 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group BBS Blues - Tongue in Cheek Charles Wright |
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Ok, I've got my first download, and I don't want the rest of you to think that I'm one of those take, take, take types.
I'm still working my way through the MS-DOS manual, so it will probably be a little while before I can offer you the definitive analysis of Boyan and ZModem, but in the meantime I thought I'd bring to your attention the problems of us guys in the Yeats school of computer usage.
Actually Yeats is more widely known as a poet, but he did spend a little time trying to use a computer, after which he penned one of the greatest lines in the history of computer literature, the one that goes ...
The centre is not holding
Things fall apart
I was thinking of Yeats on Friday night of the Anzac Day weekend, as I first clocked on to our club BBS. Actually I clocked on two or three times. I've become very good at clocking on as a matter of fact, and even better at clocking off. Not so good at the in-between bits, I'm afraid, which isn't entirely my fault.
Has anyone else tried to use the Netcomm 2.0 program? I spent a lot of time with it on Friday night trying to get it to do anything at all useful, and finally decided the most useful thing to do with it was delete it from the disc. Then I went and had a couple of Valiums.
God knows what the Netcomm 1.0 program was like. I presume it came with a homing pigeon and a piece of string.
(I read Matt Whelan's review of the promised Netcomm 3 program in one of the magazines, and he seemed to think it was orgasmic. I understand that it costs $114 but existing users can update for $57)
Back to the BBS. Well, it took me a little time to get back to the BBS.
I didn't have any unelapsed time left on Friday night, but first thing Saturday morning I was at it again.
I'd had one little bit of luck on Friday, when I happened to stumble over that message that talked about using the PKX35A35 program to unarchive files.
Very handy, that message, because it revealed that the Telix and Procomm programs that I'd ordered out of the software catalogue weren't a useless pile of junk after all. They just had to be unarced.
Silly old Me! I'd spent an incredible amount of time trying unsuccessfully to get my AT to run these programs, and I'd finally been reduced to psychic channelling.
(Here is my first major contribution to the club, incidentally, an absolutely invaluable last-ditch tool. For working out all hardware and software difficulties, when things keep falling apart, adopt the Lotus position and attempt to make contact with the departed spirit of a computer hacker. This is the absolutely latest thing out of Silicon Valley, and I personally believe it is what led me to the message about PKX35A35 in the darkest moments of Friday night. Thank you, dear late programmer, whoever you are!)
So there I was on Saturday morning, with my unarced version of Procomm, logging onto the bulletin board again. Actually for quite a while I wasn't logging on to the board. What I was doing was listening to the dial tone on the telephone while Procomm made dialling noises.
But even I could work that one out. By referring to the NetComm modem manual I discovered that ATDT ought to read ATDP, which was a minor triumph for me.
Unfortunately i think this lulled me into a false sense of security, because I wasn't really ready for what happened next.
What put me off, I think, was the fact that Opus is such a polite little board. "We're very glad you called us back Charles," it said, or something to that effect, "because we know you're an absolute dick-head and we'd like to give you a few basic facts ...
Please press [ENTER] ...
TIME LIMIT
NO CARRIER
"Hmmnn," I thought, " this is very odd."
I rang right back and the same thing happened. It happened six times in a row as a matter of fact, and probably would have kept on happening except I had to run down to the all- night pharmacy to get a repeat on my Valium prescription, and by the time I'd calmed down it was Saturday evening.
I don't really want to dwell on Saturday evening, but if someone would like to tell me in very simple words why something that seems so polite should get its kicks out of hanging up on people I'd be very interested.
Sunday ditto. (This is really serious. Do you have any idea how much Valium costs these days?)
Monday morning. I'd been up at dawn psychic channelling with the spirits of departed soldiers, seeking in-formation on how to shoot, grenade or mine the Sys-Ops people. No luck there, either. Apparently the souls of departed soldiers get absolutely pissed on Anzac Day morning, because all I got was a lot of psychic static.
Anyway, I thought I'd give it one more try, so loaded up Procomm, loaded up Valium, and (joy oh joy) IT DIDN'T HANG UP ON ME!!!
Absolutely fantastic, I thought, but not wanting to push my luck I made a bee line for the File No 1 area to get the Opuser.ARC file. (I realise you experts get a kick out of watching innocent novices have nervous break-downs, but don't you think it's cruel that in order to learn how to transfer files you actually have to transfer a file that tells you how to transfer a file? Particularly when the version of Procomm that you put on the club discs won't transfer the bloody file?)
Yes folks, this is what happened to me several times on Monday, when I should have been watching the Anzac Day march.
I set up the D [for download] option, pushed the Page Down button, chose YMODEM and get a message "Transfer Aborted".
I think that I am quite a brave person. Certainly I had a little cry, but after that I felt much better. I think it's a small problem with the software, in that the selection for YModem is actually the selection for 7Modem, or some other Modem, but I wasn't going to go into all that.
I went back into the software packages and got out Telix.
I guess a lot of you think that Telix is an insignificant little whimp etc and nothing like GT Powercom V.13, but honestly it was the only thing that saved my sanity. Well, almost all of my sanity.
I've downloaded Opuser.Arc. I've downloaded Opuser.Doc too, and I'm not going to let the fact that Opuser.Arc seems to be the same thing as Opuser.Doc worry me. I mean, just because I've used up all my time again and unnecessarily incurred excess download time is neither here nor there, really.
Besides, I've got other things on my mind. Every time I backup my Wyse 2018 it eats a vital part of its insides that stops it booting. I am writing this by booting from the floppy.
If anyone has a solution to this, would they please leave a message for me on the BBS. Ditto about where I can get GT Powercom V.13. I ought to be able to find it by Christmas.
Reprinted from the June 1988 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
