Once upon a time, data was transferred across machines via a protocol known as
UUCP. It was a slow protocol, and people would transfer mail, news, and sometimes files using this protocol. In many cases, one could map out to the
internet and communicate accordingly.
Waffle was a program for doing exactly this under DOS, and came with a mostly complete suite of tools so that one could manage their e-mail and netnews via a slightly unixy interface, and also came with several plugins, utilities, and what not for further flexibility.
EDIT, 25Aug2004: To note, there was a Unix version of Waffle that would apparently work on Linux, but it didn't come with the UUCP package - it was, in fact, a BBS package for Unix. Then again, there's a reason it's called UUCP, and the etymology should be obvious accordingly.
The last known version was 1.65, uploaded to Simtel on August 8, 1992, and a 1.66 release was planned; however, with the advent of cheap PPP connections (and, more recently, the advent of DSL and cable modem connections), almost any requirement for UUCP has pretty much fallen by the wayside - in fact, if there are any UUCP links out there, it's pretty much a slow link to the 'net. As such, Waffle seems to have been abandoned.