Mystic v1.12 alpha 40 has been released.

This release includes versions for Windows (32/64bit), Linux (32/64 bit), macOS (Intel 32/64 bit), and Raspberry Pi (ARMV6HF, ODROID, etc).

www.mysticbbs.com

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A40 2018/12/23 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Sector 7 [Mystic BBS WHQ] (46:1/127)

on 12/25/18, g00r00 said...

Mystic v1.12 alpha 40 has been released.

This release includes versions for Windows (32/64bit), Linux (32/64
bit), macOS (Intel 32/64 bit), and Raspberry Pi (ARMV6HF, ODROID, etc).

What? No FreeBSD release? Clearly a sign this is a Telegard hack... :D

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A38 2018/01/01 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

This release includes versions for Windows (32/64bit), Linux (32/64 bit), macOS (Intel 32/64 bit), and Raspberry Pi (ARMV6HF, ODROID, etc

What? No FreeBSD release? Clearly a sign this is a Telegard hack... :D

Hah! Believe it or not more people ask for an OS/2 release than FreeBSD!
And its not even close!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A39 2018/04/21 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Black Flag <ACiD Telnet HQ> blackflagbbs.com (46:1/104)

on 12/26/18, g00r00 said...

This release includes versions for Windows (32/64bit), Linux (32 bit), macOS (Intel 32/64 bit), and Raspberry Pi (ARMV6HF, ODROID

What? No FreeBSD release? Clearly a sign this is a Telegard hack... :

Hah! Believe it or not more people ask for an OS/2 release than
FreeBSD! And its not even close!

...now THAT's sad. Who's still running OS/2 in this day and age?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A38 2018/01/01 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Re: Mystic BBS v1.12 Alpha 40 released!
By: Digital Avatar to g00r00 on Wed Dec 26 2018 06:10 pm

Hah! Believe it or not more people ask for an OS/2 release than
FreeBSD! And its not even close!

...now THAT's sad. Who's still running OS/2 in this day and age?

It seems OS/2 is still somewhat popular with BBS sysops. OS/2 was a great multi-tasker even for DOS apps back in the day, and I've heard of some BBS sysops who have stuck with it for running a BBS (not necessarily running OS/2 on their main machine).

OS/2 is actually still in development, in some form. Quite some time ago, I heard IBM sold OS/2 to another company, who continued developing it as "eComStation". More recently, I heard another company now owns it and is developing it as ArcaOS:
https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos-5-0-now-available/

Nightfox

|08·── |15g00r00 |07Said |08──·|07
Hah! Believe it or not more people ask for an OS/2 release than FreeBSD!
And its not even close!
|08·── |15g00r00 |07Done |08──·|07

+1 on the OS/2 request ;)


|01· |14d|12a|04rkwi|12n|14g
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|08 +o |14S|12k|04yNET Syste|12m|14s |01·

--- iniquity² v2.0α
* Origin: |15■|09■|01■|09|17▌ |15SkyNET Systems +%+ [6O2] |09▐|16|01■|09■|15■ (46:1/191)

+1 on the OS/2 request ;)

Every once in a while I try to get an OS/2 install working in a VMware with a way to share code with my Windows machine but I've never been successful.

I did port some of Mystic to OS/2 a couple of years ago though. One challenge is that the API isn't really documented anywhere that I could find, so the only way for me to figure out how to do something was to try to find open source stuff and dig through source code.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A39 2018/04/21 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Black Flag <ACiD Telnet HQ> blackflagbbs.com (46:1/104)

Every once in a while I try to get an OS/2 install working in a VMware with a way to share code with my Windows machine but I've never been successful.

I can't help but think taking on an OS/2 port equates to taking on a lot of technical debt. I'd be super reluctant to open up OS/2 to incoming service connections on the open internet...in spite of how cool it would be for nostalgia purposes, to me it feels like a waste of time.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A39 2018/04/21 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Black Flag <ACiD Telnet HQ> blackflagbbs.com (46:1/104)

on 12/27/18, Nightfox said...

It seems OS/2 is still somewhat popular with BBS sysops. OS/2 was a
great multi-tasker even for DOS apps back in the day, and I've heard of some BBS sysops who have stuck with it for running a BBS (not
necessarily running OS/2 on their main machine).

I recall vmodem being a big thing back then, but there seemed to be so few people using OS/2, and it was impossible to convince anybody that it was a decent platform no matter how hard I tried. Hard-headed fuckers.

OS/2 is actually still in development, in some form. Quite some time
ago, I heard IBM sold OS/2 to another company, who continued developing
it as "eComStation". More recently, I heard another company now owns it and is developing it as ArcaOS: https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos-5-0-now-available/

Geez. That's almost as bad as people clinging to AmigaOS.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A38 2018/01/01 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Re: Mystic BBS v1.12 Alpha 40 released!
By: Digital Avatar to Nightfox on Sat Dec 29 2018 11:02 pm

OS/2 is actually still in development, in some form. Quite some
time ago, I heard IBM sold OS/2 to another company, who continued
developing it as "eComStation". More recently, I heard another
company now owns it and is developing it as ArcaOS:
https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos-5-0-now-available/

Geez. That's almost as bad as people clinging to AmigaOS.

Is that really bad? In a way, it seems like people who like restoring and maintaining old cars.

There was another alternate OS in the 90s that was being developed called BeOS. It originally started out on PowerPC hardware, I think, and they were trying to get Apple to buy it as the successor to the classic Mac OS (before Apple ended up buying NeXT). BeOS was then ported to Intel x86. I thought it was actually a fairly nice OS, but it didn't really catch on in the marketplace. There's now an open-source re-creation of BeOS though which recently released their beta 1 release:
https://www.haiku-os.org/
I've tried it in a VM, and it actually looks like they've made some decent progress.. For their beta 1 release, I've read it seems to work fairly well on actual hardware if you get the right hardware that's compatible with it. Hopefully they'll keep improving it with future releases.

Nightfox

Intel x86. I thought it was actually a fairly nice OS, but it didn't really catch on in the marketplace. There's now an open-source re-creation of BeOS though which recently released their beta 1 release:

It was super efficient with its use of hardware if I remember correctly. I
saw a demo a long long time ago and its multitasking performance was pretty crazy. BeOS I mean. I've never seen Haiku.

I wonder how well it runs with different hardware though. I can't imagine
they have good driver support for it.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A42 2018/12/30 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Sector 7 [Mystic BBS WHQ] (46:1/127)

Re: Re: Mystic BBS v1.12 Alpha 40 released!
By: g00r00 to Nightfox on Sun Dec 30 2018 08:18 pm

It was super efficient with its use of hardware if I remember correctly. I saw a demo a long long time ago and its multitasking performance was pretty crazy. BeOS I mean. I've never seen Haiku.

Yeah, when I tried BeOS back in the day, I was fairly impressed with its multitasking performance. I remember the demo app of the rotating cube, and you could drag & drop photos and videos on all sides of the cube. Even with videos playing on all sides, it could still rotate the cube smoothly. General multi-tasking with other apps was great.

I wonder how well it runs with different hardware though. I can't imagine they have good driver support for it.

Yeah, I don't think Haiku has great driver support yet, but it's a work in progress. Back in the day, there was also a fairly specific list of hardware that worked best with BeOS. I remember buying another sound card for BeOS back in the day - I decided on a Sound Blaster AWE64, which of course also had good support in DOS/Windows.

Nightfox

Yeah, I don't think Haiku has great driver support yet, but it's a work
in progress. Back in the day, there was also a fairly specific list of hardware that worked best with BeOS. I remember buying another sound
card for BeOS back in the day - I decided on a Sound Blaster AWE64,
which of course also had good support in DOS/Windows.

Interestingly enough, Haiku devs commit a lot to the qemu project trying to
set up virtual hardware environments whereby they can test builds of Haiku. They recently did this with (I believe) a next-gen Amiga hardware platform.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A39 2018/04/21 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Black Flag <ACiD Telnet HQ> blackflagbbs.com (46:1/104)

on 12/30/18, Nightfox said...

Geez. That's almost as bad as people clinging to AmigaOS.

Is that really bad? In a way, it seems like people who like restoring
and maintaining old cars.

Restoring and maintaining old cars actually has a purpose to it. I could
argue that older cars are better built, easier to maintain, and just plain
look nicer. It's hard to argue something like that for an Amiga, though. If
you just like retro-gaming, though, I can see the point.

There was another alternate OS in the 90s that was being developed
called BeOS. It originally started out on PowerPC hardware, I think, and

BeOS wasn't a great OS, but it had a lot of good points going for it. If
you're of a gearhead bent and like the nitty-gritty details, there's a book
by the guy who designed the file system for BeOS out there that's
phenomenal.. like basically required reading if you ever want to write your
own file system for a custom OS (or for FUSE or something).

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A38 2018/01/01 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Re: Mystic BBS v1.12 Alpha 40 released!
By: Digital Avatar to Nightfox on Mon Dec 31 2018 11:56 pm

BeOS wasn't a great OS, but it had a lot of good points going for it. If you're of a gearhead bent and like the nitty-gritty details, there's a book by the guy who designed the file system for BeOS out there that's phenomenal.. like basically required reading if you ever want to write your own file system for a custom OS (or for FUSE or something).

I thought BeOS seemed fairly good. What do you think made it not a great OS?

Nightfox

Re: Mystic BBS v1.12 Alpha 40 released!
By: g00r00 to Darkwing on Sat Dec 29 2018 04:36 pm

I did port some of Mystic to OS/2 a couple of years ago though. One challenge is that the API isn't really documented anywhere that I could find, so the only way for me to figure out how to do something was to try to find open source stuff and dig through source code.

OS/2 used to be fairly big.. I can't believe there would be no documentation on its API. There would have to be documentation on it somewhere.. IBM would have had to publish API documentation in order to get developers on board with OS/2.

Nightfox

Re: Mystic BBS v1.12 Alpha 40 released!
By: Nightfox to g00r00 on Wed Jan 02 2019 02:47 pm

OS/2 used to be fairly big.. I can't believe there would be no documentation on its API. There would have to be documentation on it somewhere.. IBM would have had to publish API documentation in order to get developers on board with OS/2.

Anecdotally, part of the problem OS/2 had was that Microsoft gave out copies of the API documentation and IBM charged for theirs. Guess which OS had better third party support?
--- SBBSecho 3.03-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckbbs.org -- yesterday's tech today (46:1/115)

Re: Mystic BBS v1.12 Alpha 40 released!
By: Nightfox to g00r00 on Wed Jan 02 2019 02:47 pm

OS/2 used to be fairly big.. I can't believe there would be no documentation on its API. There would have to be documentation on it somewhere.. IBM would have had to publish API documentation in order to get developers on board with OS/2.

All this talk about OS/2, since I've been in a "work on the BBS" mood the last couple weeks, I just added 10GB of OS/2 stuff to my BBS.

I think I still have a few OS/2 2.1 floppy disks laying around, but I'm pretty sure they're all bad by now. I did have a copy of OS/2 Warp 3.0 somewhere as well, but I think it got thrown out last summer during the great "purge all the stuff I haven't touched in more than 2 years" of 2018.

I know I still have the manual for it, as I can see it on my book shelf :)

DaiTengu

... If I had been present at creation, I would have given some useful hints. --- SBBSecho 3.06-Linux
* Origin: The Sport is War, Total War - warensemble.com (46:1/193)

Re: Mystic BBS v1.12 Alpha 40 released!
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Wed Jan 02 2019 03:45 pm

Anecdotally, part of the problem OS/2 had was that Microsoft gave out copies of the API documentation and IBM charged for theirs. Guess which OS had better third party support?

Yeah, I seem remember hearing that somewhere. Free API documentation would definitely help getting developer support.

Nightfox

|08·── |15DaiTengu |07Said |08──·|07
I think I still have a few OS/2 2.1 floppy disks laying around, but I'm pretty sure they're all bad by now. I did have a copy of OS/2 Warp 3.0 somewhere as well, but I think it got thrown out last summer during the great "purge all the stuff I haven't touched in more than 2 years" of 2018.
|08·── |15DaiTengu |07Done |08──·|07

i think winworldpc has you covered. i don't do much warezing anymore (reverse engineer enough malware and you won't want to run anyones warez shit lulz) but this stuff is going in a contained vm with bbs stuff, so probably not a ton of risk.

https://winworldpc.com/library/operating-systems


|01· |14d|12a|04rkwi|12n|14g
|01└──────────────────┐
|08 +o |14S|12k|04yNET Syste|12m|14s |01·

--- iniquity² v2.0α
* Origin: |15■|09■|01■|09|17▌ |15SkyNET Systems +%+ [6O2] |09▐|16|01■|09■|15■ (46:1/191)

OS/2 used to be fairly big.. I can't believe there would be no documentation on its API. There would have to be documentation on it somewhere.. IBM would have had to publish API documentation in order to get developers on board with OS/2.

I had the same thoughts. I probably didn't search for very long but I didn't find anything along the lines of what Microsoft has. Probably just because OS/2 predated the popular Internet so they never had any sort of online API documentation?

I was also never able to find an easy way to get the source code into the OS/2 VMware and back out of it either so I gave up working on it. I was seriously like manually FTPing each file I wanted to work on to the OS/2 VMware and back out of it, and it was not fun.

I know I should be able to get network sharing and USB and GIT or something working but I wasn't successful with any of those at the time.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A42 2018/12/31 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Sector 7 [Mystic BBS WHQ] (46:1/127)

Re: Re: Mystic BBS v1.12 Alpha 40 released!
By: Darkwing to DaiTengu on Mon Jan 21 2019 03:29 am

i think winworldpc has you covered. i don't do much warezing anymore (reverse engineer enough malware and you won't want to run anyones warez shit lulz) but this stuff is going in a contained vm with bbs stuff, so probably not a ton of risk.

That is... a site I've never seen before. thanks.

I'm slowly adding some more "grey area" software to my BBS's file areas, mostly for programs that are old and abandoned. I was really into the "scene" a couple decades ago, but once I started making enough money that I could afford to buy software I really had no need for it anymore.

DaiTengu

... In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.
--- SBBSecho 3.06-Linux
* Origin: The Sport is War, Total War - warensemble.com (46:1/193)

on 01/02/19, Nightfox said...

Re: Mystic BBS v1.12 Alpha 40 released!
By: Digital Avatar to Nightfox on Mon Dec 31 2018 11:56 pm

BeOS wasn't a great OS, but it had a lot of good points going for it. you're of a gearhead bent and like the nitty-gritty details, there's book by the guy who designed the file system for BeOS out there that' phenomenal.. like basically required reading if you ever want to writ your own file system for a custom OS (or for FUSE or something).

I thought BeOS seemed fairly good. What do you think made it not a
great OS?

Mostly because it was tied to Be. :D

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A38 2018/01/01 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Re: Mystic BBS v1.12 Alpha 40 released!
By: Digital Avatar to Nightfox on Tue Jan 22 2019 09:38 pm

I thought BeOS seemed fairly good. What do you think made it not a
great OS?

Mostly because it was tied to Be. :D

I didn't really know anything about Be when I learned about BeOS back in the day, so I'm not sure why being tied to Be is a bad thing.

Nightfox