When you call in the first thing you will see is a Bulletin Menu. Currently all we have there are two bulletins provided by Mustang:
[ 1]....BBS Glossary of Terms
[ 2]....Where can I purchase Mustang Products?
but we hope to add some additional ones to this list as time permits.
New callers will receive this menu:
B BULLETIN MENU
C Comments to Sysop
F FILE MENU
G Goodbye
H Change help level
I Initial Welcome
M MESSAGE MENU
Q QUESTIONNAIRE MENU
? Command Help
If you are a member of the Tulsa Computer Society, leave a Comment to Sysop indicating that fact, and once he checks against a list of current members and verifies that your membership is up to date, he will upgrade you and you will then see this menu:
| B BULLETIN MENU | P Page Sysop for Chat | [ On Every Menu ] |
| C Comments to Sysop | Q QUESTIONNARE MENU | |
| D DOORS MENU | S Stats on BBS | G Goodbye |
| F FILE MENU | U User List | H Help Level |
| I Inital Welcome | V Verify User | J Join Conference |
| L Live Chat w/ Users | W Who is Online? | Y Your Settings |
| M MESSAGE MENU | ||
| N News Letter | = Page Online User | ? Command Help |
We have created message categories for every TCS Sig, plus a number of general categories, and at the request of one caller, we have added a message category for Other Computers, to cover older computers like TRS-80, Commodore, TI, etc, many of which are not manufactured or supported anymore, but where there may be a few diehards that want to keep them alive.
Message Categories:
0. Private E-Mail
1. General Public Messages
2. TCS Announcements and Business
3. Political Debate
4. Message to Sysop
5. Access
6. Apple II
7. AutoCad
8. Bartlesville Chapter
9. Basic Graphics
10. CompuServe
11. Computer Basics
12. Daytimers
13. Educators
14. Internet
15. Investment
16. Linux
17. Local Area Networks
18. Midi Music and Multimedia
19. Modem
20. On-Line Services
21. OS/2
22. Quicken
23. Visual Basic
24. Windows 3.1
25. Windows 95
26. Windows NT
27. Word Processing / DTP
28. Other Computers
If you only want to read and respond to messages in one or two areas, you can use the Join command (J) to select a certain conference, read the new messages in that conference, then Join another conference, read the new messages in that conference, etc.
The best way to do it, however, is to use the Off-Line reader capabilities built into Wildcat. First select M from the main menu, to go the Message Menu:
| C Check Your Mail(/td> | S Scan Messages |
| E Enter New Message | T Transfer QWK Menu |
| F FILE MENU | U Update Settings |
| K Kill Messages | |
| Q Quit to Main Menu | |
| R Read Messages |
And then select T to go to the Transfer QWK Menu:
D Download QWK Packet
U Upload REP Packet
Y Your QWK Settings
H Help Level
? Command Help
G Goodbye, Logoff
Q Quit To Previous Menu
Most of the time you will just select D to download a QWK packet, but the first time you use the Off-Line reader system you will have to do a little configuring. Select Y for Your QWK Settings, and you will get a screen like this:
| Offline mail settings for | : DON SINGLETON | ||
| [ 1] | Packet format | : QWK | |
| [ 2] | Packer | : ZIP | |
| [ 3] | File transfer protocol | : No default | |
| [ 4] | Include new files list | : No | |
| [ 5] | New files date | : / / | 12:00 AM |
| [ 6] | Include new bulletins | : No | |
| [ 7] | Maximum messages per conference | : | |
| [ 8] | Maximum messages per packet | : | |
| [ 9] | Attachment file size limit | : K | |
| [10] | Download mail from you | : No | |
| [11] | Goodbye after upload | : No | |
| [12] | Enhanced script prompts | : No | |
| [13] | Small CONTROL.DAT | : No |
If you select entry 3, you can choose a download protocol (like ZModem) that you want to use every time. If you leave it with No Default, it will prompt you for a download protocol each time you download a packet.
If you want to be informed of any new files that have been uploaded to the system select entry 4, and change it to Yes.
If you want to be informed of any new bulletins, check entry 6 and change it to Yes.
Select entry 7 and enter the maximum number of messages you are willing to read from any single conference.
Select entry 8 and enter the maximum total number of messages you want to download.
Select 11 and change it to Yes if you want to start a download of your packet and then walk away from the computer and have it log you off when the download finishes.
There are other commands that we have not covered, and which we may cover in the future, but this is enough to get you started.
Select S to get a list of conferences:
| 0. | Private E-Mail | 1. | General Public Messages |
| 2. | TCS Announcements | 3. | Political Debate |
| 4. | Message to Sysop | 5. | Access |
| 6. | Apple II | 7. | AutoCad |
| 8. | Bartlesville Chapter | 9. | Basic Graphics |
| 10. | CompuServe | 11. | Computer Basics |
| 12. | Daytimers | 13. | Educators |
| 14. | Internet | 15. | Investment |
| 16. | Linux | 17. | Local Area Networks |
| 18. | Midi Music and Multimedi | 19. | Modem |
| 20. | On-Line Services | 21. | OS/2 |
| 22. | Quicken | 23. | Visual Basic |
| 24. | Windows 3.1 | 25. | Windows 95 |
| 26. | Windows NT | 27. | Word Processing / DTP |
| 28. | Other Computers |
Select each conference number that you want to monitor, one at a time, and you will be presented with the following menu:
[Y] Yes, scan for all new messages
[A] Scan for mail to me and mail to ALL
[P] Scan for mail to me only
[N] No, don't scan this conference
If you select Y, then the system will include all new messages from that conference in your download packet each time you call, and it will remind you that you have selected all messages by putting a "*" in front of the conference name.
If you select A, then the system will include just messages specifically to you or to "ALL" from that conference in your download packet each time you call, and it will remind you that you have selected that option by putting a "+" in front of the conference name.
If you select P, then the system will include just messages specifically to you from that conference in your download packet each time you call, and it will remind you that you have selected that option by putting a ">" in front of the conference name.
If you have previously selected a conference, and then decide you no longer want to monitor messages in that conference, select N and it will delete the conference from your list of monitored conferences.
The system will tell you the range of message numbers currently in the conference, and it will allow you to say which message you want to begin capturing messages from. If there are a large number of messages (if the second number is large) and you are not sure how many messages may have been deleted, you can enter something like -10 and get the last 10 messages. If you just press enter, the system will assume you have already read all messages in the conference, and will set your high message number for that conference to the latest message in the conference, so you won't download any current messages.
Messages in this conference are numbered from 1 to 2.
New high message number (use -nn for last nn messages)? [ ]
If you decide to capture messages to you in Private Email (those are the only ones you can read anyway), to capture all messages in General Public Messages, to capture messages to you or to ALL in TCS Business, and to just capture messages to you in Political Debate, and each time just press enter for the high message number your screen will look like:
| 0. | 0 | >Private E-Mail | 1. | 0 | *General Public Messages |
| 2. | 0 | +TCS Announcements and Bu | 3. | 0 | >Political Debate |
| 4. | Message to Sysop | 5. | Access |
If you tell it to download all of the current messages, then at the time I ran this test, your screen would look like:
| 0. | 0 | >Private E-Mail | 1. | 3 | *General Public Messages |
| 2. | 1 | +TCS Announcements | 3. | 1 | >Political Debate |
| 4. | Message to Sysop | 5. | Access |
As indicated earlier, you do have a fair amount of setup to go through the first time, but thereafter you just select D to build and download a new packet, and it will show:
Preparing mail packet...
Press Ctrl+C to abort scan
Total message limit: 1000
Conference message limit: 200
| High | Last | Number | To | |||
| Number | Conference | Message | Read | Found | You Attach | |
| 0 | Private E-Mail | 41 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 1 | General Public Messages | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | |
| 2 | TCS Announcements | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |
| 3 | Political Debate | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Total messages found: 1
Would you like to receive this packet?
Obviously with just one message, it is hardly worthwhile going through all of this, but once we get people activly using the board, we hope there will be a number of messages in each conference, so being able to capture all of them at one time, and then respond to them in your leisure, without having to tie up the BBS phone line (or your own telephone line), should be an advantage.
What do you do once you have downloaded a QWK packet?
You fire up your favorite Off-Line Reader program, and use it to read each of the messages, and when you want to reply to a message, you enter that reply in your Off-Line Reader, and when you finish processing all messages, your Off-Line Reader will build a REP file, and you will then call the TCS BBS a second time, and select U to Upload REP Packet, and all of your replies will be entered into the system in just a few seconds.
You can use any Off-Line Reader program you are familiar with. Rocky Frisco is working on an article on how to use an Off-Line Reader program with the TCS BBS, but he got back from one trip a few days earlier than I thought he was going to, and then he left again on another trip that won't have him back in Tulsa until past the I/O Port Deadline for this month, and I did not get his article from him during the brief period when he was in town, so I will have to delay it until next month. I wanted you to know how to use the BBS this month, however, so I decided to go ahead and run this article this month, and we may run it again, perhaps with changes to mesh more closely with Rocky's article, next month.
For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here