Hermes BBS install

[Byte Knight]

I just noticed this on my own local testing instance

I'm curious why so many of the externals/addons simply don't work at all - they either crash the BBS or the OS entirely. Presumably at some point they worked, so it's puzzling.

From what I've read, different versions of Hermes require different headers in the externals, so that would explain compatibility issues among the different Hermes II versions.

3.1.1 does seem like the ideal version if running doors is the goal since it has the greatest compatibility. I'd love to be able to run this in Basilisk and have it accept incoming telnet connections but can't wrap my head around how to get that done. I guess I'd need a virtual serial modem in the host OS or something?

Agreed. I haven't tried running v3.1.1 in Basilisk II, but it looks like it may be possible with a USB to serial converter. There's a guide for setting up the emulator with a serial connection on a modern Windows PC here.

 

[Byte Knight]

With my setup, trying to download a file under v3.1.1 causes the whole BBS to crash shortly after the transfer starts. Uploads cause it to crash as well. I wonder if this is another punishment for running a bad serial number?

@icbrkr - have you noticed this behavior with downloading / uploading files?

 

[Byte Knight]

3.1.1 does seem like the ideal version if running doors is the goal since it has the greatest compatibility. I'd love to be able to run this in Basilisk and have it accept incoming telnet connections but can't wrap my head around how to get that done. I guess I'd need a virtual serial modem in the host OS or something?

Ok, this should totally be doable in SheepShaver with a WiModem232. I was able to hook up a wifi modem to my MacBook Pro using a USB to RS-232 Adapter and connect to my BBS via ZTerm. I physically attached the adapter, listed all the files in my /dev/ directory, found my adapter (cu.usbserial-A105ZATW) in the list, and added it to the Modem Port Device Settings in SheepShaver. For whatever reason, setting up the serial port the same way in Basilisk II doesn't work, as reported by others...

​

 

[cloverskull]

Well now this is interesting! Bummer about it not working in Basilisk, that runs significantly faster for me.

Question - is the device name in your filesystem static? I.e., can it be set and forget, surviving reboots?

This is...frankly amazing.

 

[Byte Knight]

Question - is the device name in your filesystem static? I.e., can it be set and forget, surviving reboots?

Yes, it's static.

 

[Byte Knight]

The Crow's Nest running Hermes v3.1.1 is up for the month of March during #MARCHintosh again at crowsnest.ddns.net ports 6801-6805. Now featuring 57.6k connections and a real dial-up modem connection at (612) 886-6348!

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

The Crow's Nest running Hermes v3.1.1 is up for the month of March during #MARCHintosh again at crowsnest.ddns.net ports 6801-6805. Now featuring 57.6k connections and a real dial-up modem connection at (612) 886-6348!

Greetings Byte Knight! Well, seeing all of these recent posts regarding Hermes II comes as quite a surprise to me, and a happy surprise at that!

I first set up my Hermes II BBS on a Mac LC III back in 1993. I ran it for a number of years until the late 90s as I recall. I was simultaneously running a Hotline server, as well as the very first version of my website.

The last time I set up Hermes II was in 2015 using this comfiguration:

El Capitan-->VirtualBox-->Mountain Lion-->SheepShaver-->Mac OS 9.0.4-->Hermes II 3.5.11

With Michael Alyn Miller's help, I downloaded the source from GitHub, and I was able to figure out how to compile 3.5.11 using my PPC iMac at the time. In fact, as far as I know, I was the only one who ever did compile 3.5.11. I really wanted 3.5.11 because it fixes some bugs that were in 3.5.10b3.

After Walter Bowen shut down the Mezzanine BBS, as far as I know, I was the only Hermes II SysOp left standing .... which is why I am so surprised to see that some folks here are breathing some new life in it.

Anyway, a few days ago, I got an urge to see if I could set up Hermes again on my current machine, so I have been trying to compile 3.5.11 on my 2019 5K iMac running Sonoma. However, I am running into some errors during the compilation. The problem is that I no longer have the in-depth instructions which I wrote for myself nine years ago when I did it last time.

I've already got SheepShaver and Mac OS 9.0.4 installed, as well as Hermes II 3.5.10b3, but as I said I'd really like to upgrade to 3.5.11, even though it means having very few externals to run, if any at all, other than Leech.

I noticed in your above comments that you mentioned that you do in fact have 3.5.11 available on your BBS. So I went to crowsnest.ddns.net port 6801 using the Firefox web browser, hoping that I could download it from you. However, I was not able to get a login screen. All I get is a web page with this:

Welcome to The Crow's Nest BBS, running Hermes II v3.1.1 on a Mac IIci!

Enter number or alias or 'NEW'
Alias/Number: GET / HTTP/1.1
Unknown User.

Enter number or alias or 'NEW'
Alias/Number: HOST: CROWSNESTBBS.DDNS.NET:680
Unknown User.

Enter number or alias or 'NEW'
Alias/Number: USER-AGENT: MOZILLA/5.0 (MACINT
Unknown User

Even if I prefix that URL with telnet://, the address is still not working. Do I need to use a telnet client in SheepShaver perhaps?

Anyway, your assistance to an old Hermes II SysOp would be greatly appreciated, either to help me compile it myself, or if I could just geta c opy of the compiled binary from you. Thanks so much. Oh, BTW, my BBS was called the Armageddon BBS. I hope you see this message soon.

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

The Crow's Nest running Hermes v3.1.1 is up for the month of March during #MARCHintosh again at crowsnest.ddns.net ports 6801-6805. Now featuring 57.6k connections and a real dial-up modem connection at (612) 886-6348!

Please disregard my last message. I was finally able to log on to your BBS via web page, but the font was so awfully, awfully tiny for a 70-year-old like me!

However, I did manage to download Black Night, and I now have it running under Mac OS 9.0.4 in SheepShaver. My gosh! What an improvement with regards to font size!

I was surprised though to see that you are actually running Mystic BBS software, and not Hermes II, as I expected you to be doing.

I looked around in your files area, but it appears that you do not have a compiled version of Hermes II 3.5.11 on there .... or did I just miss it?

I noticed that you use different port numbers with your domain. Do you run other BBSes where you might have the aforementioned file?

 

[cloverskull]

See if this works?

 

[Byte Knight]

Please disregard my last message. I was finally able to log on to your BBS via web page, but the font was so awfully, awfully tiny for a 70-year-old like me!

However, I did manage to download Black Night, and I now have it running under Mac OS 9.0.4 in SheepShaver. My gosh! What an improvement with regards to font size!

I was surprised though to see that you are actually running Mystic BBS software, and not Hermes II, as I expected you to be doing.

I looked around in your files area, but it appears that you do not have a compiled version of Hermes II 3.5.11 on there .... or did I just miss it?

I noticed that you use different port numbers with your domain. Do you run other BBSes where you might have the aforementioned file?

Hey Bill! I had read every one of your posts on here and other forums about Hermes II prior to setting it up myself, but noticed you hadn't been active in the forums for about 9 years so I wasn't even sure if you were still alive. Good to hear that you are!! I actually found your instructions for compiling v3.5.11 on Internet Archive's Wayback Machine and I'll see if I can dig up that link somewhere. In the meantime it looks like cloverskull uploaded it here.

Sorry for all the confusion, but I'm actually running three Apple BBS's right now - CQ BBS at port 6501 running Warp6 for Apple II's, CQ II at port 6800 running Mystic, and The Crow's Nest at ports 6801-6805 running v3.1.1 of Hermes II that's up for the month of March as part of #MARCHintosh.

I've got a ton of questions for you about Hermes II, so expect a PM soon. You'll be sorry you came back here after all these years!

 

[Byte Knight]

And here's your guide that I followed!

Hermes II BBS Source Code Compilation Tutorial

This is a step-by-step tutorial/guide to assist you in properly compiling the Hermes II BBS source code on Macintosh computers running recent versions of Mac OS X which no longer support Apple's Classic environment -- that is, the 'Applications (Mac OS 9)' folder -- using the Terminal, the...

web.archive.org

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

See if this works?

Oh, wow! Thank you so much! That really makes my day! As I mentioned earlier, I've been struggling over the past day to compile 3.5.11 again myself, as I did nine years ago, but something is wrong with one of the files in the THINK Pascal "Rez Utilities" folder which is preventing the translations from completing.

In fact, I've been exchanging a few emails with Michael Alyn Miller over the past 24 hours to see if we can figure out what the problem is.

You know, I was thinking a bit earlier, that when I compiled 3.5.11 nine years ago, I put in on my BBS, on my BBS's web page, and even on my Hotline server, so that other Hermes SysOps could have the latest version without having to try to compile it themselves. So I am thinking to myself, "Surely someone out there must have the compiled binary somewhere!" Yet I couldn't find it anywhere, even though I searched and searched online.

So thanks again for sharing it with me. Much appreciated!

 

[cloverskull]

And here's your guide that I followed!

Hermes II BBS Source Code Compilation Tutorial

This is a step-by-step tutorial/guide to assist you in properly compiling the Hermes II BBS source code on Macintosh computers running recent versions of Mac OS X which no longer support Apple's Classic environment -- that is, the 'Applications (Mac OS 9)' folder -- using the Terminal, the...

web.archive.org

Very cool. I think I may give this a whirl myself.

Is there a list of outstanding bugs anywhere?

Also, I wonder what it'd take to re-enable 3.1.1 doorgame support That would be super cool. I suppose digging through the changelog would reveal some things but it would likely take a bit of reverse engineering.

 

[Byte Knight]

Also, I wonder what it'd take to re-enable 3.1.1 doorgame support That would be super cool. I suppose digging through the changelog would reveal some things but it would likely take a bit of reverse engineering.

Michael Alyn Miller, the current owner of Hermes II, thought he might be able to fix older door game support. That was about a year ago however, and I haven't heard from him since. His contact information is here, and maybe if we all show him that there's still interest in this he'd be more likely to work on it again...

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

Hey Bill! I had read every one of your posts on here and other forums about Hermes II prior to setting it up myself, but noticed you hadn't been active in the forums for about 9 years so I wasn't even sure if you were still alive. Good to hear that you are!! I actually found your instructions for compiling v3.5.11 on Internet Archive's Wayback Machine and I'll see if I can dig up that link somewhere. In the meantime it looks like cloverskull uploaded it here.

Sorry for all the confusion, but I'm actually running three Apple BBS's right now - CQ BBS at port 6501 running Warp6 for Apple II's, CQ II at port 6800 running Mystic, and The Crow's Nest at ports 6801-6805 running v3.1.1 of Hermes II that's up for the month of March as part of #MARCHintosh.

I've got a ton of questions for you about Hermes II, so expect a PM soon. You'll be sorry you came back here after all these years!

Oh man, Byte Knight! A ton of questions? Maybe I should go back into hiding before I regret having ever resurfaced. Although, to be honest, I haven't been hiding anywhere. I have been in plain sight all these years on up to as many as 18 different social networks where I syndicate my work from my main website at www.billkochman.com.

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

Very cool. I think I may give this a whirl myself.

Is there a list of outstanding bugs anywhere?

Also, I wonder what it'd take to re-enable 3.1.1 doorgame support That would be super cool. I suppose digging through the changelog would reveal some things but it would likely take a bit of reverse engineering.

Oh man! This is so cool!

And here's your guide that I followed!

Hermes II BBS Source Code Compilation Tutorial

This is a step-by-step tutorial/guide to assist you in properly compiling the Hermes II BBS source code on Macintosh computers running recent versions of Mac OS X which no longer support Apple's Classic environment -- that is, the 'Applications (Mac OS 9)' folder -- using the Terminal, the...

web.archive.org

Wow, Byte Knight! You found my old Hermes II compilation guide! You know, I was looking for that thing all over my hard drive, and realized that I must have trashed it some time ago, because I figured that my BBSing days were finally over with BBSing being pretty much dead. So when I decided a few days ago that I wanted to compile Hermes II again, and set up my board again just for the challenge of it, even if no one ever visits it, I really wanted to kick myself in the pants when I realized that my tutorial was gone, along with all of the images I had created for it and other related tutorials. Man, oh man!

So you, my friend, are a sanity saver! And so is archive.org! I will tell you why. I mentioned earlier that I have run into one problem with the Hermes II compilation. The Terminal kept throwing a fatal error at two points during the translation process. I remembered from years ago that when installing THINK Pascal 4.0.2, it did create one mistake where it put two spaces in one folder name. I thought I remembered where it was, but when I checked, it wasn't there. So I figured that maybe it had been fixed.

Well, guess what? Not so! I was looking in the WRONG place, and the tutorial you found showed me EXACTLY where that double space really was. So after looking at my tutorial earlier this morning, I fixed the folder naming mistake, and ran the Terminal command again. This time BOTH fatal errors were gone! Yippee! Now there is just one other error, but it is not fatal, so maybe the Hermes II source will compile when I run it through THINK Pascal under Mac OS 9.0.4 in SheepShaver.

If not, I am going to write to Michael again and see if he knows how to fix this final error.

Anyway, for those of you who are interested, I just recreated the very same Hermes II compilation tutorial on my own web server so folks don't have to go hunting it down elsewhere. I will have to be making a few changes to the tutorial after I have successfully compiled Hermes II. If it does compile even with that one error, then I won't be changing the tutorial very much at all.

One thing though. There are a lot of links on the bottom of the tutorial which are related to my Armageddon BBS. A number of them won't work right now, either because I haven't fully set up my BBS yet, or because the files, resources, images, etc., that I had before, I no longer have, and it took a lot of time and work to create all of that stuff.

However, at the bare minimum, I will be providing the Hermes II source, good copies of the "nodepref" files, the THINK Pascal 4.0.2 disk images, some old Hermes II externals, and other items you may want or need for your Mac Classic Hermes II setup in SheepShaver.

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

Very cool. I think I may give this a whirl myself.

Is there a list of outstanding bugs anywhere?

Also, I wonder what it'd take to re-enable 3.1.1 doorgame support That would be super cool. I suppose digging through the changelog would reveal some things but it would likely take a bit of reverse engineering.

Cloverskull, as I told Byte Knight, right now I am still getting just one error when trying to translate the Hermes source on the macOS Sonoma side. I won't know if it will prevent me from compiling Hermes in THINK Pascal until I actually try it a bit later today. If it does stop me, I will be contacting Michael again by email to see if he has any suggestions.

But that issue aside, as I mentioned before, one reason why I was so eager to use 3.5.11 instead of 3.5.10b3 is because Michael did fix some important bugs in 3.5.10b3 before he decided to open source Hermes. I don't recall all of the bugs at the moment -- it's been years -- but I do recall that one of them had something to do with Hermes freezing up while adding new file directories, which was a major pain. There were a few other problems with 3.5.10b3 as well.

Regarding making 3.5.11 compatible with old Hermes II externals, I think it is reasonably safe to say that that is not going to happen. Michael has moved on and is done with Hermes. Furthermore, as I think you know, he changed Hermes' architecture substantially in 3.5.11 so that old externals will NOT even be recognized in it.

In fact, yesterday I spent a few hours trying out literally dozens of old externals, which proved to be a total waste of my time, because NONE of them worked, except for Snake, and I am not even sure if that one is working properly and fully.

As you may recall, Michael switched to a new system he called the External Development System, which creates python-based externals. However, the only publicly available external he released for 3.5.11 was a python-based version of Leech. Then he made Hermes open source.

Sadly, despite his hope that some ingenious programmer would port Hermes over to Mac OS X -- forget about macOS -- in all these years, it has NEVER happened. In fact, other than myself, he told me a few days ago that he had only heard of ONE other person who had tried to compile Hermes from source. I don't know who that is.

So again, I think new or updated externals which will work with 3.5.11 is probably wishful thinking.

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

Michael Alyn Miller, the current owner of Hermes II, thought he might be able to fix older door game support. That was about a year ago however, and I haven't heard from him since. His contact information is here, and maybe if we all show him that there's still interest in this he'd be more likely to work on it again...

Byte, you know, I had thought the same thing. That is, maybe, just maybe, if we could convince Michael that there are a substantial number of old school Hermes SysOps who are still interested in running Hermes II, he might have a change of heart. I mean, for some of us, it is just a nostalgia thing. But, if it is just a handful of us, I seriously doubt that Michael would want to pursue it.

To be honest, yesterday I spent a bit of time using Black Night to visit some of the BBSes that are listed on some of your boards. I was rather disappointed to see that according to the lists, MOST of the boards do NOT even run Hermes. They run Mystic, Synchronet, or some other BBS software. That is NOT going to convince Michael to devote his time to making old externals compatible with Hermes, or writing new externals either, much less updating Hermes for macOS. I think this is the reality of the situation.

 

[cloverskull]

If someone can get a hold of Michael, perhaps in order to help influence him, I'd be willing to contribute to a bounty

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

If someone can get a hold of Michael, perhaps in order to help influence him, I'd be willing to contribute to a bounty

Cloverskull, as I noted above, I am in touch with him, but I suspect that there are too few serious Hermes SysOps remaining to influence him to invest so much of his time into updating such an old technology for macOS. But, you never know. Hermes is still dear to his heart, and it was difficult for him to release Hermes to the public as open source.