+brianchilders Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 Having grown up in the era in the start of home telecommunications (IBM PC with a 300 baud modem - and I know the VIC-20 even had a 110 baud modem), I have always been fascinated by the concept of computers talking to each other. I've visited my friends WildCat! BBS often, and with the advent of learning about UUCP and SLIP/PPP connections with my router, and even owning a Class C (/24 network) at a time and running a web and ftp server, and even expanding into a part-time webhosting business that eventually closed its doors. But I find myself looking back to where it all started, and having never run a BBS before, I find myself having the desire to learn how to put together a BBS and run it. While the technology on how it may get connected has changed over the years, the one part of the BBS that has never changed is the sense of community and being able to communicate and share with others in the community. Each community will have it's own personality types, but for better or worse they are part of the community. So, this then forms the premise for the exercise of this thread topic - that is to set up and run a BBS: [1] To do something that I haven't done before and learn from putting it together. [2] Capture some of the nostalgia and wonder that I felt as a kid, having my computer connect with another computer and enable me to talk to others around the world. [3] To become part of something bigger than myself - a community of people willing to help each other out, learn from each other, encourage one another and so on. And then to help pour back into the same community that helps me. I plan on documenting my journey along the way, and I invite others to lurk on this thread or even perhaps participate. All kinds of participation are welcome, even constructive criticism. If you've stuck with me this far - thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings, and I'm looking forward to seeing where this journey leads.... -brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 As a long-term Atari SysOp, I welcome your observations and journey. Looking forward to it! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+brianchilders Posted April 3 Author Share Posted April 3 One of the first questions I need to answer is what platform I will be using to run the BBS on. Will I use actual Atari hardware, or will I look at using an Atari emulator and run it on Windows/Unix? If I choose Atari hardware, what Atari hardware will I use? I have an Atari 800XL - or should I take the time to get a ST. Then that begs the connectivity options. Will I make it available via dialup? Will it work with my VoIP device? Or how do I make it available via telnet like DarkForce! BBS / Southern AMIS? This means I will need to procure some hardware. If I choose Atari emulation, which Atari emulator should I choose? And then do I host it on my home computer or look to put out into the cloud? Welcome all thoughts and opinions on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 Well, I'm the wrong person to ask about emulators. I like real hardware and software. But that's just me - a lot of people go the emulation route and are perfectly happy with it. You can set up BBS's with either the 8bits or the ST line. I personally feel that the ST line has a bit of an advantage because of the stock serial port speeds being 19200 from the get go, with options/mods capable of taking it to 38400, as well as a few other things. I'm sure the 8bit crowd will tell you that the 8bit is better because it does ATASCII graphics. The point is, you can setup 1st class BBS's on either system. It comes down to personal preference, I reckon. The telnet part is dead easy these days, IMHO. Grab a WiModem232 Pro from Jim Drew and you're set. It's a wonderful piece of hardware. You'll have to set a few parameters with your router but that's not too hard either. HTH's. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlight_mile Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 Correct me if I am wrong but on 8-bit you can go emulation or real hardware vs. only real hardware with st. It is my understanding that the st emulators can’t handle the modem portion of a BBs. But I could be all wet. I usually am. I am on emulation because I am too lazy to deal with real hardware. All props to darklord, tillek and the others that run on real hardware but for me emulation was too simple and a pc to run them on is a lot cheaper than fixing/replacing real hardware that is running 24/7 for not a real big amount of activity. That is just how I look at it. Don’t get me wrong, we have great activity and community on the boards but nothing like the 40-50 calls a day we used to get back in the 80s. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+brianchilders Posted April 4 Author Share Posted April 4 So I now have two trains of thought. I could get started with an emulator as I start to build up the capital and BOM for running on real hardware. I'm headed to Midwest Gaming Classic this weekend (Midwest Gaming Classic) so I may be able to start piecing together what I might need and work with vendors there. @moonlight_mile - if you don't mind sharing, what Atari 8-bit emulator are you running and / or what other packages might you need to run a simulated Atari BBS on a Windows/Unix platform? I'd like to explore this path further if you don't mind. If you also want to, feel free to shill or share your BBS info and I'd like to try connecting to it as well. And @DarkLord - I set up an account on your BBS - I did read through some of the specs that your BBS has - e.g. Atari Mega ST - SCSI hard drive - Plextor CD/RW and PicoWifi. In order to get started on the hardware route, I'd need an Atari ST of some sort along with the WinModem232 - any other hardware to consider on the BOM? I also see that I am a caller in limbo and I got audited for my birthday the 2nd time I came. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlight_mile Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 Alcatraz and FoReM Xe are running on the altirra emulator in portable mode. Portable just means I can run multiple instances of altirra on 1 windows account. I restarted Alcatraz when I found some old disks in my parents attic with a bunch of the old screens. With the help of John Polka I got it up and running. It has been running (for the most part) trouble free since 2017. FoReM came from a desire to play around with it. I used to run some hacked up version of FoReM I think in the very early 9os. But that didn’t last too long, but my early bbsing days everything was FoReM or a derivative. Amis helped tremendously in getting FoReM to run pretty much trouble free since it went up. I have had some issues as of late but that is pc related. The laptop I used to run the BBS’s on was limited when it was released and is a pain to work on. The BBS’s for the most part ran fine but if I needed to do anything say go on the internet and get the latest copy of altirra, well that was a long and slow process. I moved the BBS’s to my old MacBook Pro running windows in boot camp but that was short lived, moved it to (what I thought) was a newer windows box I had with a 2 core amd processor, but something was up with that pc as it kept rebooting, now I have it on an old i5 pc and it has been running so far so good. I haven’t been able to carve out too much time to sit down and go bbsing. I like to do that on real hardware. Hell I got a wimodem pro that I have yet to take out of the package. Like I may have mentioned being lazy, running on an pc in an emulator allows me to remote in to the pc and fix things or restart things right from my phone here. That wouldn’t be possible on real hardware. (At least not that I am aware of). Also, I missed out on a bunch of the ide hardware that was created for the 8 bit that allows fast hard drive access. I am not sure if a side 2/3 could handle a BBs but sd cards have a finite life. I also would not want to run my MIO 24/7. Those are delicate beasts to start with. I think the this Sunday might be the sysop zoom call. Contact tillek for the login info. I will try to make it. Hope I didn’t bore you if you made it this far. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+brianchilders Posted April 4 Author Share Posted April 4 Hi @Tillek - your name came up as a point of contact for the zoom call this Sunday. If I am able to, I would like to join the sysop zoom call to learn more and just listen "be a fly on the wall". Thank you for your consideration. -brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 22 hours ago, brianchilders said: And @DarkLord - I set up an account on your BBS - I did read through some of the specs that your BBS has - e.g. Atari Mega ST - SCSI hard drive - Plextor CD/RW and PicoWifi. In order to get started on the hardware route, I'd need an Atari ST of some sort along with the WinModem232 - any other hardware to consider on the BOM? I also see that I am a caller in limbo and I got audited for my birthday the 2nd time I came. I'd definitely want a mass storage device of some kind. I personally would never want to run from floppy. Hmm, in "limbo"? I'm assuming you're talking about the Top 10 Callers list? That software works on a very simple premise - call and do nothing else...lower score, call, post messages, upload files, etc...higher score. New users getting audited for their birthday is perfectly normal. Assuming the caller puts in the correct birth date, then whenever they call on their birthday they'll get a notification from the BBS, wishing them a good one, as well as being posted in Today's Events. Just another (free) service we offer at The DarkForce! BBS... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnPolka Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 On 4/3/2024 at 8:45 AM, brianchilders said: One of the first questions I need to answer is what platform I will be using to run the BBS on. Will I use actual Atari hardware, or will I look at using an Atari emulator and run it on Windows/Unix? If I choose Atari hardware, what Atari hardware will I use? I have an Atari 800XL - or should I take the time to get a ST. Then that begs the connectivity options. Will I make it available via dialup? Will it work with my VoIP device? Or how do I make it available via telnet like DarkForce! BBS / Southern AMIS? This means I will need to procure some hardware. If I choose Atari emulation, which Atari emulator should I choose? And then do I host it on my home computer or look to put out into the cloud? Welcome all thoughts and opinions on this. If you're willing to go the ST route, I would recommend it. There are fewer ST BBSs, so you probably stand a better chance at carving out your own unique niche with it. -JP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 (edited) On 4/4/2024 at 9:09 AM, brianchilders said: Hi @Tillek - your name came up as a point of contact for the zoom call this Sunday. If I am able to, I would like to join the sysop zoom call to learn more and just listen "be a fly on the wall". Thank you for your consideration. -brian Apologies..... The past few weeks at work has been bad... you'll certainly hear me ranting about it on Sunday before the meeting starts. I'll send the "reminders" out tomorrow, but for now, the information is available at http://www.ataribbs.com/zoomchat and that is also the link for the meeting (15 minutes before the starting time at 3pm eastern Sunday, April 7th, it will automatically redirect you to the meeting). And just to be clear, it is a chat for the entire BBS community, it is not a "SysOp" chat, though that tends to be a big part of the audience since... truth be told, we have probably more SysOps than "Just Callers" it seems... but all are welcome and more importantly, all are welcome to participate equally! Even if you don't call BBS's (though if that's the case, WHY NOT?????) And also just a fair warning... sometimes the conversation diverges from BBSing... and sometimes from Atari as well. At any rate, I'll post the reminders tomorrow and the link above already has the "proposed" "agenda" (which is also never set in stone and depends on the participants and the mood as the conversation goes wherever it goes). For future reference, we do them on the first Sunday of every month at 3pm eastern US, and on the 3rd Friday at 8pm eastern US. Sometimes there is a plan, sometimes there isn't. Sometimes we have a special guest... sometimes we don't. So no pressure. Nobody is checking credentials at the door. Edited April 6 by Tillek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lastic Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 A bit late with my welcome Brian. As you can tell I went the same route you are currently standing at , have been busy the past 2 months , especially the past one in setting up an Atari (Mega) ST(e) BBS. Coming from a PC BBS scene background, it has been and still is a challenging project but above all those 3 exact points you stated in your first post. Hope to see you this Sunday and greetings from Belgium Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlight_mile Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 Sorry I jumped the gun tillek but you know me. If it pops in my head if I don’t get it out right away it will disappear into the ether. 😂😂😂😂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 39 minutes ago, moonlight_mile said: Sorry I jumped the gun tillek but you know me. If it pops in my head if I don’t get it out right away it will disappear into the ether. 😂😂😂😂 Oh, no worries... I just wanted to clarify it because I didn't want him to think he had to be "a fly on the wall" if he didn't want to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 Just a reminder for the Atari BBS community zoom chat for Sunday, April 7th 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). As you well know, the agenda is always subject to change and the whims of whoever actually attends, but what is planned is... - Followup discussions on AtariAge BBS Guru Club threads. - FANSI (ANSI editor for the ST) install and brief demo. - How to use a real dial-up modem to call an internet BBS... - ... using a new toy! The Viking DLE-200B Two-Way Line Simulator - Get yours here -> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004PXK314?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details I apologize for the late notice but still I hope to see you there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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