THOUGHTS.DOC Latest thoughts off the top of my head on CBBS, as of 3/3/80. Ward Christensen Rev 11/28/81 I was looking for a technique to disseminate some of the new¨ mods to CBBS. The BULLETIN seems the most logical place - but¨ I wanted to keep that brief. Putting them in messages is OK,¨ but people have to be relatively familiar with CBBS to find¨ these things. Thus was born the NEWS file, which is like an¨ extended bulletin. You can type either the "headlines",¨ (1-line details) or the detailed items. New for Vers 3.5. It is my intent that the first 20 messages on "every" CBBS be¨ essentially the same. We'd appreciate you keeping messages¨ 9-11 so more people might order CBBS based on seeing the "ad"¨ for the software on YOUR system. Also, message 1 should be¨ personalized to give the history of YOUR system. We'd¨ appreciate you giving us credit for the base software, but make¨ everything else appropriate for your involvement. Call our system to get the latest entries for messages 12, 13,¨ 14, which tell of other message systems. 12 is full time¨ CBBSs, 13 is full time other systems, and 14 is any non-full¨ time systems. It is my practice to try to keep these messages¨ up to date, and if someone has not reported the activity of a¨ particular system for 6 months, then delete it. It just costs¨ too much to keep calling systems to see if they are still up. The file FIRSTIME contains a hardware description. So does the¨ help file. It is up to you to put similar info in both. Maybe,¨ you want to delete the hardware question from the FIRSTIME¨ file, or just say, in FIRSTIME, to type: H;HARDWARE to get details on the hardware. The CBBS.COM on this disk is a 3.5 version with no modem¨ dependencies. It allows you to "dink" with the system entering¨ messages, etc. You may run out of disk files if you use it too¨ much, as there are so many other files on the disk, and could¨ be up to 50 message files if you add enough messages. If you are converting an "old" CBBS to the new message file¨ format, our "convert" program is totally useless unless you are¨ going to go to 50 message files. If you want fewer, then¨ you'll just have to pattern a new BASIC program after the one,¨ but don't dink around as I did trying to "and" bits. The CBBS¨ code uses the following algorithm to map from the decimal value¨ of the last two digits of a message number, to a file number: file#=divisor*int(msg#/divisor) Thus if you use 4 for a divisor, the program will use 25¨ message files. Message numbers ending in 00, 01, 02, and 03¨ will be written to file MESSAGE.X00, etc. It is my personal opinion that a CBBS which is up 24 hours a¨ day 7 days a week, is many times better than one which is not.¨ This is because if its up always, people don't have to think¨ about when they may call it. They can just pick up the phone¨ at any time, and call in. I'd like to keep some semblance of consistency to CBBS ¨ commands. I would LOVE it if people would somewhat "clear"¨ usage of new 1 letter commands with me. For example, "L" is¨ now accepted as a "list" command by some CBBSers, specifically¨ Steve Vinokuroff of CBBS/Vancouver. He allows the user to type¨ any .ASM file (he forces the type to .ASM). L asks for a¨ filename, then executes the operator TYPE command after forcing¨ type .ASM - Others think about putting the "L" command for¨ "linefeeds" because the half-ascii TRS-80 doesn't seem to want¨ them (double spaces) but lets face it, they really should go¨ with a full "standard" terminal program. Back to Steve¨ Vinokuroff: He is also thinking of using "F" for "File¨ transfer". Hmm, I'd prefer to keep that open for a new¨ "forward" command, i.e. "F;1234;CHI" means to "forward message¨ 1234 to Chicago". This is just blue sky at this time, but lots¨ of BBS operators (CBBS/ABBS/FORUM-80/PBBS) are interested in¨ message forwarding. Thoughts for the future: I'd like to put all commands related to a particular user, (I¨ guess I mean their terminal) and put them into a single¨ command, as Bob Iannucci does with his homebrew BBS system. Thus "U" for user, is a single command, under which you access: A=Alter Baud rate C=Change Case D=Duplex (echo/no echo) N=Nulls P=Prompting bells on/off V=Video Backspaces Lewis Moseley, CBBS/Atlanta, has done this. Thus the number of options in the "primary" menu drops by 5¨ (delete 6, add 1 (U)). I instead just grouped the commands together when you type "?",¨ so you see the 6 major functions, then the other ones. A bit¨ more clear than just presenting all commands in alphabetical¨ order. ------------- It is our policy, on a 2 disk, single density system, to¨ maintain 280 - 320 active messages. Seems OK. Occasionally a¨ caller says "get rid of your old messages". Ya, 320 is a lot. ¨ We "suffer" a lot to see someone at 110 baud doing S;1 - egad¨ that takes what, almost a half hour? Some CBBS operators may¨ choose to not even allow 110 baud. Oh yes, special thanks to the S-100 modem companies (Hayes,¨ IDS, and PMMI) for really making CBBS practical. We probably¨ wouldn't have tried it with an external modem. P.S. Please excuse redundancy between various .DOC files.