RetroBridgeBBS

[equant]

I've been working on this for a couple weeks now.  It's not perfect, but I think it's at the point where it's useful.  If you can connect your old mac to your modern PC using a serial cable, then you get this sort of pseudo-bbs interface that lets you download and upload files using X/Y/ZModem.  You can search macintosh garden.  It even tells you if the *.sit files are compressed using 5.5 or later or a pre5.5 version of stuffit. 

https://github.com/equant/RetroBridgeBBS

I guess I just decided that it would be more fun to search for apps and download them this way.  I was right, but I have no idea if anyone else will feel that way.  I'll use this thread to think out loud, and if people want to complain about it, or get help using it, that would be great.

 

[cheesestraws]

This is a really nice idea.

 

[hfrazier]

This is great, especially for those machines where it’s near impossible to put a NiC in, like my Macintosh portable!

 

[equant]

Just a small update.  I've been refactoring the code to make it easier to add online archives.  That's mostly finished.  You can now upload files from your classic computer to the BBS.  You can type in the url of a page that has files on it and DL them via serial.  I've added the "Savagetaylor.com: Setting up your 68k Mac blog" webpage that was recommended to me in another thread as a good source of useful downloads for people getting started with a new mac.

I'm working on the infomac archive now.  I hope to have that working soon, and then I'll add UMich.

 

[pcamen]

Pretty awesome idea @equant 

It makes perfect sense for helping to bootstrap vintage Macs where no networking is available, or where the networking isn't set up yet. 

Can you tell me more about the serial port requirements?  Can this be made to work over USB or does it need strictly need an older style serial port?  I can't remember the last time I saw a serial port like that on a computer. 

A few years back I was using an FTDI cable (USB to RS-232 adapter device) to talk to the serial port of an arm processor board we were developing.  Are you using something like that? 

 

[Byte Knight]

A local BBS - very cool idea!  I'm just bummed you didn't include any door games...  ;-D

 

[equant]

A local BBS - very cool idea!  I'm just bummed you didn't include any door games...  ;-D

Lol, yeah...  In fact, I really didn't mean to replicate a BBS when I started... I just wanted an interface that automated the host-side of things (I was doing a lot of wget, miniterm transfer only to find out I couldn't uncompress the .sit file).  But then my little script grew out of control.  It turns out that there is modern BBS software that will run on linux and run doors.  You probably know this since you run a BBS.  Anyway, I probably should have started with that, or what I've done should just be a door for any BBS to add.  Oh well.  I also ran across a blog post from someone talking about how people love to re-invent the wheel and write BBS software badly from scratch.  Count me as one of those fools I guess.

Small Updated:  The infomac archive is now browsable and downloadable using RetroBridgeBBS.  It's rudimentary, but I really wanted to get it working since so much of Macintosh Garden requires Stuffit 5.5 and I'm using mostly machines that prefer the earlier stuffit compression.  I plan to add file descriptions and a search for infomac in the next few weeks.

Opinions Wanted: What online archives, or even individual webpages with links to files, are there that people rate highly for mac software?  I plan to add macintoshrepository.org, the umich archive, Max1zzz's Classic Mac Server, and archive.org.  Any that I'm missing?

 

[pcamen]

macintoshrepository.org, to me anyways, seems to have all the same stuff as the Macintosh Garden, but with PITA download limits. 

 

[equant]

Can you tell me more about the serial port requirements?  Can this be made to work over USB or does it need strictly need an older style serial port?  I can't remember the last time I saw a serial port like that on a computer. 

It's nice to hear some positive feedback, thanks. 

My linux box doesn't have serial, so I'm using a usb serial adapter.  The one I'm using is made by Kensington, but I've ordered a few cheap ones of Amazon to see if they work (I suspect they will).  I also have a null modem adapter.  If you have a newton with the pc transfer cable, this works great as it's got the minidin on one end and DB9 on the other and has the null-modem part built in too.

A few years back I was using an FTDI cable (USB to RS-232 adapter device) to talk to the serial port of an arm processor board we were developing.  Are you using something like that? 

Yeah, I think this would work, but I haven't tested it yet.

 

[equant]

macintoshrepository.org, to me anyways, seems to have all the same stuff as the Macintosh Garden, but with PITA download limits. 

Oh yeah, I forgot about the download limits.  That might move it to the end of the list to bring online.

 

[equant]

Info-mac files now grab the file description from the abstract.txt file....