29 Dec
2003
29 Dec
'03
9:53 a.m.
I'm pretty sure that I know where a bunch of rear doors
for the DEC H960 racks MIGHT be available here in
Minneapolis. In fact, they've been sitting in the
hallway here for months. If someone is interested
in picking them up in person, I can ask if they are
available.
If I recall correctly, there are 4 rear doors. And no,
there are no sides or racks available, i've been keeping
my eye open for that myself.
-Lawrence LeMay
30 Dec
30 Dec
3:23 a.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
Does anybody om this list have an idea what's happened with the EXEC-PC
BBS?
It used to be reachable via telnet, but for the past month or so I have
had no luck reaching it. I like going there from time to time to
download drivers & information about old PC hardware that was not
avaialable on the web.
The last update on the BBS was over two years ago basically saying that
there was only one person left to run it in a corner of the company
basement and that he would "keep the old girl" going as long as he
could.
So is it what was probably the biggest & best known BBS in the USA
finally dead?
::sigh::
Regards,
Paul Berger
5:14 a.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
On Tue, 2003-12-30 at 12:00, Bryan Pope wrote:
And thusly Paul Berger spake:
Brian,
It was located in Milwaukee Wisconsin.
With the comming of the internet area branched out faily early (93-94
ish) into a local ISP offering first shell accounts and then SLIP & PPP
dial-up access. As the internet took over alot of what the BBSs where
used for their BBS buisness wound down and they were purchased in 1998
by Voyager Communications for their ISP buiseness (Voyager was later
pruched by Core Commuications) and the BBS was scheduled to be shutdown
June 1999
Apparently one of the remaining original employee's (Curt Shambeau)
managed to keep the BBS going. The last post from him was early 2001 if
I remember correctly. The last time I was able to use it was earlyier
this year (May I beleive).
I did not used them till two years ago when I could not find a driver
for an old EMS board and tried telnetting into the BBS and found a
treasure trove of shareware & information from 80s.
I'll be very sad if the many tens of gigabytes of information from the
early PC era are gone.
Regards,
Paul
Does anybody om this list have an idea what's happened with the EXEC-PC
BBS?
Where is this BBS located? Was it in New York? 
5:48 a.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
On Tue, 30 Dec 2003, Paul Berger wrote:
I'll be very sad if the many tens of gigabytes of
information from the
early PC era are gone.
It would indeed be a shame if this is lost. If you can track down what
may have happened to this and manage to get the hard drive then perhaps
someone like Jay can host the BBS from his servers?
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
9:11 p.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
In message <1072804982.2252.24.camel(a)linux.local>
Paul Berger <sanepsycho(a)globaldialog.com> wrote:
Does anybody om this list have an idea what's
happened with the EXEC-PC
BBS?
The one that live{s/d} at telnet://bbs.execpc.com ?
It used to be reachable via telnet, but for the past
month or so I have
had no luck reaching it. I like going there from time to time to
download drivers & information about old PC hardware that was not
avaialable on the web.
~$ telnet bbs.execpc.com
Trying 169.207.1.70...
Connection timed out.
So is it what was probably the biggest & best
known BBS in the USA
finally dead?
I'm not going to say "yes", but from my viewpoint it
certainly looks that
way. If it has died then I'd suggest someone contacts ExecPC to assess the
prospects of buying the machine and the data stored on its hard drive(s). If
someone wants to resurrect ExecPC, I'd be happy to mirror the filebase on one
of my servers - I *know* there's a spare 8GB drive around here somewhere...
Personally, I'd like to know what happened to the guy who wrote the "ASPHYXIA
VGA Trainer" series. He went by the handle "Denthor" and usually signed
each
message off as "Grant Smith". There were two BBSes that hosted the VGA
Trainer, IIRC - the Connectix BBS and the "ASPHYXIA BBS", both in .za IIRC.
I've got articles #1-#21, but not #22 :(
Unfortunately the long-distance charges to .za would be a little prohibitive
just to see if a BBS was still alive. If anyone's interested, there were two
phone numbers for the BBS - +27-31-765-5312 and +27-31-765-6293. Connectix
was +27-31-266-9992.
Later.
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice,
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
Acme Dynamite. Guaranteed to fail unsafe.
31 Dec
31 Dec
1:44 a.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
message off as "Grant Smith". There were two
BBSes that hosted the VGA
Trainer, IIRC - the Connectix BBS and the "ASPHYXIA BBS", both in .za IIRC.
I've got articles #1-#21, but not #22 :(
Unfortunately the long-distance charges to .za would be a little prohibitive
just to see if a BBS was still alive. If anyone's interested, there were two
phone numbers for the BBS - +27-31-765-5312 and +27-31-765-6293. Connectix
was +27-31-266-9992.
Phil, you might want to look here: http://www.textfiles.com
g.
1:54 a.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
On Wed, 2003-12-31 at 05:11, Philip Pemberton wrote:
In message
<1072804982.2252.24.camel(a)linux.local>
Paul Berger <sanepsycho(a)globaldialog.com> wrote:
Same one.
I contacted some people at CoreComm and found somebody there and they
said that the system was shutdown indefinitely and there were no plans
reviving it seeing there was trouble keeping it running.
I just about gave up but decided to thow a an e-mail at Curt Shambeau's
old execpc.com e-mail address. I was supprised to receive a reply by
Curt, one of the orginals from ExecPC, and received a reply that he is
in the process of relocating the BBS in his basement and plans on having
it back up in January. Apparently he's too fond of the 20yr old BBS to
let it die.
He may be crazy keeping it running, but he's my sort of crazy.
<SNIP>
Does anybody om this list have an idea what's
happened with the EXEC-PC
BBS?
The one that live{s/d} at telnet://bbs.execpc.com ? I'm not going to say "yes", but from my
viewpoint it certainly looks that
way. If it has died then I'd suggest someone contacts ExecPC to assess the
prospects of buying the machine and the data stored on its hard drive(s). If
someone wants to resurrect ExecPC, I'd be happy to mirror the filebase on one
of my servers - I *know* there's a spare 8GB drive around here somewhere...
From my memory there were 30-40GB of files &
messages on it. I did get
ahold of some knowlegable people at Core and they said
most the files
were transferred to filepile.com, but that filepile no-longer exists.
Personally, I'd like to know what happened to the
guy who wrote the "ASPHYXIA
VGA Trainer" series. He went by the handle "Denthor" and usually signed
each
message off as "Grant Smith". There were two BBSes that hosted the VGA
Trainer, IIRC - the Connectix BBS and the "ASPHYXIA BBS", both in .za IIRC.
I've got articles #1-#21, but not #22 :(
Unfortunately the long-distance charges to .za would be a little prohibitive
just to see if a BBS was still alive. If anyone's interested, there were two
phone numbers for the BBS - +27-31-765-5312 and +27-31-765-6293. Connectix
was +27-31-266-9992.
I would like to get ahold of the creator of XFS NFS client for DOS to
see if he would like to make it public domain or better yet release the
source under some sort of Open Source Licence (BSD, GPL, whatever).
Regards,
Paul
2:19 a.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
In message <1072886050.2245.28.camel(a)linux.local>
Paul Berger <sanepsycho(a)globaldialog.com> wrote:
I contacted some people at CoreComm and found somebody
there and they
said that the system was shutdown indefinitely and there were no plans
reviving it seeing there was trouble keeping it running.
:(
I just about gave up but decided to thow a an e-mail
at Curt Shambeau's
old execpc.com e-mail address. I was supprised to receive a reply by
Curt, one of the orginals from ExecPC, and received a reply that he is
in the process of relocating the BBS in his basement and plans on having
it back up in January. Apparently he's too fond of the 20yr old BBS to
let it die.
Sounds great!
He may be crazy keeping it running, but he's my
sort of crazy.
Mine too. "Damn those new fangled uber-servers! This 20-year-old
PC/386
cluster will do just fine!"
From my memory there were 30-40GB of files &
messages on it.
Now where did I put that 80GB Maxtor "Performance Series"
D740X drive...
I did get
ahold of some knowlegable people at Core and they said most the files
were transferred to filepile.com, but that filepile no-longer exists.
Sounds about
right.
I would like to get ahold of the creator of XFS NFS
client for DOS to
see if he would like to make it public domain or better yet release the
source under some sort of Open Source Licence (BSD, GPL, whatever).
In addition,
there was a program called "ARBLogic" - Arbitrary Logic IIRC. It
either took a PROM image and produced a series of equations. ISTR it was
written some time in 1996 - there was a copy of it on RSteveW's FTP site
(ftp.armory.com/~rstevew/PLD or /EPROM iirc). I'd like to get in touch with
the author for the same reasons - get him to PD it or release the code.
To top it all off, I'm trying to track down the creator of the !ClearView
hypertext system - it ran on RISC OS (yes, Acorn RISC OS, on an ARM CPU) and
displayed documents in a similar way to a web browser, but much faster. It
was written by one of Minerva Software's former programmers - Merlyn Kline.
He's got a website at www.binary.co.uk but FWICT he doesn't respond to
emails. I quite liked it - I'd like to see him release it as freeware or
open-source. A 32-bit-clean version (for the Iyonix) would be nice, too.
Failing that, I've got just about enough spare time to maintain the code. It
seems to have been written with Acorn C, probably Release 4. With a few
tweaks, I bet the code would compile using the new 32-bit development tools.
Later.
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice,
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
Think "honk" if you're a telepath.
2 Jan
2 Jan
4:19 a.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
On Wed, 2003-12-31 at 10:19, Philip Pemberton wrote:
In message
<1072886050.2245.28.camel(a)linux.local>
Paul Berger <sanepsycho(a)globaldialog.com> wrote:
He converted it from a system pretty much as you describe at it's peak
it consited of 5 novell severs with a total of 40+ hard drives and over
100 PCs (bare motherboards actually) networked together in racks made ot
of plywood with slots cut in them to slide the motherboards into. It
was an interesting artitechture and the main reason it was as scaleable
as it was.
January 1st 1999 it access to the BBS was made free and at the same tme
it was announce it was scheduled to be shut-down in June of 1999 over
possible Y2K issues. In late 2000, seeing the BBS survived Y2K
unscathed, some of the few remaining employees converted the BBS to just
one server with four 73gb drives and five & telnet and five dial-up
nodes for the few people that still used it. This is how it sat till
the middle of 2003 where it apparently started having problems and was
down most the time.
As I mentioned at this point Curt at this time decided to give it a new
home and is currently in the process of setting it up in his basement.
The e-mail I recied from him indicated he planned on having it running
and available early January.
Regards,
Paul
He may be crazy keeping it running, but he's
my sort of crazy.
Mine too. "Damn those new fangled uber-servers! This
20-year-old PC/386
cluster will do just fine!"
4:28 a.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Paul Berger wrote:
He converted it from a system pretty much as you
describe at it's peak
it consited of 5 novell severs with a total of 40+ hard drives and over
100 PCs (bare motherboards actually) networked together in racks made ot
of plywood with slots cut in them to slide the motherboards into. It
was an interesting artitechture and the main reason it was as scaleable
as it was.
Wow! That's really cool. Did they ever document it, like with pictures
and stuff? That deserves preservation in some computer history archive.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
12 Jan
12 Jan
1:05 p.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
Looks like the old girl is back up!! :)
:~> telnet bbs.execpc.com
Trying 169.207.51.4...
Connected to bbs.execpc.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
Linux 2.0.31 (bbs) (ttyp0)
Welcome to ExecPC BBS
connected
Exec-PC BBS (NODE# 402, CONNECT 57600)
Exec-PC(tm) BBS Copyright (c) 1983-2001 Exec-PC, Inc.
Exec-PC(tm) Look, feel, menu, bulletin and file lists Copyright (c)
2001.
EXEC-PC (R) Reg. U.S. Pat. and Tm. Off.
Can you display ANSI Color Graphics? (y/N) -> N
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
???????????>>? Exec-PC BBS
?<<????????????
? LARGEST AND MOST POPULAR BBS IN THE
WORLD ?
? ASP Approved BBS, Founding AOP Board
Member ?
????????????????? The Business Knowledge Exchange
???????????????????
12.5 Million callers since 1982
1.1 MILLION files online
500,000+ active messages online
Largest Internet Provider in Wisconsin!
Home of Hyperscan(tm), searches through 450,000 files in 2
seconds!
Winner of the 1994 Dvorak Award for "Best Overall BBS"
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Via: Telnet-IN, V.34+
Telnet Address: bbs.execpc.com
???>> IMPORTANT NOTE: YOUR COMMUNICATIONS PARAMETERS MUST BE SET TO
8,N,1 <<???
|--------------------|
What is your FIRST name ->
On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 12:28, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Paul Berger wrote:
He converted it from a system pretty much as you
describe at it's peak
it consited of 5 novell severs with a total of 40+ hard drives and over
100 PCs (bare motherboards actually) networked together in racks made ot
of plywood with slots cut in them to slide the motherboards into. It
was an interesting artitechture and the main reason it was as scaleable
as it was.
Wow! That's really cool. Did they ever document it, like with pictures
and stuff? That deserves preservation in some computer history archive. 
2:46 p.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
Very cool. Thanks for the info. I remember using this BBS back in the early
'80s. Whew, I'm getting OLD.
Lyle
On Monday 12 January 2004 19:05, Paul Berger wrote:
Looks like the old girl is back up!! :)
:~> telnet bbs.execpc.com
Trying 169.207.51.4...
Connected to bbs.execpc.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
Linux 2.0.31 (bbs) (ttyp0)
Welcome to ExecPC BBS
connected
Exec-PC BBS (NODE# 402, CONNECT 57600)
Exec-PC(tm) BBS Copyright (c) 1983-2001 Exec-PC, Inc.
Exec-PC(tm) Look, feel, menu, bulletin and file lists Copyright (c)
2001.
EXEC-PC (R) Reg. U.S. Pat. and Tm. Off.
Can you display ANSI Color Graphics? (y/N) -> N
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
???????????>>? Exec-PC BBS
?<<????????????
? LARGEST AND MOST POPULAR BBS IN THE
WORLD ?
? ASP Approved BBS, Founding AOP Board
Member ?
????????????????? The Business Knowledge Exchange
???????????????????
12.5 Million callers since 1982
1.1 MILLION files online
500,000+ active messages online
Largest Internet Provider in Wisconsin!
Home of Hyperscan(tm), searches through 450,000 files in 2
seconds!
Winner of the 1994 Dvorak Award for "Best Overall BBS"
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Via: Telnet-IN, V.34+
Telnet Address: bbs.execpc.com
???>> IMPORTANT NOTE: YOUR COMMUNICATIONS PARAMETERS MUST BE SET TO
8,N,1 <<???
|--------------------|
What is your FIRST name ->
On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 12:28, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Paul Berger wrote:
> > He converted it from a system pretty much as you describe at it's peak
> > it consited of 5 novell severs with a total of 40+ hard drives and over
> > 100 PCs (bare motherboards actually) networked together in racks made
> > ot of plywood with slots cut in them to slide the motherboards into.
> > It was an interesting artitechture and the main reason it was as
> > scaleable as it was.
>
> Wow! That's really cool. Did they ever document it, like with pictures
> and stuff? That deserves preservation in some computer history archive.
--
Lyle Bickley
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
31 Dec
31 Dec
3:09 a.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, Paul Berger wrote:
I just about gave up but decided to thow a an e-mail
at Curt Shambeau's
old execpc.com e-mail address. I was supprised to receive a reply by
Curt, one of the orginals from ExecPC, and received a reply that he is
in the process of relocating the BBS in his basement and plans on having
it back up in January. Apparently he's too fond of the 20yr old BBS to
let it die.
Good work!
Maybe you can convince him to let someone host a mirror of the file base?
I would like to get ahold of the creator of XFS NFS
client for DOS to
see if he would like to make it public domain or better yet release the
source under some sort of Open Source Licence (BSD, GPL, whatever).
Enough Googling and you should eventually come across the author's current
contact info.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
2 Jan
2 Jan
4:23 a.m.
New subject: EXEC-PC BBS?
On Wed, 2003-12-31 at 11:09, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
I've tried without much luck, last post was from a univerity in
Germany. I'll keep digging now and then and see what I find.
Regards,
Paul
On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, Paul Berger wrote:
I'll see how much data is there and if he's interested once he get's it
back up and running. There has to be alot of information there that
classic computer people would be interested in seeing the BBS started
Nov '83.
I just about gave up but decided to thow a an
e-mail at Curt Shambeau's
old execpc.com e-mail address. I was supprised to receive a reply by
Curt, one of the orginals from ExecPC, and received a reply that he is
in the process of relocating the BBS in his basement and plans on having
it back up in January. Apparently he's too fond of the 20yr old BBS to
let it die.
Good work!
Maybe you can convince him to let someone host a mirror of the file base? I would like
to get ahold of the creator of XFS NFS client for DOS to
see if he would like to make it public domain or better yet release the
source under some sort of Open Source Licence (BSD, GPL, whatever).
Enough Googling and you should eventually come across the author's current
contact info.
7418
days inactive
7432
days old
14 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
bpope＠wordstock.com -
geneb＠deltasoft.com -
lbickley＠bickleywest.com -
lemay＠mail.cs.umn.edu -
philpem＠dsl.pipex.com -
sanepsycho＠globaldialog.com -
vcf＠siconic.com