Date   : Wed, 12 Jul 2006 12:11:12 +0000
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: The Beeb BBs Project

Joel Rowbottom wrote:
> The idea's still work-in-progress until I get the stuff running, but it 
> seems that we could end up with a live "Acorn BBs museum" using original 
> hardware and files.

It's certainly something we'd planned on doing too - although we're planning 
on exposing proper phone lines in addition to an IP gateway so that users with 
original hardware can dial up that way.

We're not anticipating any problems with modems; there's still no shortage 
there [1]. In our case it's the software that's largely disappeared or is 
buried and forgotten about in lofts.

[1] Although it all ends up a bit power-hungry. I can't help thinking that a 
machine armed with Ethernet and a lot of serial ports wouldn't be a better 
bet. As soon as you expose the interface to IP you need a lot more modems!

Although the 'home BBS' approach is certainly an option (and probably a more 
viable one!), we were hoping to provide a complete viewdata system on bigger 
iron (most seemed to be DEC-based, with some on PR1ME), but so far we've not 
found anyone who has backups from the time or who worked on the systems and 
remembers them sufficiently well :-(

Definitely keep us posted on your experiences, though!


cheers

Jules