


                             JetBBS Newsletter
                        Issue 1 -- February 22, 1995
                             By Troy Beckstrom

     This is a document that I have been meaning to write for a long
     time, but haven't really had enough material until now.  Now that
     JetBBS has enough sysops running it and activity on the support
     BBS, I am able to gather enough material for a newsletter issue.
     Most of the items in this newsletter are tips I've given out in
     answer to support mail questions and that other sysops and I have
     given on the support BBS.  This newsletter is not like a newspaper,
     where the paper is published at intervals regardless of how much
     news there is.  I'll publish the next issue when the file seems
     long enough to send it out and start the next one.

     I would like to thank all the JetBBS sysops who have registered.
     The amount of response I've received came somewhat as a surprise
     and has really drawn my attention to improving the program,
     creating a dedicated support line, and doing things like this
     newsletter.  I thank you all for your support, and also thank those
     who have called the support BBS long distance to give me their
     ideas for improving JetBBS.

     As of this publication, the latest version of JetBBS is 3.0a.  The
     "a" is a minor revision that you should not upgrade to if you
     already have version 3.0.

     If you like JetBBS, you may also be interested in my other program,
     Animouse 4.0.  It animates the Windows mouse cursors, size arrows,
     I-beam, and hourglass, and comes with a bunch of creative pre-drawn
     cursors to choose from.  Ftp addresses where you can get the latest
     of both programs are listed below, or you can call the support BBS
     at 206-LAB-TEAM to download them at high speed.

     In this issue, I give a number of improvements that sysops have
     asked for that you can make yourself by editing the .MNU files.
     There are a couple of notes about editing the help files, including
     a fairly complete list of the ANSI codes.  Towards the end I have
     included some notes about particular models of modems and modems in
     general, as they seem to be an endless source of hassle for sysops
     because of their idiosyncrasies.

      --------

     If you have a CD-ROM of files that doesn't have FILES.BBS or
     FILES.TXT index files in the directories, you can still create a
     transfer area in JetBBS for downloading from the CD.  Create a new
     transfer area on the hard drive like "CDDIR", then execute the
     following command:

          DIR /S /B /A-D E:\ > C:\BBS\CDDIR\FILES.TXT

     Where "E:\" is the drive of the CD-ROM drive.  This DIR command
     only works on MS-DOS 6.0 (maybe 5.0) or higher, and creates a list
     of files not including directories, and including files in sub-
     directories.  You can add descriptions to the FILES.TXT if you
     want, as long as the filename is the first thing on the line
     followed by at least one space and then whatever descriptions you
     want.

      --------

     To abort a logoff at the last minute while the BBS is displaying
     the logoff screen, press "A" to abort the logoff message and the
     logoff.

      --------

     You can record all uploads and downloads in your system log by
     adding a few lines to .MNU files.  In MNU\UL.MNU, on the next line
     after the [do] line, add:

          printtolog Uploading %xferfilename% in %transname%

     And in MNU\DL.MNU, add after the [do] line:

          printtolog Downloading %xferfilename% in %transname%

      --------

     If you want your file lists to be sorted, instead of in the order
     of upload, edit the file MNU\X-FER.MNU and add this after the
     "listfiles:" line:

          calldos sort < %dldir%\files.txt > tmp.txt
          calldos copy tmp.txt %dldir%\files.txt
          calldos del tmp.txt

     If you have version 6.0 or higher of DOS, you may need to add "/Y"
     at the end of the copy command.

      --------

     Sysops seem to be having trouble setting up ANSI help files on
     their BBS -- I've seen a lot of messages asking for help, so I'll
     take a minute to clarify things.

     When a user presses [?] to get a help menu, JetBBS checks the
     user's userinfo settings to see if they have ANSI turned on or off.
     If they have ANSI enabled, JetBBS will look in the TEXT directory
     for an .ANS file corresponding to that menu.  If one does not exist,
     it will just display the .HLP file instead.

     Let's say you want to add ANSI to your Main menu.  Use TheDraw or
     another program to create the ANSI menu (save with no delay and no
     clear screen, then edit out the spaces at the end of the file with
     a DOS editor).  Copy it (assuming your BBS directory is C:\BBS) to
     C:\BBS\TEXT\MAIN.ANS and it will then be displayed to all users who
     have ANSI turned on.

     You can create an .ANS counterpart for any .HLP file in your TEXT
     directory.

      --------

     Besides the text in the .MNU files, text files, and help files,
     almost all the remaining text can be found and modified in the file
     TEXT\TEXT.TXT.  Use a regular text editor--JEDIT, which comes with
     JetBBS, would be a good choice, or DOS's EDIT--to search for
     existing text and change it.  Do not change the numbers or the
     happy faces, which are control codes for the BBS to locate text.
     If you don't see the happy faces, then the editor you're using
     can't cope with control codes and you'll need to use a different
     one.  One more caveat is that when you upgrade, you may have to
     merge your changes by hand.

      --------

     ANSI CONTROL CODES

     Set Color                <ESC>[<color_code>m
          0 = Reset to user's normal colors
          1 = Bold
          4 = Underscore
          5 = Blink
          7 = Inverse
          8 = Invisible
          30 = Black Foreground      40 = Black Background
          31 = Red Foreground        41 = Red Background
          32 = Green Foreground      42 = Green Background
          33 = Yellow Foreground     43 = Yellow Background
          34 = Blue Foreground       44 = Blue Background
          35 = Magenta Foreground    45 = Magenta Background
          36 = Cyan Foreground       46 = Cyan Background
          37 = White Foreground      47 = White Background

     Set Cursor Position      <ESC>[<y>;<x>H
     Cursor Up                <ESC>[<distance>A
     Cursor Down              <ESC>[<distance>B
     Cursor Forward           <ESC>[<distance>C
     Cursor Backward          <ESC>[<distance>D
     Print Cursor Position*   <ESC>[6n
     Save Cursor Position*    <ESC>[s
     Restore Cursor Position* <ESC>[u
     Erase Screen             <ESC>[2J
     Erase To End Of Line     <ESC>[K
     Scroll Up                <ESC>[<lines>S
     Scroll Down              <ESC>[<lines>T
     Insert Lines             <ESC>[<lines>L
          Moves lines from the cursor to bottom of the screen down
          by <lines> lines.

     Delete Lines             <ESC>[<lines>M
          Deletes <lines> lines at the cursor and scrolls up the
          lines below cursor.

     Insert Characters        <ESC>[<chars>@
          Shifts character under the cursor and characters to the
          right of the cursor to the right by <chars> characters.

     Delete Characters        <ESC>[<chars>P
          Deletes <chars> characters under the cursor.

     * = Not supported on all terminals

      --------

     If you're getting a lot of BEEPING, it may be because you have
     "SleepMinutes:" set to 0 in BBS.INI.  Setting this to 0 tells the
     BBS to give the user 0 minutes before it starts pestering them with
     beeping and then logging them off.  I think a reasonable amount of
     time for SleepMinutes is 10 minutes.

      --------

     If you install a screen saver, it may slow down the BBS when it
     activates.  Screen savers assume the computer is not in use when
     you're not there, so they assume they can use as much CPU time as
     they want, and may bog down or stop the BBS.

     Very few computers these days have the type of monitor that suffers
     from burn-in.  Screens with high phosphorus, such as used in ATM
     machines, some older coin-op video games, and old amber and green
     monochrome screens used with CGA or monochrome type video systems
     are the types that are vulnerable to burn-in.  You can identify
     them by the way you can still see the words on the screen as they
     fade for a while after the computer erases them.  If you have one
     of these monitors, it's probably so old and obsolete that you
     shouldn't mind if it gets burnt-in because it would give you one
     more reason to buy a new one.

     I recommend that you turn off your monitor when you're not using
     it.  The monitor takes about as much wear and tear and uses as much
     energy no matter what is displayed, including a blank black screen.

      --------

     JetBBS 3.0a and Animouse 4.0 are now available on the internet by ftp:

         ANIMOUS4.ZIP:  - oak.oakland.edu and all SimTel mirror sites in
                          /SimTel/win3/mouse

                        - ftp.cica.indiana.edu and all its mirror sites
                          in /pub/pc/win3/desktop (??/win3/desktop for
                          mirrors)

                        - ftp.eskimo.com in "/jason9" (good cuz of low
                          volume, fast transfers)

         JETBBS30.ZIP:  - oak.oakland.edu and all SimTel mirror sites in
                          /SimTel/win3/mouse

                        - ftp.eskimo.com in "/jason9"

     And SimTel mirrors:

            *SITE*           *LOCATION*       *DIRECTORY*
      oak.oakland.edu      [primary mirror] /SimTel/msdos/bbs
      wuarchive.wustl.edu  [St. Louis, MO]  /systems/ibmpc/msdos/bbs
      archive.orst.edu     [Corvallis, OR]  /pub/mirrors/simtel/msdos/bbs
      archie.au            [Australia]      /micros/pc/oak/bbs
      src.doc.ic.ac.uk     [England]        /pub/packages/simtel/bbs
      ftp.funet.fi         [Finland]        /pub/msdos/SimTel/bbs
      ftp.ibp.fr           [France]         /pub/pc/SimTel/msdos/bbs
      ftp.uni-paderborn.de [Germany]        /SimTel/msdos/bbs
      ftp.cs.cuhk.hk       [Hong Kong]      /pub/simtel/msdos/bbs
      ftp.technion.ac.il   [Israel]         /pub/unsupported/dos/simtel/bbs
      ftp.cyf-kr.edu.pl    [Poland]         /pub/mirror/msdos/bbs
      ftp.sun.ac.za        [South Africa]   /pub/simtel/msdos/bbs
      ftp.sunet.se         [Sweden]         /pub/pc/mirror/SimTel/msdos/bbs
      ftp.switch.ch        [Switzerland]    /mirror/msdos/bbs
      nctuccca.edu.tw      [Taiwan]         /PC/simtel/bbs
      ftp.nectec.or.ch     [Thailand]       /pub/mirrors/SimTel/msdos/bbs

      --------

     DOS 6.x's DoubleSpace disk compression doesn't seem to reduce the
     disk space used by the BBS's message base and may even quadruple
     it.  I've heard that Stacker, on the other hand, cuts it by about
     90%, though I haven't confirmed this.  It has to do with the way
     the compression schemes handle blocks and clusters in the FAT file
     system.  The larger the block size, the more space is wasted.

      --------

     A number of people have complained that the BBS hangs up on callers
     soon after it answers.  I didn't know at first what was causing
     this, but now I think it's caused by a configuration change in
     BBS.INI.  I should take this time to say that you should get the
     BBS working before you start making widespread changes.  If you do
     make a lot of changes and there's a problem, it's easy enough to
     re-install the BBS to another directory and see if the default
     configuration has the problem.  If it doesn't, then something you
     changed caused the problem and you should backtrack.

     Anyway, so here's what to do if you have the hang up problem.  You
     should not normally need to turn on AnswerOnRing in you BBS.INI,
     but if you do, change S0=1 in your init string to S0=0.  S0=0 turns
     off modem auto-answer.  If you have both methods of answering
     turned on, the modem will answer, then the ATA from the BBS will
     cause it to hang back up.

     Very few systems need the AnswerOnRing method, so the best way to
     straighten this out is to set AnswerOnRing to 0 and put S0=1 in
     your init string.

      --------

     So far I've owned two modems that occasionally crash of their own
     accord.  Just as a computer can crash and lock up, it seems modems
     have that capacity as well.  One of the modems was the Cardinal
     internal modem, which would occasionally lock up when trying to
     hang up.  The other modem is the internal modem for the Toshiba
     1200 (XT) portable computer.

      --------

     US ROBOTICS 14.4k MODEM

     If you have a 14.4k US Robotics modem that won't auto-answer when
     you set it to ATS0=1, go into your term program and type "ati7".
     Check the date and see if it's April 1993.  If it is, you can
     contact US Robotics for a free ROM upgrade.  I think their internet
     address is "support@usr.com" (if that doesn't work, you could just
     send it to "postmaster@usr.com").

     The US Robotics 14.4k Sportster modem has to have the
     ModemInitString1: line in BBS.INI set to "AT&F".  The JETSETUP
     program sets this if you have one, but if you've changed modems
     after installing JetBBS, you may have missed this.

      --------

     Here is an e-mail message I received from Keith Mullins, a
     registered JetBBS sysop in Indiana, with tips on setting up a high-
     speed Hayes modem:

     This initialization setup works great for me and was derived
     through many hours of headaches, but I do not by any means
     guarantee it or will be held responsible for any crazy actions by
     the modem. Telecommunications is still a very unexacting science.
     And no-one can absolutely guarantee anything when it comes down to
     it. (just my opinion only)

     Set BaudRate: 38400 in BBS.INI

     Yeah, I know it sound crazy for a 14.4 modem but it was recommended
     to be by an expert of JetBBS and it worked for me.

     Use these modem strings

     ModemInitString1: AT&F
     ModemInitString2: AT&F&C1&D2S36=7S0=1X1
     ModemInitString3: ATW1M1L1Q0S2=255S10=60E1S7=60

     Set LockBaudRate: 1

     Also insure AnswerOnRing: is also off

     And now some special notes of the idiosyncrasies you might notice:
     The repeat of the &F AT command is intentional. My modem would not
     totally reset after just one try. Yours might. Mine didn't. It
     could be just my computer but I can't say for sure. I use the &F
     instead of ATZ because sometimes little errors and electrical
     fluctuations can change the stored profile settings that ATZ
     restores. Also some comm software actually stores stuff you didn't
     really want in the stored profile. I use &F for insurance and
     reliability. I also realize that the escape character set by S2 is
     different from what the software author says. That is the main
     reason I won't guarantee the thing totally. S36 seemed one of the
     more important ones to change in order to connect to the widest
     variety of other modems. It seems to allow the most versatility of
     connect types. Also be aware that I am not an expert in this field
     and the final advice of Troy (the author) should be held above any
     recommendation by me. I am supplying this file in order to try to
     help him as much as he has helped me. BTW Troy seemed to be one
     cool dude.

     PS. One real recommendation anyone could agree with is to back up
     your original BBS.INI file to help you just in case things go crazy
     from a mis-typed command or anything. That has saved me in a pinch
     mega times.

     Hope it helps,
     Keith Mullins
     Sysop, Wizard's Wonderland
     (yet,another satisfied JetBBS sysop)
     (219)786-0907

      --------

     If you send me support mail, here's a checklist you should make
     sure you've done:

     - If it has anything to do with the modem, tell me your modem
       brand and speed.  Also, if you can, send your BBS.INI file
       as ASCII, and tell me if the modem works with a terminal
       programs.

     - If you're having a problem you think has to do with Windows,
       please try it outside of Windows and see if it doesn't also
       do it there.

     - Make sure you've upgraded to the latest version, which is
       currently version 3.0.  Call (206)LAB-TEAM to download the
       latest version.
