It's been fun to play with truly ancient "BBS" programs
on retro systems. Things like `BBOARD` on TOPS-20 or
`forum` or `xforum` on Multics are both very usable, and
also quite interesting in their own right.

`BBOARD` was built on top of the `MM` mail program
written at Columbia University and shipped with TOPS-20;
it's quite capable, and extant versions of TWENEX ship
with some old content (the infamous "Goodbye" message
from the SAIL PDP-10, for instance).

`forum` on Multics is similarly useful; there the metaphor
for a topic is a "meeting". This was reimplemented for
Unix by the MIT Student Information Processing Board: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.31.8576&rep=rep1&type =pdf

One can understand why these did not become widespread
in the hobbyist community: the systems they ran on were
room-sized and cost millions of dollars. Still, as
conferencing systems they're quite useful now.

And of course, there's PLATO on emulated CDC cyber machines,
CONFER on MTS, etc.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

It's been fun to play with truly ancient "BBS" programs
on retro systems. Things like `BBOARD` on TOPS-20 or
`forum` or `xforum` on Multics are both very usable, and
also quite interesting in their own right.

Where have you been playing with these softwares?

I just hunted for the 'PDP-10 SAIL Goodbye Message' and came up deuces.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
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--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

On 11 Jun 2023 at 06:19p, paulie420 pondered and said...

It's been fun to play with truly ancient "BBS" programs
on retro systems. Things like `BBOARD` on TOPS-20 or
`forum` or `xforum` on Multics are both very usable, and
also quite interesting in their own right.

Where have you been playing with these softwares?

I just hunted for the 'PDP-10 SAIL Goodbye Message' and came up deuces.

I have. I run both TOPS-20 on an emulated PDP-10 and
Multics on an emulated DPS-8/M on my ham radio network;
both are connected to AX.25 and IP networks.

A copy of the SAIL farewell message is at: http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/AIlab/SailFarewell.html

If one installs, say, the Panda distribution of TOPS-20
on a KLH-10 and runs `bboard` it'll pop up.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Where have you been playing with these softwares?
I just hunted for the 'PDP-10 SAIL Goodbye Message' and came up deuce

I have. I run both TOPS-20 on an emulated PDP-10 and
Multics on an emulated DPS-8/M on my ham radio network;
both are connected to AX.25 and IP networks.

A copy of the SAIL farewell message is at: http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/AIlab/SailFarewell.htm

If one installs, say, the Panda distribution of TOPS-20
on a KLH-10 and runs `bboard` it'll pop up.

Thanks for sharing - I was able to extract the text and save to my /Documents. :P Happy days... I wish I had the hardware to see these softwarez in action. W00t W00t!



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

On 12 Jun 2023 at 10:00p, paulie420 pondered and said...

Where have you been playing with these softwares?
I just hunted for the 'PDP-10 SAIL Goodbye Message' and came up

I have. I run both TOPS-20 on an emulated PDP-10 and
Multics on an emulated DPS-8/M on my ham radio network;
both are connected to AX.25 and IP networks.

A copy of the SAIL farewell message is at: http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/AIlab/SailFarewel

If one installs, say, the Panda distribution of TOPS-20
on a KLH-10 and runs `bboard` it'll pop up.

Thanks for sharing - I was able to extract the text and save to my /Documents. :P Happy days... I wish I had the hardware to see these softwarez in action. W00t W00t!

If you want, you can probably run them on whatever
you've got available. Both will run under emulation
(and indeed, that's how most people are running them
these days...for Multics in particular, there are no
extant machines capable of running it outside of
museums).

For TOPS-20, one can use the KLH-10 emulator and the
Panda distribution:
http://panda.trailing-edge.com/

One can also get a free account on one of the TOAD
systems at SDF or the LCM+L.
https://twenex.org
https://livingcomputers.org

For Multics, one can use the DPS-8/M emulator: https://multicians.org/simulator.html

Multics accounts are also available, for
instance over at ban.ai:
https://github.com/BAN-AI-Multics

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

If you want, you can probably run them on whatever
you've got available. Both will run under emulation
(and indeed, that's how most people are running them
these days...for Multics in particular, there are no
extant machines capable of running it outside of
museums).

Nice, thanks for ALL the info - it wasn't on deaf ears, I extracted both the goodbye message HTML and your message.txt; I like playing w/ old systems and learning the process.

I installed Xenix 1.0 over at https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/sys/unix/ibm/xenix/1.0/

... fun seeing how older *nix systems w0rked a tad differently, but mostly the same. <3



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)