Hey Kiddies,
It’s 98 degrees in NYC today, and maybe the extreme heat and musty smells of Midtown Manhattan have conjured up a crazy idea. In the obvious social pattern of evolving back to all things retro, i’d like to know how, in this day and age, to go about starting a cheap, home based dial-in bbs (i’m sure they all started out home-based). I’m assuming the hardest part of the equation would be aggregating phone lines? is there some magical way to allow one phone line to service, let’s say, 10 users or 5 or 2, or anything more than 1?
Maybe this could be a collaboration? Can it be done with VoIP? can VoIP be manipulated to allow this sort of thing? How did 1 guy support 20 people dialing in back in the day? anybody out there done it, or seen it done? i mean, it seems inhuman for somebody to pay for 20 phone lines, espescially back then? Although i can clearly remember some being subscription($) based, and some always begging for donations…
Ultimately, I want to start a game of Galactic Realms, just like the old days, remembering the time when 1400 bps modems were the rage (amongst geeks like me), and i used to strive, nightly, to achieve sub-sysop status, or moderator status…
I would like to achieve this feat for the same reason i want to buy a classic Voltron (I’m 30), because if i wanted something as a kid, I still want it now.
Anybody? Any ideas?
Calling all Old-school SYSOPS! It’s 2007 – How do I start up my own dialin BBS?
Posted by Commodore64 on July 9th, 2007
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Wow talk about Retro! I believe there are platforms that allow you to run your retro bbs a little easier with a little invention called the internet.
You know those tubes that data flows through! Well there are some boards up and running on telnet or hyperterm.
From a c64 board called Leif Bloomquist’s C64 board: C64 BBS Thats Active NOW! 2007
What’s this?
In a moment of nostalgic geekiness, I decided to set up a Bulletin Board System (BBS) on my Commodore 64 again – after 15 years! However, I wanted to avoid long distance charges for any callers, and the need for a second phone line.
The solution: Set it up so anyone with Internet access can simply Telnet to it.
How does it work?
A Windows PC is used to “bridge” between the Internet and the C64, as in the block diagram above.
The PC and C64 are connected through a null modem cable and a VIC-1011A Terminal Type adapter.
A simple “server” program (screenshot) runs on the PC, listening on TCP Port 23 (standard Telnet). When a connection is made, the server forwards all incoming data over the serial port (COM1 in this case) to the Commodore. Replies from the Commodore are similarly forwarded back to the caller’s Telnet client.
Photos and more information
Photos of the BBS and a PowerPoint presentation describing how the BBS works in more detail, are available here. Thanks to Jason Scott, director the BBS Documentary.
If thats not your cup of tea and you really want to go the Ol’ Skool route here are some links to the softwares from yesteryore. Check it out find all your favs
Link
hit us with more if you got it!
I realize it can be done thru telnet, but i want people to actually dial into this one with their standard rj-15 modem. At this point im curious how the telephone infrastructure was done back then, and how it can be duplicated and improved upon today.
do ppl still use modems ewwwwww get with the program
It’s about being retro man. It’s the fact the we all realize our capability to blaze on an OC3 line and slice through gigz of downloads and streaming multimedia flash blah blah blah, but I’m after the reminiscent days. This is one of my ways of reliving the things in my youth that I never thought I had enough time to do back then (I still don’t) but it’s nice sometimes.
telnet://bbs.jammingsignal.com/ is now down or atleast i cant get to it, are there others still around via telnet?
I was just reminiscing about this the other day with a co-worker. 1400bps? Luxury, my first modem was a $100 300 baud modem. Back then, gopher, archie and veronica were my search tools. Usenet was all the rage. There were dozens of local BBS’s and I remember dialing over and over – but the university account I had access to was rarely busy so I used that more frequently. Flashbacks of xmodem, ymodem, gmodem xymodem, zmodem transfer tools. Gak. 8 / N / 1 parity settings, compression. Wow, I need a drink. Don’t ever mention modems again please.
45 minutes downloading Bart Simpson Pictures Fighting Saddam Husein anyone?
The games were the best part for me. These were the first MMORPG’s that started the whole thing!
Thanks for this blast from the past commodore. We miss you writing for Ata
I’m baaaaaack
i would hang that up on my wall if my wife would let
Sorry Adrian. but they still live!
yes there are plenty, yo ucan search around for them on google
no we dont use them perse. we just play with them. We ‘use’ our cable modems!