[Coco] *ALL RAM* BBS system, and cassette emulation on Xroar

[Allen Huffman]

I never thought I would be touching cassette tape stuff again, but over lunch today, I took a few minutes to get my old 1983 *ALL RAM* tape-based BBS system running. After some confusion getting the files on a virtual disk to load them, and more confusion on how Xroar caches cassette images, I was able to get it running.

*ALL RAM* was written to show it was possible to run a small BBS without needing "3-4 disk drives" like the commercial programs of the day did. It used the 32K BASIC memory to start users and message information, and would save these off to cassette when you shut down. On the next power up, you would reload and continue.

The program was split in to two pieces to keep as much memory available for userlog/messages. EDITOR.BAS was used to create the Sysop account, and then write out the initial userlog and message base. ALLRAM.BAS was the BBS itself, that would start up and immediately want to load these databases from tape.

The features were limited, and only included user registration (with unvalidated, validated and Sysop access levels), userlog list (for validated users), and message board options (also for valited users only) including post, read, and scan subjects.

It was quite primitive since there was no "Quick Scan" option. If there were 20 messages, you would have to read them by number. It's hard to think back to a time when this was acceptable :)

Some observations... Security was very different in the early 1980s. This BBS, based on others of the day, only asks for a PASSWORD then logs in the user. I had forgotten about that. You could just type in words and get in to people's logins if they used something common. This also presents a problem if someone else signs up using a password that was already in use. I noticed the program didn't tell you that -- so I guess it wasn't something we ran in to. (really???)

It did support private messages. Every message had a "TO" and a "SUBJECT" line. If the message was private, it turned the subject to "*E-MAIL*" and only the user with the same name as in the TO line could read it... But it showed the message existed, and who it was from, to everyone -- they just couldn't read it.

If I were to advance this program, I would add quickscan, e-mail scan, and require a username/password instead of just a password.

We had a system running in Houston where I took this code and made it read/write the files to disk drive. This allowed loading and saving message boards on-the-fly, so we could have a system that appeared to have 100 different message boards. Graham... Ambrosino (?) ran it, as I did not have a phone line or smart modem myself. I believe I ran in to Graham on Facebook years ago. I should really package all this up and send it to him and see if he remembers.

Sadly, I don't expect to find the disk version again unless it's on some ancient floppy in storage that I can still read.

Just sharing. 30 years ago. Wow.
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Allen Huffman - PO Box 22031 - Clive IA 50325 - 515-999-0227 (vmail/TXT only)
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