BBS/HTTPD/FTPD/IRCD/NNTPD/imapd/pop3d/smtpd and more

[w0nderer]

synchronet

http://synchro.net

covers all above,
mostly it's a bbs but brought into the new century
it's really cool for those of us into the bbs scene

[ChromeFoundry]

1. Out of curiosity...

Why would anyone dial into a BBS system at this stage of technology advancement?
Please don't take this as insulting, I am genuinely interested in why anyone would purposely test their patience with the pain a suffering associated to modems and text-based interfaces. Unless you are accessing "grey information" considered to be unacceptable for mass consumption, and interest in the content would raise suspicions by groups monitoring this type of information sharing - I really cannot grasp a need for this type of system in the 21st century. I was on ARPANET and NSFNET before any corporate presence was allowed. I was a long standing participant of Free-Net until they shut it down. I used to be very comfortable using KERMIT, Z,X and YModem, and could rattle of Hayes AT command strings in my sleep. Those days are long passed and I have recycled that grey matter to contain more useful information, like RegEx match strings and URL Encoded hexadecimal character equivalents.

[w0nderer]

2. oops

Last edited Sun Dec 20, 2015, 08:55 AM - Edit history (1)

let me add telnet and ssh access to the list, which would have been made clear at the link

synchronet will allow dial-in but only as a secondary mode, just like most bbs's now are telnet or ssh access and have been for close to 10 years if not more the term is 'internet bbs'

text-based interfaces like:
http is a:text based interface. Especially discussion boards such as ...oh DU (again, httpd of synchro net actually doubles messageboard as http message board..terminal interface OR http msg board or nntp or mailing list) again clear at the site

email is a: text based interface (oh and sbbs/synchro offers terminal access and webmail or pop3/smtp access )

irc is a:text based interface...(oh yeah there is irc 6667 access OR one can put a java client the integrated http standard pages, click n chat)

nntp(news) is a :text based interface: (which mirrors messageboard/message base)

(on a side note 'text interface' like unix/linux/freebsd/openbsd/and other *nix terminal prompts? or like powershell/cmd under windows) yeah, text interfaces are completely 'dead' not like almost every sysadmin in the world use them daily or anything

but why (for starters)?

1 allows usage of low resource / weak computers client side
2 allows usage of low resource / weak servers
3 allows a cheap mesh of interconnected 'message/file/text/ebook/email' machines
(for non developed countries / areas ) with pop up, send, receive, pop down (low power and bandwidth usage)
yes, internet can be meshed as well, and usually demands more resources
(yes, the new bbs's can exchange messages even without fidonet) so you could have one on each location of a company in every village and only share the message bases needed with others over 'dialup' or 'ftp' or 'mail'

as for test patience

i must admit it tests my patience more to go to a website that on a fast connection takes 10+seconds to load up a page filled with ad-pictures and content i DIDN'T want to read

hey, you can adblock that..sure i can and do, and sites are clamping down on that too...should i really have to though?

it's a niche software, sure

but it does contain all the above servers in a nice integrated and relatively tight package
for both linux and win32 that's free software and open source, actively developed AND will run all those servers on a low resource machine (raspi 1B or less even) ...thus i figured it deserved a mention