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Secret Sys-admins among us

MikeS said:
Oh, I don't know, the modem sounds were part of the experience; maybe we can get erik to simulate them when we log in here ;-)

BTW, there was a dial-up M100 BBS still in operation until just a couple of months ago.

Guess the internet has spoiled us; these days we could afford remote BBSs with cheap and flat rate LD rates...

m
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For those who don't know, I've brought a dial-up BBS back online. It's the only Commodore-run dial-up BBS left in existence anywhere in the world. If you'd like to give it a call and try it out, it's called Borderline BBS and the number is 951-242-3593. It runs on Color 64 software and supports 300/1200/2400 baud. It doesn't get much more "retro" than that! ;)

I figured that there ought to be at least one dial-up BBS run on a Commodore computer... And then I figured, if no one else was going to do it, I would! So far, the response has been pretty good. I've had callers from as far away as Europe! :)

-Andrew
 
wiskow said:
It's the only Commodore-run dial-up BBS left in existence anywhere in the world.
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Are you willing to bet your life on that statement? I've got a list here that has a Commodore section of BBSes and one of them is probably run on a Commodore. I never got to test those numbers as I dont have a Commodore, but every other number on that list I dialed to and recorded my results. Still have another list or two to go.

--Ryan
 
Yzzerdd said:
Are you willing to bet your life on that statement?
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Well, I don't think I'd be willing to bet my LIFE on ANYTHING... But I'm confident that Borderline BBS is the only currently active dial-up BBS running on a Commodore computer. There are about 15 or so Telnet-accessable Commodore BBS's. I maintain the current list of Commodore-run BBS's, which you can download at http://cottonwood.servebbs.com/cbm-bbs-list.txt. If there are any Commodore BBS's that AREN'T on that list, their SysOps are doing a damn good job of NOT advertising their BBS. ;)

-Andrew
 
Druid6900 said:
Ran a BBS for a few years back in the late 80s called NebuNet.

It was an 8 line TBBS setup on a Compaq 386/20 with two rotating banks of modems, one set at 2400 and the other running 4 USR 14,400 DS driven by a digicomm 8 port board.
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An 8 line BBS? I didn't get to experience the BBS thing, but it piques my curiosity... How does an 8 line BBS work, regarding the connectivity and the number of simultaneous users? Does it mean you had eight POTS phone lines into your home? Does that mean it allowed a maximum of eight simultaneous users?
 
I never set one up myself (never had that much money for a hobbiest board) but knew some folks who did. From what I understood yes, it was individual phone lines and numbers (sometimes but not necessarily) in sequence. The phone company would have the master number and if it was busy they would then roll you to the next number, etc until one was found. So yeah 8 lines, 8 modems, 8 serial ports in use :) Depending on the BBS of course and computers ability to host things you might be on a separate bbs sharing file resources or on most I've seen one system that could support that many users at once. The fun part for me was playing some of the door games and seeing other players also active in the world. I guess the thought of being online at the same time as someone else was not as common back then as it is today.
 
I ran a part-time system in the 83-84 timeframe using spare and repaired C-64 hardware. It never had much in the way of downloads--it was floppy based (as many as 4 at a time, I put in toggle switches to select device number). I wrote my own software for the most part.

A friend brought up a Tandy 1000 based BBS in 84, so I gave up mine and helped him manage his. He had a hard disk, and we had 3 lines so with him at the console we could have 4 people chatting at the same time. Or five if I was at his place and we shared the keyboard. :) We had so much chat going we started turning off downloads between 7 and 11pm (though we'd turn them back on if someone logged on who couldn't do it outside those hours.)
 
So, if I understand correctly, a BBS to its users would be like to login via telephone into a multiuser time-sharing UNIX machine, where you have email available, where you have Usenet available, and where you can play text-based games and chat in real-time with other users of the system... The difference perhaps would be that you could use some kermit/zmodem protocol to download files from the BBS to your local machine, whereas I don't think that option was available in a remote login session in a UNIX machine.

So a BBS to its users would be like using the little brother of a UNIX machine over the telephone line, is that right?

There were in the late 80's / early 90's several open-access UNIX machines to which you could connect via telephone (dial-up), login there, and use the email services they provided, i.e. using UUCP email addresses, take part in Usenet discussions, etc. There is still what could be the last one standing on-line, now also Internet connected, www.armory.com . Check it out.

And here is a recount of another one, this one no longer exists: http://www.chime.com/gorn/
 
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This takes me back..

Around about 87 to 93ish I ran a home-brew, written in quickbasic during highschool. Ran it for a couple years afterwards too, until the internet put a fork into bbsing.

It ran on an old corona XT, then apco turbo XT, and finally a dtk 386sx.

Added door games, fidonet email / forums, ANSI graphics, and file downloads over the years. Wish I could find the source code that I saved on a floppy.
 
Pepinno said:
The difference perhaps would be that you could use some kermit/zmodem protocol to download files from the BBS to your local machine, whereas I don't think that option was available in a remote login session in a UNIX machine.

So a BBS to its users would be like using the little brother of a UNIX machine over the telephone line, is that right?
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Actually, X/Y/ZModem and Kermit work just as well with a terminal session as they do when dialing a BBS. I use Kermit under OpenBSD on a SPARCClassic at home to get files to/from my vintage machines. You invoke your transfer program ('kermit -s file.name') on the UNIX end, escape out of your terminal client on the other end, and start the receive.

GREX and SDF are two dialin-accessible UNIX systems that remain active today. GREX has seen a drop in membership, and they're down to one phone line, though.
 
Which of the add on protocols was it that allowed sending and transmitting files at the same time?
 
I do remember something about a protocol that allowed concurrent upload and downloads, but I can't remember what it was.

I looked at it, but never implemented it, at 14.4, wasn't worth it. I just had the usual assortment, xmodem 1k, ymodem, and zmodem.. And 95% of the time, people used zmodem.
 
Ahh yes, those were the days! I was the proud owner and SysOp of Land's Rover BBS from 1993 to late 1994 running on TriBBS 5.11. Run under MS-DOS 5.0. Pretty fun stuff. :)
 
I was co-sysop of a pair of BBSes run from my high school, "Terminal Velocity" and "Nuclear Danger" in Portland, OR. (How fun! There is a copy of the old "pdxbbs" list from the height of the BBS era: http://www.textfiles.com/bbs/BBSLISTS/pdxbbs-l.txt)

Also helped out on "Abort, Retry, or Fail?" run by a friend (his handle was "Styx", mine was "Charon".)

I tried hosting one myself a few times, but they never got even remotely big, and I can't even remember what they were called.
 
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