Starting an Atari BBS - Request for Suggestions

[Joe Stella]

i've been playing with the idea of throwing together a full-time, old school atari bbs.

 

given the parameters below, what software do you guys suggest? what were the reigning bbs packages back-in-the-day? can any be adapted to work with the upcoming ethernet interface or with steven tuckers ape modem emulation? what alternatives would you recommend?

 

it will be running on a 130xe with myide interface and 10gb hd. it won't have a dedicated phone-line/modem connection. the bbs software should allow message boards and file areas/transfers at a minimum. simultaneous multi-user, chat, fido (or other) networking, and ability to run plug-in games would be awesome.

 

thanks for your thoughts.

[Albert]

I ran an Atari 8-bit BBS for several years starting with the Carina BBS software, and then later switching to Carina II when that came out. I had quite a collection of hardware to run the system on, including a 256K 800XL, 1MB ICD MIO board, SpartaDOS X cart, R-Time 8 cart, Rev. C BASIC cart, XEP-80, four double-density disk drives, and two 20MB hard drives. It was a blast, and I'd love to put an Atari 8-bit BBS back online someday.

 

I have used an Atari 8-bit BBS connected to the internet, via an ATASCII terminal program on the PC. This came up almost exactly two years ago in an earliert thread on AtariAge, you can read about it here:

 

REAL Atari Carina II BBS online and accessible via the Internet

 

I have no idea if the BBS is still up and running, but it does show that it can be done.

 

..Al

[TXG/MNX]

i've been playing with the idea of throwing together a full-time, old school atari bbs.

 

given the parameters below, what software do you guys suggest?  what were the reigning bbs packages back-in-the-day?  can any be adapted to work with the upcoming ethernet interface or with steven tuckers ape modem emulation?  what alternatives would you recommend?

 

it will be running on a 130xe with myide interface and 10gb hd.  it won't have a dedicated phone-line/modem connection.  the bbs software should allow message boards and file areas/transfers at a minimum.  simultaneous multi-user, chat, fido (or other) networking, and ability to run plug-in games would be awesome.

 

thanks for your thoughts.

 

This is cool I am setting up my BBS again also, but my died because my harddisk crashed after 6.5 years... (and no recent backup )

 

But oke I will fix it...

 

The only BBS program that I can advise on the 8-bit is:

 

BBS Pro! 5.0b or BBS Pro!fessional 5.0b it's a very nice package that supports to run up-to 8 systems networked. Had good networking with other boards and more... It's still the best around.

 

But the latest version is 6.0 but this only runs on an emulator so ask Video 61 who has the rights now for the 5.0b version ! It's the best.

 

http://members.tcq.net/video61/index.html

[Tempest]

I've been thinking about doing the exact same thing. I've been slowly gathering parts, but I still need a compatible hard drive of some sort.

 

the bbs software should allow message boards and file areas/transfers at a minimum. simultaneous multi-user, chat, fido (or other) networking, and ability to run plug-in games would be awesome.

 

I didn't think Atari 8-bit BBS's could have simultaneous multi-user functions. I thought it was a limitation of the hardware.

 

Personally I'd like to get a BBS with some games like Space Wars and Falcon's Eye running. They must have made Atari equivilents of some sort.

 

Tempest

[chad5200]

I ran the Atari BBS that Albert was referring to in his link.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3426

 

Unforunately, it was short lived because I soon moved to an area that does not have highspeed persistant internet connections. I plan on bringing it back whenever I can get highspeed here.

 

I ran Carina II on a real Atari 130XE hooked to the internet via APE.

 

It worked surprisingly well.

[Bill Lange]

Does anyone have a copy of AMIS? This was a fairly easy to understand Atari BASIC program for running a simple BBS.

 

Bill

[Atari Smeghead]

I used to run a BBS back in the mid 80s using software called Nite Lite. It was a menu driven system (meaning, you could pick any letter to represent any menu option) and I thought it was the best software out there at the time. I later upgraded to the ST version.

The worst problem with the 8 bit version was that that "Check for messages written to you" option was painfully slow. So bad, in fact, that I warned people not to use it, because people would think the system locked up and they would hang up.

 

I believe it was written in BASIC, and I also believe I not only still have the program on disk, but I think I have the source code and manual.

 

I could research it, if anyone's interested.

[mos6507]

The only BBS that can support high speed modems without dropping bytes is Express Pro.

 

Carina is a really cool BBS but the download/upload modules just can't support high speed, because too much of the system is written in BASIC.

 

The one thing I didn't like about PRO is that it's like an old minicomputer in the sense that it swaps out overlays like some kind of hard drive version of banked memory. Even if you have a highly expanded system, it will use the extra RAM only as a RAMDISK. so even though it's swapping out 16K chunks, it can't simply BANK the data in, it has to do ram-based file I/O which is considerably slower on a machine like the Atari.

 

If all the modules sat in their own bank and it bank switched them in, the system would be a lot snappier.

 

This isn't really felt at 2400 baud but on a high speed modem (which through hardware flow control on a Black Box is effectively at around 19.2K or so in throughput) you can feel the lag when the modules load in.

[Joe Stella]

here's a fairly lengthy list and description of atari bbs software. http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/

 

be sure to check out the top-level domain on that one

 

for a directory of software, check out http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/ATARI/EIGHTBIT/

 

***

 

regarding express pro software -

 

the only bbs i'm aware of that still runs a copy is dave hunt's official support bbs 'closer to home' telnetable at cth.dtdns.net

 

interestingly, it runs on an emulator, and the current version doesn't support real hardware. not sure if it's my terminal emulator or what, but the screen updates are very jerky, and input seems to be delayed. takes some getting used to.

 

use an atascii capable terminal program or a real atari-8 for that almost-real feeling.

 

express has bbs-networking capability, apparently, but that feature is not being used due to lack of partners.

 

i've posed a number of questions to dave, but haven't heard back.

 

***

 

carina. yeah, i noticed that it was listed as being written in basic. that could be good? it might lend itself to tinkering and expanding. regarding the problems at higher data rates -- wonder if it could be compiled?

 

it does seem to boast a bunch of interesting features.

 

***

 

so at the end of the day... sadly, neither of these two packages can interface with the "big" bbs networks.

 

- i wonder if either of these packages have problems with mydos/myide? side note - IDE to compact flash memory adapters are supposed to work with myide ! solid state goodness!

- does one have to use steven tuckers ape (which i have a license for), or can one use the announced ethernet interface solution to create a stand-alone system?

- some of you sound interested in running your own systems (ah, to be the sysop! i think someone is trying to summon me would you guys be interested in creating an express pro network?

 

i begin to wonder if the st series is maybe a better host, but where is the fun in that?

[erichenneke]

I know this is an old thread, but just wanted to point it to the Nite Lite BBS disk images I just archived and posted here...

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/276068-unarchived-software/?p=3976772