At 09:57 AM 1/11/2021, Ethan O'Toole wrote: >>So how could you organize all that into a web database and interface? > >Could you put a text front end on it that emulates the original CIS?
I'd say the first step is defining a SQL database structure to hold it all, then the code to display it, and sure, maybe an interactive emulation would be nifty... but note that CompuServe messages disappeared on their own. A forum could only hold so many, and the oldest were flushed. So an emulation would need to pick a moment in time to emulate. In today's interface style, I'd say you'd want to be able to search it all, then view a message in context with the rest of its thread. >>Am I going to trust my parser to have never made a mistake? >>Or do I need to read a half-million posts to confirm it didn't? > >Search for your name? Not that simple. After you'd navigated to the email area and asked to display a particular waiting message, it only showed date / from / subject at the top, and at least in 1995, it actually put the "Distribution: To: John Foust - Syndesis Corporation > [76004,1763]" at the bottom after the message! For Internet gateway'd email, it showed the full message as is, with the raw headers and/or "Content-type:" and left you to figure it out on your own. - John
