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BBS's on TRS-80 model 3, 4, monitors question..

B

Bandit

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Ridgetown, Ontario, Canada
Lately I've been working on bring my old BBS back online, it's on a PC, but got me wondering if there's was much in the way of TRS-80s back in the day? I was on PCs mainly back then, so I wasn't looking for TRS-80 since my model 1 was just a basic cassette system..

So was there many BBS for TRS-80? was there a lot of selection in BBS software?

And my biggest question: on model 3 and 4 machines, what about the monitors being on all the time? Did people add a power switch to save the CRT from being on 24 hours a day?
 
Bandit;480025 So was there many BBS for TRS-80? was there a lot of selection in BBS software? [/QUOTE said:
I briefly ran a Citadel BBS on my Model 4, in the mid-80's. It runs under CP/M.

Bandit;480025 And my biggest question: on model 3 and 4 machines said:
I added a power switch for the 12VDC to the monitor on my Model 4, but not for the reason above. I had replaced the white CRT with an amber Langley-St. Clair. CRT with a longer persistence phosphor. During poweroff, the video collapsed to a short, intense line in the middle of the CRT and it burned the phosphor. Cutting the 12V to the monitor before killing main power made it much better behaved.
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I knew Eric Greene of "the Greene Machine" fame, and that was one of the several BBS's available for the TRS-80's. There was also the Tandy Trader BBS (TTBBS); I ran a TTBBS install (called it Noah's ARC) back in the day ('88-89). Then there was the big-bucks TBBS.

As I recall, Guy Omer ran a modified Green Machine for 8/N/1, but my recollection could be faulty.
 
I've got one running I just haven't advertised it yet on the listing site, and there were a lot when I had my trusty 300 baud modem.

It's running with tcpser at 9600 Baud via telnet and works pretty good just have a few things I'd like to work out like NEWCLOCK/80 and my RS Hard drive cooperating. People are starting to bring them back up, and I have an RA/FD as well as Wildcat system on the exabyte drive in the closet, will have to break that out with the SysOp USR Dual Standard we've hung onto all these years, just for old times.

I actually have the BBS listing for Brevard County, FL from 1994 still on it when it was shut down. Software was written in 1984, and it ran for 10 years. It ran on an LNW for the majority of the time under DOSPLUS 3.5 so that should answer the question about the CRT. Around 1991 the hard drive controller adapter failed and I converted it to a Model 4 with double sided 80 track drives under DOSPLUS 3.5, then over the holidays in 2016 I recovered it and converted it to LDOS 5.3.1.

Majority of the pain was the filenames all had + in them, and used the BASIC Faster and Better overlay system and had to edit all the files, then had to fix the calls for the RS232 driver, keyboard tricks, status display and error handling to protect from "Crashers" as we called them back in the day.

Basically I ran a BBS of my own on a Model 3 before I got the LNW from the friend in 1990 with the BBS and kept it going until 1994 when I switched over to RA, and it finally was shut down around 1997ish time frame when ISDN lines were available, and internet access became $20 a month for unlimited.
 
lowen said:
As I recall, Guy Omer ran a modified Green Machine for 8/N/1, but my recollection could be faulty.
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His board was very heavily modified. What ever happened to Guy? I'm assuming Father Time got him.

I also have a piece of software I got from him that was written by David Witt in Orlando. Cant remember which BBS package it came from, and I haven't had the time to disassemble it.

I spent many a night on 8/N/1....those were the days.
 
lowen said:
I knew Eric Greene of "the Greene Machine" fame, and that was one of the several BBS's available for the TRS-80's. There was also the Tandy Trader BBS (TTBBS); I ran a TTBBS install (called it Noah's ARC) back in the day ('88-89). Then there was the big-bucks TBBS.
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I seem to recall a board that ran TBBS when I lived in Toronto back then. I remember one night being on and something crashed and being greeted by the DOS READY> prompt. I snooped around a bit and finally did a RESUME command and the board came back up. I'm going to have to see if I can find one of those old BBS programs just to try it out on my model 4 with my FreHD. I just bought a used Lantronix UDS-10 on ebay today to play with..
 
Tibs said:
I've got one running I just haven't advertised it yet on the listing site, and there were a lot when I had my trusty 300 baud modem.

It's running with tcpser at 9600 Baud via telnet and works pretty good just have a few things I'd like to work out like NEWCLOCK/80 and my RS Hard drive cooperating. People are starting to bring them back up, and I have an RA/FD as well as Wildcat system on the exabyte drive in the closet, will have to break that out with the SysOp USR Dual Standard we've hung onto all these years, just for old times.

I actually have the BBS listing for Brevard County, FL from 1994 still on it when it was shut down. Software was written in 1984, and it ran for 10 years. It ran on an LNW for the majority of the time under DOSPLUS 3.5 so that should answer the question about the CRT. Around 1991 the hard drive controller adapter failed and I converted it to a Model 4 with double sided 80 track drives under DOSPLUS 3.5, then over the holidays in 2016 I recovered it and converted it to LDOS 5.3.1.

Majority of the pain was the filenames all had + in them, and used the BASIC Faster and Better overlay system and had to edit all the files, then had to fix the calls for the RS232 driver, keyboard tricks, status display and error handling to protect from "Crashers" as we called them back in the day.

Basically I ran a BBS of my own on a Model 3 before I got the LNW from the friend in 1990 with the BBS and kept it going until 1994 when I switched over to RA, and it finally was shut down around 1997ish time frame when ISDN lines were available, and internet access became $20 a month for unlimited.
Click to expand...

I ran RA also, well I still do technically once I bring it online. Frontdoor is dead though, but that's a whole other forum..

What is LNW? think i missed something there...
 
Bandit said:
I ran RA also, well I still do technically once I bring it online. Frontdoor is dead though, but that's a whole other forum..

What is LNW? think i missed something there...
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LNW, the enhanced Model I clone that was advertised on the last page of 80 Micro for about a jillion years, just like the Exatron Stringy Floppy on the other side of the page. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNW-80
 
Tibs said:
Yeah, I assumed FidoNET was deader than fried chicken.
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Actually Fidonet is still going. Not like it once was, mostly just SysOps on the echos, but it still is running.

I just meant Frontdoor was dead. There's a facebook group for it I post a couple questions on and not one answer after a few days so I deleted the post and left the group. Most BBSs are telnet only now and running mailers that can work over the internet, I use Argus..
 
Tibs said:
His board was very heavily modified. What ever happened to Guy? I'm assuming Father Time got him.
Click to expand...

From the Gainesville Sun, August 16, 2003:
Guy Clifton Omer III of Gainesville died Aug. 7 from drowning while on vacation. He was 57.
Mr. Omer was born in Pasadena, Calif., and moved to Gainesville from Chicago in 1955. He was a psychological specialist at the Reception and Medical Center in Lake Butler.
He was a graduate of P.K. Yonge Laboratory School, the University of South Florida and the University of Florida.
He was a member of Gainesville Friends Meeting Church.
He enjoyed computers, fine dining, photography, travel, wind surfing and snorkeling.
Survivors include his wife of 31 years, Donna Carney Omer of Gainesville; daughters Loren Omer and Karen Omer, both of Gainesville; and a brother, Richard Omer of Gainesville.
Arrangements by Forest Meadows Funeral Home.
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The 8n1.com address is still up, but there's nothing there. The last real content on the Wayback Machine is from October 4, 2006, and there hadn't really been any change in a long time prior.

I also have a piece of software I got from him that was written by David Witt in Orlando. Cant remember which BBS package it came from, and I haven't had the time to disassemble it.

I spent many a night on 8/N/1....those were the days.
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Me too. Lou Witt's software was very nice. I have an archive CD here somewhere that Bob Klahn put together in 1998. There are a few files from 8n1 in the archive, but not many. Most if not all of the 8n1 archive is embedded in the various other archives out there. Let's see, 8/N/1, Cornucopia, and a few others were major contributors to my long distance bill in the 1989-1992 timeframe. From 1991 through 1993 or so I used Eskimo North, which was at one point running on a heavily modified Tandy 6000 but upgraded to Sun3 equipment, as my primary outlet (I pulled a small partial Usenet feed, including comp.sys.tandy, using C-News first on my Tandy 6000 and then on my AT&T 3B1, until I went PC (Epson XT-clone then a 386SX-16 in 1996 or so).

But I never forgot Guy Omer and his hospitality.

Could someone at Tandy Assembly mention Guy Omer, please, as a memorial?
 
Lou Witt yeah. Crazy thing is I've never found anything referencing the BBS software he wrote, and trust me I've looked. I may or may not have gotten from 8/N/1 now that I think of it, because Lou was around Orlando so could have been another BBS nearby.
 
Besides TBBS, which I ran -- There was also Connection-80 BBS that a lot of BBSes in the New York City area ran for awhile. I might still have my master disk somewhere. Connection-80 used a special cable to run 300/1200 baud on a certain brand of modem. I don't think that was needed for TBBS.

TBBS was serialized, but I doubt the authors care any more if people run it on a TRS-80.
 
I had a BBS package that was given to me cheap, it came in a little brown binder about 8x5 and I think it was the people who made DOSPLUS that wrote it, but not sure. If anyone has any idea I'd love to play with that thing again. My first BBS was on that and I had to flip the answer switch every time someone called, it was kinda cool.

First post was exciting watching someone else control the computer. Pretty sure I was 12.
 
I'm so glad I stumbled upon this thread. Yes, lets please bring vintage computing back, and [re]learn from the design principles - especially quality and reliability - as we move forward with modern hardware and software. Back then it was about producing the best one could, whereas now I feel like there is a lot of planned obsolescence and delayed innovation in favor of financial security in the hardware world.
 
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