17 Feb
2015
17 Feb
'15
9:44 a.m.
Gary's pulling up a BBS pushed me onto a wave of nostalgia so I've been
digging through my old DOS archives of BBS software and the like that I
picked up years ago and I came to a question.
How did people set up multi-node BBS' back in the day?
I know you could run something like Desqview and run multiple copies on a
single system, and some BBS' (like TBBS) had built-in multitasking so it
handled multiple modems. And, of course, you could get fancy and run a
Novell network. Were there other ways of doing this?
I also saw a random mention of multi-node Commodore BBS'. Given Commodores
didn't network or multi-task, I'm curious if the author of the note was
mistaken, or if such things existed -- and then how did they work?
My thanks for helping with my flashback;
- JP
17 Feb
17 Feb
9:46 a.m.
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015, JP Hindin wrote:
How did people set up multi-node BBS' back in the
day?
I know you could run something like Desqview and run multiple copies on a
single system, and some BBS' (like TBBS) had built-in multitasking so it
handled multiple modems. And, of course, you could get fancy and run a
Novell network. Were there other ways of doing this?
Yes, on a real multi-tasking OS. A friend of mine and I ran a
home-grown BBS on a Tandy 6000HD running Xenix for a couple of years
starting in 1986 in Sumner, WA. Four 1200bps modems plus the console
allowed 5 of us to be on at the same time. It was primarily a message
system (room-based), with a real-time chat facility.
Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/
10:16 a.m.
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015, Mike Loewen wrote:
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015, JP Hindin wrote:
<chuckles>
True, thanks Mike. I was being specific about DOS, actually - although I
didn't say so, my bad. Certainly there were... shall we say, somewhat more
advanced OS' that just simply "worked". I was more curious about what
wedges people put in place to make multi-nodes in DOS... where it really
didn't.
Thanks though!
- JP
How did people set up multi-node BBS' back in
the day?
I know you could run something like Desqview and run multiple copies on a
single system, and some BBS' (like TBBS) had built-in multitasking so it
handled multiple modems. And, of course, you could get fancy and run a
Novell network. Were there other ways of doing this?
Yes, on a real multi-tasking OS. A friend of mine and I ran a
home-grown BBS on a Tandy 6000HD running Xenix for a couple of years
starting in 1986 in Sumner, WA. Four 1200bps modems plus the console
allowed 5 of us to be on at the same time. It was primarily a message
system (room-based), with a real-time chat facility. 
10:26 a.m.
On 2/17/2015 7:16 AM, JP Hindin wrote:
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015, Mike Loewen wrote:
I used windows 95 as a platform to have multiple dos sessions going with
shared memory. It was not for a BBS, but the same concept would have
worked.
The original setup for one of the debugging setups we had involved
having two systems set up in close proximity with a crossover cable
between the COM1 ports. One would run a debugging program on one port,
and run our package on the other. It was pretty nice, but was not
convenient to duplicate at the time, and also didn't translate to being
able to duplicated as early laptop hardware showed up.
The guys were lugging 2 laptops, and a PCI dock with our hardware around
to customer sites to debug things.
Both systems were massive Microsoft C6 c programs running under dos.
Anyway, I realized I could run both the software in debug mode, and the
debug client in separate windows, but still had no way other than the
serial ports to connect them.
I modified the programs and added a small driver setup to each as an
option to emulate a serial port, which used shared memory to communicate
between the processes. we had an expansion memory that was not used as
system memory, and could be easily located, so I put a few bytes in the
structure to create the port.
Windows 95 booted in real mode, then went protected and returned with
real mode processor sessions, with the base mode still being the
original Dos boot.
Windows 98 went directly into protected or big real protected mode and
created dos sessions, so the base system was not a real mode dos
session. It worked in a lot of cases, but not all. Windows 95 always
had the original dos real mode session as the boot on the processor, so
most everything executed by a dos session as a driver executed in that
real mode.
If you had the ports hooked up, you could set up a session to have
individual dos sessions running in real mode for each port.
If you used the protected bios, you had to deal with different drivers
than the actual Dos drivers that were used prior to the windows
multitasking being around.
I didn't get into trying any of this under Windows for Workgroups type
NT systems, only when 95 came along did i attempt the tricks above.
HOpefully described the structure okay, as it has been a long time since
having to deal with this.
thanks
Jim
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015, JP Hindin wrote:
<chuckles>
True, thanks Mike. I was being specific about DOS, actually - although I
didn't say so, my bad. Certainly there were... shall we say, somewhat more
advanced OS' that just simply "worked". I was more curious about what
wedges people put in place to make multi-nodes in DOS... where it really
didn't.
Thanks though!
- JP
How did people set up multi-node BBS' back in
the day?
I know you could run something like Desqview and run multiple copies on a
single system, and some BBS' (like TBBS) had built-in multitasking so it
handled multiple modems. And, of course, you could get fancy and run a
Novell network. Were there other ways of doing this?
Yes, on a real
multi-tasking OS. A friend of mine and I ran a
home-grown BBS on a Tandy 6000HD running Xenix for a couple of years
starting in 1986 in Sumner, WA. Four 1200bps modems plus the console
allowed 5 of us to be on at the same time. It was primarily a message
system (room-based), with a real-time chat facility. 
12:07 p.m.
Keep in mind that a BBS does NOT equal a DOS session. All that is
required is the ability to service multiple COM: ports connected to modems
or local consoles; keeping track of what data is coming or going from which
port. All else is bells and whistles. You can have a system as simple as
2 commands. READ: which types everything in the board file from the last
time it was cleared. WRITE: which adds a line of text with a port ID to
differentiate who is typing. Absolute login IDs or even date/time stamps
are optional.
It can be that simple.
Robyn- BBS user since 1979.
On Feb 17, 2015 10:13 AM, "JP Hindin" <jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com> wrote:
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015, Mike Loewen wrote:
<chuckles>
True, thanks Mike. I was being specific about DOS, actually - although I
didn't say so, my bad. Certainly there were... shall we say, somewhat more
advanced OS' that just simply "worked". I was more curious about what
wedges people put in place to make multi-nodes in DOS... where it really
didn't.
Thanks though!
- JP
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015, JP Hindin wrote:
> How did people set up multi-node BBS' back in the day?
>
> I know you could run something like Desqview and run multiple copies
on a
> single system, and some BBS' (like TBBS)
had built-in multitasking so
it
handled
multiple modems. And, of course, you could get fancy and run a
Novell network. Were there other ways of doing this?
Yes, on a real multi-tasking OS. A friend of mine and I ran a
home-grown BBS on a Tandy 6000HD running Xenix for a couple of years
starting in 1986 in Sumner, WA. Four 1200bps modems plus the console
allowed 5 of us to be on at the same time. It was primarily a message
system (room-based), with a real-time chat facility. 
10:16 a.m.
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015, Mike Loewen wrote:
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015, JP Hindin wrote:
Citadel, FTW. :)
I miss Micro Magic. *sigh*
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
How did people set up multi-node BBS' back in
the day?
I know you could run something like Desqview and run multiple copies on a
single system, and some BBS' (like TBBS) had built-in multitasking so it
handled multiple modems. And, of course, you could get fancy and run a
Novell network. Were there other ways of doing this?
Yes, on a real multi-tasking OS. A friend of mine and I ran a home-grown
BBS on a Tandy 6000HD running Xenix for a couple of years starting in 1986 in
Sumner, WA. Four 1200bps modems plus the console allowed 5 of us to be on at
the same time. It was primarily a message system (room-based), with a
real-time chat facility. 
10:48 a.m.
I was a Remote Access sysop. That was a fantastic BBS system. Only ever ran it single
line, but I did run it off of a windows 95 box that doubled as my personal computer and
that worked quite well before the internet finally did in the BBS. I'm sure a
multi-node system would have been fine
I'd been toying with the idea of setting up RA again. Just need a fossil-socket
driver...
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 17, 2015, at 9:16 AM, geneb <geneb at
deltasoft.com> wrote:
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015, Mike Loewen wrote:
Citadel, FTW. :)
I miss Micro Magic. *sigh*
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! On Tue, 17 Feb 2015, JP Hindin wrote:
How did people set up multi-node BBS' back in the day?
I know you could run something like Desqview and run multiple copies on a
single system, and some BBS' (like TBBS) had built-in multitasking so it
handled multiple modems. And, of course, you could get fancy and run a
Novell network. Were there other ways of doing this?
Yes, on a real multi-tasking OS. A friend of mine and I ran a home-grown BBS on a Tandy
6000HD running Xenix for a couple of years starting in 1986 in Sumner, WA. Four 1200bps
modems plus the console allowed 5 of us to be on at the same time. It was primarily a
message system (room-based), with a real-time chat facility. 
11:02 a.m.
On 2/17/2015 8:48 AM, Geoff Oltmans wrote:
I was a Remote Access sysop. That was a fantastic BBS
system. Only
ever ran it single line, but I did run it off of a windows 95 box
that doubled as my personal computer and that worked quite well
before the internet finally did in the BBS. I'm sure a multi-node
system would have been fine
I'd been toying with the idea of setting up RA again. Just need a
fossil-socket driver...
Sent from my iPhone
I thought the fact that file sharing became popular is what did in
BBS. Log in and leave a message is only a few minutes. Download
some file @ 300 baud and a few hours is gone. Of course you just have
a single phone line and 50+ people a day one can never log in with
a long distance number.
Ben.
11:15 a.m.
The BBS The Garden of Eden in Phoenix ran on some weird custom software.
It was dual line, on Apple ][ machines, connected together by serial cable
I think...
11:25 a.m.
I just spoke with a guy who wrote and ran a popular BBS in the mid-late
80's at Drew University, the Drew Underground.
The software was the 2am BBS, it ran initially on some number of Epson
QX-16's, multiplexed to a single hard drive. He had the following to
say about it:
"Yes, I was the one that purchased and set it up sometime around 1985/6.
It was a 70mb hard drive with an 8-port multiplexer sold by Bi-Tech.
Came with a bunch of device drivers that required you to change some
system settings to avoid disk caching in DOS, which could cause file
corruption. We had to code a file locking system to prevent overwrites.
Record locking became an OS feature later.
I think this ad is for the right device:
https://books.google.com/books?id=7wCiNAUEuAMC&pg=RA3-PA184&lpg=RA3…
"
Thought it an interesting data point to add to the conversation.
--Jason
On 02/17/2015 08:15 AM, John Many Jars wrote:
The BBS The Garden of Eden in Phoenix ran on some
weird custom software.
It was dual line, on Apple ][ machines, connected together by serial cable
I think...
11:32 a.m.
That could be part of it, but I noticed a distinct drop off in traffic when the larger
information services (prodigy, CompuServe, aol) and local ISPs started offering general
internet access. It was a pretty sharp decline as I recall. Different areas are different
though. I'm sure that another major driver was whether or not you were in a telephone
exchange that had local telenet and sprintnet access. In our area we were fortunate to
have that available as a local call.
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 17, 2015, at 10:02 AM, ben <bfranchuk at
jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
On 2/17/2015 8:48 AM, Geoff Oltmans wrote:
I was a Remote Access sysop. That was a fantastic BBS system. Only
ever ran it single line, but I did run it off of a windows 95 box
that doubled as my personal computer and that worked quite well
before the internet finally did in the BBS. I'm sure a multi-node
system would have been fine
I'd been toying with the idea of setting up RA again. Just need a
fossil-socket driver...
Sent from my iPhone
I thought the fact that file sharing became popular is what did in
BBS. Log in and leave a message is only a few minutes. Download
some file @ 300 baud and a few hours is gone. Of course you just have
a single phone line and 50+ people a day one can never log in with
a long distance number.
Ben.
11:49 a.m.
New subject: DiskVaccuum project?
Has there been any news on this project in the last year?
http://forum.gadgetfactory.net/index.php?/page/articles.html/_/papilio/disk…
- John
6:12 p.m.
Depends. Rusty N Edies BBS was local to me and it was very popular just
because of file sharing (which is what ultimately made it shut down).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty_n_Edie%27s_BBS
My first look at the WWW came from there when they started offering web
portals and I purchased Mosaic 1.0
Once the WWW took off BBS died pretty quickly.
-----Original Message-----
From: ben
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2015 11:02 AM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Multi-node BBS'
On 2/17/2015 8:48 AM, Geoff Oltmans wrote:
I thought the fact that file sharing became popular is what did in
BBS. Log in and leave a message is only a few minutes. Download
some file @ 300 baud and a few hours is gone. Of course you just have
a single phone line and 50+ people a day one can never log in with
a long distance number.
Ben.
9:59 a.m.
I've seen multiple implementations people used.
All these solutions either used a single machine multi-tasking, or multiple
machines sharing some resource (like a hard drive). For example, a small
number of Apple II multi-node BBSes existed, and they would simply share
the SCSI hard drive along the chain, and software mods to the BBS software
would put files on the hard drive. To some level of people this was
miraculous and to others routine. Race conditions were a little easier to
deal with.
Systems later in life like EXEC-PC or Rusty and Edie's or Channel 1 would
have one machine per seat, with a dozens or hundreds of seats. This would
usually take over a house - the Channel 1 operators moved out of their home
and into another home near the building, for example. Pictures are
available in Boardwatch and others of the Exec PC setup, as well as Rusty
n' Edie's.
Then there are UNIX BBS types as mentioned above (I'm assuming we're
sticking with modem-connected BBSes - obviously when we switched to
Internet BBSes, all bets were off). This was easier, relatively, since the
system could do a lot of the multi-tasking work. Andy Rubin (of Android
fame) ran an 8-line XENIX system called Spies in the Wire that was a
technological lark of this sort.
Desqview or Pharlap were good options for two phone lines, two modems, and
a single system, as long as you didn't tax one "side" too much.
Galacticomm's multi-line card was actually designed to be a more general
computer-to-modems interface, and the MajorBBS software was designed to be
one of multiple example programs to demonstrate it - it just happened to
take off in a big way.
So, it's one of those "of course" hacks that different people did with very
different methods.
On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 6:44 AM, JP Hindin <jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com> wrote:
Gary's pulling up a BBS pushed me onto a wave of nostalgia so I've been
digging through my old DOS archives of BBS software and the like that I
picked up years ago and I came to a question.
How did people set up multi-node BBS' back in the day?
I know you could run something like Desqview and run multiple copies on a
single system, and some BBS' (like TBBS) had built-in multitasking so it
handled multiple modems. And, of course, you could get fancy and run a
Novell network. Were there other ways of doing this?
I also saw a random mention of multi-node Commodore BBS'. Given Commodores
didn't network or multi-task, I'm curious if the author of the note was
mistaken, or if such things existed -- and then how did they work?
My thanks for helping with my flashback;
- JP
10:36 a.m.
On 2/17/2015 8:44 AM, JP Hindin wrote:
I also saw a random mention of multi-node Commodore
BBS'. Given Commodores
didn't network or multi-task, I'm curious if the author of the note was
mistaken, or if such things existed -- and then how did they work?
My thanks for helping with my flashback;
- JP
Commodore's only multi-node I know is Centipede, which can run nodes
sharing a Lt. Kernal HDD
(http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/ltk/history.html -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lt._Kernal) using the multiplexer
(http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/ltk/host_mux.htm)
I don't know if 2 nodes is the limit for Centipede, or if more are possible.
--
Jim Brain
brain at jbrain.com
www.jbrain.com
5:44 p.m.
I had a 2-node board running a file sharing program called $25Net over a
serial cable at 38400. I had a fancy Hayes intelligent serial card (DMA
engine) in a 5150 sitting on the floor beneath my 386 main node. Both
were running Spitfire BBS with Hayes 2400 smart modems and later Courier
HST/9600s. Worked surprisingly well. Crystal Palace BBS, Cabot
Arkansas.. RIP (and not the protocol).
-Alan
On 2015-02-17 09:44, JP Hindin wrote:
Gary's pulling up a BBS pushed me onto a wave of
nostalgia so I've been
digging through my old DOS archives of BBS software and the like that I
picked up years ago and I came to a question.
How did people set up multi-node BBS' back in the day?
I know you could run something like Desqview and run multiple copies on a
single system, and some BBS' (like TBBS) had built-in multitasking so it
handled multiple modems. And, of course, you could get fancy and run a
Novell network. Were there other ways of doing this?
I also saw a random mention of multi-node Commodore BBS'. Given Commodores
didn't network or multi-task, I'm curious if the author of the note was
mistaken, or if such things existed -- and then how did they work?
My thanks for helping with my flashback;
- JP
3420
days inactive
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days old
15 comments
14 participants
participants (14)
-
alan＠alanlee.org -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
brain＠jbrain.com -
geneb＠deltasoft.com -
jason＠smbfc.net -
jason＠textfiles.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
john＠yoyodyne-propulsion.net -
jplist2008＠kiwigeek.com -
jws＠jwsss.com -
mloewen＠cpumagic.scol.pa.us -
oltmansg＠gmail.com -
rrissell＠gmail.com -
teoz＠neo.rr.com