Re: Those that call the Apple 2 BBS

[Chris Morse <chris@sorry.no.spam.com>]

On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 23:00:28 -0700, "Terry Olsen"
<tolsen64@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Chris:
>
>Will you be making the server available for others to run when completed?
>Will it have file transfers?  how will you accomplish that?  FTP I assume?

Yeah, I don't see why not!

For the file transfers, I want to support X/Y modem and hopefully
Z-modem.  As for FTP, yeah, I could put in an FTP server too.  But
that would be a seperate application for now.  (I've written one
already, actually.)

>Wish I could figure out VB.NET.  I know VB6 pretty well...but every time I
>play with VB.NET, I get frustrated and go back to VB6

Yeah, it took me a week or so to figure out that I had to forget a lot
of VB6 stuff and "go with the new".. I like it much better.. You can
create multi-threaded apps so easily.. the next version of VB.NET will
finally have the "edit and continue" functionality, too.

I spent most of this evening working on the BBS.. and I've got the
whole login section done.  So you can create new accounts and get a
verification code automatically e-mailed to you, then you log in and
enter your verification code.. and the lost password function works
too.

The point it's at right now is pretty much all the "shell" work done;
now it's time for the meat.  After you login, you get the main menu,
but none of the functions work yet except for the (Q)UIT function.

One thing, though.. With this project, it became clear to me that I
had to have a real database back end.. And Microsoft Access through
ODBC wasn't going to cut it.. so the server uses a connection to an
MS-SQL server database.. but you can get a free copy of MSDE
(microsoft data engine) which is basically SQL Server 2000 without all
the front-end utilities.. and those you can mostly get for free from
3rd parties.

I'm going to clean up the code a little bit tomorrow.. just a couple
more things I want to take care of.. (1) the client idle timer doesn't
register on the main form, but will disconnect users after 5 minutes
of inactivity.. want to make that configurable.. (2) Move certain
functions into the IClientConnection interface, which will be used for
plugins (external games, chat systems, message bases.. anything)

If you want me to send you a copy, let me know.. Not sure if the
database requirement is going to be an issue or not, though.

Cheers!
// CHRIS