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1994-01-12
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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, CKIF610B.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), or just "Weird Iron."
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:. You may do this just as a "place holder" for D:
even if you don't plan to use the RAM drive.
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 our 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
═══════════════════════
You might ask: "What are .dat and .bin files?" These are the
files which VBBS creates 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.
NOTE: Before converting ASCII description files into .dat and .bin
files, MAKE SURE to remove ALL extraneous information from the
description files, i.e. headers, CD-Version numbers, CD-Name,
manufacturer's name, etc.
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. Let's 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 say you are using
NightOwl's. Select NightOwl's. 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
NOTE: The NightOwl's 10 CD has a different format than NightOwl's
7, 8, and 9. The ASCII descriptions are pathed differently.
To create the .dat and .bin files for NightOwl's 10 do the
following. Create a \TEXT directory off of your root dir.,
usually C:\TEXT. Copy the description files from the Night-
Owl's 10 CD \NIGHT\TEXT directory to C:\TEXT, (NOT including
DIR0!). Next, use the DOS ASSIGN command to assign the drive
letter of your CD player drive to C: (EXAMPLE: Let's say your
CD drive letter is E:. At the "C" prompt type ASSIGN E: C:).
Now VCDROM will think C:\TEXT is now E:\TEXT! Now, return to
your temporary directory where VCDROM is (it's now in E:,
remember?), use VCDROM as described before and you will have
a set of .dat and .bin files for CD drive letter E:
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 directory.
The upload procedure is the same, due to the particularly nasty
format of PC-SIG, VCDROM11.EXE converts the entire CD into ONE
complete database 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.
I recommend using 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.
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 15-B-4
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. REMEMBER:
MAKE SURE to remove ALL extraneous information in the description
file!
EXAMPLE: DIR1 contains the ASCII descriptions for directory 001A
on the CD. DIR2 contains the ASCII descriptions for directory
001B on the CD.
Where 001A may be "Games" and 001B may be "Recipes", etc.
Copy the ASCII description directories 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). Then it will 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.
FBBSCV12 then created the .dat and .bin files for that directory.
They were 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.
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 15-B-5
Using the CKIF610A.EXE Utility
══════════════════════════════
Not all CD's are the same. Ocasionally, 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 CKIF610B.EXE. This utility will automatically
toggle the files on your CD "online". Start CKIF610B.EXE and let
it run. This will take quite some time since most CD's have up to
650 Megabytes to toggle online. This would be a good time to grab
a twinkie, or some other sysop type food!
--> 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 CKIF610B.EXE to
toggle files online.
Good Luck to All!
═════════════════
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 my experience that users as well as
other SysOps will appreciate your BBS all the more.
Please note that there are other utilities being written almost
daily by others that will prove to be extremely useful to CD-ROM
SysOps!