11:07 Pandora Bulletin Board System 18 april 1988 Version 2.38 This file tells you what you need to do to succesfully install Pandora on your system (PC/Atari e.d.) The following files are nessecary: PANDORA.EXE (PANDORA.TTP) The real thing CONFIG.EXE (CONFIG.TTP) Maintain CONFIG.BBS PASSW.EXE (PASSW.TTP Maintain USER.BBS TRUESIZE.EXE (TRUESIZE.TTP) Maintain FILES.xxx INITIAL.EXE (INITIAL.TTP) Creates an initial system PANDORA.ARC (PANDORA.ARC) Help and Others screens INSTALL.DOC Installation manual GUIDE.DOC General sysop manual USER.DOC User manual Disclamer Disclamer We, the authors of Pandora and Utilities, accept no responsability for any damage/harm done by/with these programs. Licence Licence These programs may be freely copied and used on a non commercial basis. No charge may be asked. For use on a commercial or governmen- tal basis the authors written permission must be asked. When a person whishes to use Pandora and Utilities on a daily basis, a registration letter with your name, address, zone:net/node numbers must be sent to the following address: (see LICENTCE.TXT) J.P.Middelink Larenseweg 81 7451 EN Holten Holland Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by J.P.Middelink and J.Kersing. Installation manual 0.5 Page 1 11:07 Pandora Bulletin Board System 18 april 1988 Version 2.38 Short description of the environment and commandline switches used by Pandora. Environment Environment YELL=(ON|OFF) default ON Disables the Yell function, so users can't ring you out your bed. HAYES=(ON|OFF) default ON The use of a HAYES compatible modem is encouraged, but is not nessecary for the correct operation of Pandora, but of course The-Box, which dails out, will need a Hayes modem. PORT=(1|2|3|4) default 1 On IBM systems the modem can be connected to any of the COM ports. Pandora must know the proper port for a correct communication with the modem. PANDORA=path default CONF\ Path used to locate CONFIG.BBS, PANDORA.ARC MAILER.NET and MAILER.NOD. Since these files are accessed often, but do not change during a Pandora run, these files are excellent candidates for a RAMdisk. On systems with an harddisk installed this setting is rarely used. Switches Switches -e Show extra information during up/download. -l Log all what the user types in the log file. -y Disable Yell function, overrides environment setting num Set the baudrate on which a caller called. Since the baudrate is already known Pandora assumes no Comport or modem (de-)init is nessesary. Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by J.P.Middelink and J.Kersing. Installation manual 0.5 Page 2 11:07 Pandora Bulletin Board System 18 april 1988 Version 2.38 Files Files CONFIG.BBS contain information over the system configured by the local sysop. Also contains info about the different area's which are accessable for the users. USER.BBS contains information about every user known to the system. This file must be safeguarded with your life because when it get's lost, every user is lost! LASTREAD.BBS contains information which message in every area each user last read. (usefull, but not critical when lost) MAILER.NET MAILER.NOD these files are nessesary to substitue the net/node numbers for the appropate nodelist name. The last file also contains a cost field, for which the user will be charged when sending a message to the specified node. When these files aren't found, none of the above actions is made. Cost will default to 0.50 cents. TERMCAP.BBS Here are the terminals which can be installed in Pandora Change Settings. The strings include ClearScreen, GotoXY, Insert/Delete line and Normal/Reverse video. PANDORA.ARC This file is vital for the operation of the BBS. It contains several important textfiles (like the bulletins, editorial and welcome). The files in this archive are STORED. This means that no compression is used! (Use PSARC or ARC but not PKARC!) Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by J.P.Middelink and J.Kersing. Installation manual 0.5 Page 3 11:07 Pandora Bulletin Board System 18 april 1988 Version 2.38 Setting up your first Pandora Bulletin Board System. Setting up your first Pandora Bulletin Board System. If you follow the directions in this section exactly you will end up with a basic BBS. It will have 4 independend message and 4 indepen- dend file areas. The BBS itself will be public. (public means that every-one can log-on and become a GUEST user.) Floppy disk users: Floppy disk users: 1. Get two empty disks and format them. Place on one of them sub-dirs with names: "CONF", "FILE", "UPLD", "MSGS", "MAIL", "OUTMAIL", "MAILER" 2. Extract the archives which contain PANDORA, PASSW, CONFIG and INITIAL. Place these files in the root directory. 3. Extract Pandora.arc out Pandor-E.arc, do NOT unarc this file futher! 4. Run INITIAL with the commandline options U T C. This will create the next files in your CONF sub-dir: TERMCAPS.BBS, USER.BBS, CONFIG.BBS and LASTREAD.BBS. Hard disk users: Hard disk users: 1. Backup your harddisk. 2. Create a subdir for Pandora(1) (like \PANDORA). Make this your current working directory. In it place the following subdirs: "CONF", "FILE", "UPLD", "MSGS", "MAIL", "OUTMAIL", "MAILER" 3. Extract the archives which contain PANDORA, PASSW, CONFIG and INITIAL. 4. Extract Pandora.arc out Pandor-E.arc, do NOT unarc this file futher! 5. Run INITIAL with the commandline options U T C. This will create TERMCAPS.BBS, USER.BBS, CONFIG.BBS and LASTREAD.BBS in the subdir CONF. Now edit BBS.BAT for your situation: Setup the proper environment strings, and call Pandora with the proper switches. Your now made an initial BBS installation. It can be tested by typing BBS. A valid username is SYSOP (no lastname, just type ) with password WHAT 1): the more elements in your path, the slower your BBS! Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by J.P.Middelink and J.Kersing. Installation manual 0.5 Page 4 11:07 Pandora Bulletin Board System 18 april 1988 Version 2.38 The Pandora utility CONFIG The Pandora utility CONFIG This utility manages the CONFIG.BBS file. When running it can be aborted by pressing ^C or leaved by pressing Q. (=Quit) When you run the CONFIG program, you will see the Main menu and a list of options valid there. In CONFIG are 5 more menus (Msgs, File, Times, Change and Init), which I will describe later on. I'll now describe the Main options: I'll now describe the Main options: number The visable area is changed to , so you can change the parameters for Msgs and File there. I) Change all installation parameters for Pandora. T) Change the different times used in Pandora. C) Change Pandoras Main command privileges. M) Change the Msg parameters for the visable area. F) Change the File parameters for the visable area. N) Change your international Network address. Enter only a valid address here, otherwise the Network mail won't work. Valid numbers can be obtaint by your friendly nearby Sysop. They will know the way to apply for a real Network number. S) Enter here the name under which you'll be running the BBS. When a users enters a message to 'Sysop', it will be redirected to this name. Also $s prints this name. P) Type of BBS you can be running: closed: no new members. Only already installed members are allowed to log in. privat: GUEST privilage for new members, which may call in. The will NOT be upgraded to NORMAL privilage when they call a second time! public: New members are allowed, and they get for the first time, GUEST privilage. But the second time they call in, they will automaticly upgrade to NORMAL users, which allows them to do more things on the BBS. V) View all areas in this BBS installation. The +/- tells whether or not the area in accessable. W) Copy the visable area to given area. (Both File and Msgs part are copied at the same time!) The iesiest way to use this is to create a proper area and copy it several times so only minor changes have to be made. To add new areas copy to the last area+1. To change the order of two areas, area 99 may be used. First area to 99, area to and 99 back to . TAKE CARE: The last (** default **) area is not saved on disk. If you've got areas 0 till 20 (use the view command) then only areas 0 till 19 will be saved. X) Toggle eXpert mode. When off the menu explanation will be supressed. It will speed up things, if you're know what you're doing. Q) Quit. Update CONF\CONFIG.BBS and leave to DOS prompt. Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by J.P.Middelink and J.Kersing. Installation manual 0.5 Page 5 11:07 Pandora Bulletin Board System 18 april 1988 Version 2.38 Now for the Init menu options Now for the Init menu options A) Initial privelage assigned when a new user calls. We recommend GUEST level so the user can play around the BBS without taking up too much time. B) Initial MSGS group access bits assigned when a new user calls. C) Initial FILE group access bits assigned when a new user calls. D) Cost factor. For fast global changes in msgs costs. Suppose a sponser takes over half the cost, you can either change the costlist in XLTLST.CTL or set Cost at .50 E) Upload path where all upload files are placed. Leave empty for default directory or enter used path with an extra \ at the end. F) File path, here the FILES.xxx files are searched. See E) G) Modem initialise string, send to modem once on startup. H) Modem deinit string, also send once, but at the end. I) Modem startup baudrate. Usaly the highest possible baudrate of your modem. All Pandora internal communications will go at this speed. Use -number when your modem supports locked baudrates. (See your modem documentation for this feature.) The Times menu options The Times menu options A) Maximum download quota for one day. Enter as B) Maximum inlog time for one call. Enter as C) Maximum inlog time for one day. Enter as D) Pandora open times. Pandora will quit to DOS outside these hours. E) Mail window times. Currently not used. F) Yell times. Pandora will only allow yells at the sysop between these times. These times can for example exclude your dinner time. The Change menu options The Change menu options number Every command in Pandora has a minimum privilage a user must have to execute this command. Also printing of those commands for which the user hasn't enough privilage will be suppressed HIDDEN privilage excludes even the sysop from using this command! Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by J.P.Middelink and J.Kersing. Installation manual 0.5 Page 6 11:07 Pandora Bulletin Board System 18 april 1988 Version 2.38 List of Msgs menu options List of Msgs menu options A) Area name under which this area will be known. P) Path to msg-file (please DO ADD trailing '\' here.) B) Group acces mask. This mask is and-ed with the user mask. If the result is <> 0 the area is open for that user. If the mask is 0 the area is closed for everyone (including sysop). Areas unavailable for user are not shown in the A)rea command in your BBS. C) Area type. (normal messages, mail or echomail) D) Ask for killing of received messages. If on then the user will be asked whether he wants a private message (that has been received) to be killed or not. E) Ask for Private. If off then no private messages possible (for everyone, including sysop). Mostly turned off in echomail areas. F) Mail area only: ask for KILL/SEND. (Kill a message after it has been transmitted.) G) Enable the display of Ctrl-A lines for the sysop. H) Enable the display of SEEN-BY lines under messages. Works for user and sysop. J) Jump directly to given area without leaving M)sgs. number Privileges for the Pandora command options when the users is in this Msgs area. The File menu options The File menu options A) Area name under which this file area will be known. B) Group acces mask. This mask is and-ed with the user mask. If the result is <> 0 the area is open for that user. If the mask is 0 the area is closed for everyone (including sysop). Areas unavailable for user are not shown in the A)rea command in your BBS. C) Upload area. This number denotes to which files.xxx the user file description will be append. J) Jump directly to given area without leaving F)ile. number Privileges for the Pandora command options when the users is in this File area. ATTENTION: The command R)awread is not functioning properly in the ST version. To prevent problems assign privilege HIDDEN. K)ill is not implemen- ted. May be set to HIDDEN also. Won't cause any dammage if not.) The command line switch -x enables an experienced sysop to go directly into expert mode. Synopsis: config -x Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by J.P.Middelink and J.Kersing. Installation manual 0.5 Page 7 11:07 Pandora Bulletin Board System 18 april 1988 Version 2.38 The Pandora utility PASSW The Pandora utility PASSW This utility manages the USER.BBS file. When running it can be aborted by pressing ^C or leaved by pressing Q. (=Quit) For savety reasons a USER.BAK is generated. Run the PASSW program. You will see a menu and a list of options. I will describe these options shortly: number The utility will position at this user record. (If not beyond the end of the list.) V) Shows all users on your system. U) Change the name of the current user. C) Change the city of the current user. I) Change the intro the user will see when he/she logs on. (Ad- vanced feature, will be explained later on). R) Nothing at all. D) Mark this user as DELETED. When you are leaving this program all removed users will be deleted. (Use the same command to 'un'delete a user accidently marked for deletion.) A) Account. The amount of money the user has for sending Network mail. O) PasswOrd. This changes the password of the user. A valid password should start with a CAPITAL and all other charac- ters lower case. N) Add a new member to the user list. X) Toggle eXpert mode. P) The users privilege. M) bit mask for valid message areas. (explained later on) F) bit mask for valid file areas. Q) Leave the program. The command line switch -x enables an experienced sysop to go directly into expert mode. Synopsis: passw -x Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by J.P.Middelink and J.Kersing. Installation manual 0.5 Page 8 11:07 Pandora Bulletin Board System 18 april 1988 Version 2.38 The Pandora utilities TRUESIZE & INITIAL & XLTLST The Pandora utilities TRUESIZE & INITIAL & XLTLST Utility: TRUESIZE Utility: TRUESIZE This version of TRUESIZE will run unattended, it will simply determine the size of all files named in FILES.xxx and overwrites the given length. Future options will include the removal of those files which aren't found anymore. It also formats the file to a more readable format. Synopsis: truesize Utility INITIAL Utility INITIAL This is an extremly dangerous program to leave around on your disk once you have Pandora running and tuned for your own needs. When used in creates (or replaces!) initial versions of CONFIG.BBS and or USER.BBS/LASTREAD.BBS and/or TERMCAP.BBS. (It should ask if you're sure, but it doesn't.) It has the following commandline switches C/c Rewrite CONF\CONFIG.BBS U/u Rewrite CONF\USER.BBS and CONF\LASTREAD.BBS T/t Rewrite CONF\TERMCAP.BBS Synopsis: initial {C|U|T} Utility XLTLST Utility XLTLST This utility will be documented in another document, but in short it will create from NODELIST.xxx and XLTLST.CTL the two files, MAILER.NET and MAILER.NOD, which can then be copied into CONF for proper Network cost and nodename checking used in Pandora. Synopsis: xltlst Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by J.P.Middelink and J.Kersing. Installation manual 0.5 Page 9 11:07 Pandora Bulletin Board System 18 april 1988 Version 2.38 Format used in Pandora HELP & FILES.xxx files. Format used in Pandora HELP & FILES.xxx files. format of FILE\FILES.xxx format of FILE\FILES.xxx These files contain the names of all files available for download. The format is: SHOWNAME DISKNAME LENGTH DESCRIPTION ! First character on line. SHOWNAME Is the name the user sees when he gives the F)iles command. DISKNAME Is the name of the file on disk including path. This name is used by PANDORA for opening the file. The file can be on an other disk, just specify the correct path to it and PANDORA will find it. LENGTH Is the exact length (in bytes) of the file on disk. (Used this way to reduce the diskaccess.) DESCRIPTION Is the description for this file. Listed with the F)iles command. (rest of the line is used so spaces are allowed.) Lines must always end with a newline! Use any number of spaces or tabs to seperate these items. (But make sure the linelength is kept under 90 characters!) Instead of SHOWNAME the next characters may apear at the first position of the line. '-' or ' ' Shows this line exactly to the user. Including the leading character! '\' or '/' Stop listing the file to the user. (Sysop sees entire file) Files listed below this character are 'hidden'. ALL files are available for download. ';' Comment line. Not listed. this line results in a (also empty line) to the user. Format of .HLP files in Pandora.arc: Format of .HLP files in Pandora.arc: Every commandline option in Pandora is given a help entry, which is leadin by :option: and terminated by the next :option:. All which stands between those marks gets printed. The menu, which will be shown by a single ? in given a special name :*: to prevent conflicts with ?? (also :?:). Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by J.P.Middelink and J.Kersing. Installation manual 0.5 Page 10 11:07 Pandora Bulletin Board System 18 april 1988 Version 2.38 Recent changes in Pandora Recent changes in Pandora Updating from Pandora 2.35 Updating from Pandora 2.35 If you've used Pandora 2.35 till now and you don't want to start configuring all over again, please get hold of the program CONF58. TTP. This program will adapt the old configuration file to the one Pandora 2.38 needs. Also a couple of things have been changed: - All files with the name FILES.xxx have to be in ONE sub-dir. (default called "FILE\". Uploads to your system will mess up the system if the path isn't correct. (The FilePath will be adapted by CONF58). - You'll have to install the modem initialisation and modem reset string (and baudrate). This is done in the I)nit part of CONFIG. - Run the program INITIAL with the T option. BE CAREFULL: the other options will destroy your C)onfigur- ation or U)serfile! Also a few more $ escape commands have been added: $$ Displays a single $$ $K Clear entire user screen and leaves cursor at (0,0) $h Places user terminal in normal video color. $H All futher printing will be done in inverted video mode Use with care, since user can ^C before $h code! (see SYSOP.DOC for more information over these $ escapes) Take care when using % escapes commands, they use an undefined internal stack, so random numbers will be displayed. Use %% for a single %. Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by J.P.Middelink and J.Kersing. Installation manual 0.5 Page 11 11:07 Pandora Bulletin Board System 18 april 1988 Version 2.38 Winding up: Winding up: That's all for now folks. I know it's a mess so don't bother to tell me. If anyone likes to write manuals he's welcome. If you got questions PLEASE ask them. Bug reports are 'welcome' too, we really don't think PANDORA is bug free. (in fact, we know it isn't!) Questions and/or bugs: Questions and/or bugs: If you have access to a Fido Mail Network you can send us you message directly, use for: Questions: Pandora Questions at 2:508/17 Bugs: Pandora Development at 2:508/17 (please use a to the point topic, it will speed up our answers) (So no 'PANDORA', 'bug', 'error' or 'question' or things like that!) Another possiblity is to get a connection to the TB&P_BUG echo. This is the echo for Pandora and The-Box bugs. Last but not least, you can write us at: J.P.Middelink Larenseweg 81 7451 EM Holten Holland The Future of Pandora: The Future of Pandora: Currently machines of which PANDORA runs: Pandora ST, this is the Atari ST version. Pandora PC, the IBM (and compatibles) version. We're working on Pandora CP/M, a version for those good old CP/M computers. Available utilities: passw The user-file mannager. config The configuration manager. truesize Updates filesizes in FILES.xxx. initial Creates initial Pandora BBS CONF\* files. The-Box (ST only) FidoNet mail interface. If you miss any utilities then let us know. May be we'll write them, or supply the information you need to write them yourself. Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by J.P.Middelink and J.Kersing. Installation manual 0.5 Page 12