Networks II is an

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

-based single-tasking

BBS BBS may refer to: Ammunition * BBs, BB gun metal bullets * BBs, airsoft gun plastic pellets Computing and gaming * Bulletin board system, a computer server users dial into via dial-up or telnet; precursor to the Internet * BIOS Boot Specificat ...

package, written by Nick Naimo. It is one of the earlier BBS software programs to be written for the Apple II, which was at the time dominated by mini and mainframe-based BBS', including

CBBS CBBS ("Computerized Bulletin Board System") was a computer program created by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess to allow them and other computer hobbyists to exchange information between each other. Jason Scott: , 2005, Episode 1 In Janua ...

. The exact year of its birth is undocumented, but BBSs running Networks II were seen as early as 1981. Written entirely in

Applesoft BASIC Applesoft BASIC is a dialect of Microsoft BASIC, developed by Marc McDonald and Ric Weiland, supplied with the Apple II series of computers. It supersedes Integer BASIC and is the BASIC in ROM in all Apple II series computers after the original ...

and

6502 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...

assembly language, earlier versions of Networks II was compatible with only the Hayes Micromodem II family of modems and compatibles. Later versions were written to take advantage of the Novation Apple-CAT II and the Hayes Smartmodem lines with an Apple Super Serial or compatible card. Throughout its lifespan, Networks II runs only under DOS 3.x. It also supports up to four

Disk II The Disk II Floppy Disk Subsystem, often rendered as Disk ] '', is a -inch floppy disk drive designed by Apple Computer, Inc. It went on sale in June 1978 at a retail price of US$495 for pre-order; it was later sold for $595 () including the Di ...

or compatible disk drives.

Original features

The original, un-hacked features of Networks II include: * Text-based, teletype-like display. * Individual user name and passwords. * Message board, called ''forums''. The original code can handle only one forum. * Support for the Apple_II_system_clocks#Thunderclock_Plus_.E2.80.93_Thunderware_Incorporated, Thunderware ThunderClock and compatible cards. * Chat mode between the

sysop A sysop (; an abbreviation of system operator) is an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system (BBS) or an online service virtual community.Jansen, E. & James,V. (2002). NetLingo: the Internet dictionary. Netl ...

and user. * Administrative tools. Must take the BBS down in order to run any administrative tasks. * ASCII-based Applesoft and

Integer BASIC Integer BASIC is a BASIC interpreter written by Steve Wozniak for the Apple I and Apple II computers. Originally available on cassette for the Apple I in 1976, then included in ROM on the Apple II from its release in 1977, it was the first version ...

, and binary file downloading. Program source code need to be converted to ASCII before it can be downloadable. The download system only worked if the user dialed-in from BASIC using the Hayes MMII's CTRL key sequences. Once downloading is invoked, Networks II sends the user's Apple II into the language of choice (FP, INT, or CALL -151), the ASCII code is uploaded as if entered by keyboard, and then a SAVE or

BSAVE BSAVE and BLOAD are commands in many varieties of the BASIC programming language. BSAVE copies RAM to a binary file, and BLOAD copies the contents of the file to RAM. The term "BSAVE image" could mean any of various raw image formats of video di ...

is sent to save the program to disk.

Hacks

* Hosting of multiple forums. * Threading of forums * Binary searching the user entries (instead of sequential database access) * Loading pointers into memory instead of the slow sequential text file methodology * Support for extended and lower case characters. * Interactive games and surveys. * Switching from Networks II to ASCII Express Professional without disconnecting the user. This allowed Networks II to indirectly support XMODEM,

Ward Christensen Ward Christensen (born 1945 in West Bend, Wisconsin, United States) is the co-founder of the CBBS bulletin board, the first bulletin board system (BBS) ever brought online. Christensen, along with partner Randy Suess, members of the Chicago Area ...

protocol,

ZMODEM ZMODEM is an inline file transfer protocol developed by Chuck Forsberg in 1986, in a project funded by Telenet in order to improve file transfers on their X.25 network. In addition to dramatically improved performance compared to older protocols, ...

, and other advanced file transfer protocols. The only problem with this hack is that ASCII Express Pro cannot re-connect to Networks II. * Support for more than two disk drives, i.e. support for multiple volumes when used with a hard disk drive. * Support for ProDOS 8.

Original features

Hacks

See also