T8M-KAUP@FINTUVM.BITNET (Asko Kauppi) (05/20/89)
A couple of months ago, I enquired if there were any graphical
bulletin board systems in existance in the U.S. or well, anywhere.
I did find out of some, but none of them seemed to be good enough
for me. Gradually I have learned more and more about various
means of making such a thing, and at the moment it seems like
it would be strongly based on X-Windows, perhaps making use of
the protocol's extension capabilities...
Well, to the point: WHICH WOULD BE THE IDEAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
ENVIRONMENT FOR SUCH A PROJECT?
What I am about to start creating is a BBS software running
on a central machine that could be accessed by any number of
various X-Window terminals (servers - PCs, Macs, STs, Amigas...).
Further linkage to other BBS centers or even world-wide nets
should be made possible in the future.
At the moment I only possess an 8MHz PC AT clone and an Amiga.
Do I need a UNIX workstation to develop an X-Window system of
this calibre? Could I manage with a 386-based PC clone running
both MS-DOS and XENIX? It *is* a question of money...
As to my programming experience, I do know C and I am currently
crawling through the X-window documentation. Programming for a
multitasking asynchronic windowing environment shouldn't be a problem
too big to overcome. Are those abilities enough to create what
I have in mind or should I know something else, too.
Finally, on which machines is the X11 server currently implemented
and how good are the implementations?
_____________________________________________________________________
Asko Kauppi alias T8M-KAUP at FINTUVM.BITNET (BitNet
MAMMUTTI.UTU.FI (InterNet
Student of Physics
Turku University addr: Kakskerrantie 176, 20960 Turku, FINLAND
Finland tel : +358 (9)21 588 359 / 588 434nazgul@apollo.COM (Kee Hinckley) (05/24/89)
In article <814T8M-KAUP@FINTUVM> T8M-KAUP@FINTUVM.BITNET (Asko Kauppi) writes: > for me. Gradually I have learned more and more about various > means of making such a thing, and at the moment it seems like > it would be strongly based on X-Windows, perhaps making use of > the protocol's extension capabilities... I'm curious how you would do this. You can't assume that a random X Server will be capable of serially connecting to your system, so I think you'd have to run an XClient on the remote (from your BBS) machine which interprets graphical codes from the BBS and then displays something on the local machine. This would be similar in concept to AppleLink and the new Sears Prodigy network. If you are going to do that I would move it to a higher level than sending graphical commands, and instead do more generic things. Have commands such as 'Present a menu of the following items' or 'put up a window' or 'display the following text in the window', etc.. That way you reduce the bandwidth, and enable non-X systems (such as PCs) to access the BBS. This is in fact something I have thought about doing with my BBS. At this point though we get somewhat off the topic of this newsgroup, so further conversation should probably be by mail. -kee -- ### User Environment, Apollo Computer Inc. ### Public Access ProLine BBS ### ### {mit-eddie,yale}!apollo!nazgul ### nazgul@pro-angmar.cts.com ### ### nazgul@apollo.com ### (617) 641-3722 300/1200/2400 ### I'm not sure which upsets me more; that people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.