Prestel (Was: Re: What is this??? - Update)

From: Rob O'Donnell <classiccmp.org_at_irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk>
Date: Tue Jun 15 18:35:46 2004

At 18:45 15/06/2004, you wrote:

>On Jun 15, 17:22, Rob O'Donnell wrote:
>
> > >I'd love to see the server-side of things running somewhere again
> > >though.
> > >
> > >It'd be nice to have a Prestel server at Bletchley with some
>assorted
> > >80's machines hooked up to it (bodging the phone network inbetween
>:)
> > >but chances are that nobody's got a copy of the necessary server
> > >software any more :-(
>
> > I should still have enough equipment and software about to set up at
>least
> > two of the various BBC-micro based servers which I ran at various
>times,
> > including the multi-user software that the GnomeAtHome ran on which I
>had
> > an official copy of...
>
>Wasn't that basically CommunITeL? I still have a copy, and I think I
>have a copy of at least one other server package for a Beeb. I used to
>run a viewdata BBS for a short while.

Well everybody had copies of CommunITel, but TG_at_H was completely re-written
by Glynn Phillips, and did a hell of a lot more. It was nice and easy to
add modules to, etc. I did a nice simple one where it would translate a
text file into viewdata pages on the fly.. (and work with the
go-back-a-page commands, etc) not to mention software to run chatlines
etc.. (handy for my four line BBS at the time.) I had six Beebs at one
point, plus fileserver, all running this from my bedroom - I'd go to sleep
listening to the hard disc on the fileserver chattering away as people used
the system..


> > (Ah, the joys of building ring-detect circuits for cheap and nasty
>1200
> > baud modems that didn't have them..)
>
>'cause BABT made it so difficult (and ludicrously expensive) to get
>approval. I built one that did ringback in hardware, so we could tell
>whether it was a BBS call or a real person (only had one phone line).
> For those who've not come across this usage of "ringback", it means a
>system where the caller hangs up after the first ring, then immediately
>redials. The modem only responds if the first ring is short enough,
>and the second follows after a minimum (but still within a maximum)
>time.


LOL. And weren't they just a pain in the neck.. I used to maintain the BBS
list on ClubSpot 810, all those boards which were ringback only, open for
short hours every other Tuesday..


backtracking a bit, someone did mention to me a while back that a backup of
the entire Viewfax 258 system was still about, looking for a home.

You could probably fit the entire Prestel database on a single CD ROM
several times over these days... when an ISP was given an initial
allocation of 500 pages of 768 characters each, the total database size
couldn't have been huge.
Received on Tue Jun 15 2004 - 18:35:46 BST

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