Need help setting up an Apple ][+ BBS

[Mauronic]

I just bought an Apple ][+ and I feel like a kid again. I spent a lot of time on that sucker when I was young. I used to run a BBS back in the 80's called the Army BBS. I think it would be a blast to get a BBS up and running again. Maybe my 9 year old daughter would be the Sysop.

Is there anyone here who could provide some pointers? Which software should I use? What hardware do I need to get it connected to the internet for telnet connections?

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Lou Erickson]

I'll be curious to hear what others say about this.

When I considered running a BBS on an Apple, I was going to connect a serial port to one of the serial ports on my Terminal Server, and then set that up to accept Telnet connections. That's a pretty specialized piece of hardware that most people won't have, though. (I actually tested it with an emulated Apple //e on my Mac, connected through a USB serial port to the terminal server.)

The ability for an A2 to connect to Ethernet for Telnet is quite limited. There are a couple of cards to do it, but they're expensive and complex, and don't work with the vintage A2 BBS software. Kontiki might work for you, but it's not an easy configuration.

Might be easier to use an old PC as the Ethernet to Serial bridge; Linux has the needed capacity to do what you want, although I'm not aware of any software that'll do it right out of the box.

It's a harder problem than it sounds.

 

[dabone]

There are several modem emulator programs,
a couple off the top of my head are
tcpser and bbs server.

http://gcns.com/vice/vice.html

http://www.jammingsignal.com/files/

Later,
dabone

 

[RWallmow]

Contiki with an uthernet card would be the most direct way, with the least bit of in-between config. But not a cheap solution, uthernet cards are about $90USD, and I am not 100% sure if contiki supports telnet-server out of the box, I know it does ftp/http server out of the box.

I would say the cheapest implementation would be a linux box with direct serial between the two, but configurations here would also be complex, but I am sure someone has tried SOMETHING similar (maybe not with an A2, but same principle), so there's probably some kind of tutorial to follow. I have done the opposite of this with a linux box, having an A2 (or other vintage box) dial IN to my linux box so I can surf the web via lynx on the linux box, and there were TONS of tutorials/examples of this.

dabone's modem emulator options might be of use to set something up on a windows box.

 

[Mauronic]

Hmmm. All I have in my house are Apple computers (although I do have Windows 7 running on Parallels). I can stumble my way through Windows but have no experience with Linux.

Budget isn't not as much of a concern as ease of setup / maintenance. But, it sounds like I need some kind of box to facilitate the connectivity.

I know very little about the uthernet card but the docs say that to run on an Apple II+ you need a 2MHz 6502a. I am confused because as far as I know, there is no such thing as a stock Apple II+ with that CPU. I could not find much information on this on the internets.

[It would be really cool to hood this up to an actual modem via landline or VOIP but I am afraid that nobody would have the equipment to dial in ]

 

[RWallmow]

MOST of the linux stuff will be pretty equivalent on Mac OSX, many of the commands and structures will be the same or similar. Otherwise the Windows stuff should run fine under parallels or bootcamp.

The uthernet should work on a ][+ no problems assuming its the 6502a as opposed to plain 6502, they added some instructions to later chips, and I am assuming it requires some of those extra instructions. I dont think they mean it has to be running 2mhz, just that its a 2mhz rated 6502a revision. Just look at your CPU and see what it says on it.

Modems don't work well over VoIP, it CAN be done, but its very picky and finicky, likely to have a lot of troubles and headaches, will need to set real low speeds to get a link, if any at all.

EDIT: I have an uthernet card, but I have only ever used it in my IIgs, running GSOS it makes a little more sense, more apps that can make use of it more reasons to have ethernet on a IIgs. I cant speak to any compatibility FOR SURE on a ][+ I never thought to try it on mine for lack of a practical purpose for me.

 

[david__schmidt]

I know very little about the uthernet card but the docs say that to run on an Apple II+ you need a 2MHz 6502a.

[Citation needed]

The Uthernet card itself doesn't have any ROM or software running on it, so there's no requirement of any particular flavor or speed of CPU at all. ADTPro uses it on a stock II or II+ just fine. Now, there might be a requirement for Contiki, but that's a different matter.

 

[Mauronic]

MOST of the linux stuff will be pretty equivalent on Mac OSX, many of the commands and structures will be the same or similar. Otherwise the Windows stuff should run fine under parallels or bootcamp.

So you think I could test the setup on Bootcamp? Worth a go to test the rig before sourcing a standalone box.

The uthernet should work on a ][+ no problems assuming its the 6502a as opposed to plain 6502, they added some instructions to later chips, and I am assuming it requires some of those extra instructions. I dont think they mean it has to be running 2mhz, just that its a 2mhz rated 6502a revision. Just look at your CPU and see what it says on it.

Oh, OK. The manual was a little misleading then. Now the trick is to find someone selling a uthernet card!

Modems don't work well over VoIP, it CAN be done, but its very picky and finicky, likely to have a lot of troubles and headaches, will need to set real low speeds to get a link, if any at all.

Not surprised I guess. I have an "old school" handset that plugs into a cell phone. I wonder if you could dial into a BBS with that hooked up to an acoustic coupler. But I digress.

 

[dabone]

The ethernet solution will not work with vintage software but the modem emulators will. There is a java version of tcpser available that should run on a mac using a usb to serial adapter.
This setup with a serial card in the apple will allow you to run whatever vintage software that supported
A hayes compatible modem.
look around for tcpserj and install java and give it a try. Its what I run for my commodore and
Tandy 1000sx to get online.

Later,
dabone

 

[RWallmow]

...Not surprised I guess. I have an "old school" handset that plugs into a cell phone. I wonder if you could dial into a BBS with that hooked up to an acoustic coupler. But I digress.

Analog dial up over (digital)cell phone is even worse than VoIP, MUCH lower bitrate codecs are used on cell phones. HOWEVER, SOME cell phones can emulate a modem with a serial cable attached to them, but that is exceedingly rare these days, almost all have gone USB, or dropped modem emulation in favor of WIFI hotspots or bluetooth. In the case you have a phone that supports this, the data is sent as packets over cell network, and on the providers end a "modem" dials out the connection, so its not actually transmitting modem tones over the "air", one thing to be careful of is some providers would double dip you, charging for airtime AND data usage. Your thought would have worked (albeit slowly) over an analog cell phone since they didn't use compression codecs on your voice.

 

[RWallmow]

The ethernet solution will not work with vintage software but the modem emulators will. There is a java version of tcpser available that should run on a mac using a usb to serial adapter.
This setup with a serial card in the apple will allow you to run whatever vintage software that supported
A hayes compatible modem.
look around for tcpserj and install java and give it a try. Its what I run for my commodore and
Tandy 1000sx to get online.

Later,
dabone

Even though I have a solution for getting my vintage computers online that meets my needs, I might have to give this a try some time to play with it. Very good info!

 

[Mauronic]

The ethernet solution will not work with vintage software but the modem emulators will. There is a java version of tcpser available that should run on a mac using a usb to serial adapter.
This setup with a serial card in the apple will allow you to run whatever vintage software that supported
A hayes compatible modem.
look around for tcpserj and install java and give it a try.

This sounds like a good route to go. I found the java version of tcpser and downloaded it to my mac. But I have no idea how to deal with Java on my mac. In fact I can't tell if this is even compiled or not. Can anyone help?