Thanks for a great read and well done getting this back online! I'm at work ATM so no BBS for me, but will check it out when I get home.

Ah the pleasure and pain of the BBS days! I had a friend who's brother ran a reasonably successful BBS so was lucky in that he upped the permissions on my account to get access to all of the good stuff, but more often than not it was just easier to walk to his house with a stack of floppies and grab it the old fashioned way. Connection limits, people picking up the phone, and the never-fast-enought dial up modem were an excersise in frustration.

I see you are using mTCP Telnet ...

I get an occasional report on incompatibilities with some Telnet servers, especially BBSes. I've got a few fixes in but if there are more problems out there I'd like to nail them down.

Have you noticed any weirdness when using mTCP Telnet? Any screen rendering problems?

mbbrutman wrote:

I see you are using mTCP Telnet ...

I get an occasional report on incompatibilities with some Telnet servers, especially BBSes. I've got a few fixes in but if there are more problems out there I'd like to nail them down.

Have you noticed any weirdness when using mTCP Telnet? Any screen rendering problems?

Well I'm not really using mTCP Telnet (although I'm abusing the FTP part of it, a big thank you!) since I can run the BBS locally to do any maintenance/testing, which is always better of course.
But I've tried it a couple of times just to experience full screen ANSIs under pure DOS again and I can tell you it was more than satisfying.

I'd position the BBS somewhere in the upper part of ANSI complexity and control codes density. Apart from static stuff it also uses a number of utilities that implement "animation", cursor-controlled menus with bars, door games... mTCP manages 99% of it, for comparison Windows telnet displays correctly a generous 10%.

As an example of the (very) few visual glitches I've noticed so far, the following is the "checking for new messages" ANSI which runs after login. It's one fancy ANSI, "animated" with a progress bar "checking" and progress is "updated" after every step. (try to ignore the stretched/deformed windows CMD prompt screenshot)

I've only noticed a few similar visual glitches, nothing compromising functionality until now. Static screens are all rendered perfectly

But hey, what am I writing here? You're the expert, why don't you pay a visit to Old Time's Sake BBS and see for yourself? We'll be honored to host your account! 🤣

Nice one. I caught the tail-end of the BBS era in the mid 90s and ran a tiny board for a short while. This brings back a lot of memories.

nice one! thanks for sharing this!

Also only messed round on BBS's for a year or 2.
Firstly with a hand me down 2400 bps Netcomm Automodem 1234 (and still have)

Then for a litte bit longer after we got a 33.6 modem and the internet but don't think I lasted that longafter that point.

I always used the Communications package in Works 3.0

I'm not even sure how I found out to use that or any other software, remember no internet to look up how to do this stuff!
Even with the ASCI art there was something nice and clean about the interfaces.

Liked how the downloads link to era correct games, know I got a few shareware titles back then, took a weeks but was worth it

Tried this, but kept getting Unable to connect to konchoulias.no-ip.org:1123 message.

hehehe thanks guys and please do enjoy your ANSIs 😉 To be honest I was expecting a lot more hype on this (don't get me wrong, I mean on the BBS thing, not mine in particular!) but apparently its a controversial topic. Some have fond memories of the BBS scene, others don't even know what they were.

@chinny22: wow, that's the first time I see this! Trust me, it wasn't common. Most of us were using pure DOS terminals 🤣 The 2400bps should have been good enough only for the first ASCII UIs. When complex ANSIs became the standard I guess it just became unusable (not even talking about downloading the first shareware doom!)

@ Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman: Sorry dude, I have no clue what's going on. Unless your IP starts with 60.165... If so, by having a quick look at the log and the time you posted your message, you're blacklisted in Spamhaus' DNSBLs for some reason. If this is not your IP just forget everything and stick to " I have no clue". Sorry again!

(Deleted, not relevant anymore 😜 )

Just for the record, what you're showing is the now freeware Biomenace, exactly as it is available for download from the official site, which still contains the original file_id.diz. But yeah, this was the case in most boards. A certain way to get calls and users 🤣
And because I can't pm you I'll write this here: I don't think it was very wise to make this public, even though this specific file is perfectly OK. I just threw a couple of files in there, just for something to exist. Now you'll make me go through all of those to see if they can be shared on not. I'd appreciate if you could edit your post, remove the photo and reword it a bit, just so that we don't have any references to piracy (even false ones) here.

Edit: Just saw you did it, thanks dude 😉 Better safe than sorry! No worries, the file was OK anyway but maybe others are not

(Deleted, no longer relevant anymore 😜)

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

Yes, I know BioMenace is freeware now. I was just having a good chuckle about seeing something like that after so many years. So […]
Show full quote

Yes, I know BioMenace is freeware now. I was just having a good chuckle about seeing something like that after so many years. Sorry to cause any trouble about it 🙁

And since you're apparently upset with me now, I'll stay away. No use trying to excuse my indiscretion here.

Once again, I'm really sorry.

(Goes back to his cave).

Hey, relax! No harm done and of course we're totally good 😎 What you described was indeed very common back then and nowadays brings back those exciting memories. But that's the point with this BBS going online again, isn't it? 😉