Thanks for calling the BBS, it’s great finding and talking to so many other people who enjoy this!

Thanks for checking it out! It’s great being part of the BBS community again. So many bits to tinker with.

For anyone interested in seeing SuperBBS - there is a BBS ‘The Lower Planes’ at tlp.zapto.org (BBS on port 6502) that claims to be the only SuperBBS in the world.

Some other DOS BBS-related programs I cracked recently:

• Toilet Stall 1.0 graffiti door
• StickMan v1.11 (patched to remove requirement for numeric keypad, now playable on a laptop)
• Buccaneer 2.10 (found this game from original author’s son’s reddit post)
• Mission #2 Vacation In Hell! v2.01
• Blue Wave Mail Reader 2.30 DOS & 386

I’m using IDA for disassembly and DOSBox-X for debugging, still kinda learning the ropes in 16-bit DOS disassembly but am finding the right tools actually work pretty well, at least in a lot of cases.

I looked at the 386 version (32 bit) of the Blue Wave mail reader and IDA did a great job of decompiling the key check function - I was very impressed - I was even able to copy and paste parts of the code from the decompilation into a keygen. Too bad IDA doesn’t decompile 16-bit code - I may have to look into Ghidra sometime for that.

The MS-DOS debugger (DEBUG) is also surprisingly useful and powerful, considering its humble stature as ‘some old thing in the DOS directory’. ;) Using the DOSBox-X debugger has advantages, but the simple DOS DEBUG utility was enough to figure out a couple keygens too.

Sounds like a great time, awesome to play a game to maximize the fun! Gonna have to keep an eye out for an active Exitilus game!

Speaking of Contra - there is a new Contra out March 12, 2024 (today! or tomorrow depending on timezone), Contra: Operation Galuga. I haven’t played the game yet, but the trailer looks amazing!

I haven’t played Exitilus, searching just now I see The Realm of Serion BBS has it, sounds like fun! Right now I am just a few days into my first game of LORD, after saying “maybe I’ll play a game of that someday” since the 1990s. :)

I am not very familiar with the A800 but there are a lot of wifi networking adapters and the such these days for all kinds of systems, many of them emulate modems so they are well-suited to interfacing with a BBS. “RS-232 wifi modem” as search terms gives a bunch of options.

Also useful for old computers: http://theoldnet.com/ provides ways to use computers from the 1990s online today to access some websites etc.

A list of over 1,000 (current) BBSes: https://www.telnetbbsguide.com

Most of these BBSes are accessible via telnet - there are many options for telnet, but typically for BBSes you want a terminal that supports ANSI colours and IBM-PC characters (CP437). A recommended terminal program for Win/Mac/Linux is SyncTerm: https://syncterm.bbsdev.net

There are about 40 dialup modem BBSes in the list: https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/bbs/connection/dial-up/

For more information about the world of BBSes in the 1980s and 90s, a great source of history is Jason Scott’s BBS Documentary and Al’s Geek Lab Back to the BBS.

The animation with the C:\ prompt is great! I hadn’t seen this before, but that’s one of the all-time greatest game openings!