ddurbin@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Daniel A. Durbin) (04/11/89)
I have been running a bulletin board for almost a year and a half now and have found that even with carrier detection software, well behaved software, and other precautions, there are still some occasions where my board will fail to answer the phone, or lock up, or otherwise fail to perform. Some instances include: occasionally I'll call from remote, drop to DOS, and do something silly (like run a program that doesn't use stdio for io) which will prevent re-execution of the BBS software. Also, some BBS door systems when executed will occasionally cause the system to lock up. There are other intances that include minor changes to the BBS software that ended up being fatal but only when I wasn't there to correct the situation. My solution to the problem was to build a circuit which monitors the phone line for rings. If the phone rings more than four times in succession (my board SHOULD answer on the first ring), then the circuit will send a cold boot signal (equivalent to pressing RESET on the front of the AT) to the computer (IBM AT clone). My autoexec.bat executes the BBS software and my board is back in business! I've used this circuit for a couple of months now with good success. My question is would any other sysops be interested in this circuit and how much would it be worth? I am thinking of making a bunch of them and selling them as a plug in card for IBM PC's. However, I don't know if the IBM XT has an equivalent RESET line like the AT does (which is connected to the switch on the front of my AT). Any info on this? If I get good response I can make a bunch of cards and be able to sell them for something like $30. But I need to know what kind of interest there is in this circuit. Please send email to me and I'll forward further information to those interested. Thanks Daniel Durbin___________________________________________________ SysOp: Cygnus X-1 BBS | CIS: 73447,1744 (805) 541-8505 (data) | GEnie: D.DURBIN EL major at PolySlo | ddurbin@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU