Tillek

Abandoning Carina? Shaka... when the walls fell!!!!!!!!!!! But in the meantime... life is short... use SyncTerm till the keyboard gets fixed!

And while I own an XEP-80, I've never actually used it, so I can't speak to how well things work with it. Though I am planning to hook it up to the 800xl running the Carina BBS to see how that works out.

Yes... I've used ICE-T to call my own Atari ST BBS in 80 column ANSI (which is the best way to call my BBS) from my Atari 8-bit and you can use it to call PC ANSI or ASCII based BBS's as well. I think it also does other translations but I don't have it in front of me right now to confirm that. Now I won't lie to you.. the ANSI isn't nearly half as good as if you used SyncTerm on the PC or ANSITerm on the ST (or even TAZ on the ST)... but...... It's spectacular for an Atari 8-bit 80 column (sans XEP80) ANSI implementation.

I just want to post this though, to others who are reading this. (I speak only for myself and no other SysOps in the community). Consider what you're doing here before you do it. I tend to post on Facebook BBS groups and also on FidoNet since my main BBS is a Fido node. When that happens, you get a few people who like to "try" it out. Sometimes, they go no further than the login screen... Cool... An Atari MegaSTE picked up a telnet connection and showed me a screen. One guy actually did that... He telnetted in, took a screenshot of the login/new screen and posted it to prove to another guy that it actually worked. He never logged in... never created an account. I see a lot of people who create an account, hit ? for the menu a few times... maybe hit quickscan (where it mentions something like 12,000 messages) and log off... and never call back. Or like Bill pointed out.... They see it asks for your Birthday (which I can't really fix since I have no RatSoft source code) and drop carrier, even though I mention that it's ok to lie. (You have to enter in a valid date, because it checks for that... but it doesn't have to be your REAL birthdate! How would it know?) In fact, the past few weeks, I've had a few new users since I posted on Facebook about the BBS website having a web-telnet client built in so now all you have to know how to do is go to a website to experience and old school BBS. One actually called back twice.... I was shocked. I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer... I hope beyond all hope that all of you become productive users (by productive, I don't even care if you post messages... PLAY THE GAMES! I spent a ton of time getting some of them to work right... I don't care if you tie up my BBS for two hours just playing games!) It's just that what I've seen, not just on mine, but on many others... people call.. once or twice... maybe get discouraged because there is a ton of history to go through (no, most BBS's have a way to get around that if you check or ask) and maybe never call back. So ... the TLDR; version... Get SyncTerm... Try BBS's that have a web page or web client. Do that first before you go out and buy hardware to get your old retro rig able to call BBS's. I'm not saying DON'T use the retro rig. I'm just saying that before you do that... before you spend money... check in on the BBS scene first. You may find that it isn't as active as you'd hope it to be. The stark reality is that especially with Atari BBS's activity is few and far between. I call Particles!, which is a Commodore BBS. Sometimes you can get 50 messages a day or more... that's an anomaly. I was going through an activity spurt earlier in the year.... It still wasn't more than a few dozen messages. Now if everyone following this were to call the Atari BBS's just ONCE a week, and just posted ONE message (or replied to one, even if it was a necro bump), it would literally put a shot in the arm of some seriously needed vitality into the community. But before you go to the trouble of ordering hardware and all that... Just use SyncTerm on your PC. (http://syncterm.bbsdev.net/) Like I said earlier, the ATASCII is amazing if you like A8's, and ST BBS's are just as good in ANSI, which it handles amazingly too. Try it first, and if you still want to go "old school" knowing full well what you're getting into, then bless you all. For the telnetters....... Here is a good list. http://www.vintagecomputerbbslist.com/ (Consider trying Particles! and the Apple II BBS's... they've been good to this Atari SysOp).

<sarcasm> Funny you say that... because in my experience millennials are totally taking over the BBS scene.... </sarcasm>

And a note on the personal information. Some BBS's were just written that way... Like my RatSoft ST BBS... I can't really control what it asks you for as a new user. I can change the prompt to tell you that I don't care if you lie, for example. I can display a text file before you apply (that most people won't read) explaining that I don't care if you post incorrect info... but still, people drop carrier... usually at the birthday prompt (which caused so many issues since there was a Y2K bug that took me awhile to "fix the fix"). I can't stop RatSoft from asking for your phone number, but I can tell you in the prompt to just put 000-000-0000 in there. For my Carina BBS, I was able to change the "address" question to "email address" since that's in Basic. (I'm letting you have access to my computer resources free of charge, if you can't even give me an email address so I can reach you if there is a problem, I don't want you as a user). I think I disabled the phone number field too (if I didn't, I will soon.... I'm never going to call any of you guys). I think for the most part, SysOps don't care or check... the software was written to ask (Because back then, we gave that info out without caring... and why not, much of it is public records information or it was in the phone book) but today, with identity theft being an issue, I don't think any of them would really care (or know) if you lied. They'll just be shocked at how many users have (800) 867-5309 as their phone number. As to the 80 column issue... Like I said earlier.... Try ICE-T.

Actually, ICE-T will do 80 col (and ANSI) without an XEP80. Can't say for 100% certain it will work with an XM301, but it works with Lantronix (through an MIO for suer) and solutions like APE.

If there happen to be two....... Jus' askin...... I'm actually seriously thinking of grabbing one. I have a second MSS100 and the more I think of it, I really don't want to have all my machines relying on TCPSer with my PC. I can use the 8 serial ports for other things (like APE and the modem access for my BBS's).

You could also call right now using SyncTerm on the PC. Works great (I use it to call my own BBSs since often times it is quicker than firing up the retro machines). SyncTerm does a great job of handling ATASCII, and for calling ST BBS's, since it doesn't support VT-52, you can use ANSI (which on my BBS, the ANSI is way better than the VT-52 anyway and on DarkForce it works fairly well). Mine even has a web client right off the webpage, so you don't even have to worry about setting up something like SyncTerm on the PC... (and once I get it's ATASCII working, then I might even set it up so the other Atari BBS's can be reached through it if they want).

Yeah, I've been pondering myself how to handle that as the number of machines I actually am setting up is growing. If I remember, there was a 4 port MSS variant, right? But i also bought an 8 port serial card so I could run multiple TCPSer (or multiple SIO2PC and even plan to put on a real modem or two). The TCPSer/BBS Server didn't work for SFHQ BBS (didn't try it for the Carina 8-bit one) and that way I can put a gateway in so my BBSs have the ability to be reached by modem. But I digress....

Since that's pretty much the same thing I said earlier, I have a vested interest in not finding anything wrong with your suggestion

Yes. This is what I had recommended earlier (but probably worded it poorly). What I'd recommend is that you leave the null modem adapter and the gender changer on the MSS-100 at all times.... then you can just use whatever modem cable for whatever computer you want to use it with... In fact, you probably could even use an RS232 switch if you want to get really slick about it..... https://www.amazon.com/C2G-Cables-4-Port-Manual-Switch/dp/B0000512C5

Just out of curiosity, what's that blue Lantronix box in the top right?

These are amazing for quickly wiring your own cables. I used them when I wanted to make the cable for the Commodore BBS server and TCPser when I got drunk one night and almost considered switching my BBS off the Lantronix. All in all it didn't end up working out, but it had nothing to do with the cable. I wired a cable up in less time than it took me to actually type this message. I got a store about 45 minutes away where I can get them any time I need one.

It's not a dumb thought. In fact, we've been talking about this on Particles! BBS. Not MIDIMaze specifically, but old modem capable games in general. Wrote a starship combat game for the ST back shortly after the earth cooled that I found again... Was modem/midi/null capable at the time. Was planning on testing it soon with the Lantronix though there really isn't any reason why it wouldn't work.

Or.... (and this isn't necessarily directed at you personally) perhaps people could try calling the ones that are out there? It almost seems to me that we have more SysOps in the "Atari BBS Community" than we have callers. And that's based on my observations calling around to the Atari boards. I try to hit them daily or every few days max now and still far too often it will say "Last Caller - TIllek". Breaks my heart.

Any good with helping to diagnose dead Falcons fellow Ohioan?

No big deal. I only know because I went from a uds1100 to mss100 and initially made the same assumption. I only called it out so the guy didn't go off and buy the wrong cable.

Just for the record, I'd love to have the IP address either logged, or delivered with the connection string perhaps (or even better, the same way the caller id was transmitted for modems that did that). RatSoft has no way of intercepting the data from the "RING" where the IP currently appears. "RING 192.168.1.1" as the case may be. And like Kyle said, a "doesn't connect" when the system isn't responding is ok... Like him, I need a way to let users know "hey, it's just busy, really, everything is totally cool so call back in a minute" rather than "hey, could be busy.... could be down.... figure it out yourself" as they wander off and never come back. I remember a few months ago, after activity started to pick up on my BBS (actually a bunch of new callers lately... just wish they'd post or play games or something. ). I got home from work and like I normally do, I sat down to call the BBS and check the messages (even if no users post, I still read my Fido areas)... I get the "can't connect".... start swearing under my breath about the thing crashing... turn on the monitor.... and someone is actually online!

No. Fujidude is not correct. Well, to be fair, he's correct in what he's describing... but the MSS-100 has a DTE port. I use an MSS-100 on my BBS machine. I use a standard serial cable with a Radioshack null modem adapter on the computer end and a gender changer on the Lantronix end because unlike the UDS-10 which has a female 25 pin connector, the MSS-100 has a 25 pin MALE connector (as you'd expect with a DTE port). UDS-10 - MSS-100 - This guide from Lantronix explains it well (and includes wiring diagrams). http://ltxfaq.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/25/~/rs232-serial-cable-wiring For any other computer, you'd use the same setup (except perhaps with an adapter depending on whether it's a 9 or 25 pin). In the case of the 850, they do have null cables (They call them terminal cables) http://www.ebay.com/itm/CX-88-Atari-850-Terminal-Null-Modem-Cable-New-800-XL-XE-/140954304558?hash=item20d188002e:m:mXmgO1W1DVGfPh3Yk-V7qNQ But here is what I'd suggest. Find a 25 pin null modem adapter (hopefully with gender changer) and put that on the MSS-100 so that what you have is a null modem adapter (and/or gender changer) which ends up with a female DB-25 facing the world and never take that off. Then use a "regular modem" cable for whatever machine you are currently using it on (since most modems were DB25 female connectors, finding that cable should be easy enough).... That should be good to go.

I've seen Particles BBS get usually 10-50 new local messages a day... They're a Commodore 8-bit BBS running on a real C128D. I call daily so I don't get overwhelmed. Last time I skipped a couple weeks I came back to over 500 messages.

It's a null modem cable you need. (I actually use one of these for my BBS, and I rely on the DNS resolution since I'm in FidoNet and can't convert the whole nodelist to IP addresses). The only thing you have to be careful about.... not all null modem cables wire up the hardware handshaking lines. While you'd still be able to use it, hardware handshaking probably won't work... (Then again, not sure if the 850 even supports that or if it matters at 9600 and below).

Not sure how I missed this earlier... but thanks... Always great to get some Atari BBS history.... (Then again, it's bittersweet..... makes me miss it more).

For some, the war will never be truly behind us...

Actually I just wanted clarification because based on what you said, very bluntly, it can't be done. However I never heard of such a limitation on external devices. I wasn't trying to stump anyone. Believe it or not, as someone with a mega STE who has something bigger that 1 gb attached without modding it, I thought I might have been able to help if I understood exactly what you were trying to do. Indiana based. Added to the TT group because of their repair reputation... https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1332823243441261&set=gm.389262254775315&type=3&theater