18 Sep
2014
18 Sep
'14
1:44 p.m.
Hi Ali,
It depends.... If you know a little bit about Cisco, you can find old
MC3810s or C2600/C3600 multiservice routers very inexpensively, add a few
voice WICs/NMs, you could probably be up and running for less than $100. I
know MC3810s have gotten very inexpensive. Setting up basic dialplan in IOS
is pretty straightforward. I have always considered IOS pretty easy to use.
Lots of tutorials out there if you're new to it.
Using Asterisk, you'd need something like a TDM400P card for your PC or a
clone thereof; TDM400Ps are a little more expensive; clones less so...
Setting up a basic Asterisk dialplan isn't too horrible either, especially
if you're just doing internal, station-to-station type calls.
Old PBXes are fun and you can really ratchet up the density (and "realism")
but they're a project in and of themselves to figure out :)
Basically you need one "FXS" analog port per station that you want to serve
(modem, phone, FAX, etc). Anything else is mostly just for trunk lines of
one sort or another. I bet these days you could get started for less than
$100. This used to be a very expensive sort of thing to do, but given the
march of technology it is now pretty cheap.
If this sort of things sounds interesting to you, join up with the VoIP
list and introduce yourself. There may be some fellows there willing to
help you get up and running for cheap.
Best,
Sean
On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Ali <cctalk at fahimi.net> wrote:
Sean,
Thanks for all the excellent info. The Asterisk machine was really
interesting (having my own exchange in home!) until I began reading about
it some more. I think it is a bit over my head to get it going. Although it
would be very cool to have a multi-node PC Board that can be "dialed in to"
by all the vintage systems at home! Is there cheap HW (i.e. older tech/used
tech) that I can get for a plug and chug implementation or do I need to
have a good understanding to be implementing something like this?
-Ali
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Sean Caron
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 8:39 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts; Sean Caron
Subject: Re: Exec-PC BBS
There have been some sporadic efforts to try and get modem-over-VoIP
working on the Collectors Net (www.ckts.info) but it's tricky and results
can be inconsistent. Eventually we do hope to be able to fully support all
modes that were used with the POTS network. For local demos, just within
your own premises, you can use an old PBX, a Cisco multiservice router, or
an Asterisk machine to provide a decent facsimile of the POTS network given
a few computers with modems. Now that I have so many POTS ports available,
it makes me wish that I had kept more modems!!
Last time I checked, there are still some Telnet based boards out there...
A not trivial number of them probably run Synchronet because the author
continues to maintain the software for use with current versions of Windows
and Linux:
http://www.synchro.net/
There's a little BBS list on the site; you should find at least a few of
them to be active (well, at least, "up").
That's not to mention UNIX based conferencing systems a little bit outside
the vein of the traditional PC-based BBS experience (i.e. Grex) which have
managed to survive to modern times as well.
Best,
Sean
On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 8:35 PM, Eric Smith <spacewar at gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 5:50 PM, Ali <cctalk
at fahimi.net> wrote:
Even if not this BBS if someone knows of any good
BBSes running off
of a good old Dial Up (anywhere in continental USA) or Telnet I'd
love to hear about them.
I couldn't possibly comment on whether any qualify as "good BBSes",
but here's a list of 30 US dialup BBSes:
http://www.telnetbbsguide.com/dialbbs/dialbbs.htm