 BETWIXED AND BETWEEN II

For those of you who have read any previous articles in this 
series, the intro remains the same and you can skip down past the 
--------------- lines.

As some of you know, I have had a clone since early in l993.  
What some of you don't know is that I still have three adam 
setups, up and working and in use.

I am writing this article/column for the dual purposes of (l) 
offering suggestions to adam programmers for things that would be 
nice to have on adam and perhaps they will be kind enough to give 
us these gifts and (2) to see if you, the adam community are 
interested in some of these items, in which case you should 
contact the adam programmers, let them know you are interested 
and more importantly that you would buy such a product from them 
if available.

Now also many of you will remember that I HAVE NO TECHNICAL 
SKILLS OR BACKGROUND, so I am not saying these things are even 
possible on an adam, I truly do not know.  If they are not fine, 
if they are then lets tell the programmers that we want them and 
will buy them if they appeal to us.

I do not intend to get into a technical debate over possibilities 
or reasons that things are not possible.  Thats not the purpose 
of this article nor the area of my expertise.  

With the above in mind, I will tell you of some things I like and 
use on the clone and would like to have available on the ADAM for 
my use.  Hopefully some might be of help to you and you will 
appeal to our adam programmers to make them available (subject to 
technical possibilities, etc.)

------------------------------------------------------------


(Some items for the BBS user) 


(These are in no particulqr rder, just off the top of my head).

First scripts, script lanaguage and compiled scripts.  I have no 
idea what these are and like things technical they scare me so I 
have always stayed away from them.  These strange and mysterious 
things would allow me to automatically call and log on BBSs, even 
read messages, download files and log off BBSs, all without any 
effort or input on my part.  Sounded nice but way beyond my 
abilities to work with.

Scripts are more than macros.  Macros allow you to push one key 
to type several items.  Scripts however do much more than this, 
they look for certain input from the BBS system and then give a 
proper response.  So they can wait until the BBS system asks for 
NAME:  and then the script upon seeing this will type :  BARRY 
WILSON.  The script will then wait for the bbs to ask PASSWORD 
and the script will answer PASSWORD, etc.  It can take you all 
the way to the message section and then download the messages for 
you, it can take you to the file section and upload or download.  
All this with NO input or effort from YOU.  

Well for my clone I found two similar programs which do all the 
work of creating the script for you.  

One is called RECORD and it records what happens when you call a 
bbs and then makes that into a script which you can use later to 
call the bbs and logon, download messages, upload files, etc.  
all with NO effort or input from you.

The other program is called SLEARN which stands for Script LEARN 
and it works in the same manner.  

What you actually do is run this program, call your bbs , the 
program watches the BBS say NAME:  and you respond BARRY WILSON, 
the program then records or learns this for later, it watches the 
bbs say PASSWORD and you respond PASSWORD,etc.  So it now knows 
what to do when calling that BBS and next time it will do all the 
work for you.  

This way you do not have to write a script at all, you dont have 
to get different scripts for different BBSs, etc.  The program 
does all this for you.  

1.So I would like a script learning or recording program for 
Adam.  

2.  I have another script, came ready made which I can setup so 
once a week (or once a month, etc.) it automatically calls the 
Naval Observatory BBS and gets the offical mean Greenwich time, 
translates it into my local time and then re-sets my computer 
clock to 0.0l seconds.  I have it set up to make this call on 
Saturday during the lowest long distnace call rates.  It does all 
this in approx.  20 seconds, so the call is not going to be very 
costly.  It evens leaves me a reminder to reset my watch, 
clocks,etc.  to the correct time.  

3.  My clone & its modem also have FAX capabilities.  So I can 
send and receive faxes.  I can even set the software to send the 
fax in the middle of the night when rates are lowests, even if I 
create the fax in the daytime.  It would be nice to have fax 
capabilities on the ADAM.

4.  If you sit there for long periods of time watching your 
screen while you are downloading something for a BBS, you know 
how boring and time wasting this can be, especially at 300 or 
even 1200 baud.  But the clone has a BACKGROUND download program 
available for it.  This allows you to download in the background 
(the computer downloads but you notice none of this on your 
computer screen).  In fact your computer is FREE for you to do 
other things on it.  Do word processing, play a game, etc.  all 
while the computer is downloading.  

5.  There are other programs which are bi-directional.  These 
allow you to download items while you are ALSO uploading at the 
same time.  No waiting for one to be complete before starting the 
other.  A big time saver and something I would love to see for 
Adam.

6.  Another small program allows me to dial a phone number 
(bbs,etc.) and then go about my normal computing business (word 
process, writing these articles, etc.).  The background dialer 
keeps dialing the number until a connection is made and then it 
alerts me (sound and message at top of screen) that a connection 
has been made and I should shift into the telecommunications 
program to pick up from here.  It certainly beats redialing and 
redialing a busy number.

Anyway here are a few things I would love to see for the ADAM BBS 
user.

If you would like any of these contact your adam programmers and 
let them know you want these and WOULD BUY THEM IF AVAILABLE.

Best from Barry

redialing a busy number.

Anyway here are a few things I would love to see for the ADAM BBS 
user.

If you would like an