BBSing.com, BBS Terms

ANSI

ANSI is refered to be the ability of a BBS to put colorful displays on a user's screen.

The American National Standards Institute standard X3.64 of 1979 specifies several
cursor positioning commands based on sequences of ASCII codes. The standard
doesn't actually say anything about colors.

The conversion of the term probably originates from the device drive file names
"ANSI.SYS" supplied with DOS on IBM personal computers. When installed, this
device driver causes certaub escape character sequences output by programs, or
contained in text files, to control cursor positioning, display color, and other terminal
features.

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Most computers today use 7
bits of information to represent up to 95 letters, numbers, and punctuation, and 33
special-purpose control characters.

ASCII, File Transfer Protocol

Downloading a file, the text contents of a file can be just dumped to the user's screen.
For uploading, the file can be transfered ot typed a line at a time.

ATTACHMENT

A file uploaded with a electronic message that the reader of the message many
download.

AUDIT TRAIL

Archival record of system events, user selections, downloaded files. Complete
system overview of events by time frame.

BATCH PROTOCOL

File transfer protocol that supports sending more than one file during a single file
transfer session. A protocol that supports batch also supports the communications
file attributes, like name, date and time of last modification, and exact size.

BAUD

Unit of data communications signalling speed representing modulation per second.

BELL 103

300 baud modem manufactured by AT&T. Most modems sold in the U.S. and Canada
are compatible with BELL 103 modems at 300 baud.

BELL 212A

1200 bps modem manufactured by AT&T. Compatibility with this modem is virtually
identical to compliance with CCITT V.22.

BI-MODEM

BI-Modem was a portocol that allowed the bi-directional transfer of files, basically
meaning that a user could download and upload a file at the same time.

BOARD

Short name for Bulletin Board System.

BPS

Bits Per Second. The eight data bits of each communicated byte are cradled between
a start bit and a stop bit, so there are actually ten-times needed to carry one byte
of data. So the maximum byte-rate, or bytes per second, is exactly one tenth of the
BPS rate.

BBS or BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEM

Central system that provides a dial-up service or telnet service to computers that may
be seperated by large distances. The service may include downloads, uploads, games, chat, electronic mail and message boards to name a few.

CARRIER

The noises that two computers, talking over the phone constantly exchange with one
another.

CASE

Upper case means capital letters (ABCDEFG). Lower case means small letters (abcdefg). Case-sensitive means that "A" is treated differently from "a" in a particular context.

CITT

CCITT is the French abbreviation of the International Telephone and Telegraph Consulative Commitee. CITT meets every four years to review, revise, and ratify
numerous standards relating to computer communications.

CHANNEL

A single data communications port on a computer running, connected to one modem
or a serial port, supporting one user at a time.

CHAT MODE

Many bulletin board system would allow realtime chat between users and they could
type in realtime to each other another function similiar to this would be called "Sysop
Chat Mode".

CLASS

Group of users with similar privileges and accouting. Used to define the security level
of users sometimes refered to as access levels of a user.

COMPRESSION

Compressed file has been reduced in size without losing and information content.
Done by exploiting patterns and redundancies in the information.

CONNECTION

Modem channels, the act of a user dialing up over a phone line and connecting with
a BBS. For serial channels and IPX Direct channels, connection occurs when a user
first hits <Enter>. Lan channels and X.25 packet-switching channels, connection is
detected automatically.

CONNECT TIME

The time between logging on and logging off.

CO-SYSOP

An assistant to the System Operator, with a subset of his or her powers and responsibilities on the BBS.

DATA COMPRESSION

The method of moving more data in less time. Modem communications, it usually
refers to a method of converting a number of bytes of information into fewer bytes by taking advantage of patterns in data.

DEFAULT

The assumed answer, unless otherwise specified. The "default" condition is what happens when nothing is chosen, or no action is taken.

DIRECT CIRCUIT

Permanent connection between two parties that takes operator intervention to change.

DOOR

Door was a application written to play games or applications, the bulletin board system
would minimize and pass the communications using enviroment variables to the door
program and allow the user to play games or perform applications.

DOS

Disk Operating System, DOS refers most often to MS-DOS by Microsoft for the IBM
personal computer generation.

DOWNLOAD

Transfer of a File from a Bulletin Board System to the user's system.

ELECTRONIC MAIL or E-MAIL

Messages that people exchange privately over a Bulletin Board System. A user
on a BBS system can write private email to a user on the same BBS. Usually when
a user logged in the bulletin board system they where notified that they had mail
waiting.

ERROR CORRECTION

Method of automatically correcting data transmission errors, with the communicating
parties just send and receiving like they normally would.

EXTENDED ASCII

Computer representation of 256 symbols, using 8 bits. Extended ASCII is comprised
of ASCII plus 128 additional symbols. 32 of the ASCII control characters serve as dual purpose under extended ASCII, representing still more symbols.

FILE AREA

On bulletin board systems a area that contained files seperated by different subjects and types for users to download and upload programs, games and applications.

FORUM

A area of public messages, usually seperated by subject that users can read or write in.

IPX DIRECT CIRCUITS or CHANNELS

Lan access channels where each channel is allocated to one terminal computer on the
network at a time, much like serial.

IPX VIRTUAL CIRCUITS or CHANNELS

Lan access channels that are allocated for LAN use in general, and which will support, on demand, connection from any terminal on the network.

KERMIT PROTOCOL

Protocol was developed by Colombia University orginally for transfering files between
mainframe computers and other computers. Supports communications over 7-bit
transimission lines, streaming, an efficiet retry scheme, elaborate capability negotiation, as well as multi-file batch transimission and other features.

LAN ACCESS

Accessing a bulletin board system over a local area network. Running a terminal program a user can log on to a BBS, read write messages, transfer files, and all other
BBS activities as if the user was on a dialup.

LANGUAGE

User languages some bulletin board systems had multiple langauge interfaces and
could switch between one language or another. ie; English, French, Spanish

LOG OFF

The disconnection of a user from the bulletin board system by either logging off or
disconnecting.

LOG ON

The act of a user entering their information into the bulletin board system and being
logged on to the system.

LOWER CASE

Lower case means small letters.

MENU

A page or menu with a list options a user is presented with that can be selected from.

MESSAGE

Text message written from one user to another user. This could either be a email or
in a forum area.

MODEM

Modulator-demodulator. This device allows a computer to "talk" over a telephone line
to another computer with a modem.

MODEM CHANNEL

An interface to a modem, whether it's internal to the computer chassis or external and connected by a cable to a serial port.

NULL MODEM

A cable or adapter for connecting the serial ports between two computers. Both ports
have the same pinout, so several signals must be "swapped" by the null modem
cable or adapter.

OFFLINE MAIL READER

A program which supports reading and replying to messages offline using the QWK
packet format.

ONLINE

A user that is online or connected to a bulletin board system.

OPERATOR

The owner of a bulletin board system, who maintains the computer and operates the BBS. Sometimes refered to as "SysOp".

PAGE

The function of a user to page another user online or the system operator to request
their attention or notify them of a request. Some pages allowed users to send messages to the person they where paging.

PASSWORD

Special code to ensure the security of a user's account on the BBS. When a user
logs on a bulletin board system he/she must enter the user-id and password to access
the system.

PROTOCOL

How one computer or device can talk to another computer for a specific purpose.
Modem to modem, computer to computer or even file download protocols like
Xmodem, Ymodem, Zmodem or Kermit.

QWK

QWK is the industry standard for batch transferring E-mail and Forum messages.
This feature allowed the users to download messages, read and reply offline, and
then upload the replies they had created to the bulletin board system.

REMOTE SYSOP MENU

Menu system and commands a user with the highest access could use when logged
on remotely or locally while connected to the bulletin board system.

RIP

Remote Imaging Protocol. A graphics standard developed by TeleGrafix Communications, Inc. Using a Rip-compatible terminal program, bulletin board
system users could enjoy full graphics and mouse support.

RS-232

Standard of the Electronic Industries Association (EIA) for serial data communication.

SERIAL

Communications by computers over a series of wires, using most often RS-232.

SHELL

Shell was the process of exiting a application and going to DOS.

SIGNING UP

The first time a user connects to a bulletin board system, the user selects his user-id
and password and fills in the system questions. The point of creating a new account
on a bulletin board system for access to the system.

SYSOP

System Operator of the bulletin board system, this is short form of it. The owner or
operator of a particular bulletin board system is refered to as the Sysop.

SYSOP CHAT MODE

The system operator chat mode was a function that allowed the system operator to
break in and do a live chat with a user online in realtime.

TELECONFERENCE

Online conference or chat area on a bulletin board system where users gather and
have the ability to chat in real time between each other.

TERMINAL PROTOCOL

The specification for the way a user's terminal can communicate with the BBS, such
as "ANSI" for text with colors and cursor control, or "RIP" for RIPscrip graphis or
"ASCII" for text graphics.

TEXT MODE

Text mode refers to the selection of the user to text only mode, or for the visual effects while online to ASCII only mode without the display of graphics and colors using the
ANSI character set.

UPLOAD

When a user selects a file on their system for transfer to a bulletin board system and
the file is sent to the bulletin board system this process is refer to as a upload.

UPPER CASE

Upper case means CAPITAL letters.

USER

A user is the person that is remote and dials into a bulletin board system, using a
terminal program on their end and dialing to the system.

XMODEM

Orginally developed by Ward Christensen, Xmodem is a simple file transfer protocol
that includes fixed-size, literal-content blocks and error checking.

YMODEM

Ymodem is similiar to Xmodem except that it is capable of doing multiple-file batch
capability and file statistics communications.

ZMODEM

Zmodem was created by Omen Technologies specifically for packet-switching networks, some of the additional features over Ymodem are retrying aborted sessions.