How I went into running a AMIGA BBS on a i286 PC...
In the late 80s my background on computing was raised from commodore-based
home computers. Other kids in the school told me about the fantastic power
of the Personal Computer. They argued the AMIGA is just a gaming machine -
and the PC is serious piece of computing power.
While being a confident Amiga User with a small budget and an open-minded
stance I began to become curious about the PC. I guess, what fascinated me
at first place was the fact, that it is much cheaper to assemble a single
machine compared to the expensive entry prices for high-class Amiga boxes.
So I decided to give it a try and I spend my hardly earned money as a pa-
per boy to invest into this new era of computing.
Selecting all the required components and assemble them together was fun:
A 12 Mhz i286 board (+4 Mhz than the 68k - I thought), 5 1/4 Floppy drive,
a Hercules graphics card, a sound card, a PC monitor and a case.
After some trouble with the mainboard, the box finally was assembled
within two weeks.
After another couple of weeks I studied the DOS and explored dozens of
tools, software packages and computer games.
But the more I tried out, the more frustration came up.
I remember, that during PC sessions, I often looked aside the Amiga 500,
and dropped PC operations to do something more useful.
I finally concluded that the PC was not really worth the efforts and
money.
However, I enjoyed two facts about the PC; its smooth text-mode display
compared to the eye-burning TV-based 50 Hz PAL display and the ability
to exchange hardware parts in successive steps where I can choose from
a much larger list of hardware vendors with much cheaper prices.
From time to time I replugged the modem from the Amiga serial port to
the PC and evaluated various modem software.
While being in my first demo group I decided to open a BBS to offer a
local contact point to demoscene activities in my home town.
Since I still need the Amiga for coding activities and to waht latest
demoscene releases, there was this boring PC and I had an exciting job
to run 24/7.
Between 1992 and 1994, The Factory BBS opened it lines.
During this period I was evaluating a large volume of PC-based BBS software.
I also wrote some helpful tools related to running a AMIGA BBS on PCs.
AFONT was my first program written in x86 Assembly. It was a
Terminate-And-Stay Resident DOS tool that allows to exchanges the
text font between PC and AMIGA while running some software in the foreground.
AFont v0.10
MINI-DOCS
Code by Crunchy/TEK
100% in Assembly
Released on the 15-02-93
Welcome to AmiFont !
This TSR-Tool emulates the AMIGA Standart Font ! It's especially created
for PC-MODEM-Phreaks that are calling AMIGA-BBSs ! Now you will have the
pure ANSI-AMIGA-STANDART on your PCs ! Nevertheless you can switch with
the Hotkey "ALT GR" beetween the IBM- or AMIGA-Font.
Hardcore Infos :
AFONT.COM is a TSR Program !
It steals 4,8 KB from your memory
This Product is FREE-WARE !
Thanx to FUSZY/TEK for generating a font-table on his amiga.
I'm a poor Student/Sysop/Coder,so if you wanna do
something very nice to me,do this :
= SEND SOME MONEY AS A GIFT OR FOR UPDATING!
= GIVE MY BBS A CALL (NUMBER SEE BELOW!)
= CONTACT ME
Here is my Addy :
CRUNCHY/TEK!
Daniel Adler
Beethovenstr.6
3400 Goettingen
GERMANY
VOICE +49-551-44623
BBS +49-551-43249
Bye the way, this fantastic tool is my first program coded in assembly !
... How about a chat ?! Call my !PC & AMIGA! Board ...
THE
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|| ___| || __ | || ___| |__ __| || __ | || |~~|. | |: | |: |
|| |__ || |__|: | || | | | || | | | || |__|: | \ \/ /
|| | || ~~~' | || | | | || | |. | || ~~'/ \ /
|: __| |: __ | |: | | | |: | |: | |: \ | |
|. | |. | | | |. |___ | | |. |__|| | |. |~\ | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | ~~ | | | | | | |
|__| |__| |__| |______| |__| |________| |__| |__| |__|
ZyXEL + 4 9 - 5 5 1 - 4 3 2 4 9 ZyXEL
BBS/FAXLINE BBS/FAXLINE
Running on MAXIMUS BBS = NEWEST DEMOS/PD WAREZ
T.E.K. GERMAN HEADQUATERS
SOON COMING PRODUCTIONS OF CRUNCHY :
MAXY v1.00 - WALL,LAST CALLER,TOP USER,LAME USER... FOR MAXIMUS
V0.80 RUNNING ON THE FACTORY BBS !
MULTICHAT - 3 NODES CHAT RUNNING ON AN 286-AT 12MHZ POWER !
V0.01 RUNNING ON THE FACTORY
CORE-WARS FS - CORE-WARS ONLINE FIGHT SYSTEM
SOON RUNNING ON THE FACTORY