The Television Engineers BBS User Guide This is an introduction to the various features of Television Engineers BBS. It is also provided as a text file called USER.TXT . It guides you through some of the aspects of the system. Logging On When you log on to a BBS or on-line service, you have to provide information to the computer that uniquely identifies you. This normally includes your first and last names, and a password. When you connect with the BBS the system will ask you for your name and password. You must first enter your first name. The system will then ask you for your second name. When you enter this for the first time you will be asked to confirm your spelling. Enter yes or no to correct a mistake. The system will then ask you to enter a password. You can enter any word or number here. You will then be asked to verify it by re-entering the same password. Enter your first name? John Enter your second name? Smith Enter your password? Letmein If there is some one with the same name as you on the system, the system will not allow duplicate names. Try entering "John E" If you logon using a script file, you can use the "fast logon". You can go directly to the Main Menu or the QWK Menu to download a mail packet (More on this later). By using a "!" in front of your first name you can go directly to the QWK Menu. The format is as follows.. ! firstname lastname password New Users If this is the first time you have called The Television Engineers BBS then you are a new user. You will be asked a few questions about yourself so we know who is using the system. The Questions are such things as your voice phone number, mailing address, your preferred screen colours, protocols, and so on. At each prompt you will be given a chose of commands. These will be as an example, [L]ist Files you press "L" to list the files. Remember you can only used the commands shown in the prompt. The Sysop will probably also take the opportunity to show you some information about the BBS you are calling policies and house rules, the focus or specialty of the BBS. If you make a mistake entering any of this information, don't worry. You will have a chance to correct it later, by editing your user settings or by leaving a message to the Sysop. One of the questions will ask you for your Mother's first name. If when you call you forget your password you will not be able to enter the system. You will be asked to enter a message why you entered the wrong password. If you have just forgot it, just enter that. I will then set your password up for your Mother's first name the next time you call. When you get into the system select [Y]our settings and change your password to something you can remember. When you have entered your answers to the questions you are into the system. At the bottom of the screen you will be given a number of choices. The first choice is [C]ontinue, [N]onStop. Nonstop is used if you set your software to record all the information sent to your computer. The display in this mode will not stop for you to read a screen full of information, but will keep displaying text until all the text has been displayed or you hit the . News Letter If the news letter has been updated since your last call you will be asked if you wish to see it. After you have read the news letter you will be asked if you wish to see the updated bulletins. If you are calling for the first time then all the bulletins will be new. Bulletins Bulletins are text files you can read by selecting them from the Bulletin Menu. When there are new or important bulletins to read, The BBS will show you the bulletin menu automatically. You can stop any display file from scrolling by pressing . Reading new bulletins Type the number of the bulletin you want to read at the Bulletins prompt, or type N to view only the bulletins that have been updated since your last call. Downloading bulletins You can download bulletins for reference later on. Type D, then select the bulletins by number that you want to download. You can select a range of bulletins like this: Download [1-8], [ENTER] to continue? [1, 4-6, 8] The system will then copies bulletins 1, 4 to 6 and number 8 to a temporary directory, then when you exit the bulletin menu, it packs the bulletins into an archive for you.You will have the opportunity to download your bulletin file right away, or mark the file to download later. You can look at the bulletin menu again any time by selecting the main menu command "Bulletin menu". System statistics The main menu command "Display statistics" shows information about the BBS. The display can be as simple as the one shown above, or as detailed as the screen below. The actual information file is several pages long. Getting help Help screens Press the ? (question mark) at almost any menu command or prompt to see a help screen. If nothing happens right away, press once. Sending a comment to the Sysop If you need more assistance using the BBS than the help screens can provide, you can send a message to the Sysop. The main menu command "Comment to Sysop" lets you type a message and save it. The system will automatically address your message to the Sysop. You can find out more about using the message editor later on in this chapter. Changing your settings You can change many of the options you selected during the newuser questionnaire the first time. Use the main menu command "Change user settings" to view and edit your preferences. Setting Notes Computer type Describe your computer here if you would like other callers to see this information when they choose the main menu "list users" command. Phone number Enter your voice phone number here. The system uses your phone number for security verification, so you may be asked to explain the reason for the change. Your phone number is visible only to the Sysop, not to other callers. Birth date Enter your date of birth here. As with Phone Number, the system uses this information for security verification. Your date of birth is visible only to the Sysop, not to other callers. Screen length The normal value here is 23 lines. The system will automatically insert screen pauses when you view files on-line so you can see a page at a time. Screen display mode No colour: Black and white screens only. If your terminal software can respond to the system's ANSI detection, you will be able to use the full-screen message editor, otherwise you can use the line editor only. Colour ANSI: Use this if you want to see colour screens along with full ANSI animation, and the full-screen message editor. RIP Graphics: Use this only if your terminal software offers RIPscrip emulation (QmodemPro for DOS and Windows, for instance, or RIPterm). The Television Engineers BBS does not support this mode at the moment. Auto Detect: This is the best possible choice. The system will detect what kind of terminal capability you have every time you log on, and offers the best possible screen display mode. Use this if you want the flexibility of being able to use whatever terminal emulation you like. Erase prompt The system will normally erases the "Continue" prompt by sending backspaces. If this causes problems on your system, try changing this option to "No". Hot keys With hot keys turned off, you can "stack" commands, that is, you can enter several single letter commands separated by spaces or semicolons, and the BBS will act on all of them as soon as you press . Change this option to "Yes" if you would like to execute commands with a single keystroke, without having to press . Quote on reply When you reply to messages, it's considered good form to quote a portion of the original message so your readers can remember the context of your reply. If you would like the system to feed the message you're replying to into the message editor automatically, with -> quote symbols in the left column, change this option to "Yes". Sorted listings Change this option to "Yes" if you would like the system to sort file area and conference names alphabetically instead of numerically. Read message mode Scroll: The system does not clear the screen between messages. New messages appear, with their message headers, at the end of the previous message, and scroll from bottom to top. Clear screen: The system clears the screen between messages. New message headers and their text always appear starting at the top of the screen. Keep header: The system scrolls the message text, but keeps the message header on screen. Default editor Line editor: Always use the non-ANSI line editor when you enter messages on-line. Full screen editor: Always use the ANSI full screen editor when you enter messages on-line. Select each time: Select which editor to use whenever you enter a message on-line. Note: You can always switch between the line editor to the full screen editor while you are entering a message, at the "Edit Message" prompt. File display mode Single line: List download files with line number, file name and description on one line. Double line: List download files with line number, file name, size, date, number of downloads and estimated download time along with file description. Full listing: List each file on a full page with full information including date/time, size, uploader, short and long descriptions. Help level Novice: Show full menus and command prompt. Regular: Show command prompt with option letters. Expert: Show command prompt only, no option letters. Default protocol If you're sure you want to use the same protocol every time you upload or download a file, select your favourite here. If you prefer to view the list of available protocols every time you transfer a file so you can make your selection based on your baud rate and line conditions then choose Select. If you are new to downloading files, select Zmodem as this will start the download process for you. Calling from Enter your location or the name of your company. Other callers can see this information when they choose the main menu "list users" commands. Current language This BBS only offers English. Doors Doors are external programs you can run from the BBS. At present the only door on the system is the mail door. If doors are available on the BBS, you can run them by selecting the "Door menu" command. Questionnaires The Sysop can create on-line questionnaires and make them available from the main menu command "Questionnaires" and in other parts of the BBS. These questionnaires can be used for on-line order entry, opinion polling, and gathering of demographic information. Questionnaire answers can be yes/no, multiple choice, text, or numeric -- if an answer requires a particular kind of input, that's the only kind it will accept. Looking for other users You might be curious to see who else uses the BBS. There are three ways to search for other users. List users You can list all the users on the BBS with the main menu command "List users". This list shows name, the last logon date, and location for each user on the BBS. Selecting conferences The BBSs is organized into "conference areas". Each conference area consists of messages on a particular topic such as "news products" or " technical help", along with file areas, bulletins, questionnaires, doors, and so on. First of all, the first conference is private E-mail, if you wish to send a message that you do not want any one else to read, then send it in this conference. There is a different conference for each manufacture. along with general interest conferences. If you want to read the messages for say, Toshiba. You can [J]oin the Toshiba conference and [R]ead the messages in that conference. You can also [S]earch the conference for the information you require. To do this you can "scan messages" Scanning messages The BBS can scan the conferences for information. If you would like to read all the messages that have reference to say, 3V35 then you can scan the Ferguson conference for messages about the 3V35. To do this you select "scan messages" from the message menu. Then select [S]earch. You will then be given a list of items to make your search. I ask every one to enter the model number of the equipment in the subject field so if you want to search for say a 3V35, you can search the "subject" for 3V35 by entering 3V35 in the list of items to search. To change conferences, use the "Change conference" command. Enter the conference number at the prompt if you know it, or type L to list all the conferences available. Entering a message If you would like to enter a message on the system first select the conference you wish to put the message in. If you want to put the message in the Toshiba conference you must first [J]ion that conference. From the message menu select [J]ion. If you do not know the name or number of the conference you can [L]ist the conferences. When you have selected the conference you want to put the message in you select [E]nter message. You will first be prompted to enter the name of the person you want to send the message to. Enter the name of the person or hit enter to select all. If you are in any other conference than 0 Private E-mail you message can be read by any one reading messages in that conference. Next enter a subject. Enter the model number of the equipment ie. 3V35. If you have selected Full Screen editor in [Y]our Setting, you will now be in a full screen editor. You can now type in your message. When you have finished typing and want to save the message on the system, you hit the [E]scape key. You now can carry out a spell check or other options on your message When you are happy with your message you can [S]ave it. Off-line mail with wcMAIL The most efficient way to read BBS mail is to ask the BBS to prepare a mail packet which you can download and read after you've disconnected from the BBS. A packet is a number of messages that have been compressed into file which you then download to your computer. The packer used on this BBS is PKware. DO NOT SELECT ANY OTHER PACKER. THE CORRECT SHOULD BE PKWARE. This is called "off-line mail", and it has a number of advantages over reading mail on-line. Here are just a few: . You're not running up long distance charges while you read mail. . You can take as long as you want to research, compose and polish your messages. . You can save and print messages for later reference - - even after the messages have expired on the BBS. . You are log onto the system for less time making it - available to others. Off-line mail readers If you would like to download messages, you can not read them with a text editor. You will need a off-line QWK reader. You will also need a copy of PKware to unzip to files. Shareware programs for reader and PKware are available for you to download from this board. I must just say that this is not free software and if you use it you should register your copy. OLXTD.ZIP and PK2204.EXE are the files. You will have to download PK2204.EXE first. When you have installed this on your computer you can use it to unzip OLXTD.ZIP. Install of PKware and off line reader To install PKware first download file PK2204.EXE Now make a directory PKWARE. You do this by typing "md pkware" at the C:> prompt. Now copy PK2204.EXE to this directory. Type PK2204 and the program will be ready to run. You will need to add ";C:\pkware" to the path in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Do this with edit autoexec.bat at the dos prompt. Next download file OLXTD.ZIP and make a directory for this. "md olxtd". Copy the file to this directory Type " pkunzip olxtd.zip ". You can now run the off -line mail reader by typing "OLXTD", but first you will need your message packet. Call this board with your coms software and enter "T" for the mail packet from the Message Menu. Enter "Y" to check your setting, [2] Packer should be Pkzip and [3] should be Zmodem. The new files date sets the date for new messages and files, you will only download messages and files after this date. If you want to download older messages change this date. You can also reset the mail pointers by entering -10 for the last ten messages. Numbers 6 and 7 sets the number of messages you will download. You can change this if there is a lot of messages. Downloading your packet After checking your setting you are ready to download you packet. Quit your setting and [S]elect the conferences you want to download. When you are finish [D]ownload you packet. If you use Zmodem this will be automatic. You should now have a file in your download directory named TVEBBS.QWK. This file contains all the messages and (if you have selected) all the new bulletins. Run the off-line reader by typing OLXTD in the Offline directory. Open the file TVEBBS.QWK and read the messages. You can enter you replies, these will be in a file named TVEBBS.REP. When you next call the board you can upload this file after entering [T] QWK mail and select U upload mail. The dog ate my mail packet. How can I get my messages back? One of the files in your QWK mail packet is a message pointer file, which contains your high message numbers for each conference on the BBS. If you lose a mail packet, try extracting the pointer file from another recent packet from the same BBS, then upload it to wcMAIL. Here's how to do it for a mail packet named TVEBBS.QWK with PKZIP and PKUNZIP as your archive choice. Type these commands at the DOS prompt in the directory where your mail packets are stored: PKUNZIP TVEBBS.QWK TVEBBS.PTR Now, copy the .PTR file to the "upload" directory for your communication program. Log onto the BBS, get into wcMAIL , go to "Your Settings", "Update message pointers", and select the command "Upload TVEBBS.PTR File". Send the file you just extracted from the packet. When wcMAIL has received the file, it will ask you whether you want your high message numbers set to just before or just after the settings for the packet belonging to the .PTR file. If you don't have a message pointer file, you can still reset your high message numbers. The "Your Settings" menu command "Reset all message pointers" lets you reset each conference to give you a certain number of messages below the top, or all messages after a certain date. Resetting message pointers by date takes longer than resetting message pointers by number. As a example you can read the last 5 messages in each conference by selecting [R]eset Pointer from the Mail Door QWK and type -5. Uploading & Downloading Uploading and Downloading mean copying files between computers over a modem connection using a transfer protocol. When a caller sends a file to the BBS, the process is called "Uploading", when the caller receives a file from the BBS it is called "Downloading" . Upload To upload a file, you must first request the upload on the BBS, so it is ready to receive the file you are about to send. The usual command to upload a file in is "U", on the File Menu. The system will then prompt you to select a transfer protocol. Depending on the protocol you selected, you might be asked to type the name of the file you wish to send, along with other information about the file transfer. When you have finished entering this information, the system will prompt you to begin uploading the file. You then tell your communications software (for instance QmodemPro) to begin sending the file. In QmodemPro, select "Upload" from the "Files" section of the QmodemPro main menu, or press the key. Then enter the name for each file you want to transfer. When transferring files, both the sending and receiving computers must use the same file transfer protocol. This means that if you select Xmodem-1k on the BBS, you also must select Xmodem-1k from the protocol selection window in your communications software. Download Downloading is much the same as uploading. First, you request the download from the BBS, specifying the names of the files you want to receive, and the transfer protocol to use. When the BBS signals it is ready to begin sending the file, select the "Download" in your communications software, select the protocol to use (the same one you selected on the BBS, of course), then enter the destination file name and directory if necessary, and begin the download. Protocols A transfer protocol is a set of signals and responses combined with the data being transferred. Protocols provide error checking and correction, and monitor the progress of the file transfer. The system already contains some of the most popular, efficient, and reliable transfer protocols. These are called "Internal Protocols", since they form part of the system program. ASCII ASCII protocol is used primarily for on-line text. The ASCII transfers. It does not support transferring binary data such as programs or compressed files. ASCII does not perform any error-checking, which makes it very sensitive to line noise. Bursts of phone interference will introduce stray characters that are not part of the data being transmitted. For this reason, ASCII transfers are not recommended unless they are used for specific purposes where that protocol is needed. Xmodem There are two Xmodem protocols presently in use. The original Xmodem uses a Checksum method to insure that the data received is the same as that which was sent. Checksum is a very simple error-detection method with an accuracy rate of 99.6%. Xmodem Checksum transmits 128-byte data blocks. This is not a particularly efficient protocol, since it must pause for acknowledgment between each block it transmits. Xmodem CRC Xmodem-CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Checking) is similar to Xmodem-Checksum, but uses a far more reliable error- detection algorithm (99.9969%.). If you accidentally select Xmodem Checksum at one end and Xmodem CRC at the other, the system will use the correct protocol automatically, rather than aborting the transfer. Like Xmodem Checksum, Xmodem CRC is slow and inefficient, and is definitely not suitable for high speed connections unless you have no other option. Xmodem-1k Xmodem-1K is a modified version of Xmodem CRC, which uses 1024 byte blocks as opposed to Xmodem's 128 byte blocks. Because it transmits larger blocks of data, it pauses less often during the transfer, so it is considerably more efficient than its 128-byte-block cousins. Ymodem Ymodem is the true implementation of the Ymodem batch protocol and is sometimes called Ymodem Batch. This protocol supports the transfer of multiple files within a single session, without user intervention. True Ymodem and Ymodem/G batch protocols include Header Records in the uploaded or downloaded data. These records contain file-dependent information such as name, size, and date/time stamps. Ymodem, like Xmodem 1K, sends 1024 byte blocks, and is a reasonably fast, efficient protocol. Xmodem-1k/G & Ymodem/G These two protocols are similar to their non-/G counterparts. /G protocols do not perform any error correction and rely on the error correction features of the modems. Modems equipped with internal protocols such as MNP, LAP-B, and X.PC help assure that communications are error free. You must enable hardware handshaking via the CTS/RTS signal lines with such modems. /G protocols will not be available unless the following is true: . CTS checking is enabled in the Device configuration. . The two modems report an error-free connection during logon. Make sure the modem does not always force the CTS signal ON. This will cause a modem buffer overflow resulting in an aborted transfer. Xmodem-1K/G and Ymodem /G cannot re-send bad data blocks. In theory, there should be NO bad blocks of data in an error-free connection. If errors occur, they are likely to be caused by an improper setup either in the hardware or in the communication software Zmodem This is the popular streaming protocol put into the public domain by Telenet. Zmodem uses a variable sized block to transfer data over even the noisiest phone lines. Zmodem was designed as a Batch transfer protocol. As such, it shares the same transfer windows and allocation methods that the Ymodem protocol uses. Should errors occur, Zmodem can tell the sending end exactly where to restart. Zmodem does not require a high-speed or error-correcting modem with MNP or V.42 to be effective. While it is not as fast as Ymodem /G or Xmodem-1K/G, it does perform well enough to have become a "standard" in the industry. One of the benefits of Zmodem is Crash Recovery. This allows an aborted file transfer to be restarted later, without having to re-transmit the already received portion of the file. Wildcat! checks first to make sure the partial file has not changed. If it hasn't, then it picks up where it left off. If it has, then the file transfer restarts from the beginning. Kermit This protocol's main claim is not speed, but rather its ability to interact with many types of computers from mainframes to micros. It can cope with systems limited to seven-bit characters even when the data to be transmitted is in eight-bit form. All characters are translated into standard printable characters and reconstructed on the receiving end. While not very efficient, Kermit is sometimes the only way to transfer data between different types of systems and terminals. It is not recommended for PC to PC transfers unless there is no other choice. Yes, the Kermit protocol really was named after a frog. I hope the information is enough to get you though most of the system. If you are not sure of any thing you can always send me a message. Jon Lye