[bbs-revival] Why I started this list

Hi all, as there are now 15 subscribes to the list, I though it might make some sense to send and introductory post to it why I started it. I think there's a lot of stories to be told about the good old days of BBSs and BBS networks. I would like to see if a group of people can get together to revive some of the related technology, and a) document it in a way, soemthing like an "online museum", and b) create running setups (preferably as ready-made VM images, containers, etc.) that one can use to operate BBS software X, Y or Z - or even multiple of them as part of a FTN, or ZConnect network. I've also started to collect some hardware to create a physical setup, like a set of analog modems and ISDN TAs, connected to a PBX of some sort. That physical setup could be operated at vintage computing festivals (VCFB in Berlin e.g.) and particularly at the 35C3 conference in December 2018. The point there would be to be able to show (primarily) the interested parts of the younger generation how this all worked. I'm quite unorthodox in terms of the hardware. To me, the "experience" part is the important part. So if we can run the old software on modern hardware using emulation, and/or even emulate the modem connection using a bit-rate limited TCP/telnet connection, then that's already pretty sufficient for most purposes. Such a "virtualized" approach of course means that people can try this at their home, without any access to hardware such as analog modems or even a telephone line. Still, of course, for the demo at festivals, the physical setup is much better to have. As part of the research, I've also stumbled on the fact that for some reaso, no FOSS implementation of a softmodem exists. I'm not referring to the Winmodems (sound card with phone attachment), but an even more "modern" implenetation: A SIP softphone that uses SIP + RTP with G.711 aLaw/uLaw to run a modem to a SIP operator. I guess with telephony systems switching to all-IP / all-VoIP this is the only way how we can contonue to use modem technology in the mid to long term. Fabrice Bellard's old "linmodem" is the best next thing to what I have in mind, so I'd love to spend some of my non-existing time on bringing that forward, e.g. adding the SIP/RTP support to it - see http://projects.osmocom.org/projects/linmodem/issues for details In case anyone wants to help on any of the related topics, feel free to reach out. I'm happy to give write/editing permissions on the redmine project[s] I've created at (and underneath) of https://projects.osmocom.org/projects/retro-bbs Of course we can use different tools if the redmine feels no longer suitable for a given task. I just used something that's running and maintained anyway... Regards, Harald (former h.welte(a)SILVER.zer and 2:2490/1501.3, later 2:2490/1343) -- - Harald Welte <laforge(a)gnumonks.org> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/ ============================================================================ "Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option." (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)