Running Forem XE Pro from Altirra

[rcamp48]

Howdy folks:

 

I have successfully configured Forem XE Pro 5.4 to run off of Altirra 64 Bit and accept callers in ATASCII, (maybe this belongs in a BBS section, but I did a lot of programming to do this).

 

I will include  a video that I made up of this yesterday for reference, everything is custom programmed from the very beginning.

 

I will be setting up 8 ATRs for Fujinet or emulators , with everything completed, copying atrs from Spartados to a spartados hard drive , will do a video on how to set it all up.

 

Here is the main ATR , all set up for you to start with: Forem XE Latest Copy.atr

 and the data disks, all set up too...                         : Forem XE Data Disk 1.atr

                                                                            : Forem XE Data Disk 2.atr

                                                                            : Forem XE Data Disk 3.atr

                                                                            : Forem XE Data Disk 4.atr

                                                                            : Forem XE Data Disk 5.atr

                                                                            : Forem XE Data Disk 6.atr

                                                                            : Forem XE Data Disk 7.atr

 

I will include a video that shows you everything you need to do to set up an Atari 8 Bit BBS on Altirra. 

But before I do this, the proof that it can be done ..... You will find a video below in this post.

 

 

[+bf2k+]

Nice. 

 

I did this one (FXEP) in the early 2000's as part of my "BBS on a Stick" projects but never finished it as I had some issues with some of the main commands not executing correctly.  I think this was before Altirra existed and I was using A800Win 2.5c.   I would have to revisit my old project in order to remember which commands had problems... 

 

Did you run into anything like this with yours?

 

[rcamp48]

Yes and I am recreating the master disk from the original arc files, I will post it later on.

 

The main problem is creating all of the directories that are needed:

 

To start off with you will need the following directories on drive 1.

 

BASES

SIGS

BIRTHDAY

BIRTHDAY>MONTH

INVENTRY

TEXT

HELP

GAME01

DATABASE

PERM

 

The contents from text.arc , help.arc, game01.arc database.arc and perm.arc need to go into their respective directories.

 

When booting you need to run RS232.COM, AMP850.com, and ZHAND.COM

 

Then you create a separate Spartados 3.2 disk , with Spartados on it, and copy the atr disk from disk 1 to that disk.

 

I find that creating the directories first helps, the command for creating directories in Spartados is CREDIR directoryname

to copy to the directory it is different than regular DOS, you use the following example to to this: copy *.* TEXT> (that would be from whatever drive you are using ...

 

 

Good luck with it!

 

[rcamp48]

Here are the original files in atr format:

 

Forem_XE_Pro_1.atr

Forem_XE_Pro_2.atr

Forem_XE_Pro_3.atr

 

From Forem_XE_Pro_2.atr:

 

help.atr

perm.atr

text.atr

database.atr

game01.atr

 

The game01.atr file has been fixed, I have made a new file:

 

Two tools for unarcing arc files from windows and creating atr files from a folder:

 

arc-5.21j-1-src.zip

tools-win32-201020.zip

 

That should give you everything you need , oh there is one more file; the BASIC XE Extensions disk:

 

Basic XE Programming Language v4.1 - Extensions (1986)(OSS)(XE-XL).atr

 

As I have said before I will create a master disk 1 with everything on it, but in case I should make mistakes the sources are here: Russ

 

 

Edited August 16, 2021 by rcamp48

[+bf2k+]

SO I found my old project files for this.  I had all of the directories except the birthday ones. But I am running it in a sub-directory... not the main.  I wonder if that was part of the problems I had?  Also this is hi-speed SIO on a 16mb SpartaDOS disk... I don't know why that would be a problem since it appears to work.  I think the next thing to do for me is to actually set it up in Altirra as a practice BBS.  Maybe I'll do that today.

[rcamp48]

It should be fine just be sure to run SGINIT.BXE and SIGUTIL.BXE after installing the program...here is a new copy of the master disk that I created , it is all original, untouched. Also I am reviving Fnet sometime today, if you get a working Forem XE BBS I can assign you a node number ands we can set that all up for the mailer, etc.

 

The only directory I dont have is the FX directory , what is it?

 

Forem XE Pro 5.4 Master Disk Updated With Docs.atr

Edited August 16, 2021 by rcamp48

[rcamp48]

2 hours ago, bf2k+ said:

SO I found my old project files for this.  I had all of the directories except the birthday ones. But I am running it in a sub-directory... not the main.  I wonder if that was part of the problems I had?  Also this is hi-speed SIO on a 16mb SpartaDOS disk... I don't know why that would be a problem since it appears to work.  I think the next thing to do for me is to actually set it up in Altirra as a practice BBS.  Maybe I'll do that today.

You are missing the DAY directory, from what I have seen it is to be in your root directory, and I am missing the FX directory, I actually had it working.

[+bf2k+]

the FX directory just contains the code beginning at line 25000 of ForemXE as a .LST basic file.  I probably did that... don't remember.

 

At any rate, my notes indicate that I definitely did this in A800Win 2.5c, so it has never been run under Altirra... until a little while ago.  It is running and answering the incoming connection but not going any farther.  I am going to now check into my Altirra modem and 850 settings...

[rcamp48]

You have to open ports and everything else, it is quite complicated

Russ

 

[+bf2k+]

7 hours ago, rcamp48 said:

You have to open ports and everything else, it is quite complicated

 

It's answering the connection on the port I use for testing BBSes so the port is open.  Then it cycles back to the 'waiting' screen and answers again.  I might not have any more time this week to mess with it but we'll see.

 

I do have it working on a real A8 machine using the ApeModem...

 

[rcamp48]

You are probably missing a file somewhere or one of the data files is corrupt.

Russ: PS: I am now trying to run it on a Fujinet but I need more memory