I'm currently running my BBS using Synchronet on Linux. I have DOSEMU2 set up for DOS-based doors. I've set up my old RemoteAccess BBS setup from the 90s to run as a door, and it runs, but it seems it's not detecting the user's ANSI capabilities, and it's reverting to no ANSI. I'm curious if anyone has set up any DOS BBS software as a door in Linux with DOSEMU? I'm wondering how I can get it to detect whether the user has ANSI capabilities.

I've checked the command-line parameters for RA.EXE (RemoteAccess), and it doesn't have a parameter to force ANSI. But it also looks like Synchronet doesn't provide a command-line option to specify whether the user's terminal supports ANSI. (unless I missed something in the docs..)

Nightfox
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Re: DOS BBS software as a door and ANSI detection on Linux
By: Nightfox to All on Fri Sep 23 2022 18:51:59

I'm currently running my BBS using Synchronet on Linux. I have DOSEMU2 set up for DOS-based doors. I've set up my old
RemoteAccess BBS setup from the 90s to run as a door, and it runs, but it seems it's not detecting the user's ANSI
capabilities, and it's reverting to no ANSI. I'm curious if anyone has set up any DOS BBS software as a door in Linux with
DOSEMU? I'm wondering how I can get it to detect whether the user has ANSI capabilities.

under synchronet, there is "dosutils" in there is an ansi.com file... run that right before your door.. have to do that on a couple of other DOS door games that don't recognise the ansi capabilities. give that a whirl

I have a batch file that i run that does that as for example, mayhem requires the node number be in a specific environment variable.

I've checked the command-line parameters for RA.EXE (RemoteAccess), and it doesn't have a parameter to force ANSI. But it
also looks like Synchronet doesn't provide a command-line option to specify whether the user's terminal supports ANSI.
(unless I missed something in the docs..)

that is technically in the door drop file i beleive. the main issue you're going to have maybe the runtime error crap from turbo pascal stuff. having the dosemu flag set to 486 may stop that however.

I just copied my renegade install over from my dosemu drive to a door drive so i'll play with that

regards
===

Charles Blackburn
The F.B.O BBS 21:1/221 618:250/36
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Re: DOS BBS software as a door and ANSI detection on Linux
By: Nightfox to All on Fri Sep 23 2022 18:51:59

I'm currently running my BBS using Synchronet on Linux. I have DOSEMU2 set up for DOS-based doors. I've set up my old
RemoteAccess BBS setup from the 90s to run as a door, and it runs, but it seems it's not detecting the user's ANSI
capabilities, and it's reverting to no ANSI. I'm curious if anyone has set up any DOS BBS software as a door in Linux with
DOSEMU? I'm wondering how I can get it to detect whether the user has ANSI capabilities.

ok renegade works fine with "standard" for the IO. All i'm doing for that is running renegade -L which runs it locally.

the "menu" that you see at the start is all messaed up, but if you hit L for logon the main bbs itself runs fine..

I just snagged a copy of RA so will give that a try

regards
===

Charles Blackburn
The F.B.O BBS 21:1/221 618:250/36
bbs.thefbo.us IPV4/V6
DOVE-Net FSX-Net MicroNET USENET
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Re: DOS BBS software as a door and ANSI detection on Linux
By: Nightfox to All on Fri Sep 23 2022 18:51:59

I've checked the command-line parameters for RA.EXE (RemoteAccess), and it doesn't have a parameter to force ANSI. But it
also looks like Synchronet doesn't provide a command-line option to specify whether the user's terminal supports ANSI.
(unless I missed something in the docs..)

runremote access in local mode "RA -L".. just worked perfectly for me :D

if you wanna log in to mine i'll add it as a special option for ya :D

regards
===

Charles Blackburn
The F.B.O BBS 21:1/221 618:250/36
bbs.thefbo.us IPV4/V6
DOVE-Net FSX-Net MicroNET USENET
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Re: DOS BBS software as a door and ANSI detection on Linux
By: Charles Blackburn to Nightfox on Sat Sep 24 2022 03:56 am

under synchronet, there is "dosutils" in there is an ansi.com file... run that right before your door.. have to do that on a couple of other DOS door games that don't recognise the ansi capabilities. give that a whirl

I'll try that. Thanks.

I've checked the command-line parameters for RA.EXE (RemoteAccess),
and it doesn't have a parameter to force ANSI. But it also looks
like Synchronet doesn't provide a command-line option to specify
whether the user's terminal supports ANSI. (unless I missed
something in the docs..)

that is technically in the door drop file i beleive. the main issue you're going to have maybe the runtime error crap from turbo pascal stuff. having the dosemu flag set to 486 may stop that however.

RemoteAccess is an entire BBS program though, and as such, it wasn't written to run as a door, and thus doesn't read drop files.

Nightfox
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Re: DOS BBS software as a door and ANSI detection on Linux
By: Charles Blackburn to Nightfox on Sat Sep 24 2022 04:23 am

I've checked the command-line parameters for RA.EXE (RemoteAccess),
and it doesn't have a parameter to force ANSI. But it also looks
like Synchronet doesn't provide a command-line option to specify
whether the user's terminal supports ANSI. (unless I missed
something in the docs..)

runremote access in local mode "RA -L".. just worked perfectly for me :D

Interesting, I wouldn't have thought the local parameter would work. The parameters I'm using are -C1 -R%d . Maybe I should try -L to see if that's any different. However, if you're telling RA to run in local mode, I'm not sure if it will do any detection of the remote user's terminal capabilities (which would still be useful).

Nightfox
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Re: DOS BBS software as a door and ANSI detection on Linux
By: Charles Blackburn to Nightfox on Sat Sep 24 2022 03:56 am

under synchronet, there is "dosutils" in there is an ansi.com file... run that right before your door.. have to do that on a couple of other DOS door games that don't recognise the ansi capabilities. give that a whirl

That didn't seem to help when run remotely.. Remotely, it still didn't detect my ANSI capabilities (though it does show ANSI when I run it locally from a DOS prompt).

Nightfox
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Re: DOS BBS software as a door and ANSI detection on Linux
By: Nightfox to Charles Blackburn on Sat Sep 24 2022 11:12:54

runremote access in local mode "RA -L".. just worked perfectly for me :D

Interesting, I wouldn't have thought the local parameter would work. The parameters I'm using are -C1 -R%d . Maybe I should
try -L to see if that's any different. However, if you're telling RA to run in local mode, I'm not sure if it will do any
detection of the remote user's terminal capabilities (which would still be useful).

yea i realise that, but as you said in the other note, it's not designed to run as a door so.

im assuming in local mode it thinks that the "console" is just a regular monitor.

but as i said, i ran it in local mode and it worked fine ansi and all.

YMMV but IANAL so give it a try :D

regards
===

Charles Blackburn
The F.B.O BBS 21:1/221 618:250/36
bbs.thefbo.us IPV4/V6
DOVE-Net FSX-Net MicroNET USENET
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Re: DOS BBS software as a door and ANSI detection on Linux
By: Charles Blackburn to Nightfox on Sat Sep 24 2022 05:48 pm

yea i realise that, but as you said in the other note, it's not designed to run as a door so.

Yes, but RemoteAccess did take some command-line parameters (such as the user's connected speed, etc.) because it was possible that another program would have answered the modem first (such as FrontDoor, a FidoNet mailer), and in such a case, it was useful to be able to leave the modem connected and have RemoteAccess take over. That still wasn't local mode.

Nightfox
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Re: DOS BBS software as a door and ANSI detection on Linux
By: Nightfox to Charles Blackburn on Mon Sep 26 2022 08:35:40

yea i realise that, but as you said in the other note, it's not designed to run as a door so.

Yes, but RemoteAccess did take some command-line parameters (such as the user's connected speed, etc.) because it was
possible that another program would have answered the modem first (such as FrontDoor, a FidoNet mailer), and in such a case,
it was useful to be able to leave the modem connected and have RemoteAccess take over. That still wasn't local mode.

good point, but then it would try and do ansi determination (this is all from memory :D) so i am thinking along the lines of maybe ther terminal type is not being sent to RA?

is there a way to force it to use a certain terminal type (in this case ANSI) ??

I'll have to dig a little deeper into the RA docs when i can

regards
===

Charles Blackburn
The F.B.O BBS 21:1/221 618:250/36
bbs.thefbo.us IPV4/V6
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Re: DOS BBS software as a door and ANSI detection on Linux
By: Charles Blackburn to Nightfox on Mon Sep 26 2022 02:23 pm

is there a way to force it to use a certain terminal type (in this case ANSI) ??

I was wondering that. I was looking at the RA documentation (RA.DOC), which has a section for RA.EXE command-line parameters, but I didn't see such a parameter. Also, I was looking in Synchronet's documentation for running doors, and it looked like there was no parameter to specify whether the user has ANSI or not. I think Synchronet expects doors to detect user's ANSI capabilities.

RemoteAccess normally detects ANSI when a user connects though (including when another program passes a modem connection to it), so I know RA has that capability.

Nightfox
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Re: RemoteAccess
By: Nightfox to Charles Blackburn on Mon Sep 26 2022 13:52:16

Re: DOS BBS software as a door and ANSI detection on Linux
By: Charles Blackburn to Nightfox on Mon Sep 26 2022 02:23 pm

is there a way to force it to use a certain terminal type (in this case ANSI) ??

I was wondering that. I was looking at the RA documentation (RA.DOC), which has a section for RA.EXE command-line
parameters, but I didn't see such a parameter. Also, I was looking in Synchronet's documentation for running doors, and it
looked like there was no parameter to specify whether the user has ANSI or not. I think Synchronet expects doors to detect
user's ANSI capabilities.

yea i didnt see that either, that said i know when you dial in via "sexpots" it uses that as the terminal type and that's something i've had to change for synchronet to run ansi. otherwise it's just "dumb" lol not sure, but i just changed the terminal type.

I don't know how synchronet detects ansi initial connect (to the login prompt) as i haven't dug into it, but when connecting via a dumb terminal i didnt see any ansi codes present until the logon/answer.ans image showed.

RemoteAccess normally detects ANSI when a user connects though (including when another program passes a modem connection to
it), so I know RA has that capability.

correct, but i'm wondering if there's something thats stopping that going through. that was why i suggested try it in local mode.

when i get some time i'll dig through the RA docs...

as an aside. have you tried something like pcboard or any of the other bbs software systems, just to see if it's a fluke?

regards
===

Charles Blackburn
The F.B.O BBS 21:1/221 618:250/36
bbs.thefbo.us IPV4/V6
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Re: RemoteAccess
By: Charles Blackburn to Nightfox on Mon Sep 26 2022 07:25 pm

correct, but i'm wondering if there's something thats stopping that going through. that was why i suggested try it in local mode.

Yeah, I should try that. It might just work.

as an aside. have you tried something like pcboard or any of the other bbs software systems, just to see if it's a fluke?

I haven't, but I'm not really interested whether other BBS programs will work. I just thought it would be fun to get my old BBS running as a door. :)

Nightfox
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Re: RemoteAccess
By: Charles Blackburn to Nightfox on Mon Sep 26 2022 07:25 pm

through. that was why i suggested try it in local mode.

Running it in local mode indeed displays ANSI when running as a door. I'll probably use that setup for now. :)

Nightfox
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Re: RemoteAccess
By: Nightfox to Charles Blackburn on Mon Sep 26 2022 18:04:53

Re: RemoteAccess
By: Charles Blackburn to Nightfox on Mon Sep 26 2022 07:25 pm

correct, but i'm wondering if there's something thats stopping that going through. that was why i suggested try it in
local mode.

Yeah, I should try that. It might just work.

just a thought :D

as an aside. have you tried something like pcboard or any of the other bbs software systems, just to see if it's a
fluke?

I haven't, but I'm not really interested whether other BBS programs will work. I just thought it would be fun to get my old
BBS running as a door. :)

i realise that, i was more talking about as an experiment as to whether they correctly identify ansi etc. if they don't then MAYBE you found an undocumented feature :D if they do, then maybe it's an RA quirk?

the other thing you can try (assuming you have installed "dosutils" into sbbs) is try running the ansi.com driver in your batch file.

another thing would maybe spin up a DOS vm somewhere and remote telnet to that in a similar way that irc/mrc works?

regards
===

Charles Blackburn
The F.B.O BBS 21:1/221 618:250/36
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Re: RemoteAccess
By: Charles Blackburn to Nightfox on Tue Sep 27 2022 10:59 am

the other thing you can try (assuming you have installed "dosutils" into sbbs) is try running the ansi.com driver in your batch file.

I'd tried that, but that didn't help.

Nightfox
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Re: RemoteAccess
By: Nightfox to Charles Blackburn on Mon Sep 26 2022 01:52 pm

Re: DOS BBS software as a door and ANSI detection on Linux
By: Charles Blackburn to Nightfox on Mon Sep 26 2022 02:23 pm

is there a way to force it to use a certain terminal type (in this case ANSI) ??

I was wondering that. I was looking at the RA documentation (RA.DOC), which has a section for RA.EXE command-line parameters, but I didn't see such a parameter. Also, I was looking in Synchronet's documentation for running doors, and it looked like there was no parameter to specify whether the user has ANSI or not. I think Synchronet expects doors to detect user's ANSI capabilities.

Normally a door either drum the terminal capabilities from a drop file (preferred) or dynamically detect them.

RemoteAccess normally detects ANSI when a user connects though (including when another program passes a modem connection to it), so I know RA has that capability.

Does RA have a command-line option to specify ANSI support?
--
digital man (rob)

Sling Blade quote #12:
Karl (re hammer): I don't rightly know. I just kinda woke up holding it.
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Re: RemoteAccess
By: Digital Man to Nightfox on Sun Oct 30 2022 02:56 pm

RemoteAccess normally detects ANSI when a user connects though
(including when another program passes a modem connection to it), so I
know RA has that capability.

Does RA have a command-line option to specify ANSI support?

I had checked its documentation for that and didn't see one.

Nightfox
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Re: RemoteAccess
By: Nightfox to Digital Man on Mon Oct 31 2022 10:31 am

Re: RemoteAccess
By: Digital Man to Nightfox on Sun Oct 30 2022 02:56 pm

RemoteAccess normally detects ANSI when a user connects though
(including when another program passes a modem connection to it), so I
know RA has that capability.

Does RA have a command-line option to specify ANSI support?

I had checked its documentation for that and didn't see one.

In that case, if Synchronet did have a command-line specifier to indicate what terminal type (e.g. ANSI or not), I don't think you'd have a way to use it to force RA into ANSI mode.
--
digital man (rob)

This Is Spinal Tap quote #19:
Oh then, maybe it's not green. Anyway this is what I sleep in sometimes.
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Re: RemoteAccess
By: Digital Man to Nightfox on Tue Nov 01 2022 04:53 pm

Does RA have a command-line option to specify ANSI support?

I had checked its documentation for that and didn't see one.

In that case, if Synchronet did have a command-line specifier to indicate what terminal type (e.g. ANSI or not), I don't think you'd have a way to use it to force RA into ANSI mode.

I came to that conclusion as well.

Nightfox
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