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Looking for commercial BBS info


Farb

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nothing wrong with doing both, but it's understandable.. Are you saying to make an install disk set? I thought the old way of doing it was to copy to the hard drive and set it up a piece at a time that way.

Edited by _The Doctor__
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So, there's a v1.0 as well I forgot about. I purchased the BBS node from its previous Sysop at v4.0 (when it was known as the Silver Bullet) and bought the 5.0 upgrade from K-Products in the 1990-1993 timeframe. 4.0 and/or 5.0 added scriptable module chaining if i recall. Lots of the CMDs from older version required sector editing the end of the command to specify the next one to load. I remember spending lots of time working out the logon sequence, especially between CMD's that worked one way or the other.

 

5.0 added mind-blowing ANSI support, so calling in from ST ANSITerm or a PC was 80 columns and really colourful! I created custom ANSI logon screens and menus on the ST and transferred them over.

 

Not sure I'm comfortable sharing my 4.0 and 5.0 disks, at this time as Steven J Carden is still actively working on BBS Express! code and occasionally on AtariAge, and because each copy is custom compiled for each serial number as a copy protection mechanism as I learned in previous conversation with him. Maybe he'd be open to having a particular copy of these officially released. I can attempt to contact him again and ask.

 

Cheers

Ryan

post-53052-0-51958700-1520481205_thumb.jpg

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Thanks, Nezgar, that photo and additional info is extremely helpful! Now if we can just figure out when 2.0 and 3.0 were released :-D Do you know if your 5.0 disks are 5.0 or 5.0b? Also, the labels say 1990 but do you know what release years are shown in the actual software? My 5.0b disks show 1995.

 

I wouldn't post disk images of any K-Products releases as the current copyright holder of BBS Express! Pro would probably get upset (I don't think it's Steve Carden) and there's some sort of drama around the whole thing. I don't know if the Orion Microsystem releases (e.g. 1.0 and 2.0) fall into the same category or not.

Edited by Farb
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The labels are probably generic, printed earlier, hence why i had to write the version # on them :)

 

the '5.0' disks are definitely 5.0b - I booted up my backup ATR in altirra to check "Last updated 10/15/95 v5.0b"

 

my batch files for single node BBS always just call BBS_50B.COM

Theres also a BBS_50X.COM for "Multi-User BBS Express! Professional"

and a BBS_50Z.COM which is also "Multi-User BBS Express! Professional" but has an additional splash screen, 2nd attachment below, I forget the difference - EDIT: probably MUX Master, vs MUX Slave?

post-53052-0-78110800-1520493296.png

post-53052-0-65429300-1520493525.png

Edited by Nezgar
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Thanks, Nezgar, that photo and additional info is extremely helpful! Now if we can just figure out when 2.0 and 3.0 were released :-D Do you know if your 5.0 disks are 5.0 or 5.0b? Also, the labels say 1990 but do you know what release years are shown in the actual software? My 5.0b disks show 1995.

 

I wouldn't post disk images of any K-Products releases as the current copyright holder of BBS Express! Pro would probably get upset (I don't think it's Steve Carden) and there's some sort of drama around the whole thing. I don't know if the Orion Microsystem releases (e.g. 1.0 and 2.0) fall into the same category or not.

I think but not sure it's Lance from video 61

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BBS Express Pro! Release dates,

 

1.0 - 05/08/88

1.2 - 06/16/88

2.0b - 02/24/89

2.0c - 03/10/89

2.0d - 09/03/89

2.1a - 08/27/90

3.1d - 02/28/92

4.0b - 07/10/93

5.0b - 10/15/95

 

6.0 may only exist at Lance's Video 61 house

 

TCP/IP Express

7.0c & 7.2d have the same date - 02/08/05

Edited by Triads
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I don't have the actual BBS directory layout. Talking to Bob about it. Rather than just post the files, I would rather post an ATR with a functioning system.

If you could post ATR images of anything you have of the Puff BBS, we can possibly create / restore full disks :)

 

I've become quite good at recovering directories and files using my ATR Tools app...

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I don't have the actual BBS directory layout. Talking to Bob about it. Rather than just post the files, I would rather post an ATR with a functioning system.

 

Any news on sharing this? I'd say quite a few of us would like to play around with this rare bbs

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Well the first thing somebody will have to do is disassemble the modem operating code that sits under the rom, because it checks for the presence of the hardware dongle that also is the ring detector. Without that, the system isn't going to work.

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Well the first thing somebody will have to do is disassemble the modem operating code that sits under the rom, because it checks for the presence of the hardware dongle that also is the ring detector. Without that, the system isn't going to work.

Not a problem in reverse engineering the dongle through code after disassembly :)

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Well the first thing somebody will have to do is disassemble the modem operating code that sits under the rom, because it checks for the presence of the hardware dongle that also is the ring detector. Without that, the system isn't going to work.

anything new on the Puff Board?

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Well I haven't heard anything from Bob, and I'm too tired to fiddle with this thing myself. So here's what I have for the Puff BBS.

 

The NEWMODS.ARC is a SuperArc file that you need to unbundle. I seem to recall there are duplicates of some file, and I don't know why or how that came to be. The PuffBBS.ARC file isn't really an arc, I think it's the MOE program, so just rename it to .COM or whatever binary extender you prefer.

 

I don't recall much about the bbs layout. I think there was a Dn:MSG> for message bases. Anyway, somebody can probably puzzle that all out.

PuffBBS.zip

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Well I haven't heard anything from Bob, and I'm too tired to fiddle with this thing myself. So here's what I have for the Puff BBS.

 

The NEWMODS.ARC is a SuperArc file that you need to unbundle. I seem to recall there are duplicates of some file, and I don't know why or how that came to be. The PuffBBS.ARC file isn't really an arc, I think it's the MOE program, so just rename it to .COM or whatever binary extender you prefer.

 

I don't recall much about the bbs layout. I think there was a Dn:MSG> for message bases. Anyway, somebody can probably puzzle that all out.

 

Thanks for the post.. It looks like there are a few missing files though..

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Well I haven't heard anything from Bob, and I'm too tired to fiddle with this thing myself. So here's what I have for the Puff BBS.

 

The NEWMODS.ARC is a SuperArc file that you need to unbundle. I seem to recall there are duplicates of some file, and I don't know why or how that came to be. The PuffBBS.ARC file isn't really an arc, I think it's the MOE program, so just rename it to .COM or whatever binary extender you prefer.

 

I don't recall much about the bbs layout. I think there was a Dn:MSG> for message bases. Anyway, somebody can probably puzzle that all out.

Thanks for the upload. What version of Basic does it run on ?

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I don't recall much about the bbs layout. I think there was a Dn:MSG> for message bases. Anyway, somebody can probably puzzle that all out.

Thank you for posting these :) :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

Yep, there are a few folders used. If you could post the prompts.dat and other .dat files would help in preserving the original look of the menus and such...

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Thanks for the upload. What version of Basic does it run on ?

 

AFAIK it just requires Atari Basic. Don't recall that it has any specific dependency on either Rev B or C, but BasicXL, etc is out.

 

As for the PROMPTS.DAT and stuff, I'll have to go find the bbs hdisk, as I don't seem to have archive copies of those.

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As for the PROMPTS.DAT and stuff, I'll have to go find the bbs hdisk, as I don't seem to have archive copies of those.

While you are looking, could you look for these missing files too?

 

Basic Files:

 

CHAT2.MOD

FILESYS.MOD

SURVEY.MOD

SYSMENU.MOD

UPDATE.MOD

 

Dat Files:

 

BATCH.DAT

BBSLIST.DAT

BBSLIST.TMP

CALLNUM.DAT

CONFIG1.DAT

CONFIG2.DAT

DAILYLOG.DAT

DLLOCn.DAT

DESPTRn.DAT

DESPTRA.DAT

DESCRPA.DAT

FILEBASE.DAT

FMAIL.DAT

MASK0.DAT

MESSAGEA.DAT

MESSAGEZ.DAT

OUTMSGS.DAT

PASSID2.DAT

PASSWORD.DAT

PASSWOR2.DAT

PROMPTS.DAT

PROMPTS2.DAT

PROMPTS3.DAT

QUOTE.DAT

TYPEA.DAT

ULOG.DAT

 

Text Files:

 

BULLET.TXT

MAIN.TXT

STAR.TXT

SYSINFO.TXT

WFILE.TXT

DBASE1.TXT

DBSEL.TXT

INIT.TXT

LOGOFF.TXT

NEWCPU.TXT

NEWUSER.TXT

QUOTE.TXT

 

A.HLP

|

V

Z.HLP

?.HLP

 

 

This is an ATR that I have created so far:

PUFFBBS1.atr

 

Still looking for the M.O.E too...

Edited by AtariGeezer
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AFAIK it just requires Atari Basic. Don't recall that it has any specific dependency on either Rev B or C, but BasicXL, etc is out.

 

As for the PROMPTS.DAT and stuff, I'll have to go find the bbs hdisk, as I don't seem to have archive copies of those.

Thanks, anything you can find would be great.

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