atascii BBS

[Marius]

Hello!

 

As you probably know I'm running (and with me other people) one of those great PRO bbs'ses on real atari equipment.

 

I was wondering:

 

* how do you think the bbs can be more attractive?

* what would you really want to see on the bbs?

 

First thing I find very important to say to the people running AtariAge:

you are doing a fantastic job!!! I like the idea of atariage very much, and I think it is a great place of exchange knowledge, and meet other enthusiastic people.

 

But... I would really love to see some people writing a message on my board. The way it is now: people (really interested) log in... give it a look... log in another time, and that's it... I'll never see them back.

 

Without any messages posted (it still is a BULLETIN board system) the BBS is not interesting at all. Now it is only some kind of museum-piece people can look at. Nice ofcourse, but I think the atari 8bit can do much more.

 

I think it would be very nice of real atari lovers, meet eachother on real atari equipment.

 

There is only one little problem: when you are a guest, or you are a new user without a validated user account, you can not post messages in the public-messagebases.

 

So IF you would like to write on REAL atari equipment. Please make 'a call' via telnet. And I hope someone will start some kind of discussion on it.

 

When you use the right telnet-client (hyperterminal or ATS) you could download files!

 

I would love to see the bbs doing more things as only watched like some kind of history- photograph .

 

Thanks

Marius

Edited November 18, 2007 by Marius

[emkay]

What is the setup of your BBS exactly?

[Marius]

Setup is:

 

Atari 65xe (pal version, with ECI port and cartridge port)

BlackBox

SCSI Harddisk 545 mb

Lantronix UDS-10 RS232 -> lan adapter.

 

Software:

BBS Express Professional 7.0a

Spartados 3.2c

 

The BBS runs completely standalone. No emulators, No PC needed.

 

Marius

[Tempest]

I don't know how I missed this thread the first time around, but it brings up a good point. I was going to start an Atari 8-bit BBS, but as I started assembling all the parts (I still need Spartados X) I got to thinking: Why? Who is going to call this thing? And of those people who call, are they going to call again? Unless I got a bunch of games on the BBS, why on earth would anyone bother to call it up?

 

In the modern age of the Internet, is there still room for BBS's? Even among us die hard Atari fans, how often would you call a BSS up? Once or twice out of curiosity? That's not worth the time and effort.

 

I also toyed around with the idea of an ST BSS since there are far more possibilites. However I couldn't find out if there were any decent ST BBS games to keep people coming back. Unless I can find something like Trade Wars or Falcons Eye to entice people to keep logging in, this project will never get off the ground either.

 

Tempest

[Gregory DG]

I don't think there's much need for BBS's these days. In fact, I can't think of a single reason to have one anymore.

 

What'd be better is to turn a 65XE into a webserver.

[doctorclu]

I would NEVER discourage any contribution to the Atari hobby.

 

As I try to make known, I actively use, daily, an Atari 800. In 2005 I might make that my original Atari 400, but don't know.

 

What I do know, is that I started this trend in October / November when I decided I was ready to hit the BBs's again. I made it daily when I heard about Marius getting discouraged and closing down his BBS.

 

I visit BBS's every day. Five of them are local to the Dallas area, and two of them are Atari BBS's that can be telnetted to. I rarely play video games on the Atari 800 I realized last night. To me, the Atari 800 was about interaction with people over the modem.

 

If you are simply an Atari gamer, than the alure of the BBS might be lost on you.

 

But if you are one of the early members of cyberspace, and actively talked to others, E-mailed others, wrote stories, downloaded programs, and contributed to the online Atari -vs- Commodore wars that went on... then this would mean a lot to you.

 

Closer to Home has been run by Tom Hunt probably since 1999. A lot of dead time has happened there, but he keeps it going. His BBS has ATASCII movies, and message bases. Simply awesome. And I think he has a online game and downloads.

 

cth.dtdns.net

 

And then you have the Boot Factory, which moves along at a good click, and has a active message base. Current discussion is the UDS-10, which is a device that emulates a modem, but allows, say an Atari 8-bit, to address it as a modem through the serial port and hit a network with it.

 

bfbbs.no-ip.com

 

These are great BBS's. And I would love to hit more.

 

To me, yes, it is very easy to connect to the internet on what we call a "current computer", and we can hit places like this all the time. Atari Age, JI2 and other places are great places that I hit from work, I write something off and on, get information, and it awesome.

 

But why let the experience end there? Why just reminense when you can actively DO IT! To sit at a desk with an actual Atari 8-bit computer, connected to a video monitor, and type on those Atari keys, and log onto a Atari BBS, and talk to other people who log on with Atari computers.

 

The experience is awesome!

 

Don't just visit the past, make it your home! You miss the age of the Atari 8-bit, and the BBS's? Then bring it back! When you set up that Atari computer, and whatever way (I can tell a few ways) you access that BBS, you will find you are not alone, but that there are other people who are having fun with the Atari computers.. running the BBS's, posting messages. Yeh it is small now, let's build it back up.

 

As I said, I visit BBS's with my Atari computer every day. Every day I deal with crippled ANSI graphics of ICE-T, but that is ok. But is it sooo nice to stop into "Closer to Home" and "The Boot Factory" and see a BBS made for my computer, with ATASCII pictures and graphics.

 

Atari BBS's are that friendly port that add power to your Atari computer, and bring the whole experience alive again.