ATARI MUTINEERBBS

Documentation

Atari Mutineer Sysops Guide

Reference material for Atari Mutineer BBS sysops, door authors, and runtime maintainers.

Atari Mutineer Sysops Guide

This guide covers installing, initializing, and operating an Atari Mutineer BBS from an already-downloaded ATR disk image.

For file formats and current emulator settings, also see Data And File Formats, Altirra 850 Modem, and Troubleshooting.

Install The ATR

Start with the Atari Mutineer ATR file you downloaded, for example:

atari-mutineer-v<VERSION>.atr

Keep a clean copy of the downloaded ATR before first boot. The BBS writes live user, message, file, and caller data to its disk, so your working copy becomes your live board image.

Altirra

  1. Open Altirra.
  2. Mount the Atari Mutineer ATR as drive D1:.
  3. Boot the Atari with the disk mounted.
  4. Let the auto-start sequence run.

If you are using a manual-start ATR, boot with the ATR mounted as D1: and start it from SDX with:

BASIC /I <<D1:STARUP

Real Hardware

On real Atari hardware, use RespeQt, AspeQt, or another SIO disk utility to mount the ATR as D1: or copy the ATR contents onto a physical floppy, hard disk, or other Atari-compatible storage device.

For a direct SIO mount:

  1. Attach your SIO2PC/SIO2USB interface.
  2. Open RespeQt, AspeQt, or your preferred SIO utility.
  3. Assign the Atari Mutineer ATR to drive D1:.
  4. Boot the Atari from D1:.

For a physical floppy or hard-disk installation:

  1. Use an Atari disk-copy utility or host-side ATR utility that can copy files from the ATR to the target disk.
  2. Preserve the ATR's root files and directory structure.
  3. Make sure the target boots the same DOS environment as the ATR.
  4. Boot the Atari from the target as D1:.

Do not copy only the BASIC programs. The BBS also needs its DOS startup files, MMS handler, configuration, menus, user database, message base, file base, and door catalog files.

Boot Flow

The auto-start ATR uses:

AUTOEXEC.BAT -> RHND850.COM -> MMS.COM -> BASIC /I <<D1:AUTOGO
AUTOGO -> RUN "D1:>CORE>RUNBBS" -> APPMGR -> WFC

WFC waits for a carrier, prompts the caller to login or register, then loads CORE through APPMGR.

The manual-start ATR loads RHND850.COM and MMS.COM only. Start the BBS with the STARUP command file:

BASIC /I <<D1:STARUP

First User

The first registered user is user number 1 and access level 9. Later self-registered users are access level 1.

Registration asks for:

Passwords are masked with * at the remote terminal.

Access Levels And Time

ACL.CFG controls session and daily limits:

# Level, sestime, daytime
0,0,0
1,30,90
2,45,120
3,60,180
4,90,300
5,120,300
6,300,600
7,300,600
8,300,600
9,999,999

Level 0 is banned. Level 9 is the sysop level. WFC uses the RTIME8-compatible clock to apply daily/session limits.

Do not run complete initialization against a live board unless you have a backup. It recreates live board data.

Offline Initialization

Run INIT offline from the Atari console. It can recreate:

Use complete initialization only when you intend to reset the board data.

Message Bases

Message bases use MESG?.MET, MESG?.DAT, and MESG?.IDX.

Caller commands are inside the message module:

Run MSGMGR offline for sysop maintenance:

File Areas

File areas use FILE?.MET, FILE?.DAT, and FILE?.IDX.

Caller commands are inside the file module:

Run FILEMGR offline for sysop maintenance:

Doors

Door catalog rows live in DOORS.CFG:

# #, Door Name, filename, path, level
1, Blackjack, BLKJACK, D3:>DOORS>BLKJACK>, 2
2, Dumjin, DUMJIN, D3:>DOORS>DUMJIN>, 2
3, Arena, ARENA, D3:>DOORS>ARENA>, 2

Door paths point to separately distributed door disks or directories. The main BBS ATR does not need to include every door program. If a caller selects a door whose disk/path is absent, the BBS reports DOOR UNAVAILABLE. and returns to the door menu.

To install a separately distributed door package, mount or copy that door disk to the drive/path expected by DOORS.CFG. For the example above, the Arena door must be available at:

D3:>DOORS>ARENA>

Text Assets

Menus and static pages are included on the ATR. To customize them on a running board, edit the live copies on your working disk image or installed Atari disk, then back up that disk before making more changes.

Build-time text sources live in source/textfiles/ascii/ and source/textfiles/atascii/. Rebuilding an ATR stages those source files over the packaged copies.

Caller Command Surface

Main menu commands in CORE:

Message, file, and door subcommands are documented in Data And File Formats.

Testing A Board

For an emulator-hosted board, connect to the modem/telnet port exposed by your emulator. With a typical Altirra telnet setup, connect from the host with:

telnet 127.0.0.1 6507

Useful checks:

For automated host-side coverage, see Testing And Evidence.

Backups

Before resetting data or replacing an ATR, keep a copy of:

A newly downloaded ATR contains baseline data files. Preserve live board data separately before replacing the deployed image or reinstalling onto new media.