Date : Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:44:58 +0100
From : "Ian Wolstenholme" <BBCMailingList@...>
Subject: Re: The Beeb BBs Project
Well, since everybody else is resurrecting BBS projects from the 1980s, I did
have an idea of my own a while back...although it's a bit different:
It started from the thought that I've got too many MDFSes to know what to
do with, so I though I could use one of them to run a sort of Econet over
modem.
The idea would be that I have would a BBC Master at the helm with a modem
running a specially written bit of software to deal with data coming into it
from the modem, communicate with the MDFS and then send the data back
to the remote user via the modem.
The remote user wouldn't necessarily have to have Econet because it would
all be happening over the modem, so he would dial in to the system using
terminal software and the probably get a message back from me saying "you
are now connected". From that point on, the remote user types Econet
commands into the terminal software, starting with *I AM to log on and
the BBC Master at my end looks him up in the passwords file and sends back
directory information when requested etc.
This way users could have a bit of their own storage space and could share
files and we might be able to build up a library of utilities which everyone
could access, as well as running a Viewdata system for messages.
Dunno if it could be done, but I would like to give it a go if anybody is
interested!
Best wishes,
Ian
----- Original Message -----
From: Rob
To: Joel Rowbottom <joel@...>, bbc-micro@...
Sent: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 10:14:30 +0100
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] The Beeb BBs Project
At 07:13 12/07/2006, Joel Rowbottom wrote:
>Last week, that led to another thought - if we could get one BBs up,
>why not get others going? There are archives of pages and messages
>hidden in lofts (there are a couple which I've got copies of in any
>case); so the idea of using an Econet to have a stack of Beebs with
>modems came about. Believe it or not, I think the hardest bits to
>source will be the non-Hayes modems (Dataphone Demon-2, Designer,
>Telemod, Pace Nightingale, etc.).
>
>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.
Is there something in the water or something? I've been kicking
around getting my old BBS's online for the last 2-3 years, ever since
getting hold of a terminal server that accepts incoming telnet and
sends it out a serial port, and have only just //this week// managed
to put my network together again to restore the backups. (I've got my
old (Amcom) 10Mb hard disc still, but it's data is hosed.) I've had
the last copy of my own OBBS Manchester running locally, and have
currently got my Autonomic Host ("Ringworld") running, mostly, on a
single local station..
I was approaching with a different methodology though; my ultimate
aim was to either run it all on emulated beebs (hence my work on
econet emulation for BeebEm last year) or possibly to port the actual
code so it would run native on a UNIX server.
Bob Clark was working on getting TG@... resurrected, before he died a
couple of years ago :-( - I've got a copy of his TCL emulator
carousel, which includes about 1700 frames ripped from TG@... (These
include all the routing information, so could be dropped back into a
working host.) I don't suppose anybody else took this over? The only
reference I can find online is in Mel's tribute to Bob here:
http://wiki.tcl.tk/3406
I've also got lots of frames ripped from TG@... myself, plus several
from Viatel (the Australian Prestel), Dwarfen realm, and of course
Prestel/Micronet, including lots of snaps of hidden system frames :-)
Plus countless of my own design of course, including several mock-ups
for new services for Prestel/Viatel that I never actually got off the ground..
Software wise I've also got various copies of CommunITel, plus their
branded modem, and some odd copies of some of the other BBS softwares
being written in the early '80s. [I've got a box of other modems I
used at the time too..]
I've also got all the source to various utilities I wrote, some
commercial, for use with Prestel. Unfortunately they've nothing to
talk to any more.. Did any of the original Prestel mini's or their
software survive anywhere, does any body know?
Rob