424 From the beginning. By Phil!94/Neĝ -------------------------------- Considering going modem? Before I got mine early this year I was interested to read other people's advice and opinions of the modem scene, so I thought somebody may be interested to read mine. (Good excuse for another artical, eh Freak?) Right, first the hardware. All modems are pretty standard and connect to the serial port. Cheap modems run at slow speeds, expensive ones run at incredibly fast speeds. I wouldnt consider anything slower than a 14400 (V32.bis) jobby - You'll be most likely up/downloading 700+K files and thats boring (and expensive) enough with a 14400! When I were a lad, a modem of this speed would set yer back an exhorbitant amount of stash, but all of a sudden there's been summat of price crash and the cost of such a beast is now around £150! The choice is basically between the Supra 14400 which is not currently BT approved and the US Robotics (USR) Sportster 14400 which is.. I bought a Sportster and despite the fact it looks a bit cack (like a Rolf Harris Stylophone!) its dead good - no hassle wotsoever. The software. If youre not involved in the scene this wont be a problem cus any PD library will fall over themselves to supply you with comms software for a quid or 2! Theres quite a few titles available, some fully PD, some shareware. I use Ncomm 2 - it has all the all the features I need. You might have to configure the software your match your modem but the modem's manual will cover all the settings and once you save out the configuration you'll never have to worry about it again. The comms software SHOULD come with docs too. Other Software. Almost all files on bulletin boards will be packed. This reduces the space they take up on the boards hard drive and also the amount of time it takes to up/download it! It also means the file has to be unpacked to its original form before you can use it. Amiga files will usually be packed with one of two packers, Either Disk Masher or the LHA archiver. Its easy to see what has been used on a file as the filename will have a .DMS or .LHA extension. DMS packs whole disks, LHA packs selected files together. Obviously you'll need the software to pack /unpack your files but again this is PD and readily available. PD comms disks sometimes come with Comms software and packers complete, ready to run from the CLI. What else do you need? Well something to up/download into! If you havent got a hard drive (I havent as yet!) you can get by using the RAM disk. Bearing in mind the comms software is likely to take about 300K and taking into account the size of the files you'll be wanting to up/download - 4 meg should be the minimum RAM to have on board. Anything else? Nope, just a standard BT wall socket somewhere near your computer set-up. You dont need to tell BT you've got a modem or anything! OK, You're all set up. And you want to try some boards. Whats out there? There's 2 types of BBS (Bulletin Boards) you can log on to.. Legal boards and errr.. not-so-legal boards;). There are also networks such as Internet. I've never bothered with the networks myself so I'm not going to pretend I know anything about them. You can of course phone another guy with a modem and software just like you to transfer files etc. Wot is a BBS then? A BBS is basically just a 'host' computer with a whacking great hard drive running some software that makes it respond to the callers commands. The main thing you'll want to do on any BBS is Up/Download files. This is just matter of entering the correct area on the BBS and hitting the up/download option. To transfer files computers use a "File Transfer Protocol", this is a system that both computers at each end of the line use to ensure the file is sent error free etc. At the moment "ZMODEM" is the standard, you'll find more info in your comms/modem docs. Anyway when you're on a board you COULD hog the line for hours if you didnt mind the phone bill running into four figures, but dont worry, the board will have measures to counter this! You might be given a daily time limit and/or an up/download ratio. IE: For every file you upload you'll be allowed to download 3. It may well be more complex than this EG: To take into account the file sizes. (No uploading a 1k file and downloading 3 meg for example!) You should be given some free "Credits" when you first start. You will also be given guidelines on what to Upload and what NOT to upload! Obviously when you get onto other boards you'll find stuff that the other board doesnt have and away you go. So what are the phone bills like then eh? Well it depends how much you use the modem, how far away you're calling and at what time. (The calls cost the same as normal voice calls). At the time of writing, BT local calls at cheap rate (6pm to 8am) cost about 80p per hour including VAT - not too bad huh? BT Long distance ('cheap' rate) is pretty steep during the week (30p-40p for 5 minutes). Thankfully BT are now now charging less at weekends for all long distance calls: £2 per hour all day. (Normal cheap rate all day for local calls). Remember, at the moment BT is sneaky, they round up the time you use to their nearest 'unit' - Eg: If you only connect to a system for 1 second you are charged 4.2p + Vat! So allow for some descrepancies in your bills! To give you an idea of file transfer times involved in up/downloading files, a 14400 modem should give an average transfer rate of about 1625 cps ((characters (bytes) per second). Perhaps a few examples would be more useful: (Packed) File Length: Approx Transfer time at 1625 cps: 200K 2 - 3 mins 400K 4 - 5 mins 600K 6 - 7 mins 800K 8 - 9 mins The Boards Themselves --------------------- Legal boards offer loads of Public Domain files for download. Generally these will not be hot scene warez but if you dont mind that all well and good. Sometimes a board maybe Amiga specific, or it might have sections for whole host of micros. Such boards may offer electronic mail facilities through networks such as Fidonet. With this system you can (alledgedly) send messages to anyone with a modem in the world. There'll also be 'conferences' covering different topics (EG:Local chat, Computer probs,Sci Fi etc) where you can join an on-going 'conversation' by adding your own comments/opinions etc. There will also be an option to 'page' the sysop (Call on the system operator). If he's around he'll normally be glad to help you out and have a chat via the keyboard. There's bound to be at least one of these boards in your local area so if you've never tried a board before, phone one of these at cheap rate to get the hang of things. Havent got any numbers? This wont be a problem for long, as soon as you get on one board there'll be lists of numbers to download. To get your 1st number, check out some of the Amiga mags with comms coverage. They normally give out a few numbers each month. Even if they're not local you wont have stay that long - just ask for some more board numbers from the sysop. Scene-boards. If its the latest warez you're after (PD or not, and there's more of the latter!) then you need to access one of these boards - these are the only places you'll find the latest releases. Naturally the numbers are kept pretty quiet and you'll need to be into the scene already to stand a chance of getting to know them! Anyway, when you 1st call such a board you might be asked for the New User Password (NUP). If you dont know it, you wont get any further. Sometimes a NUP wont be required, though the SYSOP may require a new file to be uploaded or references from other members to prove your worth! What will be required on these boards is for you to fill in a lengthy membership questionaire - Obviously the Sysop has to vet all new members - he has a lot to lose! This can take upwards of 5 minutes and is a right pain in the ass but there you go. If you get through all this malarky you may be dumped in a "New Users Conference" until the sysop has chance to validate you. You wont be able to do much exept contact the sysop or upload files. If you find yourself in a new user conferenece (Lamesville), phone back in a day or 2 and see if you've been validated (IE:Given full access to the board). Once you've got full access, you can check out the latest warez list, up/download files, mail other users of the board etc etc. On scene boards, stick closely to the upload guidelines! Its not in your interest to upload old (4 days is ancient!) files - the Boss (sysop) will Nuke (delete) 'em, reduce your credz and put a witheringly sarcastic remark on the file list! All in all its a quite a hoot but I'd advise mail-scene people not to quit the mail scene completely (Unless your a mad-ass speed junky, who doesnt mind shafting BT). See how you take to it! Personally, I'm in the scene for friendship, I like writing to my contacts so I generally use the modem to suppliment my legal warez inflow at weekends if theres anything about.