Atari 8-bit related BBS(s)

[oo7]

7 hours ago, Tillek said:

Unfortunately, a lot of the "back in the day" SysOps in this area are no longer with us.   There weren't that many Atari ones, and the only ones I know the fate of are no more.

 

I was a sysop in the area i speak of and am still alive lol. Mind you i was always referred to as the young blood. Maybe its why i dont see any of my favourite ppl. Im now 44. 
 

There are some i badly want to say hi to but i also think that some of them may have passed. Someone i considered a friend whocares i lost contact with, sweet marie from the echo ide love to speak to again the warden would be nice and the oasis board i started on and many more.

 

I do remember some ppl though being like 30 and 40 when i was like maybe 16 17 so i guess they could be gone. Kinda sad. Ok gonna shut up now lol. Man the atari bug has bit me hard.

 

I remember going to a TAF meeting and ppl were like who is this kid the first few lmao. The only other person my age was a friend i converted from c64 to atari that i would drag with me.

[tschak909]

#Fuji-FoReM-26M has two more conferences added for #FujiNet users!

 

 

 

-Thom

[+DarkLord]

I get the age thing. I'm 59 now and while I've been relatively healthy,

I just finished my 2nd total hip replacement Tuesday. Until my hips

started acting up (avascular necrosis, both), I hadn't missed a day of

work since 1991. Blessed. Of all the things to go wrong (cardiac being

the obvious one, of course), this really blindsided me.

 

I'm hoping this will do for a while. The Left hip has recovered great so

if the Right one goes the same way, I'd like to think I'll be dancing around

Atari keyboards for a bit longer.

 

I'm going for that "long in the tooth' Kris Kristofferson look from Blade

(Whistler)....   
 

[JohnPolka]

19 hours ago, oo7 said:

 

I do remember some ppl though being like 30 and 40 when i was like maybe 16 17 so i guess they could be gone. Kinda sad. Ok gonna shut up now lol. Man the atari bug has bit me hard.

 

 

 

Cool!  Maybe we will see you on some of the existing Atari BBSs soon.  There are many ways to connect to BBSs today. This includes retro computer solutions, emulator solutions, and term programs that run on modern computers. Let us know how we can help.

 

-JP

 

[oo7]

1 hour ago, JohnPolka said:

 

Cool!  Maybe we will see you on some of the existing Atari BBSs soon.  There are many ways to connect to BBSs today. This includes retro computer solutions, emulator solutions, and term programs that run on modern computers. Let us know how we can help.

 

-JP

 

Thank you. As soon as I can squeeze some time Im gonna try and figure out how to do it in Altirra. I could use an ATASCII recharge!

[oo7]

First attempt lol

 

 

 

Will try more later

[oo7]

yes!!!!!

 

'

 

 

BBS days are back!!!!!

 

[oo7]

nice, didnt sign up yet, gotta run for now. Will sign up to a few boards and test later. Just wanted to see if I can figure it out!

 

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by oo7

[JohnPolka]

2 hours ago, oo7 said:

nice, didnt sign up yet, gotta run for now. Will sign up to a few boards and test later. Just wanted to see if I can figure it out!

 

No problem....you'll be able to do a lot more when you get an account. Also, just an FYI: up to 9600 baud is supported (in case you find 1200 too slow). 

 

-JP
 

Edited March 19, 2021 by JohnPolka

[oo7]

2 minutes ago, JohnPolka said:

No problem....you'll be able to do a lot more when you get an account. Also, just an FYI: up to 9600 baud is supported (in case you find 1200 too slow). 

 

-JP
 

Oh Im sure, I just knew Ide be interrupted wanna signup and use properly later. Also thanks for the tip om the baud rate had planned to look at that after as well. Had not seen 1200bps since my sx212 which lasted weeks only back then as I quickly got speed hungry lol.

 

Was nice to see bobterm and some atascii again.

 

[JohnPolka]

2 hours ago, oo7 said:

Oh Im sure, I just knew Ide be interrupted wanna signup and use properly later. Also thanks for the tip om the baud rate had planned to look at that after as well. Had not seen 1200bps since my sx212 which lasted weeks only back then as I quickly got speed hungry lol.

 

Was nice to see bobterm and some atascii again.

 

 

Looks like you did create a regular account on The Basement after all. You now have full access. Let me know if I need to PM you your login info again.

 

-JP
 

[Dopeyman06]

7 hours ago, oo7 said:

First attempt lol

 

 

 

Will try more later

 

Interesting... With Atari800MacX I gotta enter ATDI with BobTerm 1.23. I tried just the ATD but it wouldn't "dial out"..

 

[+Tillek]

1 hour ago, Dopeyman06 said:

 

Interesting... With Atari800MacX I gotta enter ATDI with BobTerm 1.23. I tried just the ATD but it wouldn't "dial out"..

 

What you have to enter depends more on the device than the term.

 

In the case of emulators, the emulator is the “device”.

 

[oo7]

5 hours ago, JohnPolka said:

 

Looks like you did create a regular account on The Basement after all. You now have full access. Let me know if I need to PM you your login info again.

 

-JP
 

Yup, open the account did some peeking will be on again soon. Thanks!

[oo7]

3 hours ago, Dopeyman06 said:

 

Interesting... With Atari800MacX I gotta enter ATDI with BobTerm 1.23. I tried just the ATD but it wouldn't "dial out"..

 

Yeah that was me a few min in without reading anything. I need to ATDI as well.

 

Going off memory from the early 90s and adapting to emulating all lol.

 

That first attempt ended there lol

[+bf2k+]

Why do MOST of the BBS programs not run under SpartaDOS X? What are the reasons?

 

Are there any that do?

 

With all of the BBS source code available out there, maybe we sysops should work on this...

[tschak909]

I am running FoReM-26M under SpartaDOS X. Had to, because my file section is huge.

 

-Thom

[+bhall408]

11 minutes ago, bf2k+ said:

Why do MOST of the BBS programs not run under SpartaDOS X? What are the reasons?

 

Are there any that do?

I'd written one back in the 80s with a friend. It was called Plexus, and was specifically developed to use SpartaDOS. It ran best on an expanded XL or XE where the extra memory was used for a ramdisk, and Plexus had search path options to look there first for most files (downloads, welcome messages, etc), and then fall back to floppies or HD for message threads, email and other items you didn't want lost in a power failure.

 

There were a dozen or so systems that ran it in the mid-80s, mostly in the midwest (Ann Arbor/Detroit/Chicago area).

 

It was a command-line/text style BBS - rather than a menu system, you gave text commands like "read all new" or "download file.atr xmodem1K".

 

The friend and I reconnected, we found some old floppy disks with source and we're currently working to get it to compile using modern tools.

 

It was originally written using Deep Blue C (John Palevich), then ACE C on Atari for most of the code, with some parts done with Atari Macro Assembler.

 

It is currently being updated to compile now with ca65 and cc65. We'll be designing it to run either under emulation or actual hardware (with FujiNET).

 

A concern we have is how efficient cc65 will be vs ACE C -- it took all of memory from $2000 up... We'll know soon enough

 

I'll start up a WIP thread when there are some tangible items to post.

[oo7]

23 minutes ago, tschak909 said:

I am running FoReM-26M under SpartaDOS X. Had to, because my file section is huge.

 

-Thom

Huge file section? Like atari stuff? Not being funny honest question. Do alot of users access the files via the bbs these days?

 

 

 

Im really curious being VERY VERY VERY new to looking at this scene again.

[tschak909]

5 minutes ago, oo7 said:

Huge file section? Like atari stuff? Not being funny honest question. Do alot of users access the files via the bbs these days?

 

 

 

Im really curious being VERY VERY VERY new to looking at this scene again.

yes. It's just there because. Roughly a few hundred files at the moment.

-Thom

[+bf2k+]

8 minutes ago, bhall408 said:

I'd written one back in the 80s with a friend. It was called Plexus, and was specifically developed to use SpartaDOS. It ran best on an expanded XL or XE where the extra memory was used for a ramdisk, and Plexus had search path options to look there first for most files (downloads, welcome messages, etc), and then fall back to floppies or HD for message threads, email and other items you didn't want lost in a power failure.

...

 

SpartaDOS...  But not SpartaDOS X... or was it?

[+bf2k+]

30 minutes ago, tschak909 said:

I am running FoReM-26M under SpartaDOS X. Had to, because my file section is huge.

 

-Thom

So you did it for the 512 bytes sectors?  That is also the reason for my interest.

 

So what are some of the challenges?

 

[+bhall408]

1 minute ago, bf2k+ said:

SpartaDOS...  But not SpartaDOS X... or was it?

At the time, Plexus 3.1 from 1988, the requirement was for SpartaDOS 3.2 or later. I presume SpartaDOS X came much later.

 

For anything done NOW, it would be SpartaDOS X.

 

[tschak909]

Just now, bf2k+ said:

So you did it for the 512 bytes sectors?  That is also the reason for my interest.

 

So what are some of the challenges?

 

no, 256 byte sectors, but 512 byte sectors would be fine.

Basically, for 26M, it just worked. I made changes to the code get the RTC from the OS. 

[tschak909]

Also (at the risk of starting a I DON'T WANNA CHANGE! fight) why in the hell are you guys not writing for the N: device?! R: is a dead end.

 

N: for example, has NONE of the problems of concurrent mode.

 

-Thom