[arachne] Re: Introduction

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

Welcome Nels (I assume you use that as a name from your signature!)
We are really just a loose conglomeration of Arachne users and developers, with 
most of our discussions related to what, how, and why in relation to using 
Arachne to keep our older DOS based computers in some sort of communication 
with the rest of the internet.  However, just about any topic can be bandied 
about with little discombobulation.
Myself, I'm a pharmacist by profession, which is also where most of my computer 
exposure occurred.  At 51 yrs old now, and with kids in highschool, along with 
other personal life, I don't have as much time to devote to computers, and 
still have many "one of these days" projects in various states of discompletion.
That said, this list was created by myself when after the original mail list 
went silent, a group of users was looking for a mailing list host with digest 
and archive capacity, and free of charge.  I explored Freelists, having some 
exposure via another list hosted by it, and found it to be compatible with 
group needs, and also with Arachne for setting up and administration.  It still 
remains free, and I can administer various aspects using Arachne.
Over the last 2 years or so I have done the majority of my internetting via my 
Blackjack PDA/Smartphone and wireless access.  I spent the majority of the time 
traveling central Oklahoma as a roaming relief pharmacist, so having access to 
email and web was handy.
Anyway, as founder and moderator of the list, let me say "Welcome to our group!"
We look forward to your insights.
Glenn Gilbreath Jr.
Aka Wiz  <{;-)

Glenn Gilbreath Jr.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Carl P. Nelson" <zilch@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "List" <arachne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 10/29/2008 10:37 AM
Subject: [arachne]  Introduction

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

     
Attempting to eliminate verbosity on the one hand and redundancy on the
other is no mean feat for an 88-year old curmudgeon that has found himself
a dinosaur amidst the sapiens. I am new to this "List" as a contributor,
although I have been a sideliner/spectator since Michal Polak was still
running Arachne. Since my cyber-expertise ends with the destruction of the
Von Neumann architecture, I need re-education, but unlike other
disciplines, in which I simply consulted all of the necessary books and
other sources, I find that information about the new digital world is
fragmented at best and in large part nonexistent. "Help" files in various
programs (including Arachne) may or may not be useful if and when one
knows what questions to ask, but elucidate little or nothing, in and of
themselves. So, members, be patient and tolerant if my requests for
information sometimes appear to be primitive to the point of being puerile. 
As it stands at the moment, I read the postings with respect to various
problems with complete incomprehension. Right now, other than as Web
browser and as E-mail facilitator (is "client" the correct term?), I don't
have the vaguest notion as to what Arachne does and/or is intended to do. 

One other comment before I get to the point of the narrative.  I have seen,
now and then, comments with respect to attracting new contributors to the
"list" (if there's a more accurate term, please advise). I would suggest to
you that one of the problems may be your anonymity. Other than the
erroneous statement that Glenn McC was a professor at Cornell (I was going
to query him as to whether or not he had ever met or dealt with Carl Sagan
prior to the retraction), I know absolutely nothing about any of you, who
you are, what are your other interests besides Arachne, what is the age
range I'm to try to deal with, and so forth, and neither of course do any
prospective members.  I for my part would be tempted to post a brief bio,
not for ego reasons but simply to be known to a group that I aspire to
interact with. That, though, would be totally inappropriate, not to mention
gauche, if the other members prefer to remain two-dimensional.

I read with great interest the series with respect to transferring large files
from a DOS-type computer to one contaminated with Windows/XP. Other
than the fact that I dislike DOS for all the adequately flagellated reasons
plus a few of my own, I'll refrain from that area of discussion until another
time. Owing, though, to that dislike, and the fact that I operate about 95%
in DOS and only a necessary 5% in %$^&*()_ Windows, I had Mike
Nadeau, my "guru" without whose assistance I would have long since given
up on computers as they now exist, custom-build for me a single box with
two 60-gig. hard drives, only one of which can be operative at one time. I
originally contrived a manual power-supply switching harness, but Mike
supplanted it with simple "SETUP" changes which disable one drive or the
other.  One drive is entirely DOS, including but not limited to WordPerfect
6.1, Arachne, FDSMTPOP (my E-mail protocol), gouts of utilities and
graphics viewers, .BAT-files and so forth. The other is strictly W/XP, which
I MUST use to download data from sources necessary to my profession of
Certified General Real Estate and Business Appraiser.  This way, there's
no possibility of Windows cluttering up what I think of as my "good" drive
with endless abandoned .DLL files and other annoying and useless
fragments.  But as you folks have noted, there is no immediately apparent
way to transfer data from one drive to another, since they are essentially
two computers, and since by design they cannot be operated
simultaneously. Note, though, that all peripherals are common, so that I
have no need to switch keyboards, monitors, printers, track-balls (I HATE
mouses/mice, whatever) and so forth.  I have both an outboard 100-meg
parallel-port ZIP dive and a 120-meg LS-120 drive, and they both function
in either "side" of the rig, either of which can operate as an intermediary
for file exchange either way, without even the necessity of removing the
disk from the drive.  It would seem to me that an old A-B parallel-port
switch for the ZIP drive is the only other peripheral that would be needed,
unless the XP rig needed a parallel-port card, to accomplish the same
result in the instance of two separate computers.

     The early-mentioned verbosity has surfaced, I see, so I'll quit here. 
Thanks for your patience.     Nels

                  Arachne at FreeLists                  
-- Arachne, The Premier GPL Web Browser/Suite for DOS --


                  Arachne at FreeLists
-- Arachne, The Premier GPL Web Browser/Suite for DOS --

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