Any thoughts?

At the end of the video, I'll show you the different ways to operate a BBS nowadays. Of course, we'll start with real hardware and dial-up, including setting up a modern internet box on a fiber optic cable. Then we'll look at different hybrid forms. For example, an emulator where the BBS runs, but with a real modem attached, all the way to complete emulation. In this case, the C64 emulator Vice and the modem emulator TCPSER, which can be accessed via Telnet.

Speaking of Telnet - I also control the entire old real hardware via a null modem cable and BBS server on the PC.

Did any of you have a BBS back then? Or maybe you still do, or have one again?

What I haven't managed yet is to make the BBS accessible via Telnet and dial-up at the same time. The Snobsoft BBS only has one port, so it is not a multi-user system. There should be a hardware solution to somehow switch between a modem call and a connection request via Telnet. Does anyone have an idea how this could be done?

I used BBSes a lot in the 386 days, but I didn't have my own modem for a long time so I was visiting friends who had - with a pack or two of empty floppies. But 8-bit machines and modems wasn't really a thing here, frankly pretty much all these were just gaming consoles except using chepaer and easier to copy media (cassette tapes) rather than carts.

Lutz G wrote on 2025-01-23, 05:17:

Did any of you have a BBS back then? Or maybe you still do, or have one again?

Yep there are a lot still running, I'm sure you know https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/ and its BBS lists.
I brought mine to the internet world more than 10 years ago and it still runs with direct telnet access or an HTML5 plugin from the web site.

It's always great to see BBSs brought back to life, especially the more rare ones based on home computers!
btw windows telnet is absolutely horrendous for complex ANSI and control codes, people just use anything but that! (mTCP's telnet does a solid job and is a good choice for full screen DOS BBSing)

Deunan wrote on 2025-01-23, 11:51:

I used BBSes a lot in the 386 days, but I didn't have my own modem for a long time so I was visiting friends who had - with a pack or two of empty floppies. But 8-bit machines and modems wasn't really a thing here, frankly pretty much all these were just gaming consoles except using chepaer and easier to copy media (cassette tapes) rather than carts.

If my memory serves me right, it all started for me in 1984 with an acoustic coupler kit and the Commodore 64. Back then, of course, we only had 300 baud. With my first DOS PC - a 386/40 in the early 90s, I think I had a 14400 baud modem. That’s when Fidonet (Usenet) slowly started. Well, and then in the mid-90s, this newfangled thing called the Internet slowly started that everyone is talking about now.

I was never a Sysop myself, always just a user. That’s why it’s even more fun for me today to play Sysop at Snobsoft.

What is still missing are a few international visitors or postings at Snobsoft. So get typing.
Posting can almost always be done as a guest.

Quick workflow e.g., for the General Board:

MA
AL
E (to enter)

konc wrote on 2025-01-23, 13:05:

Yep there are a lot still running, I'm sure you know https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/ and its BBS lists. I brought mine to the in […]
Show full quote

Lutz G wrote on 2025-01-23, 05:17:

Did any of you have a BBS back then? Or maybe you still do, or have one again?

Yep there are a lot still running, I'm sure you know https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/ and its BBS lists.
I brought mine to the internet world more than 10 years ago and it still runs with direct telnet access or an HTML5 plugin from the web site.

It's always great to see BBSs brought back to life, especially the more rare ones based on home computers!
btw windows telnet is absolutely horrendous for complex ANSI and control codes, people just use anything but that! (mTCP's telnet does a solid job and is a good choice for full screen DOS BBSing)

Yes, Snobsoft as a BBS from the year 1985 still doesn't have ANSI. But Telnet works fine. To be exact, when I connect to Snobsoft with a Commodore 64 via Telnet, I don't notice any difference compared to a modem call. How does Telnet work with genuine old hardware?

See here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thCV-Gf4DAo

I know the above-mentioned list, but thanks again.

konc wrote on 2025-01-23, 13:05:

It's always great to see BBSs brought back to life, especially the more rare ones based on home computers!

Yes, the Snobsoft BBS is definitely something special. Written 100 percent in Assembly, nice and lean. It runs on a basic C64 with two 1541s. As detailed in the making-of, we had to rewrite the BBS for Hayes modems, which was quite an effort.

FIDO was fun. Since we used real names and the node admin was responsible for his/her points, anyone with bad attitude could be kicked or banned permanently. In theory anyway, some people had really hands-off approach due to (wrongly understood, IMHO) freedom of speech so there were a few troublemakers. Nothing like what we have now in the age of social media though.

Anyway I wanted to point out that PuTTY package has nice telnet and there's also a simple non-SSH version as well: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/ … tty/latest.html
No need to install, can be run and used in portable mode. I've used PuTTY since Win9x days.

Deunan wrote on 2025-01-23, 22:33:

FIDO was fun. Since we used real names and the node admin was responsible for his/her points, anyone with bad attitude could be kicked or banned permanently. In theory anyway, some people had really hands-off approach due to (wrongly understood, IMHO) freedom of speech so there were a few troublemakers. Nothing like what we have now in the age of social media though.

I remember the Fido era as being very free. I can't recall anyone causing trouble. I also found the Crosspoint software on the DOS PC great, which allowed you to skillfully pull your mail/Fido contributions from the Points (if I remember correctly). That was probably around 1994.

10 years earlier in the BBS scene, everything was even freer. As a guest, you could usually post anywhere. You can still try this out well in Snobsoft today. I also find this command-line style refreshingly direct.

Give it a try in Snobsoft.

telnet://snobsoft.de:6401

After the intro has run (or cancel before with "X" - ctrl is not necessary), simply enter:

MA (Mailbox Menu)
AL (General Board)
E (Enter Text)

Then in the editor, press E again (Write text) And don't forget to save with S. That's it. Feel free to post in English too.

Deunan wrote on 2025-01-23, 22:33:

Anyway I wanted to point out that PuTTY package has nice telnet and there's also a simple non-SSH version as well: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/ … tty/latest.html
No need to install, can be run and used in portable mode. I've used PuTTY since Win9x days.

Yes, Putty is great. I also show it in the Making of Snobsoft video. Speaking of showing, a very good way to access Snobsoft in an old-school look over Telnet is the C64 emulator Vice. If you have it in fullscreen with Scanlines On, it looks like a real C64. I also show how that works at the end of the Making of.

In the YouTube comments on my video, the topic of downloads just came up. At the C64 BBS Snobsoft, there were none - probably due to space constraints. The BBS only had 2 * 170 KB or two 1541s. Also, in 1985, at least here, 300 Baud was still standard, and the telephone costs were far too high for downloads to be worthwhile at all. How was it, for example, in the USA or England? Were there a significant number of BBS on the C64 in 1985? Is there perhaps even someone here in this forum who once ran a Commodore 64 BBS? Or did most Sysops already have PCs as their BBS platform by the mid-80s? Especially hard drives were probably a must for downloads.

Did any of you have a BBS back then? Or maybe you still do, or have one again?

I had one for a short while, ran on a 386 on DOS. But not 24/7. Had a few visitors.
It had a small collection of files from a shareware/freeware collection, too.

C64 BBSing and 300 Baud accoustic couplers was before my time, sadly, I'm, not that old enough yet to have been a witness.

I've used Datex-P and 80 columns glass terminals, though, due to my father (more of an business/IT dude). I've visited CompuServe and BTX a few times, too.
We still have an DBT-03 post modem, it's even supported by T-Online 1.2 on vintage Win31/Mac. 😁

In BTX Magazin, the predecessor to Com! Online, there had been a mailbox list near the end of last pages.
It did list ISDN ports of mailboxes, too. I found this to be fascinating at the time.
The MausNet was also a popular mailbox network, I think. A bit like Fidonet, but smaller!?

Lutz G wrote on 2025-01-25, 05:17:

In the YouTube comments on my video, the topic of downloads just came up. At the C64 BBS Snobsoft, there were none - probably due to space constraints. The BBS only had 2 * 170 KB or two 1541s. Also, in 1985, at least here, 300 Baud was still standard, and the telephone costs were far too high for downloads to be worthwhile at all. How was it, for example, in the USA or England? Were there a significant number of BBS on the C64 in 1985? Is there perhaps even someone here in this forum who once ran a Commodore 64 BBS? Or did most Sysops already have PCs as their BBS platform by the mid-80s? Especially hard drives were probably a must for downloads.

It was only around the year 2000 that telephone call costs dropped to a level where dial up internet became affordable to the mass market in the UK. I remember a lot of non-technical users going online with the various "1p per minute" deals.

Before then it was still very niche, and I would put BBS into that category too. None of my friends at school, going from 8bit (C64 and Spectrum mainly), Amiga and ST and then early PC had internet or BBS access. None.

I'm not saying it wasn't in use, but the vast majority of home computer users simply didn't use or it could not afford it.

megatron-uk wrote on 2025-01-25, 08:27:

Before then it was still very niche, and I would put BBS into that category too. None of my friends at school, going from 8bit (C64 and Spectrum mainly), Amiga and ST and then early PC had internet or BBS access. None.

I'm not saying it wasn't in use, but the vast majority of home computer users simply didn't use or it could not afford it.

That's very interesting how different it was. Probably also country-specific? In my computer clique, there was hardly anyone who didn't have BBS access and an acoustic coupler or modem. We're talking about the 8-bit era on the Commodore 64 from about 1984-1988. Afterwards, on the Amiga, all of my computer friends had a modem and were BBS users.

Lutz G wrote on 2025-01-25, 05:17:

In the YouTube comments on my video, the topic of downloads just came up. At the C64 BBS Snobsoft, there were none - probably due to space constraints.

Hi, what about those CBM hard drives from the Commodore PET?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_D9060

Couldn't they be used on C64/C128, as well?
Using them or a functional counterpart would be period-correct.

Also, I read many many years ago about a do-it-yourself IDE interface for C64..
https://www.djupdal.org/cbm/iecata/

It's probably superseded by SD2IEC SD card adapter ny now, but I liked the idea of attaching a big IDE HDD* to my C64 (yes, have one). ^^

That being seid, I wish you good (best) luck on your BBS! 😃👍
Hold the ears stiff! 🙂

(*The early IDE drives in MB range or the 5,25" BigFoot HDDs in GB range made by Quantum.
Vintage drives should run, I think, otherwise they "rust" by doing nothing.
So it's not bad to give vintage HDDs some spinning time; let's just make sure mechanical stress is being kept at minimum and that heath can vanish.
Rubber pads, dampers etc. They keep the HDDs silent and absorbt vibrations.)

Jo22 wrote on 2025-01-25, 14:02:

Hi, what about those CBM hard drives from the Commodore PET? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_D9060 […]
Show full quote

Hi, what about those CBM hard drives from the Commodore PET?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_D9060

Couldn't they be used on C64/C128, as well?
Using them or a functional counterpart would be period-correct.

Also, I read many many years ago about a do-it-yourself IDE interface for C64..
https://www.djupdal.org/cbm/iecata/

I know Christian, the coder and former Sysop of Snobsoft, from school. Back then, in 1985, he wrote the BBS entirely in Assembler. At that time, hard drives were absolutely unaffordable for a student. And hardly anyone else had an HD either. For example, I could only afford my first hard drive in the early 90s for my first PC—a 386/40.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-01-25, 14:02:

That being seid, I wish you good (best) luck on your BBS! 😃👍
Hold the ears stiff! 🙂

Thanks!

Lutz G wrote on 2025-01-26, 06:18:

I know Christian, the coder and former Sysop of Snobsoft, from school. Back then, in 1985, he wrote the BBS entirely in Assembler. At that time, hard drives were absolutely unaffordable for a student. And hardly anyone else had an HD either. For example, I could only afford my first hard drive in the early 90s for my first PC—a 386/40.

Hi, it was just an idea. I could have imagined that computer clubs or schools maybe had a BBS with an HDD running..
But yeah, I heard that HDDs were uncommon among Commodore users.
The Amiga users often had no HDD, unlike the Atari ST users. ;)
That being said, it was before my time.

And it didn't help that my father rather was from CP/M and Z80 side, the arch rival of C64 and 6510 (6502).
He had used IBM PCs rather early, by mid 80s. His first one was a Schneider PC1512, I think.
He upgraded the 8086 to a V30 and installed a file card (hard card) in a slot.
- That was a 20 MB HDD on an expansion card.
He also had run Z80MU, an CP/M emulator. That was ca. 1987 or so.

He used that PC to earn money, though, so it was no luxury.
A HDD (aka fixed-disk in the 80s) simply was needed for proper workflow on PC.
As a substitute to HDDs, Amiga and Macintosh users had used RAM disks, I think.
And extra floppy disk drives, too. Up to four, I think? Macs also had networking..

That's why we were rather PC people and so I grew up with an 286 PC first (or second, if we count the Sharp home computer).
With a hard disk, of course, because of the many feature rich programs on DOS platform.

Only exception was the Commodore 128D that we had.
My father and me were interested in running CP/M Plus and the 128KB of memory was interesting to play with.
It also came with a copy of GEOS and a mouse. We got the 128D as second-hand, not new, though.

In the following time I was collecting C64 programs from various sources.
But that was in the 90s, already. I missed out on the C64 mailbox scene, I'm afraid.
But alas, I can't have everything.

-

Btw, how about running a few secondary instances of Snobsoft BBS on an emulator?
It could be Commodore PCs with a 386 or higher, maybe running multiple copies of a C64 emulator in OS/2? There are C64 emulators for OS/2.

Mainly for the telnet access of your BBS, I mean.

That way, your physical C64 with Snobsoft BBS can be available via telephone instead.

If you don't like OS/2, you could also try running DESQView/X and some DOS or Windows 3.1x based C64 emulators.

This comes to mind, because OS/2 v2.x and OS/2 v3 and DESQView have a long tradition in running multiple copies of single-port BBS software.

AROS on a modern computer is a good alternative, too.
It's a modern version of the Amiga OS, it has C64 emulators, too.

If there was a C64 emulator for PC GEOS/NewDeal Office it would be cool, too.
Because GEOS had been available to C64, too.

Anyway, it's all just an idea, because multitasking on a single C64 sadly isn't possible so far.

An Commodore Amiga could also be used instead of a PC, of course, if it has enough RAM.

My apologies for talking about emulation here, I don’t mean to annoy you,
it's just that most mailbox Sysops on PC did use multitasking if the BBS software didn't support multiple login ports on its own..

Btw, Star Commander on DOS was a popular file manager among C64 friends.
It looked like Norton Commander and could talk to an 1541 drive via an custom parallel port cable, I think.

-

If you don't like emulators, how about modifying those C64DTV joysticks with their built-in C64?
I heard they could be modified to accept a PS/2 keyboard and have a serial port for an 1541..

Maybe broken units can still be found for little money and then be re-purposed?
- If they have a broken joystick mechanism, I mean and if the electronic is still okay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64_Direct-to-TV

If that's not a solution, then single board computers could be used with a C64 software emulation or an FPGA implementation of C64.

The advantage of these do-it-yourself projects would be that you can build your own C64 compatibles and run multiple copies of Snobsoft BBS.

Maybe install them "professionally" in a 19" server rack in wardrobe if you like,
with your Snobsoft C64 being the one computer located on a special place were it belongs best to.

Edit: Never mind. The C64DTV seems to be missing these signals from user port, so serial port doesn't work :

PA2
Ser_ATN_In
/PC2
SP2
CNT2
SP1
CNT1
/Reset
/Flag2

-

Maybe you can connect them to same set of data, so that messages and news are same on all the BBS ports?

In emulation, for files/news at least, I would be a matter of mounting same 1541 image on local drive/network drive as read-only by all C64 emulators (perhaps needs share.exe on DOS).

Again, it's just an idea. I'm thinking out loud about how I can support you somehow.
It's up to you to decide what's best. You're the Sysop! 😎👍

Hey Jo!

You have some great ideas. I have nothing against emulators. Quite the opposite. See also my video "5 Ways to Get a BBS Online in 2024", at the very end of the Making Of Snobsoft clip. There I test various possibilities - half-emulated, complete emulation of the C64 BBS system, etc.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-01-26, 07:11:

Btw, how about running a few secondary instances of Snobsoft BBS on an emulator? It could be Commodore PCs with a 386 or higher, […]
Show full quote

Btw, how about running a few secondary instances of Snobsoft BBS on an emulator?
It could be Commodore PCs with a 386 or higher, maybe running multiple copies of a C64 emulator in OS/2? There are C64 emulators for OS/2.

Mainly for the telnet access of your BBS, I mean.

That way, your physical C64 with Snobsoft BBS can be available via telephone instead.

I came up with the same idea you have. A real C64 for the dial-up BBS and the emulation for a second telnet Snobsoft. The downside is that they have no connection for postings, etc., so they stand completely alone.

It would be great to have a C64 that can be accessed via Telnet or dial-up, depending on the type of request or call. That would certainly be technically possible but far beyond my capabilities. As I already asked in the thread—anyone with ideas, bring them on!

Jo22 wrote on 2025-01-26, 07:11:

Maybe you can connect them to same set of data, so that messages and news are same on all the BBS ports?

In emulation, for files/news at least, I would be a matter of mounting same 1541 image on local drive/network drive as read-only by all C64 emulators (perhaps needs share.exe on DOS).

I completely overlooked that part of your message. Here, you also address the aspect that the messages and news on all ports of the BBS should be the same.

It is important to know that Snobsoft only has one port. If you run several Snobsoft BBS simultaneously side by side in emulation, I had also thought about the possibility of tricking the system by simply mounting the same d64 image.

I also mentioned this idea to C64 assembler pro Groepaz, who rewrote the BBS on Hayes. He said that this probably won't work because there are various difficulties involved.

Therefore, it seems that only a hardware switch will work, as I already wrote earlier in the thread. This switch would then allow either a Telnet access to the C64 or a dial-up. You could probably do this with a Raspi, for example. But as I said - I can't manage to do it myself.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-01-26, 07:11:

Again, it's just an idea. I'm thinking out loud about how I can support you somehow.
It's up to you to decide what's best. You're the Sysop! 😎👍

Thanks a lot for the support - always happy to hear your ideas.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-01-25, 08:16:

I had one for a short while, ran on a 386 on DOS. But not 24/7. Had a few visitors.
It had a small collection of files from a shareware/freeware collection, too.

Can you remember what BBS program?

Lutz G wrote on 2025-01-27, 16:15:

Jo22 wrote on 2025-01-25, 08:16:

I had one for a short while, ran on a 386 on DOS. But not 24/7. Had a few visitors.
It had a small collection of files from a shareware/freeware collection, too.

Can you remember what BBS program?

Hi, it was on the shareware CDs I got back them (I had them as internet alternative)..
I vaguely remember how it looked. I still have the CDs (the vendors CDV and ARI were popular), I'll have to search.. 😅

Jo22 wrote on 2025-01-27, 16:20:

Lutz G wrote on 2025-01-27, 16:15:

Jo22 wrote on 2025-01-25, 08:16:

I had one for a short while, ran on a 386 on DOS. But not 24/7. Had a few visitors.
It had a small collection of files from a shareware/freeware collection, too.

Can you remember what BBS program?

Hi, it was on the shareware CDs I got back them (I had them as internet alternative)..
I vaguely remember how it looked. I still have the CDs (the vendors CDV and ARI were popular), I'll have to search.. 😅

Ok - thx!

And talking about support - what always helps is traffic for a BBS. Especially today. As mentioned in the thread - it's pretty easy to leave a comment in the Snobsoft as guest.
English is also ok.