FEATURED DOOR AUTHOR: Tired of just being a user? Ever thought of writing a door game or utility? Meet William "Bill" Bell, creator of Two Minute Warning Software for Falken multiuser BBS. Door World had an opportunity to meet up with Bill to talk with him about how he got to where he is now as an established author. The tremendous advances made with computer technology over a relatively short period of time become very apparent as we follow Bill's history. Only 14 years ago and at the young age of 14, Bill was initiated into the world of computers with an Atari 400. Typing in small game programs which came from COMPUTE magazine Bill began to program in BASIC. Within a year Bill leapt onto the Information Hightway with his first Supra 300 baud modem. (Remember those days when it took 30 minutes to get an 80K file?) The programming bug bit when Bill got a copy of a shareware BASIC BBS program and then bought an 800XL Basic cartridge. Bill made major modi- fications to the BBS and got it working under the Atari acoustic-coupled modem and the Supra modem. Bill developed many add-ons that he freely gave to his friend's BBS system which has since gained some notoriety as the Daily Planet BBS. Off to the University of Buffalo with his Atari 520ST he had little time for programming. Upon graduation with a computer engineering degree he worked for the Government as a Programmer/Analyst which led to a stint with IBM Federal Systems. Currently Bill is employed at Questra Consulting in Rochester, NY which specializes in Client-Server applications. It was during this time that Bill bought an IBM clone 386/25Mhz PC with 1 MB RAM and set up the Opus v1.03b BBS with Fidonet capabilities. Bill attributes the MEADOW echomail conference with helping him to understand the power of amateur networks and fueling his latest developments. In 1992 Bill began to examine various multiline BBS systems. Appreciating the shareware concept Bill chose the Falken BBS which he found to be "user friendly" and provided access to the developers. With the purchase of the Falken BBS v6.1 and the Falken door programmers kit Bill decided to develop a Chess game which could be played by two people on the BBS at the same time. Bill posted the game on the Falken support BBS and within a matter of days he had sysops from around the world calling to find out how to register the program. Bill had his 1st customers!!! This on going development of games and utilities is extremely demanding. The Chess door is still one of his most popular doors and has suffered from what Bill calls "featurism". Yeah, I had to ask what that was too! Bill informs us that it is a word for what he describes "adding features into a product to satisfy users". This is normally a good thing but left unchecked it can kill a product by confusing the user with too many options. In August 1993, Info*Share , INC (the developers of Falken BBS) invited Bill to attend One BBSCON in Colorado Springs, CO and to use their booth. (Note: One BBSCON is a BBS industry trade show which is sponsored by Boardwatch Magazine). There he co-hosted a Falken Programming seminar with Herb Rose. Bill's latest project is to convert Chess, Backgammon and Grafitti to be used through FidoNet. As always Bill supports his Two Minute Warning Software which creates utility doors and games for Falken BBS v7.02 and above. Falken BBS is a product of Info*Share, INC at (703) 791-2910. Most TMW programs are supported under the "shareware" concept which lets users try before they buy. The trial period is in all cases one week and after that it is understood that users register the door or remove it from their system. The TMW registered software license is good for one BBS, one copy on multiple lines. TMW does not charge extra fees for extra lines. Instead you pay only for the number of copies you have on line. Software may be registered (purchased) by sending a check or money order in U.S. funds to William Bell 55 Gate House Trail, Henrietta, NY 14467; OR through Winter Paradise via MC/Visa, American Express, JCB, Savings, personal or business checks ONLINE at (716) 359-2889 (NY residents add 8% sales tax). Prices include UPS ground delivery of software. You may either have it mailed to you or download the latest copy via Winter Paradise BBS. Support is handled through Winter Paradise (email "Bill Bell"), American Online (email "WNBell@aol.com") or PSInet at pp001529@interramp.com. Upgrades to each package are available on Winter Paradise BBS. Two Minute Warning Software Helpful/Entertaining Doors for Falken BBS CHESS - This is the traditional multi-player Chess game. It allows many of the chess features found in tournament Chess. BACKGAMMON - Traditional multi-player backgammon. CHAT - Two user character-by-character chat door. BULLETIN REPLACEMENT - Bulletin.exe replacement. Allows RIP/ANSI/ASCII customized bulletin menus, continuous read and ability to abort text per page. FALFILE V3.+ - Falken directory automator CREDIT CARD DOOR SHOWTEXT REPLACEMENT - A showtext.exe replacement. Figures out if the user is ANSI or not and displays an RIP, ANSI or ASCII file. WWiV DOOR LOADER - Allows you to run WWiV (chain.txt) doors in Falken. DOOR.SYS DOOR LOADER - Running games for DOOR.SYS under Falken DIALOUT DOOR - Multi-purpose door. Allows Sysops and users to dial-out to other boards or for linking another BBS to Falken with a NULL modem cable. BIRTHDAY DOOR - Automatically generates a monthly birthday text file which can be viewed at logon or in a menu. WESTERN TELECONFERENCE - Replaces or adds another Falken Tlcf. A developers kit is available to program doors for Western. Allows actions to be customized, **RIPscript and features the best linking EVER. Including PUBLIC SCHOOL #13 which was recently upgraded to run as a Western Door. CERTIFICATE AUTO-CREDITS - Generate a 12 character certificate for customers to enter their number inside Falken to auto-upgrade their account. 900 DOOR/AUTO CREDITS - This is a logon door. Set what line is your 976 or 900 number and when someone logs on successfully it automatically gives then a set number of credits and hangs up on them. ACCOUNT UTILITY (transfer credits) - This door on credit based systems allows users to transfer credits to users on-line/ or off-line. SCAN MESSAGE BASES - Allows users to scan message base for new messages and display the subject message base and number. MORE MENUS - Allows you to replace GFILES and have a way to display text messages. ZMODEM SEND (with CD ROM support) - A zmodem send replacement for Falken. It copies CD ROM files to disk before transferring to speed up multiple CD access. UPGRADE DOOR - Allows Sysops to upgrade (validate) users on-line. SWITCH (BBSCFG Debugger and Menu Switcher) - Outputs the bbscfg.dat file into a human readable text file. The text file can then be uploaded for support personnel or printed out for reference purposes. "Switch" also allows you to switch Falken menu entries. ACCOUNT RENAMER (fneta) - Program renames a directory full of similar filenames (those beginning with account number) easily. INTER-WALL for FALKENET - This is a multi-BBS wall for FALKENET V3.01. CBV (Callback Verifier) - FALKEN 6.65+ SPECIFIC - Allows users to validate themselves by having the BBS call and ask for password. Email UTILITY - Allows Sysops/subops to read/delete and maintain Email while on-line. MSGPURGE UTILITY - Run in nightly maintenance mode to kill those dead threads in the message bases...Easy and powerful. 900 Service Door (TABS) - A Falken 900 service door which upgrades user accounts, has built-in maintenance and gives information on how to use the 900 Service provided by TABS (Telephone Access Billing System). For more information on TABS call voice (800) 755-8227 or BBS (407) 722-3406. FALKEN EchoReader (FidoNet) FALKEN Deluxe QWK FALKEN Supra CD ROM For a more detailed description and prices please contact Bill Bell at the numbers and addresses provided in article. ÿ