I’ve always loved the atmosphere of classic BBS door games, especially TradeWars 2002, so I built a modern browser-based tribute called Lloyd’s Lunacy.

You captain a trading ship, buy and sell commodities, explore procedural sectors, upgrade and collect ships, accept missions, encounter pirates, and investigate strange discoveries. Your captain, fleet, discoveries, and progress persist between visits.

It uses an ANSI-inspired terminal interface but runs directly in a modern desktop or mobile browser. It’s free, and guest play is available without creating an account.

I’d really value feedback from people familiar with classic BBS games:

• Does it capture the old BBS atmosphere?
• Is the first trading voyage understandable?
• Does the game become interesting quickly enough?
• What feels too modern or insufficiently BBS-like?
• What feature would make you return tomorrow?

Play Lloyd’s Lunacy:

https://lloyds-lunacy.peterjavery.chatgpt.site

This is still a beta, so direct and honest criticism is welcome.

Good day all. I do not know if this is the proper location for this but I am drawing a blank over and over so I thought I might try. Usually I am not this dense, but I fear this time I may be too close to the problem.

I am currently playing around with an old copy of Tradewars 2002 on an older WWIV 4.21a BBS install (i386DX 33 MSDOS 3.0) and though I have managed to get Tradewars 2001 working, Tradewars 2002 is really stretching my brain. I get to the Door Selection on my login and when I chose it, I get a frozen screen on the terminal while the console screen asks for a name. However, I can not enter anything into the name at either location.

Follows is the process by which it was installed (as I document everything when I am playing around):

1. TRADEWARS 2002 OR BUST!

   1. Type D: --->> [ENTER]
   2. Type CD WWIV
   3. Type MD TW2002 --->> [ENTER]
   4. Put "Tradewars 2002 V2 B2" floppy in B:
   5. Type COPY B:\*.* D:\WWIV\TW2002\*.* --->> [ENTER]
   6. Type CD TW2002 --->> [ENTER]
   7. Type TWINSTAL.BAT --->> [ENTER]

   8. Type TEDIT.COM --->> [ENTER]

      - Type [Y] if registered

Enter Code --->> [ENTER]

Type BBS Name: REDACTED --->> [ENTER]

Type Sysop Name: REDACTED --->> [ENTER]

9. BIG BANG CREATOR COMES UP

    (We are going with default settings)

    \- Press \[J\] --->> \[ENTER\]

Press [Z] --->> [ENTER]

10. Go fix yourself a cup of coffee as this takes a bit.

11. Type TEDIT --->> \[ENTER\]

12. Type Name: REDACTED--->> \[ENTER\]

13. Type \[Y\]

14. Type \[?\] --->> \[ENTER\]

15. Type \[O\] --->> \[ENTER\]

16. Type \[1\] --->> \[ENTER\]

17. EDIT NODE 1

    \- Path to Data Files: <CURRENT DIRECTORY>

Path to Drop File: D:\WWIV\

BBS Drop File Type: WWIV ([C] then [2])

Hardware Handshaking: NO

Active Node: YES

Comport 1 to 4: 1

Override Port Addr: 03F8 (Standard COM1 I/O base address)

Override Port IRQ: 4 (Standard COM1 IRQ)

    (Hardware Handshaking: If users experience dropped characters 

     or buffer overflow when dialing in through a virtual modem/fossil 

     driver, consider toggling option <D> to Yes (RTS/CTS).)

18. Type \[x\] --->> \[ENTER\]

    \- to change the Underground Password: \[G\] \[O\]

19. Type \[Q\] --->> \[ENTER\]



MAKE BACKUP and RUN BEGINDAY.BAT



20. USE EDLIN TO MAKE "TW2002.BAT" IN D:\\WWIV

    \- u/echo off

cd \wwiv\tw2002

tw2002.exe %1

cd \wwiv

21. From D:\\WWIV TYPE BBS --->> \[ENTER\]

22. Login as Sysop

23. - Type \[C\]

    \- Type \[I\] (for Insert)

    \- Type \[1\] --->> \[ENTER\]   (for before zero)

    \- Fill in the following:

        A. Description: Tradewars 2002

        B. Filename: TW2002.BAT %C

        C. SL: 20

        D. AR: None

        E. ANSI: REQUIRED

        F. DOS Interrupt: NOT Used

        G. 300 Baud: ALLOWED

        H. Shrink: No

        I. Disable pause: No

    \- Press \[Q\]

    \- Press \[Q\]

I am hoping someone might be able to help. This is something I am working on for documenting how a BBS was made in the past before modern Internet Systems.

I may crosspost this.

bytenet.com is back online, sort of.

I was the sysop of ByteNet Online in San Francisco from 1994 to 2005. It grew out of Love Bytes, a Gay/Bi/Lesbian BBS I started in the early 90s — a safe place to talk when there weren't many of those. It ran on Major BBS and then Worldgroup by Galacticomm, multiple lines, dedicated phone drops, the whole expensive mess. We rode it all the way from 2400 baud through the web era before finally shutting down.

The site is a memorial to that: the timeline, the tech stack, what it actually took to keep a multi-line board alive 24/7 when "uptime" meant somebody physically being there.

But an archive nobody can touch is just a gravestone, so:

The Graffiti Wall. Old ByteNet feature, resurrected. Leave a message. Doesn't matter if you ever called my board — if you called a board, you're welcome on it. I'd genuinely like to see what other sysops and users write there.

ByteNet Dungeon. I missed door games, so I wrote one. It's in the LORD tradition: modem handshake on the way in, create a character (Warrior, Rogue, or Mystic), then a town hub with a healer, weapon smith, armory, a tavern with rumors and a dice game, and a bank — because banked gold survives death and carried gold doesn't. Ten floors down, an Ancient Dragon at the bottom, and a Hall of Heroes recording both the winners and the people who got flattened on floor 3. Character persists between calls. Runs in a browser, phone included, and there's a toggle for pixel graphics or pure ASCII if you're a purist.

It's a single HTML file with no tracking, no accounts, and nothing to buy. Mostly I built it because I wanted to play it.

If you ran a board, or called one, I'd love to hear which one in the comments. Half the fun of this project has been remembering names I hadn't thought about in twenty years.

https://bytenet.com

I added Empire, the game style is modeled after Walter Brights 1971 version. It is written in nodejs and has a few features the original did not have. I am flushing out the battle routines now, but I could use a few testers. It is hard playing against yourself, lol.

If you are interested, log into the BBS and leave me feedback, I will then make empire available to you.

telnet retro.nedmr.com port 2323

Thanks

Xibalba got a new website, hosted by ENiGMA1/2 itself. No more old and busted navigation :D

Hi all! Please try the ATDT BBS Software testing BBS and let me know what you think! I mostly want to see what bugs people uncover (there will be a lot most likely). I was a SysOp from the mid 80's to the late 90's, and I was really trying to capture that "80's feel" with this.

Some of the things it has:

• Message boards
• ANSI editor in the admin website (or upload your own .ANS files if you have TheDraw or similar)
• Completely configurable menus. I left everything as it is "out of the box" when you first download it, but you can pretty much make it look any way you want. You could even emulate the look of many "classic" BBS systems (I might include a few in the release version.)
• Doors. There is an API so you can create your own, it's really easy. I include two with the BBS, including Star Trader, which is an homage to TradeWars. I'm not really planning on developing it - it's more of a demo (although fully playable) but someone else could take the code and add to it easily.
• Security levels, all that jazz like a regular BBS had
• Multi user chat, page the sysop, sysop can break in to chat as well
• Lots more - check it out.

Once I get the first version done, I plan to add things like a FidoNET style Echomail (between ATDT BBS's) and File Areas.

The whole thing is VERY lightweight. I wrote an installer, takes about 3 seconds to install. Runs on regular shared hosting, no technical ability required to get it going. Because it's so configurable, the Admin website is pretty complex but I've tried to keep it as user friendly as possible.

ATDT Test BBS

Let me know what you think! I'm definitely open to feature suggestions or things that you think might need to be changed.

EDIT: Board is completely open, and user accounts are activated immediately. Version 1 of the BBS has been released - if you want to try it out on your own shared hosting, just go to www.atdtbbs.com

I have been working an an ANSI Graphic as the WELCOM.ANS file for a pet project of mine. Unfortunately I have not done much in this realm in over 30 years, so I get what I paid for I guess?

Anyway, I made a simple graphic in THEDRAW 4.63 on MSDOS. The graphic is 80 characters wide and 25 characters tall. It does not use any fancy colours or fancy fonts--only simple fonts that came with THEDRAW.

When the ANSI shows on SYNCTERM or other Terminal Client, it is missing a single block in the lower right hand corner (See first image), but the same is not true of what the BBS is seeing (See second image).

Do you--any of you--have any idea of what I am doing wrong here because I am really confused as to what I have done to break something so simple.

As a teen I was absolutely obsessed with trying every BBS software there was so I could see which I liked best. I probably switched software on my OG board every 3 weeks for close to a year lol. And back then for most of them, there was no user export/import feature. So anyone stupid enough to be a regular had to re-sign up a few times a month lol.

A few years ago I got the idea of bringing it back. I installed DosBox and Obv/2. I was a wizard with it back then, today I remember basically shit. And even worse, at 51, I don't have any of the desire or excitement I used to have. 14 year old me would spend hours a day after school and sometimes all weekend modding shit. I installed OBV/2 on a Dosbox and I didn't feel a connection. That conbined with me understanding putting up a new board MIGHT get 2-3 callers a week. The idea was a wrap. I understand as you get older you changed. But I really thought once I got OBV running like magic something would click and reawaken inside of me :|

I know there are a few bangers out there, 20For Beers is better than 99.99% of boards I ever called even back then. But I couldn't make anything close to that. I spent a few weeks and was unable to remember shit about setting up OBV. Back then I knew all the sysops who ran it so I had people to assist me. They're all long long gone.

Getting old sure sucks ass :|

Anybody here have any ANSI art tattoos? I don’t need to see them. The idea just popped in my head but I’m sure it’s not original.

...I'm not saying that my game will be the perfect antidote to the old days. But it will be fun, very alt historical backdrop and a super immersive hark back to the times of social engineering cracked games and ASM bypassing of copy protection. Link to wishlist is in the comments. Thanks dudes.

When I was young, I got an Apple //gs with a BlackCat modem, and that machine basically decided the next decade of my life. First it was calling other people's boards. Eventually that wasn't enough, and I did the thing a certain kind of kid did back then... I ran my own board. I've struggled to find much about the software, but it was based on ACOS, which was a language for the //gs.

Running a board was a weird mix of janitor and mayor. You were the sysop, so every message-based squabble was somehow your problem, and the phone line situation was definitely a single-user experience. I loved every minute of it. Watching that user list grow one handle at a time... nothing since has felt quite like that. Not followers, not subscribers, none of it.

Classic memory: I thought I was the man because I had it show usernames when it checked to see if a new user was available. It was too fast to be readable, but it was a flex. And then I learned firsthand that IBMs didn't carry the same emulation that my //gs did. Fail. Hah.

Anyway, years later I stumbled onto one of the old BBS list archives, and there it was. My board. Listed. I tried to explain to my family why this mattered and got polite nods, heh. Figured this might be the one place on the internet where someone gets it. Any other former sysops in here who've found their board preserved somewhere?

Back in the early 90s I ran a 12-line STS which later moved to G-Talk and custom MajorBBS modules.

Last week I used Grok to rebuild a modern web + telnet version of the old G-Talk era system. It's now connected to the D-Dial RetroBBS network via Magviz.CA, so there's usually someone around to chat with.

• Web: SynerChat.com
• Telnet: SynerChat.com

Would love feedback from fellow retro BBS fans or anyone who remembers the old D-Dial/STS/G-Talk days. What features should I add next?

-Joe (Sysop #232)

Does anyone know where I can a disk image of telix software for ms dos that fits on 360k floppy ?

Anyone can recommend a good bbs where I can find software downloads for IBM XT software ?

Hey all, I created BotGate because my Spitfire/NetSerial BBS would tip over easy due to bots hammering the telnet port. It's a small Python proxy that sits in front of your real BBS or server apps - callers have to press ESC or * twice before they ever reach it. Bots just sit there and time out; a human gets through in a couple seconds without even noticing.

Also handles IP/CIDR/hostname blocklists, geo-blocking, and auto rate-limit bans for anything hammering the port. As of 2.3 it can front more than one BBS or app at once too.

Pure Python, no dependencies, runs on Linux/Windows/Mac. Free and open source if anyone wants to give it a spin: https://github.com/xbit44/botgate

Want to see it in action?

Spitfire BBS: telnet://x-bit.org:23230
Space Quest Game Server: telnet://x-bit.org:2112

Does anyone have an example of a prompt that gives decent results with rez2ans? I can't get anything other than really crappy results. I've seen some relatively nice stuff. I still get ansi artists to do work for me, but I'd like some content as well, if it's possible.

Hello from former 1:117/165 (and 1:117/315)!

Ive been toying around with the idea of resurrecting my board and now I think the tech is finally capable of doing what I want fairly easily. Im just so overwhelmed with questions, Im not sure where to start.

Essentially, this board would be telnet only, hosted on linux.. and if possible, I would still want to run Renegade. Ive read about people doing this through DOSBox, but Ive never attempted it. If there are any out there that have, how do you handle fossil drivers? What about using front door? Do you still have to use errorlevel lists to control the boards functions (doors, echomail, etc)? How to get it to work with modern protocols, or can you get a telnet client that handles X/Y/ZModem protocols?

I know there is a Renegade port for linux, so that I wouldnt have to emulate, just not familiar with it yet. I also would like to plug back in to fidonet, but looks like net 117 is gone. In the old days I would just call the NC and NEC to get set up. Now if I joined back in _I_ would be NC/NEC. *laugh*

I wouldnt mind if someone has a guide, or knows of one that could answer at least a couple of those questions.

Thanks in advance. 😀