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* Desired terminal emulator, like TTY, VT-100 or VT-52.
* CAPITAL LETTERS or Mixed Case.
* What ASCII character code to use for the DELETE function.
* How many s.p.a.ces to insert when expanding TABs in your mail.
* Number of lines per screen (for example, 24 on an IBM PC, or eight on a TRS-80 Model 100. Whether scrolling is to pause after each screenful or not.) * Number of characters per line (for example, 80 lines on a PC, or 40 on a TRS-80 Model 100.
* If the linefeed character is to be sent or not.
* If blank lines are to be sent.
* Whether the service is to check when you log on to see if you're using special software (as in 'Inquire for VIDTEX' on CompuServe).
* The use of 'echo'. Is the service to return the characters that you enter on your keyboard?
* Use of delay when sending linefeeds. (Useful if capturing text to a dumb printing terminal. If text scrolls too fast for the printer, you risk losing some of it.) * Choice of prompt character, or prompt text string. This is useful when communicating by script files. On CompuServe, I have asked the system to add the Backs.p.a.ce character (ASCII character number 8) to the end of all forum prompts. Since this character is rarely found in messages or other texts, I can safely let scripts depend on this prompt character for unattended communication.
Displaying information on the screen ------------------------------------ An 'A' is not an 'A' no matter what service you use. If you call Tocolo BBS in j.a.pan (Tel.: +81-3-205-9315. 1200 bps, 8,N,1.) with a non-j.a.panese MS-DOS computer, chances are that the welcome text will look like this:
* D0:[ BBS (<^ ]="" 7.8)="">
* 62>] =3 ---> 3 (@^2K.3 03-205-9315) *
* 3]V3 <^6] ---=""> 24 <^6] 6d^3="" c="D" a-3="">
* (Wed 9:00-17:00 J R]C I @R 5T=P C^=) *
You'll need a j.a.panese ROM (Read-Only Memory) in your computer, a special graphics program, or a j.a.panese language operating system to have the Kanji characters displayed properly on your screen.
The characters that you see on your computer's screen are based on a code. The computer finds the characters to display from a table built into your system's hardware or software.
Most personal computers can be preset to use various tables depending on your needs. When communicating in English, you may want it to show Latin characters. When writing in j.a.panese, you may want it to display Kanji characters.
Those writing in Norwegian, often want to use the special Scandinavian characters . If the first two of these Nordic characters read like the symbols for Yen and Cent, you're not set up for Scandinavian characters. If your system is set up correctly, they should look like an 'o' and an 'O' overwritten by a '/'.
The code telling your computer what to display, may also contain information about where to put characters and what colors to use.
Thus, an online service may order your computer to display a given character in column 10 on line 2, and to print it in blinking red color. If you're not set up correctly, these codes may show as garbage on your screen rather than as a colorful character in a given position.
If you call a service set to display text in VT-52 format, and your communications program is set accordingly, then you should be OK. VT-52 is a setup that makes a program or a service 'behave'
like a DEC VT-52 terminal.
Being able to view VT-52 coded text on your screen, does not guarantee that you can capture this 'picture' to a file on your disk. Your communications program may need special features to do that. If these features are missing, you are in for a surprise. The text in your capture file may look like in this example (it came on a single, long line on my computer):
-------------------------------------------------------------------- *H*J*Y"4 Innhold*Y%> *Y&4Emneoversikt 1 Brukerprofil 6*Y)4Stikkord A-] 2 Bruker- *Y*4 veiledning 7*Y,4Informasjons- *Y- 4leverand|rer A-] 3 Teledatanytt*Y.W 8*Y04Personlig indeks 4*Y2H *Y34Meldingstjenesten 5 Avs.l.u.tte 9*Y64 ]pningsside *00# *Y 4TELEDATA 880823-1538*Y74 NTA01-00a*Y74 *Y74*Y74
The character '*' in this example refers to the ESCape character (ASCII number 27). ESC is used to tell your computer that what follows is a VT-52 display command.
The codes following the ESC say where text is to be printed on your screen (from line number x and column number y).
If your communications program cannot save VT-52 coded text in a readable way, you'll need auxiliary programs to remove or convert the codes. Some communication programs let you take snapshots of the screen, and store the result in a file. This usually gives good results, but it may be a c.u.mbersome approach.
Prestel (British Telecom, England) belongs to a group of online services called videotex (or viewdata). Minitel (in France and the U.S.), Alex (Canada), and Prodigy (U.S.A.) are also in this group.
They believe that beautiful color graphics, large characters, and menus give them a compet.i.tive advantage.
CompuServe is often called a videotex service because of its emphasis on menus. However, most call it 'ASCII videotex' as it is not depending on special display formats. Their philosophy is that 'plain text' is required to attract many users across hardware platforms.
The viewdata services use graphical display standards with names like Prestel, CEPT, Captain (Character and Pattern Telephone Access Information Network System, in j.a.pan), Telidon (Canada), Minitel, Teletel (France), GIF (the Graphics Interchange Format), Viewdata, and NAPLPS (The North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax).
You often need special terminal machines to use some viewdata services. On other services, you must use special software plus an emulator card in your computer.
Users of the communications program Procomm Plus can buy a Viewdata module for conversion of Prestel videotex text to plain ASCII, i.e., plain text without imbedded special codes.
Many MS-DOS based bulletin boards let you set access defaults to colors and graphics. Most of them use ANSI graphics in welcome texts and menus. Users of Procomm must set their program to ANSI BBS to take advantage.
Capture these welcome texts and menus to a file on your hard disk, and view them with an editor. They are filled with ANSI escape codes, and thus hard to read (and search). The good news is that conference and forum mail only rarely contains such codes.
Many users routinely keep captured online information on their hard disks for later reference. If this is your intention, make sure that text is sent to you in plain ASCII, or TTY mode.
TTY sends one line at a time, and only uses the codes TAB, Backs.p.a.ce, Carriage Return and LineFeed during the transfer.
The rest is 'plain text'.
Most online services offer TTY format. You can use the setting almost everywhere. Even the videotex service Prestel offers an option called 'TTY Teletype'.
If 'TTY' or 'ASCII' is not on your online services' list of options, try 'Others' or 'Other computers'. These settings usually identify your computer as unable to handle 'standard' colors, sound and graphics.
Viewdata pages may provide "selling pictures," but the screens often have a low contents of information compared with TTY-based services. They are therefore not my favorite services for news in full-text.
In other applications, like games, colorful graphics are a definite advantage.
Connecting the first time ------------------------- If you have unlimited financial resources, go ahead and call up services all over the world. Learning by doing is exciting.
If resources are limited, start by reading user information manual. Or, go online to capture key menus and help texts. Print them out on paper for further study before going online again for a 'real' visit.
I always hurry slowly during my first visits to a new online service. I call up, capture information about how to use it, and disconnect. It may take me days to study the material. My objective is to find what the service has to offer in order to plan how to use it most efficiently.
The first important command to look up is the logoff command.
There is nothing more frustrating than entering "bye" only to get an error message. If lost, try "quit", "exit", "logoff", "off" and "G", in the hope of finding the correct command. These are the most usual variations. You should also try HELP or "?".
If you really can't figure out how to get off a system, just hang up on it. Be careful, though. Some systems will continue to charge for a period, even after you have disconnected by hanging up.
One of the first things that I do, is set my options to expert status, though I am obviously an amateur at this stage.
Often, I also start automating the process during my first visits. I write script files for automatic access and quick navigation to key offerings. Another good strategy is to look for automated offline readers or systems (see Chapter 16 for details).
Others prefer paper and pencil. They write a list of required commands on a piece of paper, like this:
Call 0165 At CONNECT: ENTER @SP ENTER At the NUI prompt: Nx.x.xxxppppp-a170041 At Enter 'dix' and Put the list by your keyboard before calling the service. Follow it carefully. After a while you may remember the procedure, and can throw away your notes. Good luck! Chapter 4: Hobby, games and fun =============================== * Programs, game and fun Online adventure games. The virus threat. * Hobbies. Holiday travels. Collecting stamps or coins. Roots, music, and online shopping. Online services have one thing in common with newspapers, magazines and books. What they offer, varies from provider to provider. The next chapters will focus on the contents of the offerings. Appendix 1 has details about how to access the major service providers. Small online services often have interesting offerings in specialized areas, and especially when they are based on local phenomena or events. They tend to be more personal. They often present their 'wares' in a local language, and offer very large collections of free software. The large online services have hundreds of thousands of users. The activity is often high. They usually attract interesting (and competent) partic.i.p.ants to their conferences and forums, have more programs available for download and more news sources and databases to search. They generally give you a wider choice. We will focus on the large international services. These are available from anywhere without too much effort, and using them comes surprisingly cheap. Therefore, please remember that this book just covers the top of the iceberg. Cheaper services may be found elsewhere, and they may even be better tuned to your particular areas of interest. Locating game software ---------------------- The fastest, easiest and cheapest is to call an online service to download game programs. You'll find an overwhelming number of programs for all types of microcomputers. Many games are free. We call them "Public Domain" or "Freeware" programs. Others are distributed free. You do not have to pay to get them and try them out. If you want to use them, however, the copyright owner expects you to pay a fee. We call them "shareware" or "user supported" programs. When the game has been transferred to your personal computer, you can play without worries about communications costs, or the busy signal on your phone line. My favorite game is shareware. The name is Arachnid. It is an MS Windows solitaire game (patience) made by SP Services, P.O. Box 456, Southampton, SO9 7XG, England. The desired registration fee is UKP 15.00 (English pounds). You can download the program from my board as WINCARD.EXE. The file is 106 kilobytes large. WINCARD.EXE is a special distribution file, which contains three games and all supporting files. The EXE extension may fool you into thinking that it is a program, and in a way it is. The file is a self-extract file, meaning that you just enter "WINCARD" on an MS-DOS computer to extract the game files from the "package." Games are usually distributed in such distribution files. All files used by a game (or several games) is put into one file by special software, and compressed in size. This makes retrieval of programs easier and cheaper. You do not have to download many related files individually. The transfer takes less time. (Read about how to extract programs from distribution files in appendix 3). You will find some of the largest collections of games on the North American services CompuServe and EXEC-PC BBS. You will also find many throughout the Internet. | TRICKLE is a large collection of public domain and shareware | | programs for MS-DOS, CPM, and other computers. For information | | about how to use TRICKLE, send a message through Internet to | | | | [email protected] | | | | In the TEXT of the message write | | | | /pdget pd: Chances are that online services in your area also have many programs to offer. Most free bulletin boards have more software than you'll ever get around to try.
