My name is Kerry Vinson, of kv_Soft. I run the R.U.D.M. BBS in
St.Louis, MO  314-230-6727. As of this writing I am running TriBBS v5.01.
I've spent a looong time tweaking the relationship between Windows and
TriBBS. I'd like to share some of my methods in the hopes of helping other
TriBBS sysops run their board a little tighter. Please note that I only run
in 386 protected mode.

R.U.D.M. is setup under Windows 3.1 on a 486dx40 with 4mb of memory.
Although the contents of this text file should work with just about
any 386 or higher with any memory amount, it may be necessary for you to
explore a little bit further to tweak your particular system.

By the way, I node 2 is local. I have included a set of icons that were
improvised from an icon I found on another TriBBS board. I don't know who
the original author is, but I hope he doesn't mind. I included the
origninal icon as well.

First of all, you may want to replace the original comm.drv located in your
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdir with the comm.drv included in this package. It is an
updated serial driver release dated 10-1-92 by Microsoft. The original
driver dated March of 92 is substandard to the update and you will achieve
much better results using the newer one.

Second, it would be wise to start Windows in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and
include your TriBBS remote nodes in your startup group. This is good
insurance of continued operations in your absence should there be a power-
out, etc.

Now for the good stuff. Here is my setup:

CONTROL PANEL, 386ENH:
Windows in Foreground/Background both set to 50
Minimun Timeslices 10msec (this is recommended for smoother file transfers,
        the protocol won't have to wait longer than it should for it's next
        piece of data. This is especially recommended if you aren't using a
        16550.)
Virtual Memory set to a permanent swap file with 32-bit access.
        A permananent swap file is one long contiguous file. This is MUCH
        faster than the machine having to read a severely fragmented
        temporary one!

RUDM.PIF
Program Filename: c:\tribbs\board.bat
Video Memory: Text
KB Req: 512   KB Desired: -1 (this allows it to draw all needs)
XMS Memory requirement and limit: 0,1024
Full Screen (up to you)
Background Execution-yes
Exclusive-no
ADVANCED:  Background/Foreground priorities 50/50 (remember the Windows
                     settings from above? I keep all pifs and Windows
                     set at 50/50. This ensures that everything gets its
                     fair share of processor time and isn't slowed down
                     because you are doing something else.
           Be sure to check Detect Idle Time, for obvious reasons.
           Lock application memory-yes! TriBBS doesn't use a whole lot
                     anyway, and it seems to make the board run a little
                     smoother. All this does is prevent any part of TriBBS
                     from being swapped to the hard disk.
           I leave all of the Advanced section's display options blank.

I added an entry to my SYSTEM.INI. BE SURE TO MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF
        SYSTEM.INI BEFORE YOU DO THIS!

Under the 386enh section:
COMBoostTime=4

This is defaulted to 2 by Windows if not set. Quoting SYSINI.WRI:

        "Specifies the amount of time (in milliseconds) to allow a virtual
         machine to process a COM interupt. If, while running a
         communications application, you lose keyboard characters on the
         screen, you can try increasing this value."

I did this after several callers complaining that their keystrokes wouldn't
do anything while in doors. The would have to press the same key again and
again. This seemed to help.

As far as TriBBS itself, I always do direct screen writes. They are several
times faster than using the BIOS. And they don't hurt a thing.

Also, I keep my keyboard idle timeout set to 0. I am not a hub for TriMail,
so it doesn't hurt. In fact, I would keep this at either 0 or some ungodly
number like 30. I haven't really had a problem with 0. That should just
about do it...

Now, the above information is what I use at R.U.D.M.   For obvious reasons,
I can't guarantee it will all achieve the best performance on your
particular machine. It is what I use, however. And it IS very effective.
I rarely have a Windows-related problem with TriBBS. Likewise, I also
rarely get less than top performance out of TriBBS under Windows. By the
way, my Windows 3.1 is sitting on top of DOS 6.2.

I hope this helps you out a little bit. If you have any comments or
suggestions, leave me a message on the TriBBS Support echo. I keep up
on it, and I welcome any suggestions for improving this schtuff.

Kerry Vinson
R.U.D.M. BBS
314-230-6727
Jan 1994
