• Some random BBS-related projects I'm thinking about working on

    From Jon Martin@BATTLEST to All on Mon Mar 27 10:45:46 2017
    I was big into BBSs in the 80s, including the ocassional SYSOPing. I've been working since as a software engineer. Now I'm thinking about working on a few projects. I'm mentioning them in case anyone has any comments, ideas, or suggestions.

    - Offline QWK reader/editor for iPhone/iPad.
    - Door game (a few vague ideas - Roguelikes mostly)
    - Reddit message gateway
    - Text based wiki Door (read, search, edit...)
    - Asterisk or FreeSwitch BBS gateway (possibly just offline QWK reader)

    Just ideas. Who knows what I'll get around to doing. :)

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Battlestar BBS : battlestarbbs.dyndns.org
  • From Vk3jed@FREEWAY to Jon Martin on Tue Mar 28 09:32:00 2017
    Jon Martin wrote to All <=-

    I was big into BBSs in the 80s, including the ocassional SYSOPing. I've been working since as a software engineer. Now I'm thinking about
    working on a few projects. I'm mentioning them in case anyone has any comments, ideas, or suggestions.

    Some good ideas there. :)

    - Offline QWK reader/editor for iPhone/iPad.

    Yes please!!!. Let me know when you're looking for testers. Also, Android would be nice too, I have both iOS and Android devices here. Offline mail is a perfect match for mobile devices, especially here, where it's not too hard to wander out of coverage. :) I actually don't understand why (limited functionality) point systems (there's at least 2) came before offline mail (which doesn't yet exist) for Android.

    - Asterisk or FreeSwitch BBS gateway (possibly just offline QWK reader)

    I don't quite understand what you're proposing here. :)

    ... Peter Piper picked 8.810 liters of pickled peppers.
    --- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
    ■ Synchronet ■ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.
  • From Jon Martin@BATTLEST to Vk3jed on Tue Mar 28 08:31:03 2017
    Re: Re: Some random BBS-related projects I'm thinking about working on
    By: Vk3jed to Jon Martin on Tue Mar 28 2017 09:32 am

    Yes please!!!. Let me know when you're looking for testers. Also, Android would be nice too, I have both iOS and Android devices here. Offline mail is a perfect match for mobile devices, especially here, where it's not too hard to wander out of coverage. :) I actually don't understand why (limited functionality) point systems (there's at least 2) came before offline mail (which doesn't yet exist) for Android.

    I've done a little Android development in the past (mostly just tutorials, nothing practical), so maybe that's a posibility too. What's that about point systems though?

    - Asterisk or FreeSwitch BBS gateway (possibly just offline QWK
    reader)
    I don't quite understand what you're proposing here. :)

    Like a voice gateway to a BBS. Kind of like a voicemail system merged with BBS. Dial in, and once authenticated, access a menu where you can have messages read (text-to-speech). Probably not the most useful thing, but a potential learning experience.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Battlestar BBS : battlestarbbs.dyndns.org
  • From Vk3jed@FREEWAY to Jon Martin on Wed Mar 29 08:11:00 2017
    Jon Martin wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    I've done a little Android development in the past (mostly just
    tutorials, nothing practical), so maybe that's a posibility too. What's that about point systems though?

    Yeah, there's at least 2 point systems for Android. HotDogEd is one of them, and there's another the name of which I can't recall. They are limited though, the biggest one being only one address (no AKAs) per configuration is supported (How many BBSs have only one address? - I have close to 10). And of course, that doesn't support QWK only areas, unless you setup a dummy zone for gating those to your point.

    - Asterisk or FreeSwitch BBS gateway (possibly just offline QWK
    reader)
    I don't quite understand what you're proposing here. :)

    Like a voice gateway to a BBS. Kind of like a voicemail system merged
    with BBS. Dial in, and once authenticated, access a menu where you can have messages read (text-to-speech). Probably not the most useful
    thing, but a potential learning experience.

    Ahh OK, yeah now I understand. Might be useful for hearing impaired though - bring the "dialup" back to the dialup BBS, without the modem! :)


    ... Good: Your uncle leaves you a fortune. Bad: It's counterfeit.
    --- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
    ■ Synchronet ■ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.
  • From Nightfox to Jon Martin on Mon Apr 10 18:04:04 2017
    Re: Some random BBS-related projects I'm thinking about working on
    By: Jon Martin to All on Mon Mar 27 2017 10:45 am

    I was big into BBSs in the 80s, including the ocassional SYSOPing. I've been working since as a software engineer. Now I'm thinking about working on a few projects. I'm mentioning them in case anyone has any comments, ideas, or suggestions.

    - Offline QWK reader/editor for iPhone/iPad.
    - Door game (a few vague ideas - Roguelikes mostly)
    - Reddit message gateway
    - Text based wiki Door (read, search, edit...)
    - Asterisk or FreeSwitch BBS gateway (possibly just offline QWK reader)

    Just ideas. Who knows what I'll get around to doing. :)

    Those look like some good ideas. I think one nice thing to have would be a mobile telnet client for Android that renders BBS ANSI well. I seem to remember there being a fairly decent telnet client available for Android which works with BBSes, but it doesn't render ANSI well..

    And although I don't have an iOS device anymore, there's one I used to use on my old iPod Touch called iSSH that actually had good ANSI BBS rendering. However, I've heard that iSSH has since been pulled from the Apple app store.

    Nightfox
  • From Dumas Walker@CAPCITY2 to Jon Martin on Tue Apr 11 18:16:00 2017
    - Door game (a few vague ideas - Roguelikes mostly)

    I used to spend HOURS playing that game on my old XT. :) Sounds like you
    have some good ideas.

    Mike


    ... Got my tie caught in the fax... Suddenly I was in L.A.
    --- MultiMail/IBMPcDos v0.43
    ■ Synchronet ■ CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * 1-502-875-8938
  • From calcmandan to Jon Martin on Wed Oct 9 01:40:41 2019
    Re: Some random BBS-related projects I'm thinking about working on
    By: Jon Martin to All on Mon Mar 27 2017 10:45 am

    I know I'm late to the game but would like to add a few cents to your post. If you use gopher at all, you'd see that people have mirrored wikipedia and reddit to gopher sites. Have you considered
    porting a text based browser like lynx for a bbs so users can 'surf' the standard web as well as gopher space? I added this idea to my list of things to do but it's down the list a long way. It
    would be hella tight if someone does this. I've been working my best to revert to using text based browsers and have a big appreciation for the feature in emacs, for instance. Shouldn't behard
    considering the browser is open source,
    Daniel Traechin
  • From Nightfox@BATTLEST/FREEWAY to Jon Martin on Mon Apr 10 18:04:00 2017
    Re: Some random BBS-related projects I'm thinking about working on
    By: Jon Martin to All on Mon Mar 27 2017 10:45 am

    I was big into BBSs in the 80s, including the ocassional SYSOPing. I've been working since as a software engineer. Now I'm thinking about working on a few projects. I'm mentioning them in case anyone has any comments, ideas, or suggestions.

    - Offline QWK reader/editor for iPhone/iPad.
    - Door game (a few vague ideas - Roguelikes mostly)
    - Reddit message gateway
    - Text based wiki Door (read, search, edit...)
    - Asterisk or FreeSwitch BBS gateway (possibly just offline QWK reader)

    Just ideas. Who knows what I'll get around to doing. :)

    Those look like some good ideas. I think one nice thing to have would be a mobile telnet client for Android that renders BBS ANSI well. I seem to remember there being a fairly decent telnet client available for Android which works with BBSes, but it doesn't render ANSI well..

    And although I don't have an iOS device anymore, there's one I used to use on my old iPod Touch called iSSH that actually had good ANSI BBS rendering. However, I've heard that iSSH has since been pulled from the Apple app store.

    Nightfox

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com
  • From Dumas Walker@BATTLEST/FREEWAY to Jon Martin on Tue Apr 11 18:16:00 2017
    - Door game (a few vague ideas - Roguelikes mostly)

    I used to spend HOURS playing that game on my old XT. :) Sounds like you
    have some good ideas.

    Mike


    ... Got my tie caught in the fax... Suddenly I was in L.A.
    --- MultiMail/IBMPcDos v0.43
    ■ Synchronet ■ CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * 1-502-875-8938
  • From calcmandan@BATTLEST/FREEWAY to Jon Martin on Wed Oct 9 01:40:00 2019
    Re: Some random BBS-related projects I'm thinking about working on
    By: Jon Martin to All on Mon Mar 27 2017 10:45 am

    I know I'm late to the game but would like to add a few cents to your post. If you use gopher at all, you'd see that people have mirrored wikipedia and reddit to gopher sites. Have you considered
    porting a text based browser like lynx for a bbs so users can 'surf' the standard web as well as gopher space? I added this idea to my list of things to do but it's down the list a long way. It
    would be hella tight if someone does this. I've been working my best to revert to using text based browsers and have a big appreciation for the feature in emacs, for instance. Shouldn't behard
    considering the browser is open source,
    Daniel Traechin

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com