From Paul in Port Talbot IO81CN MID:998_GW7LHI

Hi there.

Having just read Mike G1ZRN's bulletin regarding the installation and use of BPQ32, here is what I've found out.

I am running Sally v 3.02 build 14 beta and BPQ32 under Win95a with SP1 and the Y2K patches on a P100 16Mb RAM 520Mb HD. 

BPQ32 (4.09a) doesn't appear to be useable in the same way that v 4.08a was, because there is no actual BPQCODE.EXE file. Instead, there is a BPQ32.DLL file, which is called by Sally on startup. This spawns a DOS window containing the usual port and switch loaded & initialised OK info. If I close this DOS session, then Sally is closed too, probably because it realises that there's no switch to talk to any more.

Under Sally, the following files have to be copied to 
\Program Files\Sally or
\Windows\System 
so that the switch can be called and used:
BPQ32.DLL
BPQCFG.BIN
BPQCONF.EXE

I have actually placed the following files in my \Program Files\Sally folder:
BPQMON32.EXE
BPQTERM.EXE
BPQNODES.EXE
BPQ32.DLL
BPQCFG.BIN
BPQCONF.EXE

and all works well for me here, with no problems so far.

There are a few points to take note of when setting BPQ v4.09a up for the first time..

1) You must use the BPQCFG.EXE that came in the BPQ32.ZIP archive to compile the BPQCFG.BIN file, and not the one from v4.08a.

2) In the PORTS section of BPQCFG.TXT, IOADDR must be changed to the number of the COM port you wish that port to use, and not it's hex address, so IOADDR=3F8 becomes IOADDR=1 for COM1. At the same time, the line INTLEVEL=4 can be deleted completely.. it isn't required.

3) The format of the APPLICATIONS= line is different
Instead of having:
     APPLICATIONS= PMS,NOS/C 2 LHINOS,,,
you have to have:
     APPLICATIONS= PMS,NOS /C 2 LHINOS,,,
There must be a single space between the command and the route it uses.

Don't forget to run BPQCFG.EXE to recompile BPQCFG.BIN after making your changes to BPQCFG.TXT

4) If you've removed the COM port that BPQ talks to from Windows' control, you must put it back under the control of Windows, otherwise BPQ will not be able to use the port. If/when you do this, restart Windows before doing anything else, so that the COM port is initialised properly by Windows.

So far, I have had no problem at all with BPQ v4.09.. it runs well for me here, and data transfer seems a little faster than v4.08a. The BBS I'm using (GB7CRV) runs RH 5.2 2.0.36 kernel Linux and LinFBB.

I don't know if Winpack or any other PMS is able to use BPQ32/4.09,and haven't tried yet either.. I have caught a dose of the 'flu that's doing the rounds, and haven't had the inclination to try Winpack6.5/BPQ 4.09.

The only fly in the ointment for me is that I can't get JNOS to see the the new BPQ.. with v4.08a, it was possible for Sally/Winpack/NPFPMS etc and JNOS to talk to the switch simultaneously with no problem,so I could run TCP/IP as well as a standard PMS, but as JNOS can't find the new version of the switch, I suppose I'll have to have a boot menu for 32 or 16 bit BPQ instead!

Finally, BPQ32.ZIP can be downloaded from:

http://www.cix.co.uk/~ntsx (or from Karl's Sally 3 Page :-)  )

which is Ted G8NPF's web page.

Hope this helps someone out there!

What follows is just a Tagline....
Arnold Schwarzenegger virus ..Terminates and stays resident. It'll be back!.

Cheers & 73 de Paul GW7LHI/MW0CDO
Thanks for your interest!
Timed Sunday 09 January 2000 16:59 gmt
BBS:   GW7LHI@GB7CRV.#16.GBR.EU
SMTP:  gw7lhi@gw7lhi.ampr.org
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EMAIL: p.d.tomlinson@swan.ac.uk

Running Sally v3.02 32 bit + BPQ32
Registered as it's the best there is!
