ArmBBS and PL2303-serial on the Pi

Dear all,

Using Colin Granville’s excellent PL2303 driver (RS232 to USB) in conjunction with Richard Murray’s lovely blockdriver wrapper, I’ve had brilliant success calling out to dial-up BBSes from my Pi 3 and Connector. The ANSI colour and speed is terrific – it all works beautifully. Zmodem downloads are smooth and reliable. It’s just a shame the Plasma Sphere and Arcade both went down this year :(

Next, I wondered whether I could get ArmBBS to receive incoming connections. I’ve been able to get ArmBBS to use the aforementioned blockdriver, and it answers the phone to an incoming call and displays the welcome ANSI on the remote machine (I know this, because I went to a friend’s house and asked if I could borrow their phone line). BUT, it steadfastly refuses to receive any typed input from the remote computer. I even left it online and had some other callers try, but they had the same issue.

Is this likely a problem with the PL2303 driver or blockdriver? With the perfect behaviour when calling out, I felt confident that in-bound calls would work as well. Or is it more likely to be my ArmBBS/serial settings?

Any pointers or suggestions gratefully received. I realise this is a fringe interest these days!

Hey Stevyn, I’m guessing you’re the same person who’s message in a bottle I replied to on The Plasma Sphere? :)

I’ve been quietly working on updating ArmBBS to be 32bit happy (and to squash a few bugs here and there) after Keith Hall kindly sent me the sources earlier on in the year.

I’m not quiet ready for a public release just yet but I’d be happy to send over a beta version in the next few days (gives me a chance to tidy things up a little) if you let me have an email address or some other way of contacting you (The Plasma Sphere maybe?)

I’ve been quietly working on updating ArmBBS to be 32bit happy

Hmm, I asked about that years ago (along with ARCbbs, but that avenue went nowhere).
Oh well, at least it’s getting done. I was beginning to worry that my server (that I’ve been writing on and off for years) would be the only one in the 32 bit realm…

Is the server still working via serial ports and blockdrivers? Mine, from the outset, works directly with TCP/IP (just telnet in with Hearsay or Connector), no more serial port nonsense to worry about.

It’s still got support for blockdrivers via the old-style line task’s that fire up when the server is initialised – I figured I’d leave this be for compatibility (if someone, somewhere is still running a dial-up ArmBBS system!?! or just wants to recreate ‘the good old days’).

IP support is the ‘big feature’ I’ve been working on getting implemented for the first 32bit release. It’ll offer telnet access to the BBS along with a simple web server for accessing the filebase – nothing fancy but a start.

I’ve just been thinking about it, I honestly can’t remember the last time I used a dial-up modem – must of been around 15 years ago.

Ok, now I feel old. :-\

Andy: Exciting to hear that ArmBBS is getting updated and 32-bitted. It works well under Aemulor, but still – good to not have this extra step. The best way to contact me, if you have dial-up, is at my BBS at 0208 363 3637 (currently 9 pm – 6 am, 7 days).

And yes! I was the message-in-the-bottle leaver! But, Plasma Sphere seems to be down – for a couple of months now?

I’m hoping you do leave the blockdriver/serial support in. This is what I’m interested in. I’ve previously used !TelnetIn (I think it was called – by Hugo Fiennes) and got that working with ArmBBS. But things/interests change – and serial/dial-up is of particular interest to me. Can’t beat the screech of the modem and the lack of lagginess!

Sorry for the delay in replying – infrequent net access (coffee shops).

Hello All: First of all, it’s great news to hear that ArmBBS is being developed again. Back in 1996, I ran The Jolly Roger BBS using ArmBBS. I want to bring back the BBS and I was hoping if any of you would be able to help me setup !TelnetIn for Telnet users? How far away is a release version of the new ArmBBS with Telnet included? Thanks

Prob’ly not a great idea to leave your email address lying around like that, these days…

BTW, I think having TelnetIn working may present a problem too. It’s a different thing to ArmBBS and no source to update.

Yes, point taken re email, I know that Keith has !TelnetIn working with his BBS software as I am a telnet user at TPS, so I would still appreciate some help in getting !TelnetIn working with my ArmBBS setup, so that new and existing users can use the BBS again. Any help given would be appreciated.