Document history

[larsbrinkhoff]

I will put random notes here until a coherent history can be documented.

[larsbrinkhoff]

I saw the name John Peters in one of the files, and I found this. It could be related, or not.

 From: [email protected] (John A. Peters)
Subject: Report on Progrmmable BBS in Forth
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 22 Mar 93 05:48:46 GMT

Q1 How is the "Programmable BBS doing?

It is fine. It has graduated to full time operation as "It is
easier than remembering to turn it on at the right time" says
Levi. He reports that we are getting about one caller a day and
that most of them seem to be first time callers that don't call
back.


Q2 Have there been any suggestions?

There needs to more substance there for the callers.


Q3 What can we do to help?

Help us improve the system, make suggestions, offer help, ask for
a copy of the current system, set it up on your own system and
experiment with improvements, send in the updated system.


Q4 What are you doing to help, John?

I am exploring a BBS that has been mailed to me by it's author,
B0b Lee. It is called B0badell. It is based on the Citadel group
of BBSes. It is a full system that is able to answer the phone,
take a password, record messages and all the usual stuff. The
command !BABY allows the caller to shell out to another BBS
program also provided by B0b called Baby. Baby is a simple
little BBS written in Forth. The advantage of switching to
B0badell from WildCat is that when B0badell runs an application
like Baby, access to DOS is sealed off. We have not published
the passwords that allow the caller to run F-PC based FBBS from
Boyan on the current system because of that risk.


Q5 What is the configuration of the current system?

It is a XT with 40M of hard disk. It is dedicated to the BBS
along with a dedicate phone line. It runs at 1200 and 2400 I
believe. There is a chance of it being upgraded to a 386. The
electricity and phone bills are paid by the Berkeley Fig Chapter
and the operation is handled by Levi from his home in Novato, CA.


Q6 Is it the "Programmable BBS" or is it the "Educational BBS"?

It is the "Programmable BBS", as the goal is to make the source
available to the caller so that any one can work on improving the
system. If there are several versions submitted we will have a
menu of up to about 15 or 16 (Hmmm familiar number) versions with
a method of recording how much time is spent by callers in each
version as well as the callers votes as to their preferences and
their reasons and suggestions.


This will bring up the challenge of group programming. That is,
what is the most workable way to merge several improvements in to
one project when the programmers are not located in the same city
or state? We may need version control software and a utility
that show the differences between two versions of a program.


Q7 Can I try out B0badell

Yes B0badel' home BBS is the Interface BBS at (707) 544-9661
The Programmable BBS is at (415) 892-1543 24 hrs
I am John Peters. I am at (415) 239-5393 Voice


Q8 Will the Programmable BBS carry the Forth Net?

Not right away, as it is not on the critical path between where
we are today and the goal of becoming better than some of all the
other systems. However if we are able to write a Quick packet
version in Forth then why not...

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.forth/c/KY3WkNLgbeU/m/LKoTEgPxJDIJ

[larsbrinkhoff]

I see B0b Lee is mentioned above. He's on GitHub as @b0blee

[b0blee]

I was writing music in ForthMacs on an Atari ST around that point in time. That music was reissued by Fixture Records in 2015. See their Bandcamp page. The source for that album is on my Github page. I've never found an Atari emulator that implemented the MIDI ports, so the code is essentially dead.

b0badel was written in C - a hack of Citadel - and Baby BBS was in Forth. Unfortunately, I've lost the source for Baby BBS.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Hello @JohnAlanPeters and @tombelpasso,

FYI this is a project on GitHub to revive the FBBS2 software.

[tombelpasso]

Wow, it has been a long time since I worked on the FBBS Forth code.
Thank you for reviving it.

My Forth skill have gotten rusty. I many program in Python these days. But if you need any help, I am available.

Regards,
Tom Belpasso [email protected]

[RickCarlino]

Thanks so much for reaching out to us @tombelpasso

I am still working my way through the source code, apologies if I ask a question that is answered in one of the screen files:

• It appears that you were running it on a Z-80 that ran DOS. Do you remember which DOS flavor and computer model it specifically ran on at the time?
• Do you remember which flavor/version of F83 it ran on?

Thanks again for contacting us!

[tombelpasso]

Hi Rick,

The OS on Z80's was CPM.
The code was written in Forth 1024 byte blocks. Each block was 16 line 64 byte screens.

I may have an old CPM laptop which I think was called Starlet that may, by some miracle may still work and still have the floppy for it. I will look for while getting my Xmas decorations out of the garage.

I may have ported the code to the FPC. I will keep an eye out for it too.

• Tom

[larsbrinkhoff]

Thank you so much Tom, that would be amazing! I didn't expect anything like that, but it goes to show it never hurts to ask.

[tombelpasso]

I found my f-pc port of the FORTH bbs.
How do I upload it for you?

Here are my instructions for running F-PC and FBBS on Windows 10:

To run F-PC on Windows 10, install a DOS emulator. There are several, I chose vDOS because it seemed the simplest: https://www.vdos.info/download.html

Download vDOS to allow runing f-pc on windows 10.

Instructions for running FBBS using vDOS and F-PC.

Start vDOS
It will start in a virtual directory C: which is its installation directory.

It will run an initial test, running Data Perfect, exit it by entering 0.
Edit the autoexec.bat and comment out the test if you want.

To access your real windows files, you mount a windows directory with the 'use' command.

For my test I specified the directory where I had F-PC. Note I include the prompt in the commands below:

C:\> use D: \Tommy\FPC

Change directory to D:

D:\> D:

Then you can run FORTH:

D:\> f-pc

In F-PC you can change directory to where the FBBS files are:

cd FBBS

Load the FBBS source file:

open fbbs45.scr
load

To start the BBS in FORTH.
Then enter the FBBS vocabulary and open the message file:

fbbs use fbbs45.dat

At this point both FBBS and FORTH words will work
Now enter: read help

[RickCarlino]

@tombelpasso That's great to hear thank you so much. I sent you an email from my personal email address. Please let me know if you don't get it or if it ends up in your spam filter. You could send me the files via email and then I can upload them here. Thanks and speak soon.

[RickCarlino]

I've found an online version of F-PC that was restored at some point by Ulrich H. This will be perfect for running FBBS2 in Docker.

I will update the README later today or tomorrow.