Funning FoReM-850 26M on #FujiNet

[tschak909]

#Atari8bit It is now possible to run FoReM-850 26M for the first time in 35 years, on #FujiNet. Shown here is the BBS being initialized, accepting a call, posting, file xferring, and ending with a deeper dive of changes.  

 

[+David_P]

The typo in the title is actually a perfect description of why we keep playing with these 40+ year old computers!

[Xebec]

Wow serious flashbacks watching this.  I remember the first time I downloaded a file from a BBS -- as a 7 year old kid.  It was a game from an Atari 8-bit BBS ("The Tardis" - near Woodbury, NJ) and the modem program would show the internal code when transferring via XModem..  300 baud then later 1200..   via 850 Express.

 

Dad was focused on teaching me good manners and had me thank the SysOp for the piece of software.  IIRC the SysOp as a joke tried to run the Eliza program at some point which didn't fool me but reflecting back is epically hilarious..

 

Also kind of spooky to hear "we recovered xyz from the archive" -- this really is digital preservation and ancient history we're using just to re-experience these things..   Amazing work on this!  

[tschak909]

19 minutes ago, Xebec said:

Wow serious flashbacks watching this.  I remember the first time I downloaded a file from a BBS -- as a 7 year old kid.  It was a game from an Atari 8-bit BBS ("The Tardis" - near Woodbury, NJ) and the modem program would show the internal code when transferring via XModem..  300 baud then later 1200..   via 850 Express.

 

Dad was focused on teaching me good manners and had me thank the SysOp for the piece of software.  IIRC the SysOp as a joke tried to run the Eliza program at some point which didn't fool me but reflecting back is epically hilarious..

 

Also kind of spooky to hear "we recovered xyz from the archive" -- this really is digital preservation and ancient history we're using just to re-experience these things..   Amazing work on this!  

It's sitting here running if anyone wants to bang on it.  

 

host: irata.online

port: 6502

 

Use of an Atari modem program highly insisted. (AMODEM, Express!, or Bobterm)

 

The XMODEM seems to work best with AMODEM.

 

-Thom

[phigan]

Thanks for this. I've been trying every single software I could and always get stuck at various parts. With Forem, I get as far as the screen getting initialized, and the basic lines getting cleared out, but then it gets stuck in some kind of loop doing INIT.. I thought it might be an R: handler thing, but it does it with everything. The same kind of thing would happen to me BITD too! :). Always wondered how other people got their BBSes up.

 

With the image on your server, I get the same thing but actually errors out with "error 2 at line 9590". I'll probably have to wait for the newer firmware for it to work properly.

Edited February 21, 2021 by phigan

[tschak909]

34 minutes ago, phigan said:

Thanks for this. I've been trying every single software I could and always get stuck at various parts. With Forem, I get as far as the screen getting initialized, and the basic lines getting cleared out, but then it gets stuck in some kind of loop doing INIT.. I thought it might be an R: handler thing, but it does it with everything. The same kind of thing would happen to me BITD too! :). Always wondered how other people got their BBSes up.

always check the printer. It was looking for files that weren't in the right place. You _MUST_ read the damned documentation, and you won't get stuck.

 

-Thom

[tschak909]

It's important to understand: These BBSes _BARELY_ Fit into memory. and I mean _BARELY_.

 

FoReM 850 for example deletes part of itself, after it initializes, so that there is enough room for a text buffer!

 

This means, that there is _VERY_ little room for error trapping. So if you make a stupid mistake by....NOT reading the manual, and NOT doing what it tells you, there is a chance that something will not be in the right place, and it will silently fail, while also spewing error messages to the printer.

 

-Thom

[tschak909]

#FujiNet #Atari8bit This was very much the experience of searching through file sections and downloading a file on an Atari #BBS circa 1986 at 1200 baud.

 

[Goochman]

That is a blast from the past - thanks for sharing  - I ran a Forem BBS way back when and it was a tricky system.  I had the basic version and remember it rolling code in and out.  Good stuff!

[Gavin1968]

On 2/21/2021 at 12:54 PM, tschak909 said:

You _MUST_ read the damned documentation

What are you saying here?

 

[Kyle22]

This could be awesome if it could be re-written by a genius that could translate it into FB (or similar) FXEP is an awesome system, and would if it could be translated into a more modern system. I've heard that FXEP can network w/ Pro! BBS.

Possible?

Thoughts?

Ideas?

 

[-=Psycho=-]

This is pretty great. When I got my hands on a copy of FoReM-26M back in ‘84, I just ran with it. What a throwback! Thanks for putting in the work. 

 

Be warned that there is a back door in FoReM 26M that lies within one of the Usr routines. I don’t think it’s a problem unless you’re running it on DOS 2.0, but I highly recommend removing it due to its disastrous potential. I can provide a patch if you like?