QWK (file format): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:18, 9 November 2005

Revision as of 18:29, 10 February 2006

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'''QWK''' is packetfile-based [[offline mail reader]] format that was popular among [[Bulletin board system]] users, especially users of [[FidonetFidoNet]] and other large echomail networks that generated large volumes of mail. During the height of bulletin board system popularity, several dozens ofdozen offline mail readers supported the QWK format.

Like other offline readers, QWK was similar in concept to the Fidonet as a whole: messages for a particular user are gathered up by the BBS-side QWK software, compressed using an application such as [[PKZIP]], and then transfered to the user. This is usually accomplished via a "door" program running on the BBS system, which finds and compresses the mail, then sends it to the user automatically using the self-starting feature of the [[ZModem]] protocol.

Once the resulting file has been received by the user, the steps are reversed to extract the files from the archive and then open then in a client-side "reader". Again, these individual steps are typically automated to a degree, meaning that the user simply has to invoke the door software on the BBS and then run the client, the intermediary steps being automated.

QWK clients varied widely in functionality, but all of them offered basic e-mail and public forum support. QWK was aware of the difference between these two functions, whereas FidoNet sent public messages, known as ''Echomail'', by sending a "special" e-mail to the BBS. Prior to the introduction of QWK and similar systems, it was not uncommon for users with large message volumes to set up their own FidoNet nodes to quickly gather up their mail, but QWK dramatically reduced the required setup to almost zero, and dramatically increased the number of users of offline mail.

==See also==

*[[BluewaveBlueWave]]

*[[SOUP]]

*[[ZipNews]]

== External links ==

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/off-line-readers/usenet/intro/section-10.html

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