the Night Owl BBS

[brianmartin_2001]

Pleased to announce that I have now achieved my long time ambition
of getting a Viewdata BBS up and running on original hardware, namely my Master 128.
The board is basically audience ready although I hope to develop it more still.
This was only possible through the skills and generosity of Chris Royle (cr12925).

Would appreciate it if any one out there is willing to call in and test
it out for me and provide some honest feedback. My plan is to run
alternate evenings on Dialup and Telnet.

This current version of the board is now available online.
Please PM me if you are curious to login and have a look around.
i will provide you with the DNS name and login info. Please let me know
what Terminal program you plan to use. I know so far the Telstar client
and Commstar are both good to go.

If you wish to test it with Dialup also please let me know.

Many thanks guys
Brian

[vela025]

Sounds great Brian well done on achieving this...I've been following your various posts scattered across the internet for a while wondering how you're getting on. Would love to test and have a poke around. Can also test with modem, once I eventually find my 9 - 25pin serial adapter...which has been MIA for over a year now

Take care,
Ed

[brianmartin_2001]

Hi Ed , I can set up this evening if you care to test tonight?

I didn't look to just start it up without testing quite thoroughly but I've
not had any response as yet from Stardot, except from a couple of folks
from BBS world who I notified much earlier and helped me out last night.

PM if you have time this evening .. I'll set it up.


Brian

[Sophira]

I'd love to give this a go as well! I've never actually used a Viewdata client before, but I've managed to get one set up.

I'll be using vidtex on Linux, using the Sakura terminal (configured to 41x25 size) and the Galax Mode 7 font. The combination seems to work well.

[vela025]

Hi Ed , I can set up this evening if you care to test tonight?

I didn't look to just start it up without testing quite thoroughly but I've
not had any response as yet from Stardot, except from a couple of folks
from BBS world who I notified much earlier and helped me out last night.

PM if you have time this evening .. I'll set it up.


Brian

Hey Brian,

The Night Owl is great, such an achievement, the artwork and frame layouts are great too . Had a blast using it last night, all the sections you've created are great content. Really looking forward to checking back in to see any updates or additional blog posts, next time I intend to beat the game! It was fun using the sysop chat too...it's been soooooooo long sinse I've chatted with a sysop on a viewdata system; so impressive it's all working on a BBC Master . It must have been a real labour of love and is great to see, keep up the great work!

Take care,
Ed

[brianmartin_2001]

Hi Sophia ,

By all means you are welcome to try that method if you care to.
The Premiere software is setup for 7E1 protocol so as long as you can configure Sakura to that you should be fine. Vela had some issues initially connecting using his Debian laptop as a modem with TCPser and left his Commstar settings at 8N1 but I dunno what was happening there. Vela has more skill than I do when it comes to setup. I found on an initial test with Chris and connecting as a client myself from my Beeb with Commstar that 7E1 was solid. The Telstar client versions for Linux, Mac and Windows also can be found at John Newcombe's excellent glasstty.com. . There are connection files for each to download too I believe. This software may detect the configuration for you with TCP /IP although you d need to check it out .The BBC Basic for SDL Telstar client I have yet to try. Please PM me and we can give your methods a try . Thanks for your interest.

[brianmartin_2001]

Thanks for your time and glad you enjoyed it Ed.

Cheers
Brian

[brianmartin_2001]

Sophira ,

just tried there with the Telstar Client for BBC Basic for SDL.
It connected to Night Owl without having to configure serial
at all. So it maybe the ones for the other platforms are the same.
Sakura will be interesting to attempt to connect with.

(Sorry for the earlier name typo , predictive phone text is a curse.)

cheers

[Sophira]

No probs! Just sent you a PM as requested.

[Sophira]

So tonight I was able to log onto the Night Owl BBS!

It's a Viewdata BBS running on a Master 128 using hosting software called Premiere, by Chris Royle. You need a special client to connect to it and view it properly, and this BBS is available via dialup and via an Internet connection, though due to the limitations of the hardware only one person can be logged on at once.

Once you connect and sign on, you're presented with the main menu:

There's about 170 frames of content in total to look at (the BBS itself said 120 frames of content, so it's clearly growing) and it took me a while to get through! There's a load of interesting stuff to look at though, from Retro YouTube channel recommendations:

...to the sysop's own blog:

(note that the graphics error with the double-height heading in that last picture is almost certainly a problem on my end, not the BBS'! I'm using the Linux client vidtex to connect to the BBS and I've seen this problem with double-height text before on other Viewdata BBSes too where it works with other clients, so I'm pretty sure this is an issue with the client and not the original design! Oddly it doesn't happen with all double-height text, but it does with some. I'm going to try to let the author of the program know.)

There's also artwork. A number of composers of classical music have had their portraits converted into Teletext art and descriptions written about them - the sysop seems to be very much into classical music! It was interesting reading; this is not a subject matter you tend to find on BBSes and it's rather refreshing to see, IMO.

It's not just classical composers who get artwork, though. There's a number of other art frames too, including one of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka:

The BBS has an option to chat with the sysop, and we had a good chat on how the BBS worked and out experiences with Acorn computers and Stardot, although lag spikes did make it difficult to chat at times.

There's even a game called The Bull Dog Runner!

(again, the double-height text thing is an issue with my client, not the board!)

I gave the game a couple of goes but I didn't do too well. The first time, I was cornered by one of the murderer's henchmen and forgot I could run; the second time I was killed by savage dogs but my only weapon was a gun and I *really* didn't want to shoot a dog! (And once again, I forgot I could run.)

Other things included on the BBS include lists of other Viewdata BBSes and Telnet BBSes (both UK and non-UK), retro-related links, and an entire section dedicated to computers of the '80s (including, of course, the BBC Micro itself)! I even learned about the existence of a computer of the time I hadn't known about before - the Grundy NewBrain.

Eventually, though, after about an hour and three quarters on the BBS, I logged off:

Thank you for the opportunity to check out this BBS! This was really enjoyable and I look forward to checking it out further at some point.

[BigEd]

(Thanks for the write up!)

[KenLowe]

Great effort by all .

[brianmartin_2001]

The Night Owl BBS is live tonight from now until midnight
for anyone here wishing to log on.

2400 Baud for TCP/IP

nightowlbbs.ddns.net:6400


thanks for the nice reviews/comments guys.

[KenLowe]

Give me some more clues, please. I don't have a modem, and want to connect via the internet using my Windows 10 laptop. Do I need a special client? I tried telnet via PuTTY, but that didn't seem to work! I also installed the Microsoft telnet client from the Control Panel / Program Features section, but that didn't seem to work either.

[brianmartin_2001]

hi Ken


John Newcombe's website has viewdata client software for various platforms here

https://glasstty.com/telstar-viewdata-client/

If you download one of these clients you should be able to get on.
I had a guy a few night ago download the Linux one and get on fine.

Let me know if you are stuck. Text me if you want.


Brian

[KenLowe]

Thanks for that. I've got the software running, and I'm able to connect to the Telstar BBS using the built in connection details, but I'm still not able to connect to NightOwlBBS. These are the details I've entered:

Connection details

[IanJeffray]

Thanks for that. I've got the software running, and I'm able to connect to the built in Telstar BBS, but I'm still not able to connect to NightOwlBBS. These are the details I've entered:

I've been trying all evening - connect, instant disconnect every time.

[Sophira]

I gave it a very quick go to try to see (and was going to exit immediately after, since I've already tried it and posted about it above) and can confirm it also isn't working for me.

That said, it's worth remembering that only one person can connect at a time. It's possible somebody is already connected.

[brianmartin_2001]

I will investigate my setup see if there's a problem.

Will check back in a few mins

[brianmartin_2001]

Ok try it now Ken , looks like I had an issue.

working no though when I tested.

thanks for helping Sophie, you re a star.

Brian

[brianmartin_2001]

Ok I've tried it twice now and connection is fine..
Anyone welcome to try and logon , apologies for the problems.

For Ken

I've not used this client but I understand there is a connection file
that can be amended to enable a link to another address like Night Owl.

that looks fine what you have done though. Hard to say if you have missed anything.
I'm sure you 'll crack it .. Is there anything on John's page that you might have missed.

here is the instructions for Windows , sorry if you have been through it already.
If you can amend one of these connection files you'll be in.



Below is an example TCP connection file for Telstar.

--- # Endpoint definition for the Telstar Viewdata System

# name: Used as a display name for connection dialogues.
name: "Telstar Viewdata System"

# address: Address details for the service to connect to.
address:
host: "glasstty.com"
port: 6502

init:
# telnet: If true, sends the IAC DO-SUPPRESS_GOAHEAD some systems
# may need this. In the case of Telstar, this will disable the
# 1200 baud simulation from the server and run the system at full
# internet speed.
telnet: false

# initchar: Some systems need an initial character or characters
# to be sent e.g. 0x5f (Hash) to detect a connection.
initchars: []

[brianmartin_2001]

Night Owl is available on TCP now if any one cares to visit.
Same settings as last night .

thanks
Brian

[IanJeffray]

Night Owl is available on TCP now if any one cares to visit.
Same settings as last night .

Tonight, she works. Just dipped my toe in for a minute - appears to work ok with Hearsay in RISC OS.

[brianmartin_2001]

thanks Ian ,

I saw you were on , had me worried you lost carrier.
Only a quick visit , maybe I'll see you later.


thanks
Brian

[brianmartin_2001]

Night Owl is currently available for the next few hours .
2400 baud ..same DNS as before.

Hope you'll visit.

Brian

[brianmartin_2001]

Night Owl is available for the next few hours for any visitors.
Several new ART frames and some New blog now up .

All welcome.

2400 Baud for TCP/IP

nightowlbbs.ddns.net:6400

[spartan1000]

Very keen to check out the BBS when it's next online, looking brilliant from the screenshots and reviews posted! great work

[brianmartin_2001]

Is up right now for the next few hours. You are more than welcome to visit ,

thanks
Brian

[brianmartin_2001]

again Night Owl is available tonight for any stardot callers

2400 baud nightowlbbs.ddns.net:6400

thanks
Brian

[brianmartin_2001]

as before Night Owl Host is up awaiting any callers.

Not had anyone arrive for three nights in a row now , so might be last for a bit
if this continues, until I can get messaging sorted.

cheers