Downloaded from BBS++ RoboBOARD HQ USA - 619-793-8360 / 619-793-8361 ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ» º ÜÜÜÜÛßßÛÜÜÜÜ º º ÛßßÛ ÛßßÛ ÛÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÛ ÛßßßßßßßßÛ º º Û Û Û Û ÜÜÜÜÛ ÛÜÜÜÜ Û ÜÜÜÜ Û º º Û Û Û Û ÛÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÛ Û Û ÛÜÜÛ º º Û ßßßß Û Û Û Û Û º º Û ÜÜÜÜ Û Û Û Û Û ÛßßßßÛ º º Û Û Û Û Û Û Û Û ßÛ Ûß º º Û Û Û Û Û Û Û ßßßß Û º º ÛÜÜÛ ÛÜÜÛ ÛÜÜÛ ÛÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ º º Hamilton TeleGraphics Inc. º ºÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄĺ º Bus: (819)682-6670 P.O. BOX 633 º º Fax: (819)685-0994 Aylmer Quebec. º º BBS: (819)685-0957 J9H-6L1 º ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ ***** OFFICIAL RELEASE FROM HAMILTON TELEGRAPHICS INC. ***** MAY 25th, 1993. The negative overtones some people are attempting to perpetuate in this echo, regarding myself, ROBO-BOARD, and Seth Hamilton Graphics Inc. have forced me to make an official statement in regard to the future of ROBO-BOARD, myself, and my company. First off I would like to wish a sincere thank you to the majority of people who have stood behind me and ROBO-BOARD, and thank you to those people who have displayed the maturity to not enter into this gossip and innuendo. You SysOps are the reason for this release. We are approaching the scheduled release date for our new ROBO BOARD product, which we have named RoboBOARD/FX 1.00 (trademark). We are not providing an exact date for release but we have begun beta testing and things are going well. I will try and cover the issues that some people have found of concern. Seth Hamilton Graphics Inc. has undergone some major changes since the original ROBO-BOARD was first marketed in August of 1992. The most obvious is the name change, we are now called Hamilton TeleGraphics Inc. I, Seth Hamilton am the president of Hamilton TeleGraphics. I conceived the original concept and program RoboBOARD/FX. Gary Hamilton is the Vice President of the company, and also brings years of computer graphics experience to Hamilton TeleGraphics Inc. Our other shareholders bring us many years of experience and knowledge in finance, administration, legal affairs and marketing. This restructuring has been designed in order to give us the organization required to release future RoboBOARDs more quickly and more soundly, provide full time support (beginning with release of RoboBOARD/FX 1.00), and with your continued support we will define the leading edge of Graphical Telecommunications Software. We have named RoboBOARD/FX 1.00 in this manner because: 1) RoboBOARD/FX lets us retain the familiarity of name. The /FX simply promotes our protocol. 2) 1.00 makes it very clear that we are considering this release to be the first in our NEW product line. In order to serve you better we have changed the way that Robo BOARDs will be marketed. As of RoboBOARD/FX 1.00 we will no longer be a shareware product. It is our opinion and the implied opinion in the echoes that people would rather pay a nominal update fee and receive the support and quality of product that they feel, they are entitled to, rather than the typical lack of support attributed to shareware products. The amount of piracy and open distribution of codes and code makers has cut substanially into our ability to expand our operations. We are not entirely abandoning the shareware concept, we will continue to distribute a test version of RoboBOARD much the way we do now, however it will not include all of the features found in RoboBOARD/FX. We will continue to provide a free terminal package and will offer a userend version of our drawing package. After the next release we will discontinue the PLUS and PRO series of ROBO-BOARD 1.00 to 1.08 inclusive. This is within our rights as explained in the licence agreement included with the ROBO-BOARD PRO and PLUS series. We will mail, free of charge, RoboBOARD/FX 1.00, when it is complete to everyone who has registered ROBO-BOARD 1.00 to 1.08 and is in our database. We will be sending the 1 to 8 line version of RoboBOARD/FX. If you have moved or changed your address please drop us a line so that we may update our database. Those people who purchased the 5 UPDATES will receive all five major updates. That means they will receive five more updates after RoboBOARD/FX, shipped to them in the mail. After much thought we chose this formula as a balance between peoples expectations and the financial realities of running a successful software company. Why stick with RoboBOARD BBS Software ? We have had a ROBO-BOARD BBS sporting a true Graphical User Interface on the market since August of 1992. When we first released ROBO-BOARD we were the only DOS GUI BBS on the market! We have learned much about Graphical Protocols, their weaknesses and strengths, and are bringing our knowledge together into what is going to be a powerful and innovative new product. The high speed graphics and data transfer speeds achieved in RoboBOARD/FX are driven by our own graphical protocol called Tel-FX (trademark). The Tel-FX Protocol Specifications will be made public so that other programming groups may implement our graphics. Included with RoboBOARD/FX 1.00 is FXdraw. This is an intuitive drawing package which also integrates an icon editor and menu editor. Those of you who are evaluating some recently released cryptic drawing and paint packages will be pleasantly surprised by FXdraws intelligent interface and it will not cost you an extra $150.00 to be able to paint. RoboBOARD/FX 1.00 includes a DOS terminal that is both text and graphics capable. FXterm can be distributed free of charge by BBS SysOps. RoboBOARD/FX is the BBS with the shortest learning curve and the most natural interface! Creating our own Online Graphical User Interface will make us the definitive Online GUI. RoboBOARD/FX 1.00 gives us the only true Online Graphical User Interface compliant with User Interface Standards for DOS. RoboBOARD/FX 1.00 is being completely rewritten (100% new code) to provide us with a product base we can easily build and improve upon. At this time we have completed our research, have written our toolkits and are testing many parts of the package. We took the time to study the latest in programming technology before we began this rewrite. With RoboBOARD/FX 1.00 we have achieved a level of professionalism and sophistication not often attributed to telecommunications products. The minimum hardware requirements for a RoboBOARD/FX system have not changed substantially. We have support for colour VGA, colour SVGA, and VGA monochrome systems. RoboBOARD/FX will run on any 286, 386, and 486 IBM or 100% IBM (TM) compatible. RoboBOARD/FX will utilize your systems memory and disk resources very wisely. RoboBOARD/FX will run under MSDOS or MSDOS with DESQview. It will also be fully tested running on LANs. Achieving graphics independence has been a major consideration in our design of RoboBOARD/FX 1.00. I want to stress the importance of realtime, view them as they are sent over the modem, graphics. Other protocol developers think that it is fine to make a user log on to a system, and then download a huge icon file, and then shell out or exit the terminal package, and then unarchive the icons, and then reenter their terminal, and then call back their favourite BBS to view graphics. We think it is ridiculous to even think the end user is that unsophisticated in their expectations. It is also ridiculous to think that every caller to a BBS possesses enough knowledge to successfully navigate that maze. Graphics are supposed to make BBS technology accessible by everyone and main stream rather than add a new level of cryptic to our industry. This is why we remain true to our vision of real realtime graphics. This is the most fundamental element of our GUI philosophy and will remain so. Changes on the RoboBOARD SysOps end can be reflected and updated without clumsy downloads and nonrealtime work arounds. This means you don't have to explain to 250 paid users that they have to download new icons because you changed a menu or created a new graphic, RoboBOARD does this quietly and automatically! A couple more things I wanted to mention in closing. I have never knowingly ripped anyone off and I find some of the ludicrous accusations I have read in these echoes very disturbing. Immature ridiculous statements based on NO fact at all, will not help get RoboBOARD/FX 1.00 to you faster, rather they only help those who would try and erode our base. I read these echoes and know the names of the loudest of these people. I have yet to receive a fax or letter from any of them. Thursdays come and go and they don't call. So if you guys have a problem then call, otherwise please go away and leave the echoes for what they were intended. We thank you for your patience, and understanding and we are sure that you will be pleasantly surprised when you start logging onto beta RoboBOARD/FX boards soon. Above all else our intention is to bring you and your users a superior BBS package! Thank you very much. Seth Hamilton RoboBOARD is a registered trademark of Hamilton TeleGraphics Inc. Tel-FX is a registered trademark of Hamilton TeleGraphics Inc.