HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: Extern files spec, /dir option
From: cybapunk@hovel.welly.gen.nz (Phil Ross)
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 19:18:42 +1200
Distribution: world
Organization: The Hovel Bulletin Board System
Keywords: DIR

dawson@willard.UUCP writes:

> Could someone with experience in writing /waffle/extern/command files offer
> me little advice?  I'm trying to integrate some MKS toolkit stuff into Waffle
> and I'd like to be able to include the rm command, as well as some others.
> I don't want my users to be able to be able to delete any files other than
> files in their own directories.  So, the /dir option, as described in the
> /waffle/docs/extern.doc file,seemed like the obvious problem-solver:
> 
> 	  /dir	Specify a directory to change to before
> 		executing the command. Useful if commands must
> 		be executed in a specific directory. The
> 		previous directory is not restored on return.
> 
> However, nothing I've tried seems to work.  At no time does my "ls" command
> first change directory to that specified in my /waffle/extern/ls file.
> I've tried just about every combination I can imagine, e.g.,
> 
> ls /access=3 /dir="c:/user/%A" /command="c:/mks/bin/ls %i"
> ls /access=3 /dir="c:\user\%A" /command="c:/mks/bin/ls %i"
> ls /access=3 /dir="c:/user/test" /command="c:/mks/bin/ls %i"
> ls /access=3 /dir="c:\user\test" /command="c:/mks/bin/ls %i"

I'm forced to use batch files.  Ever since I first got my hands on the old
1.64, DIR never worked for me.  1.65 doesn't either, I guess.  Call a batch
file to change dir.  But this doesn't seem to work with NDOS/4DOS if someone
drops carrier while in an external program called by a batch file.

--
cybapunk@hovel.welly.gen.nz    X Phil Ross
cybapunk@tornado.welly.gen.nz  X Sysop of The Hovel BBS
cybapunk@sideways.welly.gen.nz X Author of Lords And Ladies, _THE_ BBS door!
     ... If at first you don't succeed, redefine success ...
From: pacolley@ember.UUCP (Paul Colley)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: Can FEEDS files have multiple entries?
Keywords: dos waffle 165 news feed
Date: 3 Oct 92 14:45:15 GMT
Reply-To: pacolley@ember.UUCP (Paul Colley)
Organization: Ember---private system

In article <Pio2RB3w165w@vicuna.ocunix.on.ca> frampton@vicuna.ocunix.on.ca
writes:

>One person suggested using something to the effect of:
>
>that.site /batch=comp16 *,!excluded.group,!excluded.group
>
>However this is bad -- I already played that game (it almost cost me
>my feed!!  Right Paul?  :-)  ) -- basically I was feeding my neighbour
>all groups that I was getting and excluding ones he didn't want.

Well, to be more exact, it might have cost you your outgoing feed; it
had occured to me that if I disabled "rnews" for Vicuna my problems would
all disappear...  :-)

But I'm happy you got it working right.

-----

Personal beef:  WHY DOESN'T WAFFLE HANDLE DISTRIBUTIONS?!

The change to the code should be trivial:  After matching the "Newsgroups:"
line against the feed file, match the "Distribution:" line the same way (this
would give you B-news functionality, and it sounds like a trivial change to
me).

However, Vicuna's inability to handle distributions probably isn't annoying
enough to cost Steve his feed.  Probably. :-)

- Paul Colley
University:  colley@qucis.queensu.ca
Home:        pacolley@ember.uucp   watmath!ember!pacolley  +1 613 545 3807
<Ring> [...] "Sorry, I'm all booked up." "Who was that?" "The library." - B.C.
From: chris@surfcty.com (Chris Johnston)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: ccMail
Keywords: gateway, ccMail
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 92 19:11:51 PDT
Distribution: world
Organization: Surf City Software, Orange, Calfornia - DUDE!

OK, here's the $.50 question.  Has anyone heard of or know of
a gateway application that will post ccMail e-mail into and out
of Waffle?

Chris
From: herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (daniel lance herrick)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: Command-line RNEWS / TRUNCATED BATCHex
Date: 25 Sep 92 12:41:52 EST

> kjhoule@iowegia.uucp (Kevin Houle) writes:
> 
>> > It may be that the cleanest solution to your problem is to create a mail
>> > to news gateway (alias a name to "| post news.group.name") and then mail
>> > the articles to that address.  Then everything that should happen does
>> > happen and happens right.
>> 
>> Well, not exactally what I am looking for. I am looking at ways
>> for a user to upload replies in rnews format, into some sort of
>> queue directory, and then feed them into Waffle via rnews.

It's amazing.  There is a thing like that.  It's called uucp.

The easiest way to make "replies in rnews format" is with a news posting
program.  Many news posting programs feed the things they generate into
queues that cause them to be automatically uploaded to neighboring
systems.  The correspondent software on the neighboring system (your
system) stashes them away in queueing directories from which it later
feeds them to rnews which puts them away and queues them to go on to
other neighbors.

Don't build a square wheel.  Get your neighbors to run Waffle, do their
newsreading on their own systems, and let the computers talk to each
other when nobody else wants to talk.  That way, when Tom Dell smooths
off a few more of the rough spots on Waffle you will all profit from it.
As your neighbors register their copies of Waffle Tom will become more
motivated to seek out any rough spots and make them smooth.  Thus, we
will profit from it too.
From: Ralph Sims <ralphs@remote.halcyon.com>
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: Local board being batched and feed to usenet
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 07:46:24 PDT
Organization: Halcyon's Remote

topcat!tom@tredysvr.tredydev.unisys.com (Tom Albrecht) writes:

> When mail comes in destined for foo, it gets posted OK, but for some reason
> it also gets batched up for feed to my local usenet host.  Anyone know why?

Let's take a look at your feeds file.  If you have a * in there,
the stuff will go back out.  You can get around this by using
!localgroup * in the feeds file, or by using something like:

site /batch=comp16 comp,alt,rec,sci,soc,news
From: a-dent@somenode.uucp (Bryan Hannahs)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: if (++moves > 255) logout ("SiN"); ?!?!
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 92 13:03:02 EDT
Organization: .sdrawkcaB sgnihT gnipyT roF yteicoS ehT

dawson@willard.UUCP writes:

> a-dent@somenode.uucp (Bryan Hannahs) writes:
> 
> > Maybe Waffle doesn't like your system, maybe you've got some other
> > software choking it, maybe you've got a bad serial port. But don't blame
> > Waffle when it works for 99% of us.
> 
> That's an interesting figure.  I'm sure you've done some statistically
> valid testing of your own to deterine that "it works for 99% of us."
> If Waffle is bum-fuddled by hardware limitations, and that has been pointed
> to by various posts to this group (or have you simple MISSED the posts that
> have agreed with mine?), then, simply put, Waffle is not robust.  Maybe I've

I've seen ONE other post agreeing with you. I've also seen one about a
known bug with the T2500.

> What really gripes my ass is that I made some guesses, not accusations,
> as to why certain things were happening, and rather than simple discussion,
> I get many suggestions along the same line as yours:  "Don't blame Waffle."
> I'm not blaming Waffle; I'm QUESTIONing Waffle, and looking for net

In reference to Waffle, you said a BBS program should be "robust enough"
to detect dropped carrier. That's blame.

---
"Man created God in his own image." - Lazarus Long

Bryan Hannahs      |   a-dent@somenode.uucp    a-dent@bluemoon.use.com
(aka Arthur Dent)  |               bryan@bluemoon.use.com
From: kjhoule@iowegia.uucp (Kevin Houle)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: Command-line RNEWS / TRUNCATED BATCHex
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 92 18:25:31 CDT
Distribution: world
Organization: Iowegia Public Access Usenet/UUCP, Clive IA USA.

herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (daniel lance herrick) writes:

> It's amazing.  There is a thing like that.  It's called uucp.
> 
> The easiest way to make "replies in rnews format" is with a news posting
> program.  Many news posting programs feed the things they generate into
> queues that cause them to be automatically uploaded to neighboring
> systems.  The correspondent software on the neighboring system (your
> system) stashes them away in queueing directories from which it later
> feeds them to rnews which puts them away and queues them to go on to
> other neighbors.

Ya don't say. There's really software that does that?

>
> Don't build a square wheel.  Get your neighbors to run Waffle, do their
> newsreading on their own systems, and let the computers talk to each
> other when nobody else wants to talk.  That way, when Tom Dell smooths
> off a few more of the rough spots on Waffle you will all profit from it.
> As your neighbors register their copies of Waffle Tom will become more
> motivated to seek out any rough spots and make them smooth.  Thus, we
> will profit from it too.

Yeah, right.

"Hi, I just bought a modem and am exploring BBS services around town. Do
you have a way to read messages off-line?"

"Sure. Download this 545K .zip file and wade through all of it's files
for the next month or so. Once you have it set up, let me know what
newsgroups you want."



--
Kevin Houle     kjhoule@iowegia.uucp
From: david@cssnet.UUCP (J. David Schronce)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: if (++moves > 255) logout ("SiN"); ?!?!
Date: 2 Oct 92 18:20:58 GMT
Organization: Computer Support Services

dawson@willard.UUCP writes:

> a-dent@somenode.uucp (Bryan Hannahs) writes:
> 
> > Sounds to me like you may have forced carrier in your modem (AT&C0 for
> > most Hayes clones). Try an AT&C1 to correct this. I've never had any
> > trouble with Waffle recognizing a dropped carrier, whether or not it was
> > caused by call-waiting.
> 
> No, no, no.  The modem IS properly configured.  It does properly detect 
> dropped carrier 99% of the time.  It is only when a person is knocked 
> offline by their own call-waiting notification that I've ever witnessed 
> this problem.  How do I know this is what happened?  I immediately called 
> up the offending person, via voice, and asked "What the hell just 
> happened, dude?"

This is ONE reason that I demand all users with call waiting add "*70" 
to the beginning of their dialing string.  It disables call waiting (in 
most areas) and keeps them frm getting kicked offline.

---dave---
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|J. David Schronce     "Death Before Decaf!!"    david@cssnet.UUCP|
|Computer Support Services                            919/775-2145|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|          "The opinions and the company are both mine..."        |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
From: a-dent@somenode.uucp (Bryan Hannahs)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: if (++moves > 255) logout ("SiN"); ?!?!
Date: Sat, 03 Oct 92 02:36:22 EDT
Organization: .sdrawkcaB sgnihT gnipyT roF yteicoS ehT

dawson@willard.UUCP writes:

> herrj@valnet.UUCP (Jonathan Herr) writes:
> 
> > A lot of this could be taken care of by setting your modem up
> > correctly.  It should drop carrier a little more quickly if you are
> > the one that has call-waiting.  If your users have call-waiting, then
> > tell them in the sign-up that they need to put "*70," in the front of
> > the dial-out string to turn off their call-waiting.
> 
> As I've already stated, my modem IS correctly configured.  This is NOT a
> case of operator error.  Trust me.  I do not have call waiting, nor would
> that make ANY sense whatsoever for a dedicated BBS line.
> 
> Waffle and all other BBS programs should be robust enough to recover from
> dropped carrier.  Sure, my modem recovers, but Waffle does not always do
> so.  To say that I should rely upon my users to turn off their call-waiting
> is a cop-out.  If Waffle cannot handle these situations reliably, then
> there is a problem with Waffle.  Does anyone disagree with this?  Why?

What we're saying is that you have yet to prove it's Waffle's problem.
Many of us have never had the slightest problem with Waffle detecting
dropped carrier. The moment the CD signal (active low) goes high, Waffle
picks up dropped carrier. Like I said before, load up a comm program
such as Telix, get someone to call you and call them while they're
online so the call-waiting cuts them off, and see at which point you go
"offline". I'm using Waffle with the BNU FOSSIL and I've never had
trouble detecting a dropped carrier, so it's not a simple Waffle bug.
Maybe Waffle doesn't like your system, maybe you've got some other
software choking it, maybe you've got a bad serial port. But don't blame
Waffle when it works for 99% of us.

---
"Man created God in his own image." - Lazarus Long

Bryan Hannahs      |   a-dent@somenode.uucp    a-dent@bluemoon.use.com
(aka Arthur Dent)  |               bryan@bluemoon.use.com
From: dawson@willard.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: if (++moves > 255) logout ("SiN"); ?!?!
Date: 3 Oct 92 13:48:13 GMT
Organization: Willard's House BBS, Atlanta, GA -- +1 (404) 664 8814

fenner@postscript.cs.psu.edu (Bill Fenner) writes:

> In article <76TZRB1w165w@willard.UUCP> dawson@willard.UUCP writes:
> |Waffle and all other BBS programs should be robust enough to recover from
> |dropped carrier.  Sure, my modem recovers, but Waffle does not always do
> |so.
> 
> I find it extremely hard to believe that Waffle is the cause of your
> problems, and not your modem.
> 
> Have you tried repeating the problem and watching the carrier detect light?
> If the CD light goes off and Waffle doesn't say [Carrier Lost], then I would
> agree that there's a problem.

This is EXACTLY what was happening.

> However, you haven't said that this happens;
> you've said that someone hangs up, which is not necessarily the same thing.

OK.  Now, it's up front.

> |If Waffle cannot handle these situations reliably, then
> |there is a problem with Waffle.  Does anyone disagree with this?  Why?
> 
> Waffle relies on your modem to tell it when someone hangs up.  If the modem
> doesn't tell Waffle, then how's it supposed to know?
> 
>   Bill

Let me re-iterate:  this is a sometime thing.  A rare occasion.  Perhaps it
should not be on the top of everyone's bug list...


-- 
dawson@willard.UUCP (Willard Dawson)
Willard's House BBS, Atlanta, GA -- +1 (404) 664 8814
From: elrond@freeside.com (SysAdmin)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: <purge all mail? NO!>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 06:53:56 CDT
Organization: Rivendell BBS / Hou, TX. / +1 713 941 2236


    Is there a simple way to either disable, or change the default of
    the "Purge all messages?" prompt when leaving mail?

+------------------------------+------------------------+--------------+
|  God is Real...              |   elrond@freeside.com  | Why ask why? |
|     Unless declared integer  |    Stephen L. Palmer   |  (because)   |
+------------------------------+------------------------+--------------+
From: dawson@willard.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: if (++moves > 255) logout ("SiN"); ?!?!
Date: 30 Sep 92 11:11:50 GMT
Organization: Willard's House BBS, Atlanta, GA -- +1 (404) 664 8814

fenner@postscript.cs.psu.edu (Bill Fenner) writes:

> In article <Nu7TRB1w165w@willard.UUCP> dawson@willard.UUCP writes:
> |Now, there's only five occurences of the word "turns" in all the documentati
> |Maybe we could have an actual definition of "turn."
> 
> "command at the main prompt", I believe.
> 
> |It seems that there is some additional work to be done in order to get
> |Waffle to be more robust in handling dropped carrier...
> 
> What kind of modem do you have?  Does its CD light go out when the user hangs
> up?  I have never once had this problem, with the several various modems I've
> used on hogbbs, in over 2 years.  (Current modem: ZyXEL U-1496E, and loving i
> *plug*plug*plug* :-)
> 
> This is almost definitely your modem's problem.  Waffle can't be expected to
> detect that someone hung up if the modem doesn't tell it...
> 
>   Bill

I've seen the above reported problem on two different modems, a Digitan
2400 bps, and my current modem, a Telebit T2500SA.  It does not happen
often, and I don't recall seeing it since installing the "release" copy
of 1.65, but I'm fairly certain I saw it with one of the late beta's...
Certainly, I don't have a problem with this often enough to get complaints.

Perhaps the reason you never have had this problem relates to a different
level of user responsibility?  Perhaps your users always disable their
call waiting notification before dialing your system...  I dunno.

So, seeing how I've seen it on two different brands/flavors of modem, I am
extremely hesitant to blame my modem.  I suppose it could be a flaky serial
card...  or, it could still be Waffle.  I'm wondering if _anyone_ other than
myself has seen the problem before?  Perhaps I need to get another phone line
with call waiting to do proper testing...


-- 
dawson@willard.UUCP (Willard Dawson)
Willard's House BBS, Atlanta, GA -- +1 (404) 664 8814
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
From: vince@halcyon.com (Vince Skahan)
Subject: Re: USING DOS5's EDIT.COM as an editor?
Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. (206) 455-3505
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 20:25:16 GMT

rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson) writes:
>jim@jimmc.chi.il.us (Jim McNicholas) writes:
>Is it because QEdit doesn't work with 1.65?  _Does_ QEdit work
>with 1.65?

qedit works just fine here...

-- 
          Vince Skahan				vince@halcyon.com (here)
    vince@atc.boeing.com (work)		    vince@victrola.sea.wa.us (home)
		*** Project Management is often an oxymoron ***
From: system@micromed.com (Duane Davis)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: if (++moves > 255) logout ("SiN"); ?!?!
Date: Thu, 01 Oct 92 00:07:50 PDT
Organization: Micro-Medic BBS - +1 408 279 5240 - Public Access

Jonathan Herr <herrj@valnet.UUCP> writes:
> the one that has call-waiting.  If your users have call-waiting, then
> tell them in the sign-up that they need to put "*70," in the front of
> the dial-out string to turn off their call-waiting.

Problem with that is that alot of areas don't have call-waiting cancel.



--
System@micromed.com (Duane Davis)                   voice (408)293-3299
Micro-Medic                          public access usenet (408)279-5240
711 Lincoln Avenue                  public access pcboard (408)280-1610
San Jose, CA 95126                    FileServer - FTPMail@micromed.com
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: FAX gateways
From: dogbowl@dogbox.acme.gen.nz (dogbowl)
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 92 19:24:17 Y
Organization: The Dawghaus BBS, Palmerston North, New Zealand (+64 6 357 9245)
Summary: Anybody written one


Has anyone written a fax gateway program for use with waffle?

What I have in mind is something that can remove the headers from a
piece of email, extract the phone number ( and check validity against a
couple of masks ), then call an external fax sending program (or queue
the faxes for a set time, as I don't want it dialling non-fax numbers at
3am )

I have a utility called sndfax for my Zyxel modem which uses the syntax

sndfax <document name> <number>

It works quite well when called from DOS. The only thing really needed
is to be able to interface waffle to it...



dogbowl at The Dawghaus BBS, Palmerston North, New Zealand (+64 6 357 9245)
dogbowl@dogbox.acme.gen.nz
From: a-dent@somenode.uucp (Bryan Hannahs)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: Key problems when shelled to DOS
Keywords: ANSI driver
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 12:55:15 EDT
Organization: .sdrawkcaB sgnihT gnipyT roF yteicoS ehT

cybapunk@hovel.welly.gen.nz (Phil Ross) writes:

> randall@proteus.qc.ca (Randall Reid) writes:
> 
> > I have been experiencing some problems with certain keys not
> > working when shelled to DOS.  One key, for instance, is the 'P'
> > key which generates the wrong character.  There are others that
> > have similar problems.  I am experiencing similar problems on
> > 2 different DOS Waffle systems.
> > Has anyone seen this problem before... Any fixes for this?
> 
> I also had this problem when shelling out, as well as using external programs
> This only used to happen for the remote system, and the console worked okay.
> I removed the ANSI driver completely, and all was cured.

Not only did I have to remove the ANSI driver, I had to install a fossil
(BNU) to get this to work. Of course, that was on my old machine and my
old modem, so it may work by itself now, but why bother? Also, there is
a partial ANSI driver called ans2bios.com (or something like that) that
won't interfere with remote shell access and that WILL provide enough
ANSI support for BBStevie and the like...

---
"Man created God in his own image." - Lazarus Long

Bryan Hannahs      |   a-dent@somenode.uucp    a-dent@bluemoon.use.com
(aka Arthur Dent)  |               bryan@bluemoon.use.com
From: zot@toz.buffalo.ny.us (Chris Boebel)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: WWIV gateway
Date: 2 Oct 92 16:44:26 GMT
Organization: The Tower of Zot - (716)691-3865

Whatever became of the wwiv-internet gateway program? I would be 
interested in helping to test this program..

Chris

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
zot@toz.buffalo.ny.us : The Tower of Zot (716)691-3865 Dual Standard
"I could live a million." - REM "Forward he cried from the rear" - Floyd 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: pacolley@ember.UUCP (Paul Colley)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: Can FEEDS files have multiple entries?
Keywords: dos waffle 165 news feed
Date: 6 Oct 92 15:58:32 GMT
Reply-To: pacolley@ember.UUCP (Paul Colley)
Organization: Ember---private system

In article <1992Oct5.134757.1398@aw2.fsl.ca.boeing.com>
vds7789@aw2.fsl.ca.boeing.com (Vincent D. Skahan) writes:

>pacolley@ember.UUCP (Paul Colley) writes:
>
>>Personal beef:  WHY DOESN'T WAFFLE HANDLE DISTRIBUTIONS?!
>
>there was a very long thread/flame/discussion in news.admin or news.software.b
>several months ago about the fact that the Distribution: mechanism not really
>working in 'real news' either.

Yes, I read that discussion.  The best summary I can give is: define "works".

Some people say, "I posted with a distribution of New York (ny)
and my article went sites all over the world---so distributions
are broken".

Well, yes, that statement is true.  So what?  There are brain-dead news
administrators all over the world.


On the other hand, if you post with a distribution of ny, *I* won't
see your article, because *I* don't get ny, and I know how to
configure a news system.

So distributions work for me.  They'll work for you if you want
them to.

Well, actually, I'm fibbing.  Distributions used to work for me,
until I got a neighbour (vicuna.ocunix.on.ca) who runs Waffle.
Since Waffle is broken, nothing Steve Frampton can do will make
his site handle distributions correctly.

There is no excuse for Waffle not being able to handle distributions.

- Paul Colley
University:  colley@qucis.queensu.ca
Home:        pacolley@ember.uucp   watmath!ember!pacolley  +1 613 545 3807
<Ring> [...] "Sorry, I'm all booked up." "Who was that?" "The library." - B.C.