“MuffinTerm”: A Nice New Terminal App for BBSing on iPhone, iPad, and Mac
Readers can discover fairly a number of posts on this weblog about my enjoyment of modern-day BBSing — “dialing in” to on-line Bulletin Board Systems that may nonetheless be came upon there on the web. I take into account BBSing to be an exquisite alternative to sit down down in entrance of the varied techniques in my assortment and spend time with them — to place them to make use of. The method itself, involving classic {hardware}, I discover to be fairly satisfying and the net discussions I’m a part of within the message areas of those BBSs are loads of enjoyable as nicely. As such, there are actually instances after I need to login and test messages but it surely’s not attainable or handy to go down into the cellar and hearth up an previous system.
Being primarily a Mac person (in terms of fashionable techniques), I’ll normally use my MacBook Air and iTerm 2 or, if I would like one thing past VT100 emulation, SyncTerm to login. These work nicely sufficient, however I have to have my Mac with me to make use of them, and naturally I typically don’t.
Some time again, I spent a substantial period of time (and cash, really) making an attempt out varied enterprise-targeted terminal apps within the iOS / iPadOS App Retailer that declare to supply a few of the emulations I would like for correct BBSing, however not a single certainly one of them ever managed to tug it off. Some have ANSI emulation however lack the prolonged character units wanted to render the “ANSI art“-style login screens and menus utilized by most of the BBSs on the market. And, you may simply overlook about emulation of something just like the Commodore 64’s PETSCII or the Atari 8-bit’s ATASCII character units. So, correct BBSing on the gadgets that I do have with me more often than not has been a no-go.
That’s, till now.
A brand new terminal program referred to as MuffinTerm has just lately appeared within the iOS / iPadOS App Retailer and the Mac App Store that’s particularly designed for telnet BBSing. Oh, and it’s free.
Developed by Molly Black, MuffinTerm presents a number of terminal emulation choices together with full and correct ANSI and PETSCII help (with ATASCII on the way in which in model 1.2) and several other totally different “video modes,” together with MDA (inexperienced/amber/white), CGA 40/80, EGA, VGA, and VIC-II NTSC/PAL. A number of “CRT results” may be enabled so as to add some actual character to the BBSing expertise: CRT curvature, scan traces, heat TV tint, and VIC-II luma bars. Moreover, the app presents simulated modem speeds from 110 to 56 000 baud in addition to full-speed, file transfers by way of X/Y/Zmodem protocols, and functioning “modem LEDs” within the title bar. A helpful Publish-It-Observe-type characteristic enables you to apply reminders and different data to a specific BBS session that could be of use on-line, as nicely. One other good contact, for these of us used to utilizing the current “WiFi modems” that make BBSing on classic machines really easy, is the power to make use of the Hayes AT command set to hook up with a telnet BBS (ex: ATDTbbs.fozztexx.com ).
I reached out to Molly to search out out what motivated them to create this app within the first place and realized that they obtained into BBSing within the mid-’80s (like myself), and loved the scene till the web took over. Quick ahead a number of many years and so they had been engaged on a MUD/BBS hybrid server challenge, and had a want to make use of an iPad with its fold-up keyboard as a terminal consumer. Discovering nothing that match the invoice within the App Retailer, they determined to set the server challenge apart and create a consumer for the iPad that really labored for BBSing. Not lengthy into the challenge, Molly determined to develop the app to help the Mac and iPhone, reusing the core code however growing a customized interface for every system.
Lengthy-ago Apple II customers will likely be tickled to be taught the reasoning behind the title of this app, a really good little computing historical past throwback.
As soon as upon a time, there was an Apple DOS disk utility program named, fairly cryptically, MUFFIN. I at all times appreciated that title, and was maybe impressed by it when arising with a reputation for a brand new terminal program. (Additionally, I simply form of randomly just like the phrase “muffin.” It’s a nice-sounding phrase.) However actually, it was a little bit of a placeholder title at first.
I had a number of different, totally different names that I’d been contemplating, however each time I went to see if any had been in use already, it appeared that each single certainly one of them had been used for one thing, someplace, between roughly 1978 and the current. However “MuffinTerm,” maybe unsurprisingly, had not been taken, so I saved utilizing it because the placeholder. Ultimately, I made a decision that I appreciated it because it was, and saved it!
I’ve put MuffinTerm by its paces on the iPhone and iPad and am fairly impressed. What’s extra, the featureset and normal macOS interface of the Mac model have made it my go-to Mac BBS terminal program, taking the place of SyncTerm in my login arsenal.
Whether or not you’re a veteran BBSer nonetheless having fun with the scene or are new to the expertise, take a look at MuffinTerm. It’s a dream come true for these of us who’ve been ready for a real cell BBS terminal app, and it’s actually nicely definitely worth the worth.
See my BBSing resource page for extra tips about getting logged in, and my gallery of classic techniques doing a little modern-day BBSing and IRCing, in the event you dare.