From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju@...>
Date: 2002-08-16T01:01:13+09:00
Subject: RE: Fun with shifting bytes / Python translation


On Tue, 13 Aug 2002, Firestone, Mark - Technical Support wrote:
> I have been working on a Telnet BBS in Ruby, which started out as an
> effort in retro-computing.  It was supposed to be a museum peice for
> my Retro-BBS website.  Then I discovered Synchro-net.  A suprising
> number of people are still using this BBS software, as it is telnet
> ready.  It does everything but slice bread, but it is SLOW.  Then I
> discovered Dove-net, which is run by the guy who wrote Synchro-net and
> is a QWK/REP network.  Then I noticed that there was actually a fair
> amount of traffic on it.

I have written only a very small BBS software, no colours, in QuickBASIC.
Apart from that I used Maximus-CBCS for a long time, along with SquishMail
and FrontDoor for the FidoNet connections. Maximus had this unix
look-and-feel. I mean, you had a lot of text-based config files divided in
lots of sections; overall it is pretty much like configuring Apache or
XF86 or Postfix.

> I've never used FTSC-1 Netmail, but I did try to set up Fidonet a few
> times (or are they the same thing?) and never got it to work.

FTSC-1 is the FidoNet equivalent of RFC-822. FidoNet is, just like
InterNet, both a standard and a network.

The difference is that with InterNet standards, people tend to connect
only to the big network or else they build a small private network. With
FidoNet standards, at one time, over 500 independent public free-of-charge
networks existed at once, though FidoNet itself was much bigger than any
of those.

> Hey, if you're intereted, the Ruby BBS is running at 
> TELNET tardisbbs.ath.cx 2323
> future plans include a Tradewars clone.  If you are really interested, I'd
> love some help with this sucker!

certainly ruby would be an interesting language to write those things in,
but i'm not into retrocomputing anymore =)

btw I'm off this list. With over 600 messages a week, it has become a bit
too distracting for my taste.

________________________________________________________________
Mathieu Bouchard                       http://artengine.ca/matju