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[32mNEW PRODUCT UPDATE


[20C[35mSynchronet for OS/2 Bulletin
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[37mThe information contained in this bulletin is not normally the type of
data we disclose to our customer base, but due to the overwhelming number of
queries into our OS/2 product development progress, we are making this
information public.

In August of 1993, Digital Dynamics announced it had begun development of a
32-bit OS/2 port of Synchronet Multinode BBS Software for DOS. Having used
Borland C compilers for the DOS product, it seemed appropriate and beneficial
to use Borland's OS/2 compiler for the OS/2 version. Problems in version 1.0
of Borland C++ for OS/2 hampered the development of Synchronet for OS/2 and
development was actually put on hold until the release of Borland C++ for
OS/2 version 1.5 (summer of 1994) which promised many bug fixes. Unfortunately,
this release did nothing to fix the problems we were encountering with the
compilers performance or compatibility with its DOS counterpart and actually
introduced new incompatibilities. It has become quite apparent that Borland's
OS/2 compiler was not meant for applications of the size and complexity of
Synchronet (as confirmed by our developer assistant at IBM and other
professional development companies).

Recently, at the suggestion of IBM and other developers, Digital Dynamics
purchased Watcom C 10.0 in hopes of using it for future DOS and OS/2
development of Synchronet and its utilities, thus scrapping Borland's OS/2
compiler and all the work that has been done to Synchronet for this compiler.

We have already ported several Synchronet utilities to Watcom and released beta
versions for 16-bit DOS, 32-bit DOS, and 32-bit OS/2 of some of them. Porting
Synchronet itself is a larger project and the time invested in the previous
Borland porting (ceased in Oct '94) has been discarded. The Borland and
Watcom libraries are not compatible and much must be rewritten and redesigned
for both the DOS and OS/2 versions. The good news is that Watcom produces
executables that are significantly faster and smaller. Watcom is a
cross-platform compiler, so a Win-32 product (Windows NT/Windows 95) should be
not long in following the release of the OS/2 product. Removing the DOS and
Borland specifics in Synchronet is a time-consuming and laborious task. The
tools do not always work as expected and many times development direction has
to be changed mid-stream, sacrificing the work already in progress.

Digital Dynamics is weeding through the necessary evils in producing a fast and
feature-rich 32-bit OS/2 BBS program and we appreciate your interest. At this
date, there is no release schedule for the OS/2 version of Synchronet, but
keep your eye out for 32-bit OS/2 versions of most Digital Dynamics' Synchronet
utilities (as we have been developing and releasing, free of charge, over the
past year). We will be beta testing and releasing publicly Synchronet for OS/2
as soon as it is possible.

Rob Swindell, Director of Operations
Digital Dynamics

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