Birth of a new BBS - the origin story

[Lastic]

A warning , this first post will be a rambling from youth experiences up to retro nostalgia but I feel it is a proper introduction on the why.

Around 1985 struggling with the then mechanical and a bit later electronic typewriters in typing class, my parents bought me my first computer which was a Colecovision ADAM around 1985.
It was a very popular system due to one toystore pushing it very hard in my hometown here in Belgium.
This sparked my interest in computers and led me to start my studies as programmer.

I found a written-off XT clone PC dumped at the trash by a DTP bureau and took it home, had to go back with my mom and ring the doorbell to ask if I could really have it ( she tought I had stolen it).
And so sadly I got stuck in the PC world, I saw an Amiga 500 at a PC Club convention and was blown away, I was still listening to beeper sounds and had CGA graphics ( 4 colors).
But the real competition came from a Office supply store which had a little computer shop selling software for several systems (C64/PC) and they were an Atari ST dealership .
How I awed at the graphics of game demos running on the ST, I still remember seeing Dungeon Master on ST whilst I was buying Baal the PC version.
The aesthetics of the ST line were also a pleasure to the eyes instead of the grey 286 Box I had at home in the meanwhile.

But well school used PC's so my parents weren't going to be convinced I should get an Atari ST instead.

And so on PC I went from 300 baud calling Public-Domain BBS'es to 2400 Baud .
One day I saw a flyer/poster hanging in my city , it had a skull , gothic font and a phone number.
Could this be an BBS, I called it with my modem and it was a BBS and it sparked discovering Warez and Piracy , 9600 baud, 56K in the end.
Loosely affiliated , some access to the bigger PC boards, calling USA , Germany, until my mother got a huge phonebill and pulled the telephone extension that ran to my room.
But maybe it was the right time, BelgianSoftwareAlliance were working with the USA counterparts and cracking down the bigger players in Belgium also .
I was in high-school, parties and beer took over and then well life happened, I started working in 1994 ...

I physically visited some of the Belgium BBSes, copy-parties , had some classmates who were running BBSes (until their parents plugged the plug).
Renegade/Oblivion/Vision-X/Ami-Xpress/PC-Xpress spring to mind regarding BBS systems.

But then in 2014 I started my retro nostalgia with Apple PowerPC's, too much working-hours to go on holidays or go out of the house, too much money, so my PowerPC collection grew.
Around 2018 I really felt the urge to have an 8-bit computer and didn't go for the common one (the breadbin) but discovered an 130XE (yeah I really like the ST look) and the Atari retro scene and this forum.
As such my collection grew, I became an ABBUC member, visited their annual meeting in Germany (I'm half German/half Belgian) but then at the start of the pandemic, the missing link
all these years had to be fullfilled, I bought an 1040ST, and more have followed ...

So with the ESP and Wifi modems starting to appear (and now since a few years FujiNet) I also rediscovered BBSes and there was that warm nostalgic feeling again.
After getting to know the ST ( I was a noob but I did run GEM on DR.DOS 6.0 on my 386 until 2002) downloading so much archives and software , and having decided that 2024 is hobbies-before-work year
the idea started to grow ...
Looking around what BBS software there was on the ST, I stumbled on the Michtron thread and well here we are


 

[Lastic]

The current concept/idea

The name of the BBS will be the same as the first piracy BBS I visited (sadly I can't find any info on it nor can I remember the Sysop's handle only his real first name)

Since back in the days I mostly traded wares just to get my hands on demoscene stuff/trackers/MOD files , this is were the focus will lie on the Atari ST demoscene.
Apart from that newer homebrew games and handy utilities that I have gathered and found usefull myself (some I had to dig deep to find them).
I do realize that I'm copying a lot of stuff that is already out there in an easier to access format , Fujiology, SNDH.atari.org, demozoo, pouet but well let's go back

to the days of X/Y/Z-modem downloads.

I was partially inspired by H0ffman (Amiga scener) and his Youtube cracking streams which have sparked an Amiga Retro32 BBS running on MysticBBS (PC) but emulating
that AmiExpress look.
So I will probably go for ASCII and VT52 , I know , no ANSI but well I think it might be interesting to be different.

I bought a second-hand MegaSTe with a broken-off DIN13 connector so currently have it hooked via TV output (yep I got sore eyes).
The SCSI disk has died shortly after so that has been replaced by a BlueSCSI v2. Desktop edition
NetUSBee Ethernet for NTP sync , I can run an FTP server on the Atari for file transfers ( or UIP tool if I disable STing).
Currently experimenting succesfully with hooking up an USB DVD-writer , Extendos and a Dual-Layer DVD+R .
Probably will put the historical/bigger collections on DVD and have the current stuff on seperate 512MB partitions on the BlueSCSI.

2 Wimodem PRO's are on their way to Belgium to have an identical setup.
The idea is 19200 BAUD, hooking them up to both onboard Serial ports (if Michtron is adapted for it) and have them run on different IP's but the same telnet port.
Domain-name points to my dynamic public-IP of my ISP router, port forwarding sends telnet traffic to a tiny Linux loadbalancer which distributes the traffic between
both Wimodem's.
In short a 2 Telnet node/2 simultanous users BBS.
I know , why, well why not 😇

Let me conclude this currently by saying this little project I have given myself has already given me some nice grins, a chance to use my work Network-Engineer background for something that I actually benefit from myself, picking up on my programmer studies-background ( i never had a programming job ) and that warm fuzzy nostalgic feeling.

[+DarkLord]

FANSI is a really good ANSI editor for the ST, if you ever decide to play around with it...

 

It's what I used to create the screens on DarkForce!...  HTH's.  

 

[Amis]

Brilliant and a common background/theme for most Atari Sysops. Look forward to watching the project and glad to offer testing support.

 

[Bodhi]

Unfortunately I don't have an Atari at the moment, but I find the topic of BBS very interesting. That's why I'm wondering whether there is an emulator with which you can "go outside".

[Amis]

Here you go - this link should help with the various options: https://www.southernamis.com/how-to-connect

[Tillek]

On 2/28/2024 at 6:03 AM, Bodhi said:

Unfortunately I don't have an Atari at the moment, but I find the topic of BBS very interesting. That's why I'm wondering whether there is an emulator with which you can "go outside".

We actually do have a section under "BBS Callers" here that also is available for any questions/comments.

 

 

[Tillek]

On 2/27/2024 at 8:28 PM, DarkLord said:

FANSI is a really good ANSI editor for the ST, if you ever decide to play around with it...

 

It's what I used to create the screens on DarkForce!...  HTH's.  

 

I mentioned it in the other thread that gave birth to this one... but I'm wondering if maybe one of the calls coming up we should do the install/demo again?

[+DarkLord]

2 hours ago, Tillek said:

I mentioned it in the other thread that gave birth to this one... but I'm wondering if maybe one of the calls coming up we should do the install/demo again?

 

I'd be down with that. Anything that eases the frustration factor for people getting into the Atari BBS scene surely can't hurt.

 

[Tillek]

Ok, so I'll be sending the reminders out and changing the call page sometime this morning (if work permits)   But we will be theming the Zoom meeting for this Sunday, March 3rd at 3pm Eastern to be mostly focused on Michtron (as a working session and QA) since Lastic and Techman will both try to be there (but hey, things come up, so no worries if you can't make it).

 

And @Bodhi, since Lastic is in Belgium, feel free to join too (if the timing works for you) and we can talk about connection options as well!

 

I'll post when the page gets updated... but for now the address is http://www.ataribbs.com/zoomchat which will also redirect you to the meeting itself if you go there within 15 minutes of the meeting itself, or "when the timer runs out".

 

[Lastic]

I'm still working hard to get a large archive imported in the Files/Sig of my current Michtron setup.
If I don't get it finished by Sunday afternoon (my local time) , I will just cleanup my current Michtron setup but make it accesible over the Internet.
Need to re-enable the registration process for a new user also , currently it's my 3 accounts I use for testing (regular user/Sysop/priviledged user)

It's still very rough, downloaded ASCII art , no real structure in my Files/SIG areas , no News section ( since I still haven't figured out how to set it up) but well at least it should show the basics .

Also have to figure out how to use Zoom , from a work/security standpoint I never used it but well can't be too hard to use since I've used every other platform out there (GoogleHangouts/VDO.Ninja (OBS)/WebEX)
Be prepared for crappy webcam quallity 😁

[Tillek]

29 minutes ago, Lastic said:

I'm still working hard to get a large archive imported in the Files/Sig of my current Michtron setup.
If I don't get it finished by Sunday afternoon (my local time) , I will just cleanup my current Michtron setup but make it accesible over the Internet.
Need to re-enable the registration process for a new user also , currently it's my 3 accounts I use for testing (regular user/Sysop/priviledged user)

It's still very rough, downloaded ASCII art , no real structure in my Files/SIG areas , no News section ( since I still haven't figured out how to set it up) but well at least it should show the basics .

Also have to figure out how to use Zoom , from a work/security standpoint I never used it but well can't be too hard to use since I've used every other platform out there (GoogleHangouts/VDO.Ninja (OBS)/WebEX)
Be prepared for crappy webcam quallity 😁

Ok... updated the Zoom chat page with the new agenda.  Will send the reminders out throughout the day....

 

As for webcams, feel free to go on camera if you want... but the cameras are totally optional (I even stay off camera from time to time depending on how I'm feeling).  Zoom is pretty easy.  All I recommend is to download it and try running it a little early so you don't get stuck in an 'update' when trying to get to the meeting at the last minute.

 

And no rush!  What you get done, you get done.  That's what working sessions are all about!

 

[Lastic]

A bit of an update on my end

Guest user has been created as a Registered user for demonstrating my -raw draft- BBS.
Menus are now displaying the relevant information for unregistered/registered/sysops
From the available functions/procedures Techman posted in the other thread, I've found a chatroom ( 4 in total )  option that works , a send notification to users option that works and added a bit of customization using the system variables
( well basically the username and city of the currently logged on user )
Spend quite a bit of time on this since I wiped of my past months test-users and was struggling with my menus not working until I realized that my 2 remaining users (Lastic and Sysop) were still unregistered , doh !
Tweaked the allowed logon time since the default 30 minutes was a bit short.

And now on to populating the File/SIG areas.
For the demo purposes I would like to be able to setup the following by tomorrow

a >2GB file area located on a USB DVD-R+
the current boot partition having a General FileArea  which is the first and currently only .hda file on the BlueSCSI.
(a 512Mb GEM partition mapped to a second virtual disk on the BlueSCSI )

 

[Lastic]

So after 7 hours of working onto I'm reading to burn 1 GB of MOD files to a DVD-R+.

I went a bit overboard 😁

I downloaded the 8 GB Fading Twilight ISO.
I then looked for all subdirectories containg a description file of the content.
Some folder didn't have one so I skipped those.

That resulted in 27 main directories with a lot of subdirectories 6.291 items, totalling 1,3 GB
I then used the magic of grep + tr + sed to create a csv with the MOD detail producer, crew, composer, type of mod , number of files etc.

I then zipped all those files into ZIP files adding a little bbs ad texfile.
This resulted in 901 ZIP files or a total of 980 MB of data.

Matched the corresponding ZIP file with the details csv to create an import csv for my python script, 889 lines and a total of 208 Kb for the CSV file itself
Then used this csv and my python script to create the DOWNLOAD.BBS file for Michtron.
And I now have a DOWNLOAD.BBS file of 417 Kb.

Next up burning the DVD with all the ZIP files, copying the DOWNLOAD.BBS file into Michtron and pray it worked

 

[Lastic]

Looks like I messed up my bulk csv , so removed the unnecessary data and ran my script again.
DOWNLOAD.BBS file for 899 files has a size of 407 Kb .

And it works, if I login remotely using Syncterm and start a download , I can hear the DVD-writer spinning up and the download completed succesfully.
I can do a file listing of all 899 files, although I am connecting via the DNS name , I basically stay within Belgium with my network traffic.
Curious to see how things are holding up when somebody foreign connects ...

Last thing for today ( it's 20:57 PM here and I've been busy prepping the BBS for the demo tomorrow since 8:00 AM)
making a submenu item in the File menu so the user can download a trimmed down version of my csv , should make it a bit more viewable to scrolling through 899 filenames LOL





 

[Tillek]

5 minutes ago, Lastic said:

Looks like I messed up my bulk csv , so removed the unnecessary data and ran my script again.
DOWNLOAD.BBS file for 899 files has a size of 407 Kb .

And it works, if I login remotely using Syncterm and start a download , I can hear the DVD-writer spinning up and the download completed succesfully.
I can do a file listing of all 899 files, although I am connecting via the DNS name , I basically stay within Belgium with my network traffic.
Curious to see how things are holding up when somebody foreign connects ...

Last thing for today ( it's 20:57 PM here and I've been busy prepping the BBS for the demo tomorrow since 8:00 AM)
making a submenu item in the File menu so the user can download a trimmed down version of my csv , should make it a bit more viewable to scrolling through 899 filenames LOL





 

All this is great information... thank you for sharing it with us.  If you need help testing it from the other side of the pond, feel free to shoot me the connection information when you get a chance and I can check it out for you.

 

[Tillek]

Just to put it out there... We'll be talking about MichTron 3 on the Atari BBS Zoom chat tomorrow...... The reminder info.....

 

Just a reminder for the Atari BBS community zoom chat for Sunday, March 3rd 2024 at 3pm Eastern.

 

For more information and the proposed agenda, go to http://www.ataribbs.com/zoomchat

 

This is also the link to the zoom meeting itself (it will automatically forward from 15 minutes before until four hours after the meeting starts).

 

This will likely be a Michtron 3.0 for the ST themed meeting as we hope to have both Lastic and the author, Techman!

 

Also planned, another install/demo of FANSI, an ANSI editor for the ST, and a demo of the TattlerSystems WiFi RetroModem V3!

 

Hope to see you there!

 

 

 

 

[Lastic]

Mini-progress update of today

The Nano Pi I will use for load-balancing if we get to a multi-user/2 Telnet Wimodem setup , has a python script running now every day that warns me via SMS if my dynamic public IP changes.

[Bodhi]

On 3/1/2024 at 11:21 AM, Tillek said:

And @Bodhi, since Lastic is in Belgium, feel free to join too (if the timing works for you) and we can talk about connection options as well!

Unfortunatly I missed this event. Blame on me.

[Tillek]

5 hours ago, Bodhi said:

Unfortunatly I missed this event. Blame on me.

No worries.  We do two a month.  One is on the 1st Sunday of the month at 3pm eastern US time, and the other one is the 3rd Friday at 8pm eastern US time.  I know the 3rd Friday ones are probably a little late for Europeans, but the Sunday ones shouldn't be too bad.

 

We'd love to see you some time if you can make it.

 

[Bodhi]

17 hours ago, Tillek said:

No worries.  We do two a month.  One is on the 1st Sunday of the month at 3pm eastern US time, and the other one is the 3rd Friday at 8pm eastern US time.  I know the 3rd Friday ones are probably a little late for Europeans, but the Sunday ones shouldn't be too bad.

 

We'd love to see you some time if you can make it.

 

Ok, I can make a bit of a digging into BBS on Atari then and maybe join at some point.

[Lastic]

A few tiny updates

Bikerbob your account is now registered.
Tillek I downgraded your account to 01:00 access time so I have a general -every-registered-user acces time implemented now.
I've removed the Guest account which we were using during the Zoom call.
I bumped myself (user Lastic) to Wizop since it made more sense and downgraded the default Sysop account to Sysop.
Also changed the passwords on both Lastic and Sysop to something more secure , currently only telnet to the BBS is allowed through the ISP firewall but you never know who comes knocking at your
port.

The Information item in the menu will constantly be changing since I'm trying to establish which ASCII files actually display properly and what screen size they should be.

In the pipeline, using the info from the manual Techman shared to further customize and experiment with the menu and menu-items.
A bit further in the pipeline, preparing the File Areas.

Still waiting on my friend to pass by with my order from the USA, and then a Wimodem Pro will be installed onto Serial 1 instead of the regular version.
 

[Lastic]

Todays progress

A Kareteka ASCII is now showing when using the Information option in the menu.

Added Experimental menu item in the FileTransfer menu for downloading filelisting of the DVD , it works !

Babysteps.

[Lastic]

Showing new mail notification in the main menu whenever you are there.

Showing File Areas/Signatures globally in the FileTransfer menu.

Next experiment will be a while since I have something in mind using MCL.

 

[Tillek]

27 minutes ago, Lastic said:

Showing new mail notification in the main menu whenever you are there.

Showing File Areas/Signatures globally in the FileTransfer menu.

Next experiment will be a while since I have something in mind using MCL.

 

Now I'm intrigued.

Going to have to call after work and check out the Karateka ASCII.