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Comment by wenc | Hacker News Reader

This brought back memories. I remember dialling into BBSes using Qmodem, downloading QWKs (compressed email packets) from “conferences” (similar to newsgroups).

I would read/reply offline using OLX (Offline Express, a QWK reader also part of the Qmodem suite), and then batch upload my replies (.REPs, also compressed) to the BBS.

This was back in the day when you weren't connected 24/7, and when dial-up wasn’t unlimited (in my country — even if it was, BBSes were node limited so you couldn’t stay connected forever). So participating in BBS conferences meant quick dial-ins and uploads, where most of the messaging/replies was done offline.

Although bandwidth is abundant these days, I still think the QWK/REP idea is an attractive one. There is an art and a beauty to crafting replies offline from the cozy Turbo Vision UI that was OLX.

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Similar story here. I used RoboMail for MS-DOS as the offline reader back in maybe 1992-1993?, connecting to a BBS that interfaced with RelayNet/RIME, which was similar to FidoNet.

RoboMail wasn't TurboVision, but it was very nice as TUIs went at the time. It seems mostly vanished from Google. I was a Turbo Pascal developer myself at the time, and I made an offline reader that I thought was far superior (multiple Turbo Vision windows etc.), but by the time I had gotten close to the point of release, the Internet arrived and I completely lost interest.

I still wish there was an archive of RelayNet, because I used to post a lot, and of course I never kept anything myself. I've never found any archive of the content since it was shut down in 2007.

Also, it's sad to hear that the QWK format's creator died in a swatting incident in 2020, of all things.

> Also, it's sad to hear that the QWK format's creator died in a swatting incident in 2020, of all things.

Oh, man. That sucks. I knew about that tragedy[0] but I never read deep enough to realize that Mark Herring (the gentleman who, arguably, was killed in the incident) was the creator of the QWK format.

It was already a horrific story. Now it just feels that much closer to home. Ugh. RIP Mark Herring.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Tennessee_swatting

OLX (and SLMR) author here. It gives me warm fuzzies to hear about your positive experiences with OLX, after all these years. To this day I maintain that Turbo Vision was peak computer UI, it's been downhill since. :)

Thank you for your work on OLX.

I miss Turbo Vision. It was way better than many of the TUIs of the day, not only on DOS but also UNIX.

I loved QWK packets. That saved me a ton of long distance telephone charges. I didn't use OLX ("Silly Little Mail Reader" was my jam) but the concept was wonderful.

Ah SLMR is OLX.

Mustang Software (Wildcat! BBS) bought Qmodem and SLMR (and renamed the latter to OLX).

SLMR and OLX were by the same author, but OLX was a complete rewrite and didn't look anything like SLMR.

Oh, wow. I didn't realize that. Very cool. I used the heck out of it.

At one point I learned about the QWK format and wrote some code to build a QWK packet out of text files. My idea was to distribute an e-zine as a QWK packet. I successfully made QWK packets but never had any actual content to release.

> My idea was to distribute an e-zine as a QWK packet.

What a cool idea! I would have loved something like that.

This hearkens back to the day of Byte and PC Magazine where I would actually buy paper magazines to learn about the latest tech -- and I wondered, why couldn't there be an electronic version of this? (the QWK downloadable e-zine idea sounds so ergonomic). But eventually the Internet happened and we got these in the form of websites.

But I feel websites still lack the nice offline, self-contained natures of a magazine. Links on a website feel dispersed. Whereas an offline packetized magazine would have a linear nature to it, and you'd be able to browse in one sitting. And look at full page glossy ads (hey, I looked at the ads -- they were so cool back in the day with Gateway and Dell feuding).

Ah water under the bridge now...

Wildcat! Was great

Yeah. My primary BBS was relatively nearby in the same state. But in those days intrastate US calls outside of your very local area could actually cost more than interstate.

I use slrn and mutt with mbsync/msmtp like that, among RSS.

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