how can I set up a old school bbs?

[daywane]

A few guys at work was talking about the old PCs
Atari's
Comadores
Ti 99

We all agreed the BBS was best for swaps and every thing else.
No Big Brother.

How hard would it be to set up a old BBS? No Internet. No Internet provider. Just a Phone # and the PC talks to PC

I have thought about Emulating The Atari and set up a BBS with that.
but every one else would have to also.
That dumb.
but The Atari is the only PC I ever logged on a BBS with.

Once I got A HP.  Windows Me .. I went to Internet.

[TOK]

As cool as the real old stuff was (I was on lots of old Atari 8 bit and C64 BBS's), I think a PC with something like Renegade is the way to go. Its still new enough to get decent support, but still nothing like the internet.

[protokatie]

http://www.dmine.com/bbscorner/software.htm

These guys have a good faq and links to current BBS programs to DL.

I ran a BBS as a teen, it isnt that hard to do. It can be really fun too.

[ChadTower]

There are only a couple of things on the net a person goes to that much effort to make secure.  SSL is extremely secure - so secure the gov't and financial institutions use it.  If you really need physical separation of networks that badly... just tell us you want to do it for nostalgia reasons and not security, eh?  The last couple of actual running BBS I read about in the paper were shut down for a pretty nasty reason.

[somunny]

Man, I loved playing Trade Wars on my buddy's BBS back in the day...

[Thenasty]

you can setup your PC with WILDCAT bbs. Dunno if its updated for Xp/Vista but I did run it in Win98.
Get Procom Plus for your terminal proggie (for your buddies).
When i had mine setup, I use it to access my HD from anywhere (DOOR). This is just when I need a proggie or a utility that I did not bring with me, or I need to tranfer someones software that did not fit in one floppy disk



Ahhh!!! good ole C64. I still have mine. I use Novaterm to access them BBS with my 1200 baud modem. Took all night to DL a game. I hated those RATIO stuff. I had to give (same game over and over, till the mod caught on) to get my ratio up for DLing

[Blanka]

That reminds me of having to convert my website to gopher:// as quick as possible. 

[daywane]

There are only a couple of things on the net a person goes to that much effort to make secure.  SSL is extremely secure - so secure the gov't and financial institutions use it.  If you really need physical separation of networks that badly... just tell us you want to do it for nostalgia reasons and not security, eh?  The last couple of actual running BBS I read about in the paper were shut down for a pretty nasty reason.

No Chad . No nasty stuff. 
8 or 9 years ago Roms were simple to find.
all the sights got shut down.
you know all the stuff we like here.
I was a big part of an Atari club in AZ.
I figured if I started a Old BBS and let a few friends from work in.
and some of there friends would log in. We just might have some fun and start meeting up on every 3 sat. of the month.

I keep all my nasty stuff to my self . well.... not true. My wife like to watch porn with me also 

[ChadTower]

Hrm... for just that stuff it would probably be far easier to set up an open source https based repository.  Then again, for all I know there are BBS enthusiasts still out there that are keeping stuff running still today.  Just doesn't feel like it would be the same on a PC - gotta do it on a TI99.   

[daywane]

Hrm... for just that stuff it would probably be far easier to set up an open source https based repository. 

Ok lets forget I am a nerd.
You are talking to a Kentucky red neck.
What the heck did you just say?   

[ChadTower]

Hrm... for just that stuff it would probably be far easier to set up an open source https based repository. 

Ok lets forget I am a nerd.
You are talking to a Kentucky red neck.
What the heck did you just say?   

A website that has logins and uses secure HTTP.  I'm sure there are some open source versions out there you could use.  Wouldn't require relying on ancient hardware like a BBS would.

[Ed_McCarron]

Wouldn't require relying on ancient hardware like a BBS would.

But, ancient hardware adds the COOL factor.  I don't think any of my PC's even have modems anymore.

[ChadTower]

But, ancient hardware adds the COOL factor.  I don't think any of my PC's even have modems anymore.

COOL at first... and not so cool when it can't handle the load and you end up spending more time fixing the thing than you do using it. 

I still tend to drop a modem in machines I build but I can't remember the last time I used one to be honest.

[ark_ader]

Why can you not just use Telnet?   

http://www.dmine.com/bbscorner/telnet.htm

[punxrus]

I say if you wanna do it...then do it! Sure a bbs would not be the way I would go, however, more power to ya! Just remember that if it's not done correctly, you will be spending more time fixing it then playing with it! ChadTower had a good idea. Checkout sourceforge.net for some solutions.