Worldgroup Doors/GHOST

Malakai · Post by **Malakai** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 4:05 am

Well, I've set up a test GHOST server off of my main server via a null modem cable, but I was reading some of the documentation that the doors program and a null modem cable could actually pass on information to linux as well, not just the ghost program.

Has any one experimented with this? I know in the past, I've seen worldgroup systems pass information to ircii and such, which is a *nix IRC program. I would think they would have used rlogin for it, however...

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Also, is there any way to let the GHOST server run daily maintenance on door programs?

banjaxster · Post by **banjaxster** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 2:00 pm

Most people have given up on using ghost and use synchronet bbs program as a door game server,it's just alot eazier and better.

Malakai · Post by **Malakai** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 3:04 pm

I'm running synchronet with around 100 door games, but there are some door games that synchronet won't run because: some door games can't be patched to run over the 200mhz cpu limit and a few doors don't support synchronet's comm routines or fossil driver.

For example, I've got star empire to run on ghost but not on synchronet, because it doesn't support synchronet's fossil driver, but I believe it does need its maint run once daily...

Malakai · Post by **Malakai** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 12:41 am

I know it's probably far-fetched, but if ghost can't run maint, is there any way to have dos run a timed batch job.. something that would close out GHOST, run maint, then reload it?

dspain · Post by **dspain** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 10:32 am

Malakai wrote:I'm running synchronet with around 100 door games, but there are some door games that synchronet won't run because: some door games can't be patched to run over the 200mhz cpu limit and a few doors don't support synchronet's comm routines or fossil driver.

For example, I've got star empire to run on ghost but not on synchronet, because it doesn't support synchronet's fossil driver, but I believe it does need its maint run once daily...

use xoo fossil, the x00.sys can be renamed to x00.com and loaded and unloaded on command line.
that will fix your fossil problem, what games are you having patch trouble with? the 200 patch error only works on games written in pascal.

as far as running maint, what is running on the other pc? perhaps a generic way would be a hard reboot on a specific time and having all door maint run from autoexec.bat, i know there were several old dos programs that ran as tsr's and rebooted at an x time.

dspain · Post by **dspain** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 10:33 am

banjaxster wrote:Most people have given up on using ghost and use synchronet bbs program as a door game server,it's just alot eazier and better.

yeah but i been using doorsrv as my door server and synchronet as my mail server, less bloat that way.

Malakai · Post by **Malakai** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 1:12 pm

doors i've had trouble getting to work for one reason or another:

sherlock holmes
the arkane asylum
seamine
star exploration
beast of the midnite sun
obsidian baboon
crom

there are probably more.. these games are just some i wrote down probably six months or so ago when working on the door game server again.

Malakai · Post by **Malakai** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 2:54 pm

I found a shareware program that's suppose to be set to reboot or whatever but haven't tried it out yet. If it works, then the autoexec.bat thing isn't a bad idea.

Malakai · Post by **Malakai** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 7:10 pm

Well, I tried the program out, and it works well, except for the fact that it has a shareware warning which requires you to press a key every time it's started up, and since the software came out in 1988, I really doubt it could be registered any more..

dspain · Post by **dspain** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:51 am

Malakai wrote:doors i've had trouble getting to work for one reason or another:

sherlock holmes
the arkane asylum
seamine
star exploration
beast of the midnite sun
obsidian baboon
crom

there are probably more.. these games are just some i wrote down probably six months or so ago when working on the door game server again.

about 2yrs ago i had a pile of old door games that had some form of compatibility issue of another, i'll tell ya what i did.
post on the old fidonet echoes, alot of these people will gladly send ya the source, or even some sysops that have made workarounds.
some of those titles i clearly remember from a while ago, possibly TC 2.0
or even Qbasic, i know the QB door dev kit from the 4.5 era and some before dont work well without dialup.

dspain · Post by **dspain** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:54 am

Malakai wrote:I found a shareware program that's suppose to be set to reboot or whatever but haven't tried it out yet. If it works, then the autoexec.bat thing isn't a bad idea.

yeah in regards to DOS thats theo nly option i could think of to reboot,
i know desqview or QEMM cannot remember which has a utility called reboot.com, if you run synchronet 2.30c for DOS and set a timed event at 12:00 to execute reboot.com and have all the door maint in autoexec.bat that will work for what you need.

dspain · Post by **dspain** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:56 am

Malakai wrote:Well, I tried the program out, and it works well, except for the fact that it has a shareware warning which requires you to press a key every time it's started up, and since the software came out in 1988, I really doubt it could be registered any more..

yeah i been talking to a guy that wants to start a software vault where when people stop supporting their software, no source needed just send him compiled binaries w/o reg stuff needed to be online for all to D/L, i think that is a terrific idea.

he already has contacted a ton of people and gotten alot of programs from the 80's and 90's mainly small dos games but its a start.

Malakai · Post by **Malakai** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 1:03 am

I've also read that there are some endless loop batchfiles that can be created which basically are told to wait x amount of seconds and then perform a task.

It wouldn't work on just DOS, because you have GHOST running, but it may work with desqview or something - you'd have a window just for doing that though lol.

I remember desqview being a pain to setup when I was running a PCBoard dialup BBS, and I'm wondering if GHOST would work in a multinode enviroment like that. If everything factors in correctly, you could probably run a 4 node GHOST/DOORS server on it.