My first modem when I got hooked on BBSing was 300 baud. It was as if someone at the other end was typing it all in for you.. ;)

Same. 300bps internal manual modem on my Apple //e.

My 1st modem was a 300bps external Apple Modem - for my old Apple //c. I seem to remember paying around $300 for it. That would be $1 per bps. That would be like $600+ at today's pricing with inflation.

- Mark
���
--- WWIVToss v.1.52
* Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)

Weatherman wrote to Geri Atricks <=-

My first modem when I got hooked on BBSing was 300 baud. It was as if someone at the other end was typing it all in for you.. ;)

Same. 300bps internal manual modem on my Apple //e.

My 1st modem was a 300bps external Apple Modem - for my old Apple //c.
I seem to remember paying around $300 for it. That would be $1 per
bps. That would be like $600+ at today's pricing with inflation.

My first was a 14.4 :-) I was using it on a 8088 dual floppy, and would
have to force it to 9600 for uploads.

One of the local boards had a special response if you slowed to 300 and
logged in, and I agree it was like someone was typing it. :-) Kinda like
in the movies... ;-)




... Behind every great man is an amazed mother-in-law!
=== MultiMail/Mac v0.52
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: Final Zone BBS (21:3/122)

Hi Al,

Al wrote to deon <=-

Yep, back in those days I started out with a 2400 baud modem, and
stayed that way for some time since modems were (very) exensive at the time.

Good times they were!

Indeed! I can remember replacing my old Zoltrix 2400 modem (with no error correction) with an external 9600 baud model (some Hayes clone, cannot remember the name). While still slow compared to the newer 14.4k/28.8k/56k modems, I can remember marvelling at the speed increase, as well as the fact that I didn't have to continue whacking backspace clearing visual artifacts created by CRC errors. When hardware error correction was first implemented, it was a really big deal at the time. :-)


Regards,
Jan Henkins

___ MultiMail/Linux v0.52

--- Mystic BBS/QWK v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: UnderZaNet BBS (21:2/152)

I wonder, can I run RIP doors w/o supporting RIP on the main bbS... but alas; who knows.

If I remember correctly, yes you could.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/09/29 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Legends of Yesteryear (furmenservices.net:23322) (21:4/102)

My first modem when I got hooked on BBSing was 300 baud. It was as if someone at the other end was typing it all in for you.. ;)

Same. 300bps internal manual modem on my Apple //e.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/09/29 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Legends of Yesteryear (furmenservices.net:23322) (21:4/102)

My first modem when I got hooked on BBSing was 300 baud. It was as if
someone at the other end was typing it all in for you.. ;)

Same. 300bps internal manual modem on my Apple //e.

Yep, back then going to 2400 baud changed everything. :)

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-6
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

I think it would make our systems better if we could adapt RIP 1.54 with our systems since that format does not have too much propritary gunk.


--- WWIV 5.8.0.3616
* Origin: inland utopia * california * iutopia.duckdns.org:2023 (21:4/108)

Re: RIP 1.54 and telnet
By: Utopian Galt to All on Wed Dec 14 2022 07:34 pm

I think it would make our systems better if we could adapt RIP 1.54 with our systems since that format does not have too much propritary gunk.

Synchronet supports RIP, and I noticed RIP support seems to have been added to the latest SyncTerm a while ago. I've thought of trying to add some RIP screens to my BBS, but I haven't gotten to it. I'm curious if doors with RIP support (such as Legend of the Red Dragon) would detect that and if it would work with SyncTerm.. I haven't tried that yet either.

I also got a version of RIPTel installed on my 32-bit Windows VM.. though that isn't really ideal these days.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

I think it would make our systems better if we could adapt RIP 1.54 with our systems since that format does not have too much propritary
gunk.

I don't know about RIP much or gunk :) But does rip have any embedded
control sequences like Avatar seems to? Its been to long since I even
thought about it to recall. But avatar sends SuperBBS into conniptions with all sorts of odd data being pumped out due to whatever is in its code.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)

Utopian wrote (2022-12-14):

I think it would make our systems better if we could adapt RIP 1.54 with our systems since that format does not have too much propritary gunk.

Isn't RIP unbelievable ugly by today standards? I vaguely remember that I once did run a BBS with RIP support for a short time. It was fun, because it was new. But HTML was much more interesting. Maximus 3 also supports RIP (never tested it).

⁂

---
* Origin: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. (21:3/102)

Spectre wrote (2022-12-15):

I don't know about RIP much or gunk :) But does rip have any embedded control sequences like Avatar seems to? Its been to long since I even thought about it to recall. But avatar sends SuperBBS into conniptions with all sorts of odd data being pumped out due to whatever is in its
code.

AVATAR was great. Unfortunately there are only few programs that support it.

⁂

---
* Origin: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. (21:3/102)

Re: RIP 1.54 and telnet
By: Oli to Utopian Galt on Thu Dec 15 2022 12:28 pm

Isn't RIP unbelievable ugly by today standards? I vaguely remember that I once did run a BBS with RIP support for a short time. It was fun, because it was new. But HTML was much more interesting. Maximus 3 also supports RIP (never tested it).

I remember RIP looked a bit like EGA graphics. IMO it wasn't too bad. It was a step up from ANSI, at least. You could probably argue that ANSI looks even more "unbelievably ugly" by today's standards. :)

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

AVATAR was great. Unfortunately there are only few programs that support it.

I've never actually seen avatar screens on a BBS but recall constantly having to select ansi on some bbses and seeing avatar as an alternative. I was always curious but have zero context lol.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/11 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (21:4/173)

Isn't RIP unbelievable ugly by today standards? I vaguely remember that
I once did run a BBS with RIP support for a short time. It was fun, because it was new. But HTML was much more interesting. Maximus 3 also supports RIP (never tested it).

I don't think it's ugly, it definitely looks dated by today's standards but it was pretty cool. I remember running Searchlight locally for a little while just to experiment with it.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/11 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (21:4/173)

esc wrote (2022-12-15):

AVATAR was great. Unfortunately there are only few programs that
support it.

I've never actually seen avatar screens on a BBS but recall constantly having to select ansi on some bbses and seeing avatar as an alternative.
I was always curious but have zero context lol.

It is not much different than ANSI. It is faster on slow modem connections, because the control codes uses fewer bytes than ANSI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Video_Attribute_Terminal_Assembler_and_Recreator

⁂

---
* Origin: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. (21:3/102)

Re: Re: RIP 1.54 and telnet
By: esc to Oli on Thu Dec 15 2022 11:03 am

AVATAR was great. Unfortunately there are only few programs that
support it.

I've never actually seen avatar screens on a BBS but recall constantly having to select ansi on some bbses and seeing avatar as an alternative. I was always curious but have zero context lol.

It seems Avatar wasn't very common. When I ran my original BBS in the 90s, the software I used (RemoteAccess) supported Avatar as one of the possible formats, so I saved my menu files in Avatar in addition to ANSI and plain text. One time I tried calling my BBS (or perhaps another BBS that had Avatar) with an Avatar-capable terminal program (probably Telemate), and it seemed somewhat noticeably faster than ANSI.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

It is not much different than ANSI. It is faster on slow modem connections, because the control codes uses fewer bytes than ANSI.

Interesting - wonder what the capability gaps might be. Thanks.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/11 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (21:4/173)

AVATAR was great. Unfortunately there are only few programs that support it.

I don't recall any instances of avatar looking anything different to ANSI, or appearing to be significantly quicker which was always the selling point I
got given. I also don't recall seeing an avatar editor, but there were a few ANSI-> AVT converters around which is all I tried. But it appears to use control codes in some odd what which causes SuperBBS to throw odd information into the pages or generally just turn into a wild mess.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)

Isn't RIP unbelievable ugly by today standards? I vaguely remember that I

Like a lot of things think that depends on who created it, and how they did
it. I seem to recall a few that looked a bit like the proverbial "dogs breakfast", created ad hoc with little planning or thought, adding things for the sake of doing so.

There was also the odd one or two that appear to have some thought, rhyme and reason to they way they were assembled. Aesthetically pleasing, and practical in use.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)

I don't recall any instances of avatar looking anything different to ANSI, or appearing to be significantly quicker which was always the selling point I got given.

Back in the day my terminal was the terminal provided by FrontDoor. I used avatar when it was supported by the BBS. It was supported by RA, my BBS software back then.

Avatar was significantly quicker than ansi for reasons I don't know.

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-6
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

Re: RIP 1.54 and telnet
By: Al to Spectre on Fri Dec 16 2022 12:16 am

Avatar was significantly quicker than ansi for reasons I don't know.

I just looked at it, and I can see why it was quicker.

In ANSI, to set a color, its "ESC[nnm" (where nn is a number). So minimum 5 chars before the character you want to draw, if you wanted to set the background color too, then it's another 3 chars ";nn" before the "m". So 8 chars to to set foreground and background color before the character.

In Avatar, its 3 chars "^V^An" a 62.5% saving, to set both the foreground and background.

So if you had a very ANSI centric display (which BBSs had), the saving over a slow medium noticably adds up... Back in those days, where disk space was a premium, the savings on disk would be noticable too.


...����
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: I'm playing with ANSI+videotex - wanna play too? (21:2/116)

Re: Re: RIP 1.54 and telnet
By: esc to Oli on Thu Dec 15 2022 11:03 am

RIP and Syncterm w0rks pretty well. You need to choose RIP 1 or RIP 3 - I like testing w/ Black Flag mystic & synchronet - one is RIP 1 and one is RIP 3...

I wonder, can I run RIP doors w/o supporting RIP on the main bbS... but alas; who knows.



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

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Nightfox wrote (2022-12-15):

It seems Avatar wasn't very common.

Depends. In parts of Europe RA was one of the most common BBS programs.

When I ran my original BBS in the
90s, the software I used (RemoteAccess) supported Avatar as one of the possible formats, so I saved my menu files in Avatar in addition to ANSI and plain text. One time I tried calling my BBS (or perhaps another BBS that had Avatar) with an Avatar-capable terminal program (probably Telemate), and it seemed somewhat noticeably faster than ANSI.

I also remember that it was a bit faster. I'm not sure if it makes a big difference with ISDN and nowadays latency is much more crucial than bandwidth.


⁂

---
* Origin: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. (21:3/102)

Nightfox wrote (2022-12-15):

I remember RIP looked a bit like EGA graphics. IMO it wasn't too bad.

"Early versions of RIPscrip were tightly tied to the EGA 640×350 EGA standard and had a decidedly MS-DOS-like feel."

from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol

It was a step up from ANSI, at least. You could probably argue that ANSI looks even more "unbelievably ugly" by today's standards. :)

For graphics RIP was a huge improvement over ANSI art, but the RIP fonts were ugly. For reading and writing I still would prefer a text terminal.


⁂

---
* Origin: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. (21:3/102)

In Avatar, its 3 chars "^V^An" a 62.5% saving, to set both the foreground and background.

So if you had a very ANSI centric display (which BBSs had), the saving over a slow medium noticably adds up... Back in those days, where disk space was a premium, the savings on disk would be noticable too.

Yep, back in those days I started out with a 2400 baud modem, and stayed that way for some time since modems were (very) exensive at the time.

Good times they were!

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-6
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

Back in the day my terminal was the terminal provided by FrontDoor. I used avatar when it was supported by the BBS. It was supported by RA, my BBS software back then.

I didn't use the FD terminal much, mostly either had the Apple II software which was pretty much just ASCII, followed by Telix and later Telemate. The code sequences for colour and cursor placement are shorter hence the "speed" difference especially in code heavy sequences. It may be because the ANSI I
was using tended to be relatively simple, never used over the top pages so
the speed was much the same either way.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)

I wonder, can I run RIP doors w/o supporting RIP on the main bbS... but alas; who knows.

Its going to depend on the door. Some aren't trying to detect, they ask if what you're wanting to use. After that its up to the user. I'm not sure how much BBS software can actually pass the terminal emulation along to the door
in its drop file. I've never come across any that does...

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)

I didn't use the FD terminal much, mostly either had the Apple II software which was pretty much just ASCII, followed by Telix and later Telemate. The code sequences for colour and cursor placement are shorter hence the "speed" difference especially in code heavy sequences. It may be because the ANSI I was using tended to be relatively simple, never used over the top pages so the speed was much the same either way.

Telemate was the terminal I used later on when I had a faster modem. Those few bits saved wouldn't even be noticed once your at 28,800 or higher, but at 2400 baud it was quite noticable.

My first modem when I got hooked on BBSing was 300 baud. It was as if someone at the other end was typing it all in for you.. ;)

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-6
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106)

Re: Re: RIP 1.54 and telnet
By: paulie420 to Nightfox on Thu Dec 15 2022 08:14 pm

I wonder, can I run RIP doors w/o supporting RIP on the main bbS... but alas; who knows.

I'm pretty sure you can. In the 90s, I remember trying a RIP terminal on some BBSes that didn't have any RIP menus or anything, but RIP-supporting doors (such as Legend of the Red Dragon) could detect RIP capabilities in the user's terminal and RIP would work in the door.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Re: RIP 1.54 and telnet
By: Oli to Nightfox on Fri Dec 16 2022 11:28 am

It seems Avatar wasn't very common.

Depends. In parts of Europe RA was one of the most common BBS programs.

Yeah, RemoteAccess was very common in my area of the US too (I ran RemoteAccess for my BBS in the 90s). But even then, I'm not sure how many users used Avatar-capable terminal programs. I used an Avatar-capable terminal program, but often I just used ANSI because that's what most BBSes supported.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Re: RIP 1.54 and telnet
By: Spectre to Oli on Fri Dec 16 2022 04:21 pm

I don't recall any instances of avatar looking anything different to ANSI, or appearing to be significantly quicker which was always the selling point I got given.

I don't think it was significantly faster, but when I tried it with a dialup modem in the 90s, I did notice it was at least a little faster than ANSI.

I also don't recall seeing an avatar editor, but there

I believe TheDraw (one of the most popular ANSI editors) could save in Avatar. I used TheDraw to edit my ANSI menus in the 90s, and I remember having it save in both ANSI and Avatar formats.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Re: RIP 1.54 and telnet
By: Al to Spectre on Fri Dec 16 2022 12:16 am

Avatar was significantly quicker than ansi for reasons I don't know.

It's because Avatar used fewer bytes/characters for its codes than ANSI.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

On 15 Dec 2022 at 09:21a, Nightfox pondered and said...

Re: RIP 1.54 and telnet
By: Oli to Utopian Galt on Thu Dec 15 2022 12:28 pm

Isn't RIP unbelievable ugly by today standards? I vaguely remember th once did run a BBS with RIP support for a short time. It was fun, bec it was new. But HTML was much more interesting. Maximus 3 also suppor RIP (never tested it).

I remember RIP looked a bit like EGA graphics. IMO it wasn't too bad.
It was a step up from ANSI, at least. You could probably argue that
ANSI looks even more "unbelievably ugly" by today's standards. :)

Of course, it's aesthetics, but I'd argue that it is: what
makes it cool is the retro feel. Moreover, "ANSI" refers to
the terminal control sequences; what people usually mean when
they say "ANSI" in the BBS community is the CP437 glyph set
with color.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 16 Dec 2022 at 08:52a, Nightfox pondered and said...

Avatar was significantly quicker than ansi for reasons I don't know.

It's because Avatar used fewer bytes/characters for its codes than ANSI.

This is certainly true. Most BBS software I've seen
seems pretty inefficient when it comes to minimizing
the number the amount of terminal-control data they
send to the client. Probably BBSes would have felt a
lot snappier if they'd known more about efficient
techniques for implementing row-replacment.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Hello Nightfox,

Avatar was significantly quicker than ansi for reasons I don't
know.

It's because Avatar used fewer bytes/characters for its codes than
ANSI.

Yep, I think that's what it is. It wouldn't even be noticed today but back when we used modems it was a plus.

Ttyl :-),
Al

... And if one bad cluster should accidentally fail...
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20220504
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106.2)

My first modem when I got hooked on BBSing was 300 baud. It was as if someone at the other end was typing it all in for you.. ;)

Although the first modem I bought was a 2400, I did play around with 300 and 1200 occasionaly. 300 was pretty much readable as it arrived. Wasn't any
good on a busy chat BBS though.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)

Yeah, RemoteAccess was very common in my area of the US too (I ran

We had a raft of QuickBBS clones depending on where you were in Australia. Quick was still around when I started up but it wasn't getting any
development. I don't know what the origin of Celerity was but it had the reputation of belonging to Pirate systems and gradually faded away and that left us with Remote Access and SuperBBS for the most part, and EzyCom much later on.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)

I believe TheDraw (one of the most popular ANSI editors) could save in Avatar. I used TheDraw to edit my ANSI menus in the 90s, and I remember having it save in both ANSI and Avatar formats.

I still use TheDraw all my current menus came out of it. Don't recall Avatar but then not high on my list. You are right though, I fire it up and there
it is amongst a bunch of other weird formats I never paid much attention to either. I think I played briefly with the cOm to put ads into archives at
one stage.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: Good Luck and drive offensively! (21:3/101)

Hello Nightfox,

15 Dec 22 09:21, you wrote to Oli:

Re: RIP 1.54 and telnet
By: Oli to Utopian Galt on Thu Dec 15 2022 12:28 pm

Isn't RIP unbelievable ugly by today standards? I vaguely
remember that I once did run a BBS with RIP support for a short
time. It was fun, because it was new. But HTML was much more
interesting. Maximus 3 also supports RIP (never tested it).

I remember RIP looked a bit like EGA graphics. IMO it wasn't too bad.
It was a step up from ANSI, at least. You could probably argue that
ANSI looks even more "unbelievably ugly" by today's standards. :)

Maximus supports it out of the box. you can check it on my bbs :)

Regards,
--
dp

telnet://bbs.roonsbbs.hu:1212 <<=-

... 2:40am up 29 days, 21:00:29, load: 97 processes, 304 threads.
--- GoldED/2 1.1.4.7+EMX
* Origin: Roon's BBS - Budapest, HUNGARY (21:4/148)

Re: RIP 1.54 and telnet
By: Spectre to Al on Sat Dec 17 2022 04:46 pm

Although the first modem I bought was a 2400, I did play around with 300 and 1200 occasionaly. 300 was pretty much readable as it arrived. Wasn't any good on a busy chat BBS though.

From watching "BBS: The Documentary", I remember someone there saying some people thought 300 baud modems should be all you'd need because that was "reading speed". :)

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Nightfox wrote to Spectre <=-

From watching "BBS: The Documentary", I remember someone there saying
some people thought 300 baud modems should be all you'd need because
that was "reading speed". :)

there used to be some commodore boards in my area (back then) that only supported 300 baud and that is about right. Since I was running a PC I was doing any file transfers from those boards so I was only there for read messages. It was not that bad.... of course, I only had a 2400 modem then, too. If I had been used to 33.6k by then , I think I would have noticed!


... Internal Error: The system has been taken over by sheep at line 19960
--- MultiMail/DOS
* Origin: possumso.fsxnet.nz * SSH:2122/telnet:24/ftelnet:80 (21:4/134)