BBSing with your Mobil Device - MuffinTerm and ConnectBot 2023-03-21 14:08:41If you don't want miss out on your BBS experience on the go you will eventualy search on your mobile device for a Terminal App. Apple user didn't find anything for a long time. There wasn't a App in the store for it. But with Android on the other hand you've at least Connect Bot. This App wasn't coded with BBSes in mind as a top tier priority. And you can tell that by simply using the App. But you can make it work with the right settings to call a BBS. The right settings for calling a BBS with ConnectBot ConnectBot is a very handy App if you aproach modern shells for webserver or other Unix like systems. SSH and a bunch of codepages included. If you create a BBS as a host you should switch the Encoding to CP437. Another setting that have to be tweaked is DEL Key: Backspace. Any compression should turned off also. If you use the settings explained above you should at least get a good guess of what the screen of a BBS should look like on the first screen of your BBS call. But things doesn't line up correctly. The solution is, yes you guessed it already, another setting! Open the menue at the right top corner in your active connection screen and force the size to 80x25. Twice. Because the App will refuse it at the first try. That might be a unnoticed bug in the software. After you set the size you should see a good Ansi appearance at the next screen that will be drawn. That will left you at least with a usable App to surf your favorite BBS on the go. A major drawback is that ConnectBot misses out on any filetransferprotocol like ZModem or XModem. No Up/Downloads on Android. ConnectBot received in the last weeks like MuffinTerm an Update. The Apple Software is written on purpose for BBSes. It's native language is Ansi and you can tell by using the App. MuffinTerm offers you not only just Ansi it also has a bunch of other terminal emulations under the hood. That results in a terminal look as if you would use an Atari, PET or any other screen emulator there is in the software. It dosen't stop there. Wouldn't it be boring if you couldn't tweak your Videomode? Well you can. And to top it all of you even can emulate the Speed of your connection. Try to read as fast as the characters showing up on your screen and measure your eyes and brain readings BPS. Now to the more Apple-isch side of things. You can change the App icon and via iCloud you can export your Phonebook or syncronise it between your iPhone, iPad and even macOS. Another major point where iCloud will come in place is the ability to Up/Download files from the AppleCloud to the BBS. Yeah, that's right! You have ZModem in MuffinTerm. For a long time Android users had the advantage over Apple users that they could reach a BBS. But now it seems that Apple users gained the superior connection tool for the BBS online livestyle. On the Web ConnectBot is here to find: https://connectbot.org. Of Course MuffinTerm has it's own Web presents: https://muffinterm.app. They are no more excuses you didn't check your PMs and Netmails frequently ;) If you want more BBS in your pocket you should take a look on HotDogED a Fido Point App.
Quelle: bbsindex / android&apple store / muffinterm.app / connectbot.org |
