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Old BBS’s


DKZOOKEEPER

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I used NiteLite and then switched to BBS Express Professional once I got tired of shoehorning modifications into NiteLite via BASIC XE. :) The Pro version of BBS Express isn't readily available, but the original BBS Express that Keith Ledbetter put out is freely available for use. Others I tried briefly included AMIS, FoReM, Carina, and Marsh System 2.

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I really enjoyed being a Sysop on Atari 8bit. I must say BBS Express PRO!fessional did turn your Atari 8bit in a really powerful and fabulous system. It was (almost) an OS in itself with commands and stuff. When you did set it up right with a fast harddisk or ramdisk driver, people who called the BBS from their PC's did not believe that it did run on little atari. 

 

It was even capable of doing network-messaging and online games, and it supported 80 column width, full ansi (for callers of course). It was one of the coolest a8 experiences in my life. 

 

 

 

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10 hours ago, Marius said:

I really enjoyed being a Sysop on Atari 8bit. I must say BBS Express PRO!fessional did turn your Atari 8bit in a really powerful and fabulous system. It was (almost) an OS in itself with commands and stuff. When you did set it up right with a fast harddisk or ramdisk driver, people who called the BBS from their PC's did not believe that it did run on little atari. 

 

It was even capable of doing network-messaging and online games, and it supported 80 column width, full ansi (for callers of course). It was one of the coolest a8 experiences in my life. 

 

 

 

 

Pro! is a joy to run. I really enjoy its support of user written modules. One can use Action! or Assembly to write custom modules/games for it.

 

I ran Pro! in the 80s and mid-90s. Then I switched to a PC BBS (Searchlight) for a couple years before getting out of the hobby completely. In 2017, I found some old backup disks of my Pro! BBS installation. At first, i just wanted to see what was on them. After piecing together enough backup disks to bring the system up, I caught the SysOp bug again. So, I opened up the Basement BBS for everyone to see again. I also did the same with my step dad's Pro! BBS (Part-Time) that's also back online. Today, these two BBSs are like virtual museums or time capsules on the Internet.

 

I also got back into programming BBS Pro! modules. Most of my recent programming involved fixing bugs in my old code. But I've also completed a couple original modules too. The volume of BBS callers is no where near what it was. It wasn't uncommon to have 50 or more callers a day in the 80s and early 90s. I probably only average a couple callers per day now. However, BBSing today is a labor of love. It allows me (and everyone else who calls) an opportunity to relive the information age before the Internet. And yeah, it's amazing what we could do with 8 bits back then.

 

-JP

 

Edited by JohnPolka
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2 hours ago, DKZOOKEEPER said:

Can anybody tell me where I can find some of these software disks on 5.25” inch floppy disks or can somebody burn me a set I’d be willing to pay.


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The best way to do this would be with an SIO2PC cable. I'd recommend Lotharek's offering: https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=157

Of course you could also build your own if you have a real serial port on your PC or a USB to serial adapter: http://www.b-pahl.de/atari8bit/sio2pc/floppy2pc/prosys.html

I personally use the schematic featuring the 14C89. It's a good project to get started with soldering and has very little chance to damage anything other than your pride if you get it wrong. From there you can use Respeqt to load ATR disk images from the PC or sector copy them to disks if that's your prefrence. You can shop around still for 5.25" disks, but it'll be new old stock at best. Be sure to get dual density disks, not High Density. The HD stuff isn't as good with our low density drives.

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10 hours ago, scotty said:

I used a customized version of AMIS, and then went to BBCS.   It was not really popular, but i really, really liked it.

 

Hey Scotty,

 

I remember your AMIS BBS. I first brought my BBS up in November 1986 with a copy of AMIS that you gave me. :)  I don't recall you using BBCS, but if you got it working successfully, you were probably one of a few who did. Unfortunately, BBCS is very buggy and crashes a lot.

 

-JP

 

Edited by JohnPolka
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21 hours ago, Quiver said:

The best way to do this would be with an SIO2PC cable. I'd recommend Lotharek's offering: https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=157

Of course you could also build your own if you have a real serial port on your PC or a USB to serial adapter: http://www.b-pahl.de/atari8bit/sio2pc/floppy2pc/prosys.html

I personally use the schematic featuring the 14C89. It's a good project to get started with soldering and has very little chance to damage anything other than your pride if you get it wrong. From there you can use Respeqt to load ATR disk images from the PC or sector copy them to disks if that's your prefrence. You can shop around still for 5.25" disks, but it'll be new old stock at best. Be sure to get dual density disks, not High Density. The HD stuff isn't as good with our low density drives.


An SIO2SD might be another option. The smaller BBS software runs fine with it. In fact, the Mousenet BBS in Germany runs original BBS Express! with an SIO2SD.

 

-JP
 

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  • 2 years later...
On 2/28/2020 at 8:00 PM, JohnPolka said:

An SIO2SD might be another option. The smaller BBS software runs fine with it. In fact, the Mousenet BBS in Germany runs original BBS Express! with an SIO2SD.

The size of the BBS software shouldn't be a limitation since the SIO2SD supports image sizes up to 16MB, MYDOS or SpartaDOS would be required though.

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On 2/26/2020 at 2:04 PM, DKZOOKEEPER said:

What sort of software did people use back then to create bbs’s and is there a way you can get it.

The best way to get answers to BBSing questions is to try calling one!  SyncTerm works great and is easy to get for your PC/Mac/Etc  Lots of people there willing to help.

 

Then check out the list...

 

http://www.sfhqbbs.org/ataribbslist.php

 

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1 hour ago, BillC said:

The size of the BBS software shouldn't be a limitation since the SIO2SD supports image sizes up to 16MB, MYDOS or SpartaDOS would be required though.

Size isn't a problem. It's speed. Also, BBS Express! Pro! requires SpartaDos 3.2 which does not run well with the SIO2SD's acceleration. You have to run the SIO2SD at normal speeds. Since large "modular" BBS programs like BBS Express Pro! make frequent reads/writes to disks, it runs slow.

 

-JP

 

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I run BBS:Express Pro 2.1a on the Altirra emulator under SpartaDOS 3.3a which does hi-speed SIO just fine.  However it doesn't work on real hardware.  There is supposedly a 3.3b version that will work on real hardware and allow you to run Pro on it using hi-speed SIO.  I used to have the 3.3b version around here somewhere...

 

 

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16 hours ago, bf2k+ said:

I run BBS:Express Pro 2.1a on the Altirra emulator under SpartaDOS 3.3a which does hi-speed SIO just fine.  However it doesn't work on real hardware.  There is supposedly a 3.3b version that will work on real hardware and allow you to run Pro on it using hi-speed SIO.  I used to have the 3.3b version around here somewhere...

X3.3a has no high speed routines but you can use external ones (custom O.S, BlackBox, etc.)

X3.3b has high-speed routines built-in.

X3.3c is 3.3b on a cartridge.

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The other issue with SIO2SD is that it is an SIO device that shares a bus line with the modem. So, I/O can be slow since the modem needs to be suspended when the disk is in use and vice versa. The same problem occurs with Fujinet which is also an SIO device. This is also the reason why running a modular BBS, like BBS Express Pro!, is slow on Fujinet unless you use something other than the onboard SD Card for storage (e.g., a hard drive, a SIDE Cart, etc.).

 

-JP
 

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