• Update

    From Sean Dennis@1:18/200 to All on Wednesday, February 23, 2022 15:52:28
    Hi everyone,

    I've finally moved my BBS to MBSE under Devuan Linux and decommissioned the Maximus/2 system. My next project is to work on Manndoor and make it my
    own. Rick gave me permission to do what I want with it so now the big job
    is integrating my own door code into Manndoor and making sure it all works.
    I will changing the name of my forked doorkit and it will be released under
    the BSD 4-clause license. Probably will take me a few weeks of working over
    a hot compiler but I will get there. When I'm done, I will make it
    available on my Sourceforge repo.

    Right now, I can compile DOS doors using TP7, Win32 and OS/2 doors using Virtual Pascal/2, and Linux/FreeBSD 64-bit doors using Free Pascal. I will also be able to generate WINServer-compatible doors. I can also create
    64-bit Windows doors but at this time, that might just be additional work
    for no real gain.

    To do all of this, I'll set up an OS/2 Warp 4.52 VM and a Windows 7 VM (just need it for compiling).

    Hopefully my health will maintain itself so I feel up to doing all of this. I'm excited to have the opportunity to do this.

    -- Sean

    ... Somebody's therapist knows all about you.
    --- MultiMail/Linux
    * Origin: Outpost BBS * Johnson City, TN (1:18/200)
  • From T.J. Mcmillen@1:229/426 to Sean Dennis on Wednesday, February 23, 2022 19:53:39
    Maximus/2 system. My next project is to work on Manndoor and make it my

    NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

    --- Renegade vY2Ka2
    * Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (1:229/426)
  • From Sean Dennis@1:18/200 to T.J. Mcmillen on Thursday, February 24, 2022 01:47:20
    Hello T,

    23 Feb 22 19:53, you wrote to me:

    NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

    Hey, that system worked for over half of my life. I think it worked rather well for so long but it was time for me to move on.

    -- Sean

    ... Jealousy is all the fun you think they have.
    --- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20180707
    * Origin: Outpost BBS * Johnson City, TN (1:18/200)
  • From Sean Dennis@1:18/200 to All on Wednesday, February 22, 2023 12:29:36
    Hi everyone,

    I'm getting closer to getting ready for testing. I'm trying to work out an annoying but harmless bug in the DOS versions of Cheepware as it's an issue with Manndoor. I've reached out to Rick Parrish but have yet to hear from
    him.

    I'm finally working on the documentation also. There's a lot to cover with five supported OSes.

    Once I get things a bit settled here, I'll upload all of the source code to
    my Sourceforge repo.

    Dan, I haven't forgotten about your offer to test the Linux doors. I've
    been modifying Manndoor so much that it's in an alpha state right now and I don't feel comfortable releasing the code to others quite yet. :)

    -- Sean

    ... DOS never says "EXCELLENT command or filename".
    --- MMail/FreeBSD
    * Origin: Outpost BBS * Johnson City, TN (1:18/200)
  • From Sean Dennis@1:18/200 to All on Thursday, June 01, 2023 12:26:04
    Hi everyone,

    I've abandoned the cross-platform porting of my doors. Issues with getting help with compiling for different platforms and other issues have made me decide to stop that but I am still planning on releasing the code to my
    doors. It's been slow-going since health issues have made typing very difficult for me but I am working on improving my situation.

    I have been working on the doors. A few things I've done:

    - added the ability for the door to automatically run in local mode on a
    BBS if it sees that the baud rate and port number are both set to zero;

    - fixed a longstanding issue with file sharing when running multinode;

    - cleaned up the code in general to try to make it more efficient;

    - changed the documentation from a single monolithic document to four
    smaller documents (this makes it much easier for me to modify a single
    document instead of six huge documents);

    - updated the documents with my current contact and support information.

    I am hoping to issue new releases of all of my doors within the next few
    weeks.

    I apologize for being so slow with updates but life takes me on new
    adventures whether I want to or not. <G>

    -- Sean

    ... Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
    ___ MultiMail/Linux v0.52

    --- Maximus/2 3.01
    * Origin: Outpost BBS: Home of Cheepware! (1:18/200)
  • From Sean Dennis@1:18/200 to All on Thursday, October 26, 2023 21:19:38
    Hi everyone,

    With my BBS software change to ProBoard, I've had a renewed interest in Cheepware. My doors now have "auto-local" capability. This means if you
    type its name in a command shell, the door will start in local mode. If
    you are logged in locally to your BBS and run the door, the door will
    start in local mode.

    This was an "accidental feature" as I was doing some code optimization
    and the idea came to me to do this. <G>

    This works by checking if there is a carrier fron the FOSSIL driver and
    whether or not there are parameters specified on the calling command
    line. If there is carrier, the door will jump down to looking for a
    dropfile and running normally. If there are unknown parameters, it will display its command line help.

    The "/L" parameter is still supported if you wish to use it.

    You can use "/?" ot "/H" for command line help. You can also use "/" or
    "-" to signify a command line parameter.

    I am also working on putting in error logging into my doors, mainly for FOSSIL/door initialization errors from FKFOSSIL (the door kit I use) and
    for other possible errors. Since I am sticking to DOS-only for now, I'm writing a more powerful error handler. This is not only to help the
    sysop but to help me debug issues sysops might have.

    I'm still planning on making my doors open source but I'm waiting until
    I finish this code update.

    So Cheepware is still alive.

    -- Sean



    ... Windows: most expensive OS/2 backup disks I've ever purchased.
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    * Origin: Outpost BBS * Johnson City, TN (1:18/200)