The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Life in the kitchen of the cyber lounge Dave Mitchell

File Managers

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The stormy past

I want to take you back; back to a dark and stormy night, 15 December 1993 to be exact. On the second floor of 66 Albert Rd, South Melbourne were two BBS systems. One a 386SX/16 machine with 200 MB of hard drive space and 4 MB of RAM running Maximus for DOS under Desqview with two 9600 bps modems. This was the Melb PC Message BBS. The other system was a 386DX/40 machine with about 400 MB of hard drive space and 8 MB of RAM running TBBS with four 9600 bps modems and twelve 2400 bps modems running through a dumb Digiboard to enable 16 lines into one machine. The combined systems had about 2000 users.

The Message BBS had already died once with a failed hard drive and both systems had been through a complete change of Sysops five months earlier. That night, the night DOOM was first uploaded coincidentally, a power surge or perhaps even a lightning strike hit the South Melbourne area and destroyed the C: drive on the Files BBS and cooked the dumb Digiboard controlling the lines into the machine, effectively killing the Files BBS and its set up. This was both a complete disaster and an opportunity for the still-new Sysops to revamp and revitalise a system that was beginning to become far more important to the club.

Two years of enhancement

Now I want to take you forward to the present, the same location but to a single BBS system consisting of multiple machines networked together by IBM Lanserver (Figure 7).

Firstly there is CS1 (Comms Server 1) a dual processor Pentium 100 with 64 MB of RAM running OS/2 Warp Connect and Maximus version 3 as its operating system and BBS Software. This is connected via a 12-port ethernet hub to FS1 (File Server 1), also a Pentium 100 with 64 MB of RAM. Both of these are linked via the same network and hub to a further drive case with five drives which contains all our online CD-ROM files. These are all linked into our Panasonic 6-stacker CD-ROM unit that, while it is too slow to actually have online for the users, our file managers can access to get requested older files to transfer into the general file base on FS1. Along with all that we have a HP 486DX2/66 machine with 32 MB of RAM that we are currently using as a test base for some new programs. It will see life as CS2 (Comms Server 2) when we add a further 16 lines early next year. On top of that there is an older 386 machine running diagnostic software to monitor and report modem problems so a database of faults can be built up for later analysis and acted upon accordingly.

Modems? Well we have one 28,800 V.34 Netcomm standalone modem on line 2 (Sysop test line only), one Hayes Optima 28,800 V.34 standalone modem on line 1 (Sysop, Committee, File Manager and PC Update access) and 32, 28,800 V.34 Netcomm rack modems for members. We have 11 GB of disk space with 7 GB of files for users and a further 3 GB in the CD-ROM stacker for requesting. The rest of the space is used for the message base and operating software. The message base now carries about 400 message areas with widely - some may even say wildly - varying subject matter and contents. An interesting statistic came back to us recently from up the mail line - it seems that Melb PC BBS generates more external mail per day than all other Victorian BBS systems combined. All of the above is there to service our base of over 6000 users.

How did we go from complete disaster in December 1993 to raging success in December 1995?

Firstly, and most importantly, it was by faith. First, the faith shown by two Committees that Comms was a service that our membership wanted and local Comms in the form of a BBS particularly. Second, the faith of the Sysop team, in both their own and each other's abilities and commitment.

Secondly there was vision, a vision of a BBS system absolutely second-to-none in the southern hemisphere and fitting for the second-biggest user group in the world.

Thirdly there was sweat. Hours and hours of work by the Sysop team and their assistants, and forbearance by their families. We sat down and worked out roughly how many hours a week we spend providing this service. All up it's about 140 hours a week, mainly from the main Sysop team but with definite contributions by all and sundry.

Lastly there was the drive and the joy you, our users, showed daily when you used the system we provided to enhance not only your understanding and enjoyment of your PC but also to increase the club atmosphere that pervades the BBS and produces the bonhomie we see in the local message areas.

Obviously there were all sorts of steps along the way with it often feeling like a "one step forward, two steps back" scenario but, little-by-little, progress was and is being made to continue to enhance the usability and facilities available to everyone.

The faith on the part of the Committee was in terms of dollars that they were willing to spend to develop this system and the faith they had in the Sysop team and the direction it was going. It a lot of ways it was blind faith as some of the more technical aspects of the BBS were none too comprehensible. We've always found if you can establish an understandable growth path the technical aspects can be left to those more competent in dealing with them. In a lot of ways that is also one of the points of this article today.

The vision? It's hard to define what Barry and the boys felt on that fateful night two years ago but it's always been an overriding factor with the BBS team that we want a relatively easy-to-use but highly configurable and option-filled system.

Where to from here?

So here we are at the end of two years with a brilliant BBS system, run by a team of people keeping an eye on and working on every aspect of it. So is that all? No fear! In the next twelve months we want, hope and expect to have all sorts of changes and enhancements to the system that you have never seen before.

For example, we are developing a link system we call "The Black Project" that, when established, will extend the local call range of Melb PC BBS by up to 100 kilometres. Basically the idea is that there will be a machine in one of the outer suburbs, which other members further out will call and jump through that machine direct to Melb PC BBS. So if we have one at Dandenong, all of the Mornington Peninsula, Cranbourne, Pakenham, etc will be able to call our BBS for local call rates.

Online games (don't groan out there, they are popular): We hope to establish a group of modems specifically for online gamers.

Upgrading to 48 and 64 lines should happen within the next 12 months. Going to a 72-port terminal server will happen, which will enhance our networking capability and other factors more to do with internal workings and of less concern to average user.

More and more message, file and chat facilities! The list goes on.

From the beginning we have have been running on the limit of the current technology, both in hardware and software, on a system for which there is no template, because nowhere else in the world will you find one like it! Every day is just another attempt to push the envelope a little bit more.

In short we fully expect the next twelve months to be as busy and exciting as the last but, and here's the kicker, we need a couple of things from you.

First, we need you to understand that we don't get it right first time, all the time. Yes we test things and try to make sure that they will work but some things fail. A recent example was the chat facility, which we could not test without it being live to users. This type of testing leads to the inevitable glitches. So when we get it wrong tell us nicely please, we can live without abuse, besides which, you really don't want me coming thundering down on you from a great height do you?

Second and very important is money. It has been a dream of the BBS team for a long time to become a self-supporting section of the club. Over the last two years we have gone a long way toward that goal with the modem deals that we have run and various other projects, but this situation is not viable in the longer term. What we may well to do is ask you, yes you out there, to help us. Perhaps a new choice could appear on the main menu on the BBS. That choice might be "Donate to the running of the BBS" or something similar. We have no specific amount in mind and could not promise any rewards if you did donate. We are simply trying to find a way for you, our users, to give us the ability to continue with the job that began on 15 December 1993 and to help us to achieve the vision that has been with us since then.

Reprinted from the December 1995 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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