Hi there

For those of you old enough to remember the dial-up BBS days I just wanted to post an update on my hobby BBS that's been back up and running since 2014. You can find out more by visiting the website at bbs.nz

Access to Agency BBS is easy using the Internet by using clients like Netrunner or SyncTerm - just point your client to agency.bbs.nz

A new development in recent days is that the BBS can once again be reached via dial-up :)

This is due to a fun project by a Reddit user (ramsaso) who has configured a Patton DialFire Remote Access Server to be a modem pool for a number of BBS around the world.

You can read about the project on this Reddit page and also check out the other systems you can connect to.

With this project there are a pool of (mostly USA based numbers) you can call to access the BBS and in recent days a New Zealand number (09 887 6960) has been added.

If you do opt to hook up your dial up modem to a phone line and call this local number upon connect you are met with a username / password prompt.

To access Agency BBS (here in Dunedin, New Zealand) you need to enter agencyNZ as both the username and password. The system will then hand you off to the BBS.

Be warned there is a bit of lag. Connecting via TCP/IP using Netrunner etc. is much faster.

To test things out I've set up an old laptop with an inbuilt modem and dialed the AK number then logged in.

It was fun to test this out. Here's an image of my connection via dial-up again.

Any questions about this set up or indeed the BBS etc. feel free to ask.

Best, Paul