Re: [NTLK] Usefulness of Allpoints Cards (long)

From: Victor Rehorst (victor_at_newtontalk.net)
Date: Thu Aug 09 2001 - 19:48:01 EDT


On Thu, 9 Aug 2001, Ed Kummel wrote:

> The other network is formerly known as RAM, which is
> now owned by BellSouth. Currently the only company
> that is offering any kind of comprehensive service for
> these networks is "Go America" (see their website
> under the same name) There are other smaller ones, but
> most of them just re-sell the Go America services.

Yeah, I've seen GoAmerica's site. I suppose I will have to download
their Windows software and see what makes it tick.

> What makes this service desirable?
<snip>
> towers (I've seen transmitted packets coming from up
> to 5 seperate towers) is pretty slim, giving an
> inherrant level of security.

Ah! I didn't know this. I always wondered how secure my PIN was when I
typed it into one of those Mobitex-connected Point-of-sale machines that
we have in Canada now.

> What does it do?
> Email...full text only. Plus, you can send web page
> requests. Send a URL to a specific address and it will
> return the text of the webpage as an email. you can
> follow links on the page as well! Receive and send
> faxes. voicemail translated to email and transmitted
> to the PDA.

Okay. I've seen GoAmerica's Go.Web software thing on their website for
various platforms. What I really need to know is if I can call someone
and say "Hi, I have an AllPoints card and a Windows PC, can I open an
account?" and have them set it up. Kudos if they're Canadian (although I
think Rogers AT&T is the only Canadian Mobitex network around, and I don't
like dealing with them), but I think I can pick up GoAmerica from TOronto
as well :) If there isn't, then there's no point now, is there?

If I can get service, then I can play around with the Windows software and
see if WyndMail will work with some minor modifications. You mentioned
this mod below - do you remember what it is?

If WyndMail isn't going to work anymore then I'm going to have to study
how the Windows driver and software talk to the card, probably by running
them under Wine under Linux and sniffing the serial port data. *Then*
reverse-engineering it all and writing something for the Newton (probably
in NSBasic as a first try).

> A little history on the packet data networks:
<snip>
> As far back as April 1999, I knew that Go America
> still offered service to Newtons, using the WyndMail
> client and the special modification mentioned above,
> you could still use the Go America service.
> Andy later told me that he was loosing revenue on
> machines that didn't use their software because they
> had no method of tracking packet use (payment is based
> on the number of packets you request from the
> network...prices went as high as 36 cents per packet
> (a little less than 2kb in size) You can quickly see

So I'm guessing I'm going to get no help from GoAmerica in this respect :P

> configuration and went to IP based connectivity...This
> effectivly cut the Newton out of the loop...The
> Wyndmail application was not IP based...

So WyndMail is completely toast?

Boy, I have my work cut out for me :)

--
Victor Rehorst - victor_at_newtontalk.net - chuma_at_chuma.org
NewtonTalk list administrator - http://www.newtontalk.net
Will help you with your list problems - as long as you're nice.

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