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Domain: ccl4.org

Stories and comments across the archive that link to ccl4.org.

Comments · 6

  1. Re:My favorite code comment not written by me by stevey · · Score: 1 · on Successful Strategies for Commenting Your Code

    Actually the perl source code is full of fun comments like the Tolkien quote The road goes ever on..

    It helps lighten the mood when reading it... and the other comments are useful and helpful too.

  2. Viewdata Lives! by Joel+Rowbottom · · Score: 1 · on BBS Documentary Now Shipping

    There's still a bit of a Viewdata BBs revival going on - CCl4 still has the ability to log in via a java client (their bit on the revival is here).

    Sadly, Heaven isn't running at the moment but maybe it'll be back soon.

  3. Viewdata Lives! by Joel+Rowbottom · · Score: 1 · on BBS Documentary Now Shipping

    There's still a bit of a Viewdata BBs revival going on - CCl4 still has the ability to log in via a java client (their bit on the revival is here).

    Sadly, Heaven isn't running at the moment but maybe it'll be back soon.

  4. in the UK by strowger · · Score: 1 · on Are BBS-Like Communities Dead?

    In the UK, as well as the ANSI ("scrolling") BBSs, there was the Viewdata system. BT ran a national Viewdata BBS system called Micronet, with local rate access for most people. Micronet had a subscription charge; many local BBSs also existed, and didn't charge (or charged less). A few of them survive - see CCl4.

  5. The Viewdata community by Joel+Rowbottom · · Score: 2 · on Are BBS-Like Communities Dead?
    Here in the UK I used to fondly use Viewdata bulletin boards such as Cyclone, The Cellar, CCl4, Optix, Chipboard and the suchlike. Based upon the Teletext character set (think Prestel) and populated for the most part by BBC Micro users, the community was great and to a certain extent was killed off when ANSI boards came round. Indeed, the infamous Steve Gold/Robert Schifreen "Prince Phillip" hack was carried out on a Viewdata system in 1984 - as detailed in Hugo Cornwall's Hackers Handbook (now out of print) and Approaching Zero: Data Crime And The Computer Underworld (still in print, published by Faber&Faber).

    Now, as James Lawson puts it on the CCl4 web site, the ANSI board is all but dead. Most boards have been surpassed by the Internet and indeed FTP sites and websites as you rightly state; Fido feeds have been surpassed by Usenet; message areas by maillists. It's back to information provision and suchlike.

    There has been, for some years now, a Viewdata Revival going on, which puts forward many of the arguments. Unfortunately the website is a bit stale but it does give you a sort-of hail back to the days of CARBBS, XFS+ and EBBS board hosts running on 32k BBC Micros with (if you were lucky) 20Mb Winchester hard disks - none of this 24Gb filespace and 18 CDs online rubbish.

    There are several Viewdata bulletin boards now online on the Internet, run from Acorn Archimedes machines using Gareth Babb's excellent VHost software. Mine is called Haven and you can get to it without even a Viewdata emulator, by using the online Java-based client. Alternatively there are bits of software you can use to access them.

    Of course, there are still ANSI boards available via telnet - the UserFriendly one immediately springs to mind. But you still won't get back the sort of thing which you had with Viewdata.

    Hope this enlightens at least some ;)

    Joel.

  6. The Viewdata community by Joel+Rowbottom · · Score: 2 · on Are BBS-Like Communities Dead?
    Here in the UK I used to fondly use Viewdata bulletin boards such as Cyclone, The Cellar, CCl4, Optix, Chipboard and the suchlike. Based upon the Teletext character set (think Prestel) and populated for the most part by BBC Micro users, the community was great and to a certain extent was killed off when ANSI boards came round. Indeed, the infamous Steve Gold/Robert Schifreen "Prince Phillip" hack was carried out on a Viewdata system in 1984 - as detailed in Hugo Cornwall's Hackers Handbook (now out of print) and Approaching Zero: Data Crime And The Computer Underworld (still in print, published by Faber&Faber).

    Now, as James Lawson puts it on the CCl4 web site, the ANSI board is all but dead. Most boards have been surpassed by the Internet and indeed FTP sites and websites as you rightly state; Fido feeds have been surpassed by Usenet; message areas by maillists. It's back to information provision and suchlike.

    There has been, for some years now, a Viewdata Revival going on, which puts forward many of the arguments. Unfortunately the website is a bit stale but it does give you a sort-of hail back to the days of CARBBS, XFS+ and EBBS board hosts running on 32k BBC Micros with (if you were lucky) 20Mb Winchester hard disks - none of this 24Gb filespace and 18 CDs online rubbish.

    There are several Viewdata bulletin boards now online on the Internet, run from Acorn Archimedes machines using Gareth Babb's excellent VHost software. Mine is called Haven and you can get to it without even a Viewdata emulator, by using the online Java-based client. Alternatively there are bits of software you can use to access them.

    Of course, there are still ANSI boards available via telnet - the UserFriendly one immediately springs to mind. But you still won't get back the sort of thing which you had with Viewdata.

    Hope this enlightens at least some ;)

    Joel.