A look at my BBS Software from '93 • Hacker News Board

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#11

Post by hoodoof » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 2:09 AM UTC

How old were you when you wrote this?

Looks like a big system - was this your first major project?

I seem to recall OS/2 and a C compiler cost money back? How did you get to be using those, through work or did you buy them? Why did you choose OS/2 - did you consider any other alternatives?

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#12

Post by sixothree » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 2:17 AM UTC

mmccaff wrote: post #3

Safety1stClyde wrote: post #2

Too bad you lost the source code.

I know. It was on a computer that burned down in a fire. So, it's very much gone. Both that and the message archives from the bbs itself would have been a treasure trove of nostalgia.

I have the last few months of logs and messages from my bbs but have lost all of the menus.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#13

Post by eric_arrr » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 2:23 AM UTC

Fellow obscure BBS software author here.

Mine was Apocalypse / ApX (a hack of Havok, which was a hack of something else, which was a hack of Emulex/2, which I think was a hack of Forum?), around '92.

I, too, remember recruiting ACiD guys to help out with the menu art.

Ah, memories.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#14

Post by Jemaclus » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 2:25 AM UTC

hoodwink wrote: post #10

Anyone play TradeWars 2002? That's what I was doing in '93 on my BBS.

Yes! I've tried over the years to create a TW2002 clone, but I always stall out at the economic system. I've also tried to recreate Barren Realms Elite / Solar Realms Elite, but Amit lost the source code to that, too. Reverse engineering BBS games is hard!

Maybe Legend of the Red Dragon would be easier...

[Edit: I'm aware that there are TW2002 games out there right now, but those tend to be web-based, and I wanna do a legit BBS-style game. Telnet, probably.]

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#15

Post by davidy123 » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 2:35 AM UTC

I wrote a lot of BBS software starting from 1986. This was in Toronto mainly on the C64 (28k RAM… plus some available via switching out ROM using assembler), so Spence BBS was an inspiration, but with a friend we wrote software called M1 which had creative features like user contributed ongoing stories and a way to display files or run simple scripts from any command, like a shell.

Eventually around 1990 it was extended to support federated message exchange, but by then UNIX systems were entering consciousness so we switched to multi-line, uucp capable Waffle software on DOS, then Xenix, BSD/OS and finally Linux around 1993 as it became https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internex_Online

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#16

Post by Arizhel » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 2:38 AM UTC

Computers were a lot more fun in those days.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#17

Post by chubot » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 2:47 AM UTC

hoodoof wrote: post #11

How old were you when you wrote this? Looks like a big system - was this your first major project? I seem to recall OS/2 and a C compiler cost money back? How did you get to be using those, through work or did you buy them? Why did you choose OS/2 - did you consider any other alternatives?

OS/2 and C compilers were readily available for downloaded on BBses.

I'm pretty sure I downloaded Turbo C onto like 20 floppy disks over ZModem or something. Not only did it take forever to download, but installing it was a huge pain, with all the disk swapping. I guess the hard disk didn't have enough space for both the raw disks and the install? I don't remember exactly.

I never ran OS/2 but a friend did, and I'm pretty sure he downloaded it rather than paying for it. A primary form of social currency on BBSes is who had access to commercial software, i.e. the "zero-day warez".

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#18

Post by apaprocki » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 2:48 AM UTC

Re: losing BBS/source from the 90's -- I was fortunate enough to regularly back things up to QIC tape, and lo and behold, 22 years later a hacked up box restored the BBS perfectly and it ran in DosBox on my laptop. I was pleasantly surprised that it all worked immediately. Hardest part was finding parts for a floppy tape and installing the right Windows version. Seeing the ANSI art made it all worth it...

https://twitter.com/apaprocki/status/550432891201941504

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#19

Post by rsync » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 2:54 AM UTC

hoodoof wrote: post #11

How old were you when you wrote this? Looks like a big system - was this your first major project? I seem to recall OS/2 and a C compiler cost money back? How did you get to be using those, through work or did you buy them? Why did you choose OS/2 - did you consider any other alternatives?

"I seem to recall OS/2 and a C compiler cost money back? How did you get to be using those, through work or did you buy them?"

His new user questionnaire asked new users to identify/define several warez release/courier groups.

I don't think he was licensing software ...

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#20

Post by apaprocki » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 2:56 AM UTC

chubot wrote: post #17

hoodoof wrote: post #11

How old were you when you wrote this? Looks like a big system - was this your first major project? I seem to recall OS/2 and a C compiler cost money back? How did you get to be using those, through work or did you buy them? Why did you choose OS/2 - did you consider any other alternatives?

OS/2 and C compilers were readily available for downloaded on BBses. I'm pretty sure I downloaded Turbo C onto like 20 floppy disks over ZModem or something. Not only did it take forever to download, but installing it was a huge pain, with all the disk swapping. I guess the hard disk didn't have enough space for both the raw disks and the install? I don't remember exactly. I never ran OS/2 but a friend did, and I'm p…

Yeah Borland Turbo C in DOS was the way to go. My first board ran on multi-tasking DOS in DESQview before moving over to OS/2 -> Windows over the years.