RemoteAccess
Encyclopedia
RemoteAccess is a DOS
Bulletin Board System
(BBS) software package written by Andrew Milner and was published by his company Wantree Development in Australia. RemoteAccess was written in Turbo Pascal
with some Assembly Language
routines. RemoteAccess (commonly called RA) began in 1989 as a clone of QuickBBS
by Adam Hudson. RemoteAccess was released under the shareware
concept in 1990 and became popular in North America, Europe, UK, South Africa, and the South Pacific. Initially the main advantage over QuickBBS was its ability to run multiple nodes under Microsoft Windows
, Quarterdeck
's DESQview
and OS/2
. RA could also operate over a network or even a combination of network and multitasking operating systems to provide multiple "nodes per station" capabilities.
RA's features quickly grew to become considerably more advanced than the QuickBBS software it was cloned after. A number of other QuickBBS clones appeared shortly afterwards including ProBoard, SuperBBS and EzyCom, though they never gained as much support or popularity. RA was the first BBS software to support the popular JAM Message Base Format
, which was partly conceived by RA's author, Andrew Milner. RA was also the first shareware BBS software to support a FDB (file database), rather than using files.bbs text files to describe files in each directory. RA interfaced with message relaying systems such as FidoNet
through 3rd party utilities such as FrontDoor
(Joaquim Homrighausen) and FastEcho
(Tobias Burchhardt), which were developed by people that eventually became members of the RA beta team.
With over 1500 titles, there were more third party utilities written for RA than for any other shareware BBS software. While RA was initially shareware, Andrew also released a commercial edition - "RemoteAccess Professional" - that was bundled with utilities to allow remote control of nodes over a network (RANETMGR, and RATSR).
Andrew Milner released his final version of RA (2.50) in May 1996. By that time, many System Operators
switched over from running Bulletin Boards to becoming Internet Service Providers. Milner was one such System Operator, and after version 2.50 he stopped development. In April 1997, Milner put the rights and source code up for sale to the highest bidder and it was sold in December 1997 to Bruce Morse in the USA. Morse released some minor updates including a Y2K fix, but did not add any new features to the code. Morse's final version (2.62) was released in August 2000. Bruce Morse continues to own the code today and RA is still available as shareware, as well as a commercial version known as RemoteAccess-Professional.
RemoteAccess was never ported to a 32-bit version, but there were two clones of RA in the later years which did include 32-bit versions: EleBBS in the late 1990s which included DOS
, Windows, OS/2 and Linux
flavors, and MBSE, a few years later, which focused mainly on the Linux operating system.
There were numerous conversations about creating Windows and OS/2 32-bit versions of RA around 1995. Joel Ricketts of Interscape Development, who was the lead programmer, answered questions in the RA echomail forum about the potential development of RA for Windows during this time. However, due to RA being put up for sale, as well as lack of funding, the project was scrapped in 1996.
Around the same time, Niels Schoot from the Netherlands began writing a Visual Basic version of RA called tcRA32, which was to be fully RA compatible. The project was never finished, and within a couple of years, it was abandoned.
While RemoteAccess never included internal telnet support, it can be run as a telnet BBS by using a telnet-FOSSIL
driver such as NetFoss
, or a Virtual COM port engine such as NetSerial under Windows, or using SIO/VMODEM under OS/2.
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
Bulletin Board System
Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
(BBS) software package written by Andrew Milner and was published by his company Wantree Development in Australia. RemoteAccess was written in Turbo Pascal
Turbo Pascal
Turbo Pascal is a software development system that includes a compiler and an integrated development environment for the Pascal programming language running on CP/M, CP/M-86, and DOS, developed by Borland under Philippe Kahn's leadership...
with some Assembly Language
Assembly language
An assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...
routines. RemoteAccess (commonly called RA) began in 1989 as a clone of QuickBBS
QuickBBS
QuickBBS was a bulletin board system application first introduced for MS-DOS by Adam Hudson.-External links:** at The BBS Archive...
by Adam Hudson. RemoteAccess was released under the shareware
Shareware
The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...
concept in 1990 and became popular in North America, Europe, UK, South Africa, and the South Pacific. Initially the main advantage over QuickBBS was its ability to run multiple nodes under Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Quarterdeck
Quarterdeck Office Systems
Quarterdeck Office Systems, later Quarterdeck Corporation , was an American computer software company. It was founded by Therese Myers and Gary Pope in 1981and incorporated in 1982...
's DESQview
DESQview
DESQview was a text mode multitasking program developed by Quarterdeck Office Systems which enjoyed modest popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s...
and OS/2
OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
. RA could also operate over a network or even a combination of network and multitasking operating systems to provide multiple "nodes per station" capabilities.
RA's features quickly grew to become considerably more advanced than the QuickBBS software it was cloned after. A number of other QuickBBS clones appeared shortly afterwards including ProBoard, SuperBBS and EzyCom, though they never gained as much support or popularity. RA was the first BBS software to support the popular JAM Message Base Format
JAM Message Base Format
The JAM Message Base Format was one of the most popular file formats of message bases on DOS-based BBSes in the 1990s. JAM stands for "Joaquim-Andrew-Mats" after the original authors of the API, Joaquim Homrighausen, Andrew Milner, Mats Birch, and Mats Wallin. Joaquim was the author of FrontDoor,...
, which was partly conceived by RA's author, Andrew Milner. RA was also the first shareware BBS software to support a FDB (file database), rather than using files.bbs text files to describe files in each directory. RA interfaced with message relaying systems such as FidoNet
FidoNet
FidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems. It was most popular in the early to mid 1990s, prior to the introduction of easy and affordable access to the Internet...
through 3rd party utilities such as FrontDoor
FrontDoor
FrontDoor was one of the most popular mailers in the FidoNet-compatible networks in the 1990s acting as the physical representation of the written network node connection and mail handling standards. It was a DOS-based shareware written by Joaquim Homrighausen...
(Joaquim Homrighausen) and FastEcho
FastEcho
FastEcho is a message processing package for FTN mail systems. It was written and released as shareware by Tobias Burchhardt in 1991. The latest available version is 1.46.1 which was released in 1997. FastEcho was one of the fastest FTN mail processing packages available for FTN style messages...
(Tobias Burchhardt), which were developed by people that eventually became members of the RA beta team.
With over 1500 titles, there were more third party utilities written for RA than for any other shareware BBS software. While RA was initially shareware, Andrew also released a commercial edition - "RemoteAccess Professional" - that was bundled with utilities to allow remote control of nodes over a network (RANETMGR, and RATSR).
Andrew Milner released his final version of RA (2.50) in May 1996. By that time, many System Operators
SysOp
A sysop is an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system or an online service virtual community. It may also be used to refer to administrators of other Internet-based network services....
switched over from running Bulletin Boards to becoming Internet Service Providers. Milner was one such System Operator, and after version 2.50 he stopped development. In April 1997, Milner put the rights and source code up for sale to the highest bidder and it was sold in December 1997 to Bruce Morse in the USA. Morse released some minor updates including a Y2K fix, but did not add any new features to the code. Morse's final version (2.62) was released in August 2000. Bruce Morse continues to own the code today and RA is still available as shareware, as well as a commercial version known as RemoteAccess-Professional.
RemoteAccess was never ported to a 32-bit version, but there were two clones of RA in the later years which did include 32-bit versions: EleBBS in the late 1990s which included DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
, Windows, OS/2 and Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
flavors, and MBSE, a few years later, which focused mainly on the Linux operating system.
There were numerous conversations about creating Windows and OS/2 32-bit versions of RA around 1995. Joel Ricketts of Interscape Development, who was the lead programmer, answered questions in the RA echomail forum about the potential development of RA for Windows during this time. However, due to RA being put up for sale, as well as lack of funding, the project was scrapped in 1996.
Around the same time, Niels Schoot from the Netherlands began writing a Visual Basic version of RA called tcRA32, which was to be fully RA compatible. The project was never finished, and within a couple of years, it was abandoned.
While RemoteAccess never included internal telnet support, it can be run as a telnet BBS by using a telnet-FOSSIL
FOSSIL
FOSSIL is a standard protocol for allowing serial communication for telecommunications programs under the DOS operating system. FOSSIL is an acronym for Fido Opus SEAdog Standard Interface Layer. Fido refers to FidoBBS, Opus refers to Opus-CBCS BBS, and SEAdog refers to a Fidonet compatible mailer...
driver such as NetFoss
NetFoss
NetFoss is a popular Network FOSSIL driver for Windows.A FOSSIL is a serial communications layer to allow DOS based software to talk to modems without dealing with hardware I/O and interrupts....
, or a Virtual COM port engine such as NetSerial under Windows, or using SIO/VMODEM under OS/2.
External links
- Wantree's 1996 Official RemoteAccess Homepage Archived by the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- Bruce Morse's RA-Pro Site - Download The final version 2.62.2 or view the Documentation
- PC Micro's RemoteAccess Archives (Former RA beta site, North American RemoteAccess support Site)
- PC Micro's RemoteAccess Support Site Includes links to many RA utilities
- Waldos's Place USA RemoteAccess Archives (RA beta site, North American RemoteAccess Support Site)
- The BBS Documentary RemoteAccess Archives
- The official JAM Messagebase specifications
- The BBS Archives containing over 2000 RemoteAccess third party utilities.
- 16 RA Underground RAForce Group Releases Archived by RAForce, NL.
- The EleBBS Homepage An almost exact 32-bit clone of RemoteAccess BBS.