Night Owl 6/Night Owl's Shareware - PDSI-006 - Night Owl Corp (1990).iso/001a/ezzcomm.zip/README.1ST

Text File | 1991-02-16 | 16KB | 279 lines

EZ-ZCOMM  Copyright 1991  by  Roger  E.  Hough,  All  Rights  Reserved.
Licensed for  use at your own  risk without fee. Altered versions, when
distributed, must  be clearly marked  as altered and accompanied by the
originals.


                                Welcome

There  is,  of  course, nothing  magical  about  using a modem. With  a
trivial BASIC program to echo what you  type to the modem and echo what
the modem  types  to  you, and  with ANSI.SYS(part of  MS- and  PC-DOS)
loaded, you may  set your own baud  rate, type in your  own modem  init
strings, type your own modem dialing commands to call  bulletin boards,
and enjoy the world of electronic messages and ANSI colors. The fastest
possible  file  transfer  for compressed  archives  is  accomplished by
simply sending  each byte  one-by-one  to your modem  or receiving each
byte  one-by-one from your modem.  Detecting  and correcting  errors in
transmission and  sending  or receiving  more than  one  file  within a
session require something a bit more sophisticated, however.

With nothing more than  DSZ and with ANSI.SYS loaded, you may also type
your own  modem init strings,  type  your own modem dialing commands to
call  bulletin  boards,  enjoy  the world of electronic messages,  ANSI
colors, and file transfer with error  detection and correction  that is
among the best on  the planet. With a simple BAT file, you can exit DSZ
and  re-invoke it  for  each file or  batch of  files transferred, then
re-invoke it as a simple terminal emulator.

Eventually, the novelty of this will wear  off, the  thrill of watching
it will subside, the  task of keeping track of passwords  will become a
bother, and  the fear  of having  one's keyboard reprogrammed  by  ANSI
sequences from elsewhere will begin  to  take  hold. Using ZANSI.SYS in
place  of  ANSI.SYS will eliminate the  anxiety  about having innocuous
keys on  your keyboard being  converted into instruments of destruction
and the  thrill of  this discovery may postpone the inevitable, but the
lack of automation will eventually become tiresome.

You may  elect  to  purchase  a program which  attempts  to retain your
waning attention by turning modem sessions into video arcade games with
lots of button-pressing, colorful screens, and  sound effects. It might
even be so helpful as to remember your password for each bulletin board
and  present it when you press the proper key. In an attempt to prolong
your use of  it, the documentation for  such a program may  obscure the
fact  that  your  are  at  least  as  capable  of  entering  the  modem
initialization  and modem  dialing commands  as  is the program. It may
provide  file transfer capabilities, although  these  are  unlikely  to
serve you was well as the ones in DSZ. It may display its cleverness by
accessing your  harddisk in strange and unusual ways, and your harddisk
may even survive such encounters.

You may elect  to  employ  an  offline reader. This will do  nothing to
remove the drudgery of file transfer, but it will capture messages with
little intervention. It  may download these messages in an undocumented
format. This format may contain a lot of redundant control information,
the transfer  of which may prolong the  length of your sessions. It may
be difficult to use the  same offline reader for more than one bulletin
board. Its documentation may  obscure the simplicity of converting  its
format  back  to  a 'flat'  text  file to be viewed with  your favorite
'browse' or 'edit' program.

If all of the conferences and files  in which you are interested can be
accessed through a  network,  if  all  of the system operators  of  the
boards you use  can be persuaded to set aside half a meg of  disk space
in which to  save  your  messages  for  pickup, if  they trust  you  to
configure your message bases correctly so as not to confuse theirs, and
if they don't mind entering  file descriptions themselves for files you
send them through a  network,  you may become a 'point' in the network.
Very  few system operators will trust someone who is a  'point' on  one
board  to become  a  'point'  on  another board,  since  the  slightest
miscalculation in the user's setup will throw the message databases for
both boards into complete disarray.

You may be ready for ZCOMM or Pro-Yam. This  isn't to say that you need
to reach either of them through such a roundabout route. Both are quite
willing to let you type your own init strings  and dialing commands and
set your own serial  port speed.  Both  support the  same file transfer
commands as DSZ, although they know a lot of others. The transfer is as
reliable as DSZ, although it supports slightly faster port speeds. Both
provide what  may be the fastest ANSI interpretation anywhere, and both
allow you  to ignore any attempts to redefine your keyboard. Both  have
extremely  powerful  command  languages  which  can create  displays as
colorfully as you desire, although their author  may groan and roll his
eyes to hear of their being used to create a video arcade game.

What should  a Comm  program do? I have my own ideas. It should save me
the  expense of another  phone line, by using mine  when I'm asleep. It
should maintain files of messages from each conference on each BBS.  It
should enter  messages for  each conference  of each BBS, each  message
represented by a  file in  a  DOS(or  MOS or unix) directory. It should
maintain local listings  of files on each BBS, computing the age of the
most recent listing on every session and obtaining a new listing if the
age is more than a specified number of days. It should accept a list of
files to be  uploaded  and  a  list of  files  to be  downloaded  using
whatever protocol is known at each BBS.

I normally  keep quiet  when confronted  with others  boasting of their
latest discovery in  Comm gadgetry. I have my own  version of Qmail and
RoboComm: ZCOMM script files.  I can  only work on them as time allows,
but they do all that I've described with PCBoard from release 10 to the
present, with  RBBS, with Wildcat,  and with Forum-PC, including SMLNET
doors and such.

Can this  be  done  with  Procomm?  Boyan?  Qmodem?  Telix? Not  to  my
knowledge. I don't know of  any way to compute the  age of a file using
those Comm packages, nor to control session capture files to the degree
required for this, nor to execute a  script  within a  script for  each
file found using a given filespec, nor to extract  key information from
various prompts and use it in arithmetic calculations.

The manual available to you before registering is not very legible. The
manual you  get  when  you  register is  much better,  and  I  strongly
recommend getting the crib sheet. A better 'starter set' of scripts for
ZCOMM would make it much more popular. It's taken me a while to develop
mine.

Here they  are. I call  them  'EZZCOMM,'  since  they  are  intended to
simplify  working with ZCOMM  or Pro-Yam.  Obtain  a  copy of ZCOMM  or
Pro-Yam  no earlier than  version  17.63, and hopefully  as  recent  as
17.71.  Place  ZCOMM.EXE(for  ZCOMM)  and YHP.EXE  into your DOS  path.
Create an empty DOS directory; any name will do. Unpack everything from
this  archive  into  it.  Place  'ZMANH.HLP'  from  ZCOMMHLP  into this
directory, also.

The master phone  directory I've provided is 'phodir.t', which includes
a lot of numbers local to the 914 area code which you'll need to either
remove or add the area code for. I've left them in to serve as examples
of what to  expect. The location of  the  master phone directory may be
set  as part of registering  ZCOMM or Pro-Yam, or may be established by
setting the  environment variable  PHONES  in  your  AUTOEXEC.BAT.  Use
forward  slashes rather than backward  slashes as path delimiters.  For
example,

SET PHONES=C:/ZC/PHODIR.T

The 'phodir.t' master phone directory  expects to find the other  files
from  this package in the same directory as  itself. Once this location
has been established and the executable files are in your DOS path, you
may invoke ZCOMM  or Pro-Yam from anywhere, without regard to a current
drive letter or directory name. The  'phodir.t' master  phone directory
will establish a  menu from  which  to  reach the other files from this
package.

The  environmental variable ZCUSER must be  set to  identify you.  Your
name,  setup  and passwords can then be kept  separate  from  those  of
anyone  else who  uses the  same  machine, so long  as they set  ZCUSER
differently. To set ZCUSER, issue the following  command  from the  DOS
prompt or put it in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file:

SET ZCUSER=whatever

What you put  in  place of 'whatever' must be no more than 8 characters
long and contain no special characters. It should be meaningful to you.
ZCUSER is used to establish two files within the same directory as that
in   which   the  the  'phodir.t'   master  phone  directory   resides.
'<ZCUSER>.USR' holds  configuration  information. '<ZCUSER>.IDS'  holds
passwords and user IDs.

If 'COM1' is  not the port to which your modem is configured, issue the
following command  from your  AUTOEXEC.BAT or the batch file from which
ZCOMM or Pro-YAM is invoked:

SET DPORT=whatever

What you  put  in place  of  'whatever'  should be the  COM port number
without the  characters 'COM'. For  microchannel  machines, a two digit
code may be needed, such as

SET DPORT=12

to select COM2 on IBM PS/2 microchannel machines.

Everything which must be  customized for your modem is contained in the
dial script. Anything from Novation command sets to IBM command sets to
Hayes command sets by  USR to  Hayes command sets by Hayes can be dealt
with. The file 'dialmnp.t'  is a prototype for  error correcting modems
with MNP or V.42 error correction. The file 'dialsmrt.t' is a prototype
for modems which do not have error correction. The file 'dial5853.t' is
for the IBM 5853, using  the IBM command  set. The file 'dialdual.t' is
for  the USR HST Dual Standard with V.32bis and V.42bis; it should work
with very little alteration for the USR HST. At the top of each file is
the  dialing logic  itself. Below this, with a label  of 'init', is the
initialization  logic  invoked  when  ZCOMM/Pro-Yam  begins.  Copy  the
appropriate  script  to   'dialcom1.t'   for  use  with   COM1,  or  to
'dialcom2.t' for use  with COM2, and  so  forth. Customize  the file as
indicated in the guidelines given at the bottom of the prototype, using
the commands appropriate for your modem.

Time taken to do this properly is time very well spent.

It  is my  understanding that these guidelines apply to virtually every
high-speed  communications  program,  whether  a  terminal  program  or
front-end  mailer. ZCOMM  is at  least  as capable  as any  other  such
program  of  dealing with deviations from these guidelines, but  it  is
important to do as well as possible.

I've included  PCB2LOG,  QWK2LOG and  SML2LOG,  which  toss  downloaded
messages into  appropriate log files that you  may then  view with your
favorite browse program  or editor.  Move PCB2LOG.EXE, QWK2LOG.EXE, and
SML2LOG.EXE into your DOS path. Type PCB2LOG or QWK2LOG or SML2LOG with
no arguments for a quick description of the command line needed to make
them work. PCB2LOG requires  about  40K  of storage  in  which to  run,
SML2LOG  requires about 40K  of storage in  which to run,  and  QWK2LOG
requires about 72K of storage in which to run, not including the amount
consumed by the  stub of your  COMMAND.COM or whatever  other shell you
use.

I've included a simple MOVE command which should also be placed in your
DOS  path. The MOVE command I've included is a simple invokation of the
DOS rename function, used only by the F8 function to  change a password
when  logged  onto a  BBS. Type MOVE  with  no  arguments  for a  quick
description. It can  be used to move files from your new directory to a
directory in your DOS path, such as

              MOVE C:\XXXX\PCB2LOG.EXE C:\BIN\PCB2LOG.EXE

If  you  have  a better version  which  also accepts forward slashes as
directory path delimiters, feel free to use it.

The NLTRIM command I've included is a simple program to search the last
256  bytes   of   a   file  and   discard  whatever  follows  the  last
newline(linefeed) character.  It must be placed in your  DOS path. Type
NLTRIM with no arguments for a quick description.

I've included an ANSISCAN command which  should also be  placed in your
DOS  path.  Type  ANSISCAN with  no arguments for  a quick description.
ANSISCAN converts files created by the 'picture' command or  Alt-Z into
text files with ANSI control  codes. It will also re-scan existing text
files  with ANSI  control  codes. It is intended to select ANSI control
codes  which  will  render the desired  screen  image  with  the widest
variety of ANSI  interpretation, but the output is usually more concise
than  that of  other systems, so it's likely to become known as an ANSI
optimizer. ANSISCAN requires about 50K  of storage in which to run, not
including  the  amount  consumed  by the stub  of  your COMMAND.COM  or
whatever other shell you use.

PKUNZIP must be somewhere in your DOS path as well, since it is used to
unpack compressed mail from  PCBoard Version 14.5 or later, from Tomcat
and Qmail and their cousins, and from SMLNET.

ANSI.SYS  or an equivalent must be loaded before  using  ANSISCAN. This
would  be DVANSI.COM or  an  equivalent  under Desqview.  ANSI.SYS  (or
whatever) serves two  purposes. First, it  interprets a text file to be
re-scanned.  Some  text  files  are  specific  to  an  individual  ANSI
interpreter,  so  it's up to you to find the one  which  your text file
works with. Second, it interprets the composed text being echoed to the
screen, to give you a quick glimpse of what ANSISCAN has done for you.

For SMLNET or QMAIL, you'll have to compose your own script, <board>.t,
to enter the SMLNET  or TOMCAT  or  whatever door, before  invoking the
'smlnet.t' or  'tomcat.t' as I've  provided  them. For Tomcat or Qmail,
configure  the door  to download  your own  messages, so you'll have  a
record of what you've sent. Any time spent downloading bulletins or new
file listings will be time wasted.

All  of  this is provided without warranty of any  kind whatsoever. You
may use it at  your  own risk and  accept  responsibility  for whatever
happens, or you may not  use it.  These scripts have been tested on  an
unregistered copy of ZCOMM 17.71.  The scripts in the initial setup all
indicate  which  options  may be used only with  registered versions of
ZCOMM.

I have not  included  anything  to compose messages to be uploaded. You
must  be a registered ZCOMM or  Pro-Yam user to use this  function. Any
text editor will do. A  maximum line  width of 71 characters works well
with  just about  every  form  of BBS software available. Look  in  the
comments at the start of the appropriate script file and you'll find  a
description  of  the  first  line  or  two  required  to  identify  the
recipient.

Whatever updates I  provide for  these scripts,  I intend to provide as
'scripts' for EDLIN. The DOS command

                      EDLIN forumpc.t <forumpc.p01

would apply an update 'forumpc.p01' to 'forumpc.t'. Such  updates  will
only apply properly to unaltered versions of these scripts.

 -- Roger E. Hough, 7 Sharon Dr, Highland, NY