Subtext BBS Server 1.0 has been released:

• subtext-1.0.sit (StuffIt 3 archive, includes source code and THINK C 5 project file)
  SHA256: dd12bb271c61e6832373921af92864fc4b01e0b139365d9445a0434b57aabf89
  SHA1: 79744ce3cd6a5393426210430a57c17d58b3dbe1

This is the initial public release of the Subtext BBS server for Classic Mac OS. It represents a full year of development and testing while operating the Kludge BBS on my Macintosh Plus.

Thanks to all past and present Kludge users for feedback and bug testing.

I recently acquired a 3M Whisper Writer 1000 communications terminal circa 1983, and restored it to working order. This is a short session of it dialing into my Kludge BBS (hosted on a Macintosh Plus circa 1986) over its internal 300 bps modem.

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I attended the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 17 and wrote two new programs.

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Amend 3.6 has been released:

• amend-3.6.sit (StuffIt 3 archive, includes source code and THINK C 5 project file)
  SHA256: 8cd41d1ae70c9a8386fefae83eb516a487bec470d6b1685c7898c04fe885a466
  SHA1: 0964f1ae043f6f7daa9e91a6f4559dbb26b48af5

Changes in this version:

• Add Command+W keyboard shortcut to cancel and close committer window
• Fix launching Desk Accessories when Amend is in the foreground
• Center dialog windows on larger displays, limit the size of Amend windows to roughly 80 characters of code
• Disable "Apply Patch" menu option as it is not yet ready for production and was previously enabled by mistake
• Change internal project structure to allow building with THINK C's default ANSI C library, instead of requiring a custom library

Amend 3.5 has been released:

• amend-3.5.sit (StuffIt 3 archive, includes source code and THINK C 5 project file)
  SHA256: 6c8b16ee2d466e8c213f77291fd2a77ebee02dc874ee346c83d9e9c17625ff4d
  SHA1: 91dceb579b52527dacf957cd868aa0df87f150a8

Changes in this version:

• Add metadata editor to change author name, date/time, and log messages of existing amendments
• Change references of "commits" to "amendments" to be consistent
• Change temporary filename generation to avoid generating bogus filenames when diffing
• Show progress while opening repo
• Tweak font sizes
• Fix bug that may have shown a bogus character at the end of a log message in the amendment list

In 2015, I wrote a custom BBS server in Ruby and had been using it to run my Kludge BBS on a small OpenBSD server in my home office since then.

Last year after writing a lot of C on my Macintosh Plus, I had the itch to write a new BBS server so I could move my BBS to run on another Mac Plus. As with all software development projects, it took quite a bit longer than expected, but last month I finally got far enough with the development to deploy the new BBS on a Mac Plus.

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Amend 3.4 has been released:

• amend-3.4.sit (StuffIt 3 archive, includes source code and THINK C 5 project file)
  SHA256: ebc39d95249453087466765fc8770c675ec1597a0bcf19491da7ad6e6c2f8a5f
  SHA1: 5a596c141c7224e51aea9c382b5e08777a452180

Changes in this version:

• Fix newline handling in diff generation that was adding erroneous newlines after chunk headers
• Update backend database library with bug fixes
• Fix crash that occurred after saving settings
• Other minor crash fixes

Amend 3.3 has been released:

• amend-3.3.sit (StuffIt 3 archive, includes source code and THINK C 5 project file)
  SHA256: 1b5d23734a80fa8b0216d20beed9ccfccba4e964a63c33d6fe1bc1bfab3c7c74
  SHA1: 2d1bdc32f9b11aa89b15a388ba89e23cc6fad040

Changes in this version:

• Correctly include C function prototypes in diffs (equivalent to diff's -p option)
• Bug fixes and speedups in backend database library

Introducing my Wallops IRC client, then returning to work on the BBS adding a serial module to join the console and telnet inputs to allow calls through a modem. I got stuck for a while trying to figure out why writes to the serial port would hang the machine.

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Since recording a handful of C Programming on System 6 videos, I've occasionally wanted to live-stream the more casual daily programming being done on my Macintosh Plus. After getting all of the pieces together, I now have a working self-hosted broadcasting setup.

If I happen to be programming on my Mac right now, you can watch here at my website.

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A large update to my Wallops IRC client is available:

• wallops-1.1.sit (StuffIt 3 archive, includes source code and THINK C 5 project file)
  SHA256: 13159d1a73d6ca4a881a49f22b20a2624b897b2f707553fa4b083e838d11cfc1
  SHA1: f96e4e28a9f550c24673e8a16da6346e35be00b6

This update includes a number of new features and bugfixes:

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As teased on Twitter, the first release of my Wallops IRC client is now available:

• wallops-1.0.sit (StuffIt 3 archive, includes source code and THINK C 5 project file)
  SHA256: 459421124a43787259e76dd54ac1cd010348ca7f6cdf429ae3f950bb6f858496
  SHA1: 36de58842fc6376fab4ada0f3a4287ac22fac9ae

A future update will support multiple channels but for now it only supports one channel at a time.

Amend 3.2 has been released:

• amend-3.2.sit (StuffIt 3 archive, includes source code and THINK C 5 project file)
  SHA256: 8daec2d4bed7d3b7910b2a6899b390a55c16d840b99df081fa52d3d47582a691
  SHA1: b4c0bbade81028b3a66ceeaf3cb2314ef32ee19b

Changes in this version:

• When filtering out already-added files, also filter out the open repo file itself
• Fix a possible crash after committing
• Stop occasionally displaying a cursor on read-only text boxes such as diffs

I tweeted asking if anyone would be interested in a Q&A, and to my surprise, I got many Qs to A.

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It's a new year and my old computer is still old.

A bug in Amend caused it to crash during a commit, which corrupted the repo beyond repair. I quickly came to realize that using resource files as a database for Amend and my new BBS was a bad idea. I NIH'd the problem and created my own file format that will be a bit more resilient to crashes and partial writes.

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