QBox-USA is a computer bulletin board system (BBS) set up by QL enthusiasts in the US for all Sinclair enthusiasts in North America (although we welcome callers from anywhere). We maintain a link (Fidonet) with European BBS’s that carry Sinclair related message areas. While the majority of the messages are QL related, we do carry a Spectrum message area. There are also file areas with many programs available for download. There is NO charge to use QBox-USA. Your only cost is the phone call to the system.
To borrow a line from an old song, ‘What a long strange trip it’s been…’
That pretty much describes getting QBox-USA set up and running from the first time it was considered and talked about in Newport, Rhode Island, in June 1993 until the system that is online today.
Long because it seemed like forever trying to learn the software which is scattered among about a half-dozen different programs that make up the various parts of the QBox system. Strange because most of these programs are still in a ‘beta’ test state with limited or outdated documentation. Strange also due to a few problems that snuck in during a mail exchange with our host BBS in England. To paraphrase Murphy: ‘The programmer will have never seen a bug quite like yours’.
The system runs entirely on a Sinclair QL. One of the easier parts was getting all the hardware set up and going. With a few modifications a standard QL can run reliably for long periods of time although there have been a few system crashes. A few due to me learning by experimenting and a few that I can only chalk up as random glitches.
All of the hardware that makes up this sytem was extra or surplus equipment that was donated by people who wanted to take part in the European Fido echos. Before setting up this system, we had been individually calling the European BBS’s. Besides duplicating efforts it was expensive. About the only cost involved so far has been the telephone line installation and of course the monthly phone bill. This is still much cheaper than before due to the fact that the mail files are sent compressed and late at night. Currently we call our host BBS in England (TF Services) once or twice a week to exchange mail using a high speed modem. Most calls take just a few minutes to transfer 100K bytes or so of messages.
Since the system runs from floppy disks, storage space can be a little tight. (We had no extra hard drives or interfaces laying around). While QBox-USA was intended primarily to take part in the message exchange with QL users in Europe, we also wanted to try and maintain a few file areas containing useful public domain software available for download to North American users. We are investigating a few ways of cheaply and simply adding more storage space.
We try and keep the latest PD stuff online here. If there is something you have heard about and it is not here, whether new or old, leave a message to me or Don Walterman and we’ll see if we can get a hold of it or maybe we already have it and can make it available here for you.
For now though most of the confusion has cleared up, Mr. Murphy has been banished (or least kept at bay) and I’m settling into a regular routine maintaining the system and starting to have fun with it. Despite the confusion, hair-pulling and cursing of the computer gods it has been worth it. Comments, good or bad, are always welcome!
I do have to thank the following people, without them the system wouldn’t be running and you wouldn’t be reading this!
Don Walterman
Tony Firshman
Jan Bredenbeek
Bob Dyl
Lester Wareham
Chris Fowler
In this part of the article I will attempt to explain how to use, and some of the features of, the QBox-USA Bulletin Board System (BBS). As the System Operator (sysop), I hope to be able to explain this without hopelessly confusing a brand new user. I apologize if this is extremely boring to an experienced BBS user. What I won’t be describing is how to use a communications program to connect with QBox. That is the subject of another article. I will start with once you have made a successful connection and take it from there. Also please note that while there are quite a few BBS’s using the QBox software (mostly in Europe, I believe we’re the first in the USA), I will only be describing the system that I am the operator of. Other QBox systems will be similar but may have more or fewer, or different options and commands, depending on how the sysop has set up his system and what hardware he has. However, once you learn to use one Qbox BBS, you should have no trouble using any other.
Okay, so you’ve dialed QBox-USA and the modems have connected. A few seconds after the ‘CONNECT’ message appears on your screen, QBox will start and send a logon screen. This screen will identify the system, and provide some general info about the BBS and then ask you to enter your first and last name (first name, a space, and last name). Note that it is not necessary to capitalize the first letter of each, QBox will do this automatically, and will recognize you on subsequent logons whether you capitalize or not.
QBox will search through its list of users for your name. If it recognizes you (meaning that you’ve called before), it will ask you to enter your password. If it can’t find your name in the list, it will ask if you are a new user or if you have perhaps entered your name incorrectly. If you’re a new user, answer ‘Y’. Qbox will greet you as a new user and ask which town you are calling from. I would like to ask North American users of QBox-USA to enter their town or city followed by their state or province. It’s nice to know what part of the country everyone is calling from! The BBS will ask for confirmation of the town entered and then ask for the password that you wish to use on this system. Your password keeps someone else from logging on under your name. I won’t go into the subject of choosing passwords or their security as that could also be another article. Qbox will ask you to reenter the password you just typed so that it can verify that what you entered the first time was what you really intended. Note that what you type is not displayed for security reasons. If the two don’t match, you will have to start over entering a password.
For new users, there may be a questionaire displayed next asking you to enter some information. Otherwise a message stating no questionaire today will be displayed.
Once your password has been verified, QBox will display some statistics about your call and then display a bulletin. This bulletin is used to inform users of anything about the system that the sysop wants users to know. It may detail new features, new files available, changes or just news in general. At this point I should explain about a prompt that you will see at certain points while using QBox. This is the ‘More? (Y/n)’ prompt. Qbox will display this when it has filled your screen and pauses to let you read. It is asking do you want to see more? You can press ‘Y’ to see more or ‘n’ to stop. You can also just press Enter which will be accepted as a ‘Y’. At any place in QBox where you see a prompt with a choice such as Y/n, the option that is capitalized is the one that will be assumed if you just press Enter. Also, at almost any point in the BBS, you can control the output of the BBS by pressing ‘P’ to pause the BBS, and ‘S’ to stop. If you have paused the BBS, just press any key to continue. If you have stopped the output, you will be returned to the menu from where you came.
After the bulletin is displayed, QBox will scan the message areas for any new messages for you, any new messages in any of the areas since your last call, and if there have been any new files uploaded since your last call. From here you will be presented with the main menu. You can select any of the options on the main menu by pressing the letter in the brackets [ ]. What do all these options do? We’ll take each one individually and explain it.
Since the Mail and File options are a bit more involved and have menus of their own, we’ll leave them for later and explain the others first.
Pressing ‘B’ for [B]ulletin will redisplay the bulletin screen that you saw when you logged on. Qbox will also scan the mail and file areas again for you.
[E]ditorial will display just that, an editorial written by (at least for now) me, the sysop. Currently this a little history story about how and why we set up the BBS.
[I]nfo will present you with a list of information items available on the system. Simply enter the number of the item you wish to read or just press enter to quit this option. After the info is presented, press enter to get back to the Info list and read another or quit back to the main menu. Some of the current info available is a list of other known QL/QDOS BBS systems, a list of newsletters & magazines supporting the QL and QDOS and a list of the hardware and software used on QBox-USA.
[S]tatistics gives you a report of your status such as how long you’ve been online this session, how much time you’re allowed per day, the time you have left, the last time you logged on and the number of times you’ve called this sytem.
[G]oodbye is what you use to log off the system. It will ask for confirmation that you really wish to leave and if so, ask if you wish to leave the sysop a message. A logoff screen will be presented and the times that you logged on and logged off shown. Please use the Goodbye option to log off rather than just hanging up. Logging off properly will ensure that your statistics on the BBS and messages that you’ve read are recorded properly. It will also ensure that the BBS resets itself for the next caller. If you simply hang up, it will take the BBS a while to realize that you’re not there anymore and needlessly ties up the system preventing someone else from using it. Every sysop realizes that there will be occasional problems due to a bad phone connection or a hardware or software problem or crash on your end (or even mine!) that will cause you to be disconnected improperly. Don’t worry about it if it happens. But please, always try and log off properly! There! I’ve said please! (Sysop’s everywhere will appreciate it!)
[C]hange user settings takes you to a screen showing your current settings and a menu of items that you can change to customize the way that QBox presents itself to your system. This will also allow you to change your password if you wish. Press the letter of the setting you wish to change. City and password are self explanatory, width is the number of characters per line across your screen you wish and terminal lines is the number of lines down the screen. These should be set to match the terminal software you are using. Usually the default settings are fine for most QL terminal programs. Once you get more accustomed to using the system you may wish to save time by turning off the menus, select help level to do this. There are three levels of help; full menus, brief menus, and no menus. More will toggle the More prompt on and off. If off, QBox will not pause at the end of a screen but will continue displaying until the end. You can still control the output using the P and S keys as explained earlier. If you’ve made some changes and decide you don’t want to change them, press R to return without updating anything. If you’re satisfied with your changes, press Q and the changes will be saved and take effect.
[U]sers will allow you to search for a name to see if that person is a user on this system. You can also get a list of all the users if you wish. The list will show the name, city, and the date and time of each users last logon.
[A]nswer questionaire will, (if there is currently a questionaire set up), display the same questionaire you would see if you were a new user logging on for the first time.
[Y]ell is an option used to call the sysop. It will sound a beeper on the QL running the BBS to call the sysops attention. Please note that the sysop can control whether or not the beeper will sound. If I am going to be nearby the BBS and won’t mind an interruption, I will turn it on. However if you try to Yell at 3 AM my time or when I am at work, chances are very good I won’t hear it! (It’s turned off!) If the beeper is turned off or the sysop doesn’t respond, you will get a message saying ‘Sysop not present’. If he does, you will enter ‘Chat’ mode. In this mode, anything that the sysop types on his keyboard will also show up on your screen and vice versa for anything that you type. An electronic conversation!! The sysop can also initiate the chat. You will see a message on your screen saying ‘Sysop breaking in for a chat’. When the chat is ended (only the sysop can end the chat), you will be returned to the main menu. You may have to press any key to get the menu redisplayed.
[V]ersion will simply display the revision level of the Qbox BBS software running. We are currently using QBox version 1.191.
Pressing ‘M’ for [M]ail will take you to the message section. There are currently seven message areas on QBox-USA, each with a different subject or category. In these areas you can exchange messages (mail) with other users. Ask a question about that new software or hardware you just got and need help with, leave a note about a programming problem, or just make a comment about the QL world in general. Two of the areas are local, in other words they exist only on QBox-USA. The others are known as echomail areas. Echomail is a system where messages are echoed or passed between BBS’s allowing your messages to be seen by a far greater number of users than they would normally be seen by. A message left by you in one of the echo areas will be echoed among other BBS’s carrying the same echo. A reply or message to you entered on another BBS will be seen by you on this BBS. The two local mail areas on QBox-USA are NOT echoed and messages entered here will only be seen by someone calling QBox-USA directly.
When you enter the mail area you will be in the area you were in the last time you called or area #1 if this is your first call. The area number and name will be displayed along with two numbers showing the last message number you have read and the total number of messages in this area. QBox will also scan the area and report (by message #) of any new messages to you, old messages to you and messages you have entered. A sub menu of options in the mail area is displayed next. To read a specific message, simply enter its number and press enter and it will be displayed. Other commands are explained below:
[A]rea change allows you to change message areas. Enter the area you wish to go to, or enter a ‘?’ to see a list of available areas.
[N]ext will display the next message (by number) after the last one that you have read. Note that the last message # read will change as you read messages.
[P]revious will do the opposite and show one message before the last one you read. Note that this will also change the last message read #.
Also note that by using either of these two commands, you can continue reading in the same direction by simply pressing enter.
[.]Current will redisplay the last read message for you.
[-] and [+] allow you to read either the previous or next reply to the current message (if there is one) rather than reading messages sequentially using Next or Previous, above.
[C] for read [C]ontinuous will simply display each message in order without stopping after each one. This is handy to use if your communications software lets you open a capture or log file. Open the file just before you select this command and all the messages will sent without stopping. When it finishes, close your file. You can then log off and read the messages at your leisure without being online (and running up your phone bill). Note that this command will send messages in the same direction as you have been reading messages (Next or Previous, as above).
[L]ist will present a brief account of the messages by showing the message number, the date it was entered, who it’s from, who it’s to, and the subject. You can select the starting number to list from or press enter for the current last read message.
[Y]our mail will rescan the mail area and redisplay for you the message numbers of new messages to you, old messages to you and messages you have entered.
[D]elete allows you to delete a message that you have entered. To be deleted, the message must be the current last read message and have been entered by you. For obvious reasons you cannot delete a message entered by someone else.
[S]tatistics and [G]oodbye are the same commands as in the main menu.
[Q]uit will take you out of the mail area and back to the BBS’s main menu.
[E]nter message does just that, lets you enter a new message. QBox will print who the message is from and fill in your name for you. Next you will be asked for the name of the user you are sending the message to. If you are entering a message in one of the echo areas, the name will be accepted as is, so be careful of the spelling, otherwise the user may not be notified that there is a message for him. When entering a message in a local message area, the name will checked against the list of users on the system. If the name is not found, you will be given some choices: Abort the message entry, retry entering the name, ignore the warning (if, for example, you wanted to enter a message addressed to: all), or to see the user list to see how the name is spelled. After this, if you are in a local area, you will be asked if this is to be a private message (only readable by the person it’s addressed to, note: the sysop can also read private messages). Private messages are not allowed in the echo areas. Next you are asked for the subject of the message. You can then begin entering your message. Note the prompt from the BBS, that words will wrap automatically and to press enter on an empty line to indicate that you are done.
When done entering a message you can [L]ist the message to proofread it, [A]bort the message entry, change the name of the person it’s [T]o, change the sub[J]ect, change the [P]rivate status (local only), [C]ontinue entering the message, [E]dit a line, [I]nsert a line, [D]elete a line or lines, or [S]ave the message. The message will not be put on the system until you select the Save message option. You can use any of the above options to get your message looking the way you want before actually placing it in the mail area for others to read.
[R]eplying to a message is very similar to entering a new message. You will see the same prompts and have the same options. The BBS will offer a suggested name for the ‘To user:’ prompt and for the subject prompt. The name will be the name of the person who wrote the message that you are replying to and the subject will the same subject as the original message. You can accept these suggestions by pressing enter at each, or you can enter your own. There is one additional option when replying. You can quote text from the original message if you wish. This might be used to make sure that your reply is understood by having some (or all) of the original message as a part of your reply. If you do select the quote option, all of the original message will placed at the start of your reply with a ‘>’ character at the beginning of every line signifying the original text. You can then edit the lines as necessary and add your reply.
From the Main menu you can press ‘F’ for access to the [F]ile areas. The file areas contain many programs that you can download. Note that a download is from the BBS to your computer. Uploads (from your computer to the BBS) are also gladly accepted! When you enter the file area, it’s number and name will be shown. The name is simply the general category of the files contained in this area. There are currently the following areas on QBox-USA: General Files, Communications, Utilities, Archivers, Pointer Stuff, and Emulators. A further menu of options available in the file areas is displayed.
[A]rea change allows you to change file areas. Simply enter the number of the area or a ‘?’ to see a list of available areas.
[F]ile list will give you a listing of file titles, size in bytes and a short description of each program available in this area.
[V]iew will let you look at a text file online without having to download it first. It will ask you for the filename you wish to view. View only works on files that are text! These are usually signified by an extension such as ‘_txt’.
[S]tatistics, [Q]uit and [G]oodbye are the same as explained earlier.
Pressing ‘D’ for [D]ownload will start the download procedure. You will be asked to choose a protocol. QBox currently supports Xmodem, SEAlink and Telink transfer protocols. Your terminal software will need to support at least one of these in order to download files. If you select Xmodem you will be asked to enter the name of the file you wish to receive. Since SEAlink and Telink allow multiple files to be transferred (batch), you can enter more than one name. As you enter the name (be careful of spelling, use the File list command to see how the names are spelled), the BBS will display it’s size in bytes and an estimated transfer time based on your connection baud rate. For batch protocols, simply press enter at a filename? prompt to indicate no more files. The BBS will then prompt you to start downloading now and instruct you on how to cancel the transfer if necessary. At this point you should start the download portion of your terminal software. Depending on your software, you should see some type of progress report as the transfer proceeds. After the transfer has completed you will be returned to the File menu.
[U]pload will allow you to send a file from your system to the BBS. Please do not upload commercial or copyrighted programs (unless you own the copyright and wish to place the program in the public domain). You will be asked to choose a protocol and the amount of disk space available on the system for uploads will be shown. QBox will then ask for the filename or names if a batch protocol was selected. After you enter this you will be prompted to begin the transfer from your end and how to cancel if you wish. After the transfer has completed the BBS will ask you to enter a short description of the file or files you just uploaded (79 characters maximum).
Just a few more general notes on using QBox-USA: First, for doing file transfers using Xmodem, QBox requires 128 byte blocks. It cannot (currently) handle Xmodem 1K byte blocks. Please make sure that your terminal software is set for 128 byte blocks if using Xmodem for file transfers. Second, the BBS has a three minute inactivity timeout. This means that if the BBS detects no response from you after waiting three minutes, it will disconnect you and reset for the next caller. Don’t wait too long while deciding what to do while online. (Hopefully this article will prevent this by explaining what all those commands do!).
Third, I have modified the BBS software so that it will send the ‘ENQ’ character at logon. What this means is that if your terminal software supports an auto logon sequence by responding to the ‘ENQ’ you can automate logging on to QBox-USA. Fourth, once you have logged on to a QBox system for the first time, if you do not log on again within 30 days, your name will be automatically deleted from the system. Once you log on the second time, your name will only be removed if you do not log on for over 90 days.
Finally, I hope this article will prompt you to give QBox-USA a try! If you do call, please leave me or my co-sysop, Don Walterman, a message. Let us know what you think of the system. Let me know what you think of this article. Comments, criticism, and suggestions are always welcome!
QBox-USA can be reached at 810-254-9878. (Detroit, Michigan area). 24 hours a day. 300/1200/2400 baud. A new high speed modem (up to 14400 baud) should be online soon.