louis@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Louis Schmittroth) (02/12/90)
I am planning to setup a UNIX or XENIX public access system for
some volunteer groups in northern Alberta. I run a Xenix 386
system here at home, and have installed a few for customers. In
addition we have in our group several with AT&T UNIX 386 experience,
but nobody has ISC or ESIX experience.
This will be a non-profit service with donated hardware.
We plan to give the user e-mail, a conferencing system, some Usenet
groups, and possibly a BBS system. If there were one package that
would replace the BBS, conferencing system, and e-mail, so much
the better. We have experience with an older version of CoSy, and
like some of it. I was hoping that there might be something better
out there now, and either cheap or free.
We are assuming that the user is a non-sophisticated user of MS-DOS
or a Mac, or whatever, and either has a communications package, or
we will send him a public domain program. I know this has been
hashed around some time ago, but I would like to get some up-to-date
recommendations:
-Conferencing systems, public domain, or if commercial, cost
-BBS. I know about XBBS, is there anything else?
-UNIX/Xenix/SCO/ISC/AT&T (I read the recent stuff in comp.unix.i386)
-public domain comm software UNIX/XENIX/MS-DOS/MAC...
-Any general advice.
We have a source of hardware at "dealer cost," and we will likely
go with a 386-20 with 4MB RAM, an ESDI or SCSI 150MB disk, and an
8-port board. Any recommendations here would also be welcome, but
IF we go SCO, then it would likely be ESDI, and if ISC then SCSI, right?
e-mail or post replies. If there is an interest I will summarize.
Louis Schmittroth
Friends of the Athabasca Environmental Associationlarry@nstar.UUCP (Larry Snyder) (02/13/90)
In article <1654@atha.AthabascaU.CA>, louis@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Louis Schmittroth) writes: > > This will be a non-profit service with donated hardware. > We plan to give the user e-mail, a conferencing system, some Usenet > groups, and possibly a BBS system. If there were one package that > would replace the BBS, conferencing system, and e-mail, so much > the better. We have experience with an older version of CoSy, and > like some of it. I was hoping that there might be something better > out there now, and either cheap or free. AKCS will do exactly what you are looking for. AKCS is a complete front end that can be used to keep callers out of the shell - yet the ability to send and receive mail, netnews, gated conferences, downloads, and is user friendly. > -UNIX/Xenix/SCO/ISC/AT&T (I read the recent stuff in comp.unix.i386) AKCS is available for Xenix and Unix. I am running Unix and the file system is much faster than Xenix - but then the Xenix ASY drivers are much faster than the Unix ones and in many installations dumb cards can be used under Xenix in situations that would require smart boards under Unix. -- Larry Snyder, Northern Star Communications, Notre Dame, IN USA uucp: larry@nstar -or- ...!iuvax!ndmath!nstar!larry 4 inbound dialup high speed line public access system
palowoda@fiver.UUCP (Bob Palowoda) (02/14/90)
From article <511186@nstar.UUCP>, by larry@nstar.UUCP (Larry Snyder): > In article <1654@atha.AthabascaU.CA>, louis@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Louis Schmittroth) writes: >> >> This will be a non-profit service with donated hardware. >> We plan to give the user e-mail, a conferencing system, some Usenet >> groups, and possibly a BBS system. If there were one package that >> would replace the BBS, conferencing system, and e-mail, so much >> the better. We have experience with an older version of CoSy, and >> like some of it. I was hoping that there might be something better >> out there now, and either cheap or free. > > AKCS will do exactly what you are looking for. AKCS is a complete > front end that can be used to keep callers out of the shell - yet > the ability to send and receive mail, netnews, gated conferences, > downloads, and is user friendly. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It may be friendly but it has a confuseing user interface. By confuseing I mean that thier are so many arguments to options the first time user would seem to get confused. I do agree it has a better Usenet/mail interface into the bbs. If you look at alot of the dial-up bbs you notice the majority have basic attibutes, a bulletin section, a main section, a message section, a file's section and optionial sigs and what one would call doorways. It seems XBBS has done a very good job with this interface. It's plain simple, stupied and easy to use and has consistencey of user interface of the what I would call mainstream bbs type programs. XBBS lacks sysop utilities and maintance features though. I wish the user profile information was in a file with fields similiar to a database. I guess this would make it easier to come up with a way to interface the bbs user into the usenet news. One trick I have learned is to modify 'readnews' and/or 'vnews' striping out the shell functions, save, write and external command features. Than call up this separate compiled newsreader for first time users. It at least allows new users to read the news and there is no worry about them have "shell access". In the future hopefully Sandy will come up with a scheme to manage the user profile, bbs user directory, and allowable programs and paths a user can execute into some sort of database file. ---Bob -- Bob Palowoda pacbell!indetech!palowoda *Home of Fiver BBS* login: bbs Home {sun|daisy}!ys2!fiver!palowoda (415)-623-8809 1200/2400 Work {sun|pyramid|decwrl}!megatest!palowoda (415)-623-8806 2400/9600/19200 TB Voice: (415)-623-7495 Public access UNIX XBBS