Bbs operation

With your SETUP and organization of your BBS complete, you are ready to start up your BBS operation!

Loading The BBS

At this point, you should have already created your parameters file, password file, most of your core system messages and help files. Each drive assigned in your parameters file should have a disk or disk image in it with the proper files already on it. If you want to start your system with some files in the download directory, make sure you put them in the proper drive now.

There are two specific discussions pertaining to loading the BBS: 1) Loading system without a RAM Expansion Unit (REU), and 2) Loading system with a REU, because each comes with their own set of startup file commands as well as observations during the loading process.

Booting for Systems without a REU If you are not using a Ram Expander, you are ready to load Color 64 BBS for the first time (the big moment). Insert the disk that has your BOOT files on it and load the program called "+bbs" as if it were a BASIC program, then type RUN and hit RETURN.

JiffyDos users can auto-RUN the program by typing “£+bbs" and pressing RETURN.
Lt. Kernal HD users can just type "+bbs" and hit RETURN to boot the program.

If you had opted to “swap disks” in your SETUP, then you will see a message indicating that you should insert your Program disk once the initial boot operation has completed. The system’s next step is loading your configuration and overlays from the PROGRAM disk where your "√bbs.parms" file is contained. If everything loads normally, the computer will print "Working..." at the top of the screen. This means that the BBS is loading its parameters in from disk. Now skip to "Entering the Time and Date" below.

If the BBS fails to boot normally, then it probably means that an essential file is missing in the Program Files or the System Files. Check the installation instructions to make sure that the correct files have been copied to the BBS system disks.