Reviving my old BBS reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JayG7800 · 2016-10-22 23:14 I've been considering to revive my BBS, Online World BBS, which lived from 1991-1995. I'm considering if I should go through the effort of actually dealing with phone lines. Is there a VOIP provider out there that is 1 - cheap, and 2 - capable of allowing 9600 baud communications? If not, I'll either go with just telnet and *possibly* packet radio modem on VHF. Lastly, I'd like to revive some old doors I used to have - specifically SRE/BRE. Is this possible on a Raspberry Pi? If not, I may just use a Windows instance. Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MGJon · 2016-10-23 00:43 No matter what you choose, definitely keep us posted. If you go with packet radio (haven't played with that since high school), can you tell us where you are? I don't have any equipment or license to do packet radio, but I still find it fascinating. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SunosUnix · 2016-10-23 01:13 Definitely keep us posted! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lordxoi · 2016-10-23 01:22 No LoRD or TW2002?! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JayG7800 · 2016-10-23 02:48 Sure will. I'm in northeastern VT. The range on VHF though is 60 miles max LOS, with 25 mi probably being more realistic. If you have any interest at all in amateur radio, grab a study guide or check out /r/amateurradio. I just got into it about two years ago - it's a very unique and interesting hobby. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JayG7800 · 2016-10-23 02:49 Will certainly do. I forgot to mention I'm also interested in re- joining Fidonet for the fun of it. I'm really trying to figure out if I should start with a Windows install or a Raspberry Pi 3. I have one sitting in my amazon cart as I type this .. decisions :P ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JayG7800 · 2016-10-23 02:50 Yes, those would likely be added too. My all-time favorite door was SRE though :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dzendian · 2016-10-23 03:04 I was able to do a decent POC through a Raspberry Pi 3 using DoxBox (renegade) and haproxy. I wish dosemu worked on the pi... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MGJon · 2016-10-23 04:50 I've been in and out of ham radios for about 20 years, mostly via friends who are hams. I'm mainly a listener - shortwave, police, fire, air, etc - but constantly toying with getting licensed. I've got the prep tests, and can pass the technician exam every time. That's a step, right? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dirkt · 2016-10-23 07:11 VoIP seems to work fine with [31.2 kbit](http://www.insentricity.com/a.cl/230/using-modems-without-phone- lines), so I guess any VoIP provider will do. And I'm [still](https://www.reddit.com/r/bbs/comments/557e9t/bbs_acces sable_via_modem_over_a_sip_voip_address/) looking for a BBS with a direct SIP address, which will allow me to use my modem without having to pay fees to any phone provider. Registering just a free SIP address (no phone <-> VoIP bridging) is easy, e.g. at [ekiga]](https://ekiga.im/index.php?page=services), [linphone](http://www.linphone.org/free-sip-service.html), or others. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- derfherdez · 2016-10-23 13:44 Who doesn't have those? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- derfherdez · 2016-10-23 13:49 What did you run it on before? Don't discount qemu or any x86 virtualization even on non x86. But I run my OS/2 on qemu via x86 Linux. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- derfherdez · 2016-10-23 13:49 What did you run it on before? Don't discount qemu or any x86 virtualization even on non x86. But I run my OS/2 on qemu via x86 Linux. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JayG7800 · 2016-10-23 13:57 Good question. It ran on an XT with DR-DOS, 20MB HDD, and I think the software was either Remote Access or QuickBBS. I'm planning to borrow a 5.25" drive in the near future to see if I can find anything cool like my old ANSI graphics login screen or whatever from a bunch of disks I still have from back in the day. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JayG7800 · 2016-10-23 14:23 BTW is OS/2 public domain at this point? I only played with it once many years ago. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- derfherdez · 2016-10-23 14:40 No, IBM resells it to vars for resale. I'm halfway tempted to shell out 10k and find out if I too can be a var ---------------------------------------------------------------------- derfherdez · 2016-10-23 14:42 Wow best of luck.... I've used a fake modem program on Dos to do someting as an experiment, then add Windows 3.0 for 4 nodes... Rlfossil I believe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- derfherdez · 2016-10-23 14:43 Yes, it was rlfossil https://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/2011/07/01/bbsing-with- windows386-windows-3-0-under-qemu-or-how-i-learned-to-love-rlfossil/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JayG7800 · 2016-10-23 14:50 Ha... sounds like you just need to schedule a test. Check out www.arrl.org or www.w5yi.org to find a nearby session. It only costs like $15 pass or fail :) I started with getting my tech license back in January 2015 and upgraded all the way to Extra by April 2015 (I think). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JayG7800 · 2016-10-23 14:51 I'm pretty sure you wouldn't make your 10k back on licensing OS/2 ;) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- derfherdez · 2016-10-23 15:28 I'm 100% sure of that! I'd just like to get source access and bring on an infinite amount of interns to see if we could at least get 32 bit device drivers infected to the kernel. The real problem is that there never was a killer OS/2 app. Rewriting PM would be a waste of time. The only thing OS/2 did great was multitasking MS-DOS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MGJon · 2016-10-24 13:15 Yeah, I realized something about a year ago, though. My local nets are active at night, which is family time around my house. I work from home, so could theoretically be active during the day, but in my years of monitoring, I've rarely heard anyone hit those repeaters during daylight hours. That, and the nearest test to me happens once a month on Saturday mornings, and last year I attempted to get out there about 4 times before realizing Saturday mornings, at least in the summer, are full. It's a priority thing, and right now I have too many other things taking priority. One day, though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nolageek · 2016-10-24 15:47 A popular way to add active doors is to use a game server like BBSlink or DoorParty. It lets you add a ton of doors very easily and since there's multiple BBSs connecting to the same games they're more active than just having them installed locally (and easier to install as well - especiall if you're running on a Pi.) I link both BBSlink and Door Party, the big plus with BBSlink is that you can add the individual games to your game menu so they look like a part of your board. With DoorParty the user connects to the server and gets a menu from there, so it's not as seamless IMHO. The flipside is that DoorParty has a TON of games and BBSlink doesn't have as many. DoorParty: http://forums.throwbackbbs.com/ BBSlink: http://BBSlink.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JayG7800 · 2016-10-24 20:54 Awesome.. thank you for this info - I wasn't aware of either option. I'll be sure to check them out. Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JayG7800 · 2016-10-24 20:56 I hear ya - I bought my first study guide back in the 1990s, another one around 2008, and then finally my last one in 2015 and decided that time, I was going to take the test 3 weeks later ha. But, I hear ya.. good luck! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cyberia324 · 2016-10-26 14:04 I run DOS doors natively on my raspberry Pi 3. I wrote a HOWTO on how to set it up using QEMU and FreeDOS. http://cyberia.darktech.org:8080/dispfile.php?textfile=text/gfiles/mys tic/dosdoors- howto.txt&title=How+To+Add+DOS+doors+to+Raspberry+Pi+Mystic ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JayG7800 · 2016-10-26 18:23 Awesome... I'll check this out. Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gstandard00 · 2016-11-01 04:59 Damn guess what my next Pi project will be :)