Another small update from SkyLordsLab BBS. A few days ago I received some interesting suggestions about FidoNet and Netmail. The idea of sending private messages between users on different BBS systems caught my attention. SkyLordsLab BBS already had its own private mail and messaging system. But those suggestions made me think about taking it a little further. So I started working on a Netmail-inspired system. Now every user automatically gets their own address based on their nickname. For example: skylords@bbs.skylordslab.com Inside the BBS you can send messages using either the recipient's nickname or their full BBS mail address. I tested this between two different user accounts and it works. I also started preparing the system to receive emails from outside services like Gmail and Outlook. External senders will need to use the full nickname@bbs.skylordslab.com address. But there is one important detail. **Receiving external emails is not working yet.** I have not integrated that part of the system. For now the addresses and private messaging work internally within SkyLordsLab BBS. Once I figure out the external mail integration I hope to make it possible for someone to send an email from Gmail or Outlook directly to a BBS user. It is funny how a simple suggestion about an old technology can lead to another feature in a project. Thanks to the person who suggested Netmail and FidoNet. You helped me take SkyLordsLab BBS in another interesting direction. Has anyone here tried connecting a BBS messaging system to regular email services? #nostr #bbs #netmail #fidonet #retrocomputing #linux #antix #programming #opensource #selfhosting #buildinpublic

The more I explore old internet technologies the more I realize how many interesting ideas existed long before modern social networks. Over the past few days people here on Nostr have introduced me to systems like Gopher, FidoNet, Finger, emule and its kad network and .plan files. I started with a simple question about what I could do with my old Linux netbook. Somehow I ended up with a growing list of things to research. What I find interesting is that some of these old systems already had solutions to problems we are still discussing today. So here is another question. Do you think modern software has actually improved everything? Or have we made some things unnecessarily complicated? #asknostr #retrocomputing #oldinternet #linux #programming #opensource #bbs #selfhosting

Lately I have been spending a lot of time exploring old software and technologies on my Linux netbook. Working on SkyLordsLab BBS made me realize how many interesting things from the early internet have been forgotten. We have modern applications for almost everything now. But I wonder how many old ideas were actually good and simply got left behind. So here is my question. What is one forgotten internet technology or old piece of software that you think deserves a second chance? It could be an old protocol. A forgotten application. A strange communication system. Or something most people have never even heard of. I am looking for something unusual to explore. Maybe I will even try bringing one of those ideas back to life on my old antiX netbook #asknostr #linux #retrocomputing #oldinternet #opensource #programming #selfhosting #buildinpublic

While working on fixes and improvements for the latest version of SkyLordsLab BBS I suddenly had another idea. I thought about the old diskmag / e-zine style digital magazines that used to be shared on floppy disks and wondered why I should not add something like that to my own BBS. So I did. I added SkyMag to SkyLordsLab BBS and prepared the first issue. It feels a bit like a diary and a bit like a small retro magazine at the same time. If I can keep up with it I want to continue it weekly or monthly depending on time. I really like the idea of slowly building a little BBS magazine archive inside the project itself. What do you think about the idea of a diskmag / e-zine inside a BBS? #asknostr #nostr #bbs #retrobbs #retrocomputing #antix #linux #programming #coding #opensource #buildinpublic #indiedev #terminal #textmode #ansi #diskmag #tech #mag

A while ago npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6 raised concerns about how traceable Bitcoin can be. Today I came across a case that made me think about that again. Richard James Schueller was reportedly detained in Istanbul after being sought internationally by Finland. Reports say investigators followed digital footprints and suspicious crypto wallet movements on the blockchain while tracing him. In a case like this traceability sounds useful. If someone is accused of large scale fraud then following the money can help investigators and maybe help victims recover something. But what about ordinary people sending small amounts to each other? At that point the same traceability can start to feel like a privacy problem. This also made me think again about Monero and privacy focused systems. Not because Monero was involved in this case. It was not. But because the contrast is interesting. So I am genuinely curious. Is financial traceability a feature or a problem? Maybe the answer depends entirely on who is being traced and why. #bitcoin #privacy #monero #asknostr #cryptocurrency

I am not even sure what I have been doing lately. I keep jumping from one thing to another. I am learning Moggi and trying small programs with it. I am still improving SkyLordsLab BBS and adding more text based games. I am also trying to figure out how to publish the BBS safely without exposing my home network. On top of that I keep digging through GitHub looking for old projects and ideas that might be useful for the BBS. Somehow the old antiX netbook keeps becoming the center of all these experiments. One day I am working on a programming language. The next day I am building a BBS game. Then I end up searching GitHub for something new to try. 😀 What have you been working on lately? #buildinpublic #linux #antix #bbs #moggi #programming #github #asknostr

I forgot how much fun it is to start from the beginning with a new programming language. Today with Moggi I went from Hello World to a tiny calculator and even that small progress feels satisfying. There is something nice about not knowing everything yet and slowly figuring out how the language works. #moggi #programming #linux #antix #learning #buildinpublic

A while ago I shared a note asking people to suggest different things I could learn. After that @Sascha-Oliver Prolić introduced me to a programming language called Moggi. So I decided to give it a try. Today I ran my first Moggi program on my antiX netbook. Of course I started with the classic Hello World. I am still at the very beginning and trying to understand how the language works step by step. It is always interesting to discover something new like this. Thank you and congratulations Sascha-Oliver Prolić. I am looking forward to learning more about Moggi. #moggi #programming #linux #antix #learning #buildinpublic

I have shared a few notes about SkyLordsLab BBS before. Lately I have been spending more time on the text based game side. I added more games and reorganized them into categories. Some were ideas I built myself. Some were inspired by similar terminal games I found on GitHub and tried to recreate in my own way. I am also working on improving the ASCII and ANSI presentation so they feel more like real BBS door games instead of simple terminal scripts. Now I could use some help from people who know this space better. Do you know any good ASCII or ANSI game ideas that would fit a BBS? Have you built anything like this yourself? I would also be interested in old door games that might be worth recreating or taking inspiration from. Suggestions are very welcome. 😀 #bbs #doorgames #ascii #ansi #retrocomputing #linux #antix #buildinpublic #asknostr