After some seriously hard hacking (involving a RasPi as a TCP->RS232 adapter etc) Cory Smelosky managed to connect his VAX, MOIRA, to UUHECNET.
AS a bonus, MOIRA can route mail between the two networks, using hybrid UUCP/Mail-11 addresses, e.g:
..!b4gate!moira!CHIMPY::SAMPSA
would reach the user SAMPSA on HECnet node CHIMPY.
See the announcement below. Also any new applicants will be given access to B4GATE, and almost any system on UUHECNET can be reached through it..
The cool thing is that we have over 30 nodes in the network, of which I estimate at least 10-15 are online at any given moment.
Guys, B4GATE appears to have become the de facto hub of UUHECNET since MRGATE is down and not likely to reappear. With this in mind, I'll periodically post a list of systems registered with B4GATE. Basically, all mail (unless direct host to host) on UUHECNET now goes through B4GATE, which also acts as an SMTP gateway for the UUCP nodes that have *.uuhec.net domain names. ---- SNIP --- The following systems are directly connected to b4gate. Please note that even if the connection is defined, there is no guarantee that host will be running, thus message delivery cannot be guaranteed. Sample bangpath: b4gate!pyffle!sampsa send a message to the user sampsa on the pyffle machine via b4gate. Systems under b4gate: hfgate rxs3de zzwerg kuha epl692 escher b4s390 infopiz moira tranq7 mrgate trada pbelt rilbop obs2 wurst jqpublic calidream vmnext uupc pyffle turnkey maya vaxxa atom b4bbs boing thrifty bender vaxenv dalek --- SNIP ---
I’m considering building a new VMware appliance of the latest Pyffle
code that is running hq.pyffle.com.
However it would be quite an effort to do, so I’m looking to gauge
interest? How many of you would like to run Pyffle on your own
systems as a VM?
sampsa
Good news everyone – Turnkey Pyffle v0.21 (due out July-ish) will have a curses-based installation wizard to guide you through those annoying installation steps that might have kept some of you from installing it.
Here’s a video of the demo in action (if you don’t / can’t use Flash, here’s the 24 MB original QuickTime .MOV):
It even includes a menu and stuff:
This gallery contains 4 photos.
Not sure whether to be proud of the stuff I’ve built or ashamed of how far from my original idea of a Waffle clone I’ve arrived at:
Pyffle v0.2 announced!
Guys, I’ve just got a release of Pyffle v0.2 (OK the version numbers are
arbitrary and don’t show up everywhere in the code etc) as a
VMware appliance as well as an OVA for you VirtualBox users..
Just download it, boot it up and follow the (relatively) simple instructions
on the web page (which will be updated once the files are up there*).
Highlights of this version:
-sampsa
* Due to my insanely slow connection here in Lebanon, it might be up to
48 hours before the new files show up on the site. Will keep you posted
as and when this is done.
[Reposted from comp.bbs.waffle]
Pyffle BBS – Waffle for the New American Century
Pyffle was created as a tribute to the coolest BBS software ever in existence, Waffle.
Unfortunately the only version floating around nowadays is a binary-only copy of version 1.65 for DOS from 1993 or so (which I do run on B4BBS, http://sampsa.com/b4bbs, through DOSBOX, with UUCP and everything) as the Unix sources have gone missing – this prompted the creation of Pyffle, the Python re-implementation of Waffle for Unix.
You can test drive it by telnetting to hq.pyffle.com
I’ve also built a ready-to-run VMWare VM for running Pyffle without all the annoying hassle of setting up Postgres and stuff yourself.
See http://www.uuhec.net/pyffle-bbs/pyffle-turnkey-vmware-appliance/ for details on downloading and setting the VM up.
Sampsa
A funky new feature for you 8-bit retrofans has been added to Pyffle HQ: CP/M-O-Tron.
Basically, you get a customised Altair Z80 instance running CP/M 2.2 and MP/M (yes, MP/M!).
Just log in to hq.pyffle.com (register an account if you haven’t one) and type CPM at the main prompt.
Yes, so I decided to kill some time and learn QT programming in Python and knocked out a graphical front-end to Pyffle (the least user-friendly BBS software ever, so there’s irony there too).
Here’s some screenshots..
Login screen:
Login screen
Main window:
Main window
Message area / mail inbox:
Message area
Message composition:
Message entry
Chat interface:
Chat window
Private messages:
Private messages..
Well, someone on comp.bbs.waffle saw my shameless plug and had a look, and liked what they saw:
From: minding To: system Subj: hurrah! [....] Too cool! DECADES ago now, I happenstanced upon a neato Waffle v1.64 board called China Cat Sunflower, I felt, and still do, that it made computers worthwhile again. Now I find Pyffle! You can imagine my general elation! I'm so grateful to have found a WAFFLE system! Hurrah! [....]
