For me, using a 33K modem and zmodem: It takes about 3 or 4 minutes for
my uqwk 2.0 to grab and package around 2 Megs of articles, and it takes
zmodem around 7 minutes to download the 2 Megs (these estimates are
quite rough).
If I downloaded about 20 megs of news and mail per day like some folks
said they do, it would take about 1 1/2 hours per day. True, the
uqwk processing can be done in the background. But my dos zmodem
transfer can not be done in the background. Well - I could use some
kind of multi-tasking like a dos-box in windows, or an open-dos task
switcher.
I had assumed it would not be great for my hard disk to be whirring around
that much each day. I believe the total life of hard disks is measured
in read/write revolutions - yes?
Is it really reasonable and routine to devote over an hour a day to these
tasks?