langz@athena.mit.edu (Lang Zerner) (12/13/87)
I wrote: >>I'll be moving to Reading, England Bob Page <page@swan.ulowell.edu> responds: >What about the Max Elbowroom BBS? Well, Bob, I'm glad you brought that up. In a recent posting I asked for ideas and comments re: what works/doesn't work in a BBS, and for recommendations for BBS system software. There were very few recommendations for any particular software, but the winner for what works in a BBS is definitely CONNECTIVITY. Yes, that old buzzword is back, and what it means is that anybody who read my article on USENET won't settle for what one respondent referred to as "a textual answering machine that I have to share with a bunch of other people". I'm gradually bringing a group together to create the ultimate BBS system. In addition to interfacing well with or using the uupc system (perhaps other nets?), the general idea so far is that the system will actually just send out packets of information. Callers will have hardware-specific user interface software running on their machines to interpret the packets appropriately for their hardware. Right now I'm in the process of designing the protocol (any ideas/comments/suggestions? Please mail me), which may take a number of months. Since I'm a bigot, I'm making sure it will support the Amiga first; I'll later go through several iterations of revision with the comp.sys.* groups to make sure there weren't some inportant abilities of other machines that the design overlooked. At the point that we have a working protocol document pressed, I plan to contact the various comp.sys.* groups with regard to programming the user interfaces for their particular machines. Please mail your comments/ideas/wish lists/suggestions/etc. to me at one of the addresses below, or give me a call. In any case, I intend to set up a BBS for an ongoing "developers' conference". If enough people are interested, I'd love to set up a moderated newsgroup in addition. Please send in your votes if interested. Also, let me know if you can recommend a BBS package that multitasks on the Amiga and is suitable for use with an A500 w/2 floppies and 1meg (hard drive coming soon). BTW, thanks much to all those who have already started participating. Looking forward to seeing those votes. --Lang P.S. Bob, the local BOC called up asking for Max to send them a copy of some form of positive ID because his name sounded funny, but he refused, so the number won't be listed under his name. Be seeing you... --Lang Zerner langz@athena.mit.edu ihnp4!mit-eddie!athena.mit.edu!langz "No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the only misfortune is to do it solemnly" --Michel de Montaigne