There is room on the Control screen for up to nineteen of your favorite forums in addition to CompuServe Mail. Before connecting to CompuServe, you can decide to receive messages from any or all of these forums. You choose to receive all messages from a forum, or just those messages sent directly to you.
Let's say you want to visit three of your favorite forums and retrieve messages from them. You also want to pick up your CompuServe Mail.
It takes a couple of keystrokes to select each of the three forums and Cmail. All commands in the MESSAGE program may be selected from the menu with a single keystroke. This minimizes typing on the 95LX's small keyboard.
With just another keystroke, the MESSAGE program automatically dials CompuServe, logs you on, and goes to each of your three forums to retrieve your messages. Any messages retrieved are stored on the 95LX for later use.
If there is Cmail waiting for you, MESSAGE will retrieve it. Binary Cmail waiting for you is also automatically retrieved. Binary Cmail are data files or program files sent from one individual to another via CompuServe Mail.
When all three of your forums are visited, MESSAGE disconnects you from CompuServe and returns to the Control screen. The whole process of retrieval happens very quickly. This keeps your connect charges far lower than a manual CompuServe session.
If messages were retrieved from Cmail or your three selected forums, there will be a small arrow next to that forum on the Control screen. The arrow indicates that messages are available to read for that forum.
You decide to read some of the messages just retrieved. By entering the number that appears next to the forum's name on the Control screen, you can read messages retrieved from that forum.
When reading your messages, the screen looks like what follows:
Messages are displayed one at a time, and you may scroll backward and forward within a message, and between messages. If a message is too wide to fit on the 95LX, forty- column screen, it is automatically wrapped to fit. A "bookmark" feature allows you to save your place and easily return to a message.
While reading a message, you may decide you want to send a reply. Press one key; a word processing screen will come up and allow you to enter your reply. When you are done with your reply, one key press saves it on your 95LX. The next time you use MESSAGE to connect to CompuServe, your reply will be automatically sent.
After reading and replying to your messages, let's say you decide to create and send a message to a friend. Press a key, and the word processing screen will appear so you can compose your message. When finished, a built-in address book feature will allow you to send the message to one of fifty different CompuServe users without having to remember or type in their name and CompuServe user ID.
You've finished reading your messages, replying to some, and composing a new message. You now want to send the replies and the new message you wrote back to CompuServe. Connect the 95LX to your modem, switch your modem on, and press two keystrokes.
MESSAGE again automatically dials and connects your 95LX to CompuServe, and visits your selected forums. If you replied to, or composed a message for, a forum the program will automatically send each of your messages to the proper person. When done, MESSAGE disconnects from CompuServe.
This completes a typical cycle of using the MESSAGE program.