NetRunner? SyncTERM? Something else? What is your preferred software for connect ing to BBSs, and why? I will usually be connecting from a 64-bin Linux system.

I like Syncterm followed by Netrunner. However, its of note that Netrunner supports iCE colors... might be worth stating, for some users. Since coming back to BBSes in the recent past, Syncterm has just been so supported,
upgraded and available that its my top pick.

Netrunner feels more 'cool' and more 'mystic'... but once you get Syncterm compiled correctly, it works pretty great. Altho in my different linux builds I've had issues with it only loading in curses mode (No SDL) and selecting
text doesn't always copy - and almost never pastes easily. :P

Other than those two small issues (copying does work sometimes - its an environment issue that I haven't figured out the cause of yet...) it is rock solid.



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NetRunner will force a 4:3 ratio with letterbox, and you can select what kind of filtering you want (I personally prefer either upscaled cp437 at nearest pixel, or non-upscaled with ansiotropic).

So if I'm running a non full-screen window or need feature support, syncterm is my choice, but if I want an accurate fullscreen experience then I use netrunner. Both are solid.

Those are great suggestions and observations - I will jump into NR and give your rules a go. Thanks...



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(believe it or don't) PETSCII in 40 and 80 column modes!

Great point... I use this feature, by calling ImageBBS boards and they almost like... HAVE to be viewed in 40col. They are an awesome experience if you didn't use them back in the day, too. (Or, if you DID. Lol.)

anything and everything you need. Do yourself a favor and google
"install syncterm linux" and one of those results will provide you with
a very nice script for installing SyncTerm on a Linux system. You won't be sorry.

I like Paradroyd's install instructions if you have any ubuntu flavor, or raspberry pi... Just remember to
sudo apt install build-essential libncurses-dev libncursesw5-dev
and follow Paradroyd's install @ blog.paradroyd.com/post/138091989521/compiling-syncterm-on-raspbianubuntumint



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we use kubuntu over here... that means we're using the KDE interface...
we simpl y open a konsole and telnet or ssh to the BBS as desired... zmodem works for upl oads and downloads... ANSI is processed... some characters might not display as desired due to code page differences but so far, i've not seen pr oblems that are really bad... plus, if the BBS supports it, some UTF-8 is suppor ted which is nice as we move away from the old-school CP437 thinking...

Wait, really? I use kubuntu on almost all my linux boxes.. I'll try it in the konsole, but I didn't know that... my Mystic (and many others) are heavily ANSi'd out - I didn't think ANY terminal could handle the heavy stuff.



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paulie420 wrote to Weatherman <=-

(believe it or don't) PETSCII in 40 and 80 column modes!

Great point... I use this feature, by calling ImageBBS boards and they almost like... HAVE to be viewed in 40col. They are an awesome
experience if you didn't use them back in the day, too. (Or, if you
DID. Lol.)

My roots lie with the VIC-20, the C64 and the C128D. As a matter of fact, I've been playing with the concept of adding a C64 BBS to the mix, but have run into some really miserable issues. Mainly my problem is that I don't have any way of moving files from my Linux box to the C128. Anything I can download FOR the C64/C128 is in a .d64 format which I have no problem downloading to my PC, but once it's there I have no way to move it to the Commodore stuff. One would suggest "just make a network connection and transfer it that way." Yeah, that doesn't work well at all. Seems that while I have a WiModem device, which allows my Commodore computer to utilize telnet BBSes. None of the file transfer protocols that the PC and the Commodore have in common (and I'm specifically talking about XModem and Ymodem) seem to want to work worth a shit. It's been a real headache, I'm telling you.

I like Paradroyd's install instructions if you have any ubuntu flavor,
or raspberry pi... Just remember to
sudo apt install build-essential libncurses-dev libncursesw5-dev
and follow Paradroyd's install @

Anyway, I figured I'd post the script for installing SyncTerm. Here's the one I use and it seems to work on just about any decent distro of Linux... This is strictly for Linux and right now I can't remember who wrote it, but they did a hell of a good job on it...

#!/bin/bash

# To Install apps/libraries used to compile
echo "Preparing to install relevant libraries..."
sudo apt-get install wget libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev gcc libsdl1.2-dev

# To Pull source
echo "About to download the syncterm application source..."
wget http://syncterm.bbsdev.net/syncterm-src.tgz

# To extract tgz file
echo "Extracting the source now..."
tar xvzf syncterm-src.tgz

# Change directory to
echo "Change into the 'make' folder"
cd syncterm-$(date +%Y%m%d)/src/syncterm

# To get full path src
echo "Set st_path variable for the SRC_ROOT path..."
st_path=$(pwd | sed 's/\/syncterm$//g')

# Time to compile!
echo "Make SRC_ROOT with path: $st_path"
sudo make SRC_ROOT=$st_path

# Install SyncTerm
echo "Install SyncTERM..."
sudo make install

# Find out where Syncterm was installed
echo "Find out where SyncTERM installed"
which syncterm



... Internal Error: The system has been taken over by sheep at line 19960
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
■ Synchronet ■ The Lost Chord BBS - Cheyenne, WY

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: paulie420 to Papa on Tue Aug 18 2020 10:18 am

I like Syncterm followed by Netrunner. However, its of note that Netrunner supports iCE colors... might be worth stating, for some users.

SyncTERM supports bright-background (iCE colors) too. The BBS has to send the right escape sequence to enable them in the terminal, but they work.


digital man

Synchronet/BBS Terminology Definition #76:
Sysop = System Operator
Norco, CA WX: 77.4°F, 65.0% humidity, 0 mph SSW wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs

---
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: paulie420 to Rampage on Tue Aug 18 2020 10:30:00

we use kubuntu over here... that means we're using the KDE
interface... we simply open a konsole and telnet or ssh to the BBS
as desired... zmodem works for uploads and downloads... ANSI is processed... some characters might not display as desired due to
code page differences but so far, i've not seen problems that are
really bad... plus, if the BBS supports it, some UTF-8 is supported
which is nice as we move away from the old-school CP437 thinking...

paulie420> Wait, really?

yup... my konsole is a 227x70 window and that's how i view my BBS... though much of the system is still coded to 79/80 columns, i read and write posts with few minor niggles... i'm shooting for a system that autoadjusts some
things depending on the screen width (especially) and the height... eg: having more information displayed in the message header while keeping it to 4 lines... no clue how long it'll take to get there, though... the unwrapping
of text tables and charts is the worst part... unwrapping posts to fill 227 columns is really nice... being able to detect and retain textual table/chart formatting with hard right columns while unwrapping general text is
tough, though...

paulie420> I use kubuntu on almost all my linux boxes.. I'll try it in
paulie420> the konsole, but I didn't know that... my Mystic (and many
paulie420> others) are heavily ANSi'd out - I didn't think ANY terminal
paulie420> could handle the heavy stuff.

any ANSI compliant terminal should work just fine...


)\/(ark

---
■ Synchronet ■ The SouthEast Star Mail HUB - SESTAR

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: Weatherman to paulie420 on Wed Aug 19 2020 01:50 am

run into some really miserable issues. Mainly my problem is that I don't have any way of moving files from my Linux box to the C128. Anything I can download FOR the C64/C128 is in a .d64 format which I have no problem downloading to my PC, but once it's there I have no way to move it to the Commodore stuff. One would suggest "just make a network connection and

Man, I don't even remember how I used to do this, but when the .D64 format first came out there was a converter back to commodore disk zip image. Then you could unzip it and write it to floppy. There is 100% a way to do this though.

---TLM

---
■ Synchronet ■ Nite Eyes BBS - To make people happy about my tagline everywhere...

The Lizard Master wrote to Weatherman <=-

run into some really miserable issues. Mainly my problem is that I don't have any way of moving files from my Linux box to the C128. Anything I can download FOR the C64/C128 is in a .d64 format which I have no problem downloading to my PC, but once it's there I have no way to move it to the Commodore stuff. One would suggest "just make a network connection and

Man, I don't even remember how I used to do this, but when the .D64 format first came out there was a converter back to commodore disk zip image. Then you could unzip it and write it to floppy. There is 100%
a way to do this though.

Sure would be interested in knowing how that could be done.. I'll have to see if there's a way of using dd in Linux to write a Commie compatable 3 1/2" disk.



... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
■ Synchronet ■ The Lost Chord BBS - Cheyenne, WY

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: Weatherman to The Lizard Master on Wed Aug 19 2020 04:16 pm

Man, I don't even remember how I used to do this, but when the .D64 format first came out there was a converter back to commodore disk zip image. Then you could unzip it and write it to floppy. There is 100% a way to do this though.

Sure would be interested in knowing how that could be done.. I'll have to see if there's a way of using dd in Linux to write a Commie compatable 3 1/2" disk.

There has to be something like this for linux right? From what I remember I had a dos command back in the day that would change and .d64 into the four ! commodore zip files. Then you could transfer those to disk, unzip them, and boom you have whatever you wanted. That included copy protected back ups.

---TLM

---
■ Synchronet ■ Nite Eyes BBS - To make people happy about my tagline everywhere...

The Lizard Master wrote to Weatherman <=-

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: Weatherman to The Lizard Master on Wed Aug 19 2020 04:16 pm

Man, I don't even remember how I used to do this, but when the .D64 format first came out there was a converter back to commodore disk zip image. Then you could unzip it and write it to floppy. There is 100% a way to do this though.

Sure would be interested in knowing how that could be done.. I'll have to see if there's a way of using dd in Linux to write a Commie compatable 3 1/2" disk.

There has to be something like this for linux right? From what I remember I had a dos command back in the day that would change and .d64 into the four ! commodore zip files. Then you could transfer those to disk, unzip them, and boom you have whatever you wanted. That included copy protected back ups.

I've seen you can do it, but you need the Commodore 64 disk drive connected to the PC to do it. PC floppy drives if I recall correctly, aren't able to read the specific track/sector layout and format that the 1541 drive laid out.


... Direct from the Ministry of Silly Walks
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
■ Synchronet ■ End Of The Line BBS - endofthelinebbs.com

well friendo, you just missed the best one. mtelnet

Telemate!
[fLEE.tHE.pLANET.bBS][916.pRI.vATE]

I always loved Terminate 5.0 at the end of my BBSing days back then...



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Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: The Lizard Master to Weatherman on Thu Aug 20 2020 07:49 am

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: Weatherman to The Lizard Master on Wed Aug 19 2020 04:16 pm

Man, I don't even remember how I used to do this, but when the .D64 format first came out there was a converter back to commodore disk image. Then you could unzip it and write it to floppy. There is 1 a way to do this though.

Sure would be interested in knowing how that could be done.. I'll have t see if there's a way of using dd in Linux to write a Commie compatable 3 1/2" disk.

There has to be something like this for linux right? From what I remember I you wanted. That included copy protected back ups.

---TLM

IIRC Commodore uses a different track for whatever it calls their fat table,
so formatting a CBM floppy on a PC may not be possible.

---
■ Synchronet ■ The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: paulie420 to Fang-Castro on Thu Aug 20 2020 04:13 pm

Telemate!

I always loved Terminate 5.0 at the end of my BBSing days back then...

you can still use it... i have 4.21 working

[fLEE.tHE.pLANET.bBS][916.pRI.vATE]

---
■ Synchronet ■ flee the planet bbs

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: Dennisk to The Lizard Master on Fri Aug 21 2020 08:42 am

I've seen you can do it, but you need the Commodore 64 disk drive connected to the PC to do it. PC floppy drives if I recall correctly, aren't able to read the specific track/sector layout and format that the 1541 drive laid out.

I actually have that, it's a zoom floppy (there are several). That's how I backed up my entire catalog. But, if you get the .D64 to Commodore Zip format (the one with the !'s) you can transfer it to your commodore via modem and unzip it. That's what I used to do when the internet was first a thing.

---TLM

---
■ Synchronet ■ Nite Eyes BBS - To make people happy about my tagline everywhere...

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: Moondog to The Lizard Master on Thu Aug 20 2020 09:35 pm

Man, I don't even remember how I used to do this, but when the .D64 format first came out there was a converter back to commodore disk image. Then you could unzip it and write it to floppy. There is 1 a way to do this though.

Sure would be interested in knowing how that could be done.. I'll have t see if there's a way of using dd in Linux to write a Commie compatable 3 1/2" disk.

There has to be something like this for linux right? From what I remember I you wanted. That included copy protected back ups.

---TLM

IIRC Commodore uses a different track for whatever it calls their fat table, so formatting a CBM floppy on a PC may not be possible.

You still format it as a CMB Floppy. There are other ways, but I would open up NovaTerm, connect my 1200 baud modem by direct phone line, hit ATA one one ATDT on the other (or something like that), start an upload using Ymodem on the PC, start a download on the C64.

This is something I did a bunch of times, it might not have happened exactly like that I'm going back a number of years. But you can absolutely turn a D64 into the Commodore Zip format, transfer it over, and run it native.

---TLM

---
■ Synchronet ■ Nite Eyes BBS - To make people happy about my tagline everywhere...

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: paulie420 to Fang-Castro on Thu Aug 20 2020 04:13 pm

I always loved Terminate 5.0 at the end of my BBSing days back then...

Terminate was always my go-to terminal.

DaiTengu

... When in doubt, predict that the trend will continue.

---
■ Synchronet ■ War Ensemble BBS - The sport is war, total war - warensemble.com

The Lizard Master wrote to Moondog <=-

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: Moondog to The Lizard Master on Thu Aug 20 2020 09:35 pm

Man, I don't even remember how I used to do this, but when the .D64 format first came out there was a converter back to commodore disk image. Then you could unzip it and write it to floppy. There is 1 a way to do this though.

Sure would be interested in knowing how that could be done.. I'll have t see if there's a way of using dd in Linux to write a Commie compatable 3 1/2" disk.

There has to be something like this for linux right? From what I remember I you wanted. That included copy protected back ups.

---TLM

IIRC Commodore uses a different track for whatever it calls their fat table, so formatting a CBM floppy on a PC may not be possible.

You still format it as a CMB Floppy. There are other ways, but I would open up NovaTerm, connect my 1200 baud modem by direct phone line, hit ATA one one ATDT on the other (or something like that), start an upload using Ymodem on the PC, start a download on the C64.

This is something I did a bunch of times, it might not have happened exactly like that I'm going back a number of years. But you can absolutely turn a D64 into the Commodore Zip format, transfer it over, and run it native.

---TLM

Perhaps you can if you can get the track/sector layout right. I read somewhere you couldn't, but I may be mistaken.

Speaking of which, I have a Commodore 1540 Disk Drive and a C64. Just need the cable to connect the drive to the C64. If I can do that, and get disks formatted on the PC, then I have a way to transfer games from the PC to the C64.

... "42? 7 and a half million years and all you can come up with is 42?!"
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
■ Synchronet ■ End Of The Line BBS - endofthelinebbs.com

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: Dennisk to The Lizard Master on Mon Aug 24 2020 10:00 pm

Speaking of which, I have a Commodore 1540 Disk Drive and a C64. Just need cable to connect the drive to the C64. If I can do that, and get disks formatted on the PC, then I have a way to transfer games from the PC to the C64.

While it's cool you have an original floppy drive, there are SD card adapters available that simulate a floppy. Imagine how many 160k floppy images can
fit on a 2gb sd card?

---
■ Synchronet ■ The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net

Re: Re: BBS client of choice
By: Dennisk to The Lizard Master on Mon Aug 24 2020 10:00 pm

Perhaps you can if you can get the track/sector layout right. I read somewhere you couldn't, but I may be mistaken.

Speaking of which, I have a Commodore 1540 Disk Drive and a C64. Just need the cable to connect the drive to the C64. If I can do that, and get disks formatted on the PC, then I have a way to transfer games from the PC to the C64.

No, it's way simpler than that. It's simply transferring files. If you have a modem for the commodore you can take a phone line and connect it directly to your machine and use NovaTerm or something to transfer the commodore zip format. The track/sector has no bearing.

---TLM

---
■ Synchronet ■ Nite Eyes BBS - To make people happy about my tagline everywhere...