Omni 128 BBS

zap · January 09, 2010, 09:52 PM

I know the feeling I'm still wondering where 2009 went.

2010 is going to be more time for me.

Good luck with your search.

cbmguy · January 26, 2010, 03:07 AM

update for those interested:

Well, I managed to get into the garage and root through a bunch of stuff. Good thing that I did it when I did, the blizzard that rolled through here this past weekend was dramatic! I cannot get into the garage now since the snow drift is above the roof. Shovelling it would kill me. Even getting to the garage would be biblical. lol. The snow has drifted over 7 feet high just a few feet from my door. lol... crazy freakin place....

I have no serial cable for the 128D yet. Robert, I know you mentioned that you had some, but the links to your UG's store does not work. I've called a few times and you're never home... These are on 3 1/2" and the disk drive in my PC isn't the greatest at reading these old diskettes; the first two failed.

I'll keep trying this weekend. As for now we're all digging out and ppl like me are 4x4'ing through it all--fun!!!

Cheers,

C

RobertB · January 27, 2010, 05:59 AM

Quote from: cbmguy on January 26, 2010, 03:07 AM
...the blizzard that rolled through here this past weekend was dramatic! I cannot get into the garage now since the snow drift is above the roof. Shovelling it would kill me. Even getting to the garage would be biblical. lol. The snow has drifted over 7 feet high just a few feet from my door.

Egads!

QuoteI have no serial cable for the 128D yet. Robert, I know you mentioned that you had some, but the links to your UG's store does not work.

That's because our user group does not have a store on-line.

QuoteI've called a few times and you're never home...

I have a working answering machine now... so leave any message that you want.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

Andrew Wiskow · January 27, 2010, 08:26 AM

cbmguy, if all you need is a standard Commodore serial cable for connecting your C= computer to an external disk drive or printer, I have plenty of spares. Just let me know how many you need and give me an address to send them to. You can send the cost of shipping to my PayPal account whenever it's convenient for you.

cbmguy · January 28, 2010, 04:06 AM

QuoteI have no serial cable for the 128D yet. Robert, I know you mentioned that you had some, but the links to your UG's store does not work.
That's because our user group does not have a store on-line.

lol. OK. The links at the bottom of the page indicate that you have 'a stall' in the 'commodore central market'. Both of those links do not work. I can give you a shout. The project I'm working on right now really doesn't need a real c128 (bite my tongue). I'll give you a shout later this week.

Thanks,

C

cbmguy · January 28, 2010, 04:08 AM

Quote from: Andrew Wiskow on January 27, 2010, 08:26 AM
cbmguy, if all you need is a standard Commodore serial cable for connecting your C= computer to an external disk drive or printer, I have plenty of spares. Just let me know how many you need and give me an address to send them to. You can send the cost of shipping to my PayPal account whenever it's convenient for you.

Thankyou! That is a great gesture and I do appreciate it. I'll get back to you on this.

Again, Thanks

C

RobertB · January 28, 2010, 09:45 AM

Quote from: cbmguy on January 28, 2010, 04:06 AM
The links at the bottom of the page indicate that you have 'a stall' in the 'commodore central market'. Both of those links do not work.

Ah, now I see to what you are referring. Gaelyne Gasson set that up on Videocam, and when her system when down late last year, she had to rebuild everything. Some things still don't work, like webmail, and you've discovered more. I'll let her know about these newly-discovered problems.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

cbmguy · February 10, 2010, 04:35 PM

Hey there. I thought I'd pass along the news. I have a solid .d81 image of my Omni 128 BBS system. To my knowledge (and I'm also 1500% positive that) this is the latest of the software that was released and updated through the Omni network. The backup still has the user database and other .rel files + a few other things that I need to remove before I send this out. I can't do this with an emulator because I cannot get into the BBS as it simply gets to a point and just hangs (waiting for modem responses and REU and printer and what ever else I had set it up for 15 years ago). I have the original '81 diskette somewhere that has the unaltered/out of the box system. Sorry to tell you, I can only find two sheets of info that was sent with the original diskette.

Loading as much as it did in the emulator definitely brought back some memories of late nights with AcidDraw ANSI all nighters and CG all nighters, too. lol--making CG movies lol... Where's my Dr. Pepper?

I could almost taste it when I seen the modules loading and the screens appearing lol... I really wanted to get into the forums and re-read all the posts again lol.

What's on this disk is the complete system with all the doors and network stats, sysop tools, and forum responses. What's not on the disk are the files for the transfer section (obviously)--but the database is there (from what I can see in the directory). I have no doubts that this is a good copy with everything working.

I'll need a serial cable to get this finished. So Andrew, if that offer is still open, please let me know and I'll pm you with my address. We can figure out the postage from there. Sorry for the wait, but my son and I do taekwondo 5 days a week, I work full time, I publish Engineering articles, and I'm finishing up my degree in Education to boot; I time share quite a bit. But things get done

.... sorry for the wait.

Cheers,

C

Andrew Wiskow · February 10, 2010, 04:46 PM

Quote from: cbmguy on February 10, 2010, 04:35 PMI'll need a serial cable to get this finished. So Andrew, if that offer is still open, please let me know and I'll pm you with my address. We can figure out the postage from there.

Yes, the offer is definitely still open. In fact, the same offer is good for anyone else that may be in need of Commodore serial cables.

cbmguy · February 10, 2010, 06:44 PM

I managed to find and image the original omni 128 bbs system disk. There are sysop doc's on one '81 and the other one has the extra programs with all the menus for the system, while the 3rd '81 is the actual system disk. All the info you need to run the Omni BBS is located (in the impossible to read txt files) on the sysop doc's disk image. However the games disk is not imaging well. I'll have to try again later. It's 245am here and I work in the morning.

Yum,

C

cbmguy · February 11, 2010, 06:35 AM

Ahhhh... Nothing like replying to myself

ha ha.

Anyways, I've included a simple readme.txt in the .zip. I could not get a good copy of the games / doors disk (yet).

What's included in the .zip is Omni 128 BBS.d81 (original that was sent to me--untouched), Omni extra programs.d81 (some extra Apps including P.term and p.RLBackup, etc + all the system menus. Again untouched. The menus that Bell sent out were the ones from CMD's BBS), Omni sysop text.d81 (Info needed to manage the BBS and the network + how to program modules yada yada yada). 3 .d81 images in total.

A few points about the BBS, it has a macro function and a few other goodies like stackable commands and all that. usually there are 4 menus per function/screen 40 cg, 80 cg, ansi, and ascii. It will default to your logon mode and then work it's way down. if you logged onto the system under 40 column cg, then it will look for the 40 column menu and then the ASCII. I can go on about all the interesting hidden features and such, but this would get long... too long.. this is a huge BBS. It's also uncompiled BASIC working with ML when speed is needed. Ideally, this was to be run from a RAMLink or CMD HD. But now a days, it would work well with a uIEC just the same.

Any questions, please ask. I'm sure I could remember something to answer the questions. Have fun with this; nothing but good memories

C

Blacklord · February 11, 2010, 08:09 AM

Has this been tested under VICE ?

cbmguy · February 11, 2010, 02:33 PM

Omni will not run under VICE (at least not with my settings) as I had stated in my earlier post. I use winvice_64; fails. VICE compiled for LINUX 64bit also will not load properly. precompiled Winvice has not swiftlink/turbo option, where my compiled version of LINUX vice does. nothing works that I've tried... but then again, I haven't really spent more than an hour on getting it going.

C

Pinacolada · February 15, 2010, 04:27 AM

Quote from: cbmguy on February 10, 2010, 04:35 PM
...I can't do this with an emulator because I cannot get into the BBS as it simply gets to a point and just hangs (waiting for modem responses and REU and printer and what ever else I had set it up for 15 years ago).

You can use a RS232 <-> TCP/IP bridge such as Jim Brain's tcpser, available here:

http://www.jbrain.com/pub/linux/serial/

I've used it for my BBS since the program's inception, works great.

I downloaded Omni-128 but haven't had time to look for it. Thank you for your effort, cbmguy.

I also directed c64web from Lemon64 over here since he was interested in Omni-128 as well.

cbmguy · February 15, 2010, 06:52 AM

Just a quick piece of info for those wishing to get this running, each header should have it's own partition. Partitions are setup from the setup option at the beginning of the boot process. Everything else is done from within the SYSOP menu. I used Spraypaint for the cg movies and menus and all that. AcidDraw I used for the ansi menus (this is free now). The BBS is uncompiled BASIC and relies on ML were speed is really needed. I'd renumber the programs in an emulator using warp before sending it to a real 128.

When I have a little free time, I'll try out the tcpip serial kernal patch or process or what ever that was from Brain.

If you need more info please ask. I'm working on the games disk and the other doors. I'll get out when I can. Midterms are coming up after suicide week so my time is limited at the moment. If someone else has these files, I'm sure I'd be interested in them, too--in case I did miss something.

Cheers,

C

zap · February 15, 2010, 06:56 PM

Legend

Will give this ago tomorrow if all goes well .

pearsoe · February 16, 2010, 02:27 PM

@ cbmguy,

Thanks for the disks and your effort!

The D81 with the sysop text mentions tons of updates to the BBS. The version on the D81's seems to be 9.0. Are the updates mentioned included on the disks? Do you know what version Omni reached before support ended?

cbmguy · February 17, 2010, 02:12 AM

The version is at the most recent as of the time that they were sent. If, somewhere in thos sysop text files, you can find a thread with versions or whatever, then that would be a sign as to the latest version on the disk in the archive. in other words, the updates mentioned in the sysop texts are included on the diskettes and there were other updates after the fact.

I'll try and finish this up at the end of this week. I still have a tonne of snow to dig threw in order to get to the garage door. And I have my midterm's to deal with too, during this week off of classes. A lot on my plate.

C

Pinacolada · November 25, 2010, 06:17 PM

Hmm, since cbmguy mentioned Spraypainter (the 80 column color/graphics maker then some other neat features), I was wondering whether anyone has the full version. It looks like a really nice program. The demo version on cbmfiles.com doesn't allow you to save files, plus doesn't have the help files.

RobertB · November 26, 2010, 03:29 AM

Quote from: Pinacolada on November 25, 2010, 06:17 PM
Hmm, since cbmguy mentioned Spraypainter (the 80 column color/graphics maker then some other neat features), I was wondering whether anyone has the full version.

Long ago at a FCUG meeting, I demonstrated the demo version of SprayPaint. I never did buy the full version. When I changed my mind and was ready to buy it, the author had discontinued it.

My memory is fuzzy on this but if I recall correctly... 1. The author was really angry when he left the C= scene. 2. I sent him an inquiry but received no response or received a response that everything was gone.
Of course, maybe my mind is playing tricks on me on those last 2 points.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Portland, OR area,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org

Pinacolada · November 26, 2010, 07:05 AM

Drat, that's too bad. Brett Tabke programmed what appear to be some very good utilities on the C128. Fontigus, the Karma assembler, Spraypaint, and probably some more stuff I'm missing in the list. I remember reading Jim Brain's reviews in Commodore World way back when.

cbmguy · November 26, 2010, 11:13 AM

I talked with Brett a few years ago (probably 5+ years of so). Didn't recall anything about being angry for whatever reason.... But the subject was never really on the agenda, either... Anyways, i have the full versions of both Fontigus and Spraypaint. I've taken about 3 months off from the CBM world and won't be back into it for another 2 -- busy with other living kinda things. if you can wait. I'll look for the rest of the Omni BBS stuff, too while I'm in my boxes. Is that OK?

C

Pinacolada · November 30, 2010, 05:55 AM

That would be fine! Much appreciated.

Pinacolada · February 21, 2011, 02:34 PM

Any progress on this, cbmguy?

cbmguy · February 24, 2011, 04:38 AM

Really no progress. The weather this winter has been extreme as in the amount of snow and the cold. The weather is finally breaking, tho. I'll get this sorted out and up the .d81 images. I'll put them all into the bbs downloads sections. the updated BBS back ups should be on there, too (if the disks survived).

Cheers.