FrontDoor was one of the most popular mailers on the FidoNet-compatible network in the 1990s acting as a physical representation of written written network connections and mail handling standards. It is an MS-DOS-based product (also available as shareware) written by Joaquim Homrighausen (aka JoHo ). The FrontDoor system contains a Mailer , an Editor , a Terminal , a serial port device driver and a configuration utility. FrontDoor was first released in 1986.
The mailer task, the main task of first FrontDoor release, is to receive phone calls for the BBS/FidoNet node system; distinguish between human and machine calls (send human to BBS while handling all other cases) and if the other end supports the same protocol start a conversation about handling any packets that must be exchanged, and call an external program to handle traffic.
Initially FrontDoor is a small utility to handle incoming calls, written in 1986. Peter Adenauer of AMS Applied Micro Systems, Inc. in Miami, Florida asked Homrighausen in 1987 to leave his job at Ericsson and come to the US and start developing a commercial product based on FrontDoor with Peter Stewart. After several adventurous clashes between programmer and company and realized that there was no useful product even after the long development of people parted: Homrighausen went to Australia with source code version 1.99c while Stewart got the same code that had been used as the base of InterMail software.
FrontDoor continues its life as shareware as well as commercial products; Current version is 2.26 (DOS OS/2 shareware) and 2.32.mL (DOS OS/2 commercial multiline). Joaquim Homrighausen tried to "revive" the type of project in 2014, but was prevented from continuing due to rehabilitation from injury. In August 2017, he once again started reviving the product, about 30 years after its first release. As of September 2017, it remains unclear what platform will be re-run by the FrontDoor project.
Video FrontDoor
Aspek teknis
FrontDoor runs under DOS and OS/2 as well as under DOS-based multi-tasking environment (such as Windows, DESQview, DoubleDOS, and more). The file transfer protocols supported by FrontDoor are Zmodem, Zmodem/CRC32, Telink, SEAlink, SEAlink Overdrive, and Xmodem/CRC.
Technical specifications
FrontDoor consists of:
- a Mailer,
- Editor,
- a Terminal (TTY, VT-52, VT-100, ANSI X3.64 and AVATAR/0; IEMSI profiles for logging in),
- serial port device drivers, and
- configuration utilities (FDSETUP, FDNC, etc.)
FrontDoor Features:
- Support for DOS-based multitasking environments (DR Multiuser DOS, Novell NetWare, LANtastic, POWERLan, MS LAN Manager, DESQview, PC/MOS-386, DoubleDOS, OS/2, Windows 3.xx, Windows 95/98/ME, Windows XP)
- Ability to handle almost unlimited number of destinations, names and phone numbers (theoretical entries are 1.2 x 10 20 )
- Unlimited ZModem/CRC32, ZModem, Telink, SEAlink Overdrive, SEAlink, and XModem/CRC file transfer protocols (separate from DOS limits)
- Comprehensive email management and editing, including filtering functionality
- Supports DOS temporary shell at almost every point in the program (which itself)
- Improved keyboard layout in the editor and a large set of macro keys
- Printer handling for mail
- Flexible scheduler for mailer components
- Re-configuration of destination-based modem
- Dynamic and flexible mail routing
- FAX handling
Hardware requirements
It is interesting to compare the system requirements with the current software:
- IBM PC, AT, 386, 486, PS/2, or 100% compatible BIOS
- Hard disk with minimum 1 Megabyte of disk space
- The phone modem is out of sync (compatible with Hayes)
- Monochrome video card
- 384 kB memory system
- MS or PC DOS 3.10 or later
- FOSSIL driver (standard modem handling: example: X00, BNU, OpusComm, cFos, VX00, DGFossil or VFD)
- XMS and EMS optional memory
- AT-style keyboard
Maps FrontDoor
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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