macman@ethz.UUCP (Danny Schwendener) (10/21/88)
In article <1868@uokmax.UUCP> russ@uokmax.UUCP (Random J Nightfall) writes: > What would you want to see in a BBS? Try and be reasonable ... > for instance, parallel processing is unlikely. ;-) We have been running a Macintosh BBS for almost 3 years now. However, as most Mac BBS'es, the BBS is dedicated to the Mac, but runs on another machine. Other MacBBS Sysops usually consider the Mac as too expensive to use it as dedicated BBS; We found it too cheap, and decided to run it on a VAX 8650. No, seriously, the idea was to allow several users simultaneously, which at the time we started writing the software, was not possible to do. It is now, and there are several solutions: 1) You can use A/UX, a multiple serial NuBus card and run several processes simultaneously 2) You can use a standard MacII, a multiple serial NuBus card and write a BBS which handles I/O to several lines simultaneously (the hard way?) 3) You can hook several low-end Macs via Appletalk together, one modem per machine and a central disk or file server. Currently, our BBS is text-driven, in the standard way (modal menus, etc). HOWEVER, we're beta-testing Vaxess, a package which allows the Vax to be used as normal Macintosh disk server over modem lines. Neat, with a good login script feature. You select the login script in the Chooser and shortly later, a new volume appears on the Finder's desktop. We're also working on a completely new BBS software using MacWorkStation, a software package by Apple, which gives a host's application access to the complete toolbox of the remote Macintosh. Actually, it is even better because most of the work is handled by the MacWorkStation. You could for example tell the Mac to put up a text window, let the user edit it locally (Full cut/copy/paste and printing supported) and transfer its content to the host when the user closes the window. The host needs no special program per se, except for the application you're writing. However, as the structure of a Macintosh application is fundamentally different from a standard program (I don't need to explain this, do I?), You cannot use an existing program and just change the terminal driver. In our case, Gil Widmer and I are writing a BBS with Mail, chatter, file download area and discussion forums (some of which are write protected, like comp.sys.mac, which we get from another host). In a later time, we plan to embed Vaxess into that application, using Vaxess' transfer protocol, and to give the users access to external networks (Uucp, Bitnet, Internet, Span, etc). Any comments welcome. Especially the Applelink addresses of the makers of MacWorkStation. -- Danny +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Mail : Danny Schwendener, ETH Macintosh Support Center | | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, CH-8092 Zuerich | | Bitnet : macman@czheth5a UUCP : {cernvax,mcvax}ethz!macman | | Ean : macman@ifi.ethz.ch Voice : yodel three times | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+