HERMES Mail for Mac

Nick Werner-Matavka

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Jul 4, 2022, 11:25:05 PM7/4/22

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As you may be aware if you are subscribed to the Eudora Dev listserv,
HERMES Aurora (a true continuation of Eudora for Windows) successfully
compiles, links, and runs; screenshots are available, and it releases
in a little under a month. This has freed time and resources for a serious attempt at HERMES Mail (for the Mac).

Make no mistake, though, this will be a whole different animal. There
was little doubt, from our side, that we'd be able to get Aurora in
production; the questions we asked ourselves in relation to that
product all began with the word "how". In simple terms, it was a
low-risk endeavour. The Windows product is also qualitatively and
quantitatively different from Mail for the Mac (hence the name
change). That said, Eudora for Windows only ever was a pale imitation
of the original Mac product, notwithstanding that its foundations have
been rock solid rather than the shifting sands of Apple Computer
post-Steve Jobs. It is historically incumbent upon us to give it "the
old college try" but...

The practical upshot of all this is, I'll be refocusing on Mail in the
months and years ahead, but only if the price is right. This will be
a (relatively) expensive, risky, and altogether questionable
endeavour... which means that although the HERMES projects have earned
~$1,500 Am. in "pre-sales" this year chiefly from Windows users, more
is needed to make Mail for Mac a feasible proposition. The target for
this year (PIDOOMA) is $5,000 Can., which translates to about $3,500
Am.

I've published a somewhat technical, but legible roadmap of the Mac
project at our Indiegogo page, which is here:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hermes-mail-8-0-the-final-stretch#/

Please consider contributing; you will have access to an early build
for Mac as soon as it is written, just as we have done, or are doing,
for the Windows half of the project.

Cordially,

Nicholas Edward Werner-Matavka

Hauke Fath

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Jul 6, 2022, 6:49:16 AM7/6/22

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Nick Werner-Matavka <n.theodore.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've published a somewhat technical, but legible roadmap of the Mac
> project at our Indiegogo page, which is here:
> <https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hermes-mail-8-0-the-final-stretch#/>

I looked into the fumbling attempts at developing Mac Eudora some time
ago, and got in touch with the CHM
<https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-eudora-email-client-source-code/>
people about the state of the Macintosh source tree. They had a hard
time seeing the problem with the resource files, and why it would matter
- "You can look at the sources, isn't that good enough?" - and I gave up
in the end. CHM claims a five year effort for unlocking the sources, but
how much of that was actually spent on technical issues?

Looking at
<http://basalgangster.macgui.com/RetroMacComputing/The_Long_View/Entries/2013/3/30_Building_Photoshop.html>,
they similarly mishandled the Photoshop 1 sources (MSDOS line endings
instead of Mac, as a giveaway), but ResEdit didn't exist during its
development, so resources were compiled from text files. IMHO, they
should steer clear of things they don't know how to handle, and cannot
be arsed to find somebody competent to. It's not like people who have
written and built "traditional Mac" software have gone extinct.

Reading the web page you linked - what makes you think there is indeed
an original Macintosh source tree (MPW Projector VCS, maybe), that CHM
wasn't aware of? The way I picture the handover to CHM (many years after
Eudora development had been shut down at Qualcomm, and staff let go) is
"take what you want, we'll scrap the rest".

On the up side, it should be possible to manually extract resources from
the binary of the last Eudora version (6.1.x) that supported System 9.
That would get you started; I don't know how what formerly went into
resources was stored in 6.2, and how accessible it would be.

My personal interest in the Eudora sources is actually a backport to
System 7... given enough round tuits, as always.

Cheerio,
Hauke

--
Now without signature.

Nick Werner-Matavka

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Dec 5, 2023, 3:02:15 PM12/5/23

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On Wednesday 6 July 2022 at 06:49:16 UTC-4, Hauke Fath wrote:
> Nick Werner-Matavka <n.theodore.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I've published a somewhat technical, but legible roadmap of the Mac
> > project at our Indiegogo page, which is here:
> > <https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hermes-mail-8-0-the-final-stretch#/>
> I looked into the fumbling attempts at developing Mac Eudora some time
> ago, and got in touch with the CHM
> <https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-eudora-email-client-source-code/>
> people about the state of the Macintosh source tree. They had a hard
> time seeing the problem with the resource files, and why it would matter

> - "You can look at the sources, isn't that good enough?" - and I gave up

> in the end. CHM claims a five year effort for unlocking the sources, but
> how much of that was actually spent on technical issues?
>
> Looking at
> <http://basalgangster.macgui.com/RetroMacComputing/The_Long_View/Entries/2013/3/30_Building_Photoshop.html>,
> they similarly mishandled the Photoshop 1 sources (MSDOS line endings
> instead of Mac, as a giveaway), but ResEdit didn't exist during its
> development, so resources were compiled from text files. IMHO, they
> should steer clear of things they don't know how to handle, and cannot
> be arsed to find somebody competent to. It's not like people who have

> written and built "traditional Mac" software have gone extinct.

>
> Reading the web page you linked - what makes you think there is indeed
> an original Macintosh source tree (MPW Projector VCS, maybe), that CHM
> wasn't aware of? The way I picture the handover to CHM (many years after
> Eudora development had been shut down at Qualcomm, and staff let go) is

> "take what you want, we'll scrap the rest".

>
> On the up side, it should be possible to manually extract resources from
> the binary of the last Eudora version (6.1.x) that supported System 9.
> That would get you started; I don't know how what formerly went into
> resources was stored in 6.2, and how accessible it would be.
>
> My personal interest in the Eudora sources is actually a backport to
> System 7... given enough round tuits, as always.
>
> Cheerio,
> Hauke
>
> --
> Now without signature.

Hauke, an old engineering aphorism says that "one screw is worth a nickel; knowing where to put it is priceless". In short, that is what happened here. We received the same defective code as you did, and in fact were warned off doing anything with the Mac code by Len Shustek at the Computer History Museum. I don't want to call him an idiot, as he certainly isn't (just a "Windows guy"), but had we listened to him, we'd have thrown away PERFECTLY GOOD intellectual property.

I would certainly not call our Macintosh attempts a "fumble", but I will admit that we shovelled a lot of time and money into researching a task that is so simple it boggles even my mind. Frankly, we ought to have worked on the Mac version (which we have now rechristened "Eos") first, as it is the simpler to bring to market out of the two Eudoras. Just a note: the Windows port is now called "Aurora"; the company developing it is called "HERMES".

To be quite honest, anything in relation to "Classic Mac" (i.e., Mac OS 9 and earlier) is totally orthogonal to our project aim; all we can do is wish you luck. That having been said, KNOWLEDGE of Classic Mac would have proven beneficial. All of the Eos team, including me, *grew up with* Mac OS X and the UNIXy way it handles files, but OS X *can cope* with (though it doesn't prefer) apps packaged in the Classic way, with resource forks.

So here's the state of the project right now: it compiles and our programmer has announced that it WILL be ready within two months or less, but ONLY IF I can get the resources. And I have figured out how. What I need is the "naked" Eudora 6 app for OS X Lion, packed into a DMG made with the standard Disk Utility. If I can get this, you WILL have Eos running on Intel Macs with OS X Mojave or older. (That's a TEN-YEAR jump!)

I can even reconstruct how the resources were originally wrecked: UNIXy archives like tarballs, Zip files, RARs can't cope with the classic Mac file system (you need a Mac-aware app like StuffIt or the Disk Utility). And guess what Len Shustek did with the code: that's right, he packed it into a tarball.

I would already have the app out, if only I could extract the Eudora 6 app from the Aladdin InstallerMaker installer. The problem is that Aladdin InstallerMaker is a PowerPC app, so I can't extract it on anything that doesn't include Rosetta (and my current Mac is, of course, an ARM MacBook Pro with OS X Sonoma). It doesn't matter if I can't run Eudora 6, I don't *want* to run it—just to extract its resource forks.

WHAT I NEED FROM YOU (anyone!) is the "naked" Eudora 6 app for OS X, bundled into a DMG made by the Disk Utility. That person will get a FREE copy of Eos for Mac OS X Mojave within two months. I also, quite frankly, need money—all of the money has been spent on either development of Aurora, or research into how to get over the hurdles with Eos/Eudora for Mac. So, please, pay here: https://igg.me/at/hermes80 - I know the site says nothing about the Mac version right now, but you WILL get a copy of Eos as soon as it releases. Contribute as much as you think Eos is worth, $1, $5, or $500. This ISN'T a donation; it's a contract of sale.

-- Nicholas Edward Werner-Matavka
Team HERMES
Managing Director

Nick Werner-Matavka

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Dec 5, 2023, 3:05:41 PM12/5/23

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On Wednesday 6 July 2022 at 06:49:16 UTC-4, Hauke Fath wrote:

Hauke, an old engineering aphorism says that "one screw is worth a nickel; knowing where to put it is priceless". In short, that is what happened here. We received the same defective code as you did, and in fact were warned off doing anything with the Mac code by Len Shustek at the Computer History Museum. I don't want to call him an idiot, as he certainly isn't (just a "Windows guy"), but had we listened to him, we'd have thrown away PERFECTLY GOOD intellectual property.

I would certainly not call our Macintosh attempts a "fumble", but I will admit that we shovelled a lot of time and money into researching a task that is so simple it boggles even my mind. Frankly, we ought to have worked on the Mac version (which we have now rechristened "Eos") first, as it is the simpler to bring to market out of the two Eudoras. Just a note: the Windows port is now called "Aurora"; the company developing it is called "HERMES".

To be quite honest, anything in relation to "Classic Mac" (i.e., Mac OS 9 and earlier) is totally orthogonal to our project aim; all we can do is wish you luck. That having been said, KNOWLEDGE of Classic Mac would have proven beneficial. All of the Eos team, including me, *grew up with* Mac OS X and the UNIXy way it handles files, but OS X *can cope* with (though it doesn't prefer) apps packaged in the Classic way, with resource forks.

So here's the state of the project right now: it compiles and our programmer has announced that it WILL be ready within two months or less, but ONLY IF I can get the resources. And I have figured out how. What I need is the "naked" Eudora 6 app for OS X Lion, packed into a DMG made with the standard Disk Utility. If I can get this, you WILL have Eos running on Intel Macs with OS X Mojave or older. (That's a TEN-YEAR jump!)

I can even reconstruct how the resources were originally wrecked: UNIXy archives like tarballs, Zip files, RARs can't cope with the classic Mac file system (you need a Mac-aware app like StuffIt or the Disk Utility). And guess what Len Shustek did with the code: that's right, he packed it into a tarball.

I would already have the app out, if only I could extract the Eudora 6 app from the Aladdin InstallerMaker installer. The problem is that Aladdin InstallerMaker is a PowerPC app, so I can't extract it on anything that doesn't include Rosetta (and my current Mac is, of course, an ARM MacBook Pro with OS X Sonoma). It doesn't matter if I can't run Eudora 6, I don't *want* to run it—just to extract its resource forks.

WHAT I NEED FROM YOU (anyone!) is the "naked" Eudora 6 app for OS X, bundled into a DMG made by the Disk Utility. That person will get a FREE copy of Eos for Mac OS X Mojave within two months. I also, quite frankly, need money—all of the money has been spent on either development of Aurora, or research into how to get over the hurdles with Eos/Eudora for Mac. So, please, pay here: https://igg.me/at/hermes80 - I know the site says nothing about the Mac version right now, but you WILL get a copy of Eos as soon as it releases. Contribute as much as you think Eos is worth, $1, $5, or $500. This ISN'T a donation; it's a contract of sale.

David Morrison

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Dec 6, 2023, 6:17:41 PM12/6/23

to

You can get it from here:

http://davidmorrison.id.au/Eudora-6.2.4.zip

This is a folder with 6.2.4 dmg dated 2007 and the manual from the time.

Just as well I keep all this old junk! lol

Cheers

David