Page 7 of 10

Re: Sinclair Retro BBS online!

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 12:55 pm
by janbredenbeek
Well it's still running stable now. It seems that the AntiHammer option of Net2BBS (the telnet server from NetFoss) did cause the crashes.
Thankfully the DNS blocklist feature of Net2BBS blocks most of the rogue connections before they even get a chance to get the BBS login screen. So much for the 'Internet of Things :(

I'm considering installing OpenSSH on this machine so that you at least have a secure connection without your password being sent in plain text :o . However I don't know of any SSH capable terminal clients for QDOS/SMS so I still have to keep Telnet if I don't want to lock out QL users :(
In any case it won't be less secure than this forum (which doesn't use HTTPS ;) ).

Now the next thing to do is make QLterm work properly using TCP/IP (which should be quite easy) and get Download and Upload working (which should be harder). I guess using Xmodem these days is out of the question so the solution would be to use an external Zmodem library (perhaps from QTPI). Or maybe look at the source of QTPI to see if it can be fixed?

It would also be nice to have THE_DISTRIBUTION available as download... but this is mostly a matter of converting the index.html files to FILES.BBS which should't be too hard as they already have the correct format...

later, Jan.

Re: Sinclair Retro BBS online!

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 12:58 pm
by tofro
Yep.

The "Internet of Things" is about to come.

The "Internet of Thugs" is already there.

;)

Re: Sinclair Retro BBS online!

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:54 pm
by Outsoft
janbredenbeek wrote:Well it's still running stable now. It seems that the AntiHammer option of Net2BBS (the telnet server from NetFoss) did cause the crashes.
Thankfully the DNS blocklist feature of Net2BBS blocks most of the rogue connections before they even get a chance to get the BBS login screen. So much for the 'Internet of Things :(

I'm considering installing OpenSSH on this machine so that you at least have a secure connection without your password being sent in plain text :o . However I don't know of any SSH capable terminal clients for QDOS/SMS so I still have to keep Telnet if I don't want to lock out QL users :(
In any case it won't be less secure than this forum (which doesn't use HTTPS ;) ).

Now the next thing to do is make QLterm work properly using TCP/IP (which should be quite easy) and get Download and Upload working (which should be harder). I guess using Xmodem these days is out of the question so the solution would be to use an external Zmodem library (perhaps from QTPI). Or maybe look at the source of QTPI to see if it can be fixed?

It would also be nice to have THE_DISTRIBUTION available as download... but this is mostly a matter of converting the index.html files to FILES.BBS which should't be too hard as they already have the correct format...

later, Jan.
Great work.

Yes we need QLterm working perfectly and that can make download/upload.

And QTPI yes have the sources in C and It will be great to fix it too, are you going to do it too?

Qtpi have the ANSI4 emulation that works really good on Ansi 16 colours and is totally compatibile with the new Mystic BBS in fact of backspace and cursors emulation and Download too using a Real QL + TCP/SER on WINDOWS/MAC/LINUX ;)

Re: Sinclair Retro BBS online!

Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 5:48 pm
by janbredenbeek
Outsoft wrote: Great work.

Yes we need QLterm working perfectly and that can make download/upload.

And QTPI yes have the sources in C and It will be great to fix it too, are you going to do it too?

Qtpi have the ANSI4 emulation that works really good on Ansi 16 colours and is totally compatibile with the new Mystic BBS in fact of backspace and cursors emulation and Download too using a Real QL + TCP/SER on WINDOWS/MAC/LINUX ;)
I've done some tests to find out why the cursor keys do not work with QLTerm.
It appears that both PuTTY and QLTerm send the same ANSI escape sequences for the cursor keys.
However, PuTTY sends them as one string and QLTerm as separate characters. This is no problem when using serial links, but with TCP/IP the data is sent as packets and MysticBBS expects escape sequences to arrive in one packet. So when you send an ANSI sequence as separate packets, MysticBBS doesn't recognise them.
Fortunately this is easy to fix for QLTerm.
I have also fixed the colour issue where blue was converted to red (this was intentional since on a standard QL blue was displayed as black in 4-colour mode!). I'm also considering 16-colour and larger terminal sizes than 80x24, but probably not on the next release as I want to release an usable version first.
As for QTPI, I haven't got a chance to look at the source code but I'll certainly give it a try.

later, Jan.

Re: Sinclair Retro BBS online!

Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 8:05 pm
by Outsoft
janbredenbeek wrote:
Outsoft wrote: Great work.

Yes we need QLterm working perfectly and that can make download/upload.

And QTPI yes have the sources in C and It will be great to fix it too, are you going to do it too?

Qtpi have the ANSI4 emulation that works really good on Ansi 16 colours and is totally compatibile with the new Mystic BBS in fact of backspace and cursors emulation and Download too using a Real QL + TCP/SER on WINDOWS/MAC/LINUX ;)
I've done some tests to find out why the cursor keys do not work with QLTerm.
It appears that both PuTTY and QLTerm send the same ANSI escape sequences for the cursor keys.
However, PuTTY sends them as one string and QLTerm as separate characters. This is no problem when using serial links, but with TCP/IP the data is sent as packets and MysticBBS expects escape sequences to arrive in one packet. So when you send an ANSI sequence as separate packets, MysticBBS doesn't recognise them.
Fortunately this is easy to fix for QLTerm.
I have also fixed the colour issue where blue was converted to red (this was intentional since on a standard QL blue was displayed as black in 4-colour mode!). I'm also considering 16-colour and larger terminal sizes than 80x24, but probably not on the next release as I want to release an usable version first.
As for QTPI, I haven't got a chance to look at the source code but I'll certainly give it a try.

later, Jan.
Great!!!

Can you send me the Fixed ver so I can test in on Black Phoenix and on my QL too?

Thanks a lot!!!

Re: Sinclair Retro BBS online!

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 1:53 pm
by janbredenbeek
QLTerm v2.34 is now live! You can download it from https://files.bredenbeek.net/s/VtqRw0Bqq5Syzdu
This is a version which has been tested succesfully with MysticBBS via Telnet (this does not include file download and upload).

Enjoy!

later, Jan.

Re: Sinclair Retro BBS online!

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 7:42 pm
by Outsoft
janbredenbeek wrote:QLTerm v2.34 is now live! You can download it from https://files.bredenbeek.net/s/VtqRw0Bqq5Syzdu
This is a version which has been tested succesfully with MysticBBS via Telnet (this does not include file download and upload).

Enjoy!

later, Jan.
Great dear!!!

Waiting for the next release ;)

I will test this on on my REAL QL TOO ^_^

Re: Sinclair Retro BBS online!

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 7:56 pm
by Outsoft
Outsoft wrote:
janbredenbeek wrote:QLTerm v2.34 is now live! You can download it from https://files.bredenbeek.net/s/VtqRw0Bqq5Syzdu
This is a version which has been tested succesfully with MysticBBS via Telnet (this does not include file download and upload).

Enjoy!

later, Jan.
Great dear!!!

Waiting for the next release ;)

I will test this on on my REAL QL TOO ^_^
Cursors now works perfectly!!

Backspace still not work but we can go ahead and cancel what we write with ALT + cursor left ;)

Re: Sinclair Retro BBS online!

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 8:25 pm
by Outsoft
janbredenbeek wrote:QLTerm v2.34 is now live! You can download it from https://files.bredenbeek.net/s/VtqRw0Bqq5Syzdu
This is a version which has been tested succesfully with MysticBBS via Telnet (this does not include file download and upload).

Enjoy!

later, Jan.
Jan on real QL we need that can work perfectly too with colours, text, etc.

is compatible too?

The blue become BLACK, seems that something is wrong on 4 colour mode ;)

Re: Sinclair Retro BBS online!

Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 12:24 am
by janbredenbeek
Outsoft wrote: Jan on real QL we need that can work perfectly too with colours, text, etc.

is compatible too?

The blue become BLACK, seems that something is wrong on 4 colour mode ;)
The old version changed blue to red to avoid that problem.
But on QPC2 this is undesirable since it can handle the full 8 (and even more) colours in hi-res mode.
You can turn off colour mode by the way. Maybe I should add an extra option '4 colour mode'?

later, Jan.