Tornado II (T2) (Updated 25th November 2002)

Tornado II is progressing slowly at the moment. Sometimes a test version can be found here (shelob.lyzard.net port 2000). Colour should be supported by any ANSI colour supporting Telnet client - let me know of any problems. I am currently working on the accounts system, which will run as a seperate process. The idea is to (ultimately) allow a choice of back end databases, and also to distribute the accounts data, allowing multiple Tornado II servers to co-operate.

25th November 2002

A simple accounts database is now running, so you should be able to create an account and login.

13th March 2002

Work has started on a new front end replacement (why? Hey I just like the front end based methodology). The plan is to provided a socket-based telnet compatible interface using ncurses. This will allow colour support and eventually other extra niceties. Work is slow as I want to re-design from the ground up to support some of the features Tornado couldn't provide.

Tornado (Updated 13th March 2002)

Tornado is currently up and running (you'll have to ask or subscribe to the group for details to prevent overload of the system it's on!). There are a number of bugs that means it dies occasionally, so be prepared for the occasional crash. Prodigy is currently the only host running on it (until Paladine completes the rewrite of SLIP), and there are a few (extra) bugs in that to do with memory management, but it mostly works.

Tornado is the working name for my front-end processor that was originally designed to multiplex a series of modems and hosts, as well as providing accounting and chat facilities. Due to the rise of the Internet, and the general demise of directly-dialled bulletin boards and other systems, I am currently working on a re-write of Tornado using Internet sockets - this would use a dedicated client program running it's own protocols to connect to and communicate with Tornado. If it ever gets finished there will be clients for Windows as well as for Linux.

The facilities provided by Tornado are fairly sophisticated, with a general chat-system, as well as private chat 'rooms', host management and various accounting and user management functions.

The first test version of Tornado is now working, and is about 90% functional. It supports a very simple client, but not hosts yet, and many of the commands work as expected.