Do you think BBS will make a resurgence? reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- yzzyxmusic · 2017-12-13 16:46 With net neutrality laws being revoked, internet plans and prices are bound to go up. BBS is super low-bandwidth, so it would be a lot cheaper to use than most current social networking sites. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _-mtb-_ · 2017-12-13 17:01 no, sorry. IMHO it is more likely they will block traffic to the small BBS that are hosted, just because its not white-listed traffic to the ISP. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- seeingeyefrog · 2017-12-13 17:07 If the Internet becomes too inconvenient, something will come along to replace it. Data... finds a way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- auric0m · 2017-12-13 17:10 unlikely. more probably it will fade away to a distant corner of the internets history to be forgotten.. hopefully we will see things like BBS, doorgames, art packs and demos preserved at places like the MOMA or computer museum.. edit: a handful of wierdos will hopefully keep LORD and TW2002 alive if we are lucky ;) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ahandle · 2017-12-13 22:21 http://ag6qo.com/PiPBBS.html [[smh](http://ag6qo.com/BERRYtoN6RME.gif)] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AutoModerator · 2017-12-13 22:21 This comment was auto-moderated since it was just a link with no text. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bbs) if you have any questions or concerns.* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- azrael4h · 2017-12-13 22:25 I've been looking at using Raspberry Pis as a wireless repeater/access point to create isolated, local networks. Essentially, a mesh of Pis set up, connecting to each other remotely, and offering access to home-based servers connected to a host Pi. It's just a theory at this point, but it should be possible to create at least small regional networks independent of the regular net. It would be slow, and impractical to build out nationwide, but it'd be there. It'd even be difficult to trace, since the servers attached wouldn't be through any official networks, and the access points could be damn near anywhere. Combined with a backup of some sites like Wiki, and a few servers for forums hosting and such, we could replicate much of the internet's functionality. I think it wouldn't be able to handle large file transfers as such, so probably not usable for video streaming or even audio streaming. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _-mtb-_ · 2017-12-13 23:32 I've had such thoughts myself. For me, it is a solution looking for a problem. I'll even admit to thoughts of developing a BBS specifically for a Pi. But, I'm sure multiple people have already done that. The potential loss of NN is very bad thing. However, I doubt a redundant, low bandwidth network is needed yet. ISPs want more money. They won't want to drive away paying customers entirely. BBSes don't make money. I don't see Wikipedia going away soon. I do see Telnet / SSH ports being blocked without more money. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ILikeBumblebees · 2017-12-14 04:31 Net neutrality has never been sustained by laws in the first place (and allowing it to become dependent on laws is probably the greatest credible threat to net neutrality itself), so this is not likely to be the case. Regardless, telnet-accessible BBSes *have* made something of a resurgence, and there are tons of them online at the moment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- z80org · 2017-12-14 08:43 One thing I find with both running BBS:es myself and visiting others is how relaxing it is compared to Facebook, Twitter and other. The pace is slower, less distractions, etc. I highly recommend it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- azrael4h · 2017-12-14 16:34 We'll see. They want more money, but they're also highly incompetent and corrupt. I've no doubt that they'll engage is actions that render the current internet completely useless in the US. I'd rather prepare now than curse myself later. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- istarian · 2017-12-15 04:38 Protecting the current state of affairs with laws is going to be necessary if it becomes profitable to do anything other than has been done. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- istarian · 2017-12-15 04:48 Telnet maybe, but SSH is used a lot AND ports are merely suggestions. Unless software is hardcoded you can run it on any port you want. They could filter traffic maybe if they *really cared*. There's no need to code a BBS specifically for a Pi unless none exist for Linux or UNIX. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- istarian · 2017-12-15 05:07 For what it's worth forums are basically an internet BBS anyway. It's just a question of whether there are any aspects of the original that aren't available now sand worth preserving. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jan-pona-pi-sona-ali · 2017-12-15 06:31 I hope ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nolageek · 2017-12-15 15:40 Will they ever be as popular as they were 'back in the day?' - almost certainly not, but I think they'll be around for a while as long as there are hobbyists who are interested in old tech. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- diseasealert · 2017-12-15 23:16 Sounds a lot like this. https://medium.com/@ajroach42/a-modern-bbs-reviving-the-local- distributed-weird-precursor-to-facebook-4b3db93f742d ---------------------------------------------------------------------- azrael4h · 2017-12-15 23:31 Exactly like it almost. I envisioned several solar-powered Rpi's in a mesh, with anyone being able to log into the network at any point, and additional pi's connected to act as file servers, and site servers. There would have to be some way to index the connected sites automatically, to allow users ready access. It looks like this guy experimented with a single node like that, and it had a community grow around it. Imagine a similar mesh with a broader range of 'sites' connected and across an entire city. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- seaart75 · 2017-12-22 00:16 This is kind of what I was mentioning in another thread I posted today. I've been looking into mesh networking myself and how to create intranet style network with an interface similar to how old BBS boards worked, though maybe nicer graphics and user experience. I've been searching for open-source software to build off of this idea. I'm glad I'm not the only one with this thought out there. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- azrael4h · 2017-12-22 00:21 Given how things are going, I think a lot of people are. Most of the country is fed up with the ISP mafia, and looking for ways to escape their extortion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MaxMouse__ · 2018-01-07 16:55 Net Neutrality was wayy over hyped. we have had Net Neutrality forever in Canada and nothing felt different. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2018-02-18 03:30 [removed] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2018-03-25 04:49 I'm doing similar things with a Raspberry Pi 3 and a couple of C.H.I.P.s. I did an IoT project last year with TCP socket servers and clients and serial ports that I used to control Arduino-based hardware from a C-64, CoCo2, and TRS-80 Model 100 over WiFi. I'm applying what I learned from that project to a dialup/telnet BBS right now. It'll be up on Github eventually. The goal is to make it ridiculously easy for a programmer with modest skills to build out a custom BBS from the basic package. I think it will work great for what you're talking about. The file transfer capabilities should be adequate for the small files typically used on those old 8-bit computers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2018-03-25 05:03 Not strictly necessary, but a lightweight, portable BBS built around SQLite would be cool to have. You could run it off of a cheap 1TB USB hard drive. With a decent powered hub, you could have multiple drives and modems connected via FTDI cables. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nolageek · 2018-03-26 23:02 Sounds like a piratebox. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2018-03-27 03:02 Similar, but it would be connected to the Internet and accept telnet connections like any other modern BBS. By "portable," I mean the entire system in its existing state could be easily copied to another machine without having to run an installation / configuration process. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- istarian · 2018-03-27 05:32 Multiple modems isn't really useful, because you need multiple *phone lines* to connect them to... At that point you may as well go Telnet (or some other approach using either raw TCP or some kind of protocol). Why does it even need a hard drive? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2018-03-27 06:26 Yeah, you're right about the modems. I collect old phones and built my own PBX, so that would be more of an in-house thing to play with than an essential part of the BBS. I use a hard drive with my Raspberry Pi because, believe it or not, I somehow managed to brick it by exhausting all of the space on the SD card during a DietPi upgrade. Lost a ton of code it had taken several months to write. Now I write all of my code on the hard drive and run it from there, and only install essential software on the SD card. That incident made me so paranoid that I run a nightly rsync cron to back that drive up to a second one. It's nice to have that much space and redundancy if you plan to have tons of files and a large database on your board too. Users probably wouldn't be too forgiving if you klutzed around and destroyed their entire online civilization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- istarian · 2018-03-27 18:55 To be fair, a backup before the upgrade might have been sufficient to solve that problem. So I'd say that's less of SD card vs hard drive than having proper backup plans in place. Although storing anything critical on a. medium you can 'brick' is potentially a bad idea. It's pretty hard to do that to a hard drive. Also, with a standard spinning hard drive the data I believe the data layout is a little more where you put it as opposed to the sd card itself deciding where to put things...