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1988-03-02
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USEMALL
A quick utility to run PCBOARD D)oorware
on RBBS 15.1C & greater
by Phil Dewitt with
some help from Steven Kling
PCBoard D)oorware can be a real pain to setup on an RBBS system.
PCBoard door entry and exit routines are not standardized. We found
this out when we tried to use several of the more common RBBS-PCB
utilities to make a particular PCBoard Door run under RBBS (Power
Struggle). Out of this effort we derived the following utility.
Simply put, when executed this utility will generate a PCBOARD.SYS
and PCBOARD.DAT file which works with all tested PCBOARD D)oors versions
11 and 12. All that Usemall needs is to be in the same directory as
DORINFOx.DEF and optionally the same directory as the MESSAGES file.
USEMALL is executed as follows:
USEMALL [param1] [param2] [param3]
param 1 = node # (default is 1)
param 2 = FULL PATH/FILENAME for MESSAGES
(default is MESSAGES in same directory)
param 3 = TIME ALLOWED IN DOOR. (default is 30 minutes
a negative number overrides users' time left for day)
IMPORTANT: IF parameters 2 or 3 are used, then the preceding
parameters must be entered.
The program (if successful) will create PCBOARD.SYS and PCBOARD.DAT
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needed. A big problem with older PCBOARD D)oorware was that if a user entered
almost any PCBoard D)oor using comms parameters E,7,1, then the D)oor would
crash the system leaving it hung. Although new PCBoard D)oorware does correct
this oversight, we still have ensured that comms parameters E,7,1 will not
work. If USEMALL is executed with the comms parameters E,7,1, PCBOARD.SYS
will not be generated, the user will be informed of the problem, and if our
sample batch file is used, the system will recover back to RBBS.
Here is our sample batch file to execute the DOOR
Power Struggle. RBBS files are in C:\RBBS16
and POWER is in C:\RBBS16\POWER
IF EXIST PCBOARD.SYS DELETE PCBOARD.SYS
USEMALL %1 C:\RBBS16\TEXT\MESSAGES -10
IF EXIST PCBOARD.SYS GOTO OK
GOTO END
:OK
CD\RBBS16\POWER
COPY C:\RBBS16\PCBOARD.SYS
COPY C:\RBBS16\PCBOARD.DAT
POWER POWER-1.CFG
:END
FURTHER INFO ON Parameter 3
If time allowed is specified as 0 (zero) then time allowed
will be equal to time remaining.
If time allowed is specified as a NEGATIVE number, then time
allowed will be set to time remaining or parameter #3, if
greater [when converted to positive #]. Thus, you could
allow someone into a door giving them [say] 10 minutes, even
though they only had 3 minutes left when exiting from RBBS. This
was added specifically for SYSOPs that wanted a registration D)oor.
In that way, any new user could look around a board, and still have
enough time to complete the questionare even though they only had
1 minute remaining as the door loaded.
This utility has been tested on a variety of PCBOARD D)oors, but
the PCBOARD doors do not necessarily conform to any standard. If
you cannot get a specific door to work and the documentation with the door
does not help, then try adding a file called USERS into the Doors
subdirectory. This file can be anything as long as it's at least 256 bytes
in length. Power Struggle requires this file there, although it never
uses the file other than to check on its existence. The RECNOF$ in
PCBOARD.SYS field declaration is the pointer for this file, and it has to
point to any record greater than one or all users are considered to be
the SYSOP.
We have provided the BASIC source code with the exe file. One of the
reasons that most of the other RBBS-PCB utilities were not useful was
because the source code was not included, so when the odd door required
something extra, the utility was inflexible. Plus providing the source
goes along with the RBBS philosophy of providing as much information to the
collective users so that we can all work together.
If you still cannot get a door to run, then you can contact either of
us at our respective BBSes and we will try and help:
Phil Dewitt : DGS BBS 703-590-1441
Steven Kling : Technopeasants' BBS 301-927-4258