This article provides some hints, primarily for new users, as to how to make most efficient use of the BBS. If you are an experienced user, you may not wish to read this entire article. However, please scan through the headlines. We are continually surprised to find even experience users are not making most efficient use of the BBS. As the membership grows it will be more and more necessary to use the BBS efficiently to maximize its use for everyone.
GENERAL - GETTING AROUND
The AMUG BBS is currently free to all AMUG members. It is available 24 hours a day by calling 495-1713. That number is a central number so should not be a toll call from almost anywhere in the valley. The BBS operates at 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, and no parity bits (sometimes referred to as "8-1-N", or some variation thereof). If you have set these correctly in your software and are having problems, don't fiddle with these settings; Your problems are elsewhere. The BBS operates at up to 2400 baud. You should set your software at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud, depending on the maximum capability of your modem. If connections are very bad, you might try a lower rate than your modem's maximum. But, I have not heard of any connection problems, so this is unlikely to be a problem.
HOW TO LOG ON AND GET VALIDATED
When you first dial the BBS (495-1713) you will be asked for your first and last names. You need to be careful that you don't have any typographical errors, and also remember if you use any nickname (i.e. Dick instead of Richard). You will also be asked to select a password of 3-8 characters. Upper and lower case are the same and symbols count (e.g."*" or "="). A common error both for passwords and names is to let an empty space slip in.
Anyone first logging on is allowed 10 minutes to look around a bit. But before doing so you should immediately select the validation choice from the main menu, and send the Sysop advice you want to be validated. You will need to provide your name and membership number along with your address and telephone number. Aliases or "Handles" are not allowed. You will be validated as soon as the information can be verified. If there is a problem the Sysop will send you mail. You can read it by using the <R>ead command, so check back periodically. We will try to get you validated soon, but sometimes it takes a little time.
If all of a sudden after being on, you find access is denied, it might be that your 1 year membership has expired. If that's not the case, sign on as a "stranger" and <S>end the Sysop mail explaining the situation.
Before you are validated you can list files available for downloading, but cannot download them. You also cannot access any of the message boards. However, you can read the "About AMUG" bulletins. But remember, you only have 10 minutes at a time.
ON-LINE TIME LIMITS
You are allowed 30 minutes per call, and 2 calls per day. If you are a frequent contributor to this BBS by uploading files, or by posting messages in the messages boards, your time per call may be increased to 45 minutes, or perhaps even more, depending on the quality of your participation. We would like to allow more time, but it does get busy at times, and we need to let others on The time you have remaining is shown just to the left of the command lines following the menus. When your time expires you will be "dumped" from the BBS. However, if you are downloading (or uploading) a file, that process will complete before you get dumped. Just make sure you are not in the process of typing in a long post when your time is out or you will lose what you have typed.
TIMING OUT FOR INACTIVITY
If there is no activity for five minutes, the Host will assume you have dropped dead and dump you. This is necessary to prevent the board being tied-up when people forget to sign off and break the connection. "Inactivity" means no command has been executed, or if you are typing text, no key has been pressed. The same warnings as above apply about losing what ever text you are in the midst of typing.
STOPPING SCROLLING TEXT
If text is scrolling by forever, and you don't know how to stop it, try "COMMAND-C." The command key is to the left of the spacebar on your keyboard. Just hold that key down and press "C" at the same time (either lower or upper case works). This stops things except where you have chosen to read text from a menu.
NOTE: If you just want to stop the scrolling temporarily, but not forever, you may be able to do so by pressing the mouse button; Releasing it will let the scroll continue. Usually the keyboard commands of "COMMAND-S" and "COMMAND-Q" will stop, then start the scrolling as well as using the mouse (actually, after a "COMMAND-S", pressing any key will re-start scrolling; but the standard is COMMAND-Q to restart). These techniques may not work if your hard/software does not allow, or you have not turned on the X-on/X-off flow control. Experiment a bit to check this out.
USING "RETURN"
If you are faced with a list of commands, just pressing the return key signals you don't like any of the choices, and you will be returned whence you came, usually the last menu screen you were using.
NOTE: One area in which this process is needed, and which might be a bit confusing is where you have chosen to read or scan messages. For example, suppose you have chosen to read all new messages. After the first message has scrolled by you are faced with this list of choices:
D>elete, R>eply, N>ext C>ontinuous (D,R,N,C)?
If you don't want to do any of those things, and would rather just get back to the rest of your life, just press return. If you have pressed "C" for continuous reading and want to stop, press "CONTROL-C", then press return when you see the above choices.
"HOT" MENUS and the EXPERT MODE
One of the first things you will do is to set up your Terminal Preferences under "System Utilities" from the Main Menu. One of the choices is "Hot Menus." If you say yes to this, then when faced with a menu choice (such as to press <B> to go to the bulletins), you only have to press the "B", you do not have to press "Return", or "Enter" after each menu selection. I recommend you accept this choice to speed you up in getting around the board. From the Systems Utilities (or From the Main Menu, I believe), pressing the asterisk key will toggle you into or out of the expert mode. For beginners, get used to the word "toggle," since the concept is used frequently. It just means you use the same command (in this case a "*") to alternate between the on, then off state of a feature. In the expert mode, you get only a one-line list of the commands, not a complete description. This speeds things up of course, but requires real familiarity with the BBS, so I don't recommend this until you have some experience. Of course, is you set up any series of scripts or macros (automated commands allowed by some communications software) you should consider using both Hot Menus and the Expert Mode.
THE MESSAGE BULLETIN BOARDS
The various bulletin boards contain messages posted by users. It's easier for newcomers to learn how to read the messages by experiment than it is to try to explain. But, I will mention an initial problem. One of the choices in reading messages is <N>ew. New means since the last time the user was on the BBS. For first time users, all messages are new. That can be an awful lot of messages to read, since we are up to a total (all message boards) of over 16,000 messages. Actually, the number displayed is the total number ever posted. In reality, a lot of them have been erased. Still a lot there though. If you happen to press new, then continuous, you are in for a long time watching messages scroll by. Remember, you can press Control-C (perhaps followed by return if necessary) to stop this after you get tired of watching messages scroll by.
A better way might be to read the messages in reverse order, until you get back to where you feel the messages are too old be provide useful information then stop the flow. Next time you get on you can use <N>ew and you'll just get a list of those since your last log-on.
However you do it, the most efficient way is not to try to read a bunch of messages while you are on-line. You can turn your "capture" feature on, to collect the message to read off line. This way you will not tie-up the BBS while others may be waiting to get on. Or, you way do some other things with the balance of your time.
SCROLLING BACK
Most communications software will let you reverse scroll to see text that has scrolled out of sight. Don't forget that the amount of text that can be stored depends on the available memory. You could lose some text "off the top" if there is a lot of it, or you are short of memory. To avoid losing text, maximize your available memory by turning off the RAM Cache from the control panel, and/or close any open desk accessories. Another possibility noted above is to turn on whatever capture feature your software has to capture the text in a file for off-line reading with a wordprocessor.
COMBINING MESSGE BOARDS for READING
There are a number of different message boards. To speed up reading messages, and to make sure you don't miss anything you may be interested in, you should use the feature of combining message boards for reading. From the Bulletin Boards Menu, select <S>et Message Sections to be combined. You can then identify by a yes or no which boards you will be interested in reading, all of them if you like. Thereafter, a <R>ead command will read them all, and you don't have to go through them one-by-one to read new messages.
POSTING MESSAGES - WHAT and WHY
To my mind the exchange of ideas, tips, suggestions, etc. in the message sections is the lifeblood of the BBS, or should be. We would like you to contribute. We will have a few "rules" and suggestions, then some tips on posting messages.
There are a number of message boards, but for general use most people ignore them and use the Macintosh board for just about everything. If you post a message about telecommunications in (of all things) the Telecommunications SIG message section, it may not be seen. Many don't bother to look at any board other than the Macintosh board, and either don't know about or choose not to use the "Combining" feature mentioned above. We are not particularly complaining about this, just letting new users know not to worry about putting posts in the right "compartment."
There is one exception to us not complaining: we do insist that items for sale be listed in that section, not in any of the other message areas. If you do, we'll move it. If a message is truly private, use E-mail so as to not force all to read a message of no interest to us. I hate junk mail, particularly someone else's junk mail!! But, don't take this too far. For example, if you want to ask Joe Blow his opinion of the Acme wordprocessor, consider addressing this to Joe, but in a public message; Others may also be interested in Joe's opinion. On the other hand, if you want to tell Joe he still owes his share of last night's dinner tab, then do that by private E-mail. Of course you can make that public if you want to let everyone know Joe is a deadbeat to shame him into paying up.
My final pet peeve is the short message that no one can understand. Periodically, a message will be posted that says something like "That's right John". That's the whole message! Even John may not know what the heck that means, let alone the rest of us!
POSTING MESSAGES - ON-LINE DOs and (MOSTLY) DONT'S There is a MacWrite file in the telecommunications download section of the BBS which goes into detail on posting messages. The file is called "AMUG-POSTING". Here I'll try to hit the highlights. You can type <P>, for post, and follow the prompts to type in and edit a new message. Or, just after reading a message you can type <R> to reply to the message. However, unless your message is going to be pretty short, and you know just what you are going to say, and you are a pretty good typist, entering and editing a message directly is not the most efficient use of the BBS. In the best cases it tends to slow things down and waste your on-line time, or delay others waiting to get on. In the worst case you may not get the message in at all. I know that more than a few times I have been dumped off-line by getting timed-out for inactivity while sitting there wondering what to say next.
In other cases I ended up cancelling the message because I messed beyond the Host's editing capabilities. The latter is a real problem. After entering your message, you can go back and edit, but only by line. For example, if you leave out a word, the line length limit may prevent you from inserting the missing word. You can insert a line, or lines. But if what you want to add is less than a full line in length, the message ends up pretty disjointed looking!
POSTING MESSAGES BY CUTTING & PASTING
One alternative is to use a desk accessory (DA) text processor such as miniWRITER (my favorite, but there are others). You can compose the message using the DA, then cut the message and paste it into the message on the Host. You do need to watch some DA text processors which add linefeeds to each line. This will cause problems as described in the next section.
POSTING MESSAGES BY SENDING TEXT FILES
Another method is to use your software's method of sending a text file to be "posted" directly into the message. Download the file "AMUG-POSTING" mentioned above for the details, but here're the basics:
1. Prepare the file for upload using your preferred text or wordprocessor.
2. Put NO BLANK LINES in the text.
3. If you use a wordprocessor such as MacWrite, make sure you save the file as a plain text file.
4. Make sure the file contains no more than 40 lines.
5. Use spaces rather than tabs if you wish to format the the text (to indent paragraphs or to line up columns, etc.).
6. Use either no carriage returns at all (that's none!), or put them at the end of each line, or where you need special formatting such as to line up columns.
7. If you do use carriage returns, make sure no line is longer than 74 characters (if you are eye-balling it, use a 9-point font).
8. Follow the menu/commands to say who the message s intended for, and what the subject is.
9. When you get to the point you would normally start typing text, instead send (upload) your text file. You would do this using whatever the commands of your software are for sending text, as opposed to Xmodem, or some other file transfer protocol.
10. If you accidentally send more than 40 lines, the Host will put you into editing mode before your upload is finished, and strange things will appear on the screen. If that happens, immediately use your software command to stop sending the text file. You will then usually have to cancel the message and start all over.
11. The same thing can happen to you by coincidence (not too frequently) if you choose to add your own returns at the end of each line.
Please note that all of the above steps are not necessary, and there are other methods that can be used. The download file referenced in paragraph 1, above, tells about alternatives, and why. This is intended as a quick and dirty description of what works (usually !!) for beginners.
LOGGING OFF
When you are through sampling the wares of the BBS, please do a "graceful exit". That is, go through the normal log off procedure (typing <G> from the main menu, or <O> from the files section, etc.). Don't just shut off your modem or exit your communications program. Ordinarily, this will not be a problem, but under some circumstances it could hang-up the BBS. Especially if you use some of the special features such as the game area, be careful to follow the guidelines for exiting those areas.
Well, I hope the explanation has made using the BBS seem more complicated than it really is. As usual, you got to do it to learn it. You'll find you really can't hurt the BBS, and you'll also find people on the BBS very willing to help new users get going. "See you' on the board!!!!
NOTE: If you kinda stumbled onto this file, note that there are three other help files on this Bulleting Board in the Telecommunications Section. They are:
"AMUG-About" - A little introduction to the BBS for beginners only.
"AMUG-D'Loads" - Some tips on dolwnloading files from the BBS, including files you will need such as "Stuffit", and otheres
"AMUG-Posting" - How to post and upload messages, and a few other tips as well. This file need some updating, but the information is still valid.
