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- INSTALL.DOC
-
- To quote a paragraph from aabuyme.doc:
-
- STadel is written in Alycon C. The distributed system can
- be installed and run without recompilation in most cases.
- STadel needs an Atari ST and an auto-answer modem.
-
- The source files run to about 550K, the .PRG files to about 150K.
- In an operating system, the message and userlog files together take
- about 150K, and one would normally like about 200K for message text,
- to keep the wraparound time longer than a week.
-
- If that doesn't describe your system, this isn't the file for you.
- Either recycle the disks, or drag out the source code and
- documentation and settle down to some serious hacking...
-
- Still with us? OK. For purposes of getting the basic system
- working, you need to sort out and get acquainted with the following
- files:
-
- CONFIGUR.PRG A special installation program.
- CTDLCNFG.SYS (CiTaDeL CoNFiGuration SYStem file.) You will edit your
- local system customizations into this file and then
- feed it to CONFIGUR.PRG, which will do all the remaining
- work for you. (Do you believe that?)
- CITADEL.PRG This is the actual Bulletin Board ("BB" hereafter) program.
-
-
- In order to get lost properly, it is very important to have a map.
- Very briefly, the installation steps are:
-
- (1) Edit CTDLCNFG.SYS.
-
- (2) Feed CTDLCNFG.SYS into CONFIGUR.PRG. CONFIGUR.PRG will:
- (A) Create CTDLLOG.SYS, a file to contain all the userlog entries.
- (B) Create CTDLMSG.SYS, a file to contain all the messages.
- (C) Create CTDLROOM.SYS, a file to contain all the rooms.
- (D) Create CTDLFLOOR.SYS, a file to contain all the floors.
-
- (E) Create CTDLTABL.SYS, a file which contains indices to the
- first four files plus stuff derived
- from the CTDLCNFG.SYS configuration file.
-
- (3) Run CITADEL.PRG, which read the above files
- and then let you enter messages, create rooms and all manner of
- good things.
-
-
- Three steps. How trivial can you get? But please do study the
- above carefully enough to get a feel for what's going on and an
- understanding of what the major files do.
-
-
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- (1).
- So: go edit CTDLCNFG.SYS. It's massively self-documented, just
- work your way through top to bottom putting in values appropriate to
- your system. You may wish to use a small message-file size during
- testing to reduce the length of time CONFIGUR.PRG takes to index the
- file. (It reads through the complete file each time it is run.)
- A few gotchas to watch for:
- CONFIGUR.PRG is not very bright. It wants to see blanks (not
- tabs or carriage-returns) between and following all the fields it
- reads. On the other hand, it really doesn't care what happens on
- lines which don't start with "#", or on the trailing half of those
- which do. If you end each instruction line with a comment and put
- single blanks between the arguments, as I have, you should have no
- problems on this score. (BASIC programmers: don't worry, the
- comments won't slow the system down. Relax!).
-
-
- (2)
- Run CONFIGUR.PRG. CONFIGUR.PRG expects to find CTDLCNFG.SYS in
- the current directory.
- CONFIGUR.PRG is used to rebuild a system as well as install it.
- When it fails to find CTDLMSG.SYS, CTDLROOM.SYS, CTDLLOG.SYS or
- CTDLFLOOR.SYS, it will create them and remind you to initialize them.
- When it asks you if you want to initialize them (and then double
- checks on each individual file), type a "Y" each time first time
- through. On subsequent runs, you can answer "N", which will leave
- the three data files untouched, only building new indices etc for a
- new CTDLTABL.SYS file. This way you can reconfigure the system
- within reasonable limits without trashing all existing messages,
- rooms etc.
- CONFIGUR lists various things as it runs, mostly to convince you
- it hasn't crashed yet. Don't worry particularly unless it seems
- excited about something. Cheap code? Well, you get what you pay for...
-
- (3)
- Run CITADEL.PRG. It will expect to find CTDLTABL.SYS in the
- current directory when it is run. It will expect to find all the
- files in the directories you specified in your CTDLCNFG.SYS. Copy
- all the .HLP, .BLB, and .MNU files to your #helpDir, because that's
- where CITADEL.PRG expects to find them.
-
- CITADEL.PRG will delete CTDLTABL.SYS after it has read it, and
- will recreate CTDLTABL.SYS only when you exit. This is because it
- contains indices to the other three data files, and it would not be
- good to load an out-of-date index file. If CITADEL.PRG crashes,
- leaving you without a CTDLTABL.SYS, just run CONFIGUR.PRG again to
- recreate it.
- Play around with CITADEL.PRG for awhile: learn to enter messages,
- create rooms, read messages, and so forth. Create several different
- identities, and log them in and out in rotation to see how new
- messages and rooms with new messages are found. (The system is much
- easier to understand with lots of rooms and messages around to
- experiment on!)
-
- When things are clearly working correctly, try running over the
- modem. You'll need to have someone dialing the system up to test
- that carrier-detect etc are working correctly. This will probably
- be painful. Note that you can use "chat mode" to type directly to
- the modem, bypassing everything but the modem routines.
-
- If you survive this far... congratulations! and... Welcome!
-