RetroBridgeBBS: An internet bridge BBS to transfer files to your retro computers | Hacker News Reader

RetroBridgeBBS: An internet bridge BBS to transfer files to your retro computers

github.com

52 pointszdw20 comments

What, no doors? FIDOnet? j/k, this is awesome! back in the day, I actually used an old modem with an actual POTS phone line (I think I had to leave it on dialtone for power or play with the receiver) that I'd rigged to hooked up to a 1200bps modem on my PC for my old 8-bit. It did work, but the modem for the 8-bit was only 300 baud (~bps), whereas this should be able to operate at the maximum theoretical speed of the computer's serial port. (115k? probably not, but who knows!)

There are esp8266/esp32 based solutions as well eg: https://hackaday.com/2017/06/17/bbsing-with-the-esp8266/

Don't miss that demo video linked from the screen shot.

Makes me curious to try it out with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telix client.

> A host computer with python 3 and a serial port.

It might be worth suggesting USB serial cables here, as they're probably more common than actual serial ports now. I use an "FTDI cable" to speak to my RC2014.

I've been using serial-to-Ethernet device services for connecting embedded devices and "retro" computers to modern networks and PCs. They're much more expensive than USB-to-serial cables, but much more flexible (since they're independent IP-based devices). The particular one I like, from Lantronix (https://www.lantronix.com/products/xdirect/) supports power-over-Ethernet and has a really nice feature-set.

I agree, the FTDI cable seems to be the way to go. Also works great with vintage Palm (pilot) devices. This $12 FTDI adapter worked great for me on the first try (no affiliation): https://amazon.com/gp/product/B006AA04K0/

Very cool! It's a lot of fun working with retro computers and helping them be more "useful" in the modern age.

I've also been playing around a lot with Classic Macintosh programming recently and have been working on building out some serial port-utilizing software, and some different UI approaches due to finding the Macintosh Toolbox a bit frustrating to work with. Although having spent more time with it, I may commit to diving in more on the Toolbox at this point.

I haven't written up any blog posts or anything yet as I haven't built a full piece of software, mostly just library exploration, but I have plans to build some more comprehensive pieces of software soon.

Here are some of the things I've been working on: probably the most interesting at this point is this one:

- coprocessorjs host library: https://github.com/CamHenlin/coprocessor.js + mac app library: https://github.com/CamHenlin/coprocessorjslib + example app: https://github.com/CamHenlin/retro68-coprocessorjs-test, allows Classic Macintosh applications to send nodejs programs and function calls over a serial port to a remote machine (I was thinking an RPi) and get a response back.

and some UI toying around:

- nuklear quickdraw: https://github.com/CamHenlin/nuklear-quickdraw - nuklear back end for quickdraw. Too slow for 68000-based system unfortunately. I think this would be fine for targeting an 020 system however. Looks and functions really nice so it's unfortunate that it's a bit too slow.

- micro UI quickdraw: https://github.com/CamHenlin/microui-quickdraw - similar to the nuklear backend, a micro UI backend. Also too slow for 68000-based systems but was an easy test after writing the nuklear back end, so why not?

- UGUI quickdraw: https://github.com/CamHenlin/UGUIQuickDraw - again similar to micro UI and UGUI, but way slower due to only relying on drawing a single pixel at a time. Might work OK on a considerably faster system

Whoa, super cool work! I can see Coprocessorjs being really useful.

I love seeing modern dev for 68k Macs. The toolbox can be a pain at first, but it's not so bad once you internalize all the different managers you have to remember. MacApp supposedly helps do a lot of the work for you, but I haven't gotten around to doing much with it yet—it's more fun implementing my own abstractions like an async task manager.

This is super cool. There's a number of great hardware/software projects that are seeking to connect these old systems into the modern world such as SD card support, modem->internet bridges, and even an entire new infrastructure for retro systems to connect together https://www.irata.online/

What I would really like to see is the emulation of telephone network over internet so that we could all continue using our old modems and retro computers and setup real BBSs with real (or simulated) modems. We all want to hear the real modem sounds and see the lights flashing.

Something like this?

https://hackaday.com/2019/02/16/build-your-own-dial-up-isp-w...

Yes I think that's it!

Well, no, I have to say I don't understand what was accomplished there.

Maybe try this?

http://podsix.org/articles/pimodem/

No, that's really not what I mean.

I would like everyone to still use their retro computers and retro modems (!). Because no-one has land lines anymore, we would need some devices and software to emulate the land-line and telephone network over the internet (IP-protocol). Probably VoIP stuff.

I would like to ATDT9834982 and have that magically connect over the internet to some other guy's retro modem that has registered that number in this virtual telephone network over the internet. His modem would receive the proper ring indication and the BBS would ATA.

This should not depend on any telephone operators.

If someone wants to use a software modem, that would be fine, but real modems would be the point of this whole thing.

You can do modem over voip, however expect 2400bps performance in most cases. I think that I saw a guy who used the Linksys ATA devices for that.

That sounds like a super fun project.

t38modem, modemu...

This looks great! Would have been helpful when I was bootstrapping my Mac for internet access.

Speaking of which, does anyone know of a Raspberry Pi setup that will emulate a modem and bridge an internet connection? I've been using SLiRP/PPP, but it's been a little flakey.

Choose 1452 as your MTU.

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