Starstream BBS

StarStream BBS

613-546-6403
Zoom 8n1 V.34/V.FC 28.8kbps

Page last updated: 2000 January 19th

Overview

StarStream is a Bulletin Board System open to the General Public in Kingston Ontario Canada. It is a 1 line system based on a PC compatible computer system (486dx4-100 under OS/2 v3.0). No fees are charged for access. New Users can browse through over 700 Mbytes of message areas, have immediate access to download over 3 Gb Mbytes of online files, and 4 CD's (all online all the time) of OS/2 and DOS shareware programs, and a CDROM of Graphic files.

It opened to the public in May of 1992.
Starstream will close at the end of February 2000

This is a FREE system. This means you can access it without paying any money. Donations to cover operating costs are welcome however.

The BBS is split into 2 main areas (Messages and Files).
Other choices from the main menu are: a library of information, including some technical references, a bulletin area containing the Kingston Area BBS list, and stats about the BBS usage, a couple of online "door" games, and a few others.

Specialty Areas of Interest:

Daily satellite images and animations of eastern Canada from both US and Canadian sources, including Environment Canada weather forecast (both text and graphics) for the Kingston, Ontario Area. A 1 year archive of satellite photos is also online. In addition, check out the local temperature with the online sensors.

TREK Collectables This is one of the largest collections of Star Trek related material (files, graphics, sound clips, games, etc) in the area. Many excellent references can be found for the Trekker looking for information. If you are looking for more info on the Internet, check out these Web Pages: Star Trek Voyager Paramount Studios, Vidiots Home Page a Star Trek Fan with a great collection Mr. List of Lists (Mark Holtz) Home Page STARFLEET (International) Web Page Star Trek Fan Club

RASC Support BBS Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Kingston Centre. General information (who the Centre is, What it does, How to Join, etc), about space and astronomy can also be found here.

File areas:

Files are the single most important reason for the existance of a BBS. The file menu is available to all callers by selecting "F" from the MAIN MENU. There is currently one 4 Gb hard drive dedicated to File archives, along with five CDROM drives containing the OS/2 Hobbes and Simtel DOS archives.
Most files on Starstream are compressed (archived) using a program called PKZIP v2.04g. You *must* have a copy of pkunzip.exe in order to decompress (unarchive) the files which you download. PKZIP is available in a self-extracting form on the BBS.
Click here to get a partial list of the file areas that are available on the BBS. Starstream currently has over 3000 Mb of non-CD online files (with emphasis on OS/2, Graphics, Games, LANs, SF) and the Hobbes CD of OS/2 Archives. We also receive files through several file distribution systems.

Message areas:

The main purpose of most BBS's. At last count there were over 300 message groups tipping the scales at over 700 Mb of data online. Over 5 Mb of new messages come in every day, from Fidonet, Usenet, OS2/Net and other independent sources. As a new user, you can read most the messages, but not write privileges, until you have become familiar enough with the workings of the BBS and of the "Netiquette" involved with each particular message group that you want to post/ write in. From the MAIN MENU, select "M" to access the message areas, and then "A" to get a list of all the areas.
Many people spend their online time reading and replying to messages, but others prefer to use an OFFLINE reader. This option, available from the main menu, allows callers to select (tag) any of the message areas, package them and then download them. The caller can then read the messages without worrying about using up all of her/his online time. There are a number of offline message readers available but the most popular is called OFFLINE by Kingston author Harvey Parisien - recommended. A smarter (with many more options) offline reader is the Bluewave package. It allows you to better customize a message filter to receive only those that you want. It is not compatible with a standard QWK offline reader program (such as OFFLINE) and will require you to download the Bluewave reader (also available online).

* Callers who have a specific need to access private e-mail can usually receive such access by first leaving a message to the SysOp. E-mail differs from regular echomail in that it is more private (although *not* absolutely private). StarStream can send/receive e-mail to/from both FidoNet and InterNet and, of course, there is no charge for this service. There are, however, some restrictions - please contact the SysOp for more information.

Online Door Games:

This is your opportunity to play a game against the computer or a human. Many people spend their online time playing some of the door games. The games consist of trivia (both Star Trek and general knowledge), Scrabble, and others. Some of the games require ANSI capability so you may not be able to access some of the games if your video card (and monitor) does not support ANSI. Instructions for each game are available when you access the specific game. Some of the DOS doors have trouble interfacing with a BBS run under OS/2, so the current choice is quite limited until more OS/2 doors can be found and put up.

(Note that some links may disappear without notice)
Some other interesting pages on the web (Astronomy/Space related): The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Home Page Calgary RASC Homepage RASC, Edmonton Centre's Home Page North York Astronomical Association QUARG Group Page CASCA 96 Anouncement WeatherNet Canadian Weather ROSAT Image of Comet Hyakutake Juhani Kyyrs Home Page World The Gemini 8m Telescopes Project CNES: CLEMENTINE Data Server What's New at STSCI Wind/Geotail Magnetic Cloud Event Astronomical Society of the Atlantic Home Page Jet Propulsion Lab NASA Hubble Institute (STSCI) Students for the Exploration and Development of Space WebStars: Astrophysics, Astronomical Society of the Pacific ShoemakerLevy9 Astronomy Magazine Sky & Telescope Magazine Global Land Information System Lunar and Planetary Institute LPI Home Page JPL Mars Pathfinder (External) NASA Shuttle-Mir Web NASA Shuttle Web: STS-76 Planetary Photojournal: NASA's Image Access Home Page Voyager Project Home Page NASA Ames Research Center: Galileo Probe Project Galileo (JPL) Today@NASA NASA Headquarters APOLLO 13 SEDS Internet Party House Space Calendar (JPL) Declassified Satellite Photographs National Space Society

TV and Movies:
Universal cHANnEL IMDb: Claudia Christian WWW Page Intergalactinet - Claudia Christian Shrine Welcome to Babylon 5 Babylon 5 LogBook Homepage of Babylon5 X Files Terminal Now Accessed

News junkie?:
CNN (News) with updates at least a couple of times a day, CBC Headline News CP HEADLINES c|net online - Computer News

OS/2 references:
Team OS/2, a group of people helping to promote the OS/2 operating system, IBM and Lotus software download library OS/2 "Must-Have" Utilities and FTP Links Intergate Web Page Kris Kwilas' Unfinished Home Page IBM OS/2 Warp TeleSeminar 2 The Berkeley OS/2 Users' Group Home Page David Singer's page of pointers at the IBM Almaden Research Center TeamOS/2 Online Device Driver Repository EMEA OS/2 Device Driver Repository

Novell References:
Novell Netware, NetWare Client 32 for DOS and Windows 3.1x Home Page NUINet Homepage Novell NetWare FAQ - Index Pegasus Mail by David Harris Novell Labs, HBA/Drivers w/ NetWare 4.10 Novell World Wide: Corporate Homepage Cyber Pass Inc. - Computer Based Training for Novell Master CNE, CNE, CNA and CNI exams Welcome to OnTime! Index of /share/novell/ Freeware Novell Netware NLMs shareware.com Most Popular - Novell-Netware Novell Education: Course Catalog, Certification Programs Emulex Home Page NetWare Patches and Updates FAQ - Unofficial McAfee Home Page McAfee Corp Anti-Virus utils.

Interested in Kingston Ontario? Check out the city!

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