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Text File | 1985-02-21 | 19.5 KB | 360 lines

@CB 1 THE CALL ANALYZER Version 3.0 written for RBBS-PC CPC12.3B or later by Lee Nelson and Jerry Sanders Atlanta February 17, 1985 The CALL ANALYZER is copyright 1984, 1985 by AlphaSoft System, 2508 Constance St., Atlanta, GA 30344, phone (404) 761-8137. A limited license is granted to distribute this software with the following conditions: (1) No profit is charged for distribution. (2) This program is not distributed in altered form. (3) This statement is not removed. (4) These files will only be distributed under the names of CALLA30x.LBR (where x is the current release level indicator) and not separated from documentation. NEW FEATURES IN VERSION 3.0 (1) Support for RBBS-PC CPC12.3B thru CPC12.3C has been added (2) Support for RBBS-PC X3D has been added (3) 2400 baud callers are now supported (4) Up to 1,000 differently named download files can now be accommodated (5) Once more than 1,000 files have been analyzed the Call Analyzer will no longer terminate, but instead will report on the summary statistics for that portion of the CALLERS file which was read to that point (6) A new graphing system has been added. System utilization distribution is now averaged and summarized in a multi-color bar graph to illustrate periods of highest and lowest utilization by percentage (8) Certain routines have been optimized to improve performance (9) Various reported errors have been fixed (10) Registration price has been lower from $25 to $15 If you find this program to be of use, please send $15 along with the registration form to AlphaSoft Systems at the above address. A registration form has been provided at the end of this documentation for the purpose of registering your copy of the CALL ANALYZER. Users who pay this fee will receive a registered copy of the latest version of the CALL ANALYZER at the time of registration. They are also eligible for telephone support for problems and questions about this software. In addition, they will receive mail notification of the availability of the next new release of this software. Our technical support line is (404) 761-8137 after 7 PM. We will need to know the name in which the software was registered and the program serial number before we can provide technical support. 2 DESCRIPTION: The CALL ANALYZER program is a self contained statistical analysis program for use in summarizing and categorizing the user activity on an RBBS-PC system. It is designed to work with the caller file of any version of RBBS-PC from CPC12.3B or later. It has been thoroughly tested with CPC12.3B. Certain version of RBBS-PC prior to CPC12.3B do not log all of the caller activity that CALL ANALYZER looks for. Garbage records in the caller files of some earlier versions of RBBS can also cause problems in the CALL ANALYZER. The only solution to this problem is to upgrade your RBBS-PC system to CPC12.3B or later. DISCLAIMER NOTICE: The CALL ANALYZER should run on earlier version of RBBS prior to CPC12.3B. However, you will not get the full features of the system and Alphasoft Systems will be under no obligation to support paid users with problems caused by files from version earlier than CPC12.3B. You must have a CALLERS file that spans a mimimum of 24 hours in order to run the ANALYZER. A CALLERS file of smaller size may produce errors or distorted statistics. At any rate such information even if accurate would me meaningless. Therefore problems that might arise from using such a file will not be supported by AlphaSoft Systems. REQUIREMENTS: The CALL ANALYZER is designed to run on an IBM-PC or compatible with a minimum of 256K and at least 1 diskette drive. It can be used with either the IBM Monochrome monitor or any compatible color monitor. In addition a printer is recommended to produce hardcopy reports. The printer however is optional. The only other requirement is a caller file from RBBS-PC CPC12.3B or later. INSTALLATION: The CALL ANALYZER will self install each time it is brought up unless it is able to find a valid configuration file in the current sub-directory of the default disk drive. The file, named CALLA30C.CNF will be produced the 1st time the system is brought up. It will prompt the user for certain system specific information. You will be asked whether you wish to use a monochrome or color monitor and for the full name of your RBBS-PC caller file. The standard name for this file is CALLERS. However some users have renamed this file in the RBBS-PC configuration process. 3 In either case you must reply with the complete name of your caller file. In addition you will be prompted for a file spec for permanent storage of the callers statistics. This message can be replied to with either a standard DOS file name or a DOS device specification such as a printer, e.g, LPT1:, LPT2:, CALLDATA.STA. Any valid DOS file specification is acceptable. However, a filename of TRACE will cause the CALL ANALYZER to prompt for trace options. The trace facility will substantially degrade program performance and therefore will normally be used only for debuging purpose as require for support from AlphaSoft. Upon exiting the CALL ANALYZER, you will be asked if you wish to make a permanent copy of the statistics. This DOS file or device specification will dictate the destination of the permanent copy if you should reply yes to this prompt. This data can be sent to a printer or to a file for eventual input to another program such as LOTUS 1-2-3. If the need arises to alter any of the initial configuration options, i.e. CALLERS file name or TRACE options, etc., you should simply delete the CALLA30C.CNF file and rerun the CALL ANALYZER. This will causes the system to prompt for a new set of configuration parameters. USE AND FUNCTIONS: With the caller file in the default drive and sub-directory, issue the command CALLANA at the DOS prompt. The startup panel will appear. The display at the bottom will indicate which caller record is currently being read. The CALL ANALYZER reads the CALLERS file backwards, beginning with the largest record number and decerments towards one. When this number reaches one or the unique file name count reaches the 1,000 limit, the system statistics main screen will be displayed. The first screen is made up of 3 sections. The 2 on the left display statistics relating to caller information such as baud rate, parity settings and total callers. The other section on the left contains statistics relating to the the RBBS file section. The right section contains an alphabetically sorted list of all files that have been downloaded from the system, with a total download count. This section can be paged forward or backwards using the PgUP and PgDn keys. The Home and End keys position the files section to the bottom or top of the download list. At this point the F1 key can be pressed to update the left side of the screen with additional statistics about the overall utilization of the RBBS system. Pressing the F1 key a third time will produce a system utilization bar graph. Further pressing of the F1 key cycles you back to the first display screen. You may exit the CALL ANALYZER at any point by pressing the Esc key. At this point the system will ask if you wish to direct the report to the output device/filespec. If you so desire, simply reply with a Y. If no report is desired a reply of N will terminate the program. A menu of all CALL ANALYZER keyboard functions is displayed at the bottom of the screen at 4 all times except during bar graph display. However all function key always operational. UNDERSTANDING THE BAR GRAPH: During the beta test phase for release 3.0, several testers commented that they really didn't understand what the "Average Percentage of Hourly Usage" really was. Therefore we have decided to include an explanation for the chart and the data which it represents. The horizontal axis of the graph represents the 24 hours of each day. The vertical axis represents the percentage of utilization of each hour of the day averaged together over the period of the callers file. The total percentage is calculated by adding up the total number of minutes the RBBS system was in use each day, during each hour of the day. This total is divided by the total number of days for which each separate hour was logged into the callers file. Callers files which begin and end at times other than midnight will have more days activity for certain hours (on the first and/or last day of the callers file) than for others. This has been taken into account when gathering and graphing these statistics. The bar chart itself, taken as a whole, should provide the RBBS SYSOP with a visual picture of the peaks and valleys of his systems' utilization. This information might be used for many purposes such as deciding when the least impact will be felt by users when bringing the system down for maintenance. It also shows the SYSOP how much room his system has left for additional growth and where that growth can best be funneled in terms of times of the day when access and utilization are lowest. We have found that by identifying slack periods of an RBBS's utilization to its users, they will change their calling habits to fill in those slack periods. LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Due to the nature of the internal sort, the CALL ANALYZER can only handle caller files with no more than 1,000 different named download files or 32,676 caller file records. As a benchmark I have run CALL ANALYZER against a caller file which contained 5,646 records. This represented 611 different named download files for a total of 3,331 total downloads. This particular caller file spanned a period of 30 days of 24 hour operation. System utilization ran at 50%. The system contained approximately 1600 download files. Under standard DOS 3.0, the CALL ANALYZER took 4 mins and 15 seconds to run. Under Multi-Job, with 2 partitions and RBBS-PC CPC12.3B running in the background, using the same caller file, the system took 9 mins and 55 seconds to run. Experience with MultiLink Advanced 3.0 indicates that CALL ANALYZER will probably run approximately the same as under Multi-Job. Based on these run times, we recommend that a caller file that is one month (31 days) in length is probably ideal. Such a file should be processed in a reasonable time (less than 10 minutes) and in most 5 cases should not be capable of taxing the limitations of the CALL ANALYZER. In addition, if the user establishes a specific time each month (say the last day of the month) to run this program and then deletes or archives the caller file and starts a new one, he will be able to compare statistics from month to month. The printed report is ideal for month to month comparisons. FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS: In a future release we will be converting some of the longer running routines to assembler to improve run time. Also the graphics display system will be moved to another module to allow additional graphic displays. One of the current problems in producing utilization statistics from RBBS is that you must assume that the system was available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. All SYSOP's know that from time to time this just isn't the case. We have proposed to Tom Mack that an RBBS system start up record and possibly a system shutdown record be added to the callers file. Tom said he would consider this, and hopefully it will be in the CPC12.3C version currently scheduled for release on Feb 17, 1985. If these records are provided many more statistical analyses are possible. Also we would like to eventually add a master file into which all of these statistics are permanently stored and with each run of the ANALYZER, these files would be updated. This would give SYSOP's a much better history of download files and long term utilization. Currently the permanent output file from CALL ANALYZER is designed primarily for output to a hardcopy printer. One beta tester has shown interest in trying to develop a LOTUS 1-2-3 worksheet for graphing and comparing RBBS-PC statistics. This permanent output data set can serve as the source of data into the LOTUS system. If we find that there is a general interest in this, we will develop a new output section to the program. Let us know if you would be interested in seeing this. We will continue to add additional features to the system from time to time, as well as keep it up to date with the most current release of RBBS-PC. In the future we plan to add additional statistics from the caller file and provide some statistical peeks at the RBBS message and user files. If you have any ideas or suggestions that you think might improve the CALL ANALYZER, please call us voice at (404) 761-8137 after 7:00 PM EST, call my BBS at (404) 761-3635 or write us and tell us about it. We anticipate a new release of this software about every 2 or 3 months. RBBS-PC is copyrighted by Tom Mack and Jon Martin, of the Capitol City PC Users Group. Washington, D.C. Multi-Job is a registered trademark of B & L Computer Software, Boise, Idaho MultiLink is a registered trademark of The Software Link, Atlanta, Georgia 6 LOTUS and 1-2-3 are registered trademarks of Lotus Development Corp. CALL ANALYZER REGISTRATION FORM To register your copy of this software please complete the form below and return along with $10 to Alphasoft Systems, 2508 Constance St., Atlanta, Georgia 30344. You will receive the latest version of CALL ANALYZER by mail within 4 weeks. You may call our technical support line as soon as we receive your registration form. NAME:_______________________________________________________ ADDRESS:____________________________________________________ CITY:_______________________________ STATE:_________________ ZIP:____________________________ Where did you acquire this copy of the CALL ANALYZER ? ____________________________________________________________ What is the serial number under the logo of the version you now have? __________________________ Specify disk format you require for the new release: _____SS/SD _____DS/DD 8 sector _____DS/DD 9 sector Suggestions or Comments: ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________