[SUGGESTION] Winworld BBS

edited July 2017 in Site Issues
Considering the fact that we have a lot of people who use vintage system here,and the fact that the internet is quite recent, I think it'd be good in order to have a more convenient way for users of pre-internet age systems to download things directly onto their machines.

As far as I am concerned I know that sending messages, file transfer and sharing, etc is all possible over BBS.

From a surface level, I'd think this'd be a god idea.

However, I am not someone with experience of servers and networking in depth, especially older network technology.

If an admin or experienced person could weigh in on if this'd be possible/and or a good idea, that'd be great.

Comments

  • edited July 2017
    I am not an "admin or experienced person" in any way whatsoever, but a WinWorld BBS is a great idea in my opinion. My only questions are:

    How would I connect to a BBS over broadband internet (I don't have any computers that support dialup anymore)?

    And would we be using our forum ID and passwords, if said BBS had a membership system?
  • I know the Synchronet BBS software is relatively easy to use. Though Ive only used it with my friends and not hundreds of users. File transfer is done by FTP, and Im not sure you could easily link the files that are here now.


    I am certainly no expert in setting up BBS but would love to be of assistance if this is something that wants to be done.



    One thing I just realized, the images that are currently hosted would be useless on most vintage machines. Is there even 7-zip for pre-Win XP?
  • ever heard of a Hybrid BBS?

    It means you can connect through both telnet and a modem (phone number).
  • Twiggy wrote:
    ever heard of a Hybrid BBS?

    It means you can connect through both telnet and a modem (phone number).


    Synchronet BBS can do this. Telnet, phone number and Html.
  • I'm sure it's not trivial, but some kind of BBS gateway to the forum would be a neat idea.

    Security would be a big concern though. Especially if it's running over telnet.
  • BBSes? Yawn. NNTP is where it's at.
  • I know the Synchronet BBS software is relatively easy to use. Though Ive only used it with my friends and not hundreds of users. File transfer is done by FTP, and Im not sure you could easily link the files that are here now.


    I am certainly no expert in setting up BBS but would love to be of assistance if this is something that wants to be done.



    One thing I just realized, the images that are currently hosted would be useless on most vintage machines. Is there even 7-zip for pre-Win XP?

    Win image has a Windows 3.1 version.

    There is 7zip for pre xp, like there is a version for 98.

    Also, pkunzip is for DOS.

    So a user can download an image, extrac it from the zip file, then make a floppy with win image on the very same machine, or just extract from the image.
  • There is 32-bit 7zip command line tool that will run under 95/NT, as well as an older 7zip GUI client. But I'm not aware of any DOS version.

    PKZIP runs on an original 8088 based IBM 5150.

    Even still, the archives on this site are optimized for downloading on a newer computer. Things like large artwork, kryoflux images, PDFs, and so on are of no use directly to a vintage machine.

    Same problem with Mac stuff. Even if you can get a System 7 Power Mac on the Internet, it only knows how to handle SIT or HQX files, and everything must have a resource fork.

    And then there is the hole chicken-and-the-egg problem. A good chunk of people coming to winworld are trying to get their vintage gear to boot up in the first place. They have to have boot media and a communications program loaded up first to get to any kind of BBS.
  • IIRC, someone ported 7-Zip to DOS, but it'll likely require a 386.

    I've been meaning to get out Retro68 and try to port 7-Zip.

    And, for what it's worth, we have an HTTP/1.0+HTML3.2 site.
  • This is certainly a very neat idea. In ideal logical perspective, it seems quite do able. But from a networking side / server side of things. This idea is a tad bit more challenging.

    First off the machine will need to have at least 2 interfaces, one standard NIC card, and the another some kind of modem. The modem will provide the connectivity needed for dail-up user's to connect to the server, while the NIC card will be for any one else who would want to connect to the BBS. From here there are 2 directions, one could either try to translate the dail-up connection to a leased ipv4 address to connect to the server or have the hybrid BBS software take it from there. Another thing is getting or "mirroring" the download-able content from this website to the hybrid BBS system, as well as spending the money to get the multiple dial-up lines needed. (Of which I would assume that it would be a problem).

    Connection through the forums on the other hand seems a lot easier, as all you need to do is setup a forum board and mix match it to the looks and feel of this web forum. Although telnet would be a problem, but I don't see it as big as a security threat.

    I don't mean to be hating on your idea, it sounds wonderful, and challenging at the same time. I just wanted to get out the problems that one might have trying to set this bad boy up. That and if you really think about it, the sure scale is enormous...
  • I have thought about this in the past a bit. I would really like to ultimately avoid adding any additional software to the WinWorld stack unless it serves a clear significant advantage, otherwise it's just yet another thing I need to manage. My plans in the past would have been a custom PHP based interface to the site/forums that exposes data over a regular ASCII telnet/ppp session. I thought of maybe hooking that into Asterisk some how and getting a VoIP provider and DID instead of having several modems. Not sure how well it would have worked out.

    Either way, a huge endeavor, one we have very little resource to actively maintain and properly integrate.
  • I don't how how valuable it would be, but...

    I have some extensive experience with server 2000/2003 and NT4. Since 2003 is close enough to XP (that BAD word!) there shouldn't be much hassle installing older protocols, and running a VM with the DOS-based BBS stuff accessing hardware resources - including fixed drives for the archives in a net share-type setup.

    Myself, I made my 2003 server with most of the older protocols, so that all my computers (XT/AT, 386, etc) can all access the shares with the proper drivers installed. When it comes to having the Atari and Apple II's read though, I'm still working on that. heh

    Somewhere I have some BBS software. You can get 8-port modem boards off eBay relatively cheap, so VoIP isn't really a requirement - you have options. I took the cheap way out and put 4 modems in my server and use 3 for dial-in access (even though only 2 people have the numbers).

    Long and short of it is, if you want, I can tinker around with a spare junk system and put '03 on it and see what can be done.
  • Nothing on a 'spare junk system' could ever be public facing at least with the WinWorld site/data.

    Seriously, we are not opening up a gigantic security vulnerability.
  • @stitch I don't think that was what DreadStorm was trying to say. From my standpoint I think he just wanted to experiment with test data (like the TestBoards you created to test the new phpBB theme and phpBB 3.2).
  • Erito17 wrote:
    @stitch I don't think that was what DreadStorm was trying to say. From my standpoint I think he just wanted to experiment with test data (like the TestBoards you created to test the new phpBB theme and phpBB 3.2).

    TestBoards is an officially sanctioned WinWorld project with the express intent to be running in production with the current forum data upon completion.

    If other people want to experiment with things that's fine and dandy, but discussion of that does not belong in a topic of "[SUGGESTION] Winworld BBS" in the Administration board of "Site Issues". These forums are for WinWorld specific things, and nothing should be using the name of WinWorld or show any affiliation without express approval from Duff or myself.

    I really do not want outsiders looking in on this thread, and getting any kind of false hopes that something 'official' may be in the works.
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