MausNet

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The MausNet is a German-speaking, non-commercial mailbox network .

history

MOUSE is in Muenster Resulting mailbox program which of Dial -interessierten Apple II was designed users and developed. The idea arose at a meeting in the summer of 1984. The initiators included Jörg Weichelt, Jörg Stattaus, Gereon Steffens, Kai Henningsen and others.

The first MOUSE log file is from April 30th of that year, this date is generally considered the MOUSE's birthday. At the time, MOUSE was the abbreviation for M ünster A pple U ser S ervice. The MAUS software was written in Turbo Pascal and operated on an Apple II -compatible Basis 108 computer. The software was later ported to IBM compatible PCs after the original mailbox machine stopped working.

In 1987 MAUS mailboxes were created in Munich and Aachen . The boxes were already exchanging data at the time, but were not yet actually networked (e.g. there was no dedicated routing and the like). The actual network functionality, and with it the birth of the MausNet, was only added in 1988 with the implementation of the MausNet format.

At this point it became necessary to logically differentiate the individual MAUS mailboxes from one another. The names of the boxes were given the district 's license plate number (eg "MAUS OF"); if there was more than one box in the district, they were numbered consecutively ("MAUS OF2"). The "MAUS OTR" was a curiosity - the abbreviation stands for "On The Road" and describes a mobile MAUS mailbox that is used temporarily at trade fairs and events, but is still involved in the regular exchange of messages and network operations. The "MAUS OTR" was traditionally used, for example, at the Hobbytronic trade fairs in Stuttgart and Dortmund .

Addressing was based on the domain addressing customary on the Internet (“User @ address”), although there were some specific features (see below). Gateways in the FidoNet , Z-Netz and Usenet were also operated very early on . In 1991 MausNet was one of the co-founders of Individual Network e. V. , an association that should provide private individuals with affordable internet access.

At the height of its distribution, the MausNet counted around 120 boxes in Germany, and there were also a few mailboxes in Austria and Switzerland . Like all mailbox networks, the MausNet also increasingly lost users to the Internet from the mid- 1990s . At the beginning of 2011 there were still around 9 MAUS mailboxes in Germany. One of these MAUS mailboxes can also be reached via Telnet on the Internet.

software

On the mailbox side there are only two programs that are used to operate a box in the MausNet: The (original) MAUS software for PC-compatible computers and the QUARK, which was originally written in GFA-BASIC on Atari ST computers . The QUARK software was later rewritten in C and runs under Linux, among other things.

On the client side, called mouse swap program or frontend in MOUSE jargon , there are numerous programs for every taste and for numerous operating systems, e.g. B. Matiga ( Amiga ), Cat and Okami (Atari ST), Minnie ( DOS ), CrossPoint (DOS, Windows , Linux ), Mausefalle (often in combination with Hans goes to the post office) (Mac), Jerry ( OS / 2 ) , Mickey and Einstein (Windows) and O4X (“Okami for X11”, Unix / Linux).

When developing the MAUS software, particular emphasis was placed on user-friendliness . This also includes full support for umlauts, which are displayed correctly under a wide variety of common operating systems. Umlauts and spaces can even be used in user names, e.g. B. "Harald Müller @ HG", whereby this user can also be written to as "Harald_Mueller @ HG" for reasons of compatibility.

Another feature that was implemented in MausNet at an early stage is the continuous linkage of comments and messages. H. In messages (both private and public) sent as a reply, a reference to the replied message is automatically inserted. The MAUS software is therefore always able to display a message in connection with other messages as a thread . Even “modern” commercial online forums do not always offer this functionality today.

Special features of the MausNet

The MausNet achieved particular popularity in the Atari scene in the early 1990s. Almost all Atari users who were well known in the German Atari scene were represented in MausNet. The ATARI Germany support mailbox was also operated with the MAUS software (MAUS MTK in Schwalbach am Taunus ).

Due to the popularity of the name MausNet was then on 18 August 1994 at the German Patent and Trademark Office in trademark register as a word mark registered.

Real names are mandatory in MausNet. Pseudonyms , as they can usually be found in online forums , are absolutely undesirable there.

The duration of a private or public message in MausNet was always only a few hours, and it was delivered the next day at the latest. For a private mailbox network based on switched lines, this is a respectable value. For comparison: In the mid-1990s, Netmails (private messages in Fido) were often on the move for several days.

The PM manifesto applies in MausNet, which is intended to ensure the confidentiality of private messages (PMs). A MAUS sysop has no direct way of accessing the mails in a MAUS user's personal mailbox with the mailbox software.

Since the founding of the Individual Network e. V., all MAUS mailboxes can also be reached via Internet e-mail . The domain of the MausNet is "maus.de", a MAUS user can be reached by adding this domain to his MAUS address, e.g. B. "firstname_lastname@hg.maus.de". Some of the mouse groups are also exported to Usenet , where they are listed under the mouse. * Hierarchy .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.maus.de/maus/historie/maushist1.html
  2. ↑ https://www.dirksteins.de/cat/catanl/cat/0c0401.htm
  3. ↑ The PM Manifesto. In: fresenet.de. Retrieved February 13, 2018 .