To: digital man
I have been working with Mike over at PCMicro.com on trying to get DOS games
to display ok under PETSCII on Synchronet. After many test and configurations
where we used NetFoss, Doorway or just Synchronets Fossil (which turns out to
be the best bet) there are still screen codes being passed to the PETSCII
user making the games unplayable. We tested with Frotz, .com games etc..

After all this testing the past week plus, Mike said "Your best bet would
probably be to contact Deuce and see if he would add an option to Syncterm to
allow it to convert ANSI codes to PETSCII codes when it's in PETSCII mode."

I guess my question is could this be done in Synchronet being it is already
converting other ANSI to PETSCII? I know myself and Bucko would be big users
of this to allow Commodore users the ability to enjoy DOS games on Synchronet
using a Commodore!

If you would like to see our back and fourth emails and screen captures
isolating the cause and effects I can forward them on to you.

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To: Shane O'Neill
Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
By: Shane O'Neill to digital man on Tue Jul 27 2021 12:33 pm

> I have been working with Mike over at PCMicro.com on trying to get DOS games
> to display ok under PETSCII on Synchronet.

It seems strange that you'd go to Mike for Synchronet support. This is the place to ask for Synchronet support questions.

> After many test and
> configurations where we used NetFoss, Doorway or just Synchronets Fossil
> (which turns out to be the best bet) there are still screen codes being
> passed to the PETSCII
> user making the games unplayable. We tested with Frotz, .com games etc..

Did you try using cioxtrn? I think I suggested this already:
https://wiki.synchro.net/howto:cioxtrn

> After all this testing the past week plus, Mike said "Your best bet would
> probably be to contact Deuce and see if he would add an option to Syncterm
> to allow it to convert ANSI codes to PETSCII codes when it's in PETSCII
> mode."

I doubt very much Deuce would do that.

> I guess my question is could this be done in Synchronet being it is already
> converting other ANSI to PETSCII?

Synchronet converts CP437 characters to PETSCII, not ANSI.

> I know myself and Bucko would be big
> users of this to allow Commodore users the ability to enjoy DOS games on
> Synchronet using a Commodore!

Are these 40 column DOS games? Most Commodore users are 40 columns, so that could also be a problem.

> If you would like to see our back and fourth emails and screen captures
> isolating the cause and effects I can forward them on to you.

I intend to port a Z-Machine engine to Synchronet in the future to make the playing of those Zork games seamless (no "DOS" or any other programs involved), but that's not going to happen right away (gotta update our JS engine first). If a DOS games sends WWIV color codes, those could be converted to PETSCII color codes I suppose - that might already just work, I don't recall. But if the DOS game sends ANSI sequences directly to the user, I don't intend to do any "translation" of that to PETSCII on the fly. This is where it's advantagous to use JavaScript ports of popular DOS doors (e.g. LORD, LORD2, tw2, etc.) as they render fine for PETSCII users too.
--
digital man

Sling Blade quote #23:
Karl: I reckon I'm gonna have to get used to looking at pretty people.
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To: Digital Man
Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
By: Digital Man to Shane O'Neill on Tue Jul 27 2021 03:27 pm

> Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
> By: Shane O'Neill to digital man on Tue Jul 27 2021 12:33 pm
>
> > I have been working with Mike over at PCMicro.com on trying to get DOS
> > games to display ok under PETSCII on Synchronet.
>
> It seems strange that you'd go to Mike for Synchronet support. This is the
> place to ask for Synchronet support questions.

mike ehlert owns doorway
---
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To: MRO
Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
By: MRO to Digital Man on Tue Jul 27 2021 09:22 pm

> Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
> By: Digital Man to Shane O'Neill on Tue Jul 27 2021 03:27 pm
>
> > Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
> > By: Shane O'Neill to digital man on Tue Jul 27 2021 12:33 pm
>
> > > I have been working with Mike over at PCMicro.com on trying to get DOS
> > > games to display ok under PETSCII on Synchronet.
>
> > It seems strange that you'd go to Mike for Synchronet support. This is
> > the place to ask for Synchronet support questions.
>
> mike ehlert owns doorway

Yup, aware of that. Thankfully, we have a free, native 32-bit alternative:
cioxtrn.exe
--
digital man

Rush quote #74:
A modern-day warrior mean, mean stride, today's Tom Sawyer, mean, mean pride
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To: Digital Man
Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
By: Digital Man to MRO on Tue Jul 27 2021 11:25 pm

> Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
> By: MRO to Digital Man on Tue Jul 27 2021 09:22 pm
>
> > Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
> > By: Digital Man to Shane O'Neill on Tue Jul 27 2021 03:27 pm
>
> > > Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
> > > By: Shane O'Neill to digital man on Tue Jul 27 2021 12:33 pm
>
> > > > I have been working with Mike over at PCMicro.com on trying to
>
> > > > get
> > > > DOS games to display ok under PETSCII on Synchronet.
>
> > > It seems strange that you'd go to Mike for Synchronet support. This
>
> > > is
> > > the place to ask for Synchronet support questions.
>
> > mike ehlert owns doorway
>
> Yup, aware of that. Thankfully, we have a free, native 32-bit
>
> alternative:
> cioxtrn.exe

that's why he went to pcm. because he's using doorway. doorway works fine and is VERY feature rich. not sure about cioxtrn.
after looking at cioxtrn's wiki entry it looks like it just does one thing
doorway does along with 32bit programs. doorway does a lot of stuff.
dropfiles, jailing people, time limit, prevents drop to dos, and much more.

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To: MRO
Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
By: MRO to Digital Man on Wed Jul 28 2021 09:48 am

> Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
> By: Digital Man to MRO on Tue Jul 27 2021 11:25 pm
>
> > Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
> > By: MRO to Digital Man on Tue Jul 27 2021 09:22 pm
>
> > > Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
> > > By: Digital Man to Shane O'Neill on Tue Jul 27 2021 03:27 pm
>
> > > > Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
> > > > By: Shane O'Neill to digital man on Tue Jul 27 2021 12:33 pm
>
> > > > > I have been working with Mike over at PCMicro.com on trying to
>
> > > > > get
> > > > > DOS games to display ok under PETSCII on Synchronet.
>
> > > > It seems strange that you'd go to Mike for Synchronet support. This
>
> > > > is
> > > > the place to ask for Synchronet support questions.
>
> > > mike ehlert owns doorway
>
> > Yup, aware of that. Thankfully, we have a free, native 32-bit
>
> > alternative:
> > cioxtrn.exe
>
> that's why he went to pcm. because he's using doorway. doorway works fine
> and is VERY feature rich.

It's also a 16-bit DOS program and non-free.

> not sure about cioxtrn.

It's a 32-bit Windows program and free and open source. That said, I don't
think it really solves the ANSI->PETSCII issue that the OP was asking about anyway.
--
digital man

Synchronet/BBS Terminology Definition #8:
BinkP = BinkD Protocol
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To: Digital Man
Re: PETSCII w/DOS doors
By: Digital Man to MRO on Wed Jul 28 2021 01:54 pm

> > > cioxtrn.exe
>
> > that's why he went to pcm. because he's using doorway. doorway works
> > fine and is VERY feature rich.
>
> It's also a 16-bit DOS program and non-free.

so what? we are all using 16 bit doorgames and people who want to use doorway are using to to run 16 bit programs.

and doorway was essentially abandonware for over decades and there's a keygen out there that has been used with it.

> It's a 32-bit Windows program and free and open source. That said, I don't
> think it really solves the ANSI->PETSCII issue that the OP was asking about
> anyway.

and cioxtrn is not comparable to doorway, as well.
doorway should be used to run dos programs on a bbs in a safe environment. that is part of what it was designed to do.
it's not a one trick pony.
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