Atari 8-bit related BBS(s)

[tschak909]

5 minutes ago, Stephen said:

That's cool!  Any chance the files still exist?

No, unfortunately.

-Thom

 

[JohnPolka]

Wow! Last time I checked this site, I did not find my BBS nor my step dad's BBS (Part-Time) listed. But looks like they are listed (see attachments below). Of course, the software "Expressnet" should be "BBS Express Pro!" and the years ative are wrong. It says 1994. Part-Time was originally up from 1985 - 2000. The Basement was originally up from 1986 - 1998.  Of course, both were resurrected in 2017.

 

And yes, I went through a phase where I called my BBS "The Basement UnderWorld". hahahahahaha.

 

-JP

Edited March 26, 2021 by JohnPolka

[+bf2k+]

Here's mine... the beginning date should read 1984 not 87...

 

[JohnPolka]

Looks like you can submit a correction to a BBS listing by clicking on the "SUBMIT CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS! (Via Google Form)" link on the following web page:

http://bbslist.textfiles.com/

I just submitted corrections for the Basement and Part-Time. 

 

-JP
 

[Dopeyman06]

3 hours ago, Tillek said:

I always wondered what happened to Angel at Stairway to Heaven... (Loved playing Robowar there... that was a big reason why I went with Carina and why I just can't get it put back up unless I can get it running with Robowar/Zenobia again).

 

Alas, nothing is playing nice.

 

If The Legend was Mark Daniels, I remember that one.  Rubber City of course... but most of those I never called (or only called rarely).

What's wrong with Robowar 2 and Zenobia?  Is it the same issue I'm having where as trying to quit the game won't return back to the BBS?

 

[+Tillek]

The short version is that the Veteran Adventurer's Guild had a hard drive failure.  Since then, I have been unable to get things back up again where I have a non-sio drive solution that works with Basic XE AND the BBS still loads and runs.

 

I've been close, but something always falls short.

 

Even replacing with another MFM drive didn't seem to do the trick since my efforts trying to get things up again seems to have caused them to give up the ghost.

 

Alas.

[+Tillek]

But it was all working just great when I had the HD finally die on me.

 

[Dopeyman06]

7 hours ago, Tillek said:

But it was all working just great when I had the HD finally die on me.

 

I've been playing around with Carina 2 using only the WAITCALL from "BBS on a stick" and the rest is stock with Atari800MacX and everything works. But whenever I go into any online game, it doesn't want to quit and return the BBS. It'll re-load the game. That's the only issue that I'm having with the BBS.

[+Tillek]

I know I've had issues when trying to get mine working in emulation, but since I only did that so I could experiment with things before moving it off to the real hardware, I never did anything with that (it wouldn't make any sense if I had to make big changes only to undo them when I pushed whatever I was working on out to the real hardware.

 

 

[+DarkLord]

Interesting. They do have DarkForce listed, from '92 through '99.

 

[+Tillek]

[+bf2k+]

On 3/27/2021 at 2:49 AM, Dopeyman06 said:

I've been playing around with Carina 2 using only the WAITCALL from "BBS on a stick" and the rest is stock with Atari800MacX and everything works. But whenever I go into any online game, it doesn't want to quit and return the BBS. It'll re-load the game. That's the only issue that I'm having with the BBS.

Where can I find this online game that is causing the problem?  I'd like to play with it to see if I can figure it out.

[+bf2k+]

20 hours ago, Tillek said:

I know I've had issues when trying to get mine working in emulation, but since I only did that so I could experiment with things before moving it off to the real hardware, I never did anything with that (it wouldn't make any sense if I had to make big changes only to undo them when I pushed whatever I was working on out to the real hardware.

 

 

The 'BBS on a Stick' WAITCALL only has one minor change from the original in order to facilitate detecting an incoming caller.  But I would like to see what's causing these games not to work...

[tschak909]

I have been trying to get anyone to try getting Carina 2.7 running on #FujiNet.

 

-Thom

[+Tillek]

4 hours ago, bf2k+ said:

The 'BBS on a Stick' WAITCALL only has one minor change from the original in order to facilitate detecting an incoming caller.  But I would like to see what's causing these games not to work...

So the status of TVAG as of now.... 

 

I was able to get everything working.  I had a HDD using an SD AztecMonster and ended up using the PR connection instead of the MIO since it looks like the newer rom on the Rasterline doesn't really let you set all the options that the old one did.  Had some issues with handshaking (and no way to turn it off, blah blah blah).  The problem was the whole thing was horribly unstable.  It would hang with the MIO's HD access light solid, or throw a 135 error... or even some strange things like throwing a Basic Error 12 and tossing the caller right into basic (and then an easy route to DOS and some serious carnage soon to follow.

 

But at this point it was close enough to taste it, so I went ahead and went back to the MyIDE][ for now and the PRC (which seems to run really solid).  I tried throwing the MSS-100 into the mix so I could get Raw & Telnet... for some reason, raw works ok on the UDS-10 except for the title screen which is pretty much hearts every other character (even with the new SyncTerm).

 

So I took Zenobia offline temporarily.  I'm going to see if the SIDE2 I just ordered (SIDE 3's were out of stock at TBA) will work fine with the setup I need (the MyIDE][ options wouldn't work for me in one fashion or another with Basic XE).

 

So, we're up for now.  Seems to be stable.  Robowar seems to work fine.  I'm still going to work to get Zenobia up and running somehow, but we'll see.  There are still lots of options to explore it would seem.

 

Just hoping I don't have to spend tons in hardware before I find the right combination.

[_The Doctor__]

Raw mode won't induce hearts like that, telnet modes will, you have to make sure that both the caller and the sender are raw.

 

If hearts still appear then you have some soft issue that is adding nulls with certain characters like ctrl-M or ctrl-N etc causing the telnet protocol to issue it's embedded two part response (telnet padding)... it's a problem in the telnet protocol that only gets ditched when telnet is switched to binary mode, or raw and you turn the option off.

This is a mis-config of either the UDS, or the software being used, telnet mode must be turned off, binary mode selected, or raw mode selected

 

Specifically this added null is referred to as telnet padding... turn that option off for buggy telnet implementations.... or raw modes that aren't truly raw...

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by _The Doctor__

[JohnPolka]

15 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

Raw mode won't induce hearts like that, telnet modes will, you have to make sure that both the caller and the sender are raw.

 

If hearts still appear then you have some soft issue that is adding nulls with certain characters like ctrl-M or ctrl-N etc causing the telnet protocol to issue it's embedded two part response (telnet padding)... it's a problem in the telnet protocol that only gets ditched when telnet is switched to binary mode, or raw and you turn the option off.

This is a mis-config of either the UDS, or the software being used, telnet mode must be turned off, binary mode selected, or raw mode selected

 

Specifically this added null is referred to as telnet padding... turn that option off for buggy telnet implementations.... or raw modes that aren't truly raw...

 

 

This is true. As for it being a software problem... You will see hearts in raw mode with Syncterm Version 1.1 due to a bug. I confirmed that the bug is fixed in version 1.2a.

 

-JP

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by JohnPolka

[JohnPolka]

The latest episode of the InverseAtascii podcast is on Atari BBSing! Check it out:

https://inverseatascii.info/2021/04/01/s6e641-bbs-social-supplement/

 

Also, be sure to scroll down for some nice screen shots and links.
 

Thanks to Ripdubski for a job well done!

 

-JP

Edited April 1, 2021 by JohnPolka

[+Tillek]

Looks at watch........... wonders why it took you this long to post it here.

 

[+Ripdubski]

On 4/1/2021 at 11:45 AM, JohnPolka said:

The latest episode of the InverseAtascii podcast is on Atari BBSing! Check it out:

https://inverseatascii.info/2021/04/01/s6e641-bbs-social-supplement/

 

Also, be sure to scroll down for some nice screen shots and links.
 

Thanks to Ripdubski for a job well done!

 

-JP

Thanks!

[+doctorclu]

Just a few updates ...

 

 

905-895-5904  Backyard BBS  - 2 in 11 tries got to the welcome but not the log in.   So, basically normal. 

503 245 5416 - Basement BBS is not answering.

 

 

[+DarkLord]

Not been able to get through to either one in

quite some time here....

 

[+doctorclu]

8 hours ago, DarkLord said:

Not been able to get through to either one in

quite some time here....

 

 

Crying shame.  Hey John (Polka) , I see the Telnet is working fine:

basementbbs.ddns.net port 9000

 

Will the dial-up be back in the near future?

 

Now to see if I can reach the Backyard BBS sysop.   I really liked that place to, but then Basement and Backyard BBS were the biggest reasons I got a land line to call BBSs.

 

 

[JohnPolka]

12 hours ago, doctorclu said:

Just a few updates ...

 

 

905-895-5904  Backyard BBS  - 2 in 11 tries got to the welcome but not the log in.   So, basically normal. 

503 245 5416 - Basement BBS is not answering.

 

 

 

The Basement BBS' dial-up line should now be answering again. I was testing out a new modem earlier and forgot to restart the program that answers the modem for the BBS.

 

-JP
 

[JohnPolka]

8 hours ago, DarkLord said:

Not been able to get through to either one in

quite some time here....

 

 

You've been trying to call the Basement using dial-up? I didn't know that.  What type of modem are you using? Are you using a VOIP service?

 

-JP