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From: mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc
Subject: Re: BBS project !!
Message-ID: <1250@spice.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Thu, 30-Jul-87 21:18:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: spice.1250
Posted: Thu Jul 30 21:18:39 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Aug-87 11:58:41 EDT
Reply-To: mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi)
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 54

Keywords:


ralphw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu (Ralph Hyre) writes:

> Note that the goal wasn't competition, but quality.
> Most BBSes are woefully inadequate in the user interface area, so something
> that was compatible with the Fido/Opus/Echomail message exchange protocols
> but capable of doing nifty graphics and avoiding needless retransmissions
> when sending to user with a real computer rather than a terminal will
> be very popular.

Opus does provide full IBM ANSI support, so that people using IBM PC's
or suitable software (I have a program for my Amiga that suitably
displays PC color ANSI) will get various video attributes on their
display (color or bold/underline/inverse on a monochrome display).
The major failing of Opus is that it does not use a curses library and
understands only how to talk IBM ANSI.

Opus is a very full-featured BBS package, and is the result of a lot
of work.  It would be very difficult to produce a package of the same
caliber.  My biggest suggestions for a BBS package are the following:

	* Provide some sort of termcap/curses support so that various
	  types of terminals/PCs can be accomodated.

	* Opus has a number of file transfer protocols built in, with
	  ten slots for external protocol drivers accessible (Kermit
	  is an external protocol in Opus).  You may want to have this
	  capability in your BBS.

	* Mail between BBS users and message bases should be two
	  separate entities.  One of my nits about Opus (and nearly
	  every other BBS package) is that it places mail between
	  users in the message groups themselves, so that you can see
	  message 35, but not 36 through 45 because they are private
	  mail (as an example).

	* Providing the capability to run external programs is a good
	  idea.  You could set up the main menu so that it can run
	  either a pre-defined function built into the BBS software or
	  an external program.

	* You could offer the users a choice between menu-oriented
	  control or a command interpreter.

There are others, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.


-- 

Mike Portuesi / Carnegie-Mellon University Computer Science Department
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