Break Into Chat

Josh Renaud’s blog about BBS history, retro computing and technology reminiscences.

  • Telnet to a BBS using a PC terminal program within the DOSBox emulator

    Telnet to a BBS using a PC terminal program within the DOSBox emulator

    A few months ago I wrote about my experiences trying to telnet in to Atari BBSes using an emulated Atari on my Mac. Basically the solution boiled down to this: Use tcpser4j to change a telnet connection to a serial connection, use socat to pipe that serial connection to a file, and set the Hatari…

  • Kids drawing on computers, then and now

    Kids drawing on computers, then and now

    Today was “Parents get to watch dance class” day. In the afternoon my daughter Ludi and I went to see my oldest daughter, Jadzia. The “public” part of the class came at the end, so Ludi and I were waiting for a bit. During the downtime we played a few games on the iPad, and…

  • Emulation is time travel

    Emulation is time travel

    Some say time travel is impossible. But they are wrong. You don’t need Doc Brown and a DeLorean; all you need is an emulator. Lately I’ve been using DOSBox, an awesome cross-platform IBM PC emulator, to try some old BBS utilities from the 1990s.

  • BBS door games + microtransactions = Zynga

    It takes going back to BBS door games to make you realize that Zynga's whole empire is built on BBS door games with microtransactions. — Jeff Gerstmann (@jeffgerstmann) February 26, 2013

  • Joel Bergen, creator of “Global War” and “Global Backgammon”

    Joel Bergen, creator of “Global War” and “Global Backgammon”

    From paper tape to the BBS door game “Global War,” Joel Bergen discusses his history with computer programming.

  • Global War memories

    Global War memories

    Though I had never played the board game RISK before, I discovered that I already knew, more or less, how to play. I had learned years earlier by playing a similar game for BBSes called “Global War” by Joel Bergen.



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