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Text File | 1990-01-21 | 26KB | 550 lines

Beginner's Guide to PCBoard This short tutorial is intended for those of you who may be new to the BBS community, and have not yet become familiar with how to "navigate" around boards which use Clark Development's PCBoard software. What follows is a brief, very incomplete description of enough stuff to get you by on most Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). It also addresses some time saving tips to allow you to do more on a board in less time. TERMINOLOGY First let me describe a few terms and conventions I will use in this description. ONLINE means that your computer is talking to the BBS computer. You are only allowed so much time per day ONLINE on a particular BBS, so you want to use it wisely. OFFLINE means your computer is not talking to a BBS computer. This is the best time to do things like reading messages and bulletins which you have saved to disk from previous BBS sessions, and writing replies to those messages. When describing below what responses to use, I will generally put the responses in quotes ("response"). DO NOT ENTER THE QUOTES. They are only there to make this document easier for you to read. BBS means Bulletin Board System. This is a computer and some software run by a patient and generous soul for his (her) and your enjoyment. Also referred to as "the board." SYSOP is the patient and generous soul who runs and (usually) owns the computer and software which you will be using. These people are generally not paid, or not paid enough, and do a difficult, time consuming job. Be nice to them and their BBS. If you are not, they may kick you off of the board, tell other sysops that you are a lousy user, or cease operation of their board altogether. Think of this as being a guest in somebody's house and act accordingly. Any time the descriptions say press enter or return, you should press the key (normally on the right hand side of your keyboard) marked enter, return, or with a funny bent arrow pointing to the left. Also, you should press enter or return after every command you enter. This tells PCBoard that you are done typing and are ready for it to execute your command. LOGGING ON The first problem you encounter is logging on to the BBS. Let's take the logon process a step at a time. The first thing the system will do is to display some information about itself and about how you are connected to it. The information line may look something like this: Harry's Hamlet Bulletin Board Service - Harry Hermit, Sysop PCBoard (TM) - Version 12.0/E3 - Node 1 Do you want graphics (Enter)=no? IF YOUR COMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE IS CAPABLE OF SAVING INFORMATION TO A DISK FILE, AND YOU WANT TO DO SO, NOW IS THE TIME TO ACTIVATE THAT FEATURE. Different communications programs do this different ways, so I cannot tell you exactly how to do this. (Hint: Most of them call it "Logging to disk" or "Capturing to disk" so you may want to look through your documentation for those terms.) Before we go on, let's examine some of this information, because it tells us some interesting things. The first line is a description of the BBS. Different boards will have different descriptions. This one includes the name of the board and the Sysop's (system operator's) name. The second line is the identification of the BBS software in use. It includes the name (PCBoard) the version (12.0/E3) and if the software is capable of running more than one phone line at a time it includes which "node" (that is, which phone line) you are connected to. Note as you log on to each board which version of PCBoard you are talking to, because different versions allow different things. As of this writing (11/20/87), version 12.1 is the latest. Most board will be version 10, 11 or 12 point something. You are then presented with the first question: "Do you want graphics." This is asking you if you want ANSI (American National Standards Institute) graphics codes and colors transmitted to your computer. The answer will depend on whether your computer and your software can handle graphics characters and color sequences. If it can, and you have a color monitor, you can answer this question "Y" and you will see various things on the board in color. Be aware that this is pretty, but slows down (sometimes significantly) the apparent speed at which the BBS can talk to you. I generally recommend answering "Y" the first few time you log on to see the pretty screens, then answer "N" to speed things up after you are comfortable with the board. By the way, if you answer "Y" to this question and your software cannot handle graphics and/or color, you will get a bunch of funny characters at every prompt and lots of other places in between. DO NOT PANIC. This should only be an annoyance, not a big problem to your software, and the next time you log on you will know to answer "N". Here, we also come to the first "time saving" thing you can do on PCBoard. Normally after you answer this question but before you are asked to provide your logon information, you will see some sort of informational "banner" which the sysop has provided. Read this banner the first time you log on to a new board. Afterwards, if you want to log on and skip right to the logon prompts, respond to the "Do you want graphics" prompt: Y;Q or, N;Q depending on whether you want graphics or not. We will talk about exactly what the semicolon and the "Q" mean in just a minute. By the way, PCBoard will take any of its commands in upper or lower case. For simplicity, I will show all responses in upper case. Most people use lower case. Depending on whether or not you specified the "Q" command, you will now perhaps see the logon banner, then the following: What is your first name? You are now in the logon area of PCBoard. Enter your first name, then when prompted for it, enter your last name. If you have logged on to the board before, and have been properly "registered" by the sysop, the BBS will ask for your password. Enter it. If the board does not recognize you for some reason, you will receive a prompt something like this: FRED HARRISON not found in user's file. [R]e-enter name or [C]ontinue? If you made a mistake when you entered your name, respond with an "R" to try again. If you entered your name correctly, enter a "C". This prompt means that the board did not recognize you, and if you are a new user (or something bad happened to the sysop's user file) you will need to "register" on the board again. Just follow the prompts and answer the questions you are asked. (Some obnoxious BBS systems are "closed systems" which means that they do not accept new callers. If you run into one of those, it will hang up on you at this point. Take that board off your calling list.) There is a quicker way to log on to the board if you have already registered. Let's pretend your name is HARRY HARRISON and your password is MYPASS. When you see the "What is your first name" prompt, answer it like this: HARRY;HARRISON;MYPASS This will tell the board, in one step, all it needs to know about you. Once you log on successfully, you will probably see some sort of information about the board presented. It is usually a good idea to read this banner on a regular basis, since most sysops put useful information you need to know about the board here. Some of these messages are quite lengthy. When this (or any other banner or message) has put out 20 (or so) lines of text, it will stop to give you a chance to read it. You will see a prompt which looks something like this: More: (Y), (N), (NS)? Now you have three choices. If you answer "Y" then the message will continue until it is done, or until another 20 (or so) lines have been displayed. If you answer "N" then the board will stop displaying that banner or message and go on to the next prompt. If you answer "NS" then the board will display the rest of the message, but it will not stop every 20 (or so) lines. This speeds things up a lot, but may make the message go by too fast to read. This is handy to use if you are capturing the session to a disk file (which I recommend) for reading offline. You may also see this prompt later on when reading messages or bulletins. The choices and responses are the same, no matter where you see it. Depending on lots of things, you may be asked a few other questions as you go. These questions are generally self explanatory, and will not be mentioned here unless they materially affect your use of the board. THE GOOD STUFF Now you are into the "body" of the BBS. You will be presented with some sort of menu (unless you have turned it off as described later) and a prompt something like this: (40 min. left) Main Board Command? At this point you have lots of choices. I am only going to describe a few of the things you can do. As you gain experience with the board, you may want to experiment with new commands and new features. TURNING OFF THE MENU Most BBS systems provide pretty, informational menus every time you return to a "Command?" prompt. These are handy while you are getting used to PCBoard, but are time consuming. Once you are comfortable with PCBOARD you will probably want to turn them off. To do so, when you get to a "Command?" prompt type in an "X" for eXpert mode. All of the prompts will remain the same, but the menu will be turned off. If you ever want it back for some reason (like to remind you of an infrequently used command) type "X" at the command prompt again, and the menus will return. GETTING HELP At just about every prompt PCBoard will give you, you can get extra help if you are not sure about what to do next. To get help, type "?" or "H" at that prompt. The help messages are generally very informative, and are especially useful when using new versions of PCBoard, since any new features will probably be described there. GENERAL COMMAND STRUCTURE All PCBoard commands consist of one or more letters telling the software what to do next. Most of the frequently used commands are single letters, such as "E" for "enter a message" or "R" for "read messages." Before describing a few of these commands, let me describe a nifty feature called "command stacking" which helps you enter commands more efficiently. COMMAND STACKING PCBoard commands generally do not just run right off and do something, they need more information first. For example, let's assume you want to join a conference. The command to accomplish this is the "J" command. If you just enter a "J" then PCBoard will give you a list (a menu) of the conferences which you can join. It does not yet know which one you want. If you then pick one, it will print the "conference banner" which is usually a pretty graphics screen describing what the conference is about and welcoming you to it. This is all very nice for the first few times into a conference, but gets tedious after a while. PCBoard conveniently lets you enter all of the information it needs at once, and skips most (if not all) of the descriptive stuff in between. For example, to quickly join conference 1 and not see the conference banner, you would type: J;1;Q and PCBoard would figure out what you want, then do it. Stacked commands are separated by a semicolon, as shown above. In versions 11 and 12 of PCBoard, you can stack responses to any board command. If you mess up, or if PCBoard cannot figure out what you want to do, it will simply fuss at you (display an error message) and display the appropriate prompt. Version 10 does not know about command stacking, and will ignore your attempts to stack commands. At several places (such as logging on, and joining a conference) you can skip informational banners by appending a ";Q" to the command. This stands for Quick. Some versions (such as version 10 of PCBoard) and some boards respond to the "Q" and some don't - the only way to find out is to try it. PCBoard STRUCTURE Before we go any further, let me describe how most BBS are organized. They consist of two main parts: the message area, and the files area. The message area is where you can read messages left by other people, and leave messages to them. The files area is where you can acquire ("download") files which the sysop or other people have left, and you can leave files you would like to share with others ("upload"). When you first log on to a BBS you are generally in what is called the "Main Board Area." This is where most of the general purpose messages and files are for a given BBS. Within each BBS is generally a bunch of "mini" BBSs, called conferences. Each conference has a completely separate set of messages, and can also have different files available than are available on the main board. Conferences are generally segregated into "special interest groups," and are where people with similar interests gather to talk about those interests. For the most part, each conference works exactly like the main board. WARNING: Some PCBoard configurations remember what conference you were in when you last logged off the system, and will automatically put you back there when you logon again. Be aware when this happens, and don't let it confuse you. Generally it is good practice to return to the main board area before you logoff from a system. I'm not going to talk too much about the files area. I'll save it for a future tutorial. READING MESSAGES There are lots of ways to read messages using PCBOARD, but we will cover a few of the most common. All message read commands are entered from the Command? prompt. The exact wording of this prompt may change from board to board, or from conference to conference, but will always say Command? at the end. To read all of the mail entered since you last read mail, enter the following command: R;S which means Read Since last on. If you want to read all of the messages without stopping between messages, enter: R;S;NS Note that PCBoard will also take a "*" instead of the "S" in the Read Since command. This is because an older BBS system called RBBS used the star instead of the "S" and PCBoard wanted to stay compatible. If you only want to read new mail addressed to you, the following command will do the trick: R;S;Y and to inhibit pauses, R;S;Y;NS SCANNING MESSAGES You can also scan new messages, instead of reading them. Scanning a message tells you who it is from, who it is to, its message number, and what the subject of the message is. This command is sometimes useful on very busy boards where you do not want to read all of the messages, only selected ones. The command to scan new messages is: Q;S or to get them without pauses between screens: Q;S;NS ENTERING MESSAGES There are two ways to enter a message in PCBoard. One way is to respond to an already existing message. The other way is to enter a new message. They work only slightly differently. To respond to a message, first you must read the message. For example, to respond to a message number 123 you would enter: R;123 and wait for the message to end. At the end of the message will be a prompt something like this: More: [Y], [N], [NS], [T], [#], [+], [-], [RE], [K]? Respond to this prompt by entering "RE" (for REply). You will then get the following prompt: Security: (G), (R), (S), (H), (Enter)=none? This prompt asks you to tell PCBoard who will be allowed to see the message. IMPORTANT NOTE: NO MATTER WHAT YOU PUT HERE, THE SYSOP AND ANYBODY ELSE WITH SYSOP PRIVILEGES WILL BE ABLE TO READ YOUR MESSAGE. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A TRULY PRIVATE MESSAGE IN PCBOARD. DO NOT EVER PUT ANYTHING IN A MESSAGE WHICH YOU WOULD UPSET YOU IF IT BECAME PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE. Only two of the security options should be used most of the time. Just pressing enter will place no security on the message, that is, anybody can read it. Typing an "R" for security will mean that (in addition to the sysop) that only the person to whom the message is addressed can read it (called Receiver only). The other two security options are for strange circumstances and are of no interest to most users. Next, you will see some lines printed which look like this: Enter your text. (Enter) alone to end. (72 chars/line, 99 lines max.) (-------------------------------------------------------------------) 1: This is where you will enter the text of your message. Note that at the top the system tells you how many characters per line, and how many lines long the system will allow the message to be. Enter the message and do not worry about line endings: PCBoard will "word wrap" the end of the line for you (that is, if you try to go beyond 72 characters, PCBoard will take the word you are typing and move it to the next line). A quick note about etiquette. It is generally considered bad form, and sometimes rather rude to enter a message in all upper case. You should enter messages in mixed case, just like you were typing a letter. Reading a message written in upper case only is like listening to a person who is shouting at you. If you enter a message in all upper case, do not be surprised if a few people mention to you (sometimes using strong language) that you should use mixed case. To tell PCBoard that you are done with your message, press return (or enter) at the beginning of a new line. (Note that if you want a line which looks blank in the message, you must enter a few spaces at the beginning of the line to keep PCBoard from thinking you are done entering your message). At this point you will get a prompt which looks like this: Command: (A), (C), (D), (E), (H), (I), (L), (S)? Now you have a lot of options available. Briefly, some of the more interesting ones are: S = save the message A = Abort the message (discard everything you have entered in this message) C = Continue entering the message where you left off (in case you entered a blank line by accident) D = Delete a line of the message (eg. D;4 would delete the fourth line) E = Edit a line (more on this in a moment) I = Insert a line in the middle of your message L = List the message (handy to see if it went in they way you want, and to get line numbers for editing). Most of the time you will enter "S" and your message will be saved. Some light editing can be done with the editing commands available on PCBoard. Most of them are self explanatory. One which is rather strange however is the Edit "E" command. To use the Edit command, enter the command and the line number you want to edit. For example, to edit text on line 5 enter: E;5 Something like the following will be displayed: (--------------------------------------------------------------------) 50: Carl Marx. Time and time again, history has demonstrated that it Enter (Oldtext;Newtext) or (Enter) alone for `no change'. ? Note that the line you want to edit is displayed. At the question mark prompt enter the part of the line you want to change, then a semicolon and the text you want to replace it with. DO NOT PUT IN EXTRA SPACES, AND TYPE EVERYTHING IN THE PROPER CASE (upper or lower) as anything you enter will be entered in the message exactly as you type it. For example, let's correct the spelling of Karl Marx's name. The following command would be entered: Carl;Karl and the system would respond so: (--------------------------------------------------------------------) 50: Karl Marx. Time and time again, history has demonstrated that it Enter (Oldtext;Newtext) or (Enter) alone for `no change'. ? At this point we are done, so just press return or enter, to return you to the "Command:" prompt. To enter a new message you use almost the same process, only the beginning works a little differently. From the main "Command?" prompt, enter an "E" command. You will then get a prompt like this: (-------------------------) To (Enter)=all? Enter the person to whom you want to address the message, or just hit enter (or return) to address it to everybody. Note that the system operator can be addressed as SYSOP or by his/her real name (most people use SYSOP). Next you will get a prompt like this: Subject:? Enter a brief description of the subject of the message (20 characters or so). Next you will get the "Security?" prompt, and from here on entering a new message works just like replying to a message. READING BULLETINS Just about every BBS has some informative information that the sysop would like you to read occasionally. This information is placed in the "Bulletin" area of the board. Note that each conference can have its own bulletins. To read bulletins, enter a "B" (for Bulletin) at the "Command?" prompt. A list of the available bulletins will be displayed. Simply enter the number of the bulletin you want to read. If you want to read several, you can do so by entering all of the bulletin numbers you are interested in, separated by semicolons. For example, to read bulletins 1, 3, 5 and 9, enter: 1;3;5;9 and all four bulletins will be displayed for you. LEAVING A CONFERENCE To leave a conference, type an "A" (for Abandon) at the "Command?" prompt. This will return you to the main board area. LOGGING OFF To exit PCBoard, simply enter a "G" (for Goodbye) at the "Command?" prompt. The system will (usually) display a goodbye banner, tell you how long you were connected to the system, then hang up the phone. Remember that you should do this from the main board only. It is very bad manners not to log off of a system properly (for instance, just hanging up the phone, or turning off your computer). Some sysops get very upset at people who do not log off properly, and will remove your access from the system if you do it on a regular basis. There you have it. Enjoy the world of Electronic Bulletin Boards! Tom Wiencko (11/28/87) The preceding document is hereby released to the public domain. Sysops are encouraged to make this a bulletin in their system for the education of new users.