Hi, members of the "Arachne" list. I tried to post this a while ago, and nothing happened, so I'll try again now.
Principally through the good offices of Sam Heywood, I have finally gotten access to the Arachne "list". At the risk of being off-topic and overly verbose, I take this opportunity to introduce myself to the group. Overall, I'm not a "newbie", having cut my computer teeth on an IBM 360-30 back in the late 60's, teaching BAL (assembler) RPG and Cobol, after a brief IBM course in Philadelphia, at the Thompson School in York, Pa. My first actual PC was an Epson QX-16, which boasted two separate CPU's, a Z-80 for 8-bit operation and an 8088 for 16. The Z-80 ran both CP/M and also a special operating system by Rog Amidon, TPM. The latter underlaid Chris Rutkowski's "Valdocs", an integrated menu-driven program that was years ahead of its time. The 8088 originally ran MS-DOS 2.11, but we were able to keep it going through DOS 3.3 and WordPerfect as late as 5.1, despite having no hard drive and only two 720 5.25" drives. That gave way to "real" PC's, of course, but the QX-16 will still operate today. On the other hand, although I pride myself on being quite proficient with respect to DOS 6.22, I find that when it comes to telecommunications, I am not as sharp as I used to think I was. I have read the "lists" for SURV, PMAIL and NETTAMER for over six months, with only partial comprehension. Using Windows in ANY form is out of the question for reasons that have for the most part been thoroughly rehashed on many "lists", so naturally Arachne was a welcome find when I came across it. My reason for writing all this has to do with the fact that I would appreciate some assistance in using Arachne, and also I would like to be pointed toward "lists" or other sources of fundamental LINUX. I gather that there is a LINUX version of Arachne, and I would like to move in that direction, but first I need to find a source of good information that will help me gain the proficiency in LINUX that I like to think I have in DOS. I am not interested in the complex "distro's" that involve more GUI, but rather I want to use LINUX as a basic operating system, then run Arachne on top of it after I know a bit more about what I'm doing. Can someone point me to a "list" or even a book or magazine, the will get me started in that direction? I'd appreciate it. -=*=- So far I have trouble using Arachne for E-mail - this is written and sent via PEGASUS fof DOS - but that can wait for a subsequent message. -=*=- As for Arachne itself, in the absence of a manual and the inadequacy of either my mind or of the on-line "help" provided, there are lots of things I need to know about it to use it more effectively. However, I'll ask those questions one by one in order not to clutter things up any more than I have so far. Sam has been great about answering my most pressing questions, but I can't expect him to single-handedly write me an encyclopaedia. So, "HI!", thanks for any help you are willing to offer, and I hope eventually to be able to make contributions instead of withdrawals. Most Cordially, Carl P. Nelson W4CVA P.P. 22506-40 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
