Working on a split-screen chat based on nostalgic BBS days
reddit / bbs

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bemmu · 2019-01-09 09:47

Hi all,

I ran a BBS in the 90s and made a lot of great friends that way. The
deepest friendships were thanks to the realtime split-screen chat
feature (part of BBBS software). During the holidays I visited two of
my best friends; I wouldn't know either of them if it hadn't been for
the chats.

That launched me into a bit of nostalgia, and I spent the first week
of this year recreating that chat feature as accurately as I could.
Here's an early screenshot of what it looks like:
https://i.imgur.com/0hQg0sp.png

Planned features:

* Use from web browser
* Character-by-character realtime updates
* Chat with random person
* Host and join a chat
* Talk with ELIZA to try it out without talking to a real person
* DOS font rendered to canvas to be almost pixel-by-pixel accurate to
how the original chat looked like

I'm not quite ready to release it yet, but I thought I'd just ask what
you think.

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Halseeker · 2019-01-09 22:48

Looks cool... Can't wait till it launched in s demo

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-CatX- · 2019-01-10 06:17

Will this be compatible with Mystic BBS?

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bemmu · 2019-01-10 06:31

This will just be a little standalone website.

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bemmu · 2019-01-10 06:31

Thanks. Most things work, still have to add the random chat and set up
the server.

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mysticbbs · 2019-02-22 10:03

Mystic has user to user real time split screen chat as part of the BBS
;)

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-CatX- · 2019-02-27 20:25

Oh well, that's neat! I only knew about the fullscreen version.. How
would I activate split screen chat?

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mysticbbs · 2019-03-03 16:24

Are you running the latest version A43?  If you so it should open up
automatically just make sure you have userchat.ans and userchat.ini in
your text directory.