BBS Emulators? reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tropicalstream · 2017-02-20 20:52 Any BBS emulators with sound, etc that can log into actual BBS' or at least telnet servers? thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jibberkit · 2017-02-20 21:15 There are a few good bbs programmes Lemon for android is rather good ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nolageek · 2017-02-20 21:46 For PC, Mac, and Linux the standard is SyncTerm. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- athen66 · 2017-02-20 22:53 On mac i prefer syncterm... on pc the best is netrunner from mysticbbs.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ILikeBumblebees · 2017-02-20 22:53 SyncTerm is also available for Windows. Qodem is another solution as well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- G_Porgie · 2017-02-21 14:30 I haven't done so in a while, but one I like for Windows is Zoc. I've used others that have worked well, too (SyncTerm is pretty good). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mro_1337 · 2017-02-26 23:20 not the standard. there's several comparable clients ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ThisIsALousyUsername · 2017-02-28 14:42 After trying several Android terminal apps which were intended specifically for BBSes, I finally just started using JuiceSSH. It supports Telnet & works quite well. Note that to CONNECT to a BBS, you're not needing an emulator, or anything but a Telnet client (preferably with the ability to load custom fonts, so you can enjoy all that color ANSI/ASCII goodness). If you want to RUN a BBS on Android, you're S.O.L. I've looked extensively, & such a thing does not (yet) exist. You can build a very BASIC (pun) BBS yourself, but it won't run any of the old Door games or any other DOS apps. DOS emulation on Android is still sadly neglected; there are many apps which are designed to emulate DOS for gaming purposes, but exactly zero of them support the networking & memory requirements of vintage BBS software. If you're really determined to run your own DOS-based software on Android, I recommend trying either Magic DOSbox, or compiling QEMU from source. Just connecting to a Telnet capable BBS is trivially easy though. There are even websites which let you do it right from a browser. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mro_1337 · 2017-03-08 04:45 there's going to be a decent android telnet client in the app store soon. it's being worked on by someone that produces results. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nolageek · 2017-03-08 21:45 Good news! I look forward to it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mro_1337 · 2017-03-12 18:07 he put it on the appstore yesterday and works great. best for a tablet or android tv due to the keyboard taking up a lot of room. he will probably announce it soon ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheStarkFist · 2017-03-12 19:35 There's a version of fTelnet on the app store that works quite well with the few art heavy systems I log in to. Edit: Android. Unsure of iOS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nolageek · 2017-03-13 15:37 awesome. will check it out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mro_1337 · 2017-03-18 03:13 Yep that's what i said ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheStarkFist · 2017-03-18 04:47 Odd. Reviewing the posts, I didn't see you mention that. You tried to be all mysterious and not give a name. But hey, good on ya. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mro_1337 · 2017-03-20 03:22 I didn't have approval from the author to announce it. it wasnt about being mysterious. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheStarkFist · 2017-03-20 06:43 Ah, ok. So you actually *didn't* mention it. Got it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mro_1337 · 2017-03-21 00:46 yeah i did, just not by name. and most people knew what i was talking about it. glad you got it, bro. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iheartbaconsalt · 2017-03-25 06:52 wow Zoc terminal brings back memories. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ThisIsALousyUsername · 2017-05-09 08:29 There are already a number of very good Telnet capable clients available on Android. I personally use JuiceSSH; For old-school ASCII/ANSI art you will want your client set up with old school fonts & cursor placement support. I want to *RUN* a Telnet *server* on Android, not connect to one as a client. The low data usage is perfect for mobile connections & since phones are always connected, they're ideal servers, aside from the speed, so it's an ideal match! Problem is there are *no* apps to run an old school BBS on Android. *Zero.* Not even with DOSbox or QEmu; Not supported. Plenty of Telnet *clients*, no BBS server apps whatsoever. C'mon guys, I want to run my own LORD & TW2002 games! This should be simple by now: Literally every other major OS can do it, & the horsepower required is minimal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mro_1337 · 2017-05-15 05:20 i disagree about the very good telnet clients for android comment. there's very few capable ones. anyways, a phone on a mobile connection is not a good platform for a server (for many reasons) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nolageek · 2017-05-15 18:23 I agree on both your points, /u/mro1337. I also have yet to find a good telnet client on android that handles ansi graphics well.. Something always seems to fall apart. And /u/ThisIsALousyUsername, I'm curious why would you want to run a TW2002 or LORD game on your phone? Your IP address, not to mention signal strength is likely constantly changing when moving from location to location, from wifi to wifi, etc... no one would be able to call your phone to play a game reliably. If you just wanted to play on your phone, then call a board from it. Both of those games are built around multiple players.. call a board that has a BBSlink or Doorparty game being played and it'll be much fun. :) But, there is always the reason that you just want to do it just to do it, which is perfectly valid. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ThisIsALousyUsername · 2017-06-02 05:46 While there are certainly very few that display ASCII/ANSI text in all the (non-standard) ways used by BBSs back in the day, there *are* nonetheless a great many very capable & reliable telnet clients for Android. In fact most SSH client I've used support Telnet connections. Now, if you want ALL the special characters, such as half-blocks & flashing text to be displayed as intended, then yes, you're looking at a very few clients which support the custom encoding used by various BBS servers. You can hardly blame the client for that though: Those old BBS systems didn't stick to ANSI or Unicode standards for their extended character support. JuiceSSH is *very* good, as Telnet/SSH clients go, & you can customize it to display those extended character sets. If you're looking for just standard text support, geez, there's no shortage at all. RE: Server on mobile... Obviously a mobile connection is not *ideal* for a server, but it's far from insufficient. In fact, it's a much better option than using a laptop, which is a surprisingly common practice these days, considering most people don't leave their laptop on 24/7. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ThisIsALousyUsername · 2017-06-02 06:09 /u/nolageek "Just want to do it just to do it" is not far off: There's no technical reason Android *couldn't* do it, & literally every other major OS already has such apps available as compiled packages. Two observations about why mobile is practical for running a Telnet server: 1) IP changes are a non-issue. Dynamic IP forwarding is free & convenient; Even easier to set up on Android than it is on Windows or Mac, in fact. Most people's home connections are on dynamic IPs anyway. There's really no new downside there. 2) Phones have more up-time than the average PC. Most people don't use desktop computers anymore except as workstations. Operating a Telnet server from your work machine is obviously not a great idea. The other big use of desktop systems is for 3D gaming, & generally speaking, gamers don't like to leave *anything* running in the background when they're playing 3D games online; Even the incredibly low bandwidth & resource usage of a Telnet server is likely to get killed when gamers start looking for ways to speed up an aging gaming PC. Laptops usually aren't left on 24/7 (even desktop gaming PCs tend to be left powered off more than phones), & the big advantage of laptops is their portability: Portability which nonetheless leaves them switched off in a bag much of the time. So... BBS games were the very first multiplayer PC game I ever played, & I really want to be able to run my old games again. I really enjoyed the experience of running a BBS, & I miss the customization you could do on those old games. Unfortunately, porting each title (plus each separately published add- on) to a new OS is not practical for licensing reasons. That leaves emulation of the DOS environment, which is now very well supported for playing classic *graphical* games on Android, but there's not a single emulator supporting Telnet servers & Door games. Ideal or not, it's technically possible, & in fact far more practical than many other things Android is being used for (hello, touchscreen gaming controls?). It's just bizarre to me that all this emulation support exists, yet nobody has applied it to running a classic BBS on mobile. Bottom line: Phones are now (by far) the most common always-on device. It's not that mobile connections are so great that they offer a superior platform for running a Telnet server, it's that literally every other major system already has such capability (even Android is only one emulation hook away from working) & it's just stupid to *not* have that capability on a modern OS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mro_1337 · 2017-06-02 21:15 every system i knew of stuck to ansi standards juicessh is very good for ssh. most android telnet clients can not display cp437 and ansi colors and positioning codes correctly. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nolageek · 2017-06-05 20:46 Well, I would suspect if you're running a BBS or other server, you're going to leave the laptop on - it's not like someone knowledgable enough to be running said server doesn't realize it doesn't do any good to NOT leaving it up and running. That being said, I ran my BBS from a laptop for the whole second year it was running - I'm not sure why this seems so unlikely? My phone battery dies far more than my cheap $60 craigslist BBS PC gets restarted. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ThisIsALousyUsername · 2017-06-06 04:31 The issues with cursor positioning & color codes are precisely because the old systems did *not* stick strictly to ANSI standards. (Many of them actually implemented the codes before a strict standard was even finalized. The non-standard usage stuck, until those systems were no longer in common use. Thus the actual official "standard" was not really very standard at the time.) The lack of 100% consistency in the application of codes for flashing text & cursor positioning are the reason most modern clients don't display such codes the way they were implemented at the time. That's why modern SSH/Telnet apps often have "compatibility" settings for those things. Sadly, JuiceSSH does not have easy settings for that, but it does work if you add an appropriate font & adjust the settings file manually. I use it to play TW2002 & LORD2, both of which get very messed up visually if you don't make sure to do these adjustments. I haven't been impressed with any other Telnet or SSH/Telnet client apps on Android. I am not 100% pleased with JuiceSSH either, only because the free version doesn't have proper scripting, but once modified to support the non-standard ANSI implementation which was most common back in the day, it does work well & look very good, even for BBS games featuring ANSI "movies". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ThisIsALousyUsername · 2017-06-06 04:56 The issues with cursor placement & colored text are precisely because old BBS systems were *not* adhering strictly to ANSI standards. In many cases the finalization lagged well behind implementation, so by the time ANSI actually specified exactly how those codes should be handled, a *non-standard* implementation was already the de-facto "standard". That's why many modern clients offer "compatibility" settings beyond just specifying "ANSI": The *official* standard is *not* the implementation which was in widest use during the heyday of BBS server apps. Unfortunately JuiceSSH does *not* have convenient settings for the implementation used by WWIV, Mystic, Renegade, et cetera. You can add a proper font & adjust the settings file manually, but that's not exactly convenient for most users. If you *do* make these mods, JuiceSSH actually looks very good, even in games like TW2002 & LORD2, which may rely heavily upon cursor placement protocols. It's definitely a pain in the neck. Not impossible to deal with, but I was appalled at the *terrible* quality of most Telnet & SSH/Telnet clients available on Android. But no, BBSs generally did *not* adhere to the official ANSI protocol. You can actually look up some articles on the subject, if you're not incredibly bored just thinking about it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ThisIsALousyUsername · 2017-06-06 05:08 But an *app* is going to be used by a *lot* of people besides you or I, & the most common always-on devices these days are definitely cell- phones. And yeah, a laptop that sits in one place all day is definitely a better server host than any mobile device, but then it's not with you at all times, which kind of defeats half the awesomeness of running those old systems for your friends. Sure you could log in remotely, but then your admin stuff is open to remote access (*bad* when running 30yr old software!) & my point is this: Mobile devices are technically *capable* of doing it, & they're the only major OS that *doesn't* have this capability supported yet by at least *one* app. I'm not saying mobile devices are ideal for *serious* server work, but for hosting old games for your friends? Seems kinda absurd that not one single app exists to make this work, considering the amount of work that still goes into supporting it on other platforms which are far far *far* less commonly left on. There are more smartphones than humans. I personally use my phone for just about everything, including VMs & classic DOS, Windows, Mac, C64, NES & Atari games. Why not running a BBS? There are a lot more reasons it should work than reasons it doesn't. The only reason I've heard so far is "why?" I say "Why not?" Basically, the only reason is that nobody has cared enough to support it yet, & given the massive proliferation of mobile devices, I believe limiting BBS servers to only running on PCs is pretty arbitrary. It makes more sense than expecting every SysOp to run a PC 24/7 for something that is purely nostalgia at this point. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ThisIsALousyUsername · 2017-06-06 06:30 And are you really telling me that you ran an old retro BBS for over a year, that it's **not** running now, and you carry a cell-phone that you apparently use enough to kill its battery on a regular basis, but you don't think there are more potential SysOps with cell phones already turned on than with an extra PC to leave on? I'm just saying: As a former SysOp & current PC user, I already *have* a phone that's connected to the internet all day. I have... 5 PCs that I use for various things & *none* of them are on & connected to the internet *all the time*. Cell phone may have an outage of a few hours on some days & when it breaks I'm guaranteed to get another? That's more up- time than ~~any~~ BBS I've ever heard of. (~Except maybe DOCSPLACE or WasteLand?~) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nolageek · 2017-06-06 14:46 well, it's still running - after a year on a free Amazon VM and a year on an old laptop, I bought a used PC to run the board in full time. I just doubt running a vbs in a phone is practical. You're going to be going in and out of service all the time, disconnecting people, causing issues with message networks, etc.. cellular internet connectivity isn't that reliable. It'd be cool as a project, but it's not something I'd run full time. That's just me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nolageek · 2017-06-06 15:16 > It makes more sense than expecting every SysOp to run a PC 24/7 for something that is purely nostalgia at this point. Tell that the hundreds of sysops that do just that. It *really* isn't that big of a deal, I have no idea why that sounds so crazy to you? :) IMHO A cell phone is a terrible idea for a reliable board - how are you going to edit config files? How are you going to edit ansi art? What happens when you go into a building and lose service while someone is playing a game or you have network packets being transferred? It reminds me of when I first put up a board in '93 without a dedicated phone line and asked people to not call at night when my mom was home. Running a BBS requires a dedicated machine to do it right. Even a $30 raspberry pi does the job perfectly. Edit: edited to make more sense. lol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sluts_McGee · 2017-07-03 12:46 Xterm.