BBSing - a couple of questions

[Lord Thag]

Ok, it's been twenty years since I've messed with a Telcomm program and a BBS. Last night, on a lark, I loaded up Bobterm, plugged my trust 800xl into my SIO2USB cable, and gave it a whirl. To my complete astonishment, it worked on the first go, and I was able to log on to several BBS sites (Darkforce, Boot Factory etc). A few hiccups though:

 

1. I seem to recall that you could tell the Telcomm programm to stop scrolling and wait for a keypress if the current are scrolled off the screen. Mine just scrolls on until the bottom, and I miss half the page. Yeah, I'm probably blind. I couldn't seem to find an option that fixes this.

 

2. I kept getting lockups, mainly on Darkforce. The BBS would prompt me for a response, and then no amount of whacking keys would do anything. This was an intermittant problem.

 

3. Since you can piggyback on to the PC's internet signal via telcomm ... what else can you do? Anything besides BBSing?

 

Thanks. It's been years

[nathanallan]

You can download files and upload them (games, roms), and there are email clients out there for the 8-bit. You could look at Contiki, but I don't think it's been successfully done for the Atari (C= only afaik). I was wanting to hook up my 800XL as a dedicated email client but have too many other things going on to do that. What machine do you have?

 

Nathan

[+bf2k+]

Ok, it's been twenty years since I've messed with a Telcomm program and a BBS. Last night, on a lark, I loaded up Bobterm, plugged my trust 800xl into my SIO2USB cable, and gave it a whirl. To my complete astonishment, it worked on the first go, and I was able to log on to several BBS sites (Darkforce, Boot Factory etc). A few hiccups though:

 

1. I seem to recall that you could tell the Telcomm programm to stop scrolling and wait for a keypress if the current are scrolled off the screen. Mine just scrolls on until the bottom, and I miss half the page. Yeah, I'm probably blind. I couldn't seem to find an option that fixes this.

 

 

Thanks. It's been years

 

On the Boot Factory, you can set your screen length to say 20 in the 'P'arameters section of the BBS software and that should keep it from scrolling too fast.

[doctorclu]

Lord Thag... I'm glad you are checking into the BBS's!! Welcome.

 

Well, first off, bobterm is awesome for ATASCII, but I would suggest picking up either Ice-T or Flickerterm (though the video on the 800xl does not handle Flickerterm well... Flickerterm I am finding must have been made to take advantage of the beige 800 well built video signal but keeping in mind the limited memory at 48K.)

 

I hope you have checked out the Prison Board at telnet://rdfig.net

 

Just get on there, and at the main menu, hit X, and that will take you were all the current Atari and Commodore BBS's can be found. Also on the Atari BBS list you will find some locations that are not advertised on the Internet... so... check it out!

 

To help with scrolling... at one time I knew of a Control-1 or Control-2 for stopping text, but that doesn't seem to always work anymore. What you can do once you get on a BBS is to set the screen length. This option will need to be set up for each BBS since it is controlled by the computer you are calling.

 

You will need to set the screen length depending on the size of the screen. Some BBS's have 40 column support, many these days do not however. Darkforces has tinkered with it, but the fact remains, unless you are having fun with ATASCII graphics (like say on the Boot Factory or Closer to Home), 40 columns is not worth it otherwise. Get a term program that can do 80 column and ANSI, like Ice-T, Ice-T XE (for a 128K machine), or Flickerterm.

 

Once on the BBS, you can set the screen size to 80 columns by 24 lines. That will stop the scrolling at a point, allow for a pause, and wait for a response from you to continue.

 

If you are on there with Bobterm, you are looking at setting the lines to like 13 or 12, since you are actually looking at a 80 column screen in 40 columns, which means your lines are cut in half. One line in 80 columns take two in 40 columns. You kinda have to adjust to fit and tinker with it sometimes.

 

This help answer what you were looking for?

[Lord Thag]

Lord Thag... I'm glad you are checking into the BBS's!! Welcome.

 

Well, first off, bobterm is awesome for ATASCII, but I would suggest picking up either Ice-T or Flickerterm (though the video on the 800xl does not handle Flickerterm well... Flickerterm I am finding must have been made to take advantage of the beige 800 well built video signal but keeping in mind the limited memory at 48K.)

 

I hope you have checked out the Prison Board at telnet://rdfig.net

 

Just get on there, and at the main menu, hit X, and that will take you were all the current Atari and Commodore BBS's can be found. Also on the Atari BBS list you will find some locations that are not advertised on the Internet... so... check it out!

 

To help with scrolling... at one time I knew of a Control-1 or Control-2 for stopping text, but that doesn't seem to always work anymore. What you can do once you get on a BBS is to set the screen length. This option will need to be set up for each BBS since it is controlled by the computer you are calling.

 

You will need to set the screen length depending on the size of the screen. Some BBS's have 40 column support, many these days do not however. Darkforces has tinkered with it, but the fact remains, unless you are having fun with ATASCII graphics (like say on the Boot Factory or Closer to Home), 40 columns is not worth it otherwise. Get a term program that can do 80 column and ANSI, like Ice-T, Ice-T XE (for a 128K machine), or Flickerterm.

 

Once on the BBS, you can set the screen size to 80 columns by 24 lines. That will stop the scrolling at a point, allow for a pause, and wait for a response from you to continue.

 

If you are on there with Bobterm, you are looking at setting the lines to like 13 or 12, since you are actually looking at a 80 column screen in 40 columns, which means your lines are cut in half. One line in 80 columns take two in 40 columns. You kinda have to adjust to fit and tinker with it sometimes.

 

This help answer what you were looking for?

 

Yep, it does. Thanks! I have a copy of Ice-T that came with APE, but I assumed it was XE only. i wasn't aware that there was a second, XL compatible version. Do you know where i could get a copy of that? Thanks!

[doctorclu]

Yep, it does. Thanks! I have a copy of Ice-T that came with APE, but I assumed it was XE only. i wasn't aware that there was a second, XL compatible version. Do you know where i could get a copy of that? Thanks!

 

Wow, I am so used to get getting games from Fandal's site and haven't looked for applications for FOREVER. Well, at least a year or two. Is the XL Search still going? (Looks...) Yeh, it is...

 

http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/xlsearch/x...amp;sortby=Name

 

Looks like at that link we have the 48K Ice-T and Ice-T XE.

 

Naturally Ice-T XE is more polished, and has file transfers.

 

Wish I could write a term program, or I should say, would love to look at the source of like Ice-T or Bobterm if it ever came to the surface.

[+bf2k+]

Yep, it does. Thanks! I have a copy of Ice-T that came with APE, but I assumed it was XE only. i wasn't aware that there was a second, XL compatible version. Do you know where i could get a copy of that? Thanks!

 

Wow, I am so used to get getting games from Fandal's site and haven't looked for applications for FOREVER. Well, at least a year or two. Is the XL Search still going? (Looks...) Yeh, it is...

 

http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/xlsearch/x...amp;sortby=Name

 

Looks like at that link we have the 48K Ice-T and Ice-T XE.

 

Naturally Ice-T XE is more polished, and has file transfers.

 

Wish I could write a term program, or I should say, would love to look at the source of like Ice-T or Bobterm if it ever came to the surface.

 

 

Well... if BASIC is your thing you could always get one of the old copies of the Amodem program and play with it! I probably have some of those old versions somewhere...

[Lord Thag]

Thanks for the link doctorclu! I have a 130XE lying around somewhere. Never really used it as it doesn't match my peripherals (1050, 1027, 1010 etc). If I can ever get ahold of a couple of the XE drives and cassette players, I'll get it set up. I'm funny like that. Drives me crazy if stuff doesn't match

[doctorclu]

Thanks for the link doctorclu! I have a 130XE lying around somewhere. Never really used it as it doesn't match my peripherals (1050, 1027, 1010 etc). If I can ever get ahold of a couple of the XE drives and cassette players, I'll get it set up. I'm funny like that. Drives me crazy if stuff doesn't match

 

I understand. There was a time where I had all the beige (Atari 400/800) accessories lined up. These days though it is just a Atari 800 hooked to a G3 Mac. What I should do is connect my Atari 800 to a Beige G3 Mac. Actually I think the Beige Mac would be slightly faster. Hmmm....

 

Well... if BASIC is your thing you could always get one of the old copies of the Amodem program and play with it! I probably have some of those old versions somewhere...

 

AModem. Interesting. I should look at that 1200 baud wonder. (MAYBE 2400 baud)

[+bf2k+]

AModem. Interesting. I should look at that 1200 baud wonder. (MAYBE 2400 baud)

 

Actually I had a 9600 baud version working that I made back around 1986 or so... but it doesn't matter if you are just accessing the BBS's thru internet.

[doctorclu]

AModem. Interesting. I should look at that 1200 baud wonder. (MAYBE 2400 baud)

 

Actually I had a 9600 baud version working that I made back around 1986 or so... but it doesn't matter if you are just accessing the BBS's thru internet.

 

 

Sweet! Got a copy of that?

[Urchlay]

3. Since you can piggyback on to the PC's internet signal via telcomm ... what else can you do? Anything besides BBSing?

 

If you run Linux or one of the BSDs, you can log in to the PC from the Atari and run textmode web browsers, IRC clients, email, etc...

 

If you normally run Windows, you can use software like VMWare or Qemu to run Linux on your Windows machine (think of it as running a PC emulator on your PC), or maybe you can find Windows versions of the Linux programs and run them from within APE somehow (not sure, can APE give you a C:> prompt?)

[+bf2k+]

AModem. Interesting. I should look at that 1200 baud wonder. (MAYBE 2400 baud)

 

Actually I had a 9600 baud version working that I made back around 1986 or so... but it doesn't matter if you are just accessing the BBS's thru internet.

 

 

Sweet! Got a copy of that?

 

I'm am not home this week, but I will look for it when I get back to see exactly what I still have...