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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 !
-
-