A deep-dive into graphical front-end clients for BBS door games reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kirkman14 · 2020-09-09 19:12 Hey guys, today I published a 5-part series looking at graphical front-end clients for BBS door games. * [A different way to play, part 1: Front- ends](https://breakintochat.com/blog/2020/09/09/a-different-way-to- play-front-ends/) * [A different way to play, part 2: Pit Terminal](https://breakintochat.com/blog/2020/09/09/a-different-way- to-play-part-2-pit-terminal/) * [A different way to play, part 3: OOIITERM](https://breakintochat.com/blog/2020/09/09/a-different-way- to-play-part-3-ooiiterm/) * [A different way to play, part 4: GTERM](https://breakintochat.com/blog/2020/09/09/a-different-way-to- play-part-4-gterm/) * [A different way to play, part 5: TWTerm](https://breakintochat.com/blog/2020/09/09/a-different-way-to- play-part-5-twterm/) I hope you get a kick out of it. I will also soon be publishing an in- depth look at the game "Thieves' Guild" for the Atari ST, which had a pretty cool graphical front-end, plus an interview AND the source code! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2020-09-09 20:08 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- beholdthepineapple · 2020-09-09 20:09 Amazing! I never knew there so many of them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kirkman14 · 2020-09-09 20:52 There are certainly even more, but these were some of the best-known. It is tricky to get these terminals to work with modern-day telnet BBSes, which made the research take longer than I thought. This series has been gestating for a number of years. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- beholdthepineapple · 2020-09-09 20:59 Your research reminded me of TeleGraphic's RIPscript. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kirkman14 · 2020-09-09 23:07 RIP is still in use today. Hawk Hubbard runs Black Flag BBS which is dedicated to RIP with tricked out menus and games. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nevarro · 2020-09-10 02:09 Thanks for writing these! I spent a while trying to get PitTerm to work and eventually gave up on it. I think independent clients for door games are a really neat idea! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kirkman14 · 2020-09-10 03:37 Yes, Pit Terminal is tough to get working over telnet. I had my best success using a physical Lantronix device ... I think the serial emulation in DOSEMU's virtual modem code needs some improvement. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ebookit · 2020-09-10 05:57 NoChange BBS had the nowisee.exe terminal for graphics for their own BBS that worked on DOS PCS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mps · 2020-09-10 15:43 I had no idea front ends outside of ANSI existed. Thanks for this write up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kirkman14 · 2020-09-10 16:56 So glad to hear it was helpful! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 13_0_0_0_0 · 2020-09-10 19:35 Wow, great articles! I grew up with BBSs from their infancy, and like the other commentor, was only aware of RIP as an ASCII/ANSI alternative. Recently I was thinking of creating an 8-bit 2D modem based MMO (actually a 2D WoW). I shelved the idea, but I might have to revisit it after seeing these. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kirkman14 · 2020-09-10 22:13 A _lot_ of folks tried to develop different protocols to enable graphics/sound on BBSes. Besides RIP there was: Excalibur; Tel-FX; RBO100; Instant Graphics and Sound; Blue Instant Graphics; and CONDOR, just to name a few! RIP was the most successful of them, but even it had too many obstacles to achieve broad enough adoption. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tele-arena · 2020-09-16 16:04 Yes, thanks for keeping memories alive. It was a trip to see PitTerm again. :)