CompuServe¶

A listener with frontend = compuserve serves a recreation of the CompuServe Information Service instead of the BBS's menus. It runs on the BBS's own users, and it aims to work with the real CompuServe software: terminal programs, offline readers (TAPCIS, AutoSIG, OzCIS) and the CompuServe Information Manager (WinCIM, DOSCIM, MacCIM). Their scripts look for the period's exact prompts, so the service keeps them.

[listen cis]
type = telnet
address = :2324
frontend = compuserve

A raw listener works too: modem callers through app_dmodem dial straight into CompuServe. connect = 9600 sets the CONNECT line shown before Host Name:. It is on by default for telnet, which is what CIM's scripts expect over TCP, and off for raw listeners, where the modem has already said it.

Logging on¶

Host Name: CIS
User ID: 72000,1
Password:

• Host Name: CIS, CPS or CISAGREE, the names CompuServe's own scripts send.
• User ID: the account's number written as a CompuServe ID: account 1 is 72000,1, using octal digits only, like CompuServe's own. A caller can also type their BBS name; in that case the ID is shown at logon. The ID may carry the usual options, such as /INT:60, ;TTY and /GO:word.
• Password: the BBS password.
• Bad logon: a wrong ID or password gets ?? LOGINE - Invalid entry - try again. Locked accounts and throttled addresses get CompuServe's ?LOG codes.

After the logon the host sends ESC I. Terminals that know it answer with their identification, which shows in who's online. A CIM client (AP in its reply) gets the graphical service instead; see below.

CIM (WinCIM)¶

CIM clients speak HMI, a binary protocol inside B Plus packets. The service follows what 24high/CompuServe-Emulator recovered from WinCIM 3.0.2: the Secure Login, the terminal-mode trade after it, the B Plus Transport Layer, and the HMI messages for pages. In WinCIM you can:

• browse the main menu, the menus and articles of pages.txt, What's New and the Table of Contents, and use Find;
• read the forums: the forum list, a forum's sections and libraries, a section's messages (newest first) and each message, which then counts as read;
• see a library's files (downloads still need a terminal program);
• read your mail with Get Mail: the mailbox, newest first, unread letters marked *. A letter read is marked read.

Sending mail, posting to forums, downloads and the CB are not in CIM yet. WinCIM sends mail and forum messages through transactions of its own, which nobody has recovered yet. Use a terminal program for those for now.

Point WinCIM at the listener over TCP. In CIS.INI, the connector's CommType=WINSOCK, WinsockCommType=Local and HostIPAddress set this. CompuServe's own port for that was 4144:

[listen wincim]
type = raw
address = :4144
frontend = compuserve
connect = 9600

Secure Login. CIM logs on with the Secure Login Protocol (+ before the User ID), which never sends the password. The host checks it against a key it keeps from the password. That key is kept only while a compuserve listener runs, the next time the user logs on with their password or sets one. Until then a Secure Login fails with No., and the log says why. Log on once from a terminal, or set DisableSecureLogin=ON in CIS.INI for one plain login.

None of this has met a real WinCIM yet; that is the next round of testing.

Commands¶

Commands chain with ;, as in SET BRI ON;GO RATES.

Terminal settings (GO DEFAULT)¶

SET changes the session's settings. GO DEFAULT (or TERMINAL, or choice 1 of GO PROFILE) keeps them with your User ID, through CompuServe's own menus: TERMINAL SETTINGS/SERVICE OPTIONS, then PERMANENT SETTINGS with its Logon/Service, Display, Terminal and Transfer protocol groups. When you leave, you confirm the changes. The screens follow TAPCIS's ALT-P script (PARAMS.SCR, 1991), which sets a new member up through them.

What the kept settings do:

• PAGED, BRIEF, WIDTH and LINES take effect at each logon.
• Mail waiting: Go to MAIL goes straight into Mail when letters wait.
• Online editor sets Mail's line numbering when Mail has no setting of its own.
• Protocol preference (B, Quick B, XMODEM or Kermit) skips the protocol menu.

The rest are kept and shown, as scripts expect, but do nothing here: terminal type, parity, delays, first service, TOP goes to, forum mode and graphics support. Forums are always in command mode. Add ;TTY to the User ID (72000,1;TTY) to log on with the defaults for once.

Forums¶

GO FORUMS lists the forums. Each forum is a group of the BBS's message areas, and each area in it is a section (S0, S1, ...). Areas in no group make up a forum named after the BBS. A group with more than 18 areas is split into several forums, because CompuServe's forums had at most 18 sections. A forum's GO word is its name in capitals, letters and digits only (Amiga Tech is GO AMIGATECH). Message numbers are the BBS's own, so they rise across the forum with gaps.

The forum works in command mode, at Forum !, which is the mode TAPCIS and the other offline readers need:

Headers follow forum software 4's:

#: 2 S1/Software
    08-Nov-26  11:30:05
Sb: #1-Kickstart 1.3
Fm: sysop 72000,2
To: alice 72000,1

Membership (JOIN) and conferencing are not there yet.

Libraries¶

A forum's libraries are the file areas in its group, numbered from 0 like its sections. File areas in no group are the libraries of the forum named after the BBS. Put a file area in a group with bbs filearea group AREA GROUP.

LIB n from Forum ! opens a library, at LIB !:

The B and Quick B choices run the B Plus engine. The host sends ENQ, and the terminal's answer decides between Classic B, Quick B and B Plus. XMODEM and Kermit print CompuServe's start message and wait for a CR when the transfer is complete. Downloads count against the BBS's daily limits and ratios, the same as on the BBS itself. Entries look like this:

[72000,2]
BPLUS.ZIP/binary          08-Nov-26 8700         Accesses: 1

    Title   : B Plus for everyone
    Keywords: BPLUS PROTOCOL

Mail¶

GO MAIL (or EASY, EASYPLEX) enters CompuServe Mail. It is the BBS's private mail: what is sent here arrives in the BBS's mailbox, and the other way round. A message is pending until it is read. Read messages stay in the mailbox, as if saved, until they are deleted.

Mail starts in menu mode, as CompuServe's did. SET opens the Options Menu, where option 2 changes the mode to PROMPT or COMMAND, and the answer to Make changes permanent for future Mail sessions ? (Y or N) ! keeps it with the account. TAPCIS's setup script (PARAMS.SCR, run by Alt-P) does exactly this, then set edit noline and set page off, which are kept too. In command mode the prompt is Mail!.

Addresses take CompuServe's forms: a BBS name, a User ID (72000,1), a name and an ID (Sysop 72000,2, Sysop [72000,2]), or a name and a network address after >. INTERNET:72000.1@compuserve.com is a member here. Other Internet addresses, FAX, POSTAL, MCIMAIL, X.400 and MHS are refused, with a message saying so. A FidoNet address (Bob@1:234/5) goes out as netmail when the BBS is on FidoNet. An address ending in ; asks for another, and a /R (return receipt) is accepted but not acted on.

A message reads like this:

Date:  08-Nov-26 12:40 UTC
From:  alice [72000,1]
Subj:  Testing

Hello from Mail.

CB Simulator¶

GO CB enters the CB Simulator. Its channels are the BBS's chat rooms cb-1 to cb-36, so callers in the BBS's own chat, or on IRC, can join a channel too. A CB caller picks a handle, which can't be another member's name, and a channel. After that, whatever they type is said on that channel. A line from the tuned channel shows as (Handle) text, and a line from a monitored channel shows as (17,Handle) text. Others see the handle, and the BBS's other chat programs see the caller's name.

Scrambling works the way CompuServe's did. Everything you send goes out permuted by the key, and everything you receive is unpermuted with it, so only callers using the same key read each other.

What is there and what is coming¶

The research behind all this, with sources, is in docs/cis.