Birth of a new BBS - the origin story

[Lastic]

Today was VT52 experiment day so I needed something that actually can display it.
As such I setup Hatari on both my Linux machine and macOS machine using this tutorial.
https://breakintochat.com/blog/2020/09/03/tutorial-telnet-to-a-bbs-using-a-terminal-program-in-the-hatari-emulator/

it works perfectly in all terminal emulators except TAZ but I was able to connect to my BBS to test some VT52 setup I was expermenting with.
Then I thought well what if I run the BBS in Hatari , and it looks like tcpser is sending a RING to Michtron (running in Hatari) , it is detecting a caller but not picking up.
So maybe ... but not going to spend time on this now ... tcpser or socat could be told to do the ATS0=1 and then you would have a BBS running in Hatari (albeit on a Linux/macOS machine).

 

[+DarkLord]

It's always me... 

 

I'm assuming you had your UDS set to RAW also, right? Although I honestly don't think that

would have much to do with transfer speeds.

 

JP wrote an excellent PDF on settings for the UDS devices, although it didn't specifically have

your model in mind.

 

lantronix-uds10-setup (JPs RAW).pdf

 

Maybe it can give you some ideas/pointers. I know it helped me when I was using my UDS10.

 

[Lastic]

I found the PDF also  and had a look at it whilst setting up my UDS.
But the UDS is disconnecting me randomly altough in the meanwhile I have set longer idletime() using the built-in Michtron function.
So currently back on the WimodemPRO and the transfer speed issue I will focus on later on.
I thought switching to the UDS might give me an Eureka moment since Wired is a bit more predictable than Wireless but it didn't.

Since I have an Wifi+router all-in-one ISP modem I will also probably go nag them to give me a Modem-only or Modem-bridged-router only.
That way I have my OWN router setup , can fiddle with MTU and Jumbo Frames and have my own Wifi since now I'm limited to the ISP menu on it's device.

And thanks for the thorough testing and constant feedback, it really helps if you get another person's view or perspective, something I frequently notice in my day-job also.

[Lastic]

Menu colouring with VT52 and switching between VT52 and ASCII now works !



Oh well calling it quits for today.

Sorry fellow-Sysops, no Zoom call for me today at 02:00AM my time.

Been changing my MAIN.M since 06:00AM this morning and it's 21:45PM now.
Editing, saving, starting UIP, transferring, MCL compiling, starting BBS.TOS, logging on via Hatari, checking x 1000
Not complaining though, I once again gained a huge lot of knowledge and accomplishment today using Michtron.
 

[Lastic]

The Wall also has VT52 colouring now 🤩

[Lastic]

@Tillek @Bikerbob @DarkLord 

I've currently finished with setting up ASCII and VT51 menu items and logo's.
If anybody wants to have a try with a VT52 capable Terminal Emulator and give me some feedback, the colours might be a bit harsh.
I've reconnected the public IP so it should be reachable again via Internet.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I will be off the entire day and Monday I plan to work on gathering files and setting up File Areas so it should stay up unless I'm busy copying files over.
So if on Monday you cannot connect give it a try a few minutes later.

If I plan to take it down longer for bigger modifications , I will signal it here .

[+DarkLord]

I logged on this evening with my Mega STe and Flash, using VT52.

 

Here's a few screenshots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lastic]

I must have missed you by minutes, I got up an hour ago (06:00 AM here) .
Just messed around with the download logo in order to reply to Techman.
It will remain running now, I'm going to work on the file areas on my Linux machine first and that will take some time today before actually moving everything over to the BBS.

Interesting to see it with another pallete, would you mind sharing a screenshot of your Xcontrol panel 4 color setup in medium res?
Just so I understand what color is color0,color1,color2,color3 .

Could you tell where I got the inspiration from to color the Graffiti Wall ?

[Lastic]

Something that was bothering me since a while now .

In that particular ASCII BBS-set that I am using there is an upperscore character which does not exist neither on IBM or Atari.
But I found an equivalent in the Atari Characterset , ALT-255, off course then I ran into the issue that the print() statement of MCL treats it as a special character so I had to escape it using \
But if I escape it , it is shown twice ??

@Techman any clue how I can get this printed using the print() statement ?

ALT-255 on an Atari is sort of a minus sign that floats a bit higher.
In EVEREST (Text Editor on Atari) it is shown correctly , using Show in TOS it is shown correctly but MCL treats it as a special char ?
On a PC it will display like an Y with an umlaut on it.

print(r$,i$,":              ÿ\\___/ÿ\\/__/ÿ\\___/  ÿ\\_____/ÿ\\___/ÿ\\___/ÿ\\___/        :",n$,b$,"\n");

But if I try to compile my M file , MCL fails stating that I am missing right colon at the end of my print statement , so probably it is not interpreting the ALT-255 character ?

 

 

Edited March 18 by Lastic

[Lastic]

So I went with using list() and still the ALT-255 character is shown twice in VT52.



ALT-255 on an Atari is sort of a minus sign that floats a bit higher.

see the bottom of this page
http://www.kostis.net/charsets/atarist.htm

In EVEREST (Text Editor on Atari) it is shown correctly , using Show in TOS it is shown correctly but MCL treats it as a special char ?
On a PC it will display like an Y with an umlaut on it.

2p           ÿ\___/ÿ\___/ÿ\_____/ÿ\/__/ÿ\___/ÿ\___/ÿ\___/ÿ\___/         b1q

Any clue @Techman how I can display this character correctly using list() ?

[Lastic]

I even tried now using the chr(m$,255) and then using it in a print, it keeps getting output twice , aaargh.

3 hours and a half been busy with converting my simple menu ASCII and VT52 to a menu from the ASCII set I am using.
3000 compilation erros, missing quotes, typo's and debugging prints + stop BBS , load UIP , transfer file , compile with MCL, start BBS, test using Hatari X repeat

But we're not giving up , my target is still end of March , begin of April, heck at least before the next Zoom Call.

Old menu code , the variables are empty when using ASCII or are VT52 escape sequences


New menu code

 

Old menu look in VT52

 

New menu look in VT52 ( the 2 offset lines are because of the repeating ALT-255 character)



The original ASCII art ( Topaz Amiga Font)

Edited March 18 by Lastic

[+DarkLord]

13 hours ago, Lastic said:

I must have missed you by minutes, I got up an hour ago (06:00 AM here) .
Just messed around with the download logo in order to reply to Techman.
It will remain running now, I'm going to work on the file areas on my Linux machine first and that will take some time today before actually moving everything over to the BBS.

Interesting to see it with another pallete, would you mind sharing a screenshot of your Xcontrol panel 4 color setup in medium res?
Just so I understand what color is color0,color1,color2,color3 .

Could you tell where I got the inspiration from to color the Graffiti Wall ?

 

Gimme a few minutes, I'll grab that and post it.

 

Hmm, not sure about the inspiration for the Graffiti Wall?

 

[+DarkLord]

2 hours ago, Lastic said:

I even tried now using the chr(m$,255) and then using it in a print, it keeps getting output twice , aaargh.

3 hours and a half been busy with converting my simple menu ASCII and VT52 to a menu from the ASCII set I am using.
3000 compilation erros, missing quotes, typo's and debugging prints + stop BBS , load UIP , transfer file , compile with MCL, start BBS, test using Hatari X repeat

But we're not giving up , my target is still end of March , begin of April, heck at least before the next Zoom Call.

Old menu code , the variables are empty when using ASCII or are VT52 escape sequences

New menu code
 

Old menu look in VT52
 

New menu look in VT52 ( the 2 offset lines are because of the repeating ALT-255 character)

The original ASCII art ( Topaz Amiga Font)
 

 

Oh, if I were to list the hours I've spent debugging and testing things! 

 

Seriously though, you're getting there. There will come this moment when

everything just basically comes together.  

 

[+DarkLord]

In Express, there's a couple of "special" characters and they have to be dealt

with accordingly:

 

\\ prints a '\' character

 

\" prints a single quote (')

 

\{ prints a '[' character

 

\} prints a ']' character

 

\n prints a carriage return/linefeed

 

 

[Lastic]

24 minutes ago, DarkLord said:

 

Gimme a few minutes, I'll grab that and post it.

 

Hmm, not sure about the inspiration for the Graffiti Wall?

 

I maybe expressed that in a confusing way, I meant the look when viewing it in VT52 , I was going for a white line followed by a green line, like continuous printpaper 😁

Edited March 18 by Lastic
grammar doh

[Lastic]

I think somebody is trying to connect, I'm just rebooting my MegaSTe, once sec.
Weird I had incoming connections for the past 3 minutes but no caller logging in ?
Is it you Chinese government ?

I'm going to disconnect it because I was just about to upload a new test menu I made.

Edited March 18 by Lastic

[+DarkLord]

19 minutes ago, Lastic said:

I maybe expressed that in a confusing way, I meant the look when viewing it in VT52 , I was going for a white line followed by a green line, like continuous printpaper 😁

 

Ah, okay - my bad. Yeah, I get that now.  (you only have to point out the blindingly obvious to me a couple of times a day, no more). 

 

[+DarkLord]

19 minutes ago, Lastic said:

I think somebody is trying to connect, I'm just rebooting my MegaSTe, once sec.
Weird I had incoming connections for the past 3 minutes but no caller logging in ?
Is it you Chinese government ?

I'm going to disconnect it because I was just about to upload a new test menu I made.

 

I wouldn't be a bit surprised. My "Who's Called" script used to drive me nuts. Every time

I'd get a probe from some obnoxious wanna-be hacker or such from (usually) overseas,

the caller log would reflect it as a failed entry. So a valid caller would check to see who

has called and get this list of multiple entries that looked like this:

 
           >>> Invalid Logon Attempt <<<  9/01/99  2:50:40 am
           Name/Handle Used:
           Password Used:    N

 

Sometimes it was so bad that you'd have to scroll through the list to see a legitimate

entry from an actual caller.

 

I finally figured out how to get around that in the code but it took me a while.

 

Using JP's excellent "Busy BBS" software, you can do away with these spurious entries

as well.

 

 

[Lastic]

In General it doesn't bother me, I must finally set-up my firewall but first need to change ISP modems for that.
I was just browsing the calendar and noticed that 3 days ago your BBS @DarkLord went online for the first time running Michtron ?

Normally I won't be working on it between 17:00 PM Eastern time and 09:00 AM Eastern time , since that's when I sleep and work during weekdays.

[Lastic]

So after spending almost 8 hours on it, the ASCII  art menus are installed and also show colours when choosing VT52 and using a VT52 capable Atari ST Terminal Emulator.

@Tillek @DarkLord @Bikerbob if you guys want to have a try , let me know what you think, suggestions,criticism, heartbreak, all feedback is welcome.

There is still some spacing not in order due to the ALT-255 character being printed twice ??

Also in the Main menu, C for Chatroom is not correct, it's R for Chatroom and C for Sysop Chat but well ... the changes have been made to the source file already, just don't feel like recompiling it again.

Normally I won't be working on it between 17:00 PM Eastern time and 09:00 AM Eastern time , since that's when I sleep and work during weekdays.
And although I swore I was going to work on filling up the File-Areas today, I went for the menus instead.

But that means I won't be touching/bringing down the BBS for a while since I will be busy on my Linux machine preparing the DOWNLOAD.BBS file.
Another challenge I created for myself
 

[+DarkLord]

4 hours ago, Lastic said:

In General it doesn't bother me, I must finally set-up my firewall but first need to change ISP modems for that.
I was just browsing the calendar and noticed that 3 days ago your BBS @DarkLord went online for the first time running Michtron ?

Normally I won't be working on it between 17:00 PM Eastern time and 09:00 AM Eastern time , since that's when I sleep and work during weekdays.

 

Yeah, back in March of 1992, IIRC. I had a 1040ST, SC1224 monitor, Megafile 30 hard drive and an SX212 modem.

 

I'm pretty sure it was Michtron BBS v2.0 software that I was using then (although I'm not 100% sure).

 

[+DarkLord]

4 hours ago, Lastic said:

So after spending almost 8 hours on it, the ASCII  art menus are installed and also show colours when choosing VT52 and using a VT52 capable Atari ST Terminal Emulator.

@Tillek @DarkLord @Bikerbob if you guys want to have a try , let me know what you think, suggestions,criticism, heartbreak, all feedback is welcome.

 

Okay, I called in with TAZ this time. Here's a few screenshots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[+DarkLord]

20 hours ago, Lastic said:

Interesting to see it with another pallete, would you mind sharing a screenshot of your Xcontrol panel 4 color setup in medium res?
Just so I understand what color is color0,color1,color2,color3 .

 

Okay, so with the Xcontrol panel open and the Color Setup CPX active, my 4 color boxes are set to:

 

White - 15,15,15

 

Black - 0,0,0

 

Red - 15,0,0

 

Green - 4, 6, 8

 

Now keep in mind, I've noticed on different machines that sometimes even if you set your numbers exactly like mine, you still might

not see the exact same shade of color. So using green, set it to 4,6,8 like mine, then look and see what the results are. If a person

isn't happy with them, then simply adjust each slider, 1 at a time, 1 number up or down at a time, until they get something pleasing

to them.

 

At least, that's what I did, since I'm not overly fond of that default green color.  HTH's. 

 

 

 

[Lastic]

2 hours ago, DarkLord said:

 

Okay, I called in with TAZ this time. Here's a few screenshots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you very much for doing this because I just realised that the issue with the ALT-255 character exists in STalker's VT52 mode only then ???
Which means there is nothing wrong with my logo's or my new menus, wow that is such a huge relief because I have been banging my head on this the entire day, yesterday.

for example taking that last logoff screenshot
Here is how it looked on my end



 

So that actually means I just have to ditch STalker and check my VT52 changes with TAZ.
I also need to tune the colours indeed especially the Inverse modes I am using.
And that means once the menus are looking good, I can start working on putting  the Main , File and Message subroutines into seperate MCL files.
 

Edited March 19 by Lastic

[+DarkLord]

Hmm, you might also want to check it with Flash then. It does a great job with VT52 as well.

 

I'll try to check with some other comms packages as well (STorm, Freeze Dried Terminal,

CoNnect 95, etc).

 

Doing movie day with my son tomorrow (we're binge watching "The Rookie"). So it'll be

tomorrow evening at the earliest for me.