Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: James on March 12, 2007, 09:31:13 PM
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I was wondering...as I am presently setting up a little BBS.
Is there any demand for an oldschool BBS at all? I know we've moved forward to this internet thing here...but still. Personally I never quite got the feeling of community I had back in the days of the BBS.
In any case.. here are my questions:
1- Would you use a telnet BBS?
2- What would make you use such a system?
3- Would you contribute to keep the site up?
4- What do you expect in terms of file transfers?
5- Doors?
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I miss the old days. I'd like to connect to a BBS and chat and play door games. I'm not sure what kind of files that you can offer since everyone has the internet now...but i'd like to see more BBS;s
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I'm thinking of re-making my old BBS as well (TrionBBS - available on Aminet, I even got the keyfile again from the author).
I'm not planning to set up a dial-up connection though, so maybe I'll have to make some piece of software to fake a dial-up via some sort of ip-connection.
As far as your questions go:
1 Yes, but not too regular
2 Retro-feeling, and for fun
3 Probably not (sorry)
4 Not much, but I'm no speed freak at all actually
5 As many as possible :-)
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You can use telser device to make a serial based bbs work over Telnet. I have done it and it works. I had it working with cnet amiga.
It is the telser.device You should be able to find it on Aminet.
Tim
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AND...I contacted the author of Telser a couple of years ago and convinced him to release the keyfile :) So that's on Aminet too. This means not only can you have a telnet friendly Amiga bbs, but it can have multiple nodes! Mmmmm - chat!
By the way, I think files and file transfers are an important part of the BBS community. Having an array of dodgy old files and pictures makes a change from the usual too-much-choice internet and in many ways is more interesting because they tend to reflect the personality of the board. I'd recommend against any upload/download ratios and if possible support anonymous uploading! Oh Yeah. BBSes were SUCH fun.
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James wrote:
I was wondering...as I am presently setting up a little BBS.
Is there any demand for an oldschool BBS at all? I know we've moved forward to this internet thing here...but still. Personally I never quite got the feeling of community I had back in the days of the BBS.
In any case.. here are my questions:
1- Would you use a telnet BBS?
2- What would make you use such a system?
3- Would you contribute to keep the site up?
4- What do you expect in terms of file transfers?
5- Doors?
1- Yes
2- an Amiga Telnet client that supports RIP graphics & the use of RIP graphics on the BBS.
3- Depends what's offered
4- Certainly no pirated or cracked s/w, as I'm a programmer myself, albeit a mainframe programmer.
5- interactive games, like chess, etc.
Is there an Amiga telnet client that supports RIP graphics? I know that my dial-up bbs client s/w, Termite, supports it. I like it & point & click is faster than reading, especially for those of us, like me, who can't read a lick. :lol:
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I've never heard of an Amiga RIP terminal...there's a project for ya! :)
[edited out]
Here's my plan so far:
[Interface]
First get an ANSI version up and running. Then start to work on an Amiga-Compatible version (ascii, with the backslash style of the amiga scene). A RIP version would be a distant third.
[Doors]
Trade Wars 2002, Legend Of The Red Dragon, Barren Realms Elite. These are the doors I used to play way back when. I don't know of any other fun doors... so place suggestions!
[Files]
[edited out]
The board is presently online and fully functional, albeit with the stock menus in. They look terrible! I only need to fiddle around with that a little and then I can put it up!
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Since Apple now have 5% market share with OS X how about making it Mac compatible as well? Pretty please? :-)
And don't forget the Linux users as well, many of which seem to speak very fondly of the Amiga!
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RIP?! RIP was replaced by HTML. If you're gonna do a BBS, good ol' ANSI graphics is what you want. Let Remote Imaging Protocol Rest In Peace.
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@James
Excuse me, but doesn't the posting guidelines prohibit posting about illegal activities? (such as setting up a BBS with pirated games and applications)
And if such BBS is set up, and any link to it is posted, it'd also break "Do not post links or requests for warez" rule.
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I never did too much BBS with the Amiga, but id at least check it out. I mainly do BBS on the c64. Good luck with it.
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There....edited.
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BBS's for the WIN!!
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Ah, the magical days of 14k4 long distance calling and huge phonebills.
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odin wrote:
Ah, the magical days of 14k4 long distance calling and huge phonebills.
Heck, I started out dialing at 300 bps on a Timex/Sinclair 1000 (U.S. equivalent of the Sinclair ZX81) & saving on cassette tapes. I progressed to the Timex/Sinclair 2068 (U.S. equivalent of the Sinclair Spectrum) with the 3" CF2 Portuguese disk system (FDD3000) which I used more often than not in the CP/M 2.2 mode. It had a 3rd mode with a cartridge that would emulate the Spectrum almost perfectly to run Spectrum games & programs. With the 2 serial ports on back of the FDD3000 disk system, I was running it at 19.2k first into a 1200 baud modem, then into a 2400 baud modem, then onto a 14.4k baud modem using the late Irv Hoff's IMP (Improved Modem Program) with the Zebra h/w overlay (Irv misspelled it Zerbra). Zebra marketed the Portuguese disk system here in the states. I had also attached an Amdek Amdisk III to the FDD3000 to get 4 disk drives online at once.
I even ran a piece of software called "CasBoard" that was a bbs server for it using the T/S 2050 modem @ 300 baud! What a hoot! It was the first Jewish-oriented BBS in NYC at the time.
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I miss my old BBS days. They were some of the best. I got into the BBS scene towards the end in the early 90s before the Internet was anything. The first modem I ran was a Commodore 1670 (I think that was the model number.) at 1200 baud on my A500. I had a Supra 2400 baud and then graduated to a Supra 14.4k on my A500 and my Tandy TL 1000 286.
I helped a friend run a CNet BBS. I also helped several friends run Renegade BBSes as well. I tested all kinds of BBS software back in those days as well. In point of fact, on my old Tandy TL1000 286 is a fully fuctional copy of the May 96 version of Renegade. I had it completely setup for my own BBS, and was working on trying to setup a small message network along the lines of FidoNET. My old personal webpage was styled along the Renegade BBS look.
I would love to see an old school BBS, no matter how I had to connect to it. I can still remember all of the BBS types, from the good (Renegade and VBBS, and I have an archive for VBBS 6.14 as well.) to the bad (Opus and PCBoard).
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omnicron10 wrote:
You can use telser device to make a serial based bbs work over Telnet. I have done it and it works. I had it working with cnet amiga.
It is the telser.device You should be able to find it on Aminet.
Tim
Great! That sounds just like what I need.
Maybe I should speed up things to get my A4000 up and running, and start trying to find out how TrionBBS worked again. Maybe The Missing Channel BBS will be online again this year then (after a 12 year break :lol: )
Anyone know a good ANSI editor? I really can't remember which one I used back in the days.
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Question 1 & 3. Answer : YES !!
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@McVenco look for The Draw on google, it's freeware and it rocks.
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Sorry if I appear as a jackass in this post, but this is my honest answer.
1. No
2. If it could offer something that is not available on the net, can not think of anything that will motivate me to use a text based system again.
3. No
4. Nothing, it is far more easier to download things directly from the net without a textbased interface behind the things you want access to.
5. No thanks, HTML - Yes.
From a different point of view, amiga.org is like a BBS with a graphical user interface and no file transfers omg.
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Since I menitioned it...I should just drag out the Tandy and see if it still works, then see if the Renegade Install still works and/or see if I can find a way to extract the archive from it. It would be great just to see it and see if I remember any of the controls.
I can see c643d's point by the way. It mnight be hard to get people to login to an old school BBS.
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1- Would you use a telnet BBS?
Sure, I would definitely like to use it. I miss ANSI and would love to use a BBS like this again.
2- What would make you use such a system?
I would check back often. As long as there is activity, it would be good fun.
3- Would you contribute to keep the site up?
I don't have the time because of other projects I'm involved in.
4- What do you expect in terms of file transfers?
N/A
5- Doors?
No time for this one.
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[Doors]
Trade Wars 2002, Legend Of The Red Dragon, Barren Realms Elite. These are the doors I used to play way back when. I don't know of any other fun doors... so place suggestions!
Those are all PC doors! Are you running a PC BBS software?
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If you have the time to experiment I'd say go for it. For the nostalgia, I'd surely like to check it out. I remember using BBSs back in the days with my A500 and an old sorted out 300 bps modem I got for free. However, my time online was quite limited because my parents would kill me for the phone bill :lol:
So now there would be some possibility to catch up with everything ;-)
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I accesss a BBS nearby via my A1200 and its still going strong.
Having said that, I access it over Amateur radio at 1200 baud via AmiCOM, so unfortunatly no pictures whatsoever, and downloading a file via 7Plus, even a small file in 10-100k range can take hours.
Having said that its a good source of information and I have downloaded files from the BBS sucessfully in the past.
Theres also a "Humor" section on there with jokes, etc, as otherwise the talkes always amateur radio related.
Just thought i'd add to the coversation.
Hodgkinson.
EDIT...I've got a maplin CCITT 300 Baud modem floating around somewhere looking sorry for itself...
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James wrote:
I was wondering...as I am presently setting up a little BBS.
Is there any demand for an oldschool BBS at all? I know we've moved forward to this internet thing here...but still. Personally I never quite got the feeling of community I had back in the days of the BBS.
In any case.. here are my questions:
1- Would you use a telnet BBS?
2- What would make you use such a system?
3- Would you contribute to keep the site up?
4- What do you expect in terms of file transfers?
5- Doors?
There are already some very good Amiga telnet BBSes out there running C-Net and telser.device. If I were at home right now I could come up with some of their names. I haven't logged into them as much as I should...
1- Yes, I have, but I find that I don't connect regularly
2- Door games, message boards
3- not money, but messages and files
4- Rare stuff you can't find on Aminet
5- Yep! Hacker! ...and some sort of Wheel of Fortune or something which can earn you file board points or time points...
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As I have never really used a BBS properly, I would be alll for someone setting one up, as long as it gets used by plenty of other people.
Preferably one that doesn't use the internet as a method of connecting to it as I'm getting bored of the internet.
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My first topic to reach two pages. *sheds a tear*
Seriously though. I'm pretty excited about the response. I though I would have more of the "look bro, we's gots the interwebs" replies :) Although I can totally understand the point of view, I think BBS's and forums are quite different, if only for the fact that a BBS is semi-private.
[Files]
Someone suggested no ratio. Although I'm very tempted by this as I don't believe in 'charging' people....I don't want the BBS to become just a copy of Aminet where ppl download but never contribute. I'd keep a low ratio, but I'd like users to send in files once in a blue moon.
[Messages]
I won't be making too many messages boards at first. When a BBS is running in the ~20 users zone, you can't have 30 message sections or it'll feel quite empty. I'd rather add as we go along then try to set up the uber-bbs where everything is already there.
[Doors]
Yes... I am using a PeeCee for the BBS. So I can only run PC doors. Although running a CNet BBS is tempting, I use my 1200 too much to sacrifice it entirely for a BBS. Furthermore, I reboot the machine way too often for it to hold a BBS. My PC can run the BBS in the background with nearly no speed loss, and I don't have to configure 70 different things for it to work.
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James wrote:
@McVenco look for The Draw on google, it's freeware and it rocks.
That's an ms-dos program. Why would I want to use that?
Anyway, I did a short search on Aminet and immediately recognised the name of the program I used 10 years ago: HyperANSI. I remember it being a true WYSIWYG editor, which was very good. I'll download it again and give it a try again, although I doubt my ANSI-art skillz are still existing :lol:
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I dunno... last time I tried to make ANSIs on Amiga... they didn't show up very well on other computers. There were quite a number of compatibility problems back then.... But I'll give it a try.. see if that's fixed.
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As a old CNet (2.x, 3.x, 4.x) SysOp, I really do not see the need for a new BBS software anymore. I would like to see CNet pushed into the web. My POV is this, it would be better then XOOPS any days. :-D
Dammy
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dammy wrote:
I really do not see the need for a new BBS software anymore.
That wasn't the point really. I agree that it's nonsense to make new BBS software, but it IS fun to set up a BBS, just for old time's sake, even if only 2 people will come and visit it.
I used to have lots of fun dialing in to my own BBS via nullmodem.device, that was even more fun than having people actually dialing in from somewhere else :-D
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[Files]
Someone suggested no ratio. Although I'm very tempted by this as I don't believe in 'charging' people....I don't want the BBS to become just a copy of Aminet where ppl download but never contribute. I'd keep a low ratio, but I'd like users to send in files once in a blue moon.
I dont see point really. One reason why I stopped using BBS was ratios. Why upload when you can get everything from the web?
I don't think file area is going to work at all at these times.
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I have been thinking about setting up a BBS again myself. I had so much fun back in the 90's with those things. I attempted to set one up on my A500+ , but, as i was younger, i didn't have access to the funds to set up a really good system. Plus, the internet was just around the corner.
There still seems to be a great deal of support for them - especially telnet boards. Google the "BBS Corner".
My personal feelings are that you would have lots of success offering a dialup connection. If I were to launch one, I may foot the bill for a few 0800 lines (you can get them with upto 1000 free minutes these days) The only reason I say this is because I feel the psychology of the "community experience" within BBS's lies in their exclusivity. Distancing yourself from the hoards (i. the internet) is a sure fire way to rebuild a loyal community. 0800 lines deal with the free unlimited access side of things.
The key is offering a good service and a welcoming, local feel. Once problem with todays's BBS's is is that they feel "interneted". People set them up, realise there are not many users, then forget about them. I think this is due to the lack of personal/local feel with telnet. Nobody can bond emotionally to a single board. The internet provides all these days. Lots of activity (mainly from you - the sysop) is necessary - and not necessarily just in the file areas. That said, I wonder if it is possible to set up a board that emails you files selected for download, whilst retaining the old time "dial-up" feel?
Please comment!
P.S I guess this is my first post! I'v have been visiting this site virtually every day since 2003 believe it or not. I have very much enjoyed it so far! I hope it will continue this way.
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ollygd wrote:
The key is offering a good service and a welcoming, local feel. Once problem with todays's BBS's is is that they feel "interneted". People set them up, realise there are not many users, then forget about them. I think this is due to the lack of personal/local feel with telnet. Nobody can bond emotionally to a single board. The internet provides all these days. Lots of activity (mainly from you - the sysop) is necessary - and not necessarily just in the file areas. That said, I wonder if it is possible to set up a board that emails you files selected for download, whilst retaining the old time "dial-up" feel?
Please comment!
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Absolutely! Completely agree. I've run two Amiga bbs systems in my time. One via dial up (which was an amazing, exciting experience) and one via telnet (which was a little bit dull). I think to REALLY resurrect a BBS and stand out from the hoardes you'd need an 0800 dial up board. This would be something else. I'm going to look into it now!
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My personal feelings are that you would have lots of success offering a dialup connection. If I were to launch one, I may foot the bill for a few 0800 lines (you can get them with upto 1000 free minutes these days) The only reason I say this is because I feel the psychology of the "community experience" within BBS's lies in their exclusivity. Distancing yourself from the hoards (i. the internet) is a sure fire way to rebuild a loyal community. 0800 lines deal with the free unlimited access side of things.
This would be quite pricey though. Looking up one deal running at the moment, you can pay £19.95/month for 1000 minutes. If you limit a session to just 15 minutes that only allows you 66 log-ons per month, or about 2 per day. If you use more than that you're paying 3p/minute, say you double your available minutes to 2000 or 4 15 minute sessions a day you're looking at about £50 a month! It suddenly becomes quite expensive (especially when you add electricity and line rental on top). I suppose one way around it would be to have a 2-line setup. Have one as an 0800 line operational for a restricted time per day (say 8-10pm) which would equate to 3720 minutes based on a 31 day month (but of course you wouldn't have constant calls during that time). On the other line you could have a standard number or even an 0845 number which people could use. I imagine lots of people have "free national call" schemes which would make that equally fine, and if they don't the 0800 line would act as a good way to tempt people/get them interested. Also people would more happily hit the pay number if they're established on the board and can't say get through to the 0800 because it's busy. God, i'm getting excited about this!
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I have to say I'm little surprised there are people with land lines still... :-P
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@dandelion
Thats darned good thinking. I've seen a 1000 minute 0800 line for 9.95 per month. However, I have yet to establish as to whether there is a charge to forward that call to your local land line. (It was from one of these bulk virtual phone line companies) I'll have to check into it.
I forgot to consider the idea that people have calling plans now. With a single 0800 line, people could get a feel for the board. The sysop could then sell different schemes for using the board at local rates (i.e free local call schemes etc etc) Hell, even mobile plans offer huge minute options now - although i think at around 9600bps mind. That may still be fast enough for ansi. I really like the idea of the board emailing files to the user for them to download. That would do away with the bandwidth issue. I think modern phone plans are more attractive to the user than a BBS subscription to pay for a freephone number. That way they get all their calls free!
I feel it is important to *not* offer telnet as an option. What does everyone think? You just don't feel "welcome" over telnet in my opinion. It would ruin the atmosphere.
I've done some research into modem over VOIP lines (i.e Vonage) Apparently its rather problematic - and not exactly cheap either. Perhaps a few "incoming call only" local lines could compliment the 0845 and 0800 lines. Cuts costs.
I have a feeling this could be a rather exciting subject we have struck on. Perhaps no one realised in the past that the success of these boards was largely to do with the user feeling "physically" connected to the community and not virtually.
Thoughts gentlemen!
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@itix
heheheh! Well, thats a fair point! I wonder if we could instigate a turnaround?
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I have to say I'm little surprised there are people with land lines still...
I think we might have problems with things like with making telephone calls if we didn't have a telephone line.
Regarding the BBS, I think it should have nothing to do with the internet at all. I am all for using a modem to connect directly to it (provided that my mum doesn't mind - she is very against me using the telephone line for computers because we have ADSL).
If it will be in the UK I am quite happy to use either a local or national number, but 0800 or 0845 would be better. Maybe it could just use the BBS owner's own telephone number to start with and then move onto 0800 numbers later.
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I can't see any possible way a BBS could work with an 800 number. On the low end, 1000 minutes could be eaten up by just a few callers. And, if somehow, you manage to catch on, for the high end, it would be just too costly to maintain. Plus, with an 800 number you'll still get a wide physical area with a very narrow interest demographic.
The key is offering a good service and a welcoming, local feel.
I agree 100%. Probably the most insightful comment in this thread.
Once problem with todays's BBS's is is that they feel "interneted". People set them up, realise there are not many users, then forget about them. I think this is due to the lack of personal/local feel with telnet.
I disagree. I don't think the internet is the problem, at all. Or at least not Telnet or the technology behind the internet. I have every belief that you could run a KILLER system hooked to the internet. Dial-up sucked in a lot of ways...
The problem with the internet is in the demographics. Back when I ran a dial-up BBS, I met and interacted with my neighbors, co-workers, friends, classmates, and jokers and characters of all kinds. There is also the common thread of most people living within the calling zone. (only ~40 miles across, or so...) This huge range of interests and personalities with a fairly minor common thread builds a great community.
Most internet sites lack this range of interests and personalities. Each type of site that is created inevitably ends up focusing on a single interest or hobby (sometimes even to the point of turning against its own fringe members who are not "pure" enough -- see Amiga Classic vs. AOS4 vs. Peg, etc). So what you end up with is a grouping of a very narrow interest and personality type that is scattered widely around the world. In most cases this DOESN'T build a very great community.
Now.... In the modern day.... How do you fix this and create a community that can encourage a wide range of views and personalities. THAT is the real problem. I don't have the answer to that. But I know that trying to roll back technology to the bad old days of slow transfers, landlines, and connection-based communications doesn't seem to be a viable answer.
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Nice! Lots of good ideas being thrown around.. I like that :)
@itix
You are the living proof that we need ratios. Why do you think everything is available for your leeching pleasure on the internet? Because there are still a few dedicated souls out there who take the time to *upload*. If nobody upload files, there are no files to download. I completely disagree with your philosophy. I think it is rather shallow and selfish, and it is one of the reason why there is no sense of community anymore: because people don't contribute.
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About the 800 number. It IS a good idea, but I don't think I'm ready to shell out some of my hard earned cash to setup something that may very well fall flat on its face. I think it has to do with your potential user base. I'm aiming at the Amiga community. And as much as we love thinking we're an army, in reality we're but a small bunch of people scattered all over the globe. The simplest, and free, way to reach everyone is the internet. This forum is a rather brilliant example of that.
I do really agree with the fact that the SysOp needs to be very present, at least at the beginning, to make sure it grows to a point where the BBS community generates its own activity.
The software I chose, Synchronet, offers a lot of expandability. You can access the filebase by FTP, you can access the message boards on the web, it supports IRC, unlimited nodes, pop3, ssh, telnet and of course, dialup. So if the BBS should prove popular, there's quite a number of options for expansion.
Also, this is a very small operation. I'm not trying to make a huge juggernaut of a system. Mostly because I don't think people will flock to it in any case. And I also do plan to continue living normally, so using my own phone line would be rather impractical and mu budget doesn't allow for a second phone line at the moment.
As for the montly plans for an 800 number. These require that ~20$/node be paid each month. There are various reasons why I want to stay away from dialup as much as I can. First and foremost is the cost of setting the hardware and phone lines up. Second, I'd most likely have to make the board users contribute financially every month and this is also a no no to me. I don't want to have a business, I want to have fun with a couple of like-minded people. Furthermore these plans are time-limited. 1000 minutes for 20$ for 30 days. That's roughly 33 minutes per day. So *every* users would have to share that 33 minutes until another 20$line and 20$ modem are brought in. And even then it only makes the BBS freely available one hour each day. It's just not practical unless there is a lot of money involved and a strong community to support it.
I also chose telnet because it's one of the oldest protocols (1968 I think?) still supported. Every OS (well except Vista...heh...good!) has a host of telnet clients available for free. Whereas a dialup will require people buy a modem before being able to log on.
The reason why most telnet BBS feel like "interneted" crap is because they are exactly that. Most of them use the stock menus and configuration. To me, a BBS is like an amiga, it's a little thing thats fun to tweak add personalize. I'm presently in the processing of de-grading the software. I'm editing the java sources to remove the more "modern" stuff that wasn't part of the old BBS scene. There's also a crapload of ansi menus to change if this system is to have a personality all its own.
I do plan to "animate" the BBS though. MOD-making contests, 32 color image contests, Global War toureys... Y'know, try to make it fun so people WANT to contribute to the board. Try to find a recipe that would make users connect 3-4-5 times a day like we used to back then..."just to check if Dude X replied to my message". Im also keepnig the number of nodes low because I do want people to get a "system is full" message once in a while. Remember the time spent in your "Comm" program redialing 87 times in a row until you went "OMG OMG OMG IM IN!!!!!" and then everything inside the BBS seemed so much more exciting? Ahhhh memories :)
Ok this post is getting way too long. heh.
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James wrote:
Every OS (well except Vista...heh...good!) has a host of telnet clients available for free. Whereas a dialup will require people buy a modem before being able to log on.
And dialup pretty much excludes anyone from other countries, unless they don't mind paying international call rates!
Plus, having a telnet interface makes it available to people with smartphones and PDAs - text-based telnet traffic over a GPRS connection doesn't eat much into a data allowance after all.
Good luck with it, I'll be keen to connect and have a look around!
- Ali
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Some very valid points here guys.
I just wondered, if money were no object, do you think dial-up would be an advantage in any way? (Nostalgia etc....?)
I totally agree that a "KILLER" bbs could be created with telnet. As with any board, I think its success is directly proportional to the effort put in my the sysop.
The demographics point is also a good one and absolutely true. There must, however, be a way to gather those communities back together again.
I suppose mentally re-living the experience had me thinking about the whole ritual - modems/comms/huge phone bills etc... Im trying to pin down exactly what made it so exciting and why the internet so abruptly ended it all.
Keeps the ideas coming guys, I've been wanting to get this off my chest and into action for some years now!
@James
Make it happen man! I think I'll follow suit. I have also downloaded synchronet. A great piece of software.
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@James
I guess you're new and don't know itix.
Well, some googling would have revealed http://www.lehtoranta.net/ (http://www.lehtoranta.net/) and doing a simple search in aminet would have showed this (http://www.aminet.net/search?readme=lehtoranta).
Ratios suck. Plain and simple.
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odin wrote:
Ah, the magical days of 14k4 long distance calling and huge phonebills.
...and back in the good old analogue days, there were tappable phonelines for those of us who didn't want huge phone bills :-)
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@Piru
I wasn't trying to insult Itix. Sorry if it came out this way. I stand by my opinion though. Ratios are often necessary to avoid an all-out lack of contribution. In a pefect world, we'd have more people develop nifty pieces of software like those and distribute them freely. I find that very noble indeed and wished I had half the talent of the guy to provide the community with such software.
But yknow.. I've been using computers for over 20 years now and I can't even count the number of times great softwares were abandoned before they could reach their full potential because the developers didn't have support from the community. If you make it "free", people will not contribute, except the few rare souls with an heart of gold. An example could be this very forum. It registers 5000 users and I only see 6 people in the thank you list for donations.
Ratios don't imply that you cannot get the software, and they don't need to be high either. They simple nudge people into contributing a little to the file base. My favorite amiga BBS died in 1992 because of over-leeching.
The idea is not necessarily to restrict file access, but rather to reward people who contribute. Any other viable reward system would do I guess. It's just that ratios are a built-in part of 99% of the BBS packages.
I just want to avoid putting lots of effort into "giving" something to "the community" and end up with just another download site, especially since this is hosted on my computer.
In the end if it proves to be such a sensitive issue, I'll simply not have a file base. Then I would have a forum. So might as well do it on the web. So might as well drop the idea since we have such a great forum here.
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ollygd wrote:
I suppose mentally re-living the experience had me thinking about the whole ritual - modems/comms/huge phone bills etc... Im trying to pin down exactly what made it so exciting and why the internet so abruptly ended it all.
This is an interesting point, and I really think there's something in it. I remember my first evening of being a sysop. My board ran from 10pm till 7am (that's right, using my parents phone line). I'd wander downstairs after ten and quietly swap the phone cables (sorry Grandma. The line's mine now!). Back upstairs and you'd see the final light on the modem burning red..."Auto Answer". I actually got a call that night. I spent the weeks previously honing my ANSIs and I was quite proud of it all, it seemed to work well and I thought it looked good. Suddenly, a flicker of the activity lights on the modem, the hard drive whirring into action, the screen changing from the BBS rest state to the (carefully designed) log on prompt. And then the computer under the control of someone else, heaven knows who. M...A...R...S...H. That was the name of the first caller to the board. I think he was younger than me, had seen my amateurish advert on another BBS and thought he'd give me a try. I had to sit on my hands for all of 1 minute before finally breaking into "sysop chat" and giving him the chance to introduce himself (he was a friendly chap and called back often). Eventually he logged off and the BBS software returned to the waiting state. Total callers now listed as "1", auto answer light back on and waiting. I didn't sleep much that night.
So, what was it that was so exciting about those days which just doesn't seem to be captured by telnet efforts? Here are some thoughts..
a) Full screen. I've been using Syncterm (on OS X and Linux) and it's a good bit of software. But you can't get it to take over the screen. You can't "escape" and be transported into the BBS world. Okay, I know on the Amiga i could use NComm with telser or better still DCTelnet (which is excellent) - both of which provide lovely full screen.
b) The modem noises and lights!
c) Nostalgia for a time when such easy communication were still a novelty. This is probably the big one. Before the BBS my "interaction" with other Amigans was through the letters pages of Amiga Format and CU. They were where I found like-minded souls. Of course, there were kids that owned Amigas in school, but they were simply Mega Drives with keyboards to them. It was only in the magazines that I found other people doing really fun stuff with the Amigas. Then, people started calling my board, I started to call other boards, and we could interact, talk about computers, swap files (even pictures of naked women!). This was hugely exciting to a 15 year old.
Would having a dialup board recapture all of this? I imagine it would be a bit like comparing WinUAE to buying an A1200 off EBay. On the face of it they look the same, indeed, WinUAE would be FASTER. But, it never quite satiates that sense of nostalgia. It comes close, it's a useful device, but it doesn't make the heart flutter like it does when sitting in front of the real deal at 2 in the morning, feeling like you're 15.
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Dandelion has nailed it. You need the "pioneering" experience to make it work. Now, no-one is a communications pioneer anymore, but resurrecting a old past-time with a modern twist is pioneering in itself. Hell, my wife marches me down to Oxford St most weekends, and I dare say I have more than a little knowledge of fashion. Bell bottoms are in. Bell bottoms are out. This has been going on for decades!
I know I keep banging on aboout this but being involved in the revival of that fantastic bedroom endevour that was the BBS would work for me "emotionally". I think I could "feel it" again. I think a lot of other people could aswell. Like anything that is successful, we need to create it, package it, and sell it hard. Im up for the challenge.
Could I ask everyone: If I launched a BBS with free dialup - would you call - or would you rather have telnet? Or both? If both, would telnet detract you from dialling up? It would be great to know. I do think a great board could be made using just telnet, but I want to see as to whether a dial-up offering could enrich the experience further.
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I don't think that ratios would work anymore. At least if we're talking about Amiga stuff here. The situation is completely different than in 1992. There simply isn't enough new stuff to upload. Or do you want board filled up with old crap? Ratios make people try to upload all kind of useless {bleep} when there isn't any proper stuff to upload. Or probably they won't bother to upload at all, they just look the files from elsewhere. And when there's something new, only one people get advantage of it and others can't ever download anything with their bad ratios :)
You won't get too many leechers even with no ratio nowadays. You'll be lucky if any people even sometimes download something from BBS :) You'd better make everything as easy as possible that you could get some users.
"Elite" times are over. Demoscene releases have kept last remaining telnet boards somehow active in last years, but now even the demoscene has got too quiet too to make any kind of real competition for uploading.
And I think that seeing the name on weektop lists are more rewarding than getting better ratio... for the people who still like to use BBS :) I think that keeps people uploading just as much as with ratios in current situation.
I'd say, set up the file areas, but don't make ratios.
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I know I keep banging on aboout this but being involved in the revival of that fantastic bedroom endevour that was the BBS would work for me "emotionally". I think I could "feel it" again. I think a lot of other people could aswell. Like anything that is successful, we need to create it, package it, and sell it hard. Im up for the challenge.
Absolutely. I have spent quite a few hours trying to come up with a way to create a forum and feeling like the old BBS. I really miss it, and I want that back. I've got spare equipment and bandwidth I would have killed for back in the day.
But, really... What made the BBS great?
Community? Definitely!!!
Personal expression? Surely helped...
Pioneering spirit? Possibly...
So the real question becomes, how do you capture these things?
I'm probably going to get lynched for this, but essentially, at the heart of this current effort is Web 2.0. Yes, I *HATE* that horrible buzzword, but the essential idea in there is a lot like the modern take on our old BBS. It's to create a personally-shapeable 2-way communication medium based on the average technology of the day.
It's an interesting idea, but I think the implementations are flawed. It all seems to end up with a billion blogs that just form cliques of fake admiration feedback for each other. All wrapped up inside a clumsy web-browser interface. Bleh!!
Could I ask everyone: If I launched a BBS with free dialup - would you call - or would you rather have telnet? Or both?
Probably neither? Heck, I don't even have a way to hook up a modem to my newest workstation. (no serial port/no legacy PCI available) Telnet is possible, but really, that's a rather unwieldy interface for this day in age. Plus, there are so many poor and incomplete ANSI implementations that doing anything interesting is nigh on impossible, anyhow.
I don't have the answers, but speaking from personal experience, going back to the old technology hasn't been personally fulfilling for anything more than a quick chuckle about the old days.
And, in all honesty, to create a new instance of the old BBS experience, you need a diverse community. That community is highly unlikely to put up with the problems caused by antique technology.
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@Illwrath
Cheers for the input. Very interesting. I must admit I know nothing about "Web 2" although I am aware of the buzzword (as you say!) From the sound of it, it's certainly not lighting my fire, although I'll google it tonight and see what its all about.
I totally hear you with regards to bandwidth and equipment. I would have murdered for an external CDROM from my A500, then I could have had a good file area! Right now, I'm sitting on an ADSL 2+ connection with 24mb down and 2mb up. Huge - and it costs me peanuts!
I guess we don't have a lot of options then. We either have web browsers or ANSI.
Its funny, technically I should be feeling the same about this website, and in many ways, i am! Its not quite there though. No hissing modems. No real-time typing. You know what - just 10 minutes ago I was checking out the remenants of the exec-pc bbs. (telnet://bbs.execpc.com) They were the largest board in the world at one time. Now the whole thing is on a stock pc in the CEO's basement with free access! Its nice to look around becuase there is some interesting content left. I feel that if someone was manning it a little more actively I would visit regularly. I do enjoy the clunky old ANSI. You are right, current audiences would require seamless trouble free technology, but maybe that is not our audience. I wonder how many like minded people there are out there. We could just as easily be having this conversation on a Wildcat 4.0 BBS!
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I guess we don't have a lot of options then. We either have web browsers or ANSI.
Roll your own? Wouldn't be hard to mock-up a totally new client. What would make it a compelling experience, though? Most of the successful new clients have used piracy as their compelling feature, though. That probably isn't what we're going for.
What WOULD be the compelling key? Again, that is the question....
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Well, I'll have a good think. I just have to nip to the shops right now, but ill be back on later! :-)
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Do they even make modems anymore? I threw the last one I had out about six years ago. I really don't see the point even of a telnet one. You want chat and files? Get Drupal.
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Do they even make modems anymore?
I don't think so.... Was kinda my point, too. ;-)
You want chat and files? Get Drupal.
Hmm... I hadn't heard of that before. After a bit of Googling, it kinda looks like a CMS crossed with a blog. All GPL, so you can kinda build it in whatever direction you need. Pretty cool tool. Not exactly in the spirit of a BBS, but an interesting find. Thanks!
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I think there is demand for an oldschool BBS. But, I'd prefer an Amiga BBS. If you don't want to use your Amiga, then just run it from an Amiga emulator. Still much better than running some crappy Wildcat, PCB, etc.
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totally, you should run on Amiga... thats the magic. Amiga sux on the WWW, but the BBS, that it can do.
ratios are silly. why? It's just gonna be us chickens anyway. Downloading will be for fun, you chat and MAYBE you end up sharing a file....
god speed
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a BBS gets my vote. practically speaking, it's not needed today but then still using an Amiga today is not "needed". 99.9% of us only use our Amigas for fun. it's all about the retro experience and BBSes briing back more of the memories. :crazy:
I agree, ratios suck too. i guess they were needed back in the day to help gather files. but any sysop today can spend a few moments finding the files he wants on the net. also, it should run on a real amiga for authenticity. it just wouldnt be the same being served by a PC. :-(
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Yeah run it on Amiga :) Amiga's most recent BBS software, Fame, is free nowadays. Or you could use AmiExpress or DayDream etc...
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I need new glasses
I thought that said BB5
I thought WTF for ?
Farewell Party ?