@Gte @bigzaphod @pixel and the #Amiga: #Arexx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARexx

@thomasfuchs
I didn't do much programming on the #A500 or #A2000HD but when I got the #A3000T, I ran The Heart of Gold #BBS using DLG BBS software and #Fidonet node 1:255/42. I used #AREXX to write apps for the BBS.

Fidonet let you request a list of downloadable files so I wrote an AREXX script to let my BBS users request a list of files and they could come back the next day and browse through it and request files.

Another AREXX script connected to the internet and synchronized a few USENET newsgroups into the DLG message area.

On the A2386 running Slackware Linux, I wrote a simplistic compression program in GNU C that could only compress to a maximum of 25%. I'd like to have that code again too.

@textfiles @f15sim

Hi Jason:

I ran a #BBS in the late 80s / early 90s called "Troy City". Should be interesting to see if the software packages I used are still there!

For at least a year total, I ran a couple of custom BBS programs, the first written in COMAL80 on a C-128, the second in #ARexx on an #Amiga 3000.

The latter used Matt Dillon's DNet protocol stack to allow IP-like multitasking, reading or uploading while downloading; this capability required a special Amiga client I called ParaBit, although not required for access. Somewhat inspired by the Diga! terminal program c1986.

Along the way, before writing the ARexx program, I also ran a couple #Citadel variants.

It was some adventure; great fun!

#retrocomputing #amiga #rexx #arexx The ARexx manual that came with my Amiga 4000. ARexx was based on IBM's Rexx; a brilliant language in it's own right, it came into its own on the Amiga as a way of orchestrating interactions between different programs. For example telling a 3d renderer to produce frames for an animation and then telling another program to create an anim8 file from the frames.