termCOMMCOMParsisons You will find the various termcomm programs listed some 240 lines down. If you set your txtedit to S)earch, they are all listed in UPPER CASE. What follows immediately is a description of the features I believe USERS, as opposed to SYSOPS or others would need. I would like to see a termcomm designed especially for ISA/ANSI/BBS users.. Stripped out of features they don't need, this would: Simplify setup, leave more room on the HD and RAM, which in turn would: make for faster loading and operation and allow better multi-tasking even on slower platforms. I. I have been BBSing in several cities over the past 8 years, and have logged on to serveral hundred BBSes in that time. I NEVER hadda resort to a 7e1 board, and haven't even seen one listed in the past few years. .One of the reasons I don't use CI$ and the like is that they persist in this archaic setup which slows up data transfer, increases user time, and of course, revenue. I try not to encourage such ripoffs with my money. .INTERNET is becoming the universal backbone for personal email, it's easily accessed now at regualar BBSes [at 8N1-ANSI], and is a far better value. II. I use the modem to communicate, and after all this time, do it best in the form I am most familiar with, ASCII/ANSI. Other fonts and bmp grafix look nice, but don't increase reading/writing speed because the modem/ISA bus/telco system is built around this 8 bit (256 character) standard, and other methods must convert everything to hexadecimal before stuffing it thru the comm port. BTW: I recently developed ANZI.COM, a VGA graphic tool built on this standard and passes thru your comm port like ansi/ascii and yet provides terrific ansi graphix, and it is FREEWARE. more about it below... I've looked at the termcomm front ends from AOL, Prodigy, and a few others, and I see how a dozen or more fonts, icons, etc will fill a modem directory with a few meg worth of crap, which will slow my system trying to stuff it thru the comm port, make me buy a bigger HD sooner, make a higher resolution monitor more necessary, and run up my LD carrier and logon bills. What are these guys, in cahoots or somthin? III. A list of features I would like IN, or EX- cluded for BBS users: A. Use the most standard alt key set which my sampling shows to be: ALT-B)ackscroll, C)ls, D)ial directory, E)ditor or shell, F)ile mgr/shell, H)ang-up, J)ump to dos/OS, L)og session, M)acro menu, O)ptions & P)arameters [which are various 8N1, baud, screen color, inits, etc], Q)ue dialer S)creen dump, V)iew txt/doc eX)it to dos/OS, and most important: alt-Z)help! B. Small termcomms have several advantages... 1 They load so fast from todays 12ms HD to RAM they look like TSR. 2.They leave more RAM for multitasking and shell out instantly also. 3.With fewer internal utilities and hotkeys, they have less TSR conflict. 4.To do routine chores, they let you call up TSRs or shell out to use these tools & hotkeys you're already familiar with. 5.They don't fill your HD with a buncha crap you never use, which makes it harder to look at the stuff you do need. C. For instance, ALT-B; where I would break rule A, but obey B-5 in the second. I use WAITASEC.COM, a 754 byte PD TSR in my autoexec.bat that buffers text that rolls off screen above. the hot key is "SCROLLOCK-UP" arrow, which I find particularly intuitive. Some termcomms don't have a scrollback buffer which is ok if it don't interfere. Some do, but use the up-arrow key, and if you want to edit online, you havta remember alt= (if they remembered to put it in), or you gotta stick with non-ansi edits & games. Worse, some have it, and do interfere, or even lockup; I prefer WAITASEC cause it also works OUTSIDE a termcomm with dos "type", "dir", etc.,- - and those long file lists that you see zip on up out of sight while viewing an archive directory! D. A dialing que, that would dial a chosen set of BBSes, should ALSO: 1. return to dailing the next in the list after a CONNECT rather than going back to the beginning to redial a bunch you already know are busy, or worse yet, [as many do] erase the dial que entirely. 2. Present the list not just as a series of line numbers, but BBS names, so that if you want to check a fido net sig for email, you can see to delete the rest of that net's mail boards from the que after a connect with one. 3. Allow you to edit the que without having to erase all of it. 4. Let you pick where to begin the que cycle. ÕSAMPLE BBS DIRECTORYÍÍMEMO FIELDÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍF1:HelpÍÍÍÍDATEÍ͸ 1 1SIGS You dont see the phone number, baud rate, 8N1, 2/14 2 Angelas script name, password, or protocol. So long as 2/10 3 Another your computer knows this stuff, why should you 2/15 4 Black Cat look at it? You do see the date of last logon 2/08 5 Concours so that you know when it is time to go back to 2/15 6 Crystal Pal check your email. You also have this area here 2/14 7 Free file farm to make reminder notes about message threading 2/03 8 Knight Moves and the file base or whatever. 2/11 .. 21 Wastebasket Use just one line in the header field, and one 2/12 22 Wit's end footer line below, use the rest for listings. 2/14 ÔF1:HelpÍ12:00ÍÍSTATBAR BBSÍMemo field to remind you to tell off sysopÍ000:00Í; The statbar, shown during a logon, should tell the current time, (on left) and show the elapsed time on right so you know when to use LD, and how much it will cost you. Experienced users will know the hotkeys, and new ones only need F1; all the other options on screen just take up space; wallpaper does not convey a lotta information... which is after all, why you are looking at a monitor. My survey does not show many users of 43/50 line modes, and I have a suggestion for termcomm programmers... to have a hotkey to split the screen enough to lock in the top- with the message header - so you don't forget who's talking during a long post. It would make this option a lot more useful. E. The directory window is generally very inadequate and poorly used. 1. I wanna see as many of the bbses at one time as possible; use the stat line indicate hotkeys & .Fon, leaving 24, 42, or49 for BBS names. I have tried going to 43/50 line VGA modes, yet the dial dir just scrunches up to the top of the screen on most termcomms instead of listing more boards. 2. Use shift-arrow or whatever to scroll the dial dir, not just the pg keys so you could scan grouped BBSes unbroken by pg breaks. 3. Instead of showing the #, baud, & "8N1", show the date of last logon and leave room for a note: sigs, type WWIV,fido,PCB,door games, or whatever. 4. When editing in a new BBS, if you make a spelling error or whatever, many will require you to continue on thru the menu, choosing the 8N1, Protcal, baud, password, etc. before letting you start over carefully. If you never add new bbses, no problem; but most now offer easier dial edits. 5. Many do not advance to the next field in a dial dir entry edit after you do [cr], but require you to use an arrow key; very annoying to touch typers. 6. Many termcomms provide a CONVERT.EXE, to convert the fon files of other termcomms; dunno why they don't include converion from ascii also, so you could dump in a d/l list of bbses... F. BETTER YET::: Have the Dial Directory file in plain ASCII! 1. IF .FON was in ascii, the code to do editing would not have to be in the termcomm, but only an shell-out macro needed to a text editor, which you have already,-- and know how to run. 2. IF the .FON file was in ASCII, your editor could also do sorts and block moves allowing you to organize the BBSes according to date of last logon, LD or local, Board type, Alphabatization, etc. whatever. you pick it. 3. IF the .FON file was in ASCII, you could have room to leave notes about email, files, etc. to aid in the next session's choices for the dial que. 4. IF the .FON file was in ASCII, you could cut & paste up a downloaded list of BBSes a lot easier than typing all that stuff in. Moreover, many of the obsolete termcomms will output their .FON file as ascii; easy imports. 5. IF the .FON file was in ASCII, you could put ALL your phone numbers in one place, and if you needed the number of a BBS to put in a .QWK mail note, you would not havta fire up the termcomm to find it. 6. Or, conversely, if you found a bbs number, or wanted to memo one during .QWK mial, you could paste it in... without having to fire up the termcomm. G. Include ZMODEM [you wanna pay for another registration!], and again, if a version of zmodem ain't too loaded with bells and whistles, you'd have shell RAM to run the tools you already know how to use. And of course: X,Y, & Ascii protocals. Furthermore, while at 2400, I often had time to use shellouts from a file transfer, but happily at 144, I'm lucky to be able to get a fresh cup of coffee before the d/l is done. ZMODEM shellouts for under 2 minutes are pretty worthless. BTW: use XMODEM for .qwk .rep; a zmodem file header takes longer to up than xmodem uses for the whole thing if the u/l is under 3K. If you have a 144 v42 MNP and a decent connection, YMODEM will be faster than Z. H. There are a whole raft of small text editors under 50k. With even a 286, they load so fast that they seem like tsr, and the same one can be used to V)iew a .doc/.txt d/l, edit .qwk email, autoexec, config, & .bat files. Users would vastly prefer their familiar tool to whatever was zipped in a termcomm. Some software understands, asks for the path to your editor during the setup. I. Likewise, we all get used to a particular HD file menu, and would prefer an easy shellout to that rather than some strange termcomm file manager. J. Owabout a termcomm.doc file that is not bloated with gobs of empty lines and new page symbols. I havn't printed out a doc for anything in years, but have spent time stripping the junk out of something I might wanna refer to. As an example, consider this document; I feel the CRT space is too valuable to waste on such trivia and ordinarily format to 80col. However, this is at 77 columns to leave room for "DB>" quoting for your email rebuttals. K. Or better yet, is no .doc at all, but lotsa pages of hotkey online help in ascii, so you can make notes about macros, parameter & hardware changes etc. L. The d/l windows should be a strip on the right side that doesn't obscure the host's list of files for transfer. The ZMODEM windows that show a file's transfer progress are cute, but if it's for a batch d/l, not very useful. Better would be a list of what has already come in on that right side strip so you could compare it with the host list to better estimate the d/l end. M. When it sends out the password, it should echo what it sends; if you have screwed up and it was wrong, you don't know which wrong one it sent. Ivory tower programmers worry about someone else in the lab seeing their password; but us BBS users are all home alone in a back room or dungeon. N. We do not need all the mainframe terminal emulators; worse, is to have to say so every time we put a new bbs in the dial dir. Another indication these programmers all work on college campuses cause they all include the mainframe terminal emulations; somebody outta tell em that the average user has no such access and they could eliminate that option; BBS-ANSI's all we need. O. Some do not provide for separate up & down load directories, nor a means of choosing where they will be, making you alter your mail reader to suit. I like to have my UPLOAD and UNLOAD directories in the root, right next to each other in the alphabetical listing to facilitate stuff for relay down and up. P. Some do not provide for alternative .FON dirs, but so far, I only found one who made it so I couldn't rename the DIR.FON to create another. Most of them provided for 200 or so bbses, only one, QMODEM, limited the dir to 40. Q. Smaller termcomm.zips do not blow your d/l ratio to kingdom come and are less likly to fill your HD with fluff; and it would be nice, if they all told you what each file was for, so you could eliminate unnecessary junk. I have extracted some that started at 700k and took up 1.6meg of HD. Some inspection of code shows debugging routines and modules were still left in the archive, like a carpenter that builds a house, leaving scraps and tools everywhere. R. IF they insist on including logon scripts, mainframe emlators, etc. for arcane hardware and software compatability, how about they stuff all that in an archive, and during config, it asks your un-arj/zip to get the stuff you need, and leave the rest in that one neat archive. S. If the termcomm uses the BIOS, there is less likelyhood of TSR conflicts; I suspect some tweaked the screenwrite I/O back in the days of XT/CGA and did not remove or alter code in view of todays faster hardware to let the BIOS do this. The real perfomance bottleneck is the serial comm port, not the paralel video. A TSR notepad is nice all the time, not just to note message numbers and .zip names, and a lotta termcomms [GUIs] won't let me use it. yech. T. I have D/Led PD PCZ.zip, and TXZMODEM, another PD version of Zmodem, and have also had trouble trying to get either to work with some termcomms; they try to automate installation of SZ,DSZ,GSZ,etc. and have given up on trying to explain manual installations. Of course there may also be some collusion here to reinforce each other's registrations. U. Finally, we [who aren't sysops] don't need such powerful macro tools and bi-directional transfer protocals [and registrations], nor do we need all the complexity entailed in making those options available. If you plan on setting up a BBS, then by all means, take the time to learn one of the big mult-zip jobs and install all the external protocals. V. I did not test scripting, which is not used by most users anyway. I under- stand that it is essential for SYSOPS to be able to do unattended netmail, but the only use I see for it would be to do .qwk mail on a usually busy bbs. But, if I find my mail that hard to get to, I look for a less congested emialbox. If you've gone to the trouble of coding a set of scripts, the rewrite hassel in changing to another termcomm locks you in, and this review really won't do you much good; it's bad enough just changing the dial directory. But at least you will know what you are missing before you go to the trouble. W. I have even seen some which did not allow "AT" commands to be typed in, & tried to insulate the user from such messy details. Not so neat if you log on to a crashed Host that won't hang up, or need to respond to a CBV. X. MOUSITIS: situation where the usefullness of the kybd is ignored. Usually found in dialing directory editing where the user clicks to get the edit mode, then types in the name of the BBS, but the [cr] does nothing, and they havta find the mouse, move the pointer to the next field, click, then back to the kybd to enter the data.. back to the mouse for the next field... WHICH IS RIGHT BELOW THE LAST ENTRY YOU STUPID MACHINE!... and so on Y. TSRs: Alarm appointment reminders, notepads, ansi/ascii screen dumps, and who knows what all are used and liked by a lot of us. EVERY DOS GUI termcom will not allow them to function. Z. Windows: I have only tested two so far, and while they would allow Windows TSRs like the above to function, they are incredibly crippled compared to the true functionality of the better Dos termcomms. Furthermore, they seem to be designed for novice users of the pay services; the incredibly inept interface helps to lock users into these and keeps them out of the free BBS world. If you disagree with my feature choices for an ISA/ANSI/BBS only termcomm, do let me know your rationale. No doubt suggestions will alter these priorities. REVIEW NOTES ON TESTING Since I do not have time to fish around much for features, I do a word search of the docs to get tips...since most folks learn by playing around and don't bother reading, some programmers have not included much, or any, data in DOCs. I may have missed some features as a result. Their review may have them reconsider... it aint hard to include a manual.doc. ACECOMM 39$ Separate UPLOAD/UNLOAD dirs, internal AXYZMDM. no dial que AT ALL. ANZI OK. BCOM WINDOWS V2.2 25$ Unregisterd version limits sessions to 60 minutes then it shuts down. Bad case of MOUSITIS [listed above at "X."]. Dial dir only shows nine BBSes, no sort method of organizing, and the "dial que" just dials every one in the dir; always starts from the top. Internal AXYZmodem. You can't setup for your own upload/unload directories. Has ANSI, but no COLOR!. No 43 line mode. Has scripting for unattended uses. BOYAN5 40$ Most extensive help menu: some 15 pgs. Shell0s out to your usual text editor, but uses a file manager. Will mark files for sending in the upload dir with scrollbar. NO internal zmodem, but it'll automatically put in the widest range of external protocals. It has the best setup for dial directory and dial que of all. It will sort bbses according to name, bbs #, and sets up a copy of the dial dir menu screen with your choices for a dial que, rather than just marking them in the dial window. You can now order the dialing anyway you like, instead of those in the top of the dial dir always going first. It resumes the que after a connect where it left off, rather than begining to redial those you already know are busy. the que menu shows the bbs name, not just the relative dial dir # like qmodem, and includes the last logon date. If you log on to many different BBSes, boyan provides the most flexible organizing tools for grouping bbses and tracking activity. If you are online and see a bbs phone number, you can hit alt-d [to jump to the dial dir] and i)nsert an empty slot; hit "G", and Boyan finds the number in the terminal screen and pastes it into your dial dir. {esc} puts you back online. Widest Macro set I've seen; you can redefine the hotkey set to whatever you are familiar with. Decent Host mode too. Statbar in terminal screen shows bbs name and elapsed time of logon, nice for LD$. Runs ANZI. CILINK no dial que, no logon date, runs ANZI OK in 25 line, 43 line mode not well supported, nor mentioned in the .doc. COMMLINK is a graphic termcomm. COMM-MOTION V1.0 WINDOWS Registered has FAX. Automatic install from a menu of about 40 modems, not many 144s AVTEK, MULTITECH, TRAILBLAZER, USR, & ZYXELL brands only. No separate U/l dir for QWK .rep mail. It is set up well for toll services like CI$,AOL,BIX,MCI, etc... poorly for BBSing; No USA support BBS listed... Austrailian Origin, w/ internet address. COMMO 40$, low income 25$, Most extensive Marco system of all, but easy to get lost in, and most of which is not needed by bbs users, but if you intend to set up a BBS in the future, this will allow you to learn the termcomm, and then expand as necessary. It was the first I found to have an ASCII dialing dir. No zmodem. last logon and baud shows, but doesn't show passord. Very flexible, but no doubt difficult for novice bbs users. Runs ANZ25/43 OK. COMMUNIQ 38$, CU-200.zip Easy setup, recognized correct rts/xon switches, and has a mdmcfg.exe with 50 modems in it for inits... but of the 50, only 6 are 14400, a dozen or so are 1200, so I tried to have it use the one in my NVRAM. Among other things, it chose to override "L3" which I use to maxize speaker volume on it's little pizeo tweeter. So, I could not hear if a call was ringing, or answered, but not CONNECTing. Unique feature: a built in tsr note pad.. I would rather it let me use the one I already had, so I could access it when not running the termcomm. It will use EMS (no XMS) for shells, says it will import FIDO nodelists directly into the dial dir. Internal z,x,ymodem. Last logon date not in dial window, but can be had by checking the stats on each board; kinda clumsy. Has a dial q, but since it is tic marks in the dial dir, has to do them from the top down, but will keep the list between sessions. No dial dir sorting. Cut and paste from scrollback! Online timer, but statbar didn't show BBS name. I could not figgure how to edit the macros. Like several others, tic w/ the scrollbar and [cr] after a dial dir item edit do not advance to the next field; annoying to havta poke the down arrow key. Odd hotkey set: alt-x for hangup, cls is alt-L, alt= for scrollback, alt-H)elp. Says it will launch FAX software from Host; my Bitfax says it will already automatically kick in. COSWORTH FREE cos150. accepts your own u/d/l dirs, scripts, & xmodem, others must be external, up to 20 more. No last logon date, but has total calls and time logged. Only 9 bbses in dial window, but lets you scroll, besides pg it. Dial que always starts with highest tagged bbs. On CONNECT, picks up the name of the bbs and asks if you want to record it under that name, neat. After a disconnect, it automatically jumps back to the dialing que, which screws up a call back verify, but is otherwise convenient. Welcome screen uses scrolling ansi, slows startup. would be preferrred by touch typers with so many hotkeys. New edition is renamed PANTHER... which you should see below DCTERM 20$ for the ANSI version. D/L may be buggy; the zip included both an ANSI and a RIPTERM version, neither of which would run on my machine DIGITERM 10$, smoothest macro creations for Fkys, smooth setup, but no way to alter the automatic INITs. UniQue Feature: alt-G)rabs filenames for d/l off a frozen screen, & alt-O)utputs the list just before d/l. Suspect I got a buggy d/l, will try again; dial dir trashed after I deleted a bbs entry. TSR bug? ECOMM 25$, No internal zmodem. FASTLINK is "free", but a contribution releases the 10 sec delay on exit. No macros, scripts, or dialing que. It has internal zmodem; neat FEATURE: after you select the protocal, hit [cr] to get the transfer directory, hilite a file for upload or check for dups in d/l. If you hit [cr] on the top line it moves up the tree one level to check there, or down into any hilited sub. The transfer window also shows thruput CPS & progress graph for ALL X,Y,& Zmdms. No conflict with TSRs waitasec & jot-it, and it has an easy shell exit to your familiar editor and/or file mgr. Very simple front end, but then the dial dir only needs [or shows] the bbs name and #!. FXTERM beta v01.0b FREE. Graphic termcomm, needs VGA & mouse. It has a small dial dir window, edits only need name, bbs#, Your Name [HANDLE] password. don't need 8n1, script, or baud, and there is no way to change baud rate if the listed bbs needs it. No separate UPLOAD dir option, but has auto zmodem. Has dial que, but no last logon date. Keeps the que after a CONNECT, but always starts from the top. DOC 11k, not much help, couldn't find any in the terminal window. Will use the std hotkeys and sometimes you use scrollbars, and you havta keep switching between kybd & mouse; MOUSITIS [see above] in editing the dial dir. Tight code, zip only 184k. Judging by the HD access lite, no XMS/EMS. If you are usta 19200 ansi screenwrites and fast termcomm launches, this crawls. No 43/50 online mode, and no ANZI. GDSTERM April 93 version... locks up my system. GComm v.78b 5$ config only goes to 96, but runs 144/192 anyway. Only 50 bbses in the dial dir, which can be ascii-edited. Normal hotkeyset, alphabatizing the dial dir, but no dial que. Has x,y, & zmodem internal. GENIUS 35$, w/ zmodem & dial que, no logon date, need to enter 8n1, no dial dir sort or insert, has alt fon dirs,alt B)ackscrl,C)ls,D)ial,H)ang, w/ macro, creates a hidden swapfile. GO-ONE 20$, needs an xternal zmodem, but if you have one, it is great. But, I failed to either of the PD zmodems I had found to work. No TSR conflicts, correctable bbs dial edits, Dial Dir also has sort, and logon date but is a 20k non-ascii db type file [123.dbf?] automatically recognizes many xternal protcals, and easy installation for new ones. Good dial que that will continue the sequence after a connect. GT 70$ Has a strange set of altkeys; setup did not make the rts/cts/xoff/xon settings clear; perhaps is why my zoltrix didn't connect properly. Poor color menu w/ only numbers, no examples. Very slow screenwrites on my 386dx, has internal file viewer and manager, but no text edit or scrollback. Dial dir shows last logon date. has host. ICOM 30$ CU-100x.zip Like Robocomm, may be needed if you need to set up your system to opereate untended; has built-in macros for .QWK emailing, very big log/dta files for each bbs, but very complex to set up. I locked up on trying to dial, and I had set up over 20 different termcomms when I tried this one. It creates 7 subdirs and spreads over 60 files among them, without telling you what they are for. Has built in txt editor & file mgr. Unique feature: up to 5 different numbers for for multiline BBSes. Dial dir shows name and a host of other trivia of each bbs that is not very useful. Intellcom creates 7 subdirectories, a dta file for each BBS, and some 60 files outta the zip... LCOM 25$ Excellent internal Zmodem; 1700 cps. Includes a font generator that supports several text modes from 25 thru 50 lines. Somewhat like ANZI, those custom fonts provide a unique front end look, but unlike a GUI, it runs VERY fast and smooth. My dos backscroller, WAITASEC will crash the system, but of course LCOM has it's own, so that's NBD. Better yet, my other TSRs, appt/cal, notepad, and screen capture all work fine. The Dialing dir is not ascii, and does not show the last logon date. Dial dir edits do not advance to the next field when you hit [cr], but since they don't bother showing the phone # in the dial window [good], they can attach several phone #s to a multiline [VERY good] without eating up space in your dial directory, which also sorts easily. LCOM is the 1st to show 43 bbses in a dial window, and pages or scrolls them. Likewise you can adjust the dial que, which maintains after a connect; you can even install one permanently for unattended email. It shells out to your usual file manager and txt editor so you don't havta learn to run his. LCOM supports ANSI AVATAR, and his own design, LVI, which looks much better than those. Most folks would appreciate the LCOM.DOC... 3.2k, not meg. It has a very high pitched tone to signal connect d/l; most will like this, it sounds so different from the telephone. I, who have a hearing loss in the high freqs as most old folks do, will have a hard time if not nearby. LCOM sets the TYPEMATIC rate high to speed scrolling and cursor... if you use it all the time you'll get used to it, but since it stays set even after you quit the app, it may bug you until then. The statline doesn't show the BBS name, nor the elapsed time... useful for LD or picky boards. LIVEWIRE 30$ only runs under OS/2 LYNC 25$ lync exe locked up until I got a good d/l. If you get a good copy, you got a dandy... internal zmodem plus room for 2 more externals. Editing a dial dir entry only requires the name & #, defaults the other stuff when you push s)ave. Has a host mode, easy macro installation, setup.exe, and dial dir edits that allow going back to correct errors. LYNC.PHN file isn't ascii, nor is there any sort routines, so bbses are stuck where entered in the list. No logon date in dial dir window, nor logon.log file. shell to txt edit, file mgr internal. Very tight code, exe,cfg,kyb,&phn totals 45k. very fast up. NO registration delay in or out. MEGA305.zip buggy; no data MTE NO registration fee! in MTE215.ARJ beta? no dial que, sort, logon date, logfile, or scrollback. Has screendmp & session log, internal z,x,y,ascii, kermit, and cis B+. will shell to edit, has host. Good simple novice tool. MXLIGHT 10$, No TSR conflict, should move d/l windo to top ten lines/ansi Y! but has no dial que, has internal x,y,zmodems MYCOMM V1.20 25$ Some normal, lotta odd hotkeys. term comes up quick, cfg accepts your up/dn/load dir names, external txt editor, file mgr, and 2 other programs, and 6 external protocals. Default password, baud, 8n1, etc pasted into dial dir edits; you only gotta enter name & #. Dial dir shows last logon date for choosing dial que, which is just tagged bbses in dial dir. The dial dir scrolls, not just pages, and has sorts: name, number, or logon date. You can also m)ove bbses around in the directory. No statbar in terminal screen; maybe hard to figgure what bbs you've been logged onto with a dial que. It does not interfere with my TSRs. Only 3 files & 130k runs the termcomm. NAPLPS is a GUI format for termcomms. Unlike ANSI, it does not imbed text well, and the BBSes I have logged onto with it ran slower. The graphix look like PCjr modes 08 & 09 [160X200] & [320X200] in 16 colors on my VGA. More Flexible at an image rendering than ANZI, although ANZI in 43/132 would come very close. ODYSSEE V 2.00 95$ 21 BBSes in dial window, with dial que, lets you cut & paste them togather any way you want, has 43line mode, but don't use it well, with an odd hotkey set, and internal text ed & file mgr, and TSR conflicts. Automatic setup with 50 or so different 144 v42 modems. Runs ANZ25 OK. Has internal AXYZmodem. Unique feature: Key field to group BBSes, tag the key, tag the whole group. neat. Registered version has FAX. Doesn't return to the dial que well, and in the dial dir, edits doesn't accept defaults, but it will advance data fields or back up to correct entry. No dial dir sorting, nor last logon date in the dial window. Stat line doesn't show the name of the logged bbs, but does do elapsed time. Download menu screen usually don't cover pertinent host data [file list]. OOTERM is Operation Overkill door game shell PANTHER v2 formerly Cosworth 0$ Free!. Needs 525K to run [dos 5+ preferred]. Has internal bsv ansi screen capture. No mention of VGA 43/50. Internal AXYZ modems. Only 10 bbses in the dial dir window, but it will scroll, page, and sort the list. Easy dial dir entry editing. Dial Que is just those tagged; will always dial from the top of your directroy, but will return to the que after a connect. Statline shows BBS NAME, time, and elapsed time. Dial Dir does not show date of last logon. Asks about logging on every connect. I did not get a running copy on the first d/l; there may be buggy copies out there, but keep trying... this will do well for a lotta folks. Shells to XMS\EMS and will run under DV and others... if you have enough ram. Runs ANZ25 OK. PCCP 5$! but oh boy... it's a collection of C, exe, & asm modules for pasting togather your own termcomm or custom BBS. For a user it would be a lotta work, but a sysop might like a bbs that looked like it was entirely handwired; it would impress the hell out of knowlegeable users. PIBTERM FREE, slow screenwrites in simple ansi, but fully functional, more so than many that are expensive. Don't interfere with my tsrs, JOT-IT & WAITASEC and will run under DV, doubldos, topview taskview. Uses an ascii FON.DIR, the dial window has logon date, the last CONNECT result, and several BBS SORTing modes, alph, number, date of last logon, etc. Has a nice dialing que, but it is erased after a CONNECT. Has internal x,y, & g bat protocals. will accept externals. Has host mode, txt ed, file mgr, screendmp, logging. No ANZI. PROCOMM 50$ V2.4.3 nice CFG setup, accepts your txt editor and download dir, but does not have one for upload, so your .qwk will be mixed in with .rep files. Dial directory window does not show last logon date. During edits of a new BBS entry, you can't back up, but have to redo the whole thing, and you need to enter [cr] for 8,N,1, default baud, ANSI, etc., before you get to s)ave the edit. Dial dir only shows 10 BBSes at a time, but does scroll them. It has a few familiar, but mostly odd hotkeys. HD shell file mgr does not sort the files and directories alphabetically; just a command.com "DIR/p". The dial que, which is called "automatic redial" is just the dial dir line number, not the name of each bbs. No editing, you have to start it over, nor are there any "tags" in the dial dir to indicate which are in the que. It has internal X,Y,& Zmodems. Runs ANZ25 OK, no support for 43 line modes. QCOMM 15$ QS.EXE does easy install, if your modem is on the list; my zoltrix 144 was not. Dial dir has last logon date, dial que, & alphabatizing, but NO internal protocals! Runs DSZ or GSZ only. QD-V10 only supports up to 2400 baud. QKTERM is not a termcomm; scrabble over the modem QMODEM 99$ ver.TD45 1.6 meg to run, automatic mdm config menu, but don't list many 144 modems; may be why it insisted on logging my Zoltrix at 300 baud, in spite of the "CONNECT 14400". The "terminal" window would not let me issue AT commands so I could not do much debugging. Large set of altkeys in hlp menu, many standard, many not, and many so trivial they should not be needed EVER! It looks like some was left over from pre HAYES command set standardization and never removed especially given todays smarter modems. Dial Dir shows last logon date, and total calls todate. No method of sorting bbses, only shows 10 bbses in a page, and only has 4 pages, then you needa swap .fon dirs. Dial Q only shows the Dial Dir line number of the bbses in the Que, and erases the Que after a connect, will not let you to skip one that RINGs for 55 sec or so. Has conversion tool for importing other termcomm dial dirs, but I doan see why anyone would wanna "upgrade" (!) from boyan, telix, or procomm to it. It says to upgrade from a qmodem 3 dial dir you first run cnvt4.exe, then run cnvt5.exe! Programmer too lazy to code a tool to do it with one .exe. It does have a full set of internal protocals, including ASCII, all Xs,Ys, & ZMODEM. It also has a bunch of terminal emulations for mainframe computers nobody has in use anymore. It uses std video bios, and runs ANZI grafix fine. RIPTERM v1.54 The dial directory window only shows 10 BBSes. Each entry has the BBS name, but then they show you the baud, 8N1, and phone number, and it doesn't show you the date of last logon. The dial directory editing of a new bbs entry is awful; another bad case of MOUSITIS [see above at "X."] It erases the dial QUE after a CONNECT or if you try go back to add or delete an entry and, since the que window only shows you a list of the line numbers that refer to your bbs dialing directory, you cannot easily tell which BBSes are still in the Que. Has internal autozmodem. Since it is a GUI, your dos text mode TSRs (notepads, caculators, appointment reminders, etc.) will not be available. Is there a way to cut and paste a BBS number or whatever, during a RIPTERM session? oh yeah... loading in a coupla meg worth of icons makes it take a lot longer to launch than a text mode termcomm. 43/50? RBCOMM v34 FREE Says it can convert an ascii dial directory to the dial dir, but it kept aborting saying error without saying what the error was. No manual dial mode either, so I could not try it's other aspects. The manual was meant to be read at the console, not fulla empty space and " " new page symbols. Havta use the designated u/d/l directories. No internal protocals in .zip, but had an easy external protocal install setup. DV aware ROBOCOMM for unattended email.qwk transfer looks easier for sysops to set up than commo, but overkill for simple bbsing. SIMTERM 20$ No waitasec or scrollback, tsr may crash online, internal zmodem and x,y,& ascii. No logon date or log, dial dir sorting, and only 45 bbses in the dbf type FON file. SOFTERM WINDOWS 35 Many modules for all the pay services, AOL, BIX, CI$, Dow Jones, Telnet, Tymnet etc. couldn't get it out of the help screen menus. TELEMATE 49$ wont run in 437k free; watch tsrs & multi-tasks. Wide selection of terminal emulations that few of us will ever use. Wide video mode choices: 25,26,27,28,30,35,43, & 50 lines w/ 80 or 132 col, nice color setup menu too. Dial que shows the number, but not the name, but the dial que can be saved as a file, and dial that list at every launch. Will use XMS/EMS. BBS dial edit needs dn-arrow to advance to phone field. [cr] advances to next page. odd, but quick. 43 line mode shows 34 BBSes! So, even tho the dial que only has the BBS line number, you can more easily look thru the directory for reference. The dial dir also shows the date of last logon and a memo field; nice. the TMINST is effective, not overdone. Runs ANZI OK in 25, but not in 43 line modes. TELIX v321, 39$ has modemcfg.exe with a lotta modems, but it don't have my Zoltrix 144/144. Dial directory bbs entry edit is awful: enter name [cr], number [cr], baud, scrollbar down to 19200[cr], parity[cr],N[cr]... and so on; it takes 18 return, and several more scrollbar arrow moves to get to "save" a new entry. AND if you screw up, you cannot backup, you gotta start all over. If you toggle the dial window, it shows last logon date and total calls. Rather than bypass the BUSYs, it will always start at the top of a dial que after a CONNECT. Wide selection of internal protocals, incl zmodem. Doesn't interfere with TSRs although it has its own scrollback; uses your own file manager and text editor, and will run ANZI if you J)ump to dos to install it... which could be done with a macro. TERMINAT v1.4 75$ uses a lotta directories and doc files that unnecessarily eat up drive space. Total installation is 4684k across a dozen dirs. All the .DOC files make it hard to use your familiar WP to do a S)earch for a keyword or question. As you would expect in almost 4.7meg, there are a lotta features. It has modules for installing in OS2 & Windoz. internal file mgr, text edit, and offline mail reader. New users may like the integrated package, but old ones will not like having to learn a new set of menus to do these tasks. It also needs a lotta ram to run; I got a crash on a 2meg 386 in the file mgr. Very complete install menu, lotta choices that few will understand, and take forever to look up. Go with defaults, use the setup list of @70 hi-speed modems, which should work. Dial dir offers the widest selection of sort methods including date of last logon. Runs ANZI OK, runs vga modes. Says it swaps to xms and/or ems, but it crashed on my machine. TURMODEM 25$ Is a NAPLPS GUI. Dialing dir only shows 10bbs; you need to poll each one to see logon date, BBS entry edit is clumsy, MOUSITIS [see above]. Dialing que is by tagging the bbs dir, which means that those at the top of the directory always get dialed first. Since it is GUI, text mode TSRs like notepads are not available. Youngsters will like to try NAPLPS games, but stuffing GUI thru the comm port ain't fast paced Nintendo. The .doc is very limited; novices will have a hard time with it. Sometimes, on or offline, it needs a mouse, other times not, no obvious rule. I have used a CTRL-BREAK to signal a host which sometimes seems to work to reset a crashed protocol or whatever.. do that on TURMODEM and it drops you to dos. The .doc file is almost useless. NO ANZI. 43/50? ULTITERM V 100 Says it only works for 60 days... bug or corrupted file, it deletes itself during installation. UNICOMM 3.1A 70$ WINDOWS. AXYZmodem internal, ansi-bbs. Does not support more than 9600 baud, although it offers 300 & 1200... if you can still find one. UCOMM WINDOWS config only lists a dozen 144 modems. Call waiting protection, which I don't have on my data line, so I can't test it. It accepts your desig- nated UPLOAD\UNLOAD directories. Internal XYZmodem [ascii?] Registered has FAX. I could not get it to run, it would only show the help screens. ZCOMM, another Forsberg tool for sysops; I could not get it to work. Several d/ls did not work at all; if you find a good copy, lemme know where. ***** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***** TESTED COMPATABLE W/ ANZI: ACECOMM* BOYAN, CILINK*, COMMO, PANTHER*, PROCOMM*, QMODEM,TELEMATE, & TELIX (?) May not support 43 line modes. ANZI-4.ZIP contains ANZ25 & ANZ43.COM and DEMO.BAT, which runs a slideshow of the new graphic symbol set for dos text mode apps like termcomms. I designed a new set of bitmaps for the foreign letters, making curve & line segments and blocks. You can fill in the "jaggelies" in ansi graphics, have curved shadowing in larger fonts, button boxes, etc... all associated with GUIs. BUT: UNlike a GUI, ANZI takes very little disk or RAM; it is not actually even a TSR, only altering the bitmap patterns copied from ROM at boot. DGANSI.com does better than ANSI.SYS, cause it is TSR, and as such can be removed or disabled at will. The other TSR bundled with ANZI is MODSAV.COM (344 BYTES). I did a test on images. I have a typical jaggely rendition of OPUS, the sunday cartoon penguin... only 1925 bytes. The ANZI version, which has about the same image quality as the original cartoon is 2566; the GIF is 6445, and the PCX verion of OPUS runs 24k. None of these files is very big, but if you are online, waiting for an image is a pain. LVI, an alternative to ansi that is mentioned in LCOM above... would send opus thru the comm port in about 1/3 of a second @144 BPS as an ANZI image; not too bad. Another point about GUI BBSes and Termcomms. In one test recently, I noticed that I was getting ahead of the cursor in posting email online. I havn't seen that in a loooong time, and I just realized why. Multiline BBSes first came in on 286 platforms, if there were too many d/ls going on at once, the user interface would slow to a crawl. The first GUI interface I saw was Prodigy, which infamous for this kind of creepy computing. Of course, SYSOPS were among the first to go to 386s to solve the problem. It appears to me that the same phenomena is occurring on GUI BBSes. And, SYSOPS and users are again in for another round if they are going to go GUI. With ANZI, users and SYSOPs will be able to continue to use text based modem stuff, which only take 10%-30% of the HD space needed for a GUI like RIPTERM, still get innovative graphics, and not get the GUI gumming up the works. They get to use robust time tested code with far better utility built into it. Many would also prefer to keep using software they already know, and don't yearn for yet another registration for a GUI. BTW: ANZI is FREEWARE. This file is being uploaded to these termcomm programmers to make them aware of the possible use of ANZI so that they may consider not interfering with it. ANZ25 and ANZ43 are not as yet TSR, and I would prefer not to, so as to avoid any possibility of conflicts. All the programmer has to do is not code in any uneccessary video resets. There is no reason for any text mode app to trash this graphic symbol set, and every reason to use it for aesthetics. Since novices are largely starting with windoz, these termcomms should be aimed more at experienced DOS users who understand the advantage of speed, elegant code, and true functionality. Programmers should remember that experienced users will have a suite of TSRs and utility stuff they know and like, and the termcomm should not get in the way of it. Furthermore, direct video control that once was necessary, is less so on 25mhz machines that will display text modes fast enough with plain vanilla INT 10. You could simplify code and avoid TSR and multi-tasking conflicts. This is released to the public domain, do with it as you like. If you find discrepancies, do post me. New editions will be corrected; currently, they come out about every 40 days. The last three digits before the extension indicate the hexadecimal number of the month (1 thru C) and the year (94). DAY.BROWN@BCIS.COM 1:2613/509 (716) 2248880 or @MULTICOM.ORG (716)2427979 DCPC 1422 Latta Rd, Greece NY 14612 (716) 865-6602 581-2502