Miscellaneous ramblings and a capsule review of TeleFinder, a real Macintosh communications program.
by Barry Jay Levine
If you’ve ever logged on to the command-line based bulletin board systems (BBS) —including our own Border Connection board— you are well aware of the confusion resulting from the “prompts” that attempt to “help” you decide what to do next. There are even dedicated desk accessories for BBS’s like GEnie and CompuServe with help files of arcane commands.
I don’t about you, friends, but that is certainly not the reason I bought a Macintosh. An IBM-emulator is not what I need. That, though, is the problem with BBS’s intended for a lowest common denominator of communications tool.
BBS’s such as our Border Connection operate on the principle that the largest mass of users can only help promulgate the dispersal of information. The Border Connection is a gateway to ArcNet and FidoNet; BBS’s that connect military and governmental organizations nation- and world-wide. This is good; but because such a heterogeneous collection of individuals have such diverse interests, their computers likewise are as varied —IBM doesn’t like to talk to DEC who doesn’t like to talk to an Apple II. That complication requires as simple a communications protocol as can be devised.
Simply put, these command-line based BBS’s communicate with your computer in terms of text:
“I want to send you a letter, will you let me? Yes? OK, here comes the letter ‘A’, did you receive it? What did you receive? An ‘A’. OK, let’s continue.”
This palaver uses the good old ASCII standard byte code that has been accepted for about as long as the computer has been semi-affordable to medium-size businesses.
The transfer of disk files —applications, MacPaint files, etc.— takes place using a binary method; the “zeroes and ones” that really do make up that incredible photo you downloaded of Cheryl Tiegs.
What’s that? You say you haven’t downloaded that photo? But it’s been there for at least six months! Can’t find it? Don’t know where to look? Frustrated with pretending your Mac is not a Mac? I’ll tell you how I feel about any application that attempts to remove the Macintosh Interface from my Mac: It stinks, dude, plain and simple.
I have, however, had the opportunity to utilize AppleLink, Apple’s BBS that links together every Apple user group, Apple third party vendor, and Apple itself. Imagine icons, mouse control, coherent help, and configurable preferences that, in essence, ask you which brand of crumpets you would like with your tea rather than if CTS or XON/OFF flow control is required. AppleLink is available in a “personal edition” that runs on the Apple II; the “Apple edition” is the only AppleLink option that Mac users have. You can look forward to $30 per month bills from Apple for usage of the BBS. A local access phone number in almost every city in the nation provides a non-toll phone link to AppleLink.
Also up and running on my Mac is the America Online communications package from Quantum Computer Services. Online enriches the AppleLink interface so that you almost forget that you are communicating with another computer; only your monthly usage bill will remind you; $5.95 for the first hour, $5 for each additional hour. I joined this month and received a 20% discount on the $5 add’l hourly charges for as long as I keep my membership up to date. On America Online I have found a number of interesting applications, DA’s, and other information that EPMUG and LCAUG can utilize.
So the Border Connection is free to all members. That in itself does not make it enjoyable. I want America Online but I don’t want to have a monthly usage charge. And I want it now, not “real soon now.”
I am pleased to announce that it has arrived, but there are some caveats. First, the good news: TeleFinder, from Spider Island Software, creates an interface that is so Finder-like that you’d swear you never left it. Want to download a file? No problem; just drag the icon from the TeleFinder host folder to your hard drive icon or a folder icon you have sitting on your Mac’s Desktop. Presto; downloading commences. Now, as it downloads, you can open the integral text editor and compose that memo about next month’s meeting. Need to send a disk file to another user? Just drag it to the host’s folder icon and, you guessed it, off it goes. TeleFinder even runs under Multifinder so uploading and downloading can continue in the background.
Like the idea? I’m wild about it. But, as I intimated earlier, this is not a free lunch. In order to maintain a 24 hour BBS for the members, a Macintosh (512K Enhanced or better) dedicated to being the host is required. Also a large hard drive and relatively fast modem. Probably about $1750 worth of hardware. The Telefinder software is quite reasonable: $250 for both the host software and a license for 200 users. That totals up to about $2000. If we indeed want to start a new BBS, how do we raise the capital necessary for the project without eating into our groups’ bank accounts?
I would suggest the following: Let us assess members who wished to participate a one-time $20 fee for the software license to use the TeleFinder BBS user software. As long as a member who paid the license fee for the TeleFinder software remained a member, the license would continue without additional fees. If a member did not wish to use the “Border Connection II” (if you’ll permit the christening), or preferred to use the original Border Connection BBS with his/her Red Ryder/White Knight, MicroPhone, FreeTerm, ZTerm, etc. software, no fee would be assessed.
A BBS needs a Sysop (Systems Operator) to manage the board; I will volunteer. That’s one less issue about which to worry. If you don’t already have a modem to hook your Mac to the phone line, Jack Krimmer has agreed to provide modems at bargain prices and will pay the $20 user license fee for you.
We need only sell 100 or so “user licenses” to cover the cost of the entire installation including a new dedicated phone line for the BBS.
But that raises the final caveat: If we do not or cannot place this dedicated Mac and dedicated phone line up in White Sands, we do not have the toll-free phone number from both El Paso and Las Cruces.
Where, then, do we place the phone line — in El Paso or Las Cruces? Where are there more Macintoshers who wish to participate in this venture?
