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BACKMAIL TM USERS MANUAL ││││││││ ││││││││ │││││││└───┘│││││││ ││││││└──┬──┘││││││ │││││└──┐│┌──┘│││││ ││││└──┐│││┌──┘││││ │││└──┐│││││┌──┘│││ ││└──┐│││││││┌──┘││ │└──┐│││││││││┌──┘│ └───┘│││││││││└───┘ Alethic Software Inc. 2337 Princess Place Halifax, N.S. B3K 4K5 Voice (902) 423-9860 Version 1.0 Copyright (c) 1987, Alethic Inc. All rights reserved 1 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..........................................3 Why register?............................................4 So.......................................................5 THE PACKAGE..............................................6 INSTALLATION.............................................6 CONFIG.SYS...............................................6 CONNECTING YOUR MODEM....................................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..................12 Selecting a function....................................13 Removing BackMail from memory...........................13 Suspending BackMail.....................................13 USING OTHER COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAMS.....................13 Running unattended......................................14 Send a message..........................................14 The BackMail Message Editor.............................15 How long can messages be?...............................15 Subject Line............................................15 Addressing your mail....................................16 Mass Mailings...........................................17 Suspending Destinations.................................17 When you have addressed your mail.......................17 ABORTING THE MESSAGE....................................17 Read New MAIL...........................................18 RECEIVED FILES..........................................18 Incoming Messages.......................................19 REPLYING TO MESSAGES....................................19 FORWARDING MESSAGES.....................................20 Marking messages as Read or unread......................20 SEND A FILE.............................................21 File Size...............................................22 ADDRESSING A FILE.......................................22 SUSPENDING DESTINATIONS.................................22 DIsplay Status..........................................23 STATUS REPORTS..........................................23 Special Status messages.................................24 Suspending Destinations.................................24 MAINTAIN incoming MAIL..................................25 Mailbox Maintenance.....................................25 MAINTAINING INMail......................................25 Deleting Mail...........................................26 APPENDING messages to files.............................26 MAINTAIN outgoing MAIL..................................27 APPENDING TO FILE.......................................28 READDRESSING OUTGOING MAIL..............................28 Maintaining while Online................................28 2 Update Phone Directory..................................29 Voice and Data Numbers..................................29 Directory Listing.......................................29 DELETING PHONE DIRECTORY ENTRIES........................30 Adding a new BackMail Destination.......................31 Name....................................................31 Prefix Names and Prefix Numbers.........................31 Voice Phone Number......................................32 EXTENSIONs..............................................32 Does This destination have a BackMail?..................33 HANDLE..................................................33 Priority ..............................................33 Availability Times......................................34 MAXIMUM RETRYS..........................................34 Accept return MAIL ....................................35 CHange Setup............................................36 Availability time.......................................36 Notification............................................38 Lag Time................................................38 cclock Display..........................................39 Letter Head.............................................39 wait for dial tone......................................39 DIGIT MUSIC WARNING.....................................40 Phone PrefixEs..........................................40 Phone dialing mode......................................41 Screen Retrace Handling.................................41 Hot keys................................................42 TechnicIAN Settings.....................................42 Phone Number............................................42 Save Setup..............................................43 VOICE CALLS.............................................44 PLACING A CALL..........................................44 Using the phone directory...............................44 Dial it yourself........................................44 Adding a number to your phone directory.................45 Only Connect............................................46 If BackMail is using the phone..........................46 when you've finished your call..........................47 Receiving voice calls...................................47 From the caller's point of view.........................48 Trouble Shooting........................................50 DESIGNERS NOTE..........................................50 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. 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. 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. 4 If you wish to register just respond to the prompt by hitting F1. 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. 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. 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. 5 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. 6 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 MODEMS.TXT.....Information on customizing the software for your modem INSTALLATION To install BackMail it is necessary to run: BMCONFIG.COM It will lead you through the steps required to install BackMail. 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". 7 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. ┌──────────┐ ┌───┤Telephone │ │ └──────────┘ ┌───────┐ ┌───────┐ │ │Phone │ │Line ├───┤ │ Jack ├──┤Spliter│ │ ┌─────┐ ┌──────────┐ │ │ │ │ └───┤Modem├───┤Computer │ └───────┘ └───────┘ └─────┘ └──────────┘ 8 BMCONFIG.COM You should run the BMCONFIG problem before you first run BackMail. It sets some of the basic operating parameters of the program. Because BMCONFIG nees to alter your BGROUND.COM, BMCONFIG will not operate if Backmail is running. BMCONFIG alters the followin parameters. COMMUNICATIONS PORT Permissable values are COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4. Note that if you are running on COM3 or COM4, BackMail assumes the following interrupt levels. COM3 IRQ4 COM4 IRQ3 You should insure that the jumpers on your modem are set appropriately for these values. ANSWER BAUD RATE AND CALL BAUD RATE These are the Baud Rates BackMail will use in answering and calling. Normally you will want to set both of these to the maximum baud rate your modem can sustain. However there are some cases (involving old or unreliable modems) in which you may find it useful to set these to different values. COLORS Selecting this setting will allow you to set the the colors of BackMails display to values that best suit your monitor. BACKMAIL AUXILIARY FILES This is the directory which Backmail will use for its INMAIL, OUTMAIL, PHONE files as well as a SWAP file (used when BM must store memory in RAM before coming into the foreground). The default is "C:\BACKMAIL\", but you can change this. BMCONFIG will create the directory you name here if it does not already exist. INCOMING FILE DIRECTORY This is the directory which BackMail will use to store incoming files. Note that if you recieve a file with the same name as one already in this directory the existing file will get overwritten. That is why you should use a seperate directory for incoming files. The default is "C:\BACKMAIL\TRANSFER". BMCONFIG will create the directory you name here if it does not already exist. 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. 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. 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:\BACKTALK\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. 1.0 Serial 010-11010111 │ │ Copyright (C) 1988 Alethic Inc │ ├────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Inbound: 10 messages, 1 unread │ │ Outbound: 2 destinations, 1 unreached │ │ Modem speed: 1200 Disk free space: 1050K │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 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. 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 │ ║ ║ └────────────────────────┘ ║ ╚═════════════════════════ 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. 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 ─┘ 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 BackTalk 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. 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. UNSUSPENDING will re-initialize you Modem to operate with BackMail. 14 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. 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. 15 THE BACKMAIL MESSAGE EDITOR The editor is not a fullfledged 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. 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 ─┘ or Esc when you have finished entering your subject line. The subject line will identify the subject of your message to your destination. 16 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. 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 ─┘. 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 ─┘ beside a selected destination unselects it so that mail will not be sent to that destination. 17 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 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. 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. 18 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 ─┘ Hit F1. BackMail will show you all your unread messages in sequence. 19 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? ║ 20 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. 21 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 ─┘ 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 ─┘ for a selected SUBDIRECTORY will give you a listing of that directory. F2 will return you to your root directory. ─┘ for a file will select that file to be sent. Selected files appear Highlighted with a '' mark beside them. ─┘ 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. 22 ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │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 that destination will not be BackMailed until you remove the suspension. 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. 23 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 attempts.<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. 24 You have been exchanging a lot of mail with a different HIGH PRIORITY destination and BackMail has not found time to send this destination. 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. 25 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. Moving the cursor bar to select a message, you can... ─┘ By hitting ─┘ 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. 26 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 ─┘. 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. 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. 27 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... ─┘ By hitting ─┘ 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. 28 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. 29 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 you 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 ═══════╝ Note that some entries bear an mark "" which indicate that they are high priority destinations. The "" mark indicates that you will not accept return mail from these destinations. 30 Use the arrow keys to scroll the cursor bar to scroll through the list. ─┘ 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: 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. 31 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. 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 ─┘ 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. 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. 32 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. 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 ─┘. 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. 33 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 ─┘. 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. 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. 34 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 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. 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. 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. 35 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 ─┘. The field will change to "When calling, will not accept return mail". 36 CHANGE SETUP ╔═════ Setup Menu ════════╗ ║ Availability Time ║ ║ Notification ║ ║ Lag Time ║ ║ Clock Display ║ ║ Letterhead ║ ║ Phone 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 ─┘ 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: _ │ │ │ 37 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). 38 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. 39 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. 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. Experimentation may well be required and your hands could get quite dirty. 40 DIGIT MUSIC WARNING When this function is selected, BackMail will not turn on its carrier as soon as it picks up the phone. Instead it first checks to see if you are running in Attended Mode and if you are it plays a short touch tone tune to warn any voice callers that a carrier is about to start but to also tell them that you are in attendance and will answer the phone as soon as your BackMail recognizes their call as a voice call. Note that you may have to alter your Tech Settings (See below) to produce this effect on your modem and that your lag time may have to be increased. PHONE PREFIXES ┌─── Phone Prefixes───────┐ │ Intern <internal> │ │ Local 9, │ │ Long 9,1 + area code │ │ *unset │ │ *unset │ │ *unset │ │ *unset │ │ *unset │ └─────────────────────────┘ This function allows you to set the dialing prefixes BackMail uses to place its calls. 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. 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 ─┘ 41 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 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. Other miscellaneous punctuation and spacing will be ignored. │ │Enter new prefix digits (Max 20) or enter ─┘ to leave unchanged:│ │ 434-9971,,, T87654_ │ Finally, you indicate the type of prefix this is. If it is a long-distance prefix, the area code of the destination number should be dialed when this prefix is used. If it is an internal prefix, the extension number (if any) will be used instead of the full phone number, or we will just dial the last four digits of the phone number, after we have dialed the prefix. Otherwise, it will dial the prefix and the seven digit number. │What type of prefix is this: (N)ormal, (L)ong distance, or │ │(I)nternal ? _ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ If the number is a long distance prefix the area code of the number will be included in the dial out. 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. 42 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. ─┘ 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. 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 ─┘. 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 a complete description of the Technical Settings. Technician Settings are important for customizing BackMail to run your modem. Details for customizing your modem can be found in Appendix B of the printed manual or in a file called "MODEMS.TXT" on your distribution diskette. 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. 43 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. 44 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 return 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 ─┘ to dial the selected number.The End key takes you to the bottom of the directory, Home to the top. DIAL IT YOURSELF If you want to dial a number which is not in your directory, hit the space bar. You can then use your keypad to enter your call. 45 ┌───────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Enter number to dial. +, - change prefix,│ │ ──┘ when complete, │ │ <Esc> to exit without dialling: │ │ Local _ │ └──────NumLock──────────────────────────────┘ ─┘ 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 ─┘. The Backspace key will delete the last character you entered. 46 ONLY 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] ? _║ ╚═══════════════════════════════════════╝ 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. 47 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 ║ ╚═══════════════════════════╝ 48 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 What someone will hear when they voice-call your BackMail will depend upon whether you are using the DIGIT TONE MUSIC function from CHANGE SETUP. When this function is set and you are in ATTENDED (see the entry for MAIN MENU) then BackMail will pick up the phone and play a short string of touch tone digits to the caller. This "music" fulfills two functions: It warns voice callers that a carrier is about to start. It lets voice callers know that your BackMail is ATTENDED and that you will be answering the phone as soon as BackMail notifies you of the voice call. As a courtesy to people making voice calls, you should place BackMail in unattended mode when you aren't going to be around to answer the phone. You can do this by calling up the main menu and pressing 'U' If you do not have DIGIT TONE MUSIC turned on then BackMail will turn on its carrier as soon as it picks up the phone. Obviously the Music option is preferable but note that whether and how your modem will deal with this option is highly modem specific. You may have to alter your TECH SETTINGS under CHANGE SETUP to get this function to perform properly. Whether or not they hear the digit tone music, first, 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. 49 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 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: ╔═══ 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. 50 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 be calling each other at exactly the right time. I'm using DIGIT TONE MUSIC and I seem to send messages OK. But people can't seem deliver their mail to me. See the entry under MODEM ANSWER SEQUENCE change setup. 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) 51 If the DIP switches are set correctly but the problem still persists you should 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. Graphics screens are not restored after "You have New Mail" and "Voice Call Messages" pop up Several steps may be helpful. See the notes concerning TECH 73 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 ─┘ will usually fix this. (Granted this may be awkward if you have opted for the "convenience" of an internal modem.) 52 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 trys 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" feature or it does so in a nonstandard way. Check your Tech 16 setting against your modem manual. 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. The simple way to cure this is to change the TECH 75 setting in TECHNICHIAN SETTINGS 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" 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 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 (most likely a conflict with another resident program) has garbled your mail box file . 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. 53 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. 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 BMINST. 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. 54 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. 55 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: TECH 0 - 15: MODEM COMMAND STRINGS 0: The modem attention string. This defaults to 'AT'. 1: The string to hang up the phone line. This defaults to H0. 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=6 ', for 6/10 second. 56 3: The string used for internal modems, without DIP switches, to enable Carrier Detect and to set the modem to hang up on a DTR on/off transition. This Defaults to '&C1&D2'. If your modem does not respont to "&" commands you may blank this string out to make the reset of your modem more efficient. 4: The string used to enable extended response codes when dialing out. The default is set to 'X1' to enable standard codes 0-5. However if your modem sustains other settings you can alter this to enable no dial tone and busy detect responses. 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 send only numeric return codes and not to echo command lines. This defaults to 'Q0V0E0'. 8: The string that disables auto-answer. This defaults to 'S0=0 '. Note that BackMail must run with auto answer disabled. 9: The string that sets how long we wait for carrier after either dialing out or answering the phone. This defaults to 'S9=60' for 60 seconds. Backmail will hang up sooner if busy detect is enabled. 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 ';' 57 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. TECH 18 - 19 : PHONE ANSWER STRINGS. These are strings used to pick up your phone and start the carrier. They are sent to the modem every time BackMail answers the phone. The default is to have these values blank. BackMail will answer the phone by sending 'ATA' (Tech 0 + Tech 1). When a voice caller calls they will hear a carrier until you pick up the phone in response to a "VOICE CALL DETECTED" message. However with a little bit of customization you can do better than this. If you change turn the DIGIT MUSIC WARNING function on from CHANGE SETUP, you can play a brief phone tone tune to your caller to let him know that you are in ATTENDED mode and that you will answer the phone as soon as your BackMail identifies his call as a voice call. Almost all modems can be made to do this but exactly what works depends upon your modem. The default values for this function are: Tech 18: 090909 Tech 19: R Now when you are in attended mode BackMail will pick up the phone play the tones in Tech 18 then send the string in Tech 19. The voice caller will hear the burble of 909090, (you may want to compose your own 'tone poem') giving him warning that a carrier is on its way and telling him that someone is there to answer the phone. Then Tech 19 will start the carrier. However, some modems won't behave properly with to this Tech 19 setting. You can test your answering mode by listening to it on the phone when BackMail answers a call (when you are in attended mode). If you hear the burble and then hear the carrier start, then all is well. If the carrier doesn't start, try changing TECH 19 to: TECH 19: ;ATA 58 And that should do the trick. If this doesn't work, then turn the DIGIT TONE WARNING function off. You can alter the speed of digit tune by altering Tech 20 Tech 20: String to set the speed of tone dialing. Default value 'S11= 80'. 59 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 ─┘ several times to get the modem to respond, try increasing this value. 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. 60 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 4.0. Install a TSR which peaks at the keyboard buffer. With this feature running you may sometimes see keys from BACKMAIL "fall through" into your foreground process. Setting TECH 75 to "1" (the default is "0") will cure this problem. Note though that making this change may produce problems with other TSRs with which BackMail is normally compatible 61 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. 62 1