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.TOPIC:
VBBS CD-Rom Documentation
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 15-B-1
╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ CHAPTER 15 ANNEX B VBBS CD-ROM DOCUMENTATION ║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
VirtualBBS is able to support the use of Compact Disks for
it's Transfer Files feature. There are many outstanding CD's on
the market today with hundreds of megabytes of shareware programs
on each one just waiting to be accessed by your users. This is an
excellent way to provide thousands of programs and files for
download with minimal effort and space.
Basic Requirements
══════════════════
The basic requirements for utilizing this feature are:
1. A Compact Disk player for computer use.
2. A Shareware CD
3. Utilities: VCDROM11.EXE, FBBSCV12.EXE, CKIF560A.EXE
4. A copy of VirtualBBS of course!
Hardware Setup
══════════════
It seems to be the consensus of several sysops consulted
that using D: as the drive letter for your CD-ROM does not always
work well. It is better to use E: - Z:. Why this is true is not
exactly known, and it may have to do with the particular device
driver your brand of CD player uses. Most use MSCDEX (Micro Soft
Compact Disk Device Driver).
Usually, upon the installation of your CD player, the CD
software assigns "the next available drive letter" to your CD
player. If this will assign D: as the drive letter for CD player,
this might be the perfect opportunity to set up a small RAM drive
for your BBS. It will not only make your BBS sail faster along and
reduce Hard Drive searches for menus, function blocks, and scripts,
but will use D: as it's drive letter, thereby "kicking" the CD
player down to use E:. See OPTIMIZING VBBS.
Getting Started
═══════════════
The next step is to get VBBS to read, and somehow upload the
info on the CD to the VBBS files database so that your users may
down load from it. There are 2 utilities to do this: VCDROM11.EXE,
which works with NightOwl's CD's, and PC SIG CD's, (but NOT
including PC SIG 11), and FBBSCV12.EXE, which will work on all
CD's that have ASCII directories with descriptions that correspond
to the directories on the CD containing the files themselves.
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 15-B-2
VCDROM11.EXE will work ONCE with NightOwl's CD, since it
creates the .dat and .bin files called "DIR1.DAT, DIR1.BIN,
DIR2.DAT, DIR2.BIN", etc. If you should decide to use an
additional NightOwl's CD, the .dat and .bin files would need
different names. This is easily accomplished by using FBBSCV12.
EXE.
The basic idea here is to 1). Create the .DAT and .BIN files
required by VBBS to interface with the compact disk, and,
2). Upload the CD info to the TRANSFER FILES area.
ASCII Description Files
═══════════════════════
There are two components to the CD which require attention:
The ASCII descriptions of the programs on the CD, and the
directories which contain the actual programs.
The ASCII descriptions are the descriptions of the downloadable
programs written in text that can be read using an ordinary text
editor or word-processor. Generally, there will be a directory
containing the descriptions for each directory of programs.
The .DAT and .BIN Files
═══════════════════════
.DAT and .BIN files (and .QSC) files are the files which are
created in VBBS in the \VBBS\DB directory as you put
information into the message and files databases in VCONFIG.
VBBS interprets these files as the descriptions and filenames
you see in your FILES TRANSFER areas. See DATABASE CONFIGURATION.
Using VCDROM11.EXE
══════════════════
To create .dat and .bin files using VCDROM11.EXE, place it in
an empty temporary directory on your Hard Drive. Type VCDROM. It
will prompt you for the drive letter of your CD ROM drive. Say,
for example, your CD ROM drive letter is E:. Type E. It will then
ask you if you are using PC SIG, or NightOwl's CD. (at present,
VCDROM.EXE only supports these two). Let's use as an example the
NightOwl CD and you select it. The program will automatically
begin creating the .dat and .bin files. Once it has finished, you
now have a complete set of .dat and .bin files ready for use with
the CD. Copy these files to the \VBBS\DB directory.
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 15-B-3
Uploading Files Made with VCDROM11.EXE
══════════════════════════════════════
To upload the programs on the CD to the files database in VBBS,
go to VCONFIG. In this example, (using VCDROM11.EXE), the FILENAME
to enter will simply be: DIR1. The PATH will be: E:\ (VCDROM11.EXE
writes information into the .dat and .bin files which lets VBBS
know that they are CD ROM files; therefore, *ONLY* the E:\, or
whatever your CD ROM drive letter is, is necessary). The LONG
DESCRIPTION will be the name of the first topic on your CD which
corresponds to DIR1, i.e. "Alternate Op Systems", in the case of
NightOwl's #7. Do this for each topic you desire to upload. Make
sure to sort and compile the data after you're finished.
If you used VCDROM11.EXE to convert a PC-SIG CD, it will have
made .dat, .bin, and .fdx files. Copy these to your \VBBS\DB dir-
ectory. The upload procedure is the same. Due to the format of
PC-SIG, VCDROM11.EXE converts the entire CD into ONE complete data-
base group. You CANNOT split it into topics.
The listing of programs in the Transfer Files area will show up
with ONLY the name of the program (which will be "Diskxxxxx" which
tells the user nothing). The description of the program will show
up in the "extended description". It will be up to you to somehow
let your users know where and how the descriptions may be found.
It is recommended to use a door program with PC-SIG since it
does not have ASCII descriptions. The file descriptions are hard
coded into a hyper-reader menu format.
Using FBBSCV12.EXE
══════════════════
Another method to use shareware CD's with VBBS is to use the
utility called FBBSCV12.EXE. Again, make sure your CD has ASCII
text directories with the descriptions for the programs on the
actual directories containing the programs on the CD.
EXAMPLE: DIR1 contains the ASCII descriptions for directory 001A
on the CD. DIR2 contains the ASCII descriptions for directory
001B on the CD. These directories could be "001A Games" and "001B
Recipes" or whatever is actually in the directories.
Copy the ASCII description files to a temporary directory
on your Hard Drive. Type FLBCVT. It will prompt you for "Name of
file to convert:" Type DIR1 (or whatever the ASCII description
filename is on your CD). It will then prompt you for "VBBS
Database Filename:" Type a filename that will be easy to remember
and different than any others.
Example: For NightOwl's #8 CD, I used "8NOCD1" to convert DIR1,
which would correspond with directory 001A on my CD.
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 15-B-4
FBBSCV12 then creates the .dat and .bin files for that dir-
ectory. They would be called 8NOCD1.dat, and 8NOCD1.bin.
Do this for each directory, then copy the .dat and .bin files
to your \VBBS\DB directory.
Uploading Files Made by FBBSCV12.EXE
════════════════════════════════════
To upload the programs on the CD to the files database in VBBS,
go to VCONFIG. Continuing with our example above, the FILENAME
will be: 001A. The PATH will be: E:\8NOCD1. (Note: the path is
complete, here, not partial as in the case with VCDROM11.EXE). The
LONG DESCRIPTION would be: Games. Make sure to sort and compile
the data when you're finished.
Using the CKIF560A.EXE Utility
══════════════════════════════
Not all CD's are the same. Occasionally, a CD uploaded in the
manner described above, still will show a "File Missing" message
when a user tries to download. In almost every case this can be
corrected by running CKIF560A.EXE. This utility will automatically
toggle the files on your CD "online". Start CKIF560A.EXE and let
it run. This will take quite some time since most CD's have up to
650 Megabytes to toggle online.
--> IMPORTANT NOTE: Some sysops are using a utility called
VLOAD56A.EXE to convert ASCII descriptions
to VBBS files descriptions. If you choose
to try this you *MUST* run CKIF560A.EXE to
toggle files online.
Final Note
══════════
These methods should work well to get you started using CD-ROM
drives and shareware compact disks with VirtualBBS, allowing users
to access and download files straight from your VBBS Transfer
Files databases. It has been our experience that users as well as
other SysOps will appreciate your BBS all the more.
Please note that there are utilities being written almost
daily by others that will prove to be extremely useful to SysOp's
using a CD-ROM !