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NULL mag Issue 07 16 Interview with apam
for those who don't know, apam is the developer behind magica bbs and
also titan bbs, magichat, magiterm and even more. you can find them all
in here: https://gitlab.com/magickabbs
so, lets learn about apam... :)
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x how did you choose this nickname? apam? or somebody else chose it for
you?
a I don't remember.. it's just the first letter of my first name and first
three letters of my last name. I started using it when there were multiple
andrews on fsxnet.
x what was your first contact with a bbs? when? how?
a In the late 90s my dad and I bought 2400bps modems (they were obsolete but
we could afford them) and would dial each other through hyperteminal. I
found out about BBSes in school there were 3 or 4 in my area.
x did you were a member of some group? how you got the "bbs virus" and
also decide to make software for it?
a No never a member of any groups, as far as I know there were no local
groups to be a member of.
I started running a bbs shortly after discovering them (on my 2400bps
modem when everyone else had 28.8k modems)
As for writing BBS software, I did want to at the time, but lacked the
skills. I think I dabbled in door writing with Turbo Pascal but never
wrote anything substantial.
x were you always active in bbsing? or in some point you've got off of
it and came back after? do you think that this is the case for many of
us? for sure it is for me :) why do you think this happened?
a Towards the end of the 90s all the BBSes in Toowoomba closed down, I
finished school and moved states.
x is there a mass (relatively) return on bbsing lately? we see new
projects being developed and the traffic in echonets gets bigger.
there is also an emag now days :)
a I think it's the whole retro revival thing, BBSing is just a part of
that.
x you are one of the most active programmers, in bbs stuff, that i know.
you are developing magicka, titan and some door games. what is the
motivation for all these?
a Mostly because it's fun. I've written other BBS systems before Magicka,
as I enjoy the starting from scratch thing and I learn by doing. Each
time I think I'm getting a little bit better at it.
x do you feel tired some times? or that people, doesn't appreciate your
work too much? lately you announced that you stopped developing
magicka.
a I feel tired all the time. I appreciate all the people that use my,
software it's not the best, but it's something. I don't expect people
to appreciate my work, as I know there are other, better programs out
there. So on the contrary, I feel honoured when people do appreciate
my work.
I did announce I've stopped developing Magicka. Mostly because it's
stopped being fun, it's gotten so complex over the years, and
it's mostly become about fixing bugs, and feels a bit like playing
whack-a-mole where I fix one bug and two more pop up in it's place.
x what titan/magicka has to offer, more than another bbs platform? is it
the technology being used, the feeling and style, the support and
compatibility? why someone should prefer them, instead of another
platform?
a Nothing really. I never wrote them to try and do better than say Rob
or James, I just wrote them for fun. I guess the style is a little
different, and Magicka runs on a lot of platforms.
x would you like to have more support on your projects? what kind?
doors? documents? development in the code?
a Haha, all of that would have been nice. I did get some good patches
from Dan Cross, which I really appreciated. It would also be nice if
people wrote doors rather than MPLs all the time (MPL is fine for mods
but full games etc if made as doors everyone could run them) I
recognize that there isn't a wide array of modern door kits though, so
I do understand the desire to write MPL.
x what's your plans, for titan/magicka in the future? in which points
you think that you should concentrate more the development?
a I'm not sure. Magicka probably isn't going anywhere, unless someone
decides to fork and play. Titan, I'm not sure about. I think it's better
than Magicka, because I learned so much about BBS coding with Magicka,
but I think it could be improved. Perhaps I'll start over again :)
x are there any other projects that you are making or want to make in
the future? can you say something about them?
a Not at present. I'd like to make some more doors, but we'll see.
x i see you are using C (+?) for your programming projects. how did you
learned and chose it? what is your programming background?
a My uncle said C was better than Pascal, so I learned it, and it's just
what I am most familiar in nowdays.
I started programming in BASIC at a young age, my Dad and I wrote a text
adventure game in GW-BASIC. I got really into it and taught myself from
there.
x is C+ the future for bbs projects? should new users/programmers
concentrate on easier languages, like python/js etc. or perhaps there
is a loop-hole in there, that perhaps will damage the scene or not?
a I think the more projects the merrier, people will write code in whatever
they are familiar with. I prefer a compiled language like C because it runs
on many platforms, but I think more people writing stuff is more important
As for a loophole, I suspect it is more likely to happen if someone is
unfamiliar with a language like C, rather than using something like python
which they may be more familiar with.
x lately you also did some projects in freebasic. is it a good
prog.language for someone to start and be active in bbsing with it?
a Yes, I'd say so. Though it seems to only work on Linux / Mac and Windows.
x what do you prefer? open or close source projects? do you think that
bbsing in general, can be harmed by close-source projects? should
everyone share their code, just for the good of the scene? we all have
seen software being lost in time, because no one has the code etc.
what do you think?
a I prefer open source projects, because of the reasons you mentioned.
Though I do understand the desire to make money off your work, which might
be the reason for using closed source, I don't think there are any other
reasons closed source makes sense.
x what is your preferred platform for a bbs, linux, windows, mac, rpi?
should we (as a scene) concentrate more on linux, because its open,
free, powerful? does linux offers the necessary backward compatibility
with old bbs software? is this a problem?
a I like more obscure OSes, but from your list I would pick linux, though
I suspect as time goes by backward compatibility will become more and more
difficult to maintain on any platform. At somepoint Microsoft will stop
selling 32-bit Windows, at somepoint dosemu will stop working... etc.
x from your point of view, what is it, that the scene misses today?
quantity of users? quality? being casual and even crazy, like we were
20-30 years back? :)
a I don't know to be honest.
x we all say, that the bbs scene is dying. is that so? is it dying? or
just changing to something else? perhaps better? with more quality?
if you could, what would be one thing that you would like to bring
from the past, that will also give "value" today in bbsing?
a It probably is dying. It will probably die with us. I guess the one thing
to bring from the past would be young people, people who will discover it
for the first time and get hooked :)
x for sure the internet its self has changed, why we stick to criticizing so
bad the less usage of bbses and instead of that, concentrate on things
to make it better or more friendly perhaps to new users? do you think
that this perhaps is a more beneficial approach?
a Sure, It's always better to try and concentrate on positives I think.
x should we use more echonets/bbses, than social media? does social
media offer a "helping hand" to the bbs scene or it's killing her? i
see many groups in facebook, that have more traffic than a whole
echonet. should we "transfer" some traffic from facebook to echonets?
a That's a tough one. I don't think it would be so easy to just transfer the
traffic, as many people may be interested in BBSes but not enough to
actually connect to them. However, when it's the same people on facebook
that are on BBSes you have to wonder. I suspect it's a convienience thing,
you don't always have a telnet / ssh client available.
x in your own words, how would you describe the bbs scene today? what is
it, that you like and what you don't like?
a I'd say fragmented, although I think it's starting to pull together a bit
more. I like chatting with the friends I've made, I don't particularly like
the political posts, as often they are not inline with my own political
views and I'd rather everyone thought like me :P
x where is splat? you started making it, but didn't continue the
project, why?
a I still have issue 2 almost complete, I wanted to see if I could do it,
but decided I had too much going on.
x would you consider droping some coding projects and make projects like
splat? does the scene needs more software/projects or perhaps more
document style projects, like tutors, scripts, emags, help files etc.?
a Perhaps. I'm sure more documents could help. I think more kits and howtos
would be useful, as I am sure there are some that would like to have a crack
at writing a door, or a BBS but need a helping hand.
x what's your preferences? ascii art or ansi art? telnet or ssh? fuel or
blocktronics? fsx, arak, sci, zero:)
a Ansi art, though ascii is nice too. SSH definitly, don't really have a
preference over fuel and blocktronics - they're both very talented. Most
of my activity is in fsxnet :)
x does the scene today has its "underground" - "hardcore" style? or
users, perhaps because of the age, don't like stuff like that any
more? for example do you think that closed-groups/nets have a future
in today's bbs scene? or people/users want everything "free" and open,
to just play with it?
a I don't know. I think most of us have grown out of it, but there are those
who still enjoy it. While I don't think there is a problem with people
having closed-groups/nets, it gets to be a problem when the people involved
restrict themselves to that environment, things get more fragmented.
