Lastic

Thanks Darklord for being my only and regular visitor on my BBS LOL. Here is a blog post on the HeinzNixdorfMuseum site about the event. https://www-hnf-de.translate.goog/das-hnf/presse/pressemitteilungen/ansicht/artikel/2700-besucher-beim-retro-computer-festival.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp You can find some live video from the 2 days of the RetroComputerFestival here Saturday Sunday with a short appearance of yours truly at 00:30 , looking for a demo to load on AVG cart to compete with the filmer's C64 SID tunes (shown first in the lasercut case) On Sunday I was gone for 2 hours visiting the museum upstairs hence you will not see me anymore apparantly in the later part of the video. The 800XL in the thumbnail actually didn't work on Saturday. His modded Commodore monitor would show a garbled screen. He tried it at the ABBUC stand with another monitor and it worked. I gave him another video adapter , still didn't work, until I got an AHA moment and swapped his Atari brick PSU with my modern PSU , it then finally worked.

Yes indeed I just downloaded it myself and weird, the original on my PC does extract correctly so here is a new upload of it. HNF.zip

Since all my photos are almost 600Mb in total, please find attached all the pictures I took at the RetroComputerFestical last weekend in the Heinz Nixdorf Museum in Paderborn. The report I will write on my BBS with another video there to download. The attachments consist of EXHIBITIONS.ZIP The more interesting things that were exhibitioned by the people attending the RCF HNF.ZIP Are the pictures I took from the 2 floors of the Museum on my very 2 hour short tour there. The Museum itself is really worth a longer visit. RCF.ZIP These are some pictures of the venue itself and the ABBUC members who attended it and where there at the ABBUC stand. Exhibitions.zip HNF.zip RCF.zip

Still in Paderborn, Germany , leaving in 2 hours on my trip back to Belgium. My initial idea was to upload all pictures to my BBS but I think I will just create a report there in the Message Thread and create a forum post here with all the pictures. Too much pictures which need context. I had the Rob O'Hara book laying on my table at the RetroComputer Festival in Paderborn . (I read it on the trains towards Paderborn) https://www.robohara.com/Commodork/chapter.htm It's basically his whole experiences with BBSes and Wares from a C64 point of view but still very relatable to anybody heavily involved with BBSing in his younger years. Some people approached me about the book and shared their youth experiences with BBSing so I showed them Syncterm and Fujinet (I had an 800XE with me) and my BBS and I might have sparked a few people to check out Telnet BBSes again. Initially missed the deadline for the reservation for GEMTOS 2024 in France, I did get a reservation thanks to the organizer so first weekend of May I hope to spread the word around Telnet BBSes in France.

Since I do not know if everybody is an ABBUC member of the Sysop community, I extracted the BBS Articles of ABBUC Magazine 156 into a PDF so you can have a look ( the entire magazine is member only basically). Keep in mind this was created in January and released in March on the first part is a lookback at BBS experiences from a German perspective, second part delves into Fujinet and telnet BBSing to 8 bit BBSes. ABBUC_Magazine_156_BBS_Articles_English.pdf

So a bit late to the party as usual , the whole idea I had presented on the last Zoom chat , has already been done. ABBUC Magazine 156 has 2 articles , one more catered around BBS history in Germany and it's current state, one about using a Fujinet as a modem and here there is a focus on some of the 8bit Atari BBSes. But since I will be in Paderborn with some of the ABBUC staff and members, I will see if I can't do a follow-up geared towards running a BBS on the 16bit machines and using Fujinet on an 8bit machine to also connect to a 16bit BBS.

I will have a look further to adapt it to my needs. Only thing that strikes me is that only the first description out of the 5 description fields (which are 50 chars each if I'm correct) are shown . I looked at your Python code is does seem that you are cycling through them ? dwn_desc = [] for idx in range(0, 5): dwn_desc.append(from_cstring(record[10 + idx])) pass item = Download( name=dwn_name, uploader=dwn_logname, uploaded=dwn_date, size=dwn_size, count=dwn_count, desc=dwn_desc, ) I go at least once a year to Germany for Fujiama, the annual ABBUC meeting since 2019 (well except 2020-2021 for know reasons). The sheer amount of Atari meetings in Germany is mind-blowing.

Todays updates Registered users now get 2 hours a day instead of the default 1 hour. Added Atari ST BBSes to the logoff sequence ( will add a seperate entry to the main menu later to add ALL Atari BBSes but haven't worked out how I want to implement this) Added all releases from the PsychoHack 2024 demo-event Added some more message topics as a base and a getting-a-feeling of what is the best way to approach this Changed the Newsbulletin to reflect current uploads Updated the static events list @DarkLord you have found another bug in my Graffiti Wall 🤣 thank you for your perseverance , I love it . I will need to cleanup this stuff , but for now I hang up my Sysop hat and focus on preparing for my trip to Germany this weekend. Otherwise I will keep tinkering and tinkering and by the time I leave this Friday I might have broken the BBS again .

@Techman you Sir are a machine , how do you churn out code like that so quickly. Once again I tip of my hat to you. I will definetly look into those, but currently all attention is going to preparing myself for the trip to Germany this Friday . Retro Computer Festival at the Heinz-Nixdorf Museum in Paderborn .

Thanks for looking into this, I've sent it via PM.

Sometimes there isn't a simple solution to everything. I want to generate a list of the most downloaded files to present it as an menu option. BUT DOWNLOAD.BBS which contains the number of downloads for each file is a binary file so there are no functions/procedures in MCL who can read a binary file. Since the upload and downloads are a procedure call of which I cannot capture any output I had to think out of the box. So I have a telnet script on my NanoPi that has an Assistant Sysop acount download the ACTIVITY.BBS logfile. This file is a text file and contains for example the completed downloads. grep -e "GOOD DOWNLOAD.*ZIP" ACTIVITY_20240408-170205.BBS GOOD DOWNLOAD User: Sysop F:\SLUGS.ZIP GOOD DOWNLOAD User: Darklord F:\TCDEMO.ZIP GOOD DOWNLOAD User: Darklord F:\TCDEMO.ZIP GOOD DOWNLOAD User: Djaybee G:\MBIDL.ZIP GOOD DOWNLOAD User: Djaybee G:\MBIDL.ZIP GOOD DOWNLOAD User: Djaybee G:\MBIDL.ZIP GOOD DOWNLOAD User: Djaybee D:\GOING.ZIP GOOD DOWNLOAD User: Lastic D:\GOING.ZIP GOOD DOWNLOAD User: Lastic D:\GOING.ZIP GOOD DOWNLOAD User: Darklord F:\TCDEMO.ZIP So using the magic of Linux I can create this grep -e "GOOD DOWNLOAD.*ZIP" ACTIVITY_20240408-170205.BBS | awk '{print $5}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr 3 G:\MBIDL.ZIP 3 F:\TCDEMO.ZIP 3 D:\GOING.ZIP 1 F:\SLUGS.ZIP redirect this output to a file TOP10.TXT for example and then some ugly magic , cough (might revert to Python or a Bash script for this for a cleaner solution) cat TOP10.TXT | sed 's/\\/\t\t/' | sed "s/"D:"/"\\tSig\\t2\\tDemoscene"/" | sed "s/"G:"/"\\tSig\\t7\\tGames-Homebrews"/" | sed "s/"F:"/"\\tSig\\t6\\tMusic_2024"/" 3 Sig 7 Games-Homebrews MBIDL.ZIP 3 Sig 6 Music_2024 TCDEMO.ZIP 3 Sig 2 Demoscene GOING.ZIP 1 Sig 6 Music_2024 SLUGS.ZIP (also MBIDL.ZIP is aligned in my Terminal you code preview thing) use a different telnet script to have the Assistant Sysop user upload that file to the BBS and use the list function to display a header and then this textfile. Or is there an easier solution @Techman ( sorry for question number two on the same day ) to extract file info from DOWNLOAD.BBS from within MCL ?

On that same note, I just read in the manual that LASTCALL.BBS keeps track of the last 100 callers ? So how does the BBS know that there have been 346 calls ?

Still trying to trim the LASTCALL.BBS in a hex editor. I can tell that before the logname there are 4 bytes XX YY 00 00 , XX YY seem to differ for each call entry but trimming the file down and using it , there are no records anymore of last callers. What exactly are these 4 bytes ? lst_spare refers to a user number ( I've got 9 users currently) and is nt an integer ? In attachment my LASTCALL.BBS, I want to trim out all my Lastic,Maintenanceuser,Tester,Visitor,Guest,Sysop call loggings. My MAIN.MCL already has the option since 2 weeks if a Sysop calls that there will be no call logging but these current entries in the LASTCALL.BBS all stem from 2 months of testing . On the BBS it will show me that I have 346 entries but if I simply count the number of date entries in the LASTCALL.BBS there are only 72 entries ? LASTCALL.BBS

Must drink more coffee

An interesting chat once again and the sheer energy has given me a lot of inspiration. BUSY and MAINTENANCE messages are first thing I need to implement, got some good ideas now from the Chat on how to accomplish it Urgently cleanup the LASTCALLERS file and remove all my test calls Upload all releases from PsychoHack 2024 Currently all user registrating are validated immediately, not sure if I will keep it this way but I also need to find a way to track when NewUsers have logged on and many more ideas that are stirring up in my mind

Tried it myself , dates of the ZIP files are ok on my end ?

Looks like I still have some work to do. A file I uploaded today to the BBS has the correct date on the MegaSTe and Michtron as far as I can tell. However if the ZIP file is downloaded it has a date of 10-Jan-2043. (so Michtron is VERY Y2K able build for the future 😁 ) The contents of the ZIP file are correct , my BBS ad from 02-Mar-2024 and the actual files of the ZIP are dated on the 5th of April 2024 like they should be. Ymodem transfer speed of a 199 Kb file, 5min46 seconds at 586 cps. Xmodem (not 1K block sizes) around 1800 cps .

So I asked a fellow German ABBUC member to try the Downloads and also to get an first impression of the BBS by a non-Sysop user. I never know whether a user would actually like the way I have set it up. His Xmodem transfers (not 1K) were 1800 cps and his Ymodem transfer was around 560 cps (both with Syncterm) so that looks to be the same results that I am getting .

@Techman in my never-ending quest in hacking around in Michtron. The LASTCALL.BBS file, I can tell it stores a date and timestamp and off course the username but do you happen to have the record-layout ? I did a dirty cleanup off all my testing entries and first try the file was corrupted so I guess there are certain boundaries to each record in that file. I restored the backup I took so for the moment all OK .

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

The only thing I can derive is 128 bytes block sizes are getting the 1400 cps speeds. 1K block sizes are stuck between 512-580 cps speeds

Good morning, just missed you , I heard the DVD drive spinning up.

Internet is back, so @DarkLord @Tillek @Bikerbob the BBS is available for testing again. Ymodem downloads seem to hover around 580 cps, Xmodem downloads around 1400 cps.

Well looking on the bright-side of no Internet, some things have panned out The BBS has been completed. It is running succesfully at 19200 baud vs the stock 9600 baud limit in Michtron 3.0 HSMODEM and WimodemPRO have been canned until further notice Script to scrape for new users has been made and tested. I even went ahead and made a little BBS Promo intro.PRG thingie (very basic).

Final final hurdles well more of nice to have since I'm bored 😂 I created a Python telnet script that now gets the ACTIVITY.BBS file from the BBS and scrapes it for "New user". Currently I haven't enhanced it since ... no Internet ... so it is just printing it on the screen. The Python scripts resides on the NanoPi who also monitors my public IP . I have a user who only has a certain userflag. If he logs on , he gets dropped into sysopshell , skipping all the menus, and performs a list of the ACTIVITY.BBS logfile which is just plain ASCII logging all major actions happening in Michtron. That file is then scraped for New user log entries . (NOTE ALL these entries are tests from myself ) New user (just looking) Uninterested New user (just looking) Passingby New user (just looking) Random New user registered: Tester