Talk:PCBoard

Added Content
I added a bunch of content to the article. The problem is that the reference is material in print format, which came with the original BBS software. I added it anyway, because it provides helpful keywords to what to look for. I will be looking for other references myself, but if you come across anything usefull, please add it to the article or to the article's talk page. --roy&lt;sac&gt; Talk! .oOo. 07:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Cite the books. Name, author, date, etc. So far as I know, the word processor or DTP or other source format files for the paper manuals were never published and are lost, so paper is what we've got. Jim.henderson 16:16, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * In my case is it material that was sent together with the invoice by the German reseller of PCBoard "POB BBS". Some things are sales numbers they must have gotten from Clark Development, others are 3rd party information, like the awards, which must be mentioned somewhere. Maybe not on the internet, but in print media. For example the PC Magazine Editors Choice Award. I am not a PC Magazine Reader so I don't have any of the old issues where it would have been mentioned. I hope that somebody can confirm it. If not, we will have to remove it from the article. --roy&lt;sac&gt; Talk! .oOo. 22:35, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * A little digging at the Wayback Machine found this U.S. price list from 1996/7. -- MarcoTolo 22:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It does not have all products that were available at the end (MetaWorlds specifically), but the other stuff matches the prices of the version at the other source (TheBBS.org). I added to reference to the WayBack Machine as additional reference and source though. Thanks for the digging. --roy&lt;sac&gt; Talk! .oOo. 23:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

As the primary author of the first couple versions of the PCBoard Programming Language, I believe I am probably ineligible to edit the article. However, I noted a missing 'award' in the awards section: The PCBoard Programming Language was awarded a 1994 Dvorak Award for Telecommunications Excellence (Outstanding PC Telecommunications Technology; http://www.citivu.com/dvorak/index.html#1994). Alternatively, it might better belong with "PCBoard Programming Language" (which currently redirects to PCBoard Programming Executable): I'm not sure, so I thought I'd throw it out there for discussion. CasaDeRobison 01:04, 24 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Scott, thanks for the info and hello to Wikipedia. You did the right thing by posting to the talk page rather than the article itself. People consider this kind of edits WP:COI edits (conflict of interest). However, you are a valuable source of information and help editor finding the necessary reliable sources, such as news articles etc. that can backup the information you provide. The PCBoard article was only recently significantely extended. Mostly from my part. It was for a long time on my to-do list. I used PCBoard myself. See . I even wrote PPEs (published free incl. source code). I still would like to extend the content to PPL and PPE, but it is hard to find the necessary sources to back things up. You can not just write a essay about something at Wikipedia (you can, but there are other places for those hehe). What do you think about the article about PCB and CDC in its current state from your point of view? Is there anything notable and relevant missing? Were any errors made? Thanks! --roy&lt;sac&gt; Talk! .oOo. 18:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

LPT modems
Is it really LPT ports you used to connect the modems? I myself always used my COM ports. Do I miss out something here? Simon Johansson 20:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * While there were a handful of experimental BBS setups with LPT ports, they were not the standard. I've corrected the text to read COM (i.e. serial) ports. -- MarcoTolo 00:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Missing Content
I did not notice any mention of PCBUUCP (which I wrote originally; it was a kludgy but functional way of supporting Internet email and Usenet via the unix-to-unix copy protocol) or PCBEdit (which was a fairly simple text editor with support for PCBoard @-macros and @X-colors; both could be toggled on and off, turning it into a simple plain text editor).

I was originally hired to work on PCBComm, an already in development GUI telecommunications program that would login to a PCBoard system and parse the text stream with the help of some 'undocumented' hooks. It was supposed to provide a simple user experience for novices who didn't have experience with standard terminal software or bulletin board software. Unfortunate for that project was the high level of configuration that could be applied to PCBoard (and this was before the PCBoard Programming Language was introduced). That high level of configuration, especially when combined with the problem of communication errors (either the connection between modems, the connection between the modem and the com port on either the BBS or user side, or the quality of UART and/or software on either the BBS or user side,) made it all but impossible to reliably parse the text stream and present it in a comfortable GUI.

Sorry, I don't have references for any of these (other than myself; don't know what Wikipedia policy is about this form of reference.)

CasaDeRobison 20:36, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Scott, thanks for stopping by again. I am not familar with UUCP. Did PCBComm came with the standard PCB install disks or was it an optional module that had to be purchased separately? If it was part of the standard, then it is easier to include into the article, because claims regarding the tool can be verified my easier. It also depends on the nature of the claims. What does it say?... "the more extraordinary the claims, the better must be the references to backup that claim". Could you write up a sentence or two regarding PCBComm that explains it? If you use terms like UUCP or other technical abbreviations, refer to the Wikipedia article that explains it like UUCP.  PCBEdit itself is not really notable, but what is notable IMO is the PCB @X-colors and macros. In that context would mentioning PCBEdit make a lot of sense. Btw. Do you happen to have a full @X-colors reference flying around in digital format that shows the ANSI escape code equivalents and/or explains what it does (like the ANSI escape code article)? You can post the stuff either here at the talk page or send it to me via email. You can find my full contact into here. I offer that, because the wiki formating could be a bit tricky for a thing such as a tabular reference etc. Thanks. --roy&lt;sac&gt; Talk! .oOo. 01:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on PCBoard. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070809234844/http://sysopscorner.thebbs.org/getlinks.php?category=pcboard to http://sysopscorner.thebbs.org/getlinks.php?category=pcboard

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 03:44, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

PCBoard v16
From the article:

"PCBoard v16 has been rewritten using Modern Pascal CodeRunner. The pre-alpha early experience is available via Telnet at SaltAirBBS.com on port 23."

The relationship between this so-called "PCBoard v16" and the "original" PCBoard is tenuous at best. It is being done by an independent third party by re-writing code released PCBoard source into a Pascal-like language (I don't know the exact details; Pascal-like is not meant to be derogatory), but according to information I've read, the final version of the product will have a different name, and it should probably not be called "PCBoard v16" any more than early Windows should be described as "Macintosh vX" or Microsoft Word be described as "WordPerfect vY".

I don't object to it being referenced, but it almost certainly should go into its own section and include a better description of what it really is.

CasaDeRobison (talk) 18:42, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

After doing some more digging, I suspect that the person who performed the edits is either the author of so-called PCBoard v16 as the only pages ever updated by that ip address have to do with PCBoard and Pascal related things. Given that there are no citations, it seems like a prime candidate for reversion.

CasaDeRobison (talk) 18:48, 20 September 2019 (UTC)