I used to love the x84 bbS software written in Python... it could have been so awesome, but not enough f0lks were ready to WRITE CODE...

at any rate, x84 is still cool to l00k at as a bbS software; especially if you want to write code, as opposed to being a scum sucking USER.

However ... this weekend I found that 1984.ws (the original bbS...) is doing some cool crazy shit.

Point yer CLI to; 'telent 1984.ws' and be amazed! MAX HEADROOM - sixel graphics??! What the hell is going on here??

Point yer terminal to;

telnet 1984.ws ; open the screen to fullscreen - and sit back and reminisce. - What is this tom f00lery????

just open yer terminal, type 'telnet 1984.ws' and have a bit of throwback fun..



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Re: 1984.ws
By: paulie420 to All on Sat May 27 2023 10:09 pm

Point yer CLI to; 'telent 1984.ws' and be amazed! MAX HEADROOM - sixel graphics??! What the hell is going on here??

Point yer terminal to;

telnet 1984.ws ; open the screen to fullscreen - and sit back and reminisce. - What is this tom f00lery????

Looks like high-color ANSI (not Sixel) to me.
--
digital man (rob)

Sling Blade quote #2:
Karl (re: killing Doyle): I hit him two good whacks in the head with it.
Norco, CA WX: 62.0°F, 79.0% humidity, 0 mph SSE wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs

telnet 1984.ws ; open the screen to fullscreen - and sit back and remin - What is this tom f00lery????

Looks like high-color ANSI (not Sixel) to me.

I agree - I believe he's doing tricks w/ 24bit color UTF-8... he's the dev of x/84 (defunct) bbs software and I used to love this little module:

----- plasma.py, part of blessed library -----
#!/usr/bin/env python
# std imports
import sys
import math
import time
import timeit
import colorsys
import contextlib

# local
import blessed


def scale_255(val): return int(round(val * 255))


def rgb_at_xy(term, x, y, t):
h, w = term.height, term.width
hue = 4.0 + (
math.sin(x / 16.0)
+ math.sin(y / 32.0)
+ math.sin(math.sqrt(
((x - w / 2.0) * (x - w / 2.0) +
(y - h / 2.0) * (y - h / 2.0))
) / 8.0 + t * 3)
) + math.sin(math.sqrt((x * x + y * y)) / 8.0)
saturation = y / h
lightness = x / w
return tuple(map(scale_255, colorsys.hsv_to_rgb(hue / 8.0, saturation, lightness)))


def screen_plasma(term, plasma_fn, t):
result = ''
for y in range(term.height - 1):
for x in range(term.width):
result += term.on_color_rgb(*plasma_fn(term, x, y, t)) + ' '
return result


@contextlib.contextmanager
def elapsed_timer():
"""Timer pattern, from https://stackoverflow.com/a/30024601."""
start = timeit.default_timer()

def elapser():
return timeit.default_timer() - start

# pylint: disable=unnecessary-lambda
yield lambda: elapser()


def show_please_wait(term):
txt_wait = 'please wait ...'
outp = term.move_yx(term.height - 1, 0) + term.clear_eol + term.center(txt_wait)
print(outp, end='')
sys.stdout.flush()


def show_paused(term):
txt_paused = 'paused'
outp = term.move_yx(term.height - 1, int(term.width / 2 - len(txt_paused) / 2))
outp += txt_paused
print(outp, end='')
sys.stdout.flush()


def next_algo(algo, forward):
algos = tuple(sorted(blessed.color.COLOR_DISTANCE_ALGORITHMS))
next_index = algos.index(algo) + (1 if forward else -1)
if next_index == len(algos):
next_index = 0
return algos[next_index]


def next_color(color, forward):
colorspaces = (4, 8, 16, 256, 1 << 24)
next_index = colorspaces.index(color) + (1 if forward else -1)
if next_index == len(colorspaces):
next_index = 0
return colorspaces[next_index]


def status(term, elapsed):
left_txt = (f'{term.number_of_colors} colors - '
f'{term.color_distance_algorithm} - ?: help ')
right_txt = f'fps: {1 / elapsed:2.2f}'
return ('\n' + term.normal +
term.white_on_blue + term.clear_eol + left_txt +
term.rjust(right_txt, term.width - len(left_txt)))


def main(term):
with term.cbreak(), term.hidden_cursor(), term.fullscreen():
pause, dirty = False, True
t = time.time()
while True:
if dirty or not pause:
if not pause:
t = time.time()
with elapsed_timer() as elapsed:
outp = term.home + screen_plasma(term, rgb_at_xy, t)
outp += status(term, elapsed())
print(outp, end='')
sys.stdout.flush()
dirty = False
if pause:
show_paused(term)

inp = term.inkey(timeout=None if pause else 0.01)
if inp == '?':
assert False, "don't panic"
elif inp == '\x0c':
dirty = True

if inp in ('[', ']'):
term.color_distance_algorithm = next_algo(
term.color_distance_algorithm, inp == '[')
show_please_wait(term)
dirty = True
if inp == ' ':
pause = not pause

if inp.code in (term.KEY_TAB, term.KEY_BTAB):
term.number_of_colors = next_color(
term.number_of_colors, inp.code == term.KEY_TAB)
show_please_wait(term)
dirty = True


if __name__ == "__main__":
exit(main(blessed.Terminal()))
----- EOF -----



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Looks like high-color ANSI (not Sixel) to me.

I agree - I believe he's doing tricks w/ 24bit color UTF-8... he's the

Seems he just uses half blocks and dithered blocks. I get the RGB true color ANSI codes, look much better than EGA colors I'm used to see everywhere else... but still, couldn't what he'd shown be achieved without UTF-8?

-h1

... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a mere copy.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Re: Re: 1984.ws
By: hollowone to paulie420 on Mon May 29 2023 01:57 am

Seems he just uses half blocks and dithered blocks. I get the RGB true color ANSI codes, look much better than EGA colors I'm used to see everywhere else...

or CGA. :-)
--
digital man (rob)

Synchronet "Real Fact" #107:
Weedpuller "Beat It Out Of You" http://youtu.be/xWZ6vFvx4Kg
Norco, CA WX: 61.9°F, 81.0% humidity, 3 mph ESE wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs

On 27 May 2023, paulie420 said the following...

Point yer CLI to; 'telent 1984.ws' and be amazed! MAX HEADROOM - sixel graphics??! What the hell is going on here??
pAULIE42o
.........

I tried it in Netrunner and it doesn't work. Just gibberish. I'm guessing it isn't CP437?

|23|04Dr|16|12Claw
|16|14Sysop |12Noverdu |14BBS |20|15Radio|10@|14HTTP://Noverdu.com:88
|16|10 Standard ports for SSH/Telnet |04 WEB|14@|12HTTP://noverdu.com:808 |20|15Global Chat, Global Messaging and Games! |16|10Ditch the Unsocial Media

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Noverdu BBS (21:1/210)

I tried it in Netrunner and it doesn't work. Just gibberish. I'm guessing it isn't CP437?

Nope, UTF-8 and True Color terminal required. I found kitty and iTerm2 on MacOS to work properly with that telnet destination.

-h1

... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a mere copy.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

On 30 May 2023, hollowone said the following...

Nope, UTF-8 and True Color terminal required. I found kitty and iTerm2
on MacOS to work properly with that telnet destination.

kitty will not work correctly with BBS systems.

kitty treats bold (what you think of as "bright" versions of the 8 bbs colors) instead as the bold version of the selected font.

https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/pull/3234

the author is quite agressive with this opinion so it's not likely to change.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

Point yer CLI to; 'telent 1984.ws' and be amazed! MAX HEADROOM - sixe graphics??! What the hell is going on here??

I tried it in Netrunner and it doesn't work. Just gibberish. I'm guessing it isn't CP437?

Yea; NOT Netrunner or Syncterm - if yer on Linux, just open up the Ubuntu Terminal, or Konsole - just a regular UTF-8 terminal emulator...

On MacOS, its just 'terminal'... I dunno if Windows PowerShell/Command Prompt is compatible - any Windows users know the answer to that?



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

kitty will not work correctly with BBS systems.
kitty treats bold (what you think of as "bright" versions of the 8 bbs colors) instead as the bold version of the selected font.

The telnet site I originally posted about is 1984.ws; its not a regular bbs and uses true color UTF-8; so kitty would be an acceptable software for:

telnet 1984.ws



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

kitty will not work correctly with BBS systems.

That's correct. I advised it only to check this one little telnet experiment. All BBSes go through BBSAnsi and almost no popular terminal software outside those focused on BBS seem to care about it.

but.. I saw a post on Synchterm's source forge suggesting that UTF-8 is on that team's radar and they already support true color ansi codes.

Perhaps one day we may have a terminal that can help BBSes blend such visual tricks in.

-h1

... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a mere copy.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

On 30 May 2023, hollowone said the following...

Nope, UTF-8 and True Color terminal required. I found kitty and iTerm2
on MacOS to work properly with that telnet destination.

-h1

I ended up trying again in terminal and it worked perfect
very cool. Spreading the work now! Nice Find Paulie!

|23|04Dr|16|12Claw
|16|14Sysop |12Noverdu |14BBS |20|15Radio|10@|14HTTP://Noverdu.com:88
|16|10 Standard ports for SSH/Telnet |04 WEB|14@|12HTTP://noverdu.com:808 |20|15Global Chat, Global Messaging and Games! |16|10Ditch the Unsocial Media

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Noverdu BBS (21:1/210)

but.. I saw a post on Synchterm's source forge suggesting that UTF-8 is
on that team's radar and they already support true color ansi codes.

Yes; I saw that, too - and they have a unique position of having control of both the terminal and the bbs software; I think if they get Synchronet w/ full color UTF-8, with ANSi as a fallback.... woah.

I *think* people could do those 1984.ws trickery w/ that full 24bit setup.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

On 30 May 2023 at 06:18p, fusion pondered and said...

kitty will not work correctly with BBS systems.

It depends on the BBS. Using CP437 is just a convention;
nothing says that a BBS _must_ use it. Furthermore, every
glyph in the 437 code page has a corresponding UNICODE
code point and thus a UTF-8 representation; writing a
filter to convert from CP437 to UTF-8 is fairly straight
forward.

On the other hand, the inverse is Not true. The UNICODE
space is dramatically larger than CP437, and in general,
one cannot translate from UTF-8 to CP437 (there's no CP437
representation for, say, Pahawh Hmong script).

So UTF-8 can do everything that CP437 can do and, with the
right font, a whole lot more. With something like the
unscii font (http://viznut.fi/unscii) you can have a very
"traditional" BBS experience with modern text encoding; it
even supports Amiga and PETSCII typefaces!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 02 Jun 2023, tenser said the following...

It depends on the BBS. Using CP437 is just a convention;

lol my post said nothing about the codepage.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

On 01 Jun 2023 at 02:53p, fusion pondered and said...

On 02 Jun 2023, tenser said the following...

It depends on the BBS. Using CP437 is just a convention;

lol my post said nothing about the codepage.

True; my mistake. But you did unilaterally
say, "kitty will not work correctly with BBS
systems." which, again, depends on the BBS
system.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 02 Jun 2023, tenser said the following...

True; my mistake. But you did unilaterally
say, "kitty will not work correctly with BBS
systems." which, again, depends on the BBS
system.

http://kirin.dcclost.com/~alex/img_a.jpg http://kirin.dcclost.com/~alex/img_b.jpg

this is what 99% of the BBSes you will ever call with kitty will look like vs what they're supposed to look like.

i think it's a reasonable assertion. if the sysop has no traditional ansi on the whole board, then thumbs up i guess.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

On 01 Jun 2023 at 07:23p, fusion pondered and said...

On 02 Jun 2023, tenser said the following...

True; my mistake. But you did unilaterally
say, "kitty will not work correctly with BBS
systems." which, again, depends on the BBS
system.

http://kirin.dcclost.com/~alex/img_a.jpg http://kirin.dcclost.com/~alex/img_b.jpg

this is what 99% of the BBSes you will ever call with kitty will look
like vs what they're supposed to look like.

One could also just do what the Kitty guy said
(admittedly in a jerky way...) and not try to
overload bold attributes for bright colors.

He was obnoxious about it, but he's not wrong
about the technical merits.

i think it's a reasonable assertion. if the sysop has no traditional
ansi on the whole board, then thumbs up i guess.

Right so...it depends on the BBS system? :-)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 02 Jun 2023, tenser said the following...

Right so...it depends on the BBS system? :-)

sure, point me to the this unicorn bbs and i'll concede that.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

On 02 Jun 2023 at 11:32a, fusion pondered and said...

On 02 Jun 2023, tenser said the following...

Right so...it depends on the BBS system? :-)

sure, point me to the this unicorn bbs and i'll concede that.

As I recall, apam had an "ASCII-only" BBS, and
there's also e.g. tty.freeshell.org, plus any
number of other BBS systems, both contemporary
and historical. I don't think that CBBS did
"ANSI", for example, though that system changed
substantially over its lifetime and I may well
be wrong about that.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Re: Re: 1984.ws
By: tenser to fusion on Fri Jun 02 2023 11:17 pm

On 01 Jun 2023 at 07:23p, fusion pondered and said...

On 02 Jun 2023, tenser said the following...

True; my mistake. But you did unilaterally
say, "kitty will not work correctly with BBS
systems." which, again, depends on the BBS
system.

http://kirin.dcclost.com/~alex/img_a.jpg http://kirin.dcclost.com/~alex/img_b.jpg

this is what 99% of the BBSes you will ever call with kitty will look like vs what they're supposed to look like.

One could also just do what the Kitty guy said
(admittedly in a jerky way...) and not try to
overload bold attributes for bright colors.

He was obnoxious about it, but he's not wrong
about the technical merits.

History says he's wrong. But it's the hill he's chosen to die on. <shrug>

i think it's a reasonable assertion. if the sysop has no traditional ansi on the whole board, then thumbs up i guess.

Right so...it depends on the BBS system? :-)

"will not work" is probably too binary an assertion in this case. Different terminals display stuff (colors, fonts, glyphs) differently, but the main features of a BBS should continue to work just fine.
--
digital man (rob)

Breaking Bad quote #47:
He said he'll break my legs, he meant It... he gave me the dead mackerel eyes. Norco, CA WX: 69.6°F, 61.0% humidity, 5 mph E wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs

As I recall, apam had an "ASCII-only" BBS, and

I did, but I added optional ANSI colour to it in the end through simlar
ctrl-a codes to synchronet.

I kind of think you might be splitting hairs a bit though.. perhaps the
correct statement would be "kitty is not ideal for calling the majority
of todays BBSes" - but then neither are most unix terminals (although
perhaps less hostile to the idea)

Andrew

--- Talisman v0.47-dev (Windows/x64)
* Origin: Smuggler's Cove - Private BBS (21:1/182)

On 02 Jun 2023 at 12:16p, Digital Man pondered and said...

One could also just do what the Kitty guy said
(admittedly in a jerky way...) and not try to
overload bold attributes for bright colors.

He was obnoxious about it, but he's not wrong
about the technical merits.

History says he's wrong. But it's the hill he's chosen to die on. <shrug>

Yeah it seems like a dumb thing to get all bent over,
particularly when someone already sent him a patch.

i think it's a reasonable assertion. if the sysop has no tradition ansi on the whole board, then thumbs up i guess.

Right so...it depends on the BBS system? :-)

"will not work" is probably too binary an assertion in this case. Different terminals display stuff (colors, fonts, glyphs) differently,
but the main features of a BBS should continue to work just fine.

Indeed.

Hmm. Now I'm mildly curious what ncurses does for its
color presets.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 03 Jun 2023 at 06:51a, apam pondered and said...

As I recall, apam had an "ASCII-only" BBS, and

I did, but I added optional ANSI colour to it in the end through simlar ctrl-a codes to synchronet.

Stand firm! Don't give in! Never surrender!

I kind of think you might be splitting hairs a bit though.. perhaps the correct statement would be "kitty is not ideal for calling the majority
of todays BBSes" - but then neither are most unix terminals (although perhaps less hostile to the idea)

That's kind of my point: it may not appear exactly
as one would expect, but to say that BBS systems
just won't work with it feels a bit harsh.

I'll certainly concede that if one's primary purpose
for logging in is, say, viewing ANSI art that it won't
appear to work as expected.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)