Subj : Re: Doors/Utility Suggestions?
To   : alt.bbs.doors
From : rhythmnp@aol.comSTOPSPAM (RhythmNp)
Date : Wed Aug 20 2003 12:02 am

>1: door.sys <-> door32.sys program
>
>Concept:  	It would require three programs (two if the author of the third
>	    	would add in the support).
>           1: a 16-bit door kit (ddplus)
>           2: a 32-bit telnet program
>           3: gamesrv by mannsoft.

I think there's an easier way to arrange this that doesn't require a larger
program like GameSrv.  I think all that's needed is:

1. a 16-bit door (routes user's I/O to a shared file)
2. a 32-bit program (routes I/O from the shared file to a localhost socket)

The door32 game you're running then reads/writes to the localhost socket, which
can be passed to the door32 game through the dropfile.

The only potential snag is that sockets are designed for client/server
behavior, so the 32-bit intermediate program may need to actually "connect to
itself" with 2 threads in order for the socket descriptor to be valid? (in
english, this is slightly inefficient, but is still faster than using something
like GameSrv)

>3: BBS Listter
>         5: A web-crawler (google) type of portal for the BBS scene only
>            that hunts down bbs telnet urls and phone numbers to include
>            in the list and gives a run down the the bbs's you want to
>            find.

I've been planning on writing something like this, and I have some Perl code
that can be easily modified to do this task... just haven't gotten time yet...
the hard part is that a textual classifier is necessary, to separate telnet
BBS's from telnet MUDs, unix telnet account logins, etc.  A well-written
classifier could differentiate between these as well as determine BBS software
and keywords, based on the web site the telnet addy was found on as well as the
telnet server's login screen.  

Definitely something that I want to (and can) write sometime, just a question
of when I find the time :(

>5: mtel phone book utility.
>   I use mtel for my telnet client and it has a limit of 200 bbs's.  Which is
>great, but there is hundreds of bbs's out there and sometimes I want to try 
>something new and when I look through the list I forget about some of the 
>bbs's I added it to and what they have to offer.  A utility that will keep 
>more then 200 bbs's and keep a small description of the bbs and what it has 
>to offer me. 

The author of mTelnet is still around (AFAIK), you can probably just ask him to
put these modifications directly into the program.

>8: email validation utility to a bbs.
>
>Back in the day I recall we had a call back verifier to prevent multi 
>accounts, but now with telnet.  You don't really have that option.  This
>would somewhat cut down on the dup accounts. (drawback: yes, it is easy
>to get email accounts).

I think these already exist, I know of at least one although it might be
Synchronet only... a lot of Synchronet boards are running this in any case.

.