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FrontDoor continued its life as shareware as well as a commercial product; the current versions are 2.26 (DOS+OS/2 shareware) and 2.32.mL (DOS+OS/2 multiline commercial). Joaquim
Homrighausen attempted a "revival" of sorts of the project in 2014, but was prevented from continuing due to rehab from an
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and come to the USA and start developing a commercial product based on FrontDoor with Peter
Stewart. After several adventurous clashes between the programmers and the company and realising that there wasn't a useful product even after a long development the people parted: Homrighausen went to
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injury. In August 2017, he once again began reviving the product, some 30+ years after the first release. As of
September 2017, it is still unclear as to which platforms the re-booted FrontDoor project will run on.
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while handling all other cases) and if the other end supported the same protocol started a conversation about handling whatever packets had to be exchanged, and calling external programs to handle the traffic.
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The task of mailers, the main task of the first FrontDoor release, was to accept a phone call for a BBS / FidoNet node system; differentiating between human and machine calls (sending the humans to the
23:-compatible networks in the 1990s, acting as the physical representation of the written network node connection and mail handling standards. It was an
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The file transfer protocols ZModem/CRC32, ZModem, Telink, SEAlink
Overdrive, SEAlink, and XModem/CRC with no size limit (apart from DOS limits)
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Originally FrontDoor was a small utility to handle incoming calls, written in 1986. Peter
Adenauer of AMS Applied Micro Systems, Inc. of
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The ability to handle a virtually unlimited amount of destinations, names and phone numbers (theoretically 1.2 x 10 entries)
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Support for a temporary DOS shell in nearly every point in the program (which swaps itself out)
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while
Stewart got the same code which has been used as the basis of InterMail software.
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It is interesting to compare its system requirements with today's software:
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Enhanced keyboard layouts in the editor and a huge number of macro key sets
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Comprehensive mail management and editing, including filtering functions
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and configuration utilities. FrontDoor was first released in 1986.
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as well as under most DOS-based multi-tasking environment (like
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210:, OS/2, Windows 3.xx, Windows 95/98/ME, Windows XP)
310:driver (standardised modem handling; examples:
70:asked Homrighausen in 1987 to leave his job at
231:A flexible scheduler for the mailer component
170:configuration utilities (FDSETUP, FDNC, etc.)
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19:was one of the most popular mailers in the
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31:) written by Joaquim Homrighausen (alias
370:"Development history of FrontDoor, 1993"
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348:
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318:, OpusComm, cFos, VX00, DGFossil or VFD)
157:and AVATAR/0+; IEMSI profiles to login),
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234:Destination-based modem reconfiguration
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35:). The FrontDoor system contained a
27:-based product (also available as
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237:Dynamic and flexible mail routing
75:Australia with the version 1.99c
411:Bulletin board system software
1:
91:FrontDoor runs under DOS and
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303:MS or PC DOS 3.10 or above
119:, SEAlink Overdrive, and
279:A hard disk with minimum
228:Printer handling for mail
127:Technical specifications
297:A monochrome video card
131:FrontDoor consists of:
245:Hardware requirements
355:FrontDoor as product
300:384 kB system memory
174:FrontDoor features:
394:re-booted FrontDoor
331:AT-style keyboard
290:telephone modem (
87:Technical aspects
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372:. Archived from
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188:DR Multiuser DOS
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328:memory optional
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200:MS LAN Manager
192:Novell NetWare
186:environments (
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68:Miami, Florida
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376:on 2011-10-06
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416:DOS software
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378:. Retrieved
374:the original
288:asynchronous
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240:FAX handling
198:, POWERLan,
184:multitasking
178:Support for
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141:a Terminal (
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294:compatible)
162:serial port
77:source code
49:serial port
405:Categories
380:2011-08-31
336:References
281:1 Megabyte
276:compatible
155:ANSI X3.64
138:an Editor,
115:, Telink,
208:DoubleDOS
196:LANtastic
135:a Mailer,
111:, Zmodem/
105:DoubleDOS
29:shareware
17:FrontDoor
272:or 100%
204:DESQview
101:DESQview
72:Ericsson
45:Terminal
421:FidoNet
182:-based
117:SEAlink
97:Windows
21:FidoNet
308:FOSSIL
254:IBM PC
151:VT-100
123:/CRC.
121:Xmodem
109:Zmodem
41:Editor
37:Mailer
25:MS-DOS
292:Hayes
167:, and
147:VT-52
113:CRC32
39:, an
324:and
274:BIOS
270:PS/2
93:OS/2
47:, a
43:, a
33:JoHo
326:EMS
322:XMS
316:BNU
312:X00
286:An
266:486
262:386
180:DOS
143:TTY
60:BBS
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361:^
343:^
314:,
306:A
268:,
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258:AT
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160:a
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