Please wait...
environmentalist wackjob. Tried suing burger king and getting some Citadel BBS users in trouble.
My "favorite thing to do that anooyed just about everyone not running C64/128 hardware" was to make the stuff do things that the "IBM compatible" crowd swore was not possible.
As in....
1. writing an FTP file-handler in machine code, bypassing all the nonsense over-checking in the C64 "kernal" (their spelling, not mine) and ending up with something that would move files (using a then-speedy 2400 baud modem) faster than an IBM PC AT talking to another AT machine. This REALLY irked Irving the Duck beyond words! <evil grin>
2. getting a 20 meg hard drive (fairly big deal in 1985) and then getting it running on a C64 (an even bigger fairly big deal in 1985). Which led to...
3. writing a Citadel BBS "look alike" to run on that hardware.
Now if THAT didn't piss off "Hue Jr" then I don't know what could... <another evil grin>
IG -- I really think that if you had the source to Citadel:K2NE you would have ended up doing the rewrite anyway.
The problem is that all the ancient (trans: single-user) Citadel variants were extremely "linear" and did not (mainly because, at that time and with the resources at hand for most of us) even begin to consider "unix-isms" that make multi-user code writing much, well, not "easier" but much more "sensible."
It was just absolutely out of the question to adopt a philosophy of "let the operating system handle it" when the "operating system" was DOS, or even CP/M.
I actually had a multi-user implementation of CitK2NE running for about a year - using Norton Desktop for Windows. I had to write the file-locking code myself (no such thing in DOS - after all, there's only one user, right?) and it was - to say the least - ***not*** elegant code. But it worked. Sort of. But we were talking "dialup modem access" and not TCP/IP, and compared to what we do now, the "speeds" were abysmally slow.
What you've done, IG, is absolutely the best way to have gone. Legacy code should, most of the time, be left in the museum.
You've made a Citadel which looks and works like "the old ones" (using the text client) and has a bunch of nifty newer features through the web interface. All of it good. It appeals to the broad "user-space" out there and after all these years still attracts interest and attention from folks that never heard of Citadel before "now" and that, in itself, says it all.
Good job!
--Vince (K2NE)
And all because the hardware just happened to land in my lap at the right time. It baffled me to see the contortions people went through to make multiuser work on DOS, when even the most primitive Unix gave you multiuser, session control, and modem handling as included services. All you had to do was write the application code and the OS took care of everything else.
However I also had the luxury of a later start. Since I never ran on anything with less than 512 KB of memory and 10 MB of disk, I didn't have to do a lot of the silly bit-banging that the CP/M version needed to run in 64 KB of memory and <1 MB of disk.
Even I am surprised at the interest Citadel attracts today, particularly when I have neglected it over the last year and a half (due in part to a situation at work which is, thankfully, starting to go away). There is something distinctly unique about it, and enough people seem to understand that there's something special here.
No extraneous nonsense (unless you want it).
That, for me at least, has always been the "something special" about Citadel.
In the "old days" we (the "back east 'we'") used to say that Citadel did best what a BBS should - "get out of the way and let the user read and post **messages**" - which is, to my way of thinking, the primary task of a good BBS.
Now if only FreakDog can get his DogpoundII up and stable - for the past day or so it has been down more than up and that keeps Cascade Lodge off-net.
That will work itself out -- he's probably preoccupied with basketball... ;)
I just read "menus" and "citadel" . Can the text client use menus? Here in the UK (well on a server somewhere in NYC now actually :) ), there is a long established BBS, that started in the very early 90's: monochrome BBS. My ideal BBS, would be modern citadel functionality with a monochrome BBS user interface. This is from someone brand new to BBS's but i have looked at many. This citadel is unique! (as is the monocrome BBS i think - but that is strictly a BBS still )
This is the front page, but its just a bit of info, you have to SSH or telnet into the BBS (SSH is the prefered option for all):
http://mono.org/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monochrome_BBS
There is also a clone of that BBS software on sourceforge, written by an ex-BBS member and tested by a few of the BBS members at the time.
http://mconv.sourceforge.net/ - a bit old (there is a security patch from the author, if anyone wanted to run this as a public BBS)
I have had a look at a few other citadel BBS's - incl the home of Daves Own Citadel (DOC).
If you have never heard of it though, i think you might be interested, it's very much still a living community been going about 20 years.
shh mono@mono.org
I'm considering getting a Raspberry Pi to run a mail server, and a BBS, the above "mconv/mbbs" (maybe even a gopher server ),
I'll of course try and run citadel on the Pi :) but i'm just gonna start with a simple pop3 server probably.
Sun May 04 2014 08:46:12 EDTfrom mo Subject: Rasp Pi BBS ++This is the front page, but its just a bit of info, you have to SSH or telnet into the BBS (SSH is the prefered option for all):
http://mono.org/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monochrome_BBS
Sounds interesting.
I'm considering getting a Raspberry Pi to run a mail server, and a BBS, the above "mconv/mbbs" (maybe even a gopher server ),
I'll of course try and run citadel on the Pi :) but i'm just gonna start with a simple pop3 server probably.
There are people successfully running citadel on a Pi, afaik. And you probably wont find a simpler pop3 server than citadel in terms of installation easiness.
My 5-year-old Dell laptop died yesterday. I'm seriously in mourning.
We ordered a new desktop today, but I'm going to miss her.
RIP Dellilah.
At least I know she's in a better place... (actually, I'm not sure the dining room table is any better than my desk...hmmmn)
You should physically throw the computers at him, with the hopes that some of the digital bits fly into his head and stay there.
I suppose, for full disclosure, I should point out that such a technique ws not used on me.
Oddly, laziness can be a useful trait for a programmer. You push the machine to do things for you rather than doing things yourself... the hallmark of a programmer, heh. But, it isn't for everyone.
I wouldn't force it, or much of anything else. I think you have to really enjoy this stuff to succeed at it. If he takes an interest in puzzles, computers offer endless puzzles to solve that lead to useful things for others. Otherwise, he'd just find them annoying.
I read once; a musician and his wife , also an artist-- dearly wanted their children to learn the joys of making music. So! They strategically positioned instruments in various rooms of their house (not sure if they varied the selection now and then, by introducing new ones, but that would be cool?). The children did indeed grow up to become musicians themselves so the gentle touch worked here. B)
Not all children are interested in computers, i wasn't. And untill they become interested, maybe it would be better to try the gentle (underhand?) touch like the family of musicians. I always wanted to know the name of stuff, or what it did, where it fit in. And if you leaft computer parts, or even passive -electronics components lying about (like Hansel and Gretle but with resistors and capacitors and the odd IC -nmaybe leading to your (spare?) PC? :D