24 replies to this topic

[bf2k+]

Boot Factory BBS is now running on Altirra. Thanks to Phaeron for a lot of hard work on this!

I wanted to also note to users that the login is a little different now since Altirra now supports modem commands unlike the old emulator I used which means modified versions of the BBS programs are no longer required.

• Use your terminal (ATASCII preferred) to connect to bfbbs.no-ip.com
• When your terminal indicates you are connected, hit your enter key slowly (about once per second) until you see the CONNECT message from the BBS.

That's all there is to it.

[w1k]

i try Altirra-1.9-test21 with ice-t or bobterm, but nothing work..

Edited by w1k, Wed Mar 9, 2011 6:35 AM.

[Marius1976]

bf2k+, on Wed Mar 9, 2011 5:42 AM, said:

Boot Factory BBS is now running on Altirra. Thanks to Phaeron for a lot of hard work on this!

I wanted to also note to users that the login is a little different now since Altirra now supports modem commands unlike the old emulator I used which means modified versions of the BBS programs are no longer required.

• Use your terminal (ATASCII preferred) to connect to bfbbs.no-ip.com
• When your terminal indicates you are connected, hit your enter key slowly (about once per second) until you see the CONNECT message from the BBS.

That's all there is to it.

What you need is a patched waitcall. I made this waitcall for bbs 5.0b years ago. Is there any chance that will work with your version of BBS Express?

The ENTER thing "s*cks" bigtime. In my patched waitcall it goes to the CONNECT fase right away as soon as a connection is made. The only important thing is that the emulator returns SOMETHING to the waitcall. Just one byte is enough. So what responds the emulator to Bobterm as soon as you connect to that?

I mean: sysop Abdul... start bobterm, and try to connect from a PC to your Bobterm. What is the message you get on the bobterm screen? Is that RING or something?

I could check the waitcall code again. Another thing you can do:

Send me your waitcall.cmd ... I'll take a look at it, and fix the code if you like.

Greetz
M>

[Frankie]

I have an old AMIS BBS setup for my Atari. No passwords, not much content anymore (who needs to download games from a BBS?), but I still like tinkering with it in BASIC. The old bulletins and info are circa 1984. It's not up that often, but I still like giving my co-workers a laugh by telling them to telnet to the address.

telnet atari-bbs.com

[bf2k+]

Frankie, on Wed Mar 9, 2011 11:40 AM, said:

telnet atari-bbs.com

I just logged into it - brought back memories...

[HatNJ]

Just logged on too using PUTTY and worked great will try to use an ATASCII term. later

[evilmoo]

Have you tried to make FoReM XE work under Altirra?

[wood_jl]

All this talk of AMIS, FoReM, Express!, and ATASCII really brings up nice warm fuzzy feelings.

I'm going to have to look for my SIO2PC cable.

In the meantime, I've never tried to telnet with an emulator. Is R: stuff easily supported, like it is with APE, SIO2PC cable, and the real-deal Atari?

[Frankie]

wood_jl, on Wed Mar 9, 2011 4:13 PM, said:

All this talk of AMIS, FoReM, Express!, and ATASCII really brings up nice warm fuzzy feelings.

I'm going to have to look for my SIO2PC cable.

In the meantime, I've never tried to telnet with an emulator. Is R: stuff easily supported, like it is with APE, SIO2PC cable, and the real-deal Atari?

Yes, R: is completly supported with APE and SIO2PC. You may have to take some commands out, like the AT stuff because they are not needed to set it to autoanswer, etc.. But the XIO and other stuff is the same.

[bf2k+]

evilmoo, on Wed Mar 9, 2011 4:07 PM, said:

Have you tried to make FoReM XE work under Altirra?

Phaeron and I did some of the testing using ForemXEP. It works fine. You do have to run the START program to program Altirra's modem.

[phaeron]

Okay, a quick dump on how R: works with Altirra:

• You should definitely use 1.9-test instead of 1.8. 1.8 final has no inbound support and I've since fixed a ton of dumb bugs in the R: support.
  
• The R: device is implemented by patch -- no handler loading is needed. It must be enabled in serial port options. You cannot use an R: handler off disk as the hardware interface is not emulated.
  
• R: support is TCP/IP only, no direct serial.
  
• Bobterm should work, as I've been using it for testing. I've been using 1.20. I think Ice-T works, although it's been a while since I tried.
  
• Altirra emulates a modem and needs to be configured as such. Incoming calls will not be picked up without ATA or ATS0=1.
  
• Your terminal program needs to be set to ASCII translation mode to communicate with the modem. If it is set to ATARI/ATASCII, the modem will not accept commands due to the EOL mismatch.
  
• The outbound dial command is the same as Atari800: ATDI <hostname> <port>. However, outbound connections need to be enabled in serial port options or you will get NO DIALTONE.
  
• The press-enter stuff with BBS Express! is because of the goofy baud rate detection of that program: it keeps cycling between 300, 1200, and 2400 baud until it sees a normal return. Problem is, Altirra emulates baud rates, so by default this causes the connection to run at 300 baud. There is an option to work around this but it causes all of the Us to show up and still requires you to hit enter a few times.
  
• You need to run ForemXEP through START because of an issue in the modem init routine in the main program: it gets stuck trying to parse the leading CR/LF of verbose response strings. I'm pretty sure this is a bug in the FXEP code although I'd be glad to be proven wrong. The START program bypasses the problem by issuing ATE0 and ATV0 before the problematic code runs.

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[w1k]

thank you! this working. you can see problem with replacing text, try connect to irc.atarichat.net:800 and type someting.. text is replacing

Edited by w1k, Thu Mar 10, 2011 1:46 AM.

[phaeron]

This looks like a terminal emulation problem, as those are ANSI control codes. I can log in with PuTTY, but neither BobTerm nor Ice-T 1.x are up to it... and Ice-T XL is just bombing out on a buffering problem that I think I've heard mentioned before. Not sure this is something I can attack from the emulator side, unless I do something crazy like ANSI to ATASCII conversion.

BTW, even with PuTTY I'm getting an invalid nickname error on login. Odd.

[Mclaneinc]

@bf2k+

Large request here, any chance you could do a 'how to' faq to setup Altirra and connect to whatever please.

Despite having built a 300 baud modem and downloaded Buck Rogers from a certain well known cracker in the day I have forgotten / never had any real BBS and modem setup experience with the Atari, what little I did has long since died in the grey cell area

I didn't start using BBS's until the Amiga and even then I can only remember Spot and Thor as being the programs I used rather than the setup.

Cheers...

[Mclaneinc]

@bf2k+

Large request here, any chance you could do a 'how to' faq to setup Altirra and connect to whatever please.

Despite having built a 300 baud modem and downloaded Buck Rogers from a certain well known cracker in the day I have forgotten / never had any real BBS and modem setup experience with the Atari, what little I did has long since died in the grey cell area

I didn't start using BBS's until the Amiga and even then I can only remember Spot and Thor as being the programs I used rather than the setup.

Cheers...

Edit: I should add I've been trying to use Bobterm 1.21 and the telnet command from the thread but get no carrier, I've enabled the serial stuff in Altirra and read what Phaeron wrote but I have to admit I didn't understand the FXP bits....Doh!!

Anyway, thanks again...if possible

Edited by Mclaneinc, Thu Mar 10, 2011 4:20 AM.

[Fox-1 / mnx]

w1k, on Thu Mar 10, 2011 1:45 AM, said:

thank you! this working. you can see problem with replacing text

You are in ASCII mode while the service requires ANSI mode. Bobterm is not an ANSI terminal. Ice-T is.

[w1k]

Fox-1 / mnx, on Thu Mar 10, 2011 5:09 AM, said:

w1k, on Thu Mar 10, 2011 1:45 AM, said:

thank you! this working. you can see problem with replacing text

You are in ASCII mode while the service requires ANSI mode. Bobterm is not an ANSI terminal. Ice-T is.

yes, i known. i try it on real atari. in ICE-T i setup ANSI, but that same problem

Edited by w1k, Thu Mar 10, 2011 5:20 AM.

[bf2k+]

phaeron, on Wed Mar 9, 2011 11:08 PM, said:

• Your terminal program needs to be set to ASCII translation mode to communicate with the modem. If it is set to ATARI/ATASCII, the modem will not accept commands due to the EOL mismatch.

Actually you can issue commands in ATASCII mode - just replace the <ENTER> key with {ctrl}-M and you'll see the OK or ERROR message

BTW, are any S registers supported?

[bf2k+]

Mclaneinc, on Thu Mar 10, 2011 4:17 AM, said:

@bf2k+

Large request here, any chance you could do a 'how to' faq to setup Altirra and connect to whatever please.

Not entirely sure what you are asking for. Either it is:

• How to run a BBS on Altirra?
• How to connect to a BBS using a terminal program running in Altirra.

I will definitely do the 1st item at some point as it goes right along with my BBS on a Stick project, but there are still issues being ironed out at this time.

As for the 2nd item, I haven't done it (yet).

[Marius1976]

@BF2K+

Did you see my post in the top of this thread? I can help you with the "press enter slowly" issue. Just need your waitcall and I will fix it.

Thanks
M.

[bf2k+]

Marius1976, on Thu Mar 10, 2011 3:49 PM, said:

@BF2K+

Did you see my post in the top of this thread? I can help you with the "press enter slowly" issue. Just need your waitcall and I will fix it.

Thanks
M.

I sent it to you yesterday in PM.

[bf2k+]

phaeron, on Wed Mar 9, 2011 11:08 PM, said:

Okay, a quick dump on how R: works with Altirra:

• The outbound dial command is the same as Atari800: ATDI <hostname> <port>. However, outbound connections need to be enabled in serial port options or you will get NO DIALTONE.

I just ran Carina BBS on my main machine thru Altirra, went to the Carina built-in terminal program and using the ATDI command as Phaeron said above, I was able to connect to my BBS on the other machine... works great!

[phaeron]

bf2k+, on Thu Mar 10, 2011 2:49 PM, said:

BTW, are any S registers supported?

Yes, there are -- you can see them with AT&V. Registers S0, S2, S3, S4, and S5 are fully supported. S6, S7, and S12 are supported for set and query but their values are ignored.

[Mclaneinc]

bf2k+, on Thu Mar 10, 2011 3:11 PM, said:

Mclaneinc, on Thu Mar 10, 2011 4:17 AM, said:

@bf2k+

Large request here, any chance you could do a 'how to' faq to setup Altirra and connect to whatever please.

Not entirely sure what you are asking for. Either it is:

Hi there,

Sorry it was a bit vague, all I am trying to find out is how people have connected to IRC using the emulator and the the software shown, I turned on the serial bits in Altirra and I ran the software, typed in the telnet command from the thread and got no carrier from the emulator..

Altirra isn't firewalled at my end.

Just was interested to see how it was done...

Paul...

[bf2k+]

phaeron, on Thu Mar 10, 2011 10:24 PM, said:

bf2k+, on Thu Mar 10, 2011 2:49 PM, said:

BTW, are any S registers supported?

Yes, there are -- you can see them with AT&V. Registers S0, S2, S3, S4, and S5 are fully supported. S6, S7, and S12 are supported for set and query but their values are ignored.

I think Carina uses S10 although rather strangely as the command is stored by the 'bootbbs' program at 1579 decimal and then pulled out of there... kinda strange. I know I get an error when I issue it.