Anyone use Telnet?

[DosMan007]

So there's this other program called Zmud. It's a client that has a huge list of MUD's you can play. Well anyway, back in the day you could connect to BBS's with a dial-up modem and apparently if you use Telnet on modern systems, with cable internet you can connect in like the old days. I think I have a Telnet program, just haven't gotten it set up. I was wondering if anyone else here uses Telnet and connects in to places with the old ASCII art welcoming pages?

Thanks.

[butterburp1]

Hi again - this is becoming a habit! Yes I use Telemate 4.21 in Dosbox and you get the nice ASCII text pages and everything. Just like the old days. It's shareware so it does have annoying nag screen after exiting, but then I just close Dosbox anyway so it doesn't bother me.

I'm currently dealing with some real life "stuff" so my free time is somewhat limited, but I defintely want to explore the vast BBS/MUD world that is still out there. Curious what muds you play? The one I keep hearing about is Legend of the Red Dragon, seems to be pretty common. Then there's Dragonswords, which is still in operation today. My ex-roommate was an admin on it back in the 90's.

[DosMan007]

Hi again - this is becoming a habit! Yes I use Telemate 4.21 in Dosbox and you get the nice ASCII text pages and everything. Just like the old days. It's shareware so it does have annoying nag screen after exiting, but then I just close Dosbox anyway so it doesn't bother me.

I'm currently dealing with some real life "stuff" so my free time is somewhat limited, but I defintely want to explore the vast BBS/MUD world that is still out there. Curious what muds you play? The one I keep hearing about is Legend of the Red Dragon, seems to be pretty common. Then there's Dragonswords, which is still in operation today. My ex-roommate was an admin on it back in the 90's.

Okay so, TLORD or The Legend of The Red Dragon is a BBS Door game. So it's linear and not a game I consider to be a mud. I have that game along with several others VirBBS and Hacker. They are also door games in which you are running a BBS and have to maintain it and a game where you are a hacker. Back in the day on the 2600 baud modem I played Major Mud with help, but back in 2005 I REALLY got into this MUD called Medievia. I played that for several years before the owner went nuts and changed a bunch of stuff. The nice thing with Zmud was that list of muds. I would go off on a tangent and just randomly connect to a MUD, might only be 1 or 2 people on, so the help was very minimal on these other muds, but it's the overall experience that I enjoy. Another fun game is Continuum. It's a top down space shooter and you are auto assigned to a team and you shoot other ships, collect upgrades, there's some kind of soccer game where you get the ball and then you have to get it back to a special designated area, and there's these gem things you collect as well (part of the soccer game I think). GOD! I miss the good old days.

It was definitely a time when new technology was coming out and for me it was something I kept up with and looked forward to. Now it's just, oh, now we get 4.5ghz. Yay I guess? Like the sparkle is gone if that makes sense.

But the other thing I really enjoy are demo's. The demo scene that comes out of.... Switzerland or Finland? I'm not sure which. My then fiancee had these 3 CDs and on one of them were these demo's. One demo I enjoy is called Facts of Life by Witan, and near the end of the demo it says Finland Assembly 92. But I've seen demo's from the group Many and wow, these demo's today are wild looking.

[butterburp1]

Ah gotcha, that would explain why so many BBS's have LORD. I've even played it offline in Dosbox, and sent mail to myself, haha. Is Continuum like Netrek? I remember a friend introduced me to Netrek briefly a few years ago. Never knew about it back in the glory days.

Yeah I know what you mean...in comes the NEW! Iphone XXXVIII or whatever, and everyone is so blah-zay. It's like ho hum, what else is new. That's why I'm so inspired by modern relics such as this board, not to mention the main site - I sometimes forget there are over 2000 games to explore!

That's also why, even though I could just set Dosbox to auto (except for speed sensitive games), I usually limit the cycles to the 386-486 speed range. I never want to lose that sense of wonder at what a computer can do. Heck, I'm using a 15" LCD at the moment, which was once considered a large display. I've also ordered an 18.5" monitor, which will also be about 15-ish at 4:3 aspect ratio. Would love to hear your or anyone else's ideas for staying retro.

p.s. totally remember demos...Future Crew for the win!

[DosMan007]

First off please, how do you limit the cycles to 386 or 486?? You got me very curious on that one Back when Circuit City was still in business, I owned one of the first flatscreen TV's. It was a 32" for $600 I believe. I wanted something larger so broke down and got rid of it for a TCL Roku smart TV 40". It doesn't have all of the RCA hookups, but I have this 4 switch box that has RCA hookups on it that I got from Radio Shack when they were in business.

I do everything I can to stay retro. So a guy I worked with at walmart, I figured he had to have an original Nintendo. So instead of having that conversation, I just said, hey so you probably have a Nintendo, I'll buy it from you and all the games for $100? And he just goes, okay. Then we had the conversation about it lol. So not only do I have that same NES, I took it apart to recondition the 72 pin connector that the cartridges plug into, you have to hold the console just to put a cartridge in now. I then saw this C64 Mini (Commodore 64) but I was disappointed the keyboard didn't work.

I'd never owned a C64, but figured, eh now's a good time as any. Then they came out with the C64 Maxi. A full sized working keyboard C64. So I got that off Amazon. And then a friend gave me a box of 4 Atari 2600's, even though I already had 3 of them, there was a Sega Genesis inside the box, so I've bought games for the Sega, Atari 2600 and the NES. So I will play those old games from time to time, but I guess because DOS is what I grew up with, I'm always playing some old DOS game I used to play, or a game I never played before I'll play and it just sucks me in for months on end.

Other than that, I was watching this public access show called The Computer Chronicles. One of the hosts is Gary Kildall. The guy who created the OS CPM. I never knew that show existed but it's on YouTube and I have sooooooo many episodes. I was putting an episode on before going to bed and just hearing the guys talk about a new processor or new software or laptop technology, that show is something else but definitely retro for sure.

Heck I have a laptop that still has a DVD-ROM drive and my Desktop computer also has a DVD-ROM drive in it. When I get a new cellphone, I make sure it's got a headphone jack. And I still have my old GE walkman like pocket radio. (it's not walkman but same blocky style with AM/FM radio)

[butterburp1]

My head is spinning with thoughts now (you're making me want to go on a retro shopping rampage on Ebay) but my time is pretty limited tonight, so I'll start with the Dosbox cycles. There's a neat little chart at the bottom of this page: https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Performance

Dosbox is not as exact as PCem, so any setting will be just an approximation, and there are lots of other variables (what motherboard and video card? ISA or VLB? Any external cache?) Also, it's based off of SPEEDTST.COM which only seems to measure one aspect of the speed, maybe the internal processing or something. But it's still reasonable.

[butterburp1]

It's fun reading about your retro adventures! Wow that is a lot of Ataris, you should open up an arcade lol. Classic NES consoles are hard to come by these days, but I do have an old Atari in the closet with a large handful of games. I also got one of those "Gamestation Pro" models as a gift, but the joysticks are dreadful.

Glad you had a chance to try the C64, that was my main computer before I got into DOS. Of course, DOS will always be a never-ending wonderland. Besides the games on this site, there's tons of games/apps on textfiles.com and elsewhere. I could try a bunch of new stuff every day and never run out of things to do. And I LOVE Computer Chronicles! I often have it playing in the background while I'm playing DOS games, haha. Lastly, I too have optical drives on most of my machines, and even a USB floppy drive on one of them. It boggles my mind to see computers without them, or phones without headphone jacks - thanks for the reminder to watch for that.

So yeah, we have a bunch of things in common. I do hope you get your Linux machine up and running. What DOS games or apps do you like to run these days? For me it's mostly Windows 3.1 chess and solitaire, while listening to MIDI files on Creative player, plus a DOS Mahjong game (the 4-player game, not the solitaire tiles version). Have also been experimenting with an infamous series of ASCII games called Tommy's Toys. I think they're pretty good, except for the later titles that have an annoying 60-second countdown timer, trying to nag people into registering. Knowing human nature, it probably accomplished just the opposite.

[DosMan007]

It's fun reading about your retro adventures! Wow that is a lot of Ataris, you should open up an arcade lol. Classic NES consoles are hard to come by these days, but I do have an old Atari in the closet with a large handful of games. I also got one of those "Gamestation Pro" models as a gift, but the joysticks are dreadful.

Glad you had a chance to try the C64, that was my main computer before I got into DOS. Of course, DOS will always be a never-ending wonderland. Besides the games on this site, there's tons of games/apps on textfiles.com and elsewhere. I could try a bunch of new stuff every day and never run out of things to do. And I LOVE Computer Chronicles! I often have it playing in the background while I'm playing DOS games, haha. Lastly, I too have optical drives on most of my machines, and even a USB floppy drive on one of them. It boggles my mind to see computers without them, or phones without headphone jacks - thanks for the reminder to watch for that.

So yeah, we have a bunch of things in common. I do hope you get your Linux machine up and running. What DOS games or apps do you like to run these days? For me it's mostly Windows 3.1 chess and solitaire, while listening to MIDI files on Creative player, plus a DOS Mahjong game (the 4-player game, not the solitaire tiles version). Have also been experimenting with an infamous series of ASCII games called Tommy's Toys. I think they're pretty good, except for the later titles that have an annoying 60-second countdown timer, trying to nag people into registering. Knowing human nature, it probably accomplished just the opposite.

This is crazy lol. I feel like I'm talking to myself just with everything that we have in common. Awesome Yeah, I as well installed my Windows 3.1 disks onto my games drive, but I have a bit of a funny story with that one. Because I'm so into everything that I am, and more on the old school side of things, I typically mount my actual hard drive for DosBox which is my E:\ drive. I know they say not to do that, but it's just a games drive. Now, I try to keep as little as I can on the C:\ drive, just so there's less problems. So my autoexec for DosBox is basically mount e E:\ and it mounts the entire E:\ drive.

So, I found my 6, Windows 3.1 3.5" disks and decided to install to the E:\ drive, got the SB16 sound driver so I get sound. So everything works fine and dandy like it should. Then, I had a moment of clarity. I went, GASP! And I told my friend, "You do realize that if I had had my C:\ drive mounted, I would have installed Windows 3.1 over top of my actual Windows?" He goes, yep. So yeah that little part was fun. Didn't happen but it was just one of those, OMG what if, moments.

As for Linux, I'm probably going to look for the most recent version of Mint, make a bootable CD, and then once Windows 10 becomes unsustainable, I'll make the switch. I do run Malwarebytes Premium, not sure if it works with Linux, I hope so though. Since I'm a gamer it's generally what I stick to, but I did try basic programming with the C64 Maxi. I printed out the first couple chapters of this book for basic programming, but the 2nd chapter got into loops and it just went over my head, so kinda gave up on basic for now, but it's so fun just turning it on and having it boot to just the original C64 screen. (you can set that in the settings, it typically boots up to a carousel of games, I have mine set to boot to the actual blue C64 screen) But there are days when I'll sit and play a few C64 games.

Actually now that I think of it, a younger guy I work with, he went to some flea market a while back and got an original working C64 WITH the disk drive and the 5.25" disks!! I think he said he just needs to find an old monitor for it. But at that point I think if he could just find the connector, I would think he could take any old display device and tie in the old connector to the new device, as long as you got your colors on the wiring right.

That Tommy's Toys sounds soooo darn familiar. I think when we would go to the shareware software store, they had a ton of disks like that. I think we got ones that said Mr. Disk on them, and it'd be like one or 2 shareware games, mostly from Apogee. We mainly played Commander Keen, but before that we'd go to Egghead software and dad would let us get a game from there. I still have most of the disks we got from way way long ago, and the 3.5" disks still work to this day. What I REALLY want to find is a 5.25" floppy drive that is USB. Again, I could probably figure out the wiring and make it USB compatible, but I would rather have it properly connected, inside the computer.

I have a 66mhz DOS 6.0 machine, but the 5.25" disk drive doesn't read the disks anymore, so I'm thinking the heads are dirty, but I don't have any of those cleaning disks. It was a floppy disk but it had a white cotton disk on the inside of the sleeving, and you'd put alcohol on the white part and then just run the drive to clean the heads. Really wish I could find one of those.

I really wish I could still get a hold of the old dot matrix printers with that paper with the holes on the sides, I used to use that stuff all the time as well. But heck if they made a disk drive for the C64 Maxi with actual disks, I'd probably buy that up too lol.

[butterburp1]

Yikes! Haha, glad your drive mounting didn't result in any catastrophes. I don't think I've ever done a root mount...I just know I'd have rotten luck and overwrite something.

Yeah I have Mint 21.3 installed on my spare comp downstairs...what's funny is, it's the most powerful computer I have, with two 12GB 3060 cards. I was planning to use it as a deep learning machine, but lost all motivation a year or two ago. Got sick of the constant updating of Python packages, always marvelously destroying all of my old code. So now it's basically a very expensive doorstop

Oh that would be sweet to have a true blue C64 again. What games do you play on it? (including any of your own creations in Basic?) I used to be hooked on Bard's Tale 2, but oddly never got very far. I wasn't much of a risk taker so I just stuck to the beginner dungeon and random wandering mobs, thus leveling up at a snail's pace. Also loved Skate or Die and Alice in Wonderland.

I remember looking for USB 5.25 drives a while back and there weren't any - not sure if it's because of something in the drive mechanics that doesn't translate over to USB, or what. Actually I just took another look around...sounds like some tech-savvy folks have actually BUILT their own. I wonder if that's the only way to get them.

Boy do I miss the days of going to a computer store and buying shareware on floppies. Found a nice Wheel of Fortune game that way, where you can make your own puzzles. I came up with some brilliant ones... DRIED MUPPET FROM PERU, DEHYDRATED TYPEWRITER, BURPING HUT etc.

[DosMan007]

Yikes! Haha, glad your drive mounting didn't result in any catastrophes. I don't think I've ever done a root mount...I just know I'd have rotten luck and overwrite something.

Yeah I have Mint 21.3 installed on my spare comp downstairs...what's funny is, it's the most powerful computer I have, with two 12GB 3060 cards. I was planning to use it as a deep learning machine, but lost all motivation a year or two ago. Got sick of the constant updating of Python packages, always marvelously destroying all of my old code. So now it's basically a very expensive doorstop

Oh that would be sweet to have a true blue C64 again. What games do you play on it? (including any of your own creations in Basic?) I used to be hooked on Bard's Tale 2, but oddly never got very far. I wasn't much of a risk taker so I just stuck to the beginner dungeon and random wandering mobs, thus leveling up at a snail's pace. Also loved Skate or Die and Alice in Wonderland.

I remember looking for USB 5.25 drives a while back and there weren't any - not sure if it's because of something in the drive mechanics that doesn't translate over to USB, or what. Actually I just took another look around...sounds like some tech-savvy folks have actually BUILT their own. I wonder if that's the only way to get them.

Boy do I miss the days of going to a computer store and buying shareware on floppies. Found a nice Wheel of Fortune game that way, where you can make your own puzzles. I came up with some brilliant ones... DRIED MUPPET FROM PERU, DEHYDRATED TYPEWRITER, BURPING HUT etc.

Yeah that's exactly what I'm saying. I used to format my C:\ drive A LOT. Things would work well, and then over time just the PC would start running slow. So I would sit here for days, copying stuff over to other drives to backup. Not that I had a lot, but more like I would check myself about 5 times to be sure I had everything copied over. That's why I don't put much on the C:\ drive because I know now that I can format it if I have to, and I shouldn't have a problem as everything else is on other drives. I did manage to get a 1gb external drive and put all this important stuff on, so if I have to make up a bug out bag cause of a weather event, that's one thing I'll put in that bag, as it does have important photos and videos I don't want to lose.

So now wait, you found a Wheel Of Fortune game that lets you make your own puzzles??? Still happen to have it? I would be very interested in that one as I do enjoy myself a good game of Wheel of Fortune

I was on the Linux Mint website yesterday, and I got the download for Linux Mint Cinnamon 21.3. On the website it says, "Everything just works "Out Of The Box", without the need to configure anything or to install extra applications. It's ready to go. Although it's very configurable, everything is set and tuned nicely by default and no unnecessary questions are asked." That's a lie right there because you DO need additional software to make your games work.

Yeah, never having a C64 I have used emulators, but I believe a late uncle of mine once had a C64 and we got to play on it one time. I was excited when they came out with the ColecoVision Flashback, but it literally has no good games, and I remember being at my aunt's house as a kid playing this gambling game on there and at another aunt's house we played Boxing. And this Flashback has none of those games. It has games I've never even heard of before. I would absolutely love it, if I could go back in time when I was like mid 30's, buy a Colecovision and Atari and the cartridges, because I would have the money. Then come back to present time. It's like all the stuff I wanted as a kid, just wasn't happening and back in those days, you better not dare ask for any money either.

Yeah I'm pretty sure people who get those drives running with the USB figure it out on their own, and never share the solution and/or they won't go out of their way to help others to be able to do it.

Well, looks like I'm off to make a new bootable Linux CD and give it a go. I gotta be careful not to install it though, because I did the free upgrade from Windows 7 Pro to Windows 10 Pro. So if this installation gets messed up, I don't have any recovery backups or whatever. I'd have to do a fresh Win7 installation and then upgrade to 10 again.

[butterburp1]

Funny you should mention backup drives...I have like 3-4 of them and randomly save to all of them. It got so confusing with all the duplicates that I finally had to spend an entire evening separating everything out. Now I'm strict about putting fun stuff on one drive, business on another etc.

Well I'm glad you're at least able to enjoy the classics now. Yes the WOF game is actually on this site!
https://dosgames.com/game/vgawheel/
I like to randomly pick from lists of adjectives, nouns, first/last names etc. and get nonsense like WARM SNOWMAN and EDGAR ALLAN MANILOW.

I know what you mean, I've had so many f[art]-ups with Linux that I've learned to only install it on junk machines (other than my deep learning box) because I KNOW something is not going to go as planned. I once stayed up till 1:30am trying to get things to work...probably uttered more cuss words than I ever have at one sitting.

[DosMan007]

Funny you should mention backup drives...I have like 3-4 of them and randomly save to all of them. It got so confusing with all the duplicates that I finally had to spend an entire evening separating everything out. Now I'm strict about putting fun stuff on one drive, business on another etc.

Well I'm glad you're at least able to enjoy the classics now. Yes the WOF game is actually on this site!
https://dosgames.com/game/vgawheel/
I like to randomly pick from lists of adjectives, nouns, first/last names etc. and get nonsense like WARM SNOWMAN and EDGAR ALLAN MANILOW.

I know what you mean, I've had so many f[art]-ups with Linux that I've learned to only install it on junk machines (other than my deep learning box) because I KNOW something is not going to go as planned. I once stayed up till 1:30am trying to get things to work...probably uttered more cuss words than I ever have at one sitting.

Yep, I know that feeling of staying up late to get things working. My dilemma's were always, it's 6:03pm and for whatever reason Windows decide to break, now here I am at 8:14pm reinstalling Windows. Once I got it reinstalled and made sure everything was working, then I got to bed. Like I can't tell you how many times I ran into that problem over and over.

I did however manage to get Linux 21.3 iso burned to a disc, only problem is it took almost 10 whole minutes to boot into Linux from the DVD. So am going to try the USB stick and see if that goes any faster for me.

Cool, I'm definitely grabbing that WOF game. It makes me think of Mad Libs when you said about the crazy mix of verbs and adjectives lol.