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Text File | 1996-11-13 | 26.2 KB | 479 lines

--> Maintenance Release (8a) <-- There already was an interim release 8, which had no change in release numbering. The code for this version has been lost, and I have regressed to the full release 8 code base. This release requires the EMX 0.9C runtime code. Please update your code if you receive "WARNING: This requires EMX 0.9c" when trying to start the ISCA program, or make absolutely sure you have 0.9c if you get strange and bizarre errors. * 11/13/96: Scrollback/backscroll (PgUp) removed. Far too many bugs to make this one easily maintainable. Ctrl-E debug key sequence removed, as it interferes with room moderating. For some reason, this version seems to run faster. --> Eigth release <-- * 1/11/96: Client config->Local options now contains a way to set the size of the backscroll buffer. It's set in number of lines that it will contain (maximum). Set it low to save ram, high if you don't mind chewing up your ram. Default is 10,000 which is sufficient enough to last all of my sessions. You can't set it lower than one screen length (25). The problem with having a lot of "null" lines has been mostly fixed. Let me know what problems you encounter particularly involving the backscroll. * 1/11/96: Several, Several bugs fixed in the scrollback. I think we're ready for another release. Color Scheming is still quite hosed. Use at own discretion. :-) * 12/26/95: New compilation options drop the OS/2 executable size to only 65k * 12/6/95: Old option "Send PING on empty X?" (removed last release) has been re-added, except it's now called "Send ABORT on empty X?" .. if you send a null X message, it will automatically abort instead of PING. Don't know why you'd want it, but there it is. * 12/6/95: Backscroll buffer size is currently hardcoded at 10,000 "lines". There are currently many places where a "line" is a null character, which is why you might notice the counter move when you move around, but the number of lines show won't necessarily be the correct set. Same thing happens on lines that go over 80 characters. *sigh* * 12/6/95: Pressing Page Up will start the backscroll viewer. Page Up, Home, End, Page Down, Up and Down arrows are the keys that work here. Press ESCape to get out of the backscroll viewer. There are currently lots of bugs here - beware. * 12/6/95: Ctrl-E shows some debug information. Nothing you really need to know, but stuff that occasionally helps me figure out just what the Hell is going on in the Client's head. * 12/6/95: Made a major internal change to how Ctrl-N and Ctrl-R report/reply the "last" person to X you: now, it really _is_ the last person to send you an X message. Previously, it was the last _new_ person on the last 20 list. Minor design flaw, now fixed. (this means, Ctrl-R is reliable now :-) ) * 12/6/95: pressing an "extended" key will report it's key scan code.. * 12/6/95: The beginning of the addition of the backscroll buffer has made prompt restoration after a Ctrl-F usage a lot easier to make more accurate. :) [] Seventh Release, December 1st, 1995. [] Eric Blade (eblade@ccm.tdsnet.com) [] (for those who don't know, I am PanaSonic on ISCA. Feel free to contact [] me) This is a minor release. Basically, a maintenance release. I've been poking around and cleaning up some stray pieces of code here and there. I haven't noticed any significant speed or size changes, but I'll assume that "every little bit helps". :-) One new feature, one major bug fix. Yes, I _know_ that the color scheming does not quite work properly. I will probably be getting to that this weekend. We'll see what comes up. * Ctrl-R now replies to the last person to send you an X message. * Removed "site" entry from .bbsrc (never was used) and the "send PING on empty X message" option (now invalidated by changes in the BBS code) * I think I fixed the problem with SYS1808. If you had it, you know that this is a good thing. If you never had it, it's meaningless to you. :-) ! Sixth Release, October 31st, 1995. ! Eric Blade (eblade@ccm.tdsnet.com - this address is STAYING.) ! Please report bugs to the above address, or in ISCA Mail>. ! ! HAPPY HALLOWEEN! ! * I'm going to release this one, as it is. The color scheming will bug you out if you scheme either (a) Magenta or (b) Cyan to some other colors. Color scheming options are in Client config->Color scheme. Bug reports in color scheming will be ignored. The reason I'm releasing this is that all the other new features seem to be stable, and people are bugging me for it! :-) * Line buffering for the prompt updating after Ctrl-F exit is a little bit more selective now, it will in most cases, only buffer the last line received from the bbs. * Fixed a bug I accidently introduced during this release's testing that caused beeps to not happen * Client no longer crashes if you have done the following during your session: (a) Added one or more friends, then (b) Deleted the last one on the list. * Now reprints what appears to be a semi random amount of characters that you received before entering CTRL-F to enter the friends list. I don't think there's any better way to do this, though, until I get a complete buffering system done. At least you get some sort of a prompt back when done mucking with your friends list. :) * Finally fixed the release, adding a much easier (code-wise) way for me to continue getting it right. (that's release _number_) * Finally fixed the bug (actually, kludged it, but it works now, so who cares?) that caused passwords to not get *****'d out when entered manually. * Color scheming seems to work for the entire text of messages now. It no longer schemes only the first page of the message. * Preliminary color scheming code - you can set colors to be interpreted and used for the BBS's default colors: Normal (Green), Highlight (Yellow), Highlight 2 (Magenta), and Highlight 3 (Cyan). You can set these to any of the existing 8 colors except for Black. There are still some bugs in the scheming process, though. * If compiled under Linux, editor defaults to "vi" and shell defaults to "/bin/sh" instead of os/2's "epm" and "start /f" * "Client config" option now appears at the front of the main BBS configuration menu (the 'C' command). (this is the easiest place to put it) * changed the format of this file, as you can probably tell. :-) * Removed parsing of the Change Config list, as it wasn't really doing a whole lot, and it was taking up a whole buncha CPU time to do little. ______________________________________________________________________________ |------=*> FIFTH RELEASE - 16Sep95 - Eric Blade - eblade@netcom.com <*=------| |----=*> magician@servint.com <*=-----| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Sep 04, 1995: * Fixed all the dates in this file to be 1995 instead of 1994. * TAB name completion should be slightly faster now. * Now saves BBSRC when exiting friends editing. * Fixed bug that kept it from keeping track of multi-word names in last X buffer. * TAB name completion will now work with if you haven't entered any characters on the line - it will use either the first name on your last X list or your friends list. * Aug 30, 1995: * Fixed color problem in edit menu * Fixed absolutely serious bugs in Macro configuration, which was only minorly noticeable to people in ANSI mode. (the macro config wouldn't be in ANSI) People who weren't in ANSI mode found that when they went into Macro config, their client config menu was totally trashed. :) * Seriously considering giving this client a name besides "the OS/2 client" now that I have managed to make it run under Linux. Any ideas? BTW, we still need an ICON for the OS/2 executeable. :) * Noticed that oddly enough, the Friends List does pause at the end of a screenful under Linux, but not OS/2. * Fixed capturing under Linux to not capture carriage returns. (Linux EOL = Linefeed, OS/2's is apparently LF + CR) * Fixed a lot of the "roll my own" functions that Serendipity wrote to be disabled under both Linux and OS/2, since the libraries contain them by default. * Aug 28, 1995: * Added "send PING on empty X message" to client config-> other options. When enabled, sending a blank X message to a user is effectively the same as sending a PING message. For those who don't know what this is, the BBS will then tell you if that user is BUSY or not. * Aug 19, 1995: * Fixed bug that would crash client if you tried to delete the first person on your friends list. * Aug 17, 1995: * Fixed bug where if you hit ctrl-f before ever using the client config functions, it would always be nobold. It should now properly identify your bold setting. *> Fourth Release - Friday August 4th, 1995 - Eric Blade - eblade@netcom.com *> Do not use any of my other mailing addresses, nearly all of them are gone *> now. *> WARNINGS: (1) You should (must?) be using the latest fix for the EMX *> runtime modules to run this executeable. The current is *> available as: ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/os2/unix/emx09a/emxfix06.zip *> (2) BACKUP YOUR .BBSRC AND .BBSFRIENDS! .BBSFRIENDS HAS BEEN *> TOTALLY CHANGED!!! (see below for details) USING OLD FORMAT *> BBSFRIENDS FILES WILL HAVE UNPREDICTABLE RESULTS! --> Current Best Installation Instructions: Make a directory to hold the client, preferably on an HPFS partition. put SET HOME=x:\dir\you\put\the\client\in into your config.sys (ie, SET HOME=d:\isca) Reboot. Enjoy. --> If you have no HPFS partition: Do the above, but add to the config.sys, the following lines: SET HOME=x:\dir\you\put\the\client\in SET BBSTMP=x:\dir\you\put\the\client\in\BBS.TMP SET BBSRC=x:\dir\...\BBS.RC SET BBSFRIENDS=x:\dir\...\FRIENDS.BBS * Aug 04, 1995: * It looks as if all the friends list options in the client configuration menu are working properly. * All things having to do with the friends list are now working properly - including tab completion. * Removed a huge number of variables that are no longer used due to the friends list rewrite. This should make things slightly smaller (i hope) and zippier. :-) * Aug 03, 1995: * Began a complete rewrite of the friends code. WARNING: If you use SET BBSFRIENDS=file to set your BBS friends file, BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN IF YOU ATTEMPT TO USE AN OLD FORMAT .BBSFRIENDS! If you simply use the HOME variable, nothing bad will happen, since the new bbs friends info is held in %HOME%/.newfriends. (filename change) NOTE: A conversion program for the old .bbsfriends may or may not be available by the time you read this. Repeat: DO NOT USE AN OLD FORMAT .BBSFRIENDS! * Aug 02, 1995: * Found the uses of the "emxbind -s" command. Executeable size is now much smaller. :-) * More general speed increases, particularly in the client config functions. * CTRL-F at any point in time should take you to editing your friends list. Unfortunatly, I can't come up with a way to get the BBS to reprint your current prompt when you are done. Oh well. * Removed usage in other spots of the client, of the old variables that were set by the config options i removed. (temporary bold/nonbold status, etc) * Fixed a bug i accidently put in that caused all of the command line options to act as the "config" option. * Rewrote a large portion of the ANSI handling, giving an apparent slight speed increase, small (300 byte) exe size decrease, and a huge (5k) source code size decrease * July 30, 1995: * Removed several functions that were not serving any purpose whatsoever, in OS/2. Also compiled with 486 optimizations. * July 14, 1995: * More changes to the configuration menu code. Should be even faster, now that it only determines your BOLD ansi setting ONCE, rather than every time it changes color. * Now recreates the ANSI menu every time the BOLD setting is changed. Not that I expect this to change often, but it WAS a bug. (not that any of you saw it, since i realised it before i released again :-) ) * July 13, 1995: * Client now keeps track of the last 20 people to send you an X message, and will also do tab name-completion with that listing. (This is currently buggy - it won't correctly keep track of names with spaces in them) * July 12, 1995: * Rewrote a large portion of the configuration menu routine. Client configuration should be nice and zippy, since it no longer recreates the entire config menu every time you enter the client config. * Rewrote the message printed at startup * It should now be possible to buffer a TAB (name completion), so you fast typists can just fly and use the new completion ability. * Pressing Ctrl-N will reveal the name of the last person to send you an X-message. (this was not taken from the IO ERROR client, I did it on my lonesome. :) ) * July 07, 1995: * At all prompts for a name, you can enter a partial name, press TAB (ctrl-I), and it will be automatically completed with a name from your friends list that has the first matching characters. (If no matches are found, the client will just plain beep a warning) ______________________________________________________________________________ |------=*> THIRD RELEASE - 14Jun95 - Eric Blade - eblade@netcom.com <*=------| |----=*>eblade@sojourn.com, eblade@arbornet.org, magician@servint.com<*=-----| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Warning: Make a backup of your .BBSRC and .BBSFRIENDS before installing this version, if you are upgrading from a previous release. * June 8-14 : * All of the command line options that only had an effect if your configuration was a certain way or not have been removed. main.c has experienced a major rewrite. config.c has been greatly cleaned up, however, to fix a bug that was introduced in it, i had to split the friends/enemies editing code into two seperate functions. I imagine they will be merged back together soon. * The client now appears to recognize correctly, exactly when there are no people on your friends list online, and actually reports it now. * telnet.c: macro editing now captures. * capture file will no longer capture nulls, resulting in <null> being printed in the capture file. * literally EVERYTHING should capture except things before login, and Autologin configuration. If you find something that doesn't capture, PLEASE let me know. * The original friends list has returned! See Client config->Other options. In the Original friends mode, you can do all the normal friends list operations, except that <A>dd friend will not prompt you for an info line. (It is assumed to be "(None)"). You may toggle between the two modes at will, and everything should still work as normal. :-) * June 7, 1995: Now begins the massive rewrite/cleanup of code. Many things will not be logged here, because they are far too numerous changes, that most people could care less about. * June 7, 1995: Fixed a bug that caused problems with adding to the Friends list. I must have introduced these Friendslist bugs SOMEHOW, on my own, since I have NEVER seen/heard of these sort of problems with the other clients. * June 6, 1995: Fixed a bug that would cause severe (apparent) damage to your .bbsfriends file. The damage was actually not saved - it was just a bug in the functions that handled listing / editing of the friends list. (I think) If ANYONE has ANY problems with a corrupted Friends list, PLEASE CONTACT ME * June 6, 1995: If no one is in your friends list, and you hit ctrl-w, and would normally receive an "(old)" list, it will now print a message saying that no one is on that's in your friends list. (this will be extended to include (NEW) lists too) * June 1, 1995: Fixed a minor problem that no one actually noticed (surprise) with the Client not being able to get the names of people (for X messages, Friends Add, or whatever) who's ISCA names reached the maximum character length (19, I believe). Thanks to Alexander The Great for making me notice this one. :-) * May 30, 1995: Added a workaround to solve problems with "E.EXE" (the OS/2 system editor) failing with a "Sharing Violation" error if someone attempted to use it as an editor for the client. +----------------------------------------------------------+ |SECOND RELEASE - 29May95 - Eric Blade - eblade@netcom.com | |-------------------------------------- eblade@sojourn.com | +----------------------------------------------------------+ Installation instructions are in the section of the file dealing with the First Release of the OS/2 client. I have added a "to-do" or "wishlist" to the end of this file. --> Note: Both of my releases of the client seem to have a peculiar bug in them - sometimes after logging out, right after posting a message, the next time you login, the message you posted last will still be in your BBSTMP file. I'm sure there's a simple workaround (make sure that the BBSTMP file is clear when loading the client is the obvious solution, IMHO), however I would like to find the source of this slightly annoying bug. It has no effect on what's going on, just tell it to clear the temp file when you enter a msg next. If you are able to reproduce this bug repeatedly, PLEASE let me know the conditions under which this happens. -- May 29, 1995 * May 24, 1995: Second version of ANSI filter (first version worked) - this one I worked for a very long time trying to debug, and make it work. This one had best work. :-) Also fixed a bug that allowed the client to close the capture file before the file was done being written to, causing some data loss. * May 23, 1995: First version of ANSI filter - it should filter any ANSI out that the BBS itself sends, but most likely won't filter anything that is internal to the client itself. * You may now specify a macro beginning with the word "shell", and the command specified after the word "shell" will be executed when you enter that macro key. * You may now specify a file for the capture to be placed into. You can do this by going into the client configuration (C, C) and pressing "L" for local configuration. If you are currently capturing as you change the file name, the original file will be closed, and the new file will be opened. * Capturing to file has been totally re-written. Now, nearly everything you see on the BBS will be captured when you have capture mode turned on. Output from Friends list, Who, everything. -------------------------------------------------- ISCA BBS CLIENT FOR OS/2, FIRST RELEASE -------------------------------------------------- Specific OS/2 code by Eric Blade, aka PanaSonic, (c) 1995. Installation instructions are below. Along with a lot of other crap. There are no major differences between this client, and the client produced by Ayourk and Isoroku. In fact, it is based off the last source that I received from Ayourk. This is a text-based OS/2 application. It requires TCP/IP for OS/2 version 2.0 (or later), or the OS/2 Warp Internet Access Kit. If you can telnet from your machine, you should be able to use this software. According to the original client author, this client falls under the GNU General Public License. However, in the source I have received, there has been NO INDICATION WHATSOEVER within the packages, that this client or source code does in fact fall under the GNU General Public License. Since I have received nothing along those lines (either from the original package, or any of it's derivitives), I can only assume that Serendipity (the original author's ISCA name) is dead wrong. I have absolutely no desire to go through a legal battle at this point, over such a foolish thing, but since I received this package with NO INDICATION that it does in fact fall under the GPL, I am not including copies of the GPL with it. If you wish to read it, download any other program in the world that is 100% for sure under the GPL (such as any software distributed by the Free Software Foundation), or make an FTP trip over to prep.ai.mit.edu. If you truly desire source code to this program, you may reach me at eblade@netcom.com, and I will arrange for you to get it. I ask that if you make any modifications to the source code, that you use something along the lines of the GNU DIFF program, and email me the results, so that I may incorporate those differences into my own source code, and distribute it. If you wish to reach me for any other purpose (bugs, suggestions, comments, etc), please also email the above address. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Installation: Pretty much, pick a place to put the executable, and drop it there. Run it when you want to connect to the ISCA BBS. You may have to SET BBSRC=<path to a bbsrc file>, and SET BBSFRIENDS=<path to a friends file>, or else the client may complain about being unable to figure out where to put those files. Set them to any filename you would like, although you would probably prefer something that won't get accidently deleted. BBSRC holds general client configuration, and BBSFRIENDS holds your friends list. If you have a HOME environment variable set, then ".bbsrc" and ".bbsfriends" will be placed in that directory. Another one that may have to be set is BBSTMP, which is a temporary file used by the client to hold things such as message text, etc, and doesn't have to point anywhere special. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Miscellaneous Stuff: If you have a variable set for EDITOR, that variable will be used as your editor, from the <E>dit message function in the BBS's editor. To access the client configuration, once on the BBS, type <C>, then hit <C> again. That will bring up the client configuration. Due to some specific strange things in OS/2, you should most likely leave your SHELL set to "start /f", which tells the program to bring up a new shell in the foreground, when you use the Shell macro key. (normally <Ctrl-B> <!>) OS/2 does NOT support the Suspend operation (<Ctrl-B> <Ctrl-Z>) that most Unixes do support. An attempt to suspend will generate an error message. When you start the client, most likely there will be a pair of warning messages, about setting access to the bbsrc and the bbstmp files. Ignore them. (this is fixed in second release - if there are any warning messages or error messages, PLEASE email me, eblade@netcom.com) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eric Blade eblade@netcom.com 21Apr95 Notes on the source code, if you have it: If you change the unix.c file (which contains most of the OS/2 specific code), you have to compile it by hand, because I can't figure out how to make this damned makefile (as written by Serendipity) to update unix.c without updating the entire source tree. To make the program, you need EMX 0.9a FIX 03 or later, and GNU Make. CD to the source dir, and type "gmake os2". (assuming your GNU make is called gmake) ------------------------- THNGS I'D LIKE TO SEE (heh) ------------------------- SERIOUS CLEANUP OF ALL SOURCE CODE - THIS WILL HAPPEN NEXT.