Luigi's problem with Color 64

[sysop]

One of our visitors wrote:

The bbs program dont load when
After the first local mode access. F1 button.

At the first access I give my identification number, that is 2 and by entering the password the software searches for the password and changes screen, where the words appear:

your name:
Caller no.:
Times called:
Last called:
Access level:
Expiration:
Blks dnlded:
Blks uplded:
News messages:

and the writing
program loading …please wait…

the colored stripes at the edges also come out but nothing happens …

I have the bbs.parms disk in another floppy disk…

I ran everything as in your description, probable cause should I have the bbs.parms disk and the bbs software on the same support?
or I should change string of commands at …. since I have a modem hayes wifi the modem scheme of Leif Bloomquist ..
I do not know…

[sysop]

My response from the post:

Is it the glimmering type border? That’s a bad sign. The border colors are:

black – all is good
grey – SysOp has been paged
orange – a non-fatal error occurred
glimmering – nonrecoverable error/kernel panic

I’ll get straight to the reason why I think you are getting this: √bbs.msgs is missing from your disk. Make sure – at the very least – all √bbs.* files are on the main disk.

You have to think like a C=64 and understand how the BBS works. Remember that we are dealing with a rather tiny amount of RAM and resources here (in comparison with modern computers). Also, the flow of the BBS is quite linear, which is why you have a bit of overhead in each module from lines 0-13000-ish.

When the BBS loads it first loads the machine language routines (ML) and boots through the √bbs.ini overlay (or √bbs.init – I shortened all of my overlays to just 3 letters after √bbs. to save bytes – every byte helps!). √bbs.init contains the following functionality:

• boot
• terminal
• set time/date
• regenerate messages
• call answer/modem negotiation
• change baud rate
• waiting for call for screen
• login/password
• membership list
• new user registration/application
• user stats

That is quite a load for a single overlay to handle. And keep in mind that SysOps will front-load the login process with other stuff: graffiti wall, last few callers, login lotto and more.

Once the login process gets past user stats the BBS loads √bbs.msg, as that is the point where welcome2, news and level notices are displayed and mail is checked. I personally moved welcome2, news and level notices to another overlay to save space. Back in the day this process was the bane of SysOps without RAM expanders or hard drives because it could take FOREVER to navigate between overlays. Remember that it generally takes 1 second per block size to load. So yeah. Users didn’t like it either.

The first main prompt you get is in √bbs.msgs. So if you want to change the prompt you have to do so in √bbs.msgs, √bbs.xfer and √bbs.ovl and any other games that send you back to the prompt.

Now, if once you log in and you are a good BBS citizen you will go to Read messages and post messages. All well and good because you’re in the messages overlay. Welcome messages, system info and private messages work fine. But as soon as you do something like check directories that is when you’re going to get another Program Loading… please wait message while √bbs.xfe is loaded. Once in there any directory-related or up/download stuff loads quickly.

I hope this helps explain it a bit.

[Author]

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