Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!uplherc!esunix!blgardne From: blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Which BBS to buy? Message-ID: <1219@esunix.UUCP> Date: 15 Feb 89 15:51:33 GMT References: <2865@m2-net.UUCP> Distribution: usa Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation Lines: 53 From article <2865@m2-net.UUCP>, by ba@m-net.UUCP (Bill Allen): > Seems like everyone (commericial and PD) has a terminal program > on the market. But there seems to be a very few BBS packages around. > Which is best BBS-PC!, Custom-BBS, etc? > PD Tag, CommLink, etc? Stay away from CustomBBS. They promise the world, and deliver Xmodem at 2400 baud. A friend bought it over a year ago on the strength of their ad in Amazing Computing which promised lots of neat stuff, including Xmodem, Ymodem, and Zmodem. These were advertized as features, but after shelling out $100 bucks he found out that CustomBBS responded to Ymodem or Zmodem transfer requests with a message that said "sorry, not implemented yet". Over a year later they still don't have Ymodem and Zmodem. CustomBBS is also limited to 2400 baud, so forget high speed modems if you buy it. Their "customer support" is a stellar example of how not to do things. The last response he got from Celestial Data Systems (authors of CustomBBS), when he asked when they were going to deliver the features that had been promised long ago, was the bald faced lie that they had never been promised as implemented features (it's there in black & white in an old issue of Amazing Computing), and the threat of a lawsuit if he didn't quit "harrasing" them. (Harrasment being questions posted to CDS's BBS every couple weeks asking when they were going to fulfill their promises.) A last report they'd backed off on the lawsuit threat, but who needs that kind of customer support? He's since switched to TAG BBS. TAG is shareware, and is much better than CustomBBS. It only supports Xmodem, but supports 9600 baud, and the author of TAG has called my friend's BBS twice to upload upgraded versions of TAG. That's far better support than he ever recieved from CDS. TAG is supposed to have Zmodem soon, and I'll bet it supports it before Custom does (and it's cheaper if they don't! :-). Fortunately for the Amiga, I've never seen any other product handled as badly as CustomBBS. BBS-PC seems to be almost universally used. It supports Zmodem, but only batch downloads, not batch uploads. It can be customized quite a bit from what I've seen, and is a pretty solid program. A very important consideration is sysop's utilities. Custom has none, period. BBS-PC has some, but I hear they could be better. After talking with a number of sysops, I'd buy the BBS with the best sysop utilities. They can make the difference between a chore and a pleasure in running a BBS. -- Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland 580 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108 Here: utah-cs!esunix!blgardne {ucbvax,allegra,decvax}!decwrl!esunix!blgardne "Nobody will ever need more than 64K." "Nobody needs multitasking on a PC."