cwebster@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Chris Webster) (04/07/91)
Now that a newsreader has been ported to Coherent, I'm sure that the question of running a BBS under coherent is on people's minds. While I don't know of any presently available BBS that will run in 64K, thinking back to the early days of BBSing, there were BBS's running on Apple II's with 48k and under. Hence, it could be done under Coherent's present kernel. I'm wondering if anyone has done this. Perhaps you wouldn't want a BBS under 'nix, but rather give users accounts and let them dial up to read News. (Personally, that's what I would prefer as that's my main use for my University accounts...) However, I'm uncertain to whether their would be a sufficent user base for this. Hence, I'm wondering what if anything anyone has done with using Coherent to run a BBS. -Chris Webster
smyers@miranda.dpl.scg.hac.com (Steven Myers) (05/04/91)
> Now that a newsreader has been ported to Coherent, I'm sure that the question > of running a BBS under coherent is on people's minds. While I don't know > of any presently available BBS that will run in 64K, thinking back to the > early days of BBSing, there were BBS's running on Apple II's with 48k and > under. Hence, it could be done under Coherent's present kernel. One of the primariy reason I got Coherent was to develop an inexpensive little UNIX bbs. The basic idea is not to worry about writing one monolithic BBS that has to run in less then 64K. Instead I want try to take advantage of the multi-user, multi-tasking features already a part of UNIX (and Coherent). > I'm wondering if anyone has done this. Perhaps you wouldn't want a BBS > under 'nix, but rather give users accounts and let them dial up to read News. > However, I'm uncertain to whether their would be a sufficent user > base for this. Yes, this is basically what I had in mind, but I don't want to just give users plain UNIX accounts. I want to build a set of BBS like, user friendly shell scripts. The shell scripts would offer all the features of a typical bbs (ie. e-mail, file UL/DL, message boards, message editor) through the standard UNIX tools (ie. mail, xmodem, rn, vi). The basic idea is to customize the shell into a turnkey like bbs system. I'm still not sure how feasable this all is. I haven't even gotten uucp, or even kermit working on my Coherent system yet. Once I've setup all the nice little tools I think I'll need I'll try fusing them into a bbs. Now a question I have for the net is, has this already been done? I'm sure my idea isn't so original that it hasn't already been done on some UNIX system somewhere. Can anyone point me to such a bbs, or better yet a person who's tried to make such a bbs? Any information would be greatly appreciated. If people would rather send replies directly to me, I will summarize and post to this board. ------------------------------------+---------------------------------------- Steven Myers | Internet: smyers@luna.dpl.scg.hac.com Hughes | Phone: 213-414-6261 Space and Communications Group | FAX: 213-414-6699 Bldg. S64, MS C409 +---------------------------------------- PO Box 92919 | In UNIX anything is possible Los Angeles, CA 90009 | but nothing of interest is easy ------------------------------------+----------------------------------------
nlane@well.sf.ca.us (Nathan D. Lane) (05/10/91)
About a BBS for Coherent - I've got a bbs system written almost entirely in Bourne shell scripts, but it doesn't work under Coherent just yet. It is available in CompuServe as "SBBS1.SHZ" and "SBBS2.SHZ". It is small, so perhaps I can post it (except for the fact I don't know where I put it.) If interest is high, send me mail or post. -Nathan Lane Digital Technology Service btw - it would need WORK to port to Coherent, but it is in Bourne shell so it wouldn't be too, too hard.