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Text File
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1990-12-26
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4KB
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199 lines
THE BBS HUNTER VERSION 1.6
So you've been looking for a program that can run in a doorway that
allows your callers to search for a BBS without having to call a million
of them from an ascii list? Here's your answer. The BBS Hunter was
programmed to allow callers to your board to enter a doorway or access
whatever you might have, and to enter or list their favorite boards or
search for new ones they have not tried.
If you have an IBM or IBM clone with a BBS that allows callers to
access interactive programs, then you've got what it takes. Simply install
the "BBS.exe", and the "bbslist.dbf" files, configure the doorway, and
your done! Your callers can enter the doorway that selects and runs "BBS"
which looks to the database of "BBSLIST.dbf" and they then can select
colors (if you have a color system), search the current database by a
number of criterion, get an ascii dump of the whole or part of the
database, or enter their favorite boards with an edit capability not in
previous versions.
You may wish to edit the database yourself. The "BBSLIST.dbf" is a
standard DBASE database and you can use DBASE or any other database
manager to edit it. Note that you should study the database structure
first to see what information corresponds to what fields. Running the
"BBS.exe" file and adding a record is probably a good idea to give you
some sense of what information is entered and where it goes in the
database field structure. If you don't have a database management program
capable of accessing the ".dbf" file, then use the "BBSEDIT.exe" file
which has been written to allow sysops to edit the database, append new
records from the databases of other sysops and to delete records with no
name of a BBS in them. Please do not allow your callers access to the
"BBSEDIT.exe" file since they could do some serious damage to your
database. I have it in the same sub-directory as my "BBS.exe" file, but
the callers can only access the "BBS.exe" file and the associated database
because of the doorway configuration.
If you are going to run the "BBSEDIT.exe" file and want to append new
records from another sysop who has shared their database with you, then
simply rename the database you received to "Source.dbf and place it in the
same sub-directory with "bbslist.DBF" AND "bbsedit.EXE", and type
"bbsedit" at the command line. You will edit your records (if you choose
to) and then append the new records from the other database provided by
the other sysop. "BBSEDIT.exe" will even erase the "source.dbf" file given
you by the other sysop once the new records have been appended. Note that
matches between the two databases will cause the code to move on without
appending a duplicate record.
The program was written to make life better for the sysop and the
caller. It can run stand alone, but I can't think of much reason to do
that, unless you want to generate ascii lists for friends. The ascii lists
would be very complete in having all the information.
As the author of the program, I can tell you that the program has
worked fine for me and ought to do the same for you. I do not take any
responsibility for any consequences of it's use, but I really don't think
you'll have any problems with it. You can call area code (617) 451-5327
(8,n,1) to reach the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind BBS and leave
a comment for the sysop if you have any problems. Also you can call there
for any upgrades. All you do is register your BBS in doorway #21 and once
you are back at the main menu, leave a comment to the sysop that you are a
visiting sysip and I'll upgrade your security to the level necessary to
download the files with a ".zis"extension. The BBS Hunter upgrades will be
available with that extension and you simply rename the file from ".zis"
to ".zip" when you've finished the download. Please be sure to not copy
over your existing "BBSLIST.dbf" file when you unzip the new upgrade!
Good luck and I hope this somewhat wordy documentation file has been
of some help to you.
Charles H. Crawford:
Sysop - MCB BBS.