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INSTALL.DOC
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1993-01-02
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FastChat Installation Documentation
Version 1.02/b
(c) 1993 Peter Hebert
Purpose
───────
This documentation serves only briefly explain the physical aspects
of installing FastChat. Directions for setting it up with your BBS
software are found in FASTCHAT.DOC, under the subtitle
"Installation". You should carefully read this document before
running FC_INST.
Documentation
─────────────
If you wish to read the documentation prior to installation, it is
present as the file FASTCHAT.DOC. This is a standard ASCII text
file that you can view with your favorite text file viewer.
If you have either an Epson-compatible dot matrix printer or an HP
PCL4 or higher compatible laser printer, and you wish to print the
documentation, use the included DocUtil utility. It allows you to
print either parts or all of the documentation, preserving
attributes such as bold and underline to enhance its appearance.
Installation
────────────
FastChat comes in a smart "installation bundle", which is kind of
like a self-extracting archive. This allows it to selectively
install only the parts of itself appropriate to your setup. This
also provides a level of security, because only I have the software
that makes a bundle, and all the files in the bundle are encrypted
to prevent tampering.
FastChat must be installed in a directory of its own, most likely
"FC" under your current main BBS directory (i.e. C:\MAX\FC). If
you extracted these files to your main BBS directory, you can move
them by typing "FCMOVETO dirname" (FCMoveTo is a batch file that
should have come with your archive).
Once you have the FastChat files in their proper directory, you can
run FC_INST to extract FastChat. The first question it asks you is
a directory confirmation; hit "Y" to confirm your directory choice.
The next question asks you which version of FastChat you wish to
install. Your choices are:
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Please select the version of FastChat to install │
├───┬────────────────────────────┬───┬─────────────────────────────┤
│ 1 │ Maximus │ 3 │ EzyCom │
│ 2 │ RemoteAccess │ 4 │ Generic: DORINFO.DEF │
└───┴────────────────────────────┴───┴─────────────────────────────┘
If your BBS software is not listed, you have two choices:
a) Select one of the Generic options, if your BBS software can
create that kind of drop file.
b) Select a BBS software with which your BBS software makes
100% (or 99%, anyway) compatible binary drop files (ie: one
of the unlisted Hudson clones might pick RemoteAccess or
QuickBBS)
It is in most cases a ten minute procedure for me to add support
for another BBS software, so if you can provide me with Pascal (or
even C, though that takes longer) structures, I will happily make
you a loader for your BBS software.
After selecting your BBS software, the appropriate FastChat files
for your BBS system will be extracted.
After extraction of the main files, you will be asked if you wish
to extract the interfaces for the other BBS softwares FastChat
supports. Do this only if you plan to switch in the near future,
or if your BBS software was not listed and you may need to try the
interface for another.
Environment variables
─────────────────────
You must set up an environment variable for FastChat, so that it
can find itself and its configuration files. You should enter into
your AUTOEXEC.BAT either SET FC=dir or SET FASTCHAT=dir (the former
one preferred).
There is no need to add FastChat to your PATH statement.
Directory structure
───────────────────
After installation, FastChat will be laid out like this:
FC
├─ UTIL
├─ DOCS
├─ LANG
├─ TEXT (or SAMPTEXT)
└─ OTHERBBS
FC holds all main executables (FastChat, its loader, and its
configuration program) and all configuration files. This directory
is the directory that you installed FastChat into.
UTIL holds all add-on utilities (the user editor, attribute editor,
etc.) It also holds FC-TSR, which is described in the
documentation.
DOCS holds all documentation files, including DocUtil, the printing
utility.
LANG holds all language related files, including the sample
languages that come with FastChat and the language compiler, LNG2L.
TEXT holds all of FastChat's text files. With some BBS softwares,
you may want to mix this in with your regular text files; in this
case, the directory is called SAMPTEXT. The naming conventions for
the files follow the RA style (*.A??, base names reflect the ones
used in RA).
OTHERBBS holds all of FastChat's loaders, if you elected to install
them. Also included are any BBS-specific utilities, such as user
editors, and the appropriate sample FASTVIEW.CFG file for each
software.
Installing loaders
──────────────────
Unfortunately, telling FastChat what BBS software you are using is
not as simple as setting an option in FCConfig. In order to
provide maximum compatibility with each software that FastChat
supports, and to keep the size of FastChat's .EXE file reasonable,
I have opted to isolate the BBS-specific portion of FastChat in a
file, called a loader.
Each loader translates your BBS system's drop file into something
FastChat can understand. It also tells FastChat how to draw the
user information window. Since you can delete the loaders for the
BBS software you don't run (the FastChat installation bundle
doesn't install them unless you ask it to), you save disk space,
too.
If you're going to switch software... it's as simple as finding the
correct loader and renaming it to FASTCHAT.EXE (in the main
FastChat directory). In some cases, a user editor is provided as
well (FCUERA.EXE is for RA, for example). Rename this to
FCUSERED.EXE in the UTIL directory.
Please note that your FastChat command line may vary slightly for
various BBS softwares. For more information, see the Invocation
section in the FastChat documentation.