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Text File | 1989-03-05 | 182KB | 5,031 lines

BACKMAIL TM USERS MANUAL |||||||| |||||||| |||||||+---+||||||| ||||||+--+--+|||||| |||||+--+|+--+||||| ||||+--+|||+--+|||| |||+--+|||||+--+||| ||+--+|||||||+--+|| |+--+|||||||||+--+| +---+|||||||||+---+ Alethic Software Inc. 2337 Princess Place Halifax, N.S. B3K 4K5 Voice % (902) 423 9860 March 5, 1989 Version 1.10 COPYRIGHT NOTICE This software package and document are copyrighted (C) 1988 by Alethic Software Incorporated. All rights reserved worldwide. Alethic herewith gives permission for any user of the software to reproduce and transmit this software package to third parties provided that the following two conditions are met. 1) No alterations or deletions of any kind are made to the operating software or documentation. 2) The software is distributed without charge of any kind by the distributor, except with the written permission of Alethic Software Incorporated. Distribution of BackMail in violation of either of these conditions constitutes an infringement of copyright. DISCLAIMER Alethic makes no warranties as to the contents of this document or the software herein described and specifically disclaims any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. Alethic further reserves the right to make changes to the specifications of the program and contents of this manual without obligation to notify any person or organization of such changes. OVERVIEW: WHAT IS BACKMAIL?...............................1 THE BACKMAILING BASICS....................................2 HOT KEYS..........................................2 AVAILABILITY TIMES................................2 MESSAGES AND FILES................................3 INMAIL, OUTMAIL AND TRANSFER......................3 TELEWARE..........................................3 HOW TO REGISTER...................................4 WHY REGISTER?.....................................4 SO................................................5 THE PACKAGE...............................................5 INSTALLATION..............................................5 CONFIG.SYS........................................6 CONNECTING YOUR MODEM.............................6 BMCONFIG.COM......................................7 THE FIRST TIME YOU RUN BACKMAIL...................9 START UP MESSAGES.................................10 STARTUP BANNER....................................10 INITIALIZING THE MODEM............................11 KEEPING TIME......................................12 MAKE SURE YOUR PHONE NUMBER IS CORRECT............13 SELECTING A FUNCTION......................................13 REMOVING BACKMAIL FROM MEMORY.............................13 SUSPENDING BACKMAIL.......................................13 USING OTHER COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAMS.......................14 RUNNING UNATTENDED........................................14 SEND A MESSAGE............................................15 THE BACKMAIL MESSAGE EDITOR.......................15 HOW LONG CAN MESSAGES BE?.........................15 SUBJECT LINE......................................16 ADDRESSING YOUR MAIL..............................16 MASS MAILINGS.....................................17 SUSPENDING DESTINATIONS...........................17 WHEN YOU HAVE ADDRESSED YOUR MAIL.................17 ABORTING THE MESSAGE..............................18 READ NEW MAIL.............................................19 RECEIVED FILES....................................19 INCOMING MESSAGES.................................20 REPLYING TO MESSAGES..............................20 FORWARDING MESSAGES...............................21 MARKING MESSAGES AS READ OR UNREAD................21 SEND A FILE...............................................22 FILE SIZE.........................................23 ADDRESSING A FILE.................................23 SUSPENDING DESTINATIONS...........................23 DISPLAY STATUS....................................25 STATUS REPORTS....................................25 SPECIAL STATUS MESSAGES...........................26 SUSPENDING DESTINATIONS...........................26 MAINTAIN INCOMING MAIL............................27 MAILBOX MAINTENANCE.......................................27 MAINTAINING INMAIL........................................27 DELETING MAIL.....................................28 APPENDING MESSAGES TO FILES.......................28 MAINTAIN OUTGOING MAIL............................29 APPENDING TO FILE.................................30 1 READDRESSING OUTGOING MAIL........................30 MAINTAINING WHILE ONLINE..........................30 UPDATE PHONE DIRECTORY....................................31 VOICE AND DATA NUMBERS............................31 DIRECTORY LISTING.................................31 DELETING PHONE DIRECTORY ENTRIES..................32 ADDING A NEW BACKMAIL DESTINATION.................34 NAME..............................................34 PREFIX NAMES AND PREFIX NUMBERS...................35 VOICE PHONE NUMBER................................36 EXTENSIONS........................................36 DOES THIS DESTINATION HAVE A BACKMAIL?............36 HANDLE............................................37 PRIORITY..........................................37 AVAILABILITY TIMES................................37 MAXIMUM RETRYS....................................38 ACCEPT RETURN MAIL................................38 'AUTOMATIC' DIRECTORY UPDATES.....................39 CHANGE SETUP..............................................40 AVAILABILITY TIME.................................40 NOTIFICATION......................................42 LAG TIME..........................................42 CLOCK DISPLAY.....................................43 LETTER HEAD.......................................43 WAIT FOR DIAL TONE................................43 ANSWER MODE.......................................44 PHONE PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES.......................44 PHONE DIALING MODE................................47 SCREEN RETRACE HANDLING...........................47 HOT KEYS..........................................47 TECHNICIAN SETTINGS...............................48 SAVE SETUP........................................49 VOICE CALLS...............................................50 PLACING A CALL....................................50 USING THE PHONE DIRECTORY.........................50 DIAL IT YOURSELF..................................51 ADDING A NUMBER TO YOUR PHONE DIRECTORY...........51 ON CONNECT........................................52 IF BACKMAIL IS USING THE PHONE....................52 WHEN YOU'VE FINISHED YOUR CALL....................54 RECEIVING VOICE CALLS.............................54 FROM THE CALLER'S POINT OF VIEW...................55 TROUBLE SHOOTING..................................57 DESIGNERS NOTE............................................57 APPENDIX A: TECHNICAL SETTINGS...........................1 TECH 0 - 15: MODEM COMMAND STRINGS...............2 MODEM RESPONSE VALUES: TECH 50 - 70...............4 TECH 72: MODEM RESET TIME.........................4 TECH 73: WHICH RING TO ANSWER.....................5 TECH 74: GRAPHICS DISPLAY.........................6 TECH 75: CURSOR SPEED UP.........................6 TECH 80 - 111: COLOR TABLE........................7 APPENDIX B: CUSTOMIZING BACKMAIL FOR YOUR MODEM..........1 DIP SWITCHES......................................1 MODEM RESPONSE CODES..............................2 X SETTINGS: CONTROLLING EXTENDED RESPONSES........4 MNP MODEMS........................................4 2 DOES YOUR MODEM SUPPORT "&" COMMANDS..............5 TURNING ON BUSY DETECT AND WAIT FOR DIAL TONE.....5 WHICH RING TO ANSWER..............................5 SLUGGISH MODEMS...................................5 CAVEAT............................................5 MODEM COMMAND STRINGS.............................7 ADVICE TO HACKERS.................................8 APPENDIX C: UNDERSTANDING EXTENSION NUMBERS DECLARING YOUR OWN EXTENSION......................1 THE INTERNAL PREFIX...............................1 3 OVERVIEW: WHAT IS BACKMAIL? BackMail is a brand new kind of microcomputer communications program. BackMail is a background (resident process) communications program that turns your computer into the center of your own electronic mail network. > BackMail can be used to compose and send messages, files and programs with other BackMail users over regular phone lines using a standard modem while you are using your computer as you ordinarily would. > Operating in the background, the program will call phone numbers to which you have addressed messages or files, deliver them, collect any mail addressed to you from there, terminate the call and repeat this process for the next appropriate destination on the list. All of this without intervention by you, and without interrupting your normal use of your machine. > BackMail doesn't interfere with the normal use of your phone for voice messages. Turn down the bell on your telephone, and carry on with your work. BackMail will use your modem to answer the phone; if it's a voice call, the program will ring the speaker on your computer and ask you to pick up the phone. If it's another BackMail calling, the program will receive your mail, store it to disk, and send any pending mail that you have addressed to the person who called you. All without interrupting you. > BackMail keeps track of when the people on your mailing list are available to receive messages, and keeps them informed about when you are online for BackMailing. BackMail schedules its mail deliveries according to the priority you assign destinations, and when those destinations are available. If the line is busy, or there's no answer, BackMail will try again later. > BackMail messages can be addressed to many different users. The program keeps track of which messages have been delivered, which destinations failed to answer. > BackMail does not compromise the security of your machine in any way. It can only give out messages or files that you have decided to send, and then only to the destinations you have selected. 2 THE BACKMAILING BASICS Here are some of the basic concepts of BackMailing. HOT KEYS Most of the work done by BackMail is accomplished by a small (30K) memory resident core program. This program resides in memory and works even when you are using your computer for other purposes. We've designed this program to be very fast and unobtrusive. About the only time you'll notice it's there is when the program accesses your disks to get or store mail you're sending and receiving. Otherwise, its workings are virtually undetectable. When you want to send messages or files, or read messages that you have received, you call BackMail to the foreground by pressing a "Hot Key." The default values for these hot keys are: HOT KEYS +------------------------------------------------------+ | Alt-1 Call up BackMail main menu | | Alt-2 Use BackMail to dial out a voice call | | Alt-3 Suspend BackMail operation | +------------------------------------------------------+ This manual refers to the default values for these hot keys, but if those keys are already used by other programs you can change them by using the CHANGE SETUP function from the main menu. AVAILABILITY TIMES Each user of the program sets his own availability time. This is the period of the day when that user plans to be regularly available to receive BackMail messages. Whenever two BackMails communicate, exchanging files or messages, they will also automatically exchange their availability times. Your BackMail keeps a record of the availability time of every caller on your mail list, and it will not attempt to call those destinations except at times when they have declared themselves available. When you first use BackMail you should set your own availability time. Make this a period during which you regularly use your machine. NOTE: In setting your availability time, you are only limiting the period during which you will receive mail. Any time BackMail is running, it will try to deliver its mail to those users who are available at that time. You can override the current availability time for a destination by using the Phone directory function available from the main menu. Note, though, that you should only do this by prior arrangement with that destination; otherwise, they may not have their BackMail running when your BackMail Calls. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 3 The program will also allow you to set the maximum number of times per hour that BackMail will attempt to reach a destination. MESSAGES AND FILES BackMail handles two kinds of mail, Messages and Files. A Message is any letter, note or reply you write from inside the BackMail Message editor. A File is any file which can be stored on your disk. BackMail can send or receive any such without restriction (except that the receiving end must have sufficient disk space to contain the incoming file). INMAIL, OUTMAIL AND TRANSFER All of your incoming messages are stored in a single file called INMAIL. All of your outgoing messages are stored in a file called OUTMAIL. Your INMAIL and OUTMAIL files also contain File Notifications, which are very brief messages labeled "FILE" which contain the name and size of the file you have sent or received. All files you receive through BackMail are stored in a directory reserved for that purpose called (by default) TRANSFER. The name of the directory used for this purpose can be changed by using the BMCONFIG.COM program. TELEWARE BackMail is a kind of shareware. We invite you to give away copies of the distribution disk to anyone you want to BackMail. (We prefer, however, that you give away copies of your registered programs.) You are welcome to photocopy this manual too. The only condition on this is that you must not tamper with any of the copyright or trademark information in the program or the disk, and you may not resell the program for profit except with our permission. So what's in it for us? Well, if you like the program we ask that you register your copy. Registration will cost only $30. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 4 HOW TO REGISTER We suggest that you use BackMail for a while before you decide to register. Registration is simple. If you are using the program you will periodically see a message that appears, whenever you start up the program, that invites you to register your program. This message stays on the screen a few seconds. Frankly, that's designed to be a little annoying and to give an incentive to register, since registering will make that message go away. If you wish to register just respond to the prompt by hitting F2. The program will then prompt you for three pieces of information: > Your Visa or MasterCard number and expiry date. > Whether you want a hard copy manual ($10 including postage and handling). If you are reading this the answer is probably "No". > Your postal mailing address. If you don't want a manual, your postal mailing address is optional. If you include it, we'll periodically send you copies of our Newsletter describing upgrades to the product and other programs that are available through BackMail. That's it. When you complete your registration BackMail will put the information you've given it into a specially formatted BackMail message, and your machine will phone ours the first chance it gets. When that call is made, we will receive the credit card information, and in the process, we'll throw a switch inside the program that will make that annoying registration request go away. From this point on, you should take care not to let your BackMail executable files get overwritten by others which have not been through the process (in fact you should back up your registered BackMail program files as soon as they are registered). This would result in your becoming unregistered. WHY REGISTER? Apart from giving us our just reward for this nifty program, there are a lot of other benefits to registering your BackMail. When you register your copy of the program, you let us know who you are and when you are available to receive backmail. That will allow us to BackMail you and tell you about new upgrades and extensions to the program. The nice thing about BackMail is that we can use BackMail itself to send you upgrades to the software. You can also send us BackMail messages at any time of the day or night with questions or advice on using the program. As the number of BackMailers grows, we expect BackMail to become a standard delivery system for new software and product information. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 5 When you give a copy of BackMail to someone you want to network with, they will enter their own phone number into the program. That tells BackMail that they are a new user, and it will ask them to register. Note: When you register your copy of BackMail, you are really registering the phone number of that BackMail. If you use two copies of the program from different phone numbers, then you will have to register both numbers. If you're using BackMail to network your office, you'll have to register each line which is running the program. We don't apologize for that, $30 a BackMail is no big deal. SO... If you like the program, please register. And pass copies of your BackMail diskette to your friends or business connections. Remember that your personal BackMail network can be as large as you like. GETTING STARTED THE PACKAGE The BackMail package consists of the following files. BGROUND.COM....The terminate and stay resident kernel of the program FGROUND.COM....The user interface portion of the program. MANUAL.DOC.....a copy of this manual SUMMARY.DOC....a brief summary of BackMail commands README.DOC.....information not include in the manuals BMCONFIG.COM...An installation and configuration program ACTIVE.COM.....A program to suspend and unsuspend BackMail. INSTALLATION To install BackMail it is necessary to run: BMCONFIG.COM It will lead you interactively through all the steps required to install BackMail. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 6 CONFIG.SYS You should also look at the CONFIG.SYS file on your boot disk and add or change its file specification so that it contains a line that says: FILES = 20 To insure that your system is capable of keeping enough files open at once for BackMail and your other applications. If you don't already have a CONFIG.SYS file, create one with your text editor with the single entry "FILES = 20". CONNECTING YOUR MODEM The setup of you modem is important for BackMail. You should look at the DIP Switches on your modem and ensure that: DTR: The modem should NOT ignore the RS232 dtr line. The DTR should not always be on. CD: Carrier Detect should respond to carrier detect. The Carrier Detect light should not always be on. RESULT CODES: Should be enabled so that result codes are sent to the computer. ECHO COMMANDS: should be set to off so that the modem does not echo commands in local mode. If your modem does not have DIP switches you should make sure that it is initialized so the DTR and CD are enabled. (See the Tech Settings section of this manual for more information on modem settings). PHONE CONNECTION If you are using BackMail for both voice and data calls we recommend that you connect your modem in parallel with your telephone rather that plugging your phone in to the "phone" jack at the back of your modem. That way you will be able to talk to any incoming voice calls just by picking up the phone without having to wait for BackMail to give the modem the signal to activate your phone line. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 7 +----------+ +---+Telephone | | +----------+ +-------+ +-------+ | |Phone | |Line +---| | Jack +--|Spliter| | +-----+ +----------+ | | | | +---|Modem+---+Computer | +-------+ +-------+ +-----+ +----------+ BMCONFIG.COM You should run the BMCONFIG program before you run BackMail since it sets some of the basic operating parameters. Because BMCONFIG alters BGROUND.COM and FGROUND.COM it should be in the same subdirectory as the latter two programs. To avoid later confusion, BMCONFIG will not operate if Backmail is running. BMCONFIG is used to set the following: COMMUNICATIONS PORT Permissible values are COM1, COM2, COM3, or COM4. Note that if COM3 or COM4 are selected, BMCONFIG assumes the following interrupt levels: COM3 IRQ4, COM4 IRQ3. You should insure that your modem is set to reflect these assumptions. This might involve setting DIP switches or jumpers and your modem documentation should be consulted. ANSWER BAUD RATE AND CALL BAUD RATE These are the baud rates BackMail will use to answer and call. Normally you will set these to the maximum rate supported by your modem. However in some cases (involving old and/or unreliable modems) you may find it useful to select some lesser rate. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 8 COLORS You may override the default colors for the BackMail display. BACKMAIL AUXILIARY FILES This is the subdirectory which BackMail will use for its INMAIL, OUTMAIL and PHONE files (as well as its file for temporary memory dump). You may override the default (C:\BACKMAIL) by typing in a new path and if the directory in question does not exist, BMCONFIG will create it after confirming that this is what you wish. INCOMING FILE DIRECTORY This the directory which BackMail will use to store files which it receives. You may override the default (C:\BACKMAIL\TRANSFER) by typing in a new path and BMCONFIG will create the directory you indicate if it does not exist. It is important to note that when a file is received with the same name as one which already resides in this directory, the original file will be overwritten. For this reason it is not a good idea to assign some directory to this parameter which already contains files the integrity of which you wish to secure. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 9 RUNNING THE PROGRAM If you keep all your executable files in one subdirectory, copy the BackMail '.com' files to that directory. Then you can start BackMail by entering the command BGROUND. If you keep the '.com' files in a BackMail subdirectory (BACKMAIL for example), then (unless the directory is on the path for your system) to run the program enter the command BGROUND prefixed by the path. In our example this would be: BACKMAIL\BGROUND If you use BackMail consistently you may want to include this line in your Autoexec.bat file. COMPATIBILITY WITH OTHER PROGRAMS Note: Many memory resident programs (e.g. Borland's SideKick) specify that they must be the last memory resident program running at any given time. If you have two such programs, you can't run them at the same time. This is not the case with BackMail. BackMail doesn't care where it is on your queue of memory resident programs. You will find that BackMail is compatible with virtually all commercial memory resident programs. THE FIRST TIME YOU RUN BACKMAIL The first time you run your copy of BackMail, you should call up the main menu (by pressing Alt-1) and then select the Change Setup function in the main menu. From there you should: > Enter your own phone number. This will be your return address for all mailings. > Enter the appropriate dialing prefixes for your phone system. > Enter your letter head. This will go out over all your messages. This can also be done with the BMCONFIG program. > Enter your Availability Time. This is when other people will be trying to BackMail you. You will find a description of these CHANGE SETUP functions in the appropriate section of this manual. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 10 START UP MESSAGES When you run BGROUND, the program will tell you what it's doing as it sets itself up to run, and determines that it has access to the paths and files it needs for its background operation. Checking port and paths Locating and checking mail files Locating bground.com and FGROUND.COM Searching files for unread and unsent mail Checking and setting up the modem Checking disk free space Among other things, the program will check to see how much disk free space you have and warn you if you have less than the 64K free disk space BackMail needs to run properly. It will also note if your INMAIL and OUTMAIL files are getting larger that 16K and advise you to clean out any oversized files in the interests of smooth operation. If it finds that one of the data files it needs to store mail and phone numbers is missing, the program will tell you and ask permission to create new working files. +-------------------------------------+ | The outgoing mail file | | C:\BACKMAIL\OUTMAIL | | could not be found. Please enter: | | N to make a New file | | C to Change disks and try again | | or Q to Quit trying to load BACKMAIL| +-------------------------------------+ The first time you run the program you should respond with "N" to tell the program to construct the appropriate data storage file. STARTUP BANNER When startup is complete, you'll see this banner which will give you a complete report on the status of your BackMail. +------------------------------------------------+ | BackMail I ver. 1.1 Serial 010-1101 | | Copyright (C) 1988 Alethic Inc | +------------------------------------------------+ | Inbound: 10 messages, 1 unread | | Outbound: 2 destinations, 1 unreached | | Modem speed: 1200 Disk free space: 1050K | +------------------------------------------------+ Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 11 INITIALIZING THE MODEM In the course of its start up procedure, BackMail will send signals to your modem to initialize it. If it doesn't get the right response, it will prompt you: +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Time-out error on modem read (A) | | This probably means that your modem is off-line; | | please turn it on, then press any key to retry | | or press Ctrl/C to abort. | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ This response can sometimes happen even when the modem is on but has got itself miss-set by another program or random line noise (modems are temperamental beasts). In that case, turn your modem off, then on, to reset it; and hit any key to tell BackMail to retry its initialization of the modem. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 12 MAIN MENU +------------------BackMail I-------------------+ | (902) 423-9860 Wednesday 1 September | | Offline 13:50:00 | | +--------OPTIONS --------+ | | | Read Incoming Mail | change option | | | Send a message | <-' to select | | | Send a File | or press bright | | | Maintain Incoming mail | letter | | | Maintain Outgoing mail | | | | Display status | Esc to exit | | | Update Phone Directory | U unattended | | | Change Setup | K Kill program | | +------------------------+ | +------------------------- You have new mail ---+ The top two lines of the Main Menu display your phone number, the time and date (set by your internal clock) and the current status of the program. These two lines will remain on screen while you do other BackMail tasks. This status line will change to tell you what BackMail is doing. +----------------- BackMail I ------------------+ | (902) 423-9860 Wednesday 1 September | | Offline 13:50:21 | +- +----------------- BackMail I ------------------+ | (902) 423-9860 Wednesday 1 September | | Calling Tom Smith 14:01:30 | +----- +----------------- BackMail I ------------------+ | (902) 423-9860 Wednesday 1 September | | On line with The Boss 14:09:53 | +--- +----------------- BackMail I ------------------+ | (902) 423-9860 Wednesday 1 September | | Voice Call in Progress 14:30:24 | +-------------------------- You have new mail --+ KEEPING TIME Since BackMail schedules its calls using the system time set in your computer, and date stamps all its messages according to the system date, it is important that these be set correctly at the beginning of any work session. If your system does not have a real time clock you can set the date and time by using the MS-DOS commands TIME and DATE at the system prompt. MAKE SURE YOUR PHONE NUMBER IS CORRECT Since your phone number is your return address for all BackMail mailings, it's important to make sure that it is correct. Backmail will ask you for your phone number if it is not set. Be sure to include your extension if your phone has one. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 13 SELECTING A FUNCTION In all BackMail menus, the currently selected function is indicated by a cursor bar; use the arrow keys on the keypad to move the cursor and hit Enter to select that function. As a short cut, you will notice that there is a highlighted letter on each line of the menu; pressing the letter will select that function. REMOVING BACKMAIL FROM MEMORY Backmail doesn't use much memory. The memory resident portion of the program occupies only 30K RAM. Still, there may be times you want to remove BackMail from memory. You can do this by hitting "K" any time you see the BackMail Main Menu. The program will ask for confirmation before it proceeds. Note that killing BackMail may disrupt any program that has been loaded after BackMail. This will include other memory resident programs and any foreground process that is running when you kill BackMail. In most case killing Backmail will not affect your foreground program or other Resident programs that you are running. However for maximum safety you are advised to kill BackMail only at the DOS prompt and to check the effects on other TSR programs you may be running. It is particularly dangerous to kill bground if any programs that take over interrupts are loaded after it. SUSPENDING BACKMAIL It can sometimes happen that you want to tell Backmail not to place any calls or answer the phone for a period of time. To do that you can suspend BackMail, from the foreground by pressing the SUSPEND Hot key (default: Alt-3). Pressing the key again will remove the suspension. A utility, ACTIVE.COM, is provided so that BackMail can be suspended and unsuspended from a batch file. Suppose that you sometimes run a terminal program called MYTERM and you don't want to be forced to remember to suspend BackMail before running the terminal program and unsuspend after. Construct a batch file (using your favourite text editor) called, say TERM.BAT, which contains the lines: active OFF myterm active ON Note that the words "OFF" and "ON" which follow the invocation of ACTIVE must be in upper case. Now instead of invoking your terminal program by entering "myterm" you would instead enter "term" with the result that BackMail would be automatically be suspended before your terminal program runs and unsuspended afterwards. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 14 USING OTHER COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAMS It is especially important to SUSPEND BackMail if you are going to be running another communications program to talk to a mainframe computer. BackMail has no way of knowing that your foreground program is trying to use your modem and as a result may try to dial out while you are online. To prevent this, be sure to SUSPEND BackMail before you use another communications program and UNSUSPEND it afterwards. The easiest way to 'bombproof' this procedure is to construct a batch file as discussed above. UNSUSPENDING will re-initialize you Modem to operate with BackMail. RUNNING UNATTENDED Backmail has two operating modes, Attended and Unattended. In attended mode BackMail assumes that you are present at your machine to accept voice calls or to cope with disk errors and similar problems. When you put BackMail in Unattended mode, you are telling the program to operate on its own. BackMail will still place and receive BackMail messages, but it will not try to get you to answer voice calls. The voice caller will hear your modem answer the phone, a moment's silence, then BackMail will break the connection when it has determined that the call is not a data transmission. Use unattended mode if you are going to leave your machine running unattended for some extended period of time. You can switch BackMail from attended to unattended mode by pressing the "U" key when you see the main menu. +-------------------------------------+ | BackMail is now running unattended. | | Pressing any hot key will bring | | it back to Attended mode | +-------------------------------------+ Pressing any key will take the message away and allow you to use your computer for other things in the meanwhile. The program will revert from Unattended to Attended mode if you let it know you are present by pressing any hot key combination. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 15 SEND A MESSAGE This function allows you to send a message to any destination in your BackMail Phone directory. A BackMail message can be of any length and can contain any ASCII or IBM character. Invoking this function immediately places you in the BackMail editor. THE BACKMAIL MESSAGE EDITOR The editor is not a full-fledged word processor; nor does it pretend to be. It is intended for sending simple plain text messages without fancy formatting. The message editor is designed to be easy to learn and to use. If you want to send letters as formatted by your word processor, you can send them as files (see SEND A FILE). +-------------------------------------------------+ | EDITOR COMMANDS | |Tab tab | |Back Space delete previous character | |Del delete character under the cursor | |Home move cursor to the start of line | |End move cursor to the end of line | |Ctrl + Home move cursor to top of screen | |Ctrl+ End move cursor to the end of screen | |PgUp Screen up | |PgDn Screen down | | arrow keys control cursor movement | |Ctrl -> Word right | |Ctrl <- Word left | |Esc Finished editing message | |F1 To abort, abandoning work | +-------------------------------------------------+ Line wrap and scrolling are automatic. You can abort a session at the editor at any time by hitting F1. HOW LONG CAN MESSAGES BE? The maximum length of a message depends upon the size of BackMail's edit buffer and this in turn depends on what other programs you are running, however it is never less that 100 lines of text. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 16 SUBJECT LINE When you are finished composing your message you exit the editor by hitting Esc. You will then be prompted to enter a subject line for your message. +---------------------------------------------+ | Subject Line (40 characters maximum): | | _ | +---------------------------------------------+ Use Backspace to delete characters already entered. Hit Enter or Esc when you have finished entering your subject line. The subject line will identify the subject of your message to your destination. ADDRESSING YOUR MAIL When you have given your message a subject line, you will then be shown your Address directory. +-----------------------------------------------+ | Use arrow keys to scroll phone list | | Select / Unselect destinations with <-' | | Suspend / Unsuspend destinations with Del | | F1 to cancel send ; Esc when done selecting | +-----------------------------------------------+ | All internal (int) numbers | | All local numbers | | >Albert A local 467-9876 18:00-00:00 | | Bob B. intern 4890 09:00-17:00 | | >Charles W. local 498-3984 12:00-15:00 | | Dale Gass local 423-9870 18:00-23:30 | | Harry S. long (212) 788-6620 05:00-13:00 | | Sales intern 4206 <suspended> | | The Boss intern 4409 09:30-16:30 | | Tom local 435-3427 19:00-00:00 | | Zak Z. long (414) 384-9984 06:00-12:00 | | ------------- End of Directory -------------- | +-----------------------------------------------+ Each line in the directory shows you: > The destination's "handle" (your private name for that destination), > The dialing prefix label for that destination (e.g. Local, Long Distance, Inter-office). (For more about what these prefix's mean and how they are set see p. below) > The destination's phone number. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 17 > The time period during which that destination has declared itself available for receiving BackMail Mail. This time is important since it tells you the period during which BackMail will schedule its call to this destination. > <Suspended> in place of a destination's availability time indicates that you have told BackMail not to send text to that destination. SELECTING A DESTINATION Use the arrow keys on the keypad to move the bar cursor to each destination you want to send your message to and hit Enter. A mark will appear beside each destination you select, and that destination will be highlighted. You may select as many different destinations for your message as you wish. Hitting Enter beside a selected destination unselects it so that mail will not be sent to that destination. MASS MAILINGS The top two entries are useful for mass mailings. They address your message to everyone in your BackMail directory with the associated phone prefix label. Thus, for example, selecting "All internal numbers" would send your message to everyone in your directory with the dialing prefix for your inter-office intercom. SUSPENDING DESTINATIONS It can sometimes happen that you know that a particular destination will not be available for BackMail at a given time or that you have some reason for not wanting to BackMail a particular destination. In that case you can Suspend that destination by using the display status. Backmail will not attempt to send any mail to a suspended destination and will remove the destination from the queue the next time it revises it. Note that suspending a destination does not delete it from your phone list, nor does it delete any mail that you have marked for that destination. It simply means that destination will not be BackMailed until you remove the suspension. To suspend or unsuspend a destination use the arrow keys to move the bar cursor to that entry and hit Del. WHEN YOU HAVE ADDRESSED YOUR MAIL When you have finished addressing your message, hit Esc. BackMail will add this message to its outgoing mail queue and return you to the BackMail main menu. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 18 ABORTING THE MESSAGE If you decide at this point that you do not want to send your message after all, hitting F1 will return you to its main menu. Note that if you do this the message you have written will be discarded. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 19 READ NEW MAIL This function gives you direct access to all of your unread, incoming messages. When you select it from the main menu you are presented with a list of all the unread mail you have received. +- Date - Time -- From -------- Subject ------------------------+ | May 8 10:20 Home Grocery List | | May 8 10:35 The Boss New Pricing Policy | | May 8 10:39 Tom Smith Poker Tonight? | | May 8 10:45 Joe Jones FILE: whiz.com (45k) | | May 9 11:11 CEO FILE: lotus.wks (22k) | | May 10 9:20 Bob Brite Did you see the game last night? | | May 10 10:02 S. Sherwin Note on the last chapter | | May 10 10:27 PKS Sending you a program | | May 10 10:29 PKS FILE: Game.exe (49k) | | May 10 11:10 Mike H Give me a voice call | | <** End of Messages **> | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ RECEIVED FILES The FILE: prefix indicates a file that has been sent and stored separately to disk. Files are listed as incoming mail to let you know they have been received. NOTE: You can't "read" a received File with BackMail (it might be a '.COM' or '.EXE' file). If someone has sent you text in file format you can print it out outside of BackMail or read it under an appropriate word processor. If you select a file and press the return key, the file notification will simply be removed from the file list. To read your unread messages you can either: > Position the cursor bar on the message you want to read and hit Enter > Hit F1. BackMail will show you all your unread messages in sequence. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 20 INCOMING MESSAGES Every BackMail Message bears a subject line which appears at the top of the window, and is automatically stamped with the time the message was composed and the sender's Letterhead. +- Message: This is the subject line of the message------------+ | | | From: The Chief Programmer | | Message composed: April 14,1987 | | | | Dear User, | | This is a sample BackMail message. Once you have read | | the message you can hit: | | | | Esc To finish reading the message | | F1 To finish reading the message leaving it marked UNREAD | | F2 To REPLY to the message | | F3 To FORWARD the message | | | | Yours, | | P.K.Schotch | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ REPLYING TO MESSAGES To reply to a message currently on the screen, hit F2. This will call up the BackMail Editor. When you have finished composing your reply and have exited the editor, BackMail will return you to the message. BackMail knows who sent the message and will automatically direct your reply back to its source. To help everyone keep track of the exchange, the reply will bear the original subject line of the message prefaced by "Re:". On the third reply to a reply this changes to "Dialog Re:" +- Time - From --- Subject---------------------------------+ | 10:40 Stan When should we meet? | | 10:50 Stan Re: Re: When should we meet? | | 11:05 Stan Dialog Re: When should we meet? | | | There is no limit on the number of times a reply can be replied to. | 11:21 Stan Dialog Re: When should we meet? | | 11:37 Stan Dialog Re: When should we meet? | | 11:52 Stan Dialog Re: When should we meet? | | 17:41 Stan Dialog Re: When should we meet? | Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 21 FORWARDING MESSAGES To Forward a message you are reading to another BackMailer, hit F3, and select the destination(s) you want from your BackMail directory. Messages you forward are prefixed by "Forwarded From", but preserve the original sender's letterhead so that you can trace the route of a message. A message sent from Tom to Dick and Forwarded to Harry would appear on Harry's machine as: +- Message: User's Group Meeting -------------------------------+ | From the desk of Dick Jones | | Message composed Sep 15 14:01 | | | | FORWARDED FROM: Tom Smith (903) 423-9985 | | From the desk of Tom Smith | | Message composed Sep 15 13:32 | | | | Dear Dick, | | Please tell anyone who might be interested that the | | meeting is at my place this Friday. | | | | Tom | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ There is no limit to the number of times you can forward a message. You can forward replies and you can reply to forwarded messages. Remember, though, that when you reply to a forwarded message your reply goes to the person who forwarded the message to you, not the person who originally composed that message. MARKING MESSAGES AS READ OR UNREAD All the messages and file notices that you receive are automatically stored into your INMAIL mailbox file. They won't be lost until you Delete them using the MAILBOX MAINTENANCE function in the Main Menu. However the READ INCOMING MAIL function only lists new, unread mail. When you have finished reading, replying to, or forwarding a newly received message, hit Esc. Doing this marks the message as READ, it is stored in INMAIL and is no longer treated as new mail. Sometimes, you may wish to keep a message in the list of new messages so that you can get quick access to it for rereading, forwarding and replying. In that case you should exit the message by hitting F1. This leaves the message marked as UNREAD and it will remain in your list of new, incoming mail. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 22 SEND A FILE Use this function to have BackMail send a file. The file can be of any type including .COM and .EXE files, and of any length. +----------------------------------------------+ | Name of file to send or directory to search: | | _ | +----------------------------------------------+ You can enter the file name directly, or you can just hit Enter to get a directory listing of your current root directory. +--C:\*.* ----------------------------+ | DOCS <SUBDIRECTORY> | | BINS <SUBDIRECTORY> | | BACKMAIL <SUBDIRECTORY> | | WORDP50 <SUBDIRECTORY> | | GRAPHICS <SUBDIRECTORY> | | GAMES <SUBDIRECTORY> | | UTILITY <SUBDIRECTORY> | | LOTUS <SUBDIRECTORY> | | COMMAND.COM 1K | | AUTOEXEC.BAT 1K | |>COMP.COM 2K | | CONFIG.SYS 1K | |>VOGON.EXE 22K | | ** no more files ** | | | | | +- Highlighted files will be sent ----+ Use the arrow keys to move the cursor bar up and down. Pressing Enter for a selected SUBDIRECTORY will give you a listing of that directory. F2 will return you to your root directory. Enter for a file will select that file to be sent. Selected files appear Highlighted with a mark beside them. Enter for a selected file will deselect it. You can select files to send from different directories. You can select a group of up to 100 files each time you bring up the sub directory window. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 23 +---------------------------------------------+ |Name of file to send or directory to search: | | D:\DOCS\*.BAK | +--- +---------------------------------------------+ |Name of file to send or directory to search: | | C:\?GROUND.COM_ | +--- +---------------------------------------------+ |Name of file to send or directory to search: | | .\*.DOC | +---------------------------------------------+ You can also use standard DOS aliases and wild cards in listing files. FILE SIZE There is no limit on the size of files you can send. BackMail will, however, abort a file transmission if the receiving machine has insufficient disk space to receive the file. In this case an annotation will be made in the sender's OUTMAIL file reporting that the destination has insufficient disk space. If you receive this notification you should send the destination a message asking them to make room for the file you want to send them. ADDRESSING A FILE When you have finished marking all the files you wish to send hit Esc. BackMail will then present you with the list of BackMail destinations in your directory and you can address your mail just as you do under SEND MESSAGE. F1 will abort the file sending process. SUSPENDING DESTINATIONS It can sometimes happen that you know that a particular destination will not be available for BackMail at a given time or that you have some reason for not wanting to BackMail a particular destination. In that case you can Suspend that destination by using the display status. BackMail will not attempt to send any mail to a suspended destination and will remove the destination from the queue the next time it revises it. Note that suspending a destination does not delete it from your phone list, nor does it delete any mail that you have marked for that destination. It simply means that destination will not be BackMailed until you remove the suspension. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 24 If a destination calls you while you have it suspended then BackMail will give it any mail you have posted to it (unless the caller has told BackMail not to accept return mail. See UPDATE PHONE DIRECTORY for an explanation of that feature). To suspend or unsuspend a destination use the arrow keys to move the bar cursor to that entry and hit Del. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 25 DISPLAY STATUS This function allows you to examine the list of calls that BackMail has currently queued to transmit and the status of these calls. +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Messages to The Boss have been sent | |Messages to Tom Smith still pending after 02 call attempt<suspended>| |Messages to Harry B still pending after 01 call attempts | |Messages to Home still pending after 00 call attempts | | **No more entries** | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ BackMail schedules its calls by taking account of the destination's availability time and the priority you assign that destination. BackMail will update this list about once an hour, and every time you address new mail or perform maintenance on OUTMAIL. STATUS REPORTS Each line of DISPLAY STATUS gives the handles of all the destinations to which you have pending mail or to which mail has been recently delivered. Lines like: | | | Messages to John Smith still pending after 02 call attempts | | | indicate that BackMail has called this destination but has been unable to deliver mail to it. This will happen if the destination's line is busy or if the destination does not have BackMail running. The count of attempts is reset to zero each time you restart BackMail. If it seems that a particular call has not been reset for some time this is probably because: > The user is unavailable at this time. Note that the destination has set its own availability time. Normally you should respect this but if you are absolutely certain that the user is available and would not mind receiving traffic you can manually change the destinations availability time using the UPDATE PHONE DIRECTORY function called from the MAIN MENU. > You have reached the Maximum Retrys permitted for this destination this hour. This value is set by the destination but can be changed by you in UPDATE PHONE DIRECTORY. > You have been exchanging a lot of mail with a different HIGH PRIORITY destination and BackMail has not found time to send this destination. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 26 SPECIAL STATUS MESSAGES NO SPACE TO RECEIVE FILE You will see this message if the destination BackMail has found insufficient disk space to store a file you wish to send it. If you see this message you might send a (brief!) note to the destination advising him to clean up his act. RECEIVER TIMED OUT This indicates that the destination failed to respond appropriately to some request from your BackMail. There are two explanations. The destination has rebooted his machine or KILLED BackMail while on line. There are a very small number of programs (badly written ones) incompatible with the sort of multi-tasking that BackMail performs in the background. If your destination starts running one of these in the foreground while its backmail is communicating with yours then your BackMail will time out. TERMINATED BY RECEIVER You can interrupt a BackMail transmission to make a voice call. If a destination does this to you while you are sending a file, you will get this message in your display status. If a destination that has called you does this, you will see: TERMINATED BY SENDER If BackMail loses communications with a destination for a reason it diagnosis as resulting from somehow losing a phone connection it will give you this message LINE BREAK ERROR BackMail does a very careful check of the reliability of all of its transmissions. If a block of incoming code fails this check BackMail will get the transmitting BackMail to resend it. If the incoming data repeatedly fails these tests BackMail will terminate the call. NOTE: These status line errors for INFORMATION ONLY. BackMail WILL KEEP TRYING to deliver its mail, even if one of these errors has appeared, subject to the usual constraints of availability times. SUSPENDING DESTINATIONS You can suspend destinations from the DISPLAY STATUS screen. See the entry under SUSPENDING DESTINATIONS in SEND MESSAGE for an explanation of suspension. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 27 MAINTAIN INCOMING MAIL MAILBOX MAINTENANCE Your INMAIL and OUTMAIL files contain, respectively, all the mail you have received and sent using BackMail. These files can be of any size, but the larger they get the more time BackMail must spend in managing these files when it adds or sends messages, or shows you your mail. Since the time it spends accessing your disks is about the only time when BackMail competes with foreground processes for the machine's resources, keeping these files small is a good way to guarantee the efficiency of BackMail operations. So we recommend that you maintain your mailbox by deleting or saving to disk messages and file notices that are no longer important to you. The optimum size for your INMAIL and OUTMAIL files is less than 16K. If your files have gotten larger than this, BackMail will tell you when you first run the program and advise you to do some mailbox maintenance. Note that stand alone files you have received over BackMail are stored under their own names, apart from their notifications. Their size is not relevant to INMAIL and OUTMAIL. MAINTAINING INMAIL +- RECEIVED --------- FROM ----------- TOPIC ------------------------+ | Aug 1 09:35 The Boss Send me the projections | | Aug 9 10:40 Home Pick up groceries <deleted>| | Aug 9 10:52 Tom Smith Sending you a spreadsheet <deleted>| | Aug 9 10:53 Tom Smith File: PROJECT.WKS (39k) | | Aug 9 11:10 Bob Bright Meeting tomorrow | | Aug 9 11:15 Jim Martin Dialog Re: Your proposal | | Aug 9 11:30 Sam. S Hows it going? | | Aug 9 11:41 Home Something else... | | Aug 9 11:50 The Boss Re: Re: Send me the projections | | ** End of Messages ** | | | | | +-- Highlighted Messages are unread----------------------------------+ This menu allows you to review all of the messages and files notices, read and unread, you have received over BackMail. When you select this function the contents of your INMAIL file will be displayed showing you the time received, sender, and subject line of each Message. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 28 Moving the cursor bar to select a message, you can... Enter By hitting Enter you can read the message just as you do with READ NEW MAIL. When you read the message you can REPLY to or FORWARD it just as you do in READ NEW MAIL. Del Marks the selected message in INMAIL to be <deleted>. Pressing Del again will remove the deletion mark. F1 Quit the maintenance menu without deleting any files. F3 Forward the selected message to any destination in your BackMail directory. F4 Append the selected message to a separate DOS text file you select. F5 Delete all of the unread files from OUTMAIL. F6 Delete all files from OUTMAIL. Esc Exit the INMAIL Maintenance menu purging all messages marked <deleted>. DELETING MAIL Note that messages marked <deleted> are not actually purged from your INMAIL file until you exit from this menu using Esc. If you have second thoughts about deleting a message you can remove the deletion mark or you can use F1 to exit from the menu without deleting any entries. Note that deleting a FILE notification will not delete the file you have received. The file will remain in the directory you have reserved to receive files over BackMail. Only the INMAIL notification of its arrival will be removed. File notifications can also be purged simply by selecting them with the cursor bar and hitting Enter. APPENDING MESSAGES TO FILES +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Enter name of file to append to: | | _ | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ This option allows you to extract a message from your INMAIL file and save it to disk as a separate ASCII text file. When you select this function BackMail will prompt you for the name of the file you wish to create for the message. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 29 You may specify a destination path in your name for the file. If the file you select already exists BackMail will append the selected message to that file. If you give it a new file name it will create a file to hold the message. By default, BackMail will use the last filename you entered in the current mailbox maintenance session. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 30 MAINTAIN OUTGOING MAIL +--Sent --- TO--------------- Topic ----------------------------+ | 10:35 The Boss Here are the projections | | 10:40 Home Pick up groceries <deleted> | | 10:52 Tom Smith Sending you a spreadsheet <deleted> | | 10:53 Tom Smith File: C:\LOTUS\DATA\PROJECT.WKS (37k) | | 11:10 Bob Bright Meeting tomorrow | | 11:15 Jim Martin Dialog Re: Your proposal | | 11:30 Sam. S Hows it going? | | 11:41 Home Something else... | | 11:50 The Boss Re: Re: Send me the projections | | ** End of Messages ** | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ This function allows you to review your outgoing messages. All outgoing messages and file notifications. This includes your replies to messages received and messages you are forwarding to other destinations. Each Message is marked with a time. This is the time at which the message was composed and addressed. Messages that appear in bold characters on the screen are messages that are as yet undelivered. By selecting a message using the cursor bar you can... Enter By hitting Enter you can read the message just as you do with READ NEW MAIL. When you read the message you can REPLY to or FORWARD it just as you do in READ NEW MAIL. Del Marks the selected message in INMAIL to be <deleted>. Pressing Del again will remove the deletion mark. F1 Quit the maintenance menu without deleting any files. F3 Readdress the message to send it to additional destinations F4 Append the selected message to a separate DOS text file you select. F5 Delete all of the unsent files from OUTMAIL. F6 Delete all files from OUTMAIL. Esc Exit the INMAIL Maintenance menu purging all messages marked <deleted>. Most of these functions in MAINTAIN OUTGOING MAIL work just as they do in Maintain Incoming Mail with the exception of F4, append, and F3, readdressing. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 31 APPENDING TO FILE Appending a message in INMAIL to a separate DOS file, automatically removes it from INMAIL. Messages appended to files from OUTMAIL maintenance, remain in OUTMAIL and will be sent, if they haven't been. READDRESSING OUTGOING MAIL This function allows you to add new destinations for an outgoing message. It is particularly useful if you wish to send a reply to destinations other than the one to which you originally addressed it. When you readdress a message the program will ask you to give the message a new subject line. If the existing subject line of the message is appropriate just press the enter key. MAINTAINING WHILE ONLINE Because BackMail requires rapid access to the OUTMAIL file when it is in contact with another copy of BackMail, you cannot do OUTMAIL maintenance while on line. If you call up this menu while on line BackMail will ask you to wait. Pressing a key will return you to the main menu. +----- WARNING ------------------+ | Outmail maintenance cannot | | be carried out while on line. | | Please wait. | +- Press any key ----------------+ If a call comes into BackMail while you are doing OUTMAIL Maintenance, BackMail will not be able to send messages you have addressed to that caller. Those messages will be sent at a later time. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 32 UPDATE PHONE DIRECTORY You can use the same telephone line for BackMail and voice calls. You do not require a dedicated data line. When you have BackMail running on your system, you should use the program to dial your calls for you. This is convenient for you, and lets BackMail know that you are using the phone. When used as an autodialer, BackMail provides an easy method to dial your calls and to build an expanding personal phone directory. (The program's function as an auto-dialer and phone book for your voice calls is discussed below.) This Main Menu function is provided so that you can view all of the numbers that you talk or send BackMail to. But its primary use is to add or update information about the destinations in your personal BackMail network. VOICE AND DATA NUMBERS Almost everyone in your phone list will have a voice number, a number at which you can reach them for voice calls. You can easily add a new voice number to the directory any time you make a voice call. Of course, some of the people in your directory will also have BackMail; so they will have a Data Number as well, a number which the program will call to deliver its Mail. Often, individuals will use the same number for their voice and data calls. But it is also common, particularly in business settings, for users to have a separate number for voice and data. BackMail can handle all of these possibilities. DIRECTORY LISTING When you call Update Phone Directory, it shows you a list of all of the phone numbers in your directory in alphabetical order. +-- NAME -------------------------- VOICE PHONE --- DATA PHONE------+ | BackMail Central Clearing House (902) 429-2811 | | Albert Andrews 467-9876 | | Bob Bright 4890 4891 | | Dale Gass 498-3984 498-3984 | | Dick Jones 423-9870 423-9870 | | Harry Silver (212) 788-2720 (212) 788-2756 | | Fourth Floor 4206 | | Peter K. Schotch 4409 4419 | | Tom Vinci 435-3427 | | Zebida Zumquat (414) 384-9984 (414) 384-9984 | | ----------------- End of Phone directory --------------------- | | | | | +--- * = High Priority--------------- = Refuse return Mail -------+ Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 33 Note that some entries bear a mark "*" which indicate that they are high priority destinations. The down arrow mark indicates that you will not accept return mail from these destinations. Use the arrow keys to scroll the cursor bar to scroll through the list. Enter will allow you to edit the selected entry. Del will delete the selected entry from the directory. Ins will add a new entry to the list. Esc will return you to the Main Menu. DELETING PHONE DIRECTORY ENTRIES You can delete a phone directory simply by hitting Del. The entry will disappear from your phone directory but if it is a Backmail destination, its absence may leave "holes" in your BackMail addressing list. That is, the next time you go to address a BackMail Message or file you may find it looks like this. +-----------------------------------------------+ | All internal (int) numbers | | All local numbers | | Albert A local 467-9876 18:00-00:00 | | <** DELETED ** > | | Charles W. local 498-3984 12:00-15:00| | <** DELETED ** > | | Harry S. long (212) 788-6620 05:00-13:00 | Now those <DELETED> marks are ugly and BackMail will clean them out of its destination list the first chance it gets. But you have to give it a chance. The way it works is like this. Backmail uses your phone directory as its index to all the destinations for its outgoing files, messages, replies and forwards. In particular it remembers those destinations in terms of their position in the phone directory. When you deleted an entry, BackMail leaves a space where that entry was (unless it was at the bottom of the list). Those spaces show up as those <DELETED>'s. Why doesn't BackMail just compress its list and adjust its files? It can and it will but it can't do that while you still have messages posted, otherwise it might do it while you are online causing no end of confusion. (See our remarks above about OUTMAIL maintenance while online). So BackMail won't clean out those <DELETED> destinations until it finds that your MAILBOX files are empty. So here's what you should do, the first chance you get: Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 34 > Use INMAIL and OUTMAIL MAINTAIN. Make sure that all of the messages have been READ or SENT and that you have APPENDED anything important to text files. > Use the F6 function to clean out both your INMAIL and OUTMAIL files. > Exit back to the foreground. The next time you load BackMail (either after turning on your computer or after 'killing' and restarting) those <DELETED> marks will have disappeared. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 35 ADDING A NEW BACKMAIL DESTINATION Pressing Ins will allow you to add a new destination to your BackMail directory. The first thing you will see is a display for entering the necessary information for making voice calls to the destination. +-------------------------------------------------+ | Name: | | Voice Prefix: Local | | Voice Phone: | | ext: | | This person does not have a copy of BackMail | +-------------------------------------------------+ The currently selected data field is highlighted. You can type the relevant information directly into that field or use the up and down arrow keys to move from field to field. If the program beeps at you when you try to leave a field, that means that it wants you to hit Enter to confirm that the information in the field you are leaving is correct. NAME Obviously the first information to enter is the name of the destination. This is the name which will be presented to you with the number when you update your BackMail directory or use the program to dial out voice calls. The destination's name can be up to 40 characters long. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 36 PREFIX NAMES AND PREFIX NUMBERS The next information to enter is the destination's prefix. A few words about prefixes are in order. In some phone systems one must dial "9" to get an outside line. One must always dial "1" to reach a long distance number, and some users will have special prefixes that charge calls to their credit cards or access economical long distance services. To keep your screen from being cluttered with numbers, BackMail allows you to enter commonly used prefix strings, and gives them names. The three predefined names are: Internal: For calls over an inter-office intercom line. Local: For ordinary local calls. Long: For long distance calls. You can change these names and add up to five more, using the Phone Prefixes option in the Change Setup Menu (described below); it is in that menu that you set the numbers that will be used for these different kinds of destinations. To set the appropriate prefix for your destination, move the highlighted cursor bar to the prefix line and hit the "+" or "-" keys. These will cycle you through the available prefixes. +-------------------------------------------------+ | Name: Alethic Software Inc | | Voice Prefix: Intern | Use +- +-------------------------------------------------+ + and -" | Name: Alethic Software Inc | to | Voice Prefix: Local | Change +- +-------------------------------------------------+prefixes | Name: Alethic Software Inc | | Voice Prefix: Long | +- +-------------------------------------------------+ | Name: Alethic Software Inc | | Voice Prefix: *unset | +-------------------------------------------------+ The "*unset" prefixes are ones that you have not defined using Change Setup. For more on how to set prefixes, see the entry on "Phone Prefixes" under the CHANGE SETUP menu. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 37 VOICE PHONE NUMBER Simply type in the number of the destination you are adding. You do not have to include hyphens or parentheses; BackMail will insert these when you hit Enter. If you do not include an area code in the number, BackMail will assume that it has the local area code, that is, the area code for the user's phone number. EXTENSIONS This is a number of from one to four digits used in an office intercom system. This is the number your BackMail will dial if the prefix of the destination is "Intern". Note: even with numbers which are reachable through extensions you should include the main switchboard number in destination's "phone number" field. If you do not fill in this number but set the destination's prefix as INTERNAL then BackMail will use the last four digits of the phone number in calling that destination. DOES THIS DESTINATION HAVE A BACKMAIL? If the destination you are adding has a BackMail, move the bar cursor over the line that says "This person does not have a copy of BackMail" and hit Enter. The line will change to "This person does have a copy of BackMail" and the window will expand to allow you to add information which is relevant to BackMail calls. +-------------------------------------------+ | Name: | | Voice Prefix: Local | | Voice Phone: (902) 423-9860 | | ext. | | This person does have a copy of BackMail | | Handle: | | Data Prefix: Local | | Data Phone: (902) 423-9860 | | ext. | | Priority: Normal | | On line at: 00:00 | | Off line at: 00:00 | | Re-try calls 5 times per hour at most | | When calling, will allow return mail | +-------------------------------------------+ By default the data prefix, phone number, and extension will be identical with the voice settings. You can change these if necessary in the same way that you alter the voice settings. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 38 HANDLE The "handle" of a BackMail destination is a short (maximum 10 character) nickname which various BackMail menus will use to identify the caller to you. For example, you will find destinations listed by handle when you go to address outgoing mail or read your new mail. Note that your destination will never see your handle, so feel free to call him anything you like. PRIORITY In this field you have a choice of assigning a high priority to a destination. By hitting the "+" key you can toggle this value between "Normal" and "High" priorities. Given a choice of two available destinations, BackMail will contact a High priority destination first. Remember, priority is a relative matter. So use the High Priority rating sparingly. If you assign all the destinations in your list a High Priority, BackMail will have nothing to choose between, and it will be as if no destination has priority. AVAILABILITY TIMES This number describes the interval during which this destination will be available for BackMailing. Every user of BackMail declares his or her own availability time, and every time they exchange BackMail their programs exchange availability times. Ordinarily, then, the availability times that you see beside phone numbers when your address your mail or look at your directory will be the times that destination has declared itself to be available for BackMailing. However, when you first enter a destination to your directory you will have to set this figure yourself. Note that your BackMail will keep track of the availability times of others but that all such 'bookkeeping' is taken care of during 'read new mail' sessions. This means that if you change your availability window you must send mail to the other BackMailers on your network before they become aware of the change. It is not sufficient for them to send mail to you. Availability times are set by two numbers in ten-minute intervals. For example: 09:00-16:50 From 9 am to 4:50 pm 21:00-23:10 From 9 pm to 11:10 pm 00:00-00:00 24 hours a day. Obviously you should set a time at which you know the other person is BackMailing during which to send your first piece of Backmail. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 39 Note: Availability times are interpreted as referring to local time according to the time set on your system. They will not work correctly if your system clock is not set to the correct time. Note too that BackMail Version 1 makes no allowances for differences in time zones. You should therefore be careful to edit the availability times in your directory to compensate for time zone differences in long distance calls. If you do a lot of long distance BackMailing, you and your correspondents can get around time zone complications simply by making yourself available for as long a period of time as possible. Note: Backmail will not attempt to call a destination except during its availability time. MAXIMUM RETRYS This is the maximum number of times per hour which your BackMail will attempt to contact this destination. As with availability times, this number will be set by the destination itself and communicated to your machine every time you contact that destination. However the first time you contact a destination that number will have a default value of 5. You can override this setting or the one which the destination has sent you if you wish. To set your own availability time, the one you will broadcast to other BackMailers, use the main menu function CHANGE SETUP. Note: Setting a destinations priority to HIGH will cause BackMail to ignore the MAX RETRYS setting when calling that destination. But it will still honor the destinations AVAILABILITY TIME. ACCEPT RETURN MAIL Normally when two BackMails communicate they exchange all the mail they have for each other. However, in some cases (say, in long distance calls to a talkative destination), you may not want to pay for the connect time involved in receiving a message of unknown length from that destination. This option tells BackMail whether or not to accept return messages when it has delivered its mail. When this is set to "No", your BackMail will deliver your mail to the destination but will not wait to see if that destination has any mail for you. To change this setting, simply move the bar cursor to the line which says: "When calling, will accept return mail" and hit Enter. The field will change to: "When calling, will not accept return mail". Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 40 'AUTOMATIC' DIRECTORY UPDATES When you receive a message from another BackMailer who is not currently in your directory, your BackMail will flag that destination as "unknown". This flag does not mean however that literally nothing is known about this destination. Your BackMail knows what can be parsed from the caller's ID string which was passed to you during the session. In particular, you know the caller's phone number (and if the area code is different from your own, whether it is 'long') together with availability window (in terms of the caller's local time), the number of times per hour to retry, and whether the caller will accept return mail. In other words you have enough information to reply to any message from a caller marked 'unknown'. If you elect the 'reply' option in reponse to reading the message BackMail will display the phone directory form shown above with the data number, availability window etc. already filled in, and invite you to fill in such details as the name and handle. Once you do this, the information you have entered will be stored in your directory and the next time you connect with this caller, they will be properly identified. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 41 CHANGE SETUP +----- Setup Menu --------+ | Availability Time | | Notification | | Lag Time | | Clock Display | | Letterhead | | Answer Mode | | Phone Prefixes | | Phone Dialing mode | | Screen Retrace Handling | | Hot Keys | | Technician Settings | | Phone Number | | Save Current Setup | +-------------------------+ This function allows you to alter many of the parameters that affect BackMail's operations. You should make sure these settings are correct the first time you use BackMail. As with all BackMail menus you can use the arrow keys to move the cursor and use Enter to select that function; or you can hit the single character that is highlighted in the function you wish to select. AVAILABILITY TIME Use this function to declare your availability time. This is the time during which you plan to have your machine up and running BackMail to receive incoming files. Whenever two BackMailers communicate, the programs automatically exchange availability times, these are permanently stored with the caller's number in the program's phone directory. When you declare your availability time, you are in effect telling other BackMails when you will be available to receive messages. Normally, another BackMail will only attempt to reach you during the period you have declared yourself available. Availability times are set by two numbers in ten-minute intervals. For example: 09:00-16:50.........From 9 am to 4:50 pm 21:00-23:10.........From 9 pm to 11:10 pm 00:00-00:00.........24 hours a day. +-------------------------------------------------+ | Currently, you are marked as being available | | starting at 00:00. Enter new starting time, or | | <-' if the time shown is correct: _ | | | Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 42 Enter the time that you normally expect to be turning your machine on in the morning (or the evening, as the case may be). | | | Currently, you are marked as being available | | up until 00:00. Enter new ending time, or | | <-' if the time shown is correct: _ | +-------------------------------------------------+ Several factors are important to keep in mind when you are setting your availability time: Remember that other BackMails' success at communicating with you will depend upon how long you are available. If you network with a thousand people but declare yourself available from only 12:00-12:15, then a lot of BackMails will be trying to call you in that fifteen minutes, and only a fraction will get through on any given day. On the other hand, you should not declare yourself available 24 hours a day (00:00-00:00) if you don't plan to have your machine on for that time. Other BackMails will waste time trying to deliver messages to you at odd hours and it will serve you right if you pick up the phone at 2:27 AM and hear the sound of a BackMail waiting for a carrier. Try to be consistent in keeping to your BackMail availability time. If you change your BackMail availability time, you can let everyone you network with know about the change by addressing a brief note on any subject to "All Local Numbers" and "All Internal Numbers". When the messages are delivered, the destination BackMails will automatically record your new availability time. This is not really necessary, however; when they call you, they will receive notification of your new availability time automatically. The optimum course of affairs is to set your new availability times, and then leave your machine available at both the new and the old times, for long enough that most people with whom you would be in contact, will actually either call you or be called by you. Typically, this would be about a day. You can use BackMail to send outgoing mail any time, whether or not it is during your declared availability time. When your BackMail calls other people in this circumstance, their BackMails will pass back to you any mail their machines have stacked up waiting for you, if you have permitted return mail when you set up their phone directory entry. You may sometimes want to operate outside your declared availability time if you have a lot of mail to go out and do not want BackMail tied up with receiving incoming messages (although, of course, unless you disable return mail, you may still be tied up with receiving). Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 43 NOTIFICATION When Notification is ON, BackMail will tell you when you have received mail by placing this message on the screen. +---------------------+ | You have new mail | | -- press a key -- | +---------------------+ The message will disappear as soon as you hit a key. When notification is OFF you will have to call up the Main Menu to see if you have new mail. LAG TIME In its normal ("assume data") mode of operation, BackMail answers the phone for you and notifies you if the call is a voice call. In BackMail communications the sending modem dials the phone and then issues a carrier tone. It is that carrier tone that the answering BackMail listens for to determine if the incoming call is a voice call or another BackMail calling. If your BackMail picks up the receiver and cannot detect a carrier, it knows that the incoming call is from a human and "rings" you through your computer speaker. You will see the message: +---- VOICE CALL DETECTED ---+ | Please pick up the phone | | and press any key | +----------------------------+ The voice caller to a BackMail station hears the phone ring once and then silence until you pick up the phone. Even when the incoming call is a BackMail call, it can take a few seconds for your modem to register the incoming carrier signal. This is your lag time. In setting the lag time, you are telling BackMail how long to give the modem to detect a carrier before it notifies you that you have a voice call. How long this time should be is entirely dependant upon your modem hardware; typically, the better your modem, the quicker it will be to detect the carrier. For the convenience of your voice callers, you will want to keep the lag time as short as your modem makes possible. The permissible range is from 3 to 15 seconds. We have never encountered a modem that required more than 8 seconds (the OmniTel internal seems to be about the slowest), or less than 6 (the Hayes 2400 external takes a clocked 5.3 seconds). Note that this time is counted from the moment the ring is detected on the incoming call. Thus a 6 second lag time means that the caller will only hear about 5 seconds of silence, if you pick up your phone immediately when BackMail tells you that you have a voice call. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 44 To find the shortest lag time your modem will sustain, start off by setting your lag as low as possible (3 secs). If this is too low, then BackMail will mis-identify incoming BackMail calls as voice calls. Even when BackMail notifies you that you have a voice call, it continues to check the modem to see if a carrier has been detected. If it discovers that there is a carrier, it will immediately take over the call and replace its voice call notification with: +-------------------------------------------+ | Sorry! It wasn't a voice call after all. | | Oh, well; anyone can make an honest | | mistake. (press a key:) | +-------------------------------------------+ If you see this message, then you should increase your LAG TIME. CLOCK DISPLAY Time is as important to you as to BackMail. This option allows you to put a real time clock into the corner of your foreground screen. LETTER HEAD This function lets you enter a 63 character letterhead that will automatically appear at the top of all of your outgoing messages. WAIT FOR DIAL TONE Select this function if your modem supports a wait for dial tone feature. When this mode is active, BackMail will instruct your modem to listen for a dial tone before dialing out its Data calls. Turning this mode on will make BackMail more compatible with the use of your phone for voice calls. In particular, BackMail won't ask you to "Press Alt-2 when finished calling" when you make a voice call. The modem itself will be able to tell BackMail that you are off the line. Note: For many modems, you should not use WAIT FOR DIAL TONE unless your modem is set up in parallel with your modem. Otherwise when BackMail picks up your phone to listen for a dial tone it will cut off your voice calls. It is also worth noting that several modems only support this feature in a 'mode' which is incompatible with other requirements of BackMail (for example when it is enabled, they no longer respond to DTR). In other words, use of this feature is not assured even if your modem manual claims that your modem supports it. Many modems will only use wait for dial tone properly if you use extended response codes. These are usually set by an "X" setting (X1 - Xn). You can alter your "X" setting by changing TECH setting number 4 under change setup. Getting BackMail to properly respond to extended codes may require you to enter appropriate response values in Tech setting 50-60. (See appendix B below). Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 45 If you turn on wait for dial tone but find that BackMail still sometimes tries to dial out over your voice calls, get out your modem manual, and read appendix B. Experimentation may well be required and your hands could get quite dirty. ANSWER MODE In its default mode BackMail will answer the phone with a carrier so long as the program is running and you have not SUSPENDED the program. Changing this option allows you to set BackMail so that it will answer the phone only during your own declared availability time. This option does not affect BackMail's dialing out to deliver mail. Unless BackMail is SUSPENDED the program will continue to call other BackMails during their Availability times. Thus, for example, if you a runing BackMail in an office enviornment you might set your AVAILABILITY TIME from 12:00 to 13:00. This would mean that other BackMailerss would attempt to call you only during lunch hour. Using this feature BackMail would answer the phone only during this period but keep BackMail on all day so that it would call out to other BackMailers when they were available. PHONE PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES This function allows you to set the dialing prefixes BackMail uses to place its calls. +----Phone Prefix/Suffixes -------+ | | Intern | | Local 9, + phone number | | Long 9,1 + area code | | *unset | | *unset | | *unset | | *unset | | *unset | +---------------------------------+ The left hand column shows the names for the prefixes; the numbers appear on the right. The illustration to the right shows the prefixes for an installation where one must dial "9" to reach an outside line and 1 for long distance. When you enter a new telephone address into your telephone directory, you will be prompted to set the appropriate prefix for that number. You may change any of these prefixes, and add more, up to eight different prefixes, e.g. for credit card, MCI, Sprint numbers and the like. Each prefix is associated with a name. The pre-defined prefixes are. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 46 Intern For intra-office calls over an in-house phone line Local For local calls Long For long distance calls To add or alter a prefix, position the cursor bar over the relevant prefix and hit Enter You will then be asked for the name of this prefix. This is a six character label which will be used in the phone directory and dial out menu. +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Phone prefix/Suffix number 4: current name is: *unset | | Enter new name (max 6 chars) or enter <-' to leave unchanged:| | MCI_ | | | Next you enter the prefix number itself. You can tell BackMail to switch between Pulse or Tone dialing numbers within a prefix by typing a "T" or a "P" at the appropriate position in the prefix; also, you can use commas, which will cause a two-second pause for each comma. 'W' and '@' are also permitted, with standard modems these cause the modem to wait for a second dial tone or wait for 5 seconds of silence. Other miscellaneous punctuation and spacing will be ignored. | | |Enter new string (Max 20) or enter <-' to leave unchanged: | | ,12345678 | | | Next you will asked whether the string should be treated as a phone prefix,or a suffix. | | | Should this string <P>receed or <F>ollow the phone number.? | | | If you wish the string you are defining to be sent to the phone after the phone number is dialed you should enter "P". If you want the string to be sent after the phone number, enter "F". Next you will be asked what type of phone prefix or suffix you are defining. | | | Enter prefix/suffix type <L>ONG, <N>ORMAL or | | <I>nternal. | In defining the type of a prefix you are telling BackMail how to format the phone number with the string you have defined. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 47 If the string you are defining (",12345678" in our example) is to be used is a prefix then the different types would format the dialing of the phone number as follows. INTERNAL: ,12345678 + ext number NORMAL: ,12345678 + phone number LONG: ,12345678 + (area code) + phone number In the case of suffixes the formating is slightly different. The suffix string, of course, will follow the phone number. Defining the type tells BackMail whether or not to use the destinations area code, extension number or 7 digit format. You will also want the suffixed phone number to bear whatever prefix is required to place a long, local or internal call. So in formating a suffix string BackMail will look to your definitions of the predefined, long local and prefix strings to decide what goes before the phone number. So, for example, suppose that you were in an office where you had to dial "9" followed by a pause to reach an outside line. To dial long distance you would, of course, have to dial "9,1". In that case you would should have entered these strings for the "local" and "long" prefixes. In that case your prefix list would look like the example at the beginning of this section. Now you are defining a fourth suffix, which you are calling "MCI" and have entered as ",12345678". Now depending upon what type you give to the suffix you will get the following results. INTERNAL: ext number + ,12345678 NORMAL: 9, + phone number + ,12345678 LONG: 9,1 + (area code) + phone number + ,12345678 Supposing that you were defining "MCI" so that long distance calls prefixed MCI would be charged to a credit card number you would obviously declare the "MCI" extension to be of the type LONG. In every case, once you have defined your prefix, BackMail will Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 48 show you exactly what format the prefix you have defined will use. The example below gives some idea of what sort of formats are possible. +--- Prefixes/Suffixes -------------------------------------+ | Intern | | Local 9, + phone number | | Long 9,1 + (area code) + phone number | | MCI 9,1 + (area code) + phone number + ,12345678 | | ROLM 1234 + ext number | | Watson phone number + 99,W9 | | MT&T 09876543210987654321 + (area code) + phone number | | PC-V ext number + 5555 | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ For more about extension numbers see Appendix C: Understanding extension numbers. PHONE DIALING MODE This function allows you to select pulse or tone dialing as the default method by which BackMail will place its calls. If you are in doubt as to which you need, try placing a voice call using BackMail dial out. This default setting can be overridden for particular Dial prefixes if you include a "T" or a "P" in the prefix number. SCREEN RETRACE HANDLING Use this function if you see snow or flicker on your screen when BackMail's menus or its clock is on the screen. Having this function "ON" will eliminate the snow associated with some color graphics adapters. If you don't have such problems, leave this "OFF" so that BackMail can do its screen handling without wasting microseconds on snow removal. HOT KEYS +-------------- Hot Keys -------------+ | Main menu hot key <Alt-1> | | Phone dialer hot key <Alt-2> | | Suspend operation hot key <Alt-3> | +-------------------------------------+ Use arrow keys to move cursor.Enter to select Then hit the new hot key for the selected function. "Hot keys" are keys that are used to call BackMail from the background to present the BackMail main menu, dial out for voice calls, or to temporally suspend BackMail operation. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 49 The default settings for these keys are special function keys, Alt- 1, Alt-2 and Alt-3. This function allows you to reassign these keys. To use, select the key assignment you want to change and hit Enter. The program will then ask you to hit the new hot key for the selected function. You can assign any function key, Alt or Ctrl key combination you like. Try to pick hot keys that are not used by the programs that you will normally be running on top of BackMail. TECHNICIAN SETTINGS This function is used for very infrequently changed program parameters. See Appendix A for the details (some of which are gory). Technician settings are important for customizing BackMail to run your modem. We have tried to provide a default setup that runs as many modems as possible 'right out of the box' and so you might very well never have the need to inform yourself about these matters. For the expert user, the distraught user, and the merely curious user however the information is available together with details concerning modem fiddling in Appendix B. PHONE NUMBER Use this function to tell BackMail your phone number. You should do this the very first time you use BackMail. This is essential, because your phone number is your return address for all BackMail mail. It is how the systems you are talking to identify you for the purposes of replying, forwarding and answering your mail to them. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 50 When you enter your phone number be sure to include your area code. BackMail expects an area code to be associated with every number. +----------------------------------------------------------+ | ** WARNING ** If you change your phone number, you will | | have to register this program again. Continue (y/n)? | +----------------------------------------------------------+ NOTE: When you enter your phone number using this function, you are also telling the program that you are a new user of the program. New users are asked to register their copies of the program. SAVE SETUP Whenever you have made changes in the setup menu, use this function to save them to disk copy of BackMail. Changes saved in this manner will be automatically restored the next time you run BackMail. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 51 VOICE CALLS PLACING A CALL BackMail contains an Autodialing feature which you can use to make voice calls. If you place your outgoing voice call using the Autodialer, then BackMail will know that a voice call is in progress and will not attempt to dial out in the course of your call. If your modem does not support the Wait for Dial Tone feature (see CHANGE SETUP), then you should place all your outgoing voice calls through the BackMail Autodialer. USING THE PHONE DIRECTORY To place a call you press the dial out hot key (default Alt-2). You will be presented with your personal phone directory. This directory includes all of the BackMail destinations as well as any voice destinations you have entered. The arrow keys will move the cursor bar. The Enter key will select and dial a number. If the number you want is not on the list, press F1; if you change your mind, and decide you don't want to dial a number after all, press Esc. +------ Select a number from the list below with <-' -----+ | Acme Computer Sales local 499-9832 | | Bob Bright local 340-3847 | | Charles Wangersky intern 4353 | | C.E.O. Mr. Braybrooke intern 9764 | | Dave Nelson long (604) 432-9848 | | Dave Jones intern 3343 | | Davidson Donald long (988) 323-9999 | | Frank Jackson local 384-3487 | | General Information local 411 | | Hotstuff Sporting Goods local 398-3838 | +---Press <Ins> to enter a number by hand, <Esc> to quit --+ Phone numbers are listed according to the 40 character name you have given the destination. Use the arrow keys on the keypad to move the bar cursor and press Enter to dial the selected number.The End key takes you to the bottom of the directory, Home to the top. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 52 DIAL IT YOURSELF If you want to dial a number which is not in your directory, hit the Ins key. You can then use your keypad to enter your call. +-------------------------------------------+ | Enter number to dial. +, - change prefix,| | <-' when complete, | | <Esc> to exit without dialling: | | Local _ | +------NumLock------------------------------+ Enter will dial.Esc key will abandon the dialout request. Use key pad to enter number. If you have an IBM AT or similar, the NumLock light on the keyboard will light up; older PC clones, which have this indicator light, may have the light turned on at the wrong time. This is nothing to worry about. If the computer thinks that the NumLock key is on, we will try to show some indication of it on the screen. Your number will be preceded by a prefix name. You can change the prefix by using the '+' or '-' keys on the keypad. ADDING A NUMBER TO YOUR PHONE DIRECTORY If you have entered the number yourself Backmail will ask you if you want to add the number to your phone directory. +-------------------------------------------+ | Do you want to add that number | | to your phone directory [y/n] ?_ | | | | | +-------------------------------------------+ If you respond by hitting Y, the program will ask you for a name of this destination. +-------------------------------------------+ | Enter the name you want attached to | | this number (maximum 40 characters) : | | _ | | | +-------------------------------------------+ Enter the name which you will remember this person by. This is the name that will appear in the phone directory from now on; it will be sorted alphabetically. When you are finished entering the name, press the return key, Enter. The Backspace key will delete the last character you entered. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 53 ON CONNECT You will hear BackMail dial its call over your modem's speaker. +-------------------------------------------+ | BackMail is now dialing | | Bob Martin (office) | | When finished, pick up the | | phone and press the space bar. | +-------------------------------------------+ If BackMail knows the name of the party you're calling, either from your selecting it from the list, or by having you enter a name, it will include that name in the message. Otherwise, it will show you the number, exactly as you typed it in. After it dials a number your modem will remain as part of the voice circuit and may contribute some noise to the line. To turn this off, hit any key after you have picked up the phone (Note, pick up the phone first, otherwise you will be terminating your call). BackMail will automatically take the modem out of the circuit about 30 seconds after it finishes dialing (the delay is to give you time to pick up the phone). IF BACKMAIL IS USING THE PHONE It may happen that at the time you press Alt-2, BackMail will be in the middle of communicating with another BACKMAIL. In that case, after you select the number to dial out, the program will ask permission to complete its call. +----------BackMail is On Line ----------+ | ^C aborts the current BackMail session.| | <Esc> cancels dialout request | | anything else will wait | +----------------------------------------+ Pressing Ctrl-C will force BackMail to cancel its call. Don't worry about interrupting BackMail in the middle of a call. If it doesn't finish its exchange of mail in one call, it will deliver it at a later time. You won't lose any mail. If you hit a key indicating that you are prepared to wait, BackMail will complete its current data transmission and tell you it is now prepared to dial your voice call. +- BackMail Message --------------------+ | BackMail is now ready to call | | Bob Martin (office) | | Do you still want to do that [y/n] ? _| +---------------------------------------+ Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 54 If you enter Y now, BackMail will dial the number which you selected or entered earlier. If you enter N, it will cancel the dialout request. If you have left your machine in unattended mode, the dialout request will be cancelled automatically. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 55 If you press the dial-out hot key Alt-2 while you have a dialout request waiting, it will ask you if you wish to cancel the pending selection. +- BackMail Message --------------------+ | BackMail is waiting to call | | Bob Martin (office) | | Do you still want to do that [y/n] ? _| +---------------------------------------+ If you tell it N at this point, it will cancel the pending request, and allow you to make another. If you tell it Y, it will go back to waiting. WHEN YOU'VE FINISHED YOUR CALL When your voice call has been dialed BackMail will go away to allow you full use of your computer while you are on the phone. If you are not using the Wait for Dial tone feature, then BackMail will need to be told when you are off line and it can begin making Data Calls. It will place a notice in the top right corner of the screen asking you to press the dial out hot key when you have finished your call to tell BackMail that it can resume making data transmissions. +-------------------------------------------+ |Press <Alt-2> when voice call is completed | +-------------------------------------------+ If you are using Wait for Dial Tone, then BackMail will be able to use your modem to determine if you are on line and will not ask you to tell it when you are done calling RECEIVING VOICE CALLS When you are running BackMail you should let BackMail answer the phone. If you run BackMail consistently you will probably want to turn the ring on your phone down or off. When your modem detects an incoming call BackMail will instruct it to pick up the phone and generate a carrier. If it does not detect a carrier in a certain period of time (this is your LAG TIME setting, see CHANGE SETUP) it will conclude that you have a voice call. BackMail will "ring" the speaker on your computer and put a message on the screen. +----Voice Call Detected ---+ | Please pick up the phone, | | then press any key | +---------------------------+ Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 56 When you hit a key after picking up the phone, BackMail will cut the modem out of the circuit and allow you to use your computer while you are on line. Be sure to pick up the phone before you hit the key, otherwise the modem will hang up on your caller. You have full use of your computer while making your voice call. If you are not using WAIT FOR DIAL TONE (See CHANGE SETUP) BackMail will need to know when you are finished using the phone. In that case BackMail will put a reminder in the top left corner of the screen to press the phone hot key when you have finished your call. This will tell BackMail that the phone is free and that it can resume its data calls. +---------------------------------------------+ | Press <Alt-2> when voice call is completed | +---------------------------------------------+ If you are using WAIT FOR DIAL TONE you will not see this message. FROM THE CALLER'S POINT OF VIEW Someone who is placing a voice call to a BackMail number will hear a high pitch carrier signal until you are notified by BackMail that you have a voice call and pick up the phone. It would be very nice if backmail could turn the carrier signal off when it has decided that the incoming call is from a voice call, unfortunately there is no reliable way to do this with a normal modem (Lord knows we've tried!). So as a courtesy to your callers, it's a good idea to respond to voice calls with some alacrity. If you have placed BackMail in UNATTENDED mode you have told the program that you are not available for voice calls. In that case BackMail will pick up the phone and generate a carrier for just long enough to decide whether you are getting a voice or a data call (This period is your LAG TIME, see CHANGE SETUP). In UNATTENDED mode it will hang up as soon as it decides that the incoming call is a voice call. As a courtesy to your voice callers, it is good idea to keep your LAG time as short as possible. People who haven't used BackMail sometimes worry that they will lose incoming callers who will hang up when they hear the carrier. In our experience this just doesn't happen much; many genuinely weird things can happen when you dial into conventional phone switchboards and answering systems, and a few seconds of whistle don't seem to drive anyone away. When you first start using BackMail you may find that the program tells you that you have a voice call but then, when you pick up nobody is there. Or it may be that after telling you a voice call has come in, you get this message: Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 57 +--- Voice Call Detected ---+ | Please pick up the phone, | | then press any key | +--+-------------------------------------+ | It's not a voice call, after all. | | Well, anyone can make an honest | | mistake. Sorry. (press a key:) | +-------------------------------------+ INCREASE YOUR LAG TIME IF YOU SEE THIS The problem in this case is that your LAG time is set too low. One of two things may be happening in this case. It may be that your modem is being slow to detect a carrier. You can prevent this by increasing your modem's "Lag Time" using the CHANGE SETUP change setup" menu (See above). On the other hand, if this never happens to you, you may be able to reduce your modem's lag time so that you get quicker notification of voice calls. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 58 TROUBLE SHOOTING DESIGNERS NOTE BackMail is a inexpensive program, compact and easy to use. But don't let that fool you. It is easily one of the most technically sophisticated programs ever written for the PC environment. Among the many things its designers have had to allow for are the wide variations in PC hardware, foreground programs, and modem performance. Of all the constraints its designers have had to accommodate, the most difficult and frustrating have been those involving modems. BackMail will operate with any truly compatible Hayes Modem. However BackMail uses more of the communication resources of a PC and modem than any conventional 'terminal'-type communication program. Many modems that succeed in faking conformity to the standard for terminal programs will reveal their failings under BackMail. For many operations these modems are 'Hayes Standard' in the same sense that a patio brick is Hayes standard. They don't blow up when you give them a standard command, but they don't obey the command either. Which is all to say that if you are having trouble communicating with BackMail it will most likely be a problem with your Modem. But don't despair. Following the troubleshooting tips below should get you up and running. My BackMail doesn't send my messages right away. It's not supposed to. BackMail operates on a cycle of approximately 3 minutes. If you post a message or file (and have no other mail addressed to anyone else), then BackMail will try to post it sometime in the next few minutes. The cycle time varies slightly depending upon your phone number. This is to make it very unlikely that two BackMails will ever get into perfect synch and fail to connect because they are calling each other at exactly the same time. After BackMail has answered a call it continues to report that it is online even after the calling party has disconnected. This usually means that either the modem has failed to signal loss of carrier, or that the serial port hardware on the PC has failed to interpret the modem's signal. The first thing to check is to insure that the DIP switches on your modem are set to place CD (Carrier Detect) and DTR under the control of the computer. If your modem does not have dip switches then use Tech 0 and Tech 3 of change setup to insure that your modem is running with CD and DTR enabled. (see GETTING STARTED) Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 59 If the DIP switches are set correctly but the problem still persists you should determine if your modem supports the command string "&C1&D2" at TECH 3. If your modem does not support "&" commands then this string may be confusing your modem. In that case you should go to TECH 3 under CHANGE SETUP and blank out the "&C1&D2" . If this fails, insure that your cable makes the appropriate connections for DTR and CD. If the cable checks out, then it is likely that the problem lies in your hardware. For example, running slow UART chips (like 8250's) in a fast machine (like an AT-type) can lead to this sort of performance. Then too it may be that your modem is simply not fully functional. A message or file has been queued for delivery but BackMail does not send it. BackMail will only send mail to a destination provided that destination is available. Part of the ID block of a BackMail user consists of a notification of this availability 'window' (see the guide to operation). This means that each time two BackMails communicate they exchange availability times. When this happens BackMail checks for a change, and if there is one, it is recorded in the phone directory automatically. Thus it is possible for somebody's availability time to change and for you not to be aware of the change (although your BackMail will be aware of it). In case your need to communicate is urgent, you can override somebody's published availability time by editing their entry in the phone directory to override their availability time (use option P in the main menu). This power should not be exercised lightly. The phone rings but BackMail doesn't pick it up. This condition persists until I kill and restart. BackMail, in common with many communication programs these days, is interrupt driven. In order to operate properly, your hardware must generate signals called interrupts at the appropriate time. This is assured when BackMail loads initially since it enables these interrupts at that time. It is a sad fact of life however that certain other programs will disable interrupts and not re-enable them when they have finished running (we even know of a directory listing program that does this!). If interrupts become disabled then BackMail will fail in some or all of its duties (depending upon which interrupts have been disabled). If this happens, killing and restarting will restore interrupts and all will be well (until the next time you run the program that did the disabling) but it is not necessary to go through the whole start up sequence again. You can also re-enable interrupts by suspending and unsuspending BackMail (default key <Alt-3>). Graphics screens are not restored after "You have New Mail" and "Voice Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 60 Call Messages" pop up Several steps may be helpful. See the notes concerning TECH 74 under Technician Settings in the CHANGE SETUP section. Also consider the possibility of placing your BackMail in Unattended Mode when running your graphics packages (see MAIN MENU). In Unattended Mode BackMail will not interrupt the foreground process Get "Sorry it's not a voice call after all" messages. This is usually an indication that your Lag Time is set too low. The 'right' value for this is highly modem dependent and there is considerable variation even among modems from the same manufacturer. See the section on setting your Lag Time in the CHANGE SETUP section of this manual. Modem gives a TIME OUT error on start up. This can happen if your modem is off, but you know that. More likely what's going on is that your Modem has got into a states in which it won't respond to an initialization string. Turning the modem off then on once or twice, then hitting Enter will usually fix this. (Granted this may be awkward if you have opted for the "convenience" of an internal modem.) BackMail seems to interfere with my other communications programs. No it doesn't. Not if you remember to SUSPEND BackMail before you run your conventional terminal program. (See the MAIN MENU section above). BackMail tries to call out over my voice calls. Even when I set "WAIT FOR DIAL TONE" on. Either your modem does not support the "Wait for Dial Tone" or you need to impliment its extended command set.See the explantion of "X modes" in Appendix B, below. You might also check your Tech 16 setting against your modem manual. Note thought that It is a sad fact that modem manuals sometimes depict a rosier world than the actual one; reporting e.g. that the modem sends response code such and such when it fails to detect a dial tone, when really the modem's behavior requires the more guarded assertion that it does this "frequently" or even "sometimes". Inexpensive modems will sometimes mistake your conversation for a dial tone and dial out anyway. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 61 Sometimes characters that I type in the BackMail editor "drop through" into the foreground process like MicroSoft Word What is happening is that your foreground process is peeking at the character buffer in order to get keys as quickly as they come in. Programs with variable "cursor speed" or "keyboard speed" controls will do this (E.G. MicroSoft Word and WordPerfect). The simple way to cure this is to change TECH SETTING 75 from '0' to '1'. Note that if you've been having trouble using the offending foreground process with other TSR's this may have been the problem. The way to cure those other incompatibilities may be to set the "cursor speed" on your foreground process to zero. Note that changing TECH 75 to '1' on BackMail should solve the drop through problem but you may loose compatibility between BackMail and other TSR programs. In that case you will have to decide whether you would rather put up with the occasional character drop through or set your cursor speed to zero on the foreground process. Get "OUTMAIL" or "INMAIL CORRUPTED" message. We hope you never see this, but if you do something has garbled your mail box file . There are two possible causes of this: If this happens frequently it is likely that another program is violating DOS's rules for file and interrupt handling and is fouling BackMails waters. This is rare and the offending programs will most likely be an amateurish TSR program that does conform to the industry standards. If you have a program that you suspect of causing these difficulties you should probably stop using it since BackMail is not the only program it will cause problems with. BackMail does extensive file i/o in the background. If BackMail is in the midst of writing to a file and your system looses power, or you do something in the foreground to crash the system, then the file may get corrupted. BackMail only opens files when it is online so for a power down or crash can only cause trouble if it happens when you are online. It is thus a good idea (particularly if you have an internal modem and can't see when you are online) to check the BackMail Main menu before you power down. If you see that you are online you can wait for the call to end or terminate it by SUSPENDING the program. Suspending in mid call will not damage your Mail files. The person you are calling will get a "CALL TERMINATED BY RECIEVER" notice and the aborted messages will be resent by BackMail the next chance it gets. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 62 As we said, this should be a rare occurrence, but if you get a "mailfile corrupted message" you should try looking at the relevant mailfile under "MAINTAIN". If it looks normal then the MAINTAIN function has automatically repaired the file. If it looks garbled or MAINTAIN will not let you look at the file then exit to DOS and erase the relevant file (inmail. or outmail). BackMail will build you a new mail file when you restart it. On startup the program aborts while "Reading mail files". Alas, your mail files have been corrupted. erase them and restart the program. Get "Program Fails CRC check" If you get this message on startup it means that your disk copy of BackMail has been corrupted. Let us know and we'll get you a new one. If you get this message after you have been running for while then what must have happened is that some other program you have running has gone wild, violated the BIOS memory rules, and has overwritten BackMail's resident code. If this happens BackMail will try to gracefully retire from the scene, but you should probably reboot anyway and do something about the rogue program. Get a "Too many files" message. Make sure that your CONFIG.SYS file contains a line which says FILES = 20. BackMail tells me I have a voice call but when I pick up the phone it has hung up. Pick up the phone before you hit a key in response to the voice call message. Hitting the key is the signal to BackMail that it is okay to hang up the phone. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 63 Modem hangs up before a connection is made. or destinations complain that your messages are identified as "Voice Calls" by their modem even when their Lag Times are set to maximum. What is almost certainly happening is that cheap audio filters on your modem are interpreting the ringing sound as a carrier signal and are trying to talk to the bell not the destinations computer (Doesn't seem such a bargain now does it?). Try increasing the value of TECH 3 under CHANGE SETUP. If this doesn't work then, if you have a 2400 baud modem you should try setting the CALLBAUD setting (using BMCONFIG.COM) to 1200 baud (see the section on BMCONFIG. The loss of transmission speed on outgoing calls is regrettable but may be unavoidably with some modems. What has happened is that the modem manufacturer has abandoned the Hayes Standard (particularly in respect of Tech 3) for speeds above 1200 baud, hoping that you'd never notice. If it still doesn't work, your modem is not Hayes Standard (whatever you may have been told) or it is broken. Demand your money back from whoever sold you this turkey. BackMail calls out but hangs up just after the "online" message appears. or Backmail answers a call but does not correctly report who is calling and/or does not deliver mail which has been queued for that caller. After connecting, two BackMails exchange 'ID blocks'. If the phone number in the receiver's block fails to match the number the sender dialed, the sender disconnects. This can happen if the party being called has failed to set the phone number on their copy of bground (through the "change setup" option of the main menu). You should also make sure that you have the destination's full phone number, including any extension to their number that they may be using to receive internal calls. (See Appendix C: Understanding Extension numbers below). If all this fails it may be that either you or the destination you are having trouble with has got a corrupted MAIL file. The program tries to verify the integrity of its mail files and tell you if this has happened, but it can happen that a mail file passes these tests but is internally corrupted in such a way that BackMail finds it has no messages to deliver after it has mad contact. You should have both parties that are experiencing this trouble look at their INMAIL and OUTMAIL files under the Mailbox MAINTAINANC functions. These functions will reveal (and usually fix) garbled MAIL files. If MAINTAINANCE reveals garbled mail files, ESC back to the MAIN MENU and then go back an look at the file with MAINTAIN again. If it is still garbled, you will have to erase the file and restart. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 64 Sometimes my BackMail calls another or they call mine and all that happens is that the "online" message appears but nothing else happens and after a while we disconnect. As we have said before some modems just have a hard time talking to each other although if you know of any case in which this always happens, we want to know about it. Another way in which this can happen is if one or both ends of the attempted BackMail session have some process running which "locks out" BackMail. In order to engage in communication, BackMail must be able to read and write files, and some operations will prevent BackMail, or any other program for that matter, from doing this. In particular, the DOS commands COPY and FORMAT have this property; while they run there can be no other program reading and writing files. As a special case of this if you routinely use the COPY command to send files to the printer, you will be disabling BackMail during that time. We would suggest that you use the DOS PRINT command instead since it does not lock BackMail out. I made up several different 'phone' files to do different mass mailings but when I switched from one to another, BackMail crashed as soon as it started to dial out the first call Although PHONE, INMAIL and OUTMAIL are separate files they are intimately related. The entries in PHONE contain specific references to entries in OUTMAIL (and vice versa) and INMAIL contains specific references to PHONE. If you suddenly replace PHONE without replacing (at least) OUTMAIL then BackMail will certainly be too confused to work properly and may well be confused enough to crash. If you make a new PHONE you should also make new mail files to go along with it, and when you swap PHONE's, swap the associated mail files at the same time and all will be well provided that you kill BackMail before the swap and restart it after. You must start fresh because BackMail saves information in memory from your current PHONE and that will not be replaced (safely) with information from the swapped PHONE unless you restart. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved 65 I changed my availability time but the change did not get passed along to some of the other BackMailers who called. BackMail is designed to be as fast as possible in its background operations. This is so that it can be unobtrusive, which is a highly prized quality in a background program. We achieve this speed by keeping file manipulations to an absolute minimum and that means we don't want to open the phone directory when we don't have to. Since updating availability times requires changing the phone directory, we always do these updates during a "read new mail" session. At this time BackMail is in the foreground and we don't have to worry so much about being unobtrusive. So if you change your availability time, the other members of your BackMail net won't find out about the change until you send them mail and they read it. Any mail at all will do, since the updating process is automatic. Copyright (c) 1988 ALETHIC Software inc. All Rights Reserved A-1 "APPENDIX A: TECHNICAL SETTINGS" There are two general types of technician settings, those that accept numbers, and those that accept strings. +---------------------------------+ | ** Technician Settings ** | | See User's Manual for details | | Enter number of item to change | | Esc when done (0-150): | | _ | | | +---------------------------------+ When you enter the number of the technical setting you wish to change the program will display its current value. +-------------------------------------+ | Item 3: Current value is S9=30 | | Enter new value, or ─┘ to leave | | unchanged: _ | +-------------------------------------+ Entering a new value will over-write the old value. While there are a large number of possible settings, there are only a few that are of interest to the average user. Before you alter tech settings you should know: (a) what you are doing, and (b) exactly how you intend to do that, before you start fooling around in this section. We suggest that it would be a very good idea to back up your copy of BackMail before you start setting these values. There are defaults for all these settings built into the program. These defaults have been extensively tested with many Hayes and Hayes-compatible modems, and work for most such. The technician settings are listed below: A-2 TECH 0 - 15: MODEM COMMAND STRINGS 0: The modem attention string. This defaults to 'AT'. 1: The string to force the modem to hangup and reset. This defaults to "Z". 2: The string used to set the length of the period during which we watch the carrier when someone calls, before deciding that we have a valid carrier after all. This defaults to 'S9=3 ', for 3/10 second. 3: The string used to enable carrier detect and to place DTR under the control of the modem. This string is necessary for modems that do not have external DIP switch control of these features. The default value of this string is "&C1&D2". In some modems which have DIP switches and do not recognize "&" commands, this string may produce unpredictable results. In this case TECH 3 should just be set to a blank string. 4: The string used to enable extended response codes. If your modem has a command response set larger than the Hayes standard, there is a string which turns the extended set on. Typically, this string is entered here. This will appear in your modem manual, most probably under the command 'X'. The default is 'X1'. 5: The string which is used to turn on the modem speaker. This defaults to 'M1'. This string is primarily for use if your modem uses the enhanced Hayes command set rather than the original set. The enhanced Hayes standard does not allow for a volume control knob for the speaker; instead, one is allowed to set the speaker volume with a new command, 'L'. Typically, the default setting for the speaker is very loud. When BackMail turns on the speaker, as it does when it is dialling out a voice call, this string is sent; it can include the speaker volume control setting. A typical volume control setting would have the form 'L1M1'. 6: The string which is used to turn off the modem speaker. This defaults to 'M0'. 7: The string that forces the modem to use only numeric return codes. This defaults to 'Q0V0E0'. 8: The string that disables auto-answer. This defaults to 'S0=0 '. 9: The string that sets how long we wait for carrier after either dialing out or answering the phone. This defaults to 'S9=25' for 25 seconds. A-3 10: The start of the dialout using touch tones command. This defaults to 'DT'. 11: The start of the dialout using dial pulses command. This defaults to 'DP'. 12: The string or character used (after the Tech 1 string) to get the modem to answer the phone and generate a carrier. This defaults to 'A'. 13: The modifier that gets added to the number to dial to specify immediate return to command mode after dialling the number. This defaults to ';' 14: The command used to pick up the phone in originate mode. This defaults to 'D'. 15: The character or string used to end commands to the modem. This normally defaults to a carriage return. 16: The character or string used to force your modem to wait for dial tone. The default value is 'W' 17: The string used to tell the modem how long to wait for dial tone. This defaults to 'S6 = 2' for a 2 second wait. A-4 MODEM RESPONSE VALUES: TECH 50 - 70 This is the response table for the modem. The modem will typically respond with a number, from 0 to 10; we are allowing for a few extra, in case your modem has extra response codes over and above the usual. The table below describes the default settings, and the meaning of the values used in setting them. | Number | Modem │ Default │ | | Response | Setting │ +--------+----------|---------+ | 50 | 0 | 0 | | 51 | 1 | 1 | | Setting | Interpretation | 52 | 2 | 4 | | Value | | 53 | 3 | 5 | +---------+------------------------- | 54 | 4 | 10 | | 0 | 'OK': Command accepted | 55 | 5 | 2 | | 1 | Carrier at 300 Baud | 56 | 6 | 9 | | 2 | Carrier at 1200 Baud | 57 | 7 | 9 | | 3 | Carrier at 2400 Baud | 58 | 8 | 9 | | 4 | Ring detect | 59 | 9 | 9 | | 5 | No carrier / carrier lost | 60 | 10 | 3 | | 6 | Busy signal detected | 61 | 11 | 9 | | 7 | Phone at far end rings | 62 | 12 | 9 | | 8 | No dial tone | 63 | 13 | 9 | | 9 | Do nothing | 64 | 14 | 9 | | 10 | Error in command line | 65 | 15 | 9 | | 66 | 16 | 9 | | 67 | 17 | 9 | | 68 | 18 | 9 | | 69 | 19 | 9 | | 70 | 20 | 9 | TECH 71: RESERVED TECH 72: MODEM RESET TIME The length of time (in seconds) that the modem will wait after it receives the modem reset string, before it will accept commands again. Most modems require no more than a second; the Hayes 2400 requires 2 seconds. This defaults to 1. If you find that when you start up the modem you get "MODEM TIME OUT" errors and have to hit Enter several times to get the modem to respond, try increasing this value. A-5 TECH 73: WHICH RING TO ANSWER The number of times BackMail will let the phone ring before picking up the phone. The default value is 1 but you might want to set it to a higher value if, for example, you have an answering machine that answers on the first ring and you want it to take your incoming calls in preference to BackMail. The maximum permissible value is 3 rings. Longer than that and calling BackMails will usually have already given up on contacting you. A-6 TECH 74: GRAPHICS DISPLAY The number here will have a value from 1-7. These refer to video modes. (If you don't know what they are don't tinker with this). When running in attended mode BackMail will interrupt the foreground process to put up messages such as "You have new mail". When you acknowledge the message, BackMail will restore your screen to its original state. However there are some higher video modes on some video cards which BackMail will not be able to restore. The problem is in the video hardware's design (the relevant video registers are write only). To prevent this from happening tech 74 should be set to the highest video value which BackMail can restore on your machine. The default is "6" which handles EGA screens. For higher Graphics modes BackMail will not attempt to write messages to your screen, it will just ring the bell on your machine to let you know, e.g. that you have new mail. Note though that if you call up the BackMail Main Menu it will always respond, no matter what the consequences to your graphics display. Be careful. If you are operating a graphics program and find that BackMail messages don't restore your screen properly, then you should increase this number. Examples: To avoid visual notification in all graphics modes, set tech - 74 to a value of 3 (which is the highest number for a valid CGA/EGA text mode). To allow notification in 320x200 color graphics, but not in 640x200 B&W graphics, set tech - 74 to 5. Notification is always given (when enabled) for monochrome text display (mode 7) regardless of the tech - 74 setting. TECH 75: CURSOR SPEED UP Certain software packages like Microsoft Word install a TSR which peeks at the keyboard buffer instead of using the standard resources of DOS to obtain keystrokes. With the feature running, you may sometimes see keystrokes from BackMail "fall through" into the foreground application. Setting TECH 75 to "1" (the default is "0" will cure this problem. As with most things there is an associated cost: with TECH 75 set to 1, there may appear problems with other TSR's with which BackMail normally enjoys peaceful coexistence. A-7 TECH 80 - 111: COLOR TABLE The table below describes each color's position in the table, its default value, and where in the program it is used. For actual colors, we must refer you to the technical manuals of your computer. We strongly recommend use of the BMCONFIG program to change BackMail's color display. | Color screen |Monochrome screen | | (CGA, EGA) | (MDA, Hercules) | +--------+---------+--------+---------+ | Number | Default | Number | Default | | | Value | | Value | Used for: +--------+---------+--------+---------|--------------------------- | 80 │ 7 | 96 | 7 | Normal video areas | 81 │ 15 | 97 | 15 | Highlighted video; bright text | 82 │ 112 | 98 | 112 | Reverse video: menus & help | 83 │ 127 | 99 | 112 | Highlighted reverse video | 84 │ 12 | 100 | 15 | Errors and warnings | 85 │ 137 | 101 | 143 | Attention messages | 86 │ 143 | 102 | 143 | Emergency mesg:flashing bright | 87 │ 4 | 103 | 7 | Spare │ 88 │ 5 | 104 | 7 | Spare │ 89 │ 6 | 105 | 7 | Spare │ 90 │ 10 | 106 | 7 | Spare │ 91 │ 11 | 107 | 7 | Spare │ 92 │ 12 | 108 | 7 | Spare │ 93 │ 13 | 109 | 7 | Spare │ 94 │ 14 | 110 | 7 | Spare │ 95 │ 16 | 111 | 7 │ Spare Note that colors flagged as Spare will occasionally be used in advertisements. Other than that, there are of no interest to the normal user. B-1 APPENDIX B: Customizing BackMail for your Modem The default values in Backmail should enable it to operate with any truly Hayes Compatible 1200 or 2400 baud modem. Apart from insuring that your DIP switches are set correctly, we recommend that you use BackMail for a bit before undertaking any customization. The default values the program uses have been chosen with great care and work with a wide variety of modems. However, should you encounter problems or if your modem is non- standard, don't despair. We have designed BackMail to allow you to alter virtually all of the parameters that control the modems operations. So even if you have a modem that does not conform to industry standards it should be possible to configure the program to drive your modem. DIP SWITCHES Your Modem may or may not have DIP switches which may control some or all of these functions. +------------------------++-------------------------------------+ | SWITCH || SETTING | +------------------------++-------------------------------------+ | Carrier Detect ||Should be set so that Carrier is NOT | | ||always on. | | || | | Data Terminal Ready ||Should be set so that DTR is NOT | | ||always on; i.e. is controlled by the | | ||computer. | | || | | Verbose ||Should be set so that modem produces | | ||numeric responses | | || | | Echo ||Should be set so the modem does NOT | | ||echo commands | | || | | Auto Answer ||Should be off so modem does not | | ||automatically answer the phone | +------------------------++-------------------------------------+ It is most important that you have Carrier and DTR detect enabled. If your modem does not have DIP switches for these functions then they will be set by command strings. Check the Setting for Tech 3 to make sure that it is the appropriate string to enable carrier and DTR. Setting of Tech settings is described below. B-2 MODEM RESPONSE CODES Your modem responds to commands by sending "response codes" to your computer. BackMail sets your modem to respond with numeric responses. These are numbers (usually between 0-10, though we have provided up to 20) that tell the program about the state of your modem. Responses 1-4 are standard but, above 4, modems can mean different things by these numbers. To bring BackMail fully en rapport with your modem you should tell the program what these response codes mean to your modem. You do this by altering TECH SETTINGS under the CHANGE SETUP menu. You change TECH SETTINGS by entering the number of the tech setting you want to change and entering an appropriate string or number. For modem response codes you will be entering numbers. Tech Settings 50-60 correspond to modem responses from 0-20. Each Tech Setting in this range has associated with it a number which indicates its meaning to BackMail. These numbers indicate the interpretation that BackMail will place upon the corresponding modem responses and dictate what action BackMail will take. Here are the BackMail Numbers and their meaning: +---------+------------------------------------------------+ | Setting | Interpretation | +---------|------------------------------------------------+ | 0 | 'OK': Modem has accepted a command | | 1 | Modem has detected a Carrier at 300 Baud | | 2 | Modem has detected a Carrier at 1200 Baud | | 3 | Modem has detected a Carrier at 2400 Baud | | 4 | Modem has detected your phone is ringing | | 5 | Modem has lost or failed to detect a carrier | | 6 | Modem has detected a Busy signal | | 7 | Modem detects ring at the called number | | 8 | Modem has failed to detect a dial tone | | 9 | This response code is undefined for this modem| | 10 | Modem has found an error in some command | +---------+------------------------------------------------+ B-3 Here are the default settings which backmail uses to interpret Modem responses 0-20. +--------+-----------+------------------+ | Tech | Modem | Default BackMail | | Number | Response | Setting | +--------+-----------+------------------+ | 50 | 0 | 0 | | 51 | 1 | 1 | | 52 | 2 | 4 | | 53 | 3 | 5 | | 54 | 4 | 10 | | 55 | 5 | 2 | | 56 | 6 | 5 | | 57 | 7 | 5 | | 58 | 8 | 9 | | 59 | 9 | 9 | | 60 | 10 | 3 | | 61 | 11 | 9 | | 62 | 12 | 9 | | 63 | 13 | 9 | | 64 | 14 | 9 | | 65 | 15 | 9 | | 66 | 16 | 9 | | 67 | 17 | 9 | | 68 | 18 | 9 | | 69 | 19 | 9 | | 70 | 20 | 9 | +--------+-----------+------------------+ As you will see, by default, all of the modem responses from 6-20 have a default BackMail setting of '9' which means that BackMail will do nothing if it receives these responses. If these extended codes do mean something to your modem then you will want to fill BackMail in by setting the appropriate interpretation beside the tech setting that corresponds to that tech setting. For example: Suppose that your modem manual tells you that your modem issues response code "6" when it receives no dial tone and "7" when it detects a busy signal. In that case you should alter Tech settings "56" and "67" to the Backmail settings for these responses. +-------------------+-------------------+------------+ | Modem Response | Tech Setting | BackMail | +-------------------|-------------------|------------+ | 6 | 56 | 8 | | 7 | 57 | 6 | +-------------------+-------------------+------------+ Sorry if all this sounds complicated. Indeed we aren't out of the woods yet for now we have to talk about "X" settings... B-4 X SETTINGS: CONTROLLING EXTENDED RESPONSES The meaning of modem response codes above "5" are not wholly standardized and any modem that uses these extended responses will have a command to tell your modem which responses it will issue. These are usually the "X1-X4" command strings. Tech Setting 4 sends an X command to the modem whenever it hangs up the phone. It is possible (though not likely) that you will want your modem to be set to a different "X" value when it is answering the the phone than when it is calling out. For this reason we have two Tech settings for 'X' commands. The "X" value at Tech 4 is sent to the modem each time BackMail hangs up the phone and will be in effect when BackMail Calls out. The "X" string at tech 21 is used when BackMail picks up the phone to dial out. The default values for both these strings are "X1" which normally tells the modem to do nothing except report the difference between 1200 and 2400 baud carriers. For a typical fully featured modem the values might be: +-----------+----------------+--------------------------------+ | Tech | Recommended | | | Number | Setting | Function | +-----------+-------------------------------------------------+ | 4 | X3 |Wait for Dial tone , 1200/2400 | | | |Detect,Busy Detect | | 21 | X1 |No wait for dial tone, 1200/2400| | | |detect | +-----------+----------------+--------------------------------+ Use the "X" settings that correspond to these values. Do NOT use an "X" setting if your manual tells you that in that "X- mode" Backmail will wait for silence before dialing. You do NOT want BackMail to do that. MNP MODEMS Some high speed modems which support the MNP error connection protocol, have very great difficulty in establishing a stable connection with lower speed modems that do not support MNP. If you have an MNP modem but want to BackMail with other modems that don't, it is probably a good idea to turn MNP off for BackMailing purposes. You can do this by including the string "&M0" in your TECH 7 String. (but confirm the effect of this in your modem manual). B-5 DOES YOUR MODEM SUPPORT "&" COMMANDS Internal modems that do not have DIP switchs (and some extrnal modems that do) require the command "&C1&D2" to enable DTR and Carrier Detect to be controled by BackMail. We have included this string as a default under TECH 3. However, many modems do not support and do not require this command, a few of these respond badly to the unknown command. If your modem does not support "&" commands, and you experience bad performance, it might be a good idea to blank out Tech setting 3. TURNING ON BUSY DETECT AND WAIT FOR DIAL TONE If you have entered in the right response codes and "X" modes then busy detect will already be in effect. To turn on wait for dial tone just bring up the CHANGE SETUP MENU and select WAIT FOR DIAL TONE. Turning "WAIT FOR DIAL TONE" on will greatly enhance the ease with which you can use BackMail for dialing out Voice calls. WHICH RING TO ANSWER Tech setting 73 contains a number which corresponds to the number of rings Backmail should wait for before it answers the phone. The default is "1" so that BackMail will answer your phone on the first ring. If you want to give an answering machine or other people on an extension a first shot at answering the phone you might want to increase this number. SLUGGISH MODEMS Tech setting 72 contains a number which indicates how long it takes your modem to hang up after it receives an on/off transition in the DTR line from the computer. The default is 1 second, but if your modem seems not to be answering the phone, or failing to connect with calling BackMailers, then try increasing this number to 2 seconds. CAVEAT There are many different brands of modem on the market and they vary widely in how well they perform. BackMail makes extensive use of all of the features of standard modems and if the manufacturer has cut corners in production they are more likely to show up with BackMail than with some other less sophisticated communication programs. We have done thousands of hours of testing BackMail with many different kinds of modems. There are some real turkeys out there: modems that claim to do things that they don't, modems designed to do things no one in their right mind would ever want them to do, and modems so flaky that they are not good for much more than autodialing. Unsurprisingly, we have found that modem performance is more or less directly correlated with price. We hope that your modem wasn't too much of a bargain. B-6 Of particular note are some very inexpensive, internal 2400 baud modems. These can typically run quite hot, which is not highly recommended if you want to keep your chips happy. Some of these have very great difficulty connecting with other modems at 2400 baud and you have to set your LAG TIME (See the manual for an explanation) to a very high value (e.g. 30 seconds). To successfully connect with these modems. If you frequently get calls which BackMail identifies as voice calls but which are really other BackMailers, or if other BackMailers have trouble connecting with you we recommend that you use BMCONFIG.COM to set your "ANSWER BAUD" rate to 1200 baud. If you have trouble connecting with other modems at 2400 baud then you should reduce your "CALL BAUD" rate down to 1200 baud. The trade off of reliability for speed is usually worth it. B-7 MODEM COMMAND STRINGS Tech Settings 0 -22 contain the strings that are used to control the modem. If you encounter difficulties with BackMail controlling your modem you may wish to change some of these after consulting your modem. Command strings can be up to 15 characters long. +----------+--------+-------------------------------------------+ | Tech |Default | | | Number|Value | FUNCTION | +----------+--------+-------------------------------------------+ | 0 |AT |Modem attention string. Precedes all | | | |commands | | 1 |Z |Hang up the phone & Reset | | 2 |S9=6 |Time to wait to identify carrier | | 3 |&C1&D2 |Carrier Detect and hang up on DTR enabled. | | 4 |X3 |Mode to using in calling out | | 5 |M1 |Modem speaker on | | 6 |M0 |Modem speaker off | | 7 |Q0E0V0 |Send result codes, Don't Echo Commands, | | | |Numerical responses | | 8 |S0=0 |Do NOT auto-answer | | 9 |S7=60 |Time to wait for carrier | | 10 |DT |Touch tone dial out | | 11 |DP |Pulse tone dialing | | 12 |A |Answer with carrier | | 13 |; |Return to command state | | 14 |D |Dial prefix | | 15 |CR> |Terminator for Command lines | | 16 |W |Wait for dial tone | | 17 |S6=2 |Time to wait for dial tone | | 18 | | | | 19 | | | | 20 | | | | 21 |X1 |Mode to use when dialing out | | 22 |+++ |Modem escape sequence | +----------|--------+-------------------------------------------+ B-8 ADVICE TO HACKERS The strings associated with TECH 1,2,3,4 and 7 are sent to the modem every time BackMail resets or hangs up the phone. If your modem requires special command strings you may wish to include them here. If your modem does not Accept "&" commands you may wish to blank out tech setting 3 to speed the reset of your Modem. C-1 APPENDIX C: UNDERSTANDING EXTENSION NUMBERS In an office enviornment it often happens that many phones share the same phone number and differ only in their extension. For this reason BackMail allows you to specify your own extension number as part of your phone number and to specify extension numbers in addition to destination's 7 digit phone numbers. In using extension numbers the most important thing to remember is that: For its own purposes BackMail identifies all destinations by their phone number and BackMail treats extension numbers as part of that identification. This becomes important when you remember that BackMail won't deliver or recieve mail from another BackMail unless the other BackMail has a phone number (the whole phone number) corresponding to some piece of mail. If you think about it you will see that this is essential for systems with extension numbers. When you call,say, "424-3811 Ext. 1112", you do not want to deliver messages that are adressed to "424-3811 ext.1113." DECLARING YOUR OWN EXTENSION One upshot of all this is that if, when declaring your own phone number, you include your extension number, then other BackMailers should know about that extension and use it as part of your phone number. Note, this is so even if their call to you is a local or long distance call. Otherwise the following may happen. Other Backmails will call your backmail and say: "Hello I have mail for 424-3811". Your BackMail will say "Sorry I am 424-3811 Ext.1112". The calling BackMailer will say "Ooops, then I have no mail for you!" and will disconnect without delivering its mail. In the other direction you may call BackMail's that already have you listed in their directory as 424-3811, but because your mail comes in stamped as being from 424-3811 Ext. 1123, those destinations will identify your mail as coming from "unknown". THE INTERNAL PREFIX The prefix "intern" comes pre-defined in BackMail and you can enter other prefixes or Suffixes of the INTERNAL type. When a destination's phone number bears an INTERNAL prefix/suffix type then BackMail will use the 1-4 digit extension number you have associated with that destinations phone number. C-2 If you declare a destination to be an INTERNAL call, but have not entered an extension number for the destination then BackMail will use the last four digits of the destinations phone number in placing its call. So, to make an internal call to the destination: 424-3811 Ext: 12 BackMail would simply dial "12". On the other hand if you had no extension entered for this number but declared it to be an "Intern" call, BackMail would try to reach this number by dialing: "3811".