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EXTERNAL.DOC
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1991-03-31
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External Programs
1. Whenever external programs (doors, transfer protocols, archive viewers)
are executed, ROS replaces several command line parameters with the actual
values currently in effect. The following table lists the parameters that
can be referenced:
Parameter Description
[ANSI] "A" or "N" if ANSI is enabled or not
[COMP] The name of the composite file (archive)
[CRATE] The computer-to-modem data rate
[DISP] The file used to display the contents of an archive
[FILE] The name of the file being transferred
[MRATE] The modem-to-modem data rate
[NODE] The node initiating the external program
[PARITY] The parity of the port
[PORT] The comm port
2. Two fields are used by ROS to determine what action it should take when
it starts an external program:
Second: if "Y", ROS will load a second copy of COMMAND.COM to start the
external program
Swap: if "Y", ROS will get almost completely out of the way, leaving
only a 4100 byte "stub" in memory while the external program runs
There are benefits and costs to using both of these fields. When true,
Second takes a little longer to run since it has to load COMMAND.COM from
disk. On the other hand, COMMAND.COM _must_ be used to interpret batch
files. Swap has even more effect at slowing things down since the ROS
memory image (about 300,000 bytes) will have to be stored on disk if EMS
memory is not available.
My personal preference is to leave each field as "N" unless the external
program requires it on. For example, TradeWars is pretty big and can't load
if ROS is still around, so I have this door set to Swap. However, when I
want to look into an archive, I use Vernon Buerg's "FV" program that's
pretty small. To keep things as fast as possible, I have both swap and
second turned off.
3. Installing doors isn't difficult, but it may require some experimenting
to get everything correctly interfaced. The real problem is that door and
BBS authors that can't seem to agree on interface formats. Instead of
continuing this trend by inventing yet another format, ROS creates TWO
interface files in the most popular formats:
DORINFOx.DEF - originally defined by RBBS, Opus, etc.
DOORSYS.DOC - originally defined by DoorWay
In addition, several programs such as DOORMASTER can be used to change from
these two formats to several others such as that required by PC-Board doors.
There are literally hundreds of doors out there that can be interfaced to
ROS. Remember, if you can't get the single command ROS executes to do the
whole job, don't hesitate to use a batch file (be sure to turn on "Second"
if you do).