Introduction ------------ The Major BBS v6.25 was created over 25 years ago and as such was not designed to be run on todays hardware or operating systems. Using this VirtualBox VM provides a way to run it in a best-effort approach. No VM will be able to 100% replicate the original hardware so there may be some issues. If you want to run it as it was back in the day, install it on a physical machine running MS-DOS 6.22 with appropriate hardware and DOS drivers for that hardware. Having said that, this guide is a wakthrough on how to install and setup The Major BBS v6.25 Free Edition inside VirtualBox. It includes the required steps for configuring networking under DOS 6.22. We are NOT providing a copy of DOS 6.22 as this would breach copyright and it is up to you to supply your own legally licensed version. All steps will assume the CD-ROM drive in your virtual machine is set as the D drive, if not, please substitute accordingly. The below was done running VirtualBox on a Windows 10 Host. Requirements ------------ Download the ISO file from our website at: www.themajorbbs.com/download/the-major-bbs-v6-25-free-edition-virtualbox-files/ Steps ----- 1. Download and Install VirtualBox onto your host PC (www.virtualbox.org) 2. Create a new virtual machine and install MS DOS 6.22 with CD-ROM support 3. Once installed shutdown DOS virtual machine 4. Set virtual machine network settings to the following in Virtual Box: - Enable Network Adapter - Attached To: Bridged Adapter - Name: Select your host network card - Select Advanced - Adapter Type: PCnet-FAST III (Am79c973) - Leave the remaining settings unchanged 5. Attach the VirtualBox Files ISO to the MS DOS machine and start virtual machine 6. Change to CD drive in MS DOS (E.g. D:) 7. Change to MBBS directory on CD drive and run INSTALL (select to install to C:\BBSV6) 8. Once installed, edit your C:\CONFIG.SYS files and ensure there is an entry of FILES=127 9. Restart your DOS virtual machine 10. Change directory to C:\BBSV6 11. Run BBS.BAT 12. Enter Activation Code 13. Select NO to scanning COM ports (by pressing 1 through 4) 14. Follow the prompts and once complete, exit to dos 15. Make a directory for the ICO installer (mkdir c:\ico) 16. Type: xcopy /s d:\galico c:\ico 17. Type: subst a: c:\ICO 18. Type: A: to change to A drive 19. Run INSTALL 20. Set to install to: C:\BBSV6 21. Wait for installation to finish, press ESC at the release notes and any key to continue 22. Select ETHERNET when the Piper/IP install starts by typing in the box 23. Continue through the defaults, an option saying no driver is installed, select ok 24. Select install protocol manager 25. Set your hostname, domain name, username and timezone as appropriate. 26. Enter the IP address you want your BBS to run on in the IP Address field 27. Enter your gateway in the IP router field 28. Enter your nameserver 29. Leave source as A 30. Leave all directories as default 31. When prompted to install a driver, press F2 32. Select other 33. In path type A:\LANMAN\PCNTND.DOS 34. Restart DOS virtual machine when install is complete 35. Run c:\piperup.bat 35. Change to CD ROM drive directory GALPACK (E.g. D:\MBBS\GALPACK) 36. Run GALPACK.EXE 37. Change directory to c:\bbsv6 38. Run BBS.BAT 39. Select Hardware Setup and set the following: - Set channel group 1 to NONE unless you have modems - Set channel group 2 to TCP/IP - Set starting channel number (e.g. 10) - Set number of channels (e.g. 8) - Set continue after GP error to YES - Set reboot after GP error to NO 40. Save and exit hardware setup 41. Select Basic Utilities then BBSDMOD (enable/disable modules) - DISABLE the following modules: - FTP Client and Server - Finger Client and Server - World-wide Web Server 42. Select GO! to start your BBS 43. You may see a General Protection Fault in the audit log - don't worry, it appears to be a bug with the ICO module however telnet works fine - yes, 25 year old software has bugs! 44. You will now be able to telnet to the BBS at the address set in step 26 45. Modify any other options as necessary in the configuration sections 46. Installation complete - modify your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to automatically run PIPERUP.BAT and then BBS.BAT if you wish, also remove any pause commands in these batch files. 47. Enjoy! NOTES: If you need to copy files to the BBS, create an ISO file and then attach it to the VM via VirtualBox the same as you did in step 5. If you have any issues connecting to the DOS VM after this point, make sure the network adapter settings are correct as per step 4. www.themajorbbs.com