Rasp! enables you to interrogate the Arcade BBS filebase using a text search key string, and returns to you a list of files and short file descriptions matching your search string. The list will allow you to download with your Web browser any file shown simply by clicking on the filename link. The database used is the current text file list which is generated automatically every Saturday morning, together with the file area Web pages.

Simply type into the form field some search key text that you think might match part of an Arcade BBS file name or text description. Enter a minimum of two letters or several words in either lower or mixed case, bearing in mind that only exact matches will be returned to you, and then click on the Search button to send your query text.

So if you are looking for something specific, say the program !Imagen by Justin Fletcher, and you enter:
image
you may receive a long list of files whose details contain that text but only one or two entries will contain the wanted reference to:
Imagen
Your current search key is always shown on the results page so that you can refine the list of matches by making further searches with more-specific text key strings.

There is a maximum limit of 400 matches that can be returned to you, so the list could include up to this many file descriptions. The number of matching file details are shown at the top of the list, and if no match is found at all the match count will show zero. Any matching files in the older part of the filebase that is inaccessible to the FTP server will not be shown, so the match count may differ from the number of files listed.

A file or program which is actually available from the Arcade BBS system may not appear in this list for several other reasons. The file may have been uploaded since the creation of the file list, or it may be in a file subject area that requires special permission for access, such as our Careware area, which is only accessible by telephoning the BBS directly.

Occasionally Rasp! may not be able to service your request due to congestion, and when this happens you will be invited to re-submit your search key text which is always preserved on the search results pages.

© Arcade BBS February 1997