1 The Tandy 600 and the Tandy Laptop Forum By Steve Ringley [73727,1202] The purpose of this file is to teach a new 600 user how to use the basic parts of the forum with our friend and buddy the Tandy 600. In this file I will cover in brief approaches to the Message board and Library 11. This file is also formatted for a printer. To print, merge into Word, and print unformatted. While the methods presented here are not necessarily the only way, and for that matter they may not even be the best way, they will get you working, and then you can figure out your way at your leisure. The first thing we will tackle is the Message board. Typing the command SCA NEW PRO will present the header for each message and the prompt [R]ead [M]ark [SK]ip>. We will not worry about marking, we will just either read or skip. If we skip, we also skip the replies that are tied to that message. If we read, we will get the normal Read Option> prompt. Simply pressing enter at this prompt moves us to the next message. To do other things type CHO and press enter for a menu at that prompt. If the message you are reading bores you, type ctrl and o. You will see ^O and the display will stop. It is stopped on the Read Option prompt, although it is not displayed, and you can use the options I just described as though you had read the entire message and were sitting at that prompt. If you feel the need to reply to a message, type REP at that prompt and enter your reply. Once you are done, normal SCAn will resume. When using the NEW option, remember that CIS presents messages in "Threads". This means that you see the message, then the replies to that message, then CIS goes backwards for the next "thread". If you abort out of a SCA NEW before you finish the message base, you will miss messages, even if they are addressed specifically to you! Next we will cover preparing a message offline and uploading it to CIS. Go into Word, and execute the following Format Document command: FORMAT DOCUMENT page width: 79 page length: 1 margin top: 0 bottom: 0 left: 0 right: 0 page numbers: Yes(No) start at: 1 Then type up your message. When you are done, press enter to start a new line if you have not already done so, and type /exit then press enter. Then do a Format Repaginate, and watch and see how many "pages" it formats. If the number is greater than 31, you will either have to trim your message down to that limit, or break it up into two separate messages, which should be uploaded back to back. After you have got the message within limits, then Print it to a text file with: PRINT to: YOURMSG.TXT formatted:(Yes)No copies: 1 range:(All)Selection Pages page numbers: 2 You are now finished with the .WRD file. At the Messages> prompt on the forum, type COM and press enter. You will be prompted to enter the message text. Here is where we make Telcom earn its pay. Press shift and esc together. This will get you the Telcom command menu. Then type TS to get you into Transfer Send. Enter the text file name, press tab, then type n for None and press enter. You should then see your message text type itself. When the file has been sent, you will get the Telcom command menu again. Press C for Connect and finish the message by typing in who it is to, the subject, and the appropriate board. The usual board for us 600 folks is #11, although some messages may be more appropriate on other boards. Now that you have got your feet wet with the Transfer command, lets get into Library 11, which is the Library that contains all of the files of interest for a 600 owner. At any prompt in the forum with a !, type LIB 11 and press enter. When you get the LIB 11> prompt type BRO and press enter. There are scads of parameters that can be added to the BROwse command, but the main thing is to get you downloading. Besides, you are probably a greedy gut who will take every file on the system you can get your hands on, so you do not need all those search params anyway (just kidding!). Each file will be presented in chronological order, with the newest uploads presented first. After each file is described, you will be asked what you want to do. This boils down to either REAding or DOWnloading. If the file is identified as a text or ASCII file, just press F3, type REA, and press enter. The file will dump to your screen, and more importantly, your capture buffer. When the display stops, press F3 again to close your buffer. This next step is very important for the 32K gang. Press ctrl and F10. The next thing you should see is the system manager screen with a file called SESSION.TXT on the screen. Copy that file to disk, changing its name to whatever the file was called on CIS, then delete SESSION.TXT. The Copy command will look something like this just before you press enter to execute it: COPY File: SESSION.TXT to: A:CIS600.TXT Enter file name System manager: SESSION.TXT That's right, you can rename a file as you pass it off to the disk. Deleteing SESSION.TXT then frees your memory up for the next file, and Telcom will just create it again automatically. But now you are probably wondering how to get back to Telcom. Press ctrl and F9 and you will be put back exactly where you were before you moved the file to disk. Your buddy always remembers what you were doing, even if you forget! Now press enter to get CIS moving again. You will see an abbreviated header for the file you just downloaded, press enter again to see the next file. 3 As a technical note, the following extension on CIS denote text files: .TXT, .DOC, and .THD. .TXT is the "official" extension to denote ASCII files on the 600. Specifically files that are created by Telcom, and basic programs saved in ASCII format. .THD are collections of old messages from the forum message board, and are ASCII files. .DOC usually refers to the instructions for a program with the same filename. The problem here is that this could be either a .TXT or a .WRD file. If it is a .WRD file it needs to be DOWnloaded with Xmodem. Speaking of that, all other filetypes need to be DOWnloaded using Xmodem. BROwse, and at the appropriate file type DOW, and if you are prompted for a protocol choose Xmodem. CIS will tell you to initiate Xmodem receive and then CIS will stop. Press shift and esc to get the Telcom Command Line, then type TR to get into the telcom receive mode. Type in A: and the CIS filename, press Tab, and press X for Xmodem. Then press enter. Give it a minute to kick in, and then watch it count the blocks. When the file is finished, you will see the Telcom Command Line. Press C for Connect. If CIS does restart when you do this, press enter to get CIS moving again. Then as before you will get the brief header of the file you just downloaded. Press enter to continue. Now for a discussion of all those different extensions. .PLN are Multiplan files. .DAT are File databases, except for those files which are specifically described as being data files for ART.BAS. .FIL are File format files. .BAS and .600 are both Basic programs in compressed format. If the extension is .600, just use the extension .BAS instead at the Transfer Receive prompt. .WRD is of course Word files. After robbing the system blind, I am sure that you will have at least one file that you would like to UPLoad to the rest of us that we do not have. I dump my files on you guys all the time, and here is how to do it. At the LIB 11> prompt type UPL and the filename as you would like it to appear on CIS and press enter. CIS uses six character filenames with a three character extension, like CIS600.TXT. Always use the Xmodem format when uploading, even with simple ASCII files. We stick in enough errors without having the phone company put their two cents in. Besides, when you do the UPL command CIS suspends charges (i.e. its free connect time), so any extra time needed for Xmodem is not going to break your bank. Now I am going to get up on my highchair and recommend that from here on out we stick with the following extensions for our files: .WRD for files created with Word. .TXT for ASCII files & Basic programs in ASCII format. .BAS for Basic programs in Compressed format. .DAT & .FIL for File databases. .PLN for Multiplan spreadsheets. The sharp observers here will see that these are the extensions that Tandy recommends in its manuals for the 600. By 4 using these extensions, other users need only look in their manuals to see where your file is used, if they do not remember off the top of their head. Now lets get back to the command! After you press enter, CIS will tell you to initiate the Xmodem transfer. Just shift esc as always and press TS like you did for uploading messages. Only this time use Xmodem instead of None. Once again, the blocks will count, then the Telcom Command Line will appear, then you will press C, then press enter to get things moving again if needed. You will then be prompted for a description. This editor works the same way as the one on the message board does, and you can upload your description to it the same way we did our message text. However file descriptions are limited to 465 characters. This works out to about 5 or 6 lines rather than 30. Then you will be asked for the keywords. Always include the application or applications that the file is used with, if this is appropriate. Then throw in any other words that would refer someone to this file. These keywords can be used as search parameters to narrow a BROwse down. Once you are satisfied with the description and the keywords, you will be informed that the file will be available as soon as the sysop has had a chance to review it. Nothing personal here, but CIS has a responsibility to prevent the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material on the service. Tony seems to logon almost everyday, so the file should be available fairly fast, unless it is a long-winded file like this one and he takes the time to read it... Hopefully this file will get you moving with the forum. As you go through you will discover other files that go into depth on the methods of using the system to your advantage. Although I realize that the 600 is not a NEC zingospeed or whatever speed model they are on this week, the 600 can get quite a pile of work done in a simple manner. Yes the manual makes the 600 seem like Rubik's Cube, but once you catch on to what is going on, you will see that the built in software here is far easier to use than most commercial products for the PC or Apple. Also, as I have alluded to earlier, HHOS will not let itself forget what it was doing. You may have already discovered that when your wife says dinnertime, you can just get up and walk away. When you comeback after dinner, you will discover that the 600 has shut itself down, and when you press the power button you will find yourself exactly where you left off. Sudden power failures do not cause the loss of files. I do not know about you but I hate to lose files. All in all, I think the 600 can satisfy a good part of your computing needs, you'll just need to give it a fair chance. Enjoy!