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From: Daniel_Roedding@fiction.ms.sub.org
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Multi-line BBS?
Message-ID: <741541@fiction>
Date: 9 Mar 91 14:39:46 GMT
Lines: 36
X-Attributes: type 2, from 100, acclv 0, expires

saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) writes:

> I'm toying with the possibility of setting up a product support bbs (no, the
> product isn't out yet).  Being an eternal optimist (I still use Atari stuff,
> don't I?), I'm curious about how I'd go to multiple lines if that was
> necessary.

You speak 'bout "setting up": Do you want to write such a program yourself?

> It seems like a question that might be asked fairly often.  So given ST rather
> than Mega E or TT hardware, is there a good way to set up a multi-line BBS?
> The best IBM PC multi-lines seem to use multiple networked machines.  Is a
> suitable networking product available in the US?  Is there a good way to get
> multiple serial ports on an ST?

It is possible to patch the MIDI port to behave as a 2nd RS232. Furthermore,
there exist adapter cards for the MegaBus with up to 8 additional RS232
lines.

Writing the software isn't a very large problem. Take a little multitasking
module (with on-demand switching, that's really enough), then you can write
a mailbox software that doesn't know that it is run multiple times. It's
only important that each task must NOT make assumptions about the size of
a netboard etc., since this can change every moment. In the worst situations,
you'll have to put some semaphore checks into the code, but that isn't the
problem.

I did it ... my system works with a multitasking shell (with a new file
system, I think I wrote about it) -- the kernel isn't that large you
may assume. You could put some BBS source at the top of this program, I
guess it wouldn't be larger than 20 K or so :-)

It's really no problem if you are willed to change programming style and
throw away the ******* [censored] GEMDOS.

Daniel