Cottonwood BBS -- Improved Setup

[wiskow]

I've recently aquirerd a CMD HD-200 hard drive (thanks, Al!), as well as a couple 1581's (thanks, Marco!), and with this, I've vastly improved the setup for my BBS. Until I get the update for AA BBS from its author, I'm only able to have one 16 MB partition of the 245 MB hard drive on the BBS, but even so, this is a VAST improvement over what I was running. And now, I can officially announce quite happily that I have DIVORCED my C=64c from the PC it was connected to. Everything is now 100% original!

I've updated the photo of my setup on the Cottonwood BBS website at hometown.aol.com/cottonwoodbbs

Here's what the BBS is now running on:
1 Commodore 64c Computer
1 Commodore 1084S Monitor
2 Commodore 1541 Disk Drives
1 Commodore 1541c Disk Drive
1 FSD-2 Excellerator+ Disk Drive
2 Commodore 1581 Disk Drives
1 CMD HD-200 Hard Drive (245 MB)
1 MultiTech MultiModem224 (2400 baud)
1 Black Rotary-Dial Desk Phone
1 All American BBS by Nick Smith

Check it out now at [phone]. Call and experience the world's last remaining Commodore 64 dial-up BBS!

-Andrew
(aka Balzabaar - SysOp)

[expertsetup]

This I think I have to do, do you mind if I call with my breadbox C64 and modem? It will be at least a week as I have to run a phone line into the room. I can't wait to watch the text come in again. I used to visit a great site that was run on AABBS around 1987. I had 300 Baud at the time, I purchased the modem for $29.99 at Wearhouse Records ha ha ha. It seems like my Mom would always want to use the phone while I was in the middle of a download.

[wiskow]

expertsetup said:

This I think I have to do, do you mind if I call with my breadbox C64 and modem?

You're most welcome to call, *especially* from a C64! ;-)

After careful consideration, I've decided to "join the crowd" and make this a Telnet-acessable BBS instead of dial-up. This is due in part to several requests I've received, mostly from people in Europe, to make it acessable via Telnet. Also, caller activity has been extremely low, so making it acessable via Telnet and saving people long-distance phone charges could certainly help. Anyway, I've still got a few bits to aquire before I can do this, so until then, it will remain acessable "the old-fashioned way"! :-D

-Andrew

[Golan Klinger]

Andrew, could you clarify please. Are you planning on adding telnet accessibility (as was discussed on Lemon64) or are you planning on giving up on the dialup experiment and making the board accessible exclusively via telnet?

[Ian Colquhoun]

Andrew,

Don't expect any massive increase in caller volume by going telnettable. I only get maybe 2 or 3 people calling my board a week. The days of a busy bbs are long behind us I think.

[wiskow]

gklinger said:

Andrew, could you clarify please. Are you planning on adding telnet accessibility (as was discussed on Lemon64) or are you planning on giving up on the dialup experiment and making the board accessible exclusively via telnet?

I've decided to give up on the "dialup experiment", mainly because everyone who is calling now also has the ability to call via Telnet. By switching to a Telnet-accessable setup, it'll just open up the opportunity to call to a wider group of people (the world) versus a more local group.

ian said:

Don't expect any massive increase in caller volume by going telnettable. I only get maybe 2 or 3 people calling my board a week. The days of a busy bbs are long behind us I think.

Don't worry, Ian... I fully understand that the days of a busy BBS are long gone. I just want to open up the ability for people who want to call to more people so that they won't be stuck paying high phone bills. Specifically, I've had requests from a few people in Europe to do this who would like to call, but who don't want to pay international long distance charges. After careful consideration of this, I've decided to go ahead and make the switch. But, like I said before, I've still got to get a few "pieces of the puzzle" together, and until I've got everything up and running, I'll keep my BBS accessable via dial-up at [phone].

-Andrew

[Robin Harbron]

wiskow said:

I just want to open up the ability for people who want to call to more people so that they won't be stuck paying high phone bills. Specifically, I've had requests from a few people in Europe to do this who would like to call, but who don't want to pay international long distance charges.

FWIW, the only reason I'm interested in calling your board is because you're on dial-up I guess I better put my money where my mouth is and actually call.

If you go telnet, then you're just going to be one of many, rather than one of a kind. What will the incentive be to call your board in particular?

[Golan Klinger]

To be completely honest, I'm wondering the same thing as Robin. I remember when in comp.sys.cbm you first raised the issue of putting up your bulletin board again. You were so adamant about wanting to do something unique. By making your BBS telnet accessible, you will increase the number of potential users although I'm not convinced that you'll see a huge up-surge in calls. Have you ruled out making your BBS a hybrid? That way it would still be unique and would also increase the potential user base. It would be a win-win situation. Granted, it would take some hacking but I'm quite sure it's doable with existing software (credit goes to Leif for thinking of this first.)

[wiskow]

gklinger said:

To be completely honest, I'm wondering the same thing as Robin. I remember when in comp.sys.cbm you first raised the issue of putting up your bulletin board again. You were so adamant about wanting to do something unique. By making your BBS telnet accessible, you will increase the number of potential users although I'm not convinced that you'll see a huge up-surge in calls. Have you ruled out making your BBS a hybrid? That way it would still be unique and would also increase the potential user base. It would be a win-win situation. Granted, it would take some hacking but I'm quite sure it's doable with existing software (credit goes to Leif for thinking of this first.)

That's what I love about forums like this... I'm able to have intelligent conversations about topics and based on responses, I can avoid rushing to conclusions that I would otherwise make on my own. ;-)

Maybe I should re-think this. What still makes my BBS unique no matter what is that I'm the only one who is running All American BBS, with its unique style and online games. But you both make valid points, that keeping it dial-up does make it truly unique. I have been having some modem issues that I've been unsuccessful in clearing up. That was another reason I thought I'd switch to a Telnettable setup. I'm waiting on the newest version of AA BBS to arrive from Nick Smith, the software's author. I've spoken with him a few times on the phone, and he said he'd make the copies for me, but so far, I haven't received anything. I'm *hoping* that the newer version will have better modem support and thereby clear up the issues I'm having. With the version I'm currently using, the only 2400 baud modems that it *truly* supports is the Avatex2400 and the SmarTeam2400 modems. I have another Hayes compatible modem that I use, which I got to work, but a lot of people have had problems connecting. I selected "Other Hayes modem" in the setup. Apparently, the BBS is detecting the wrong baud speed, and the caller just gets garbage on their end as a result. I bought an Aprotek Minimodem C24, but I can't get it to work at all with the BBS. If I could find an Avatex or SmarTeam modem, that'd be great, but I've been unable to find one so far. And if the newer version of the software has better modem support, that'd be great, too... but so far, I haven't seen it.

Anyway, maybe I'll hold off on making a switch, and think this through better...

And Golan, no, I haven't totally abandoned the idea of running my BBS as a "hybrid" setup, allowing both Telnet and dial-up access. I understand that in theory, this should be feasible, but I admit that I don't have the "know-how" to make this happen on my own. And so far, no one has stepped forward to offer to help me out. Any takers? ;-)

-Andrew

[Robin Harbron]

wiskow said:

I'm waiting on the newest version of AA BBS to arrive from Nick Smith, the software's author. I've spoken with him a few times on the phone, and he said he'd make the copies for me, but so far, I haven't received anything.

I'd imagine the author is excited about hearing someone still using his product, but getting back up to speed to even copy disks might take him a while. Maybe he doesn't have any 8-bit C= equipment set up, maybe it doesn't even work anymore

Anyway, maybe I'll hold off on making a switch, and think this through better...

Cool I still haven't dug out my modem and term program; I'm currently lining up a new commercial game project and still working my regular day-job, so I hardly even have time to make my regular forum rounds

And Golan, no, I haven't totally abandoned the idea of running my BBS as a "hybrid" setup, allowing both Telnet and dial-up access. I understand that in theory, this should be feasible, but I admit that I don't have the "know-how" to make this happen on my own. And so far, no one has stepped forward to offer to help me out. Any takers? ;-)

Yeah, I can't imagine an existing easy solution for this. I guess the existing program that allows the telnet connection would have to also watch a com port for a modem connection, and then duplicate the info coming in on the real modem out to to the C-64. And of course, it'd have to busy-out the currently unused connection.

[Golan Klinger]

macbthpsw said:

Yeah, I can't imagine an existing easy solution for this. I guess the existing program that allows the telnet connection would have to also watch a com port for a modem connection, and then duplicate the info coming in on the real modem out to to the C-64. And of course, it'd have to busy-out the currently unused connection.

I understand that tcpser already supports this functionality as do most terminal servers. Either way, writing software to do this is trivial provided the computer handling the telnet and modem connections is running a UNIX variant.

[Golan Klinger]

Andrew, you may well be the most relentless promoter I have ever encountered. This is the fourth time I've had to read your post in the last 10 minutes (mailing lists, newsgroups, web forums etc.) and I'm girding myself because there are a few forums I haven't visited yet. I think you've made more posts about your BBS than you've had callers! Perhaps you need to examine your motives for putting up and running a BBS. Are you're doing this for historical preservation, personal satisfaction or notoriety?

[wiskow]

gklinger said:

Perhaps you need to examine your motives for putting up and running a BBS. Are you're doing this for historical preservation, personal satisfaction or notoriety?

Historical preservation, yes. Personal satisfaction, yes. Notoriety? This means very little to me. I've never had a need to be "famous"; I just like to do things that I enjoy. And if notoriety was important to me, there are probably ways to do it that are a LOT less time consuming. ;-)

I do apologize to anyone who, like me, reads a lot of newsgroups, web forums, and mailing lists, and has had to read my posts several times. I've found, however, that there are a lot of people who only subscribe to one or two of these, so I've tried to do my best to "get the word out" whenever I make an upgrade or modification. There are also people who are only "passive participants", and maybe only check a newsgroup or web forum once a month or more, so I'm trying to reach those people as well. True, I could just sit back and hope that people would seek my BBS out and call it... But that's unlikely to happen. Everyone who has called it so far has heard about it from one of my posts, so I feel that I'm doing a good job. And, until today, I hadn't received any complaints.

Golan, you've been nothing but helpful to me, and for that, I thank you. Again, I apologize if my posting in multiple places has annoyed you. Please be aware, however, that whenever I do post in multiple places, I always use the same subject line. So if you see a message in one place that has the same subject line as a message you've already read, my advice to you would be to just skip it.

Take care...

-Andrew

[expertsetup]

Woo Hoo my 1670 modem seems to be working ;D . The line is all laid out but I need to make the final connection in the attic. I can feel the sound in my bones eeeeewwwrrrrrreeeecccclik as the handshake goes down, I might have to make an audio recording of the whole affair.

Well, I might be able to make the call tonight, wheres my flash light and ladder?

[Golan Klinger]

"In an upstairs room, a modem made a connection." --Lincoln Spector