apam wrote to ALL <=-
Hey
Been a slow day today in BBS land :)
We got up early to go to Lifeline Bookfest, got a couple of books, one
on cryptography and one on ruby on rails.
Spent today setting up IIS on my BBS server so it can host a web page. Yesterday I got paging the sysop working, and have also been working
some more on the config manager.
I upgraded my BBS server to an I3 I had around, and now have a monitor plugged in so I can use the sysop chat thing.
Well not a lot else to tell.
Do you get a lot of 'paging the sysop' ? I figured that's mostly a thing of the past...
Do you get a lot of 'paging the sysop' ? I figured that's mostly a
thing of the past...
Spectre wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Do you get a lot of 'paging the sysop' ? I figured that's mostly a thing of the past...
That there be a good question. I don't know what happens at TLP,
seeing as its
all on VM's there's no audio for paging or flashing prompts on the console.
I s'pose I could send myself a message every time someone pages... used
to be a
time, people would ring just to chat to Sysops....
apam wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Do you get a lot of 'paging the sysop' ? I figured that's mostly a
thing of the past...
No, but I only implemented it on my BBS a couple of days ago. I guess
if someone wants to chat with me it will be useful.
No, but I only implemented it on my BBS a couple of days ago. I guess if someone wants to chat with me it will be useful.
Since my BBS is on a cloud VM, what I've done is make "page the sysop" actually send me an SMS on my phone letting me know someone is trying to reach me. Since I have "do not disturb" mode on my phone, I don't have to worry about being paged in the middle of the night, regardless which time zone I'm in.
On 03-08-20 10:36, Spectre wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Do you get a lot of 'paging the sysop' ? I figured that's mostly a thing of the past...
That there be a good question. I don't know what happens at TLP,
seeing as its
all on VM's there's no audio for paging or flashing prompts on the console.
I s'pose I could send myself a message every time someone pages... used
to be a
time, people would ring just to chat to Sysops....
Cool. I just have a menu item in the waiting for caller window that i
can check or uncheck if I'm available.
I agree it wouldn't be much use in a cloud situation.
Yep! Those were the days you'd have several nodes on a BBS and several
in use! Or even - this shows my age - a busy signal! :-)
but today's environment isn't as conducive to user - sysop chat.
Yes, had a few regular users chat to me. :)
On 03-08-20 20:31, Spectre wrote to Vk3jed <=-
but today's environment isn't as conducive to user - sysop chat.
Thats true, amongst the vagaries of VM's, time zones get in the way now
too. I don't have any locals that I'm aware of. Deepthaw out there is
an exception, but he's not a regular. Mostly they turn up to play
games. The rest of the interaction is via www. Just have to check the server stats.
Yes, had a few regular users chat to me. :)
I've managed to snag a couple in chat. But its the exception rather
than the rule
ryan wrote to apam <=-
No, but I only implemented it on my BBS a couple of days ago. I guess if someone wants to chat with me it will be useful.
Since my BBS is on a cloud VM, what I've done is make "page the sysop" actually send me an SMS on my phone letting me know someone is trying
to reach me. Since I have "do not disturb" mode on my phone, I don't
have to worry about being paged in the middle of the night, regardless which time zone I'm in.
Vk3jed wrote to Spectre <=-
time, people would ring just to chat to Sysops....
Yes, had a few regular users chat to me. :)
Sysop chat worked really well when the BBS ran on a local machine at
home, but today's environment isn't as conducive to user - sysop chat.
Spectre wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Yep! Those were the days you'd have several nodes on a BBS and several
in use! Or even - this shows my age - a busy signal! :-)
For the most part TLP was single line, although I had 4 nodes setup,
and we flirted with 1.5 and 2 lines for a little while. Used to have extra nodes to connect the Apple II's to, and even a colour terminal at one stage. I don't recall what the point of that was now.
Spectre wrote to Vk3jed <=-
but today's environment isn't as conducive to user - sysop chat.
Thats true, amongst the vagaries of VM's, time zones get in the way now too. I don't have any locals that I'm aware of. Deepthaw out there is
an exception, but he's not a regular. Mostly they turn up to play
games. The rest of the interaction is via www. Just have to check the server stats.
Yes, had a few regular users chat to me. :)
I've managed to snag a couple in chat. But its the exception rather
than the rule
Jimmy Anderson wrote to Spectre <=-
Yep! Those were the days you'd have several nodes on a BBS and several
in use! Or even - this shows my age - a busy signal! :-)
Spectre wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
For the most part TLP was single line, although I had 4 nodes setup,
and we flirted with 1.5 and 2 lines for a little while. Used to have extra nodes to connect the Apple II's to, and even a colour terminal at one stage. I don't recall what the point of that was now.
On 03-08-20 09:54, Jimmy Anderson wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Sysop chat worked really well when the BBS ran on a local machine at
home, but today's environment isn't as conducive to user - sysop chat.
Yeah - I can see that... Almost seems like a waste, but then I think
we have instant text messaging on our phones... Then there's Slack, Discord, Zello, Skype...
On 03-08-20 09:59, Jimmy Anderson wrote to Spectre <=-
The board I "dial" into (telnet) is in Memphis, about 80 miles South
of me. I settled on it because it's LOCAL and, even more so, the sysop
is GREAT!
I chatted with Daryl in Little Rock when I would connect. We started talking HAM radio and next thing I knew my wife and I were getting
our license. :-)
On 03-08-20 10:24, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Jimmy Anderson wrote to Spectre <=-
Yep! Those were the days you'd have several nodes on a BBS and several
in use! Or even - this shows my age - a busy signal! :-)
There were some crazy times when I just started out -- 1991-1992?
I didn't have an offline message reader door, and I'd get 50-60 calls a day where people would use all of their time reading messages, then get disconnected when they ran out of time, and as soon as the BBS cycled
back to the mailer, another call would come in.
I was running Telegard at the time, paid for the Bluewave reader and
door, which ended up being a game changer.
For a short period of time I had an ISDN line from work, and I used one B channel for inbound calls, the second as a hunt line/internet connection, and sometimes would bond both to get a speedy internet connection -- 112 kbps, baybee!
On 03-09-20 10:16, Spectre wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
High speed in the age of the 9600 man :) ISDN was never a thing here, Telescum
priced it so hiddeously it was nigh unusable. I also looked into X.25
a couple times... I think that one just became to hard... had a pad at
one stage.. might have been trying to hitch it all together in a functional unit.
I think we were stretching boundaries that had never existed before
back then.
poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Jimmy Anderson wrote to Spectre <=-
Yep! Those were the days you'd have several nodes on a BBS and several
in use! Or even - this shows my age - a busy signal! :-)
There were some crazy times when I just started out -- 1991-1992?
I didn't have an offline message reader door, and I'd get 50-60 calls a day where people would use all of their time reading messages, then get disconnected when they ran out of time, and as soon as the BBS cycled
back to the mailer, another call would come in.
I was running Telegard at the time, paid for the Bluewave reader and
door, which ended up being a game changer.
Vk3jed wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
On 03-08-20 09:59, Jimmy Anderson wrote to Spectre <=-
The board I "dial" into (telnet) is in Memphis, about 80 miles South
of me. I settled on it because it's LOCAL and, even more so, the sysop
is GREAT!
It's nice to know some things haven't changed in the BBS world - happy users and good sysops. :)
Vk3jed wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
Yes, I used to spend all my time reading messages and run out of time, when I was just a user. Then I checked out the "offline mail" part of
the BBS, downloaded SLMR and never looked back. Didn't take me too
long to upgrade to Bluewave, which I used for the rest of my first
stint at BBSing.
When I setup a board in 1992, adding QWK and Bluewave doors were at the top of my priority list, because messaging was to be the focus of my system. :)
On 03-08-20 09:54, Jimmy Anderson wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Sysop chat worked really well when the BBS ran on a local
machine at home, but today's environment isn't as conducive to
user - sysop chat.
Yeah - I can see that... Almost seems like a waste, but then I
think we have instant text messaging on our phones... Then
there's Slack, Discord, Zello, Skype...
Would be nice to be able to gate sysop chat requests to a more
practical medium.
I played SOME door games (Global War, anyone?) but messaging was MY
focus as well!
When I setup a board in 1992, adding QWK and Bluewave doors were at
On 03-09-20 08:01, Jimmy Anderson wrote to Vk3jed <=-:=)
It's nice to know some things haven't changed in the BBS world - happy users and good sysops. :)
Yep. :-) And just to show the modern communication channels, if there's
a problem with the board I'll ping him on FB Messenger, and vice versa. LOL If there's a new set of echo's he will ping me there to tell me.
On 03-09-20 08:02, Jimmy Anderson wrote to Vk3jed <=-
OLX for me - loved the way it looked and felt! Using MM now, in
terminal under Mac OS. It's close, but not the same, but it works. :-)
When I setup a board in 1992, adding QWK and Bluewave doors were at the top of my priority list, because messaging was to be the focus of my system. :)
I played SOME door games (Global War, anyone?) but messaging was MY
focus as well!
On 03-09-20 15:51, Oli wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Would be nice to be able to gate sysop chat requests to a more
practical medium.
What about IRC? AFAIK Synchronet already has an IRC server.
Vk3jed wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
the BBS, downloaded SLMR and never looked back. Didn't take me too
long to upgrade to Bluewave, which I used for the rest of my first
stint at BBSing.
Spectre wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
I think we were stretching boundaries that had never existed before
back then.
Jimmy Anderson wrote to Poindexter Fortran <=-
I can't remember a time without offline mail, though I'll admit until I learned what it was I didn't do much with 'mail.' The first board
didn't have anything but local echos, so that was a 'browse' - but then The Fridge had Intelec! That introduced me to MASSIVE communications!
One of the first boards I called was Tom Jennings' Fido board, so I
have that bit of history. I played with Fido for a while - a board
that checks all of the Fido boxes and fit on a 720k floppy with room
to spare...
On 03-09-20 15:51, Oli wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Would be nice to be able to gate sysop chat requests to a more
practical medium.
What about IRC? AFAIK Synchronet already has an IRC server.
No push/popup notifications. That's a critical requirement for me.
On 03-09-20 06:14, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Vk3jed wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
the BBS, downloaded SLMR and never looked back. Didn't take me too
long to upgrade to Bluewave, which I used for the rest of my first
stint at BBSing.
A message of mine is in the sample bluewave mail packet included with
the reader. :)
On 03-10-20 17:24, Oli wrote to Vk3jed <=-
On Tue, 10 Mar 2020 21:09:00 +1100
"Vk3jed -> Oli" <0@109.1.21> wrote:
On 03-09-20 15:51, Oli wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Would be nice to be able to gate sysop chat requests to a more
practical medium.
What about IRC? AFAIK Synchronet already has an IRC server.
No push/popup notifications. That's a critical requirement for me.
I'm using Quassel / Quasseldroid for IRC and there were plans to add
FCM push notifications. I'm not sure how well notifications work
without Google's FCM push (it often depends on the phone / Android version).
Vk3jed wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
I played SOME door games (Global War, anyone?) but messaging was MY
focus as well!
I dabbled in BRE, but that was about it for games for me. I was definitely a messaging freak, though i did download the occasional
file.
poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Vk3jed wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
the BBS, downloaded SLMR and never looked back. Didn't take me too
long to upgrade to Bluewave, which I used for the rest of my first
stint at BBSing.
A message of mine is in the sample bluewave mail packet included with
the reader. :)
poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Jimmy Anderson wrote to Poindexter Fortran <=-
I can't remember a time without offline mail, though I'll admit until I learned what it was I didn't do much with 'mail.' The first board
didn't have anything but local echos, so that was a 'browse' - but then The Fridge had Intelec! That introduced me to MASSIVE communications!
One of the first boards I called was Tom Jennings' Fido board, so I
have that bit of history. I played with Fido for a while - a board that checks all of the Fido boxes and fit on a 720k floppy with room to spare...
On 03-10-20 21:23, Jimmy Anderson wrote to Vk3jed <=-
I looked at BRE and it seemed interesting! Then an inter-BBS game
started and one of the 'old timers' basically took over and told
us what to do - alpha gaming at its best - so I just stopped and
let them have it.
And yeah, files too - forgot about that. :-) I still remember
seeing fileid.diz I think it was called and d/l stuff to put
on FDD to take to work to use on the PC I had there that was
NOT connected to a modem. :-)
I even had a 'subscription' to a shareware service where they'd
mail me a 5-1/4 Floppy with a lot of shareware on it to, of
course, try. :-)
Oli wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
Cool. Is anyone running the Fido software from Tom?
Vk3jed wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
The systems I played BRE on were fairly quiet, as far as that goes.
Yeah, well there were always those "special" files too - grainy GIFs.
;)
I even had a 'subscription' to a shareware service where they'd
mail me a 5-1/4 Floppy with a lot of shareware on it to, of
course, try. :-)
There were a few of those around. I was in a computer club where I
could order floppy disks with the titles I wanted.
On 03-14-20 21:09, Jimmy Anderson wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Vk3jed wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
The systems I played BRE on were fairly quiet, as far as that goes.
I wouldn't mind getting into some BBS games again some, but my
sysop can't run doors cause he's running on a VM. :-)
:) I had Star Wars gifs I d/l and used as wallpaper at work... Look
grainy by today's standards, but back then? WOW! LOL
I even had a 'subscription' to a shareware service where they'd
mail me a 5-1/4 Floppy with a lot of shareware on it to, of
course, try. :-)
There were a few of those around. I was in a computer club where I
could order floppy disks with the titles I wanted.
Very cool! Ah - the good old days. :-)
Vk3jed wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
The systems I played BRE on were fairly quiet, as far as that goes.
I wouldn't mind getting into some BBS games again some, but my
sysop can't run doors cause he's running on a VM. :-)
Hmm, OK. Yeah I don't play computer or electronic games of any description much at any time.
Yes, shareware was so popular back in the 80s and 90s. Fun times. :)
... I don't hallucinate anymore, the Thing driving the UFO cured me...
On 03-15-20 12:52, Jimmy Anderson wrote to Vk3jed <=-
I bought a used xBox One a few years ago to play online with
my sons, but now they don't play much at all, so I never turn
it on. :-)
Thinking about getting rid of it...
Yes, shareware was so popular back in the 80s and 90s. Fun times. :)
YES! I miss the simple times, sometimes. :-)
... I don't hallucinate anymore, the Thing driving the UFO cured me...
LOL - love it!!!
... Hey, what's that beeping noise? Where's that smoke coming from?
Vk3jed wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
On 03-15-20 12:52, Jimmy Anderson wrote to Vk3jed <=-
I bought a used xBox One a few years ago to play online with
my sons, but now they don't play much at all, so I never turn
it on. :-)
Thinking about getting rid of it...
Fair enough. I've never owned a game console of any vintage. :)
On 03-15-20 23:18, Jimmy Anderson wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Had an Atari before it was called the 2600. :-) Had an NES when we
were first married. Nothing after that for a long time, until kids
came along and resurrected the NES, then our oldest got an N64,
etc.
Then both sons ended up with consoles thanks to my in-laws - LOL
I played with them, but never owneed one myself.
Now my youngest plays some, but not as much as he used to, and
my oldest plays stuff on the PC. They will both play some PUBG
on the phone, and I play that with them as much as possible. :-)
I'm much more into board games and tabletop RPG's. :-)
Had an Atari before it was called the 2600. :-) Had an NES when we
A lot more than I ever had!
I'm much more into board games and tabletop RPG's. :-)
On 03-16-20 16:41, Spectre wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Had an Atari before it was called the 2600. :-) Had an NES when we
A lot more than I ever had!
Never had any either, by the time I could buy one if I wanted to, I thought I'd
rather have a 'pooter... Anyhoo, GF of long ago, bought an NES cheep
some time
after the SNES was out so she could reminisce and play Trog.
My mother actually went and got an SNES at some point.. don't know
where it went, I still have a couple of carts for it...
I'm much more into board games and tabletop RPG's. :-)
Really wanted to bust into Pandemic Legacy this weekend, but... just couldn't :)
Spectre wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
I'm much more into board games and tabletop RPG's. :-)
RPG's were just about done for me when the BBS arrived. Suddenly there was a whole other crowd to hang out with. Some of the original gamers were at uni, some of us working.. so it started to split up...
Used to have the regular AD&D game Saturday arvo's for a number of years... I think the Temple of Elemental evil actually fnished us off:P
Alpha wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
I'm much more into board games and tabletop RPG's. :-)
I've become pretty obsessed with board games over the past few years.
I've actually been trying to focus Card & Claw's content around board gaming--message bases, files, etc. Slow going though.
My family and I played the Hero Realms expansion (Ruin of Thandar) this weekend and it was pretty fun. Turns what is essentially a bloodsport fantasy card game into a cooperative adventure with RPG/character progression & elements. Fun stuff.
Really wanted to bust into Pandemic Legacy this weekend, but... just couldn't :)
Given the whole family is home for the next month or so, I think Gloomhaven may be in order. Now that we have the time.
| Sysop: | sneaky |
|---|---|
| Location: | Ashburton,NZ |
| Users: | 31 |
| Nodes: | 8 (0 / 8) |
| Uptime: | 48:06:50 |
| Calls: | 2,096 |
| Files: | 11,143 |
| Messages: | 950,040 |