[HN Gopher] Pegasus Mail
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Pegasus Mail
Author : danielovichdk
Score : 170 points
Date : 2023-08-03 16:28 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pmail.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pmail.com)
| ElCapitanMarkla wrote:
| It's pretty special seeing something created in Dunedin, NZ on
| here
| jsight wrote:
| I loved Pegasus back in the day. I'm happy to see this recent
| wave of nostalgia here.
| robertheadley wrote:
| Pegasus Mail was actually the first email client I used, followed
| by Eudora.
| srvmshr wrote:
| For me Eudora was the first client I installed. They had a
| unicorn logo & even came as a Lite edition. Fun times those
| were, in early 2000s (along with ICQ, ACDSee32, & Quake3)
|
| https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-eudora-email-client-sou...
| bluedino wrote:
| First job we had a whole school district running Pegasus.
|
| Well, about half did. The rest use the mail client in Netscape
| Navigator or Internet Explorer. Was it called Outlook Express
| yet?
|
| No air conditioning anywhere, almost everyone on dial-up...ugh
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| What's new here? Are they shutting down?
|
| Some discussion about their 30-year anniversary in 2020:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21975087
| danielovichdk wrote:
| I posted it because of the netscape meteor thread, and the
| Pegasus logo hit me as one of my favourites in 90s. And it
| likewise a great mail client I used for some time.
| smcl wrote:
| Perfectly good reason, in my opinion! Seeing this brought
| back memories of reading PC Zone back in late '90s, one issue
| in particular which had a special on "Getting Online" where
| they laid out various browsers, email clients, (UK) ISPs,
| gaming services etc.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| Earlier this year they released a new beta with better OAUTH2
| support for Gmail users.
| submeta wrote:
| I fondly used Eudora Mail back in the 90s and absolutely loved
| it. I tried Pegasus Mail as well, but it simply didn't resonate
| with me.
| soufron wrote:
| Eudora was too resource heavy for some machines. That's where
| pegasus shined.
| slavapestov wrote:
| The older Mac versions of Eudora were pretty lightweight. You
| could even run it on a Mac Plus with MacIP over LocalTalk.
| CrankyBear wrote:
| It was a great e-mail client in its day and it's still useable
| today.
| pizzaknife wrote:
| my favorite part of this read comes early on (ahem, clears
| throat): "I'm not going to spend too long" ~ proceeds to
| introduce "The Sales Pitch" for several paragraphs <3 in any
| case, im sold, will check this out next hackathon
| ary wrote:
| Since I couldn't find any screenshots on their website and I
| wanted to recall what it was like (having used it for a time)
| this is the best I could find.
|
| http://campus.bethlehem.edu/centers/computer_center/Pegasus_...
|
| There is almost a "brutalist" clarity to Windows 95 user
| interfaces that I miss.
| jszymborski wrote:
| I first heard about Pegasus Mail on ScreenSavers with Leo
| Laporte. Someone wrote in and Steve Gibson suggested it. Fond
| memories!
| Lammy wrote:
| I'm a big fan of Becky! Internet Mail which has a similarly
| oldschool aesthetic: http://www.rimarts.co.jp/becky.htm
| soufron wrote:
| I used Pegasus on my 486sx25 on windows 3.11. It worked like a
| charm. I am glad it's still active.
| fullstop wrote:
| I ran Pegasus until I switched to Linux and used XFMail [1]. It
| was a great client, and my parents continued to use it until they
| eventually switched to Thunderbird.
|
| I eventually gave up on imap / pop3 clients and strictly use
| webmail today.
|
| 1. https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/XFmail
| soufron wrote:
| Why do you use webmail? I don't get the point.
| fullstop wrote:
| There's no client setup and I can access it from just about
| anywhere.
| jpeeler wrote:
| I used to optimize for the same scenario. But I realized
| that I very rarely use random machines that aren't my own.
| Plus my habits shifted even further once I started relying
| on my own (intentionally) private services accessible over
| Tailscale. These days I'm uncomfortable logging into
| anything of importance on a public machine without using a
| one time password or at least dual factor authentication,
| which isn't always possible.
| mscccc wrote:
| I love how the homepage loads in 24ms. Now this is the ideal
| website.
| hipsterstal1n wrote:
| This is peak performance.
| ptx wrote:
| I wish it had some screenshots though, which would slightly
| increase time to onload, although it shouldn't delay loading of
| the text content.
| noizejoy wrote:
| Here you go:
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pegasus+mail+screen+captures&iax=i.
| ..
| hdivider wrote:
| Exactly. Wish more sites and other bits of software followed
| this website's philosophy. Once you have that which is
| sufficient, anything more is waste.
| olavfosse wrote:
| unreadable on mobile is not sufficient
| gsich wrote:
| Desktop software. Also it's not unreadable.
| qwertox wrote:
| While I did use it maybe 25 years ago, I wanted to see some
| screenshots to get reminded of what it looks like. No
| screenshots. Maybe the manual? No pdf to download.
|
| The site leaves a lot to be desired, but it loads fast.
| _Parfait_ wrote:
| Ah the old nerds pretending UI just doesn't matter.
| Exoristos wrote:
| I don't know what you're talking about. That's a beautiful,
| clean, and clearly-organized site.
| Narishma wrote:
| UI matters, that's why we're praising it.
| gspencley wrote:
| I think that's an unfair strawman, because they are saying
| that UI _does_ matter, only that their opinion of "modern
| UIs" is that they are often worse, not better.
|
| Someone mentioned an "in between" option and that's where I
| personally tend to land as well. A lot of modern websites are
| so media and JavaScript heavy that they take a long time to
| load, have many layout shifts and feel sluggish when you use
| and navigate them. That is not good user experience.
|
| On the flip side, I think there is a lot to say for
| "responsiveness", font choices and media that helps the user
| experience. I am a minimalist, but legibility of copy and
| making intelligent layout decisions relative to the viewport
| size are "modern" techniques that can greatly aid UX when
| understood and applied properly.
| folkrav wrote:
| I feel like there's an in-between we're not talking about, that
| would look a bit less like a shareware site from the early 00s,
| used more than 30% of my screen, and would work on my phone,
| but isn't the modern mess of megabytes of JS bundles for a
| static landing page. It could load in 35-50ms, too, I wouldn't
| mind.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| "Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to
| add, but nothing left to take away."
|
| I value negative space in the same way that my dream is not
| to pile my plate with as much as I can at a buffet.
| renewiltord wrote:
| k's wky ns sllr n rs
| djbusby wrote:
| How did you do that?
| qmarchi wrote:
| Unicode tricks. A quick Google search for "small text
| generator" will point you in the right direction.
| Sabinus wrote:
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| r[?][?][?][?]i[?][?][?][?][?][?]v[?][?][?][?][?][?]al[?][
| ?][?][?][?][?] [?][?]w[?][?]a[?][?]s[?] [?]fo[?][?]r[?][?
| ][?][?]t[?][?][?]o[?][?][?]l[?]d[?][?][?][?][?][?].[?][?]
| [?] [?][?][?]H[?][?]e [?]c[?][?][?][?][?]o[?][?][?][?][?]
| [?]m[?][?]e[?][?]s[?][?].[?][?][?][?][?][?][?] [?][?][?]
| thfuran wrote:
| That's nice, but I value text that renders at a legible
| size more than I value leaving the majority of my screen
| empty. This layout isn't effectively using negative space,
| it's just wasting the entire screen. At least on mobile.
| drivers99 wrote:
| On mobile I just use two thumbs to zoom in to the column
| I want to read.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| Blatant ableism against the mono-thumbed or thumbless.
| toomim wrote:
| The mono-thumbed can always double-tap the desired
| column, and thumbless folx can use their nose.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Why does it need to take up more than 30% of your screen? And
| what's wrong with your phone? It works perfectly fine on
| mine.
| scblock wrote:
| Legibility and usability. Like many old sites this one uses
| small fonts, small elements, and has tiny targets.
| Especially when working on a large display. I make liberal
| use of Firefox's zoom feature to compensate, but better
| defaults don't hurt.
|
| And yes it works on a phone as you can easily zoom in, but
| inclusion of responsive design, e.g. moving the sidebar to
| a footer, and use larger fonts would significantly improve
| legibility and usability. This is not incompatible with a
| simple and fast-loading site.
| indymike wrote:
| If you are looking for Pegasus mail on a mobile device, I
| think you might be a wee bit outside of the target market.
| And btw, Pegasus is a shareware site from the 1990s.
| nathell wrote:
| A lot of sites from https://512kb.club/ are like that.
| sandyarmstrong wrote:
| But...tables!!!
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| This. It's refreshing to use a website that doesn't need to run
| an obscene amount of JS everywhere.
| fsflover wrote:
| https://www.pmail.com/sundry/pmlinux.htm
|
| > 2005
|
| > I am now favourably disposed to the idea of moving towards Open
| Source, but have to overcome some important issues before I go
| down that track. I am actively considering the issues and hope I
| can find workable solutions (such as a large, friendly, wealthy
| sponsor) in the not-too-distant future.
|
| > 2021
|
| > there simply isn't a way forward with this idea, however
| admirable it may be and however inclined I might be to undertake
| it. The reality is that the programs are now so big and my
| resources so limited, that it simply isn't feasible for me to
| consider a true open source migration without specific,
| guaranteed funding and a strong, dedicated team of highly-skilled
| developer volunteers.
|
| This is very sad.
| Agingcoder wrote:
| I loved it - I used to run it in the 90s.
| rolph wrote:
| Pegasus Mail and Linux / Open Source
|
| https://www.pmail.com/sundry/pmlinux.htm
|
| David Harris Owner/Author, Pegasus Mail and Mercury Systems,
| April 20th 2005.
| djbusby wrote:
| This was my first email program back in the 90s. Like others,
| there was a Novell Netware involved. Fond memories that I had
| forgotten until I was sitting outside my house in
| Ballard(Seattle) and the neighbor was walking the dog. Spent a
| lot of time sniffing my trees/bushes.
|
| Neighbor said: don't mind, she's just gotta check her pee-mail.
|
| I'm sure they were confused when I fell out laughing for 5+
| minutes.
| layer8 wrote:
| A similar desktop email client for Windows is The Bat! [0]. Does
| anyone have experience with both and can provide a comparison?
|
| [0] https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| Haven't used either in 15 years, but I always preferred the
| bat! back in the day, client was faster and was bullet proof,
| also at the time it did a better job handling vCards. Both had
| irregularities with rich format rendering, but that was a
| symptom of the time and the fragmented closed sourced rendering
| engines.
|
| I moved to Opera's M2 client as soon as it became available and
| it was my preference even though it only supported plaintext.
| laxmin wrote:
| The Bat, Pegasus and the Becky were three favourite clients at
| our University.
|
| Till GMail and the browser based email thing took over. I wonder
| if we will be remembering gmail and the browser clients with such
| fondness a few years from now.
| baz00 wrote:
| Surprised that's still around. Had a fairly large airgapped
| Pegasus deployment (1000 seats) on Netware back in 1998.
| dahwolf wrote:
| In 1996, our school had a break room with 30 DOS-based computers
| running Pegasus. Each computer would typically have a queue of
| 3-4 people behind the current user, all eager to check their
| mail. Most had no internet at home or very limited/expensive
| access.
|
| Me and some friends were into programming. We would exit Pegasus
| to return back to the DOS prompt, and then write simple programs
| that persist in memory, so basically running in the background.
| Next, we'd reopen Pegasus and left the station.
|
| The next in line would log in to their email and be busy with it
| for some 5 minutes after which our program would activate. It
| would draw random pixels on screen, mirror the entire screen
| vertically, output random tones on the beeper, all kinds of weird
| stuff to suggest that the machine is possessed.
|
| We'd be hiding behind some column observing it and laughing.
|
| Pretty pathetic, but good times.
| stanmancan wrote:
| In high school we found we could use netsend to send messages
| to other computers; or every computer on the network at once.
| The rest of the school year was a back and forward where the
| sysadmins would try to block us and we would find ways around
| it. I think the final method that worked was writing vbscript
| macros inside Excel.
| s0rce wrote:
| I was in college in 2004 and for the engineering department
| email you had to log into a linux terminal and check your email
| with Pine. Most students by that time had windows computers
| with internet at home/dorm, I feel like it was intentionally
| difficult.
| david_p wrote:
| Did we study in the same university?
|
| I was studying at a French engineering university and had
| that exact experience.
|
| I loved learning all the weird command line tricks and Pine
| shortcuts :)
| postmodest wrote:
| By that time I had Pegasus mail for windows in my work
| computer. I miss it sometimes.
| Bloating wrote:
| My favorite gag-app would slowly drip letters off the screen
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Wow, I feel old. I implemented Pegasus mail way back in 1993 or
| 1994, had forgotten about it since.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Pegasus Mail Newsflashes_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31413891 - May 2022 (3
| comments)
|
| _Pegasus Mail, 30 Years On_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21975087 - Jan 2020 (46
| comments)
|
| _Pegasus Mail_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14144731 -
| April 2017 (49 comments)
|
| _Pegasus Mail: Twenty years and counting..._ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2115730 - Jan 2011 (12
| comments)
| jjbinx007 wrote:
| We used to run Pegasus back when we had a Novel Netware server
| and it was brilliant. We later used Mercury Mail to host our own
| mail server on a regular desktop PC running Windows XP connected
| directly to the internet and offered staff a choice between
| Pegasus mail or Squirrelmail.
|
| We eventually moved over to Gmail but I have fond memories of
| Pegasus mail in particular. A great piece of software made with a
| lot of love from the author.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Pegasus was, in the early 1990s, the first email system I used
| on microcomputers (and yes, with Netware). Prior to that, my
| email was on the university mainframe.
|
| Good times! Before Eternal September!
| majke wrote:
| What a blast from the past. I remember using pegasus back in the
| days. I loved it, not sure why I stopped using it. I guess gmail
| search function?
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