[HN Gopher] Connect to a 1980s Atari BBS through the web
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       Connect to a 1980s Atari BBS through the web
        
       Author : JPolka
       Score  : 63 points
       Date   : 2025-10-26 09:31 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.southernamis.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.southernamis.com)
        
       | jim_lawless wrote:
       | I interviewed Rob Sherman the gent behind Southernamis and other
       | Atari BBS's on my podcast a few months ago. He's running emulated
       | Atari 8-bit systems in AWS for these BBS's. Rob also has written
       | some articles on telnet-access retro BBS's in the newly revived
       | Compute's Gazette magazine.
       | 
       | Visiting BBS's that run on actual or emulated hardware can be a
       | nice trip down memory lane for those who were part of the 8-bit
       | BBS community in times past.
        
       | crims0n wrote:
       | For those who still have original hardware, FujiNet is a great
       | way to get it online. Just plugs right into the SIO port and it
       | doesn't need any external power.
        
       | debo_ wrote:
       | If Amiga is more your style, there is a wonderfully maintained
       | Amiga-hosted BBS at absinthebbs.net.
        
       | asdefghyk wrote:
       | This story triggered my recollection of purchasing and reading
       | Boardwatch magazine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boardwatch
       | https://archive.org/details/boardwatchmagazine
        
       | thw_9a83c wrote:
       | BTW, this is about the 8-bit Atari machines, not the more
       | advanced 16-bit Atari ST computers that came later.
       | 
       | I had an Atari 800XL as a kid but had absolutely no access to a
       | dial-up data line. BSS for Atari 8-bits sounds like a nice
       | future-retro to me. The guys who had access to this were very
       | lucky.
        
       | michaelcampbell wrote:
       | I forget which Atari BBS it was that I used to dial in a lot to,
       | but a buddy of mine ran one and I got to look at the BASIC source
       | code.
       | 
       | IIRC, a large number of single digit constants were stored as
       | variables to save memory since each use of one took up more
       | memory than referencing the variable, and further it used
       | something along the lines of Peano numbers and the fact booleans
       | were represented as numbers to create them. Something like:
       | 
       | 10 LET D0 = 0
       | 
       | 20 LET D1 = (D0 = D0) <== some boolean that evaluated to true/1.
       | I may have this backwards
       | 
       | 30 LET D2 = D1 + D1
       | 
       | 40 ...
       | 
       | I forget the details, but when all was said and done, when you
       | ran the BBS there was zero free memory; not a single byte.
        
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       (page generated 2025-10-26 23:01 UTC)