Possibilities - Linnco Futures Group - Investing With TBBS/TDBS

Contact:   eSoft, Inc. (Makers of TBBS)
           15200 E. Girard Ave., Suite 3000
           Aurora, CO  80014
           (303) 699-6565      Voice
           (303) 699-6872      Fax
           (303) 699-8222      BBS
           support@esoft.com   E-Mail

LINNCO FUTURES GROUP - INVESTING WITH TBBS/TDBS
-----------------------------------------------

*** From February 1992 Possibilities Newsletter ***
*** Copyright 1992 by eSoft, Inc.  All Rights Reserved ***

Linnco Futures Group -- Investing With TBBS/TDBS
by Alan Bechtold

When you think of the investment business you think of money.  But the 
reality is that the investment business is primarily a communications 
industry.  Transactions must be communicated from buyer to seller and back 
efficiently and accurately to succeed.  Nowhere is this more important than 
in the commodities industry.

Linnco Futures Group is a commodities firm with a customer base of 
approximately 20,000.  They buy and sell stocks and bonds and also trade 
commodities.  When Robert Winslow began his job as MIS Director for Linnco 
Futures Group a little more than a year ago he found that these 
communications represented a significant cost of business for the company.

"We used to send equity runs out over a transmission carrier called Western 
Union at a cost of $10,000 a month," Winslow said.  "When I first came on 
board, I was approached by the owners of the company to try and cut that 
Western Union bill and I said, 'I've got an idea!'"

Winslow had been reading a computer magazine just a few days before this 
meeting.  "The magazine had an article about multi-line BBSes and, 
specifically TBBS," Winslow said.  "I was intrigued and I decided to look 
into it even though I didn't have a real application for it at the time.  
Now I did."

Robert wrote some programs to download data from the company's mainframe 
computer and extract the individual files for the company's customers.  He 
then set up a simple TBBS system to do the distribution of this data.  That 
single TBBS application reduced Linnco's monthly transmission costs from 
$10,000 to $200 - saving nearly $10,000 every month!

"Needless to say, that put a big feather in my cap," Winslow said, smiling.  
"It paid for the software and hardware -- with cash left over -- the first 
month."

While that was Winslow's first success with TBBS it wasn't to be his last.  
Last Fall he put up a second TBBS system.  This time Winslow used TDBS to 
increase his company's accessibility to its customer base and, once again, 
save his company money in the process.

"Normally, customers would call us over the phone and place orders for 
execution in the brokerage pit," Winslow said.  "The company decided to 
create an electronic order entry system capable of automating that task for 
our customers.  They wanted me to spearhead the project and take over what 
they already had, but all I saw was poor program design and poor planning.  
It was a mess.

"I told them, 'Look, it could be done better.'  Then I got some 
documentation together on TDBS and took it to management.  I said, 'If you 
want me to spearhead this project, this is what we're going to use.' 
Management looked the documentation over and said, 'OK, let's give it a 
shot.'"

The system Winslow designed uses TBBS and TDBS as a custom transaction 
processing system.  When callers enter a valid user ID and password an auto- 
execute TBBS menu command takes them directly to a TDBS order entry screen.  
The users don't see anything that looks like a BBS in this process.

The TDBS program allows Linnco customers to step through a series of order 
entry lines by simply moving a cursor.  At each entry line, hitting the 
SPACE bar replaces one option with another until the option the user wants 
is displayed on the form.  Pressing the ENTER key then selects the option 
that is currently displayed on that line.

"The old [mainframe] version of the program had all these boxes on the 
screen," Winslow said.  "Customers had to check the boxes to indicate what 
they wanted but the office had no control over the entry process.  Where 
only one possible choice pertains, you can't allow the selection of more 
than one possible option or you'll often get several."  Winslow's TDBS 
program can limit the customer to a choice of one option from several 
because it displays each order option allowed, one at a time, when the 
customer hits the SPACE bar.

To accomplish this in TDBS, Winslow built an array, defined it, then placed 
the elements of the array inside the on-screen form. "Then, each time the 
user presses the SPACE bar at that one field, we're incrementing the array 
[pointer] and sending the string out to the screen again," he said.  "When 
the user presses ENTER to indicate this is what he wants and accepts it, the 
program takes that array number, extracts that string from the array and 
puts it into a field for TDBS."

Winslow's TBBS/TDBS system accepts orders for commodities trades and, when 
the orders are complete, sends them directly to a printer located right in 
the trading pit.  This results in additional savings for the company and 
increased accuracy for the customer.

"Normally, the customer calls an order desk phone clerk on the trading 
floor," Winslow said.  "The phone clerk then has to fill out the order on a 
piece of paper, repeat it back to the customer, then hand it to a runner who 
carries the order to the pit.  Our new system puts all the responsibility on 
the customer to make sure the order has been placed correctly, then prints 
it right in the pit, bypassing a phone clerk and a runner.

"This way, you're already looking at cutting your staff down, reducing your 
payroll and giving your clients faster, more accurate fills.  As a bonus, 
you also decrease the chance for human error.  If you think about it, it's 
very easy for a phone clerk, taking a complicated order over the telephone, 
to get that order filled incorrectly."  And in Linnco's business, any error 
could potentially be financially catastrophic.

Winslow set up Linnco's TBBS/TDBS order entry system using a 386 25 MHz PC 
with 8 megabytes of RAM and a 150 megabyte ESDI hard disk drive.  This is 
attached to a PC network that is also attached to an IBM AS/400 mainframe 
computer.  The TBBS system's 16 incoming lines, some with 2400bps Supra 
modems and others with Codex 2264 9600bps modems, are all connected to the 
PC by a DigiBoard.

Winslow explained that this system is not really as complex as it may 
appear.  "There are three interconnectivities: The PC going into the 
network and the network going into the AS/400 mainframe," he said.  "In 
fact, we were able to throw this all together in just over two weeks," 
Winslow said.  "And it's a pretty lengthy thing.  There's a lot of source 
code in it and a lot of data.  We're very pleased with the way things went."

Robert was so pleased he happily revealed one of his inside secrets.  "I had 
to design a system capable of addressing at least four printers," he said.  
"Because TDBS is only capable of addressing a printer that's locally 
attached, we got around it by sending the data to a disk file, rather than 
out the printer port.

"We then wrote a 'C' program that runs on another machine (as a TSR program 
attached to the network) that is scanning the output file directory.  Every 
time the program sees an output file appear it looks at the filename, 
determines at what location the order should be printed and then sends it 
out to the proper network printer.  This way we bypassed the need to have 
the printers physically attached to the BBS."

Robert admits this method requires the use of some additional hardware, but 
says the cost savings more than make up for the added initial cost.  "You 
might think, 'this is going to take another machine dedicated to watching 
the output file," he said.  "But if you're talking about saving a company 
literally thousands of dollars every month, it's certainly not going to cost 
too much to stick an 8088 PC compatible on the job, which is what we use -- 
just a basic plain vanilla machine that simply scans for the file and sends 
it to the right printer."

Robert also found an interesting way to speed up access to the system's 
dBase files.  "We assign each system user a unique ID, then create an 
individual dBase file for each user," he said.  "Then, when a user logs on, 
they automatically get a USER.DBF file attached to their session with their 
unique ID.  At one time we had all the accounts in one file but when callers 
logged on the system would have to search for a specific record number and 
it took an ungodly amount of time.  It also makes managing the system a bit 
easier."

As for TBBS itself, Winslow said that it was a breeze to set up.  "The 
hardest thing for someone just starting out, might be opening the computer 
up and installing the DigiBoard," he said.  "Other than that it's all pretty 
much out-of-the-box ready-to-run.  You might want to modify the main menus 
to suit your needs, but we pretty much use the same system that TBBS comes 
with when you install it.  We just changed some of the main menus a little 
and added a protected file system, so the users would have some security, 
and that was it."

Winslow stressed simplicity for the users was his ultimate goal.  "Our 
customers just want to call in, log on and get or leave the information they 
want," he said.  "So we didn't do anything with ANSI graphics -- to keep it 
all very simple, fast and workable for the customers when they log on.  The 
only TBBS feature we're really using is the auto-executable menu, which we 
rely upon totally to automatically send callers to our TDBS application."

Even though the new system had been online only a short time when I spoke 
with Robert, he said it's already having a positive impact.  "So far, we've 
demonstrated the system to three prospective clients," he explained.  "All 
three liked it so much they signed up with us.  So, we've already seen a 
decrease in cost and now we're also looking at an increase in business."

More than 50 Linnco clients who use the system regularly have told Robert 
the system was needed and works great.  But he's not content to stop there.  
Plans are already under way to improve and expand the system.  "There are 
some really neat things you can do with TDBS," Winslow said.  "We still have 
a lot more revision and streamlining and other programs to write to better 
help access the database information."

Winslow also said he plans to expand the order entry system itself.  "We 
might actually even start handling stocks and transmitting those orders 
directly to the New York Stock Exchange," he said.  "Another thing that will 
be coming down the road is interfacing with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange 
order entry system and the Board of Trade's order entry system.  When the 
customer calls into our system, his order will go straight to the exchange 
to be filled, directly in their order entry system.  We'll be the first to 
do that."

To make his system even simpler to use Robert's writing a special 
telecommunications package that will soon be available to Linnco clients.  
"It will allow our clients to automatically log onto the system and also to 
fill out buy and sell orders off-line, before they call," he said.  "Then it 
will be just 'connect,' 'send data,' and 'off.'"

Robert's obviously happy with the results he's obtained with TBBS and TDBS. 
Even more important is how happy his bosses are with the results he's 
obtained.  "The President of the company has been using the system daily," 
Winslow said.  "He just left my office a few minutes ago and he just can't 
get over how much we've been able to get done in so little time.  In fact, 
we're all happy with how it's worked out and especially with the way TBBS 
and TDBS made it all possible.  We pulled off a coup!"

If you'd like to see what Robert and his staff have done with TDBS, he 
welcomes calls from fellow TBBS system designers.  Just give Robert Winslow 
a call at Linnco Futures Group and he'll set you up for access to his 
special demo system.  The voice telephone number is 312-408-7643 during 
normal business hours.  Don't forget to tell Robert POSSIBILITIES sent you!

- END -
PS0292-3
Rev. 2/92

Copyright (C) 1994 eSoft, Inc., All Rights Reserved.  Permission granted
to distribute this file in its entirety, without modification, to any
interested party.  Any other use requires the written permission of
eSoft, Inc.

IMPORTANT:  The information herein is subject to change without notice.
Please call or write to confirm factual information of importance to you
or your organization.

