are you for
real?  Do you have any idea how large that would be, not to mention how much
time it would take to capture, format and printout?

Funny you should ask.  In fact, you are not alone.  A guy from Germany asked me
for the same thing.  I quotted him $300 to do the job--but that was to break up
the multi-mega byte resulting file into several ASCII files, placed on a series
of disks.  Actually, the idea of a hard copy of the message base by year is
old.  I actually offered the 1985, 1986, and 1987 conferences in hard copy
years ago.  I stopped doing the conference in hard copy since then cause it
just did not sell.

And how big were they?  Well...

The 1985 conference is over 1,500 lines in compressed print at 132 characters
per line.

The 1986 conference is over 6,600 lines in compressed print at 132 characters
per line.

The 1987 confernece is over 11,200 lines in compressed print at 132 characters
per line.

That's a combined line count of over 19,000 lines to read in compressed print
at 132 characters per line!!!  My God, man ... that's more then "War And
Piece," "The Bible," and "Wigglestick's greatest hits" put together.

Okay ... so how big do you think the current message base would be when printed
out?  The current online message base has 5,200 plus messages.  The first
message is dated 05-12-91.  Thus, we're talking 3 years worth of online
chatter.  But, to be fair, let's do the math:

If you consider that each message is maybe a screen's worth--we're talking
MS-DOS screens at 80 characters per line by 24 lines per screen--that's 1920
characters.  But, to compare apples with apples, let's say each message would
represent about 15 lines if printed out at 132 characters per line.  Now, 15
lines per message times 5,200 messages = 78,000 lines if printed.

Yeah right .... like printing out this base is my life long dream!  Not!

But wait ... it gets better ... combine all that is available and you would
have over 97,000 lines to read in compressed mode at 132 characters per line.

So ... the bottom line is ... FORGET IT!