Gold Medal Software 2

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Text File | 1991-10-25 | 26KB | 586 lines

=============================================================================== Release Notes for GT POWER 17.00 October 25, 1991 =============================================================================== o Binary message upload has been implemented using only internal protocols. To use the message upload feature, the caller begins a message in the usual way, but hits RETURN on the first line, or wherever the upload is to begin. Then the caller selects (U)pload from the message sub-menu. The filename is not asked for, but goes automatically to a temporary work area. The uploaded message is tested for text and/or graphics and is rejected if found to be improper for inclusion in the message base. If the file is okay, it is appended to the text already entered (if any) and the message is stored. The uploaded message can contain any sort of ANSI graphics and may contain lines up to 255 characters in length (counting cr/lf pairs at the end of each line). o The phone directory must be converted to a new format. The new format includes a field called "Dial Prefix Override". Normally, ATDT or whatever you have in your Modem Dial Prefix is adequate, but sometimes a special prefix is required (for example to use a special Xn value). Like this: ATX5DT Which would enable X5 for this particular call. Use the new GT_UTIL.COM to convert your directories. o The SYSOP.BBS file has undergone considerable changes. Please be careful when installing it. o File tagging. Whenever the caller lists files, using (F), (W), (I) or (L) commands, the option to tag files for later download is offerred. Tagging can be done by positioning the cursor and pressing [Enter], or the (F)ilename can be entered manually. The file database is used to lookup files, in case they are not in the current area. The main menu has a new command, ET, which will let the caller review that list of tagged files and delete files from the list. This is helpful if the caller has been over zealous in his tagging operations. If not enough time to download all tagged files occurs, GT will offer the ET command automatically. o The scheduler has been enhanced, so that times between midnight and 1am *may* now be specified as 00:xx. Please note that many 3rd party programs may not support this format. Also note, the old format, i.e. 24:xx, is still usable. In any case, the schedule must be presented in numerical order in the SCHEDULE.BBS file. But the two styles should not be mixed. Decide which you wish to use, either 00: or 24: and stay with it. o New CLASS permissions for the GTPASSWD.BBS file. NN ... No name uploads. Users that have this permission will not have the name recorded in the FILES.BBS when they upload a file. NX ... No expert mode. Users that have this permission will not have access to the 'expert' mode. RC ... Require Credit. Netmail credit is required for all netmail messages, when users have this permission This is introduced to help nets that are spread out over a large chunk of real estate and calls are mostly long distance (toll calls). BP ... Bypass logon. This permission allows callers to bypass all the steps between logon and main menu. In effect, a shortcut logon procedure. BO ... This option should NOT be specified by itself. This option modifies the meaning of the BP option and should only be specified with it. The BO option caused only bulletins to be bypassed during the logon procedure. o New ^U substitutions have been developed: DT = Amount downloaded, so far today, in thousands. DL = Daily download limit, in thousands. TB = Time Bank total. TW = Time Bank daily withdrawal limit. TD = Time Bank daily deposit limit. XD = Expiration date XP = Past expiration date, number of days XU = Until expiration date, number of days XL = Warning interval, number of days o Work has been done on the ASCII transmit feature, Alt-A command, in terminal mode. It works somewhat more smoothly, and a potential loss of interrupt bug has been located and fixed. But I have a general observation, when transmit and receive baud rates vary a great deal, i.e. 38,400 for transmit and 300 for receive, or other widely different rates, it would be wise to use a delay factor per character and per line. In this example, I would suggest about 33 ms for the per character delay, and perhaps 100 ms per line. Makes things go much more smoothly. And, since 300 baud is the receive speed, there is not much to be gained by going faster. o It is now possible to address a message, personally, to everyone who calls your system. Simply list the following as the TO: address: ^UN Those of you familiar with the ^U entries will recognize the 'N' as the substitution variable for the caller's name. In effect, this message would appear, for all practical purposes, to be addressed to each caller personally. Again, this will not work well in net/echomail, since other GT host systems will not know what to do with the substitution. In effect, on those systems, the message would appear to be addressed to N, as the ^U will be stripped out. Please note that ^U is just the symbol for the Ctrl-U character... do not put the characters ^ and U, put the Ctrl-U character. o It is now possible to embed ^U lines into messages. For example you could begin a message like this: ^U"Hello "F":" Those of you using ^U entries are familiar with this, I believe. All substitutions are available for message entry. However, please note, these lines will not work well in net/echomail, since other GT host systems will not print the ^U line at all. In effect, this allows you to customize messages, just like you could customize bulletins, etc. Please note that ^U is just the symbol for the Ctrl-U character... do not put the characters ^ and U, put the Ctrl-U character. o A new .BBS file is included with this release: TAGWARN.BBS It is displayed prior to logoff, if the caller is departing with some files left tagged, but not downloaded. o The DIAL family of script command that accept the REDIAL option are now capable of accepting a limiting number to the redial attempts. Here is an example: DIAL 897-9549 WITH 50 REDIALS The 'S' on the word 'REDIALS' is optional. o The personal mail check, at logon, has been sped up considerably. This mail check now uses a field in the USER_MSG files to record the highest message scanned. So that previously scanned messages are not re-scanned during subsequent logons. This should reduce the very long series of '......' that usually appear on the screen. It will take at least one logon to get the highest scanned message number recorded, but after that, it should kick in nicely. o The pre-event wait is now sysop configurable. It is accomplished via a new command line option for GT, "/PE". For example: GT1600 *xxxx-xxxx /PE03:OFF This would specify a 3 minute pre-event wait and have GT take the phone offhook during the wait. GT1600 *xxxx-xxxx /PE08 This would specify an 8 minute pre-event wait and the phone would not go offhook during the wait. Please note, to enable this feature to work, the sysop should have the hook control strings under Alt-I properly setup for the specific modem. Normally: Offhook ...... ATH1| Onhook ....... ATH0| o Also, some of the timing changes in the terminal dialing procedure have cause some surprises. Most of them effect the dialing status displays, and may be corrected by adding an ~ to the dial post string. Many folks use simply '|' for the dial post string, but certain modems may benefit, now, from "|~" as the dial post string. o The Ymodem and Ymodem-G header blocks have been corrected. Prior versions of GT used (or attempted to use) local time in these header blocks for the file creation date/time. That was incorrect and incompatible with the Omen Technologies standard, i.e. GMT time is called for in those header blocks. You must correctly set the TZ environment variable to enable correct GMT calculation (as described above). o The TZ= enviroment variable must be set by everyone due to the requirement of the Ymodem and Ymodem-G header block. These two protocols require that the time be passed in GMT. The GMT time can only be calculated with the aid of some information indicating the current offset from GMT. The TZ= variable does this. As follows: set TZ=EST5EDT Whese: 'EST' stands for Eastern Standard Time. 5 is the number of hours behind GMT that the time zone normally is. 'EDT' means that daylight saving time is in effect, i.e the 5 will be reduced by 1 hour automatically. If the time zone was not currently on daylight time, then this would be required: set TZ=EST5 That means that this set needs to be changed twice a year. Here are some other "set" statements: set TZ=GMT0 This is for the UK and other countries operating in the GMT time zone. set TZ=EUR-1 This would be for a European time zone that is 1 hour ahead of GMT. set TZ=PST8PDT This would be Pacific Standard Time, 8 hours behind GMT and currently on daylight savings time, i.e. the actual difference is 1 hour less. o A daily download limit has been introduced. The limit is specified in the GTPASSWD.BBS file within the [...] on the CLASS and password entry. As follows: E1 [0:10,3/1000,2:00] CLASS UP,DN,MS,KL,PR ^^^^ Please notice the new field following the number of calls per day. On the CLASS card you see "3/1000", this means 3 calls per day and 1000k per day download limit. The number is an integer from 1 to 32767 and is measured in "k" or thousands. o The Time Bank has been introduced. It allows a caller to gain time credits (minutes) for uploading file and leaving messages. Deductions are taken for downloading files. Also, the caller can manually withdraw time from the accumulated total, allowing him to download more files or read more messages. The feature is implemented by a permission on the CLASS entry, in the GTPASSWD.BBS file, as follows: ; uk uf dk df me mr mk dl wl E1 [1:00,5/300,2:00,C:\UP] CLASS UP,DN,DR,MS,TB=01/02/03/04/03/00/05:060/060 Notice the TB= entry at the end of the permission list. Each field is of a fixed length, as shown. Fields may NOT be omitted from the list, however they may be zeroed out, if not wanted. The fields are defined as follows: uk = Upload time bank credit per 100k uploaded. If possible, this amount is rounded and pro-rata for lesser uploads. For example if "uk" is 2, then a 50k upload would get a credit of 1. uf = Upload time bank credit per file uploaded. dk = Download time bank deduct per 100k downloaded. If possible, this amount is rounded and pro-rata for lesser downloads (as is done with "uk"). df = Download time bank deduct per file downloaded. me = Message entry time bank credit per message entered. mr ... credit given for reading a message. mk ... deduction taken for killing a message. dl = Daily limit on time bank deposits (credits). wl = Daily limit on time bank withdrawals (deducts). From the main menu, the caller may select the TB command and convert time bank credits into netmail credits. The TB command will also allow callers to withdraw credits and have the time added to their current connect limit. Consideration of scheduled events is made. o Thanks to Ken Thompson of the Black Hole in Sydney, the DV chat feature is now ready. Ken has written a customized version of DOORMAN to use with DESQview, which allows multiple sessions of GT to use the CB Simulator, much as it done when GT operates on a LAN. In order to use this feature, you must setup each copy of GT as if it were pretty much on a separate machine connected by a LAN. The LAN Parameters, option #37 under Alt-I, must be filled out. Especially important is the LAN PATH, that is where the PID_FILE and the USER files will be stored. The PID_FILE is used by the CB simulator to tell who is on the system, so the LAN PATH should point to a shared area, i.e. all pids should have the same LAN PATH. Each pid should have a unique pid number, from 0 to 31, but the pid name is pretty much an individual creation. Each host batch file should designate a unique GTPATH for each DV window, and each host batch file should load DVDOOR for each DV window. Sample screens for the CB mode have been included. It is important that DVDOOR is loaded after DESQview, for each window running GT, otherwise it just won't work. Also, it would probably be wise to use SHARE, but I am not sure when or how that should be loaded under DESQview. Here is a sample of the batch file I used to test the feature: cd \ c: cd \gt1 set GTPATH=c:\gt1 set TZ=MST7 dvdoor :host1 Gt1700 *xxxx-xxxx /T5 /MN /S /Q /V:ED /L1 host.scr if errorlevel 255 goto host1 if errorlevel 4 netmail cd \ c: cd \gt1 This is pretty much the exact file I used, with small modifications, on each DV window. The changes are pretty modest, but here is an example for window #2: cd \ c: cd \gt2 set GTPATH=c:\gt2 set TZ=MST7 dvdoor :host2 Gt1700 *xxxx-xxxx /T5 /MN /S /Q /V:ED /L1 host.scr if errorlevel 255 goto host2 cd \ c: cd \gt2 Notice that netmail is only run in window #1. And that directory names have been changed to GT2... I setup a new directory for each window I ran GT in. Pretty minor changes, just common sense stuff. Remember (Z) is the command key a caller uses to start the CB Simulator! Thanks, Ken, for all the good work you did to produce the driver for this new feature! o Most of the bulletins and screens, including messages, can temporarily be placed into non-stop mode by answering "ns" to the "More? " prompt. o DTR is now dropped during the pre-event wait. Thus making sure that the modem does not answer during that period. o Full screen editing is now possible. When entering a message, in the past, you had to (E)dit the message, then enter the line number, then type the old string and the new string. Now you can simply arrow up and change the information. This can be done while at the message entry sub-menu, while sitting at the "More?" prompt while listing a message, prior to storage, and of course, anytime while typing in the message. Note: Callers that do not use fully ANSI compatible terminal programs *WILL* have a problem with these new message features. o The (I)nsert option from the message entry sub-menu now allows multiple lines to be entered, until you enter a empty line. The usage of the arrow keys is allowed during all (I)nsert operations. The arrows will sometimes appear to jump across areas of the screen that do not have message text. o The BPLOGON.BAT file will be executed as a logon door for callers that have the BP permission --- if the caller answers "y" to the bypass prompt. If the BO permission is specified, the BPLOGON.BAT file will not execute. o Every attempt is now made to log verbose result codes that are returned by the modem. For some cases, such as "Dialling Scripts", this is not currently possible. But, in host mode and normal terminal mode, GT will log the verbose result codes (the word ANSWER is still used in host mode, but the particulars following it are reported verbatim). o The security of private netmail has been increased. o The [S]can function has been reworked. A two line format has been adopted, so that more message headers can be shown per screen. o The handling of duplicate file reception, via external protocols, has been improved. Improved diagnostic information is now logged. However, I am a bit sanguine about whether this is an improvement. Hopefully, it will help troubled users to find solutions. o Netmail Reply. Users that have netmail credits will now be given the option to send reply messages via netmail. This should be very handy. But, of course, is only available if your system is connected to the GT Network. o The netmail reply mechanism can be denied on a message base level. The "#" character is used to accomplish this. Place it in front of the pathname in the GTMDIR.BBS file. Like this: E #^C:\GT\BASE1 General message area The "#" will disallow netmail replies when callers are reading in this conference. o The message checking functions, like the "RG" command and the logon mail check, have been modified so that the Ctrl-K and Ctrl-C keys can be used to abort the search during a long sequence of "**********". o File and message areas may now be grouped into boards. The idea is to group file/message areas together in some logical manner. In the GTMDIR.BBS and GTDIR.BBS files, a group is denoted by a group header, like this: .Z GENERAL General Board Z #^C:\GT General message area Z ~C:\MAIL Netmail area .D DEVELOP Development Board Z ^D:\BETA_ECO BETA Test Echo Z ^D:\GT_ECHO GT POWER .=D NETWORK GT Network Sysop Board Z ^C:\SYS GT Network Sysops Z ^D:\NODE_ECO The NODELIST Z ^D:\ECHO_ECO The ECHOLIST .D PROGRAMMING Programming Support Board Z ^D:\C_HELP The C Help Line Z ^D:\PRG_HELP Programming Langauages In the above example, there are 4 goups. Each group begins with a group header. A group header is identified by the first character on the line being a '.' character. The 2nd character on the group header is usually an access level -- the minimum required for access to the group. But note the 3rd group, the group header begins ".=D", this denotes a group reserved for the 'D' access level only. After the access level there is a blank, then the group-name, followed by a blank and then the menu description for the group. The message base entries following each group header belong to that group, until a new group header is encountered. The group-name should be unique in the first 8 characters, but may be up to 30 characters in total length. There is something special about groups as far as mail checks go. The first message base in a group controls whether or not the group will be scanned for mail. This affects the "RG" command, as well as the logon mail check. Oh! I almost forgot. "Groups" are optional! GT will continue to be able to handle GTMDIR.BBS and GTDIR.BBS without groups! o The SYSOP.EXE program has been upgraded to process "groups" (had to change it to avoid the entries with a '.' as the first character), and the expire date can now be entered and used to purge callers. o Concerning the new expiration date, the sysop can specify a warning interval. This is under Alt-I, the miscellaneous options, at the very bottom, #19 I believe. When a caller is within this "warning interval" of the expiration date he/she will receive a warning that the expiration date is near and the XWARNING.BBS file will be displayed. When a caller has an expired account, GT will notify him/her of that fact and will display the EXPIRED.BBS file. Also, GT will automatically lower the caller's access level to 'z'. Lowercase 'z'. It would be extremely wise if sysops have a CLASS entry in the GTPASSWD.BBS file for the 'z' access level. 'z' is the lowest possible access level. In the event that no 'z' CLASS record is located, GT will give 10 minutes and 2 calls per day. No file transfers authorized, just message services. However, IT IS IMPORTANT to note that the default message and file areas should be given a 'z' access, otherwise these callers will find themselves looking at your pathnames. Try it, you'll see what I mean. o The length of time that GT waits for the modem to init in host mode has been lengthened from 7 to 9 seconds. o The DG command now may be aborted. GT will give the caller 15 seconds to press [ESC] to cancel the automatic logoff. A count down display is given to the caller. The caller may also hang-up immediately by pressing the [H] key. o When using batch protocols to upload messages to the message base, the caller must be careful what filename is used. That is, GT.CNF and SYSOP.BBS may not be legal names. Use a name like "MESSAGE.TXT" or something else that does not conflict with internal GT filenames. Also, it is necessary to avoid filenames that already exist on the BBS. When single file protocols, such as Xmodem, such restrictions are not required. o CD-ROM support is being introduced - the first version of such support, at any rate. <GRIN> The format of the GTDIR.BBS file has been altered to allow for CD-ROM users to specify a different location for the FILES.BBS. As the FILES.BBS cannot be put onto the CD-ROM! Here is an example: Z C:\GT\OBJ,,C:\GT\FILES\F2.BBS Home GT directory #2 E E:\GTBBS\GENERAL General file area Z C:\GT,,C:\GT\FILES\F1.BBS Home GT directory #1 E E:\PRIVATE BBS Private Area Notice that the 2nd and 4th lines are in the original format. So it is possible to mix the old and new formats. Also, since upload areas cannot be placed on CD-ROM drives, the upload descriptions will always be placed into a FILES.BBS *in* the upload directory, even if an alternate FILES.BBS is listed for the upload directory. Note the 1st and 3rd lines are in the new format. The pathname field has been expanded with two new fields. The 2 fields are: A. Pathname for the file area. B. Alternate FILES.BBS pathname --- full pathname, including the filename. Please observe that there are two commas between these pathnames. A tag field is intended to go here in a later version. For now, the two(2) commas are required. A new version of FILES_DB.EXE has been included in this beta release to handle this new format. Additionally, the FILES_DB.EXE program has been changed to handle fewer file areas, only 450 areas maximum now. And the program processes duplicate filenames faster. o Maximum message length has been expanded from 70 lines to 99 lines. This is pretty much the maximum, since the line numbers on screen are limited to two digits. o GT is now able to distinguish between more uart devices. The following types can be detected: 8250B ....... Standard PC type uart. 16450 ....... Standard AT type uart. 16550 ....... Faulty chip found in some PS/2 computers. 16550A ....... Good chip, replaces 16550, full FIFO. o The modem result code table has NOT been expanded, but GT can now handle CONNECT results that have odd baud rates, i.e. 7200, 12000, etc. This is a feature of the "smart result code handling". o Inline editing has been added, i.e. the Left/Right Arrow, the [Ins], [Del], [Home] and [End] work as expected. However, the [Ins] key uses an escape sequence not properly handled by old versions of GT. Regards, Paul Meiners 10-25-91