December 24, 1993

  First of all, Merry Christmas. Only a true Atari nut would sit here
  on Christmas eve and type up a pre-release package!

  Right, this is a pre-release version of NITRO-Scan. NITRO-Scan is a
  visciously fast new mail scanner replacement for QBBS/ST. If you
  have any problems setting up or running NITRO-Scan, please, PLEASE,
  contact me and explain the problem.

  I can be reached via Netmail at 1:244/150@fidonet.org, or via
  either the international Atari ST echo, or ST programming echo on
  FIDONet. Or, you may call me voice at my number listed in the
  documentation.

UPDATE: (March 17, 1994)

  Well, its been a while since I did any work on this program,
  naturally, with a first version, their was bound to be a bug or
  two - and true to form, their was. Actually, thier was a glaring
  bug that didn't turn up until after it got a good workout on my
  system. It seems that 2 different user names could return the same
  CRC value. Which meant that one person would get mail flagged for
  another person. Not good, especially for your regulars.

  So, now, during a rebuild or update, NITRO builds a database of your
  current password file in memory and will ONLY index messages to
  legitamate users on your system. This has five effects, 3 good, 1
  not so good.  (Steve, this doesn't total five?)

    1: No more false 'hits'   (Good)

    2: The index size is about 99% smaller because were not indexing
       everything, just the important ones. (Good)

    3: Everybody knows their is never a third feature.

    4: Its even faster than before (because of 2) (Good)

    5: Due to its speed, it can warp time in its immediate vicinity.
       Please use extreme caution. This can only lead to more entropy,
       and consequently, the heat death of the universe. (Not so
       Good).

  Sorry about my attempt on humor, but I've been working on this
  problem for a while and I'm in a good mood. The radio station even
  co-operated - during the fix-up, they played, Free Bird, All along
  the Watch Tower, Seals tribute to Jimi Hendrix, The Battle of
  Evermore and a couple of old Heart tunes. Good programming music.

  All in all, some worthwhile time spent.