GEMini Atari/GEMini_Atari_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_December_1993.iso/files/bbs/fn132bin/fdman/appendix.b

Text File | 1991-09-03 | 10.8 KB | 222 lines

Appendix B: History of the Citadel BBS Program                           173




Appendix B  History of the Citadel BBS Program


   [ Note:  This Appendix is an amended version of  `history.doc', which was
in the STadel  documentation and which appears  to have been passed down  by
each successive author.  ]

      1) CP/M Citadel (CrT/David Mitchell)

      Citadel was written in mid-December 1981 by CrT.  Miraculously, it
      ran three days unattended over New Year's, collecting some
      remarkably favorable reactions.  During the months that it ran at
      633-3282 (ODD-DATA), Citadel became one of the more popular BBs in
      town, and there was some disappointment when a hardware failure
      forced the system down in February of 1982.  But in January CrT
      had published the source code in BDS C, putting it in the public
      domain.

      David Mitchell brought up the next incarnation of the Citadel
      program in April of 1982, running on hardware provided by Richard
      Knox.  Called the Island Communication System, it is located on
      Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound.  ICS has about 30 regular users
      and about 120 log entries.  Newcomers find it easy to learn, and
      often leave messages praising it.  Some of the system's daily
      users are in Boston.

      Citadel is descended from DandD.pas, an adventure game
      editor/driver.  It is arranged as a series of rooms, starting with
      the LOBBY.  In each room the user can read existing messages and
      leave more.  There may be up to 128 rooms in the current
      implementation.  The system was brought up with only one room, the
      LOBBY.  Additional rooms were created by the users, with room
      names appropriate to the topics covered.

      This is being written (82Dec07) as the Version 2 beta-test goes
      out.  Version 1 got a friendly reception and had relatively few
      bugs.  We'll see if this is a trend or fluctuation...

      Environment:  Citadel has had a checkered past.  It first ran on a
      64K Heath H89 with Magnolia CP/M, Hayes Smartmodem (plus an
      acoustic on another port) and BDS C V1.32.  Further development
      was done under BDS C 1.4x on a TRS-80 with Omikron CP/M, a Teletek
      FDC-1, and a Furgeson Big Board.  At present the ICS
      implementation runs on the FDC-1, while development is done on the
      Big Board.  Version 2 was tested on the original H89, now with
      dual 8" SSDD drives :-) and a printer, Magnolia CP/M V2.223 :-( ,
      and BDS C 1.46.

      Starting with the 82Jan posting on Seattle's MailBoard (thanks
      John!), various fragments of Version 1 seem to have percolated
      around the country.  This version 2 release should supercede them
      and save people the frustration of trying to make sense out of
      them.

      2) Citadel-86 (Hue, Jr.)



Appendix B: History of the Citadel BBS Program                           174




      Having obtained Citadel 2.10 from CUG through SuperComp, and then
      having helped upgrade it to Citadel 2.40 using, at various times,
      a H89 and a Z-100, Citadel-86 for MS-DOS 2.xx was developed in
      order to ...  um.  Well, in any case, the first version of
      Citadel-86 went up on the 8088 side of a Z-100 in the Fall of '84,
      using MS-DOS 2.13.

      As the months passed and as the whims hit the translator,
      Citadel-86 came closer and closer to being functionally identical
      to Citadel 2.40, and in January '85 the final downloading stuff
      was added, thus coming close 'nuff to Citadel 2.40's main programs
      for the translator.  During March and April of '85, the utilities
      of Citadel 2.40 underwent translation and by mid-April, the last
      of these utilities had been translated and at least superficially
      tested, thus completing the Citadel translation process (thank
      ghod).

      Now all that remains is isolating and killing the final few bugs,
      some of which the translator is certain are resident in the
      compiler in use (otherwise he'd have to admit to having made
      mistakes, lord forbid!).

      Oh, and by the way, the name Citadel-86 was the suggestion of a
      certain Lord Castleregh, and was selected after a polling process
      of the first Citadel-86 system (Test System).

      3) STadel (orc [David Parsons])

      STadel was ported from the 2.12/2.14 version of Citadel-86 in
      December '86.  A fairly easy port, all things considered;  since
      the code had already been ported from one machine (CP/M-land with
      all of the oddities inherent there) to another (MSDOS), some of
      the porting difficulties had already been worked out.  When
      released to the public, the program rapidly became very popular
      around the USA, Canada, and elsewhere.  This led to all sorts of
      interesting problems, because I decided to drive STadel the way I
      wanted, rather than trying to follow the lead of Citadel-86, which
      was not evolving the way I wanted to see citadel evolve.

      Quite a few people have helped with STadel.  Dale Schumacher
      (Dalnefre') wrote/ported a UUCP packet-driver which I used as a
      kernel for my UUCP mail gateway, Jay Johnson has provided quite a
      bit of useful advice and code fragments from his implementation
      of Citadel for the Amiga, and Hue, Jr.  continues to diddle C-86,
      providing me with a endless source of headaches..., umm, er,
      inspiration.

      STadel has diverged greatly from C-86.  Version 3.1 saw the
      addition of forwarded roomsharing in a form completely
      incompatable with C-86, the command set has diverged in many ways,
      STadel now supports (3.0) a mode where the user has to enter login
      name and password to gain access to the system, (3.1) a way to do
      networking with other systems when the receiving system is not* in
      network mode, (3.2) a process for running other programs from
      inside citadel (including external autodialers for networking via
      PC-Pursuit and external protocols for file transfers), and (3.2) a



Appendix B: History of the Citadel BBS Program                           175




      process to route network mail a'la UUCP/Usenet.

      In the spring of 1988, STadel was ported back onto the IBM PC;  a
      decision that was provoked by my getting sick and tired of the
      Atari ST world and buying a PC clone to get out of it.  This had
      the undesirable effect of totally estranging any relationship with
      the author of citadel-86.  In summer of 1988, I converted it from
      public domain to shareware as the result of attempted legal action
      against me.

      Currently STadel runs on MS-DOS computers (the IBM PC in native
      mode, other computers if they are supplied with FOSSIL serial i/o
      drivers) and the Atari ST.  A port to the Commodore Amiga is
      currently underway, and ports to the Apple Macintosh and to Unix
      are planned.

      Extensive functional additions to the network are planned, as
      well as a fido-net gateway program and a multiuser version.  The
      headache factor will probably make the fidonet gateway and the
      multiuser system commercial.


   4) Fnordadel (Adrian Ashley and Royce Howland)

   In January of 1989 we  obtained the source to STadel V3.3b-199  from orc.
We started diddling around with it, putting in little  feeps here and there.
After  doing many  diddles  to it,  not  the least  of which  was  switching
from gawd-awful Alcyon  C to Mark Williams  C, we finally began some  fairly
serious development at around the  start of 1990.  As this is  being written
(August  of 1991)  we're putting  the  final touches  on the  second  public
release (v1.32).

   Among the major changes and improvements are such things  as improved net
compatibility with Citadel-86,  and the elimination of many  inherent limits
such as  58 messages  per room,  64 rooms per  system, et  cetera; as  well,
the Reference Manual  is a substantial departure from past  STadel practice.
More recent  additions include many security  measures, a full-fledged  file
browser for transfer junkiew, the inclusion of a lot  of features from orc's
last version of STadel before he quit work on it  (version 3.4a, which never
got released), and a port to yet another compiler, gcc  (the best one so far
-- highly  recommended to  anybody).   See  increm.doc for  a blow-  by-blow
account of  changes to Fnordadel,  although we started  the list quite  some
time after we diverged from STadel.

   Fnordadel runs only  on the Atari  ST and TT,  and no ports are  planned;
certainly not to  MS-DOS, which gives us  the heebie-jeebies.  Future  plans
include  further improvement  of network  compatibility with  Citadel-86,  a
bunch more  network enhancements,  and substantial code  cleanup; plus  lots
more.   You  should see  our list  of suggestions!    We might  even get  to
some of them thanks to  the fact that our development platform is now  a gcc
cross-compiler environment based on a NeXTstation.   (No, we're not planning
a port  to the NeXT;  the code will  be totally thrown  out and redone  from
scratch before that day arrives.)

   Since we've been  hacking on this beast  other things have happened;  orc
has disappeared and released his code (STadel 3.4a)  to the PD. cmc@overmind



Appendix B: History of the Citadel BBS Program                           176




has taken this  code and is proceeding with  his own PC version,  calling it
``Fortress''.   We understand he has the  ST version in beta at  the moment,
and we wish him luck.

   Several local  people here  in Edmonton  have helped  us with  Fnordadel;
chief among  these is Garth  Wood (Not Quite  Cricket), who  has acted as  a
sort of permanent beta-tester  and has helped with the documentation.   Also
David ``Wally''  Williscroft, who  ran the  tiniest Fnordadel in  town on  a
512k machine  with one 360k  drive, and helped by  finding bugs faster  than
we could  make them.    Then we  have our first  non-local installations  to
thank, John Edstrom@Poopsie in Calgary, Alberta, and  Holly Stowe@devnull in
Indianapolis, Indiana  (who has subsequently  disappeared off the  network).
More  recently, kbad@Virtuality  (somewhere near  Atari Corp.,  USA)  became
the first TT030-based  Fnordadel Sysop, and  proofed the first draft of  the
Texinfo version of the Reference Manual.

   We'd also  like to thank  innumerable other Fnordadel  Sysops, orc,  Hue,
Jr., CrT  and all the  others who've  contributed time, effort,  suggestions
and code to this thing we inherited.

   Thanks most of  all to the Coca-Cola Company,  without which all of  this
would have been impossible.  (-: