Hi, all.

I am very self-aware posting a Windows XP question in the Retro Computers echo but mainline support did end over 16 years ago. OK, there was a patch that came out in 2019 but anyway...

I've been given a couple of XP era computers which very much fall into the "too old to be useful, too new to be interesting" category. Can anyone recommend some decent software for BBSing on XP? Even via serial would be fine, I'm a touch apprehensive about connecting those things to the Internet via IP.

Thanks,

BobW
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On 08 Aug 2025, Bob Worm said the following...

I've been given a couple of XP era computers which very much fall into
the "too old to be useful, too new to be interesting" category. Can
anyone recommend some decent software for BBSing on XP? Even via serial would be fine, I'm a touch apprehensive about connecting those things to the Internet via IP.

I run my Telegard system on a Windows XP VM. I was running it on a Windows 10 32bit VM and it worked... mostly. Every now & then on Windows 10 something weird would happen, mostly when running a door. Whether it was LORD or IceEdit things would crash or hang. That's all gone away since putting the same setup on a Windows XP VM.

I have Netfossil & net2bbs running to accept telnet connections and it seems to be fine.

You can open up IE and browse to http://legacyupdate.net on those machines to make sure it has all of the latest updates that were available to XP. Not that it would make it more secure in 2025, but might as well for any bug fixes.


Jay

... Whoever invented the knock-knock joke should get a no bell prize

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Re: BBSing on early WinXP era systems
By: Bob Worm to All on Fri Aug 08 2025 09:47 pm

Howdy,

I've been given a couple of XP era computers which very much fall into the "too old to be useful, too new to be interesting" category. Can anyone recommend some decent software for BBSing on XP? Even via serial would be

You could run any DOS based BBS no?

I've got Ezycom here at home - but that's on OS/2 now, but I think there has been work on telegard recently...


...ëîåï
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I've been given a couple of XP era computers which very much fall into the "too old to be useful, too new to be interesting" category. Can anyone recommend some decent software for BBSing on XP? Even via serial would be

www.rgbbs.info

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Re: BBSing on early WinXP era systems
By: deon to Bob Worm on Sat Aug 09 2025 08:37:00

Hi, all.

Thanks for the suggestions - I gave you a bum steer asking about "BBSing" - I should rather have said I'm looking for good terminal software!

No plans to host!

Cheers,

BobW
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On 09 Aug 2025, Bob Worm said the following...

Thanks for the suggestions - I gave you a bum steer asking about
"BBSing" - I should rather have said I'm looking for good terminal software!

No plans to host!

Telix was my go-to back in the day:

https://nrbbs.net/TLX351R.ZIP


Jay

... The word queue is ironic. It's just q with a bunch of silent letters after

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Thanks for the suggestions - I gave you a bum steer asking about "BBSing" should rather have said I'm looking for good terminal software!

http://www.rgbbs.info/links.html

mTelnet works great under XP.

... I still miss my exwife, but my aim is getting better...

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Re: Re: BBSing on early WinXP era systems
By: Exodus to Bob Worm on Sat Aug 09 2025 17:58:27

http://www.rgbbs.info/links.html
mTelnet works great under XP.

Thanks, Exodus - will give it a try!

BobW
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Re: Re: BBSing on early WinXP era systems
By: Warpslide to Bob Worm on Sat Aug 09 2025 16:43:38

Hi, Warpslide.

Telix was my go-to back in the day:
https://nrbbs.net/TLX351R.ZIP

Thanks for the tip - I shall give it a try.

BobW
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some decent software for BBSing on XP? Even via serial would be fine,

Have you tried good ol' Telix or Telemate? I don't remember if they run well under XP or not, but it's worth a shot. Windows terminals mostly suck, but I remember liking SecureCRT. Putty is ok. With both of those you'd have to configure specifically with Terminal font and CP437 encoding, because those aren't the defaults.

I'm going to see if I have the archives for Telix and Telemate here still (I'm using Telix right now) and make sure they're on my board.

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Re: BBSing on early WinXP era systems
By: phigan to Bob Worm on Mon Aug 11 2025 21:00:55

I'm going to see if I have the archives for Telix and Telemate here still (I'm using Telix right now) and make sure they're on my board.

Cheers, Phigan. I'll give that a bash when I next get one of the XP things out.

BobW
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phigan wrote to Bob Worm <=-

some decent software for BBSing on XP? Even via serial would be fine,

Have you tried good ol' Telix or Telemate? I don't remember if they run well under XP or not, but it's worth a shot.

Procomm Plus for Windows was nice - resizable, rescalable screens and
decent ANSI emulation. I'm sure there are some old copies floating
around the aether.

There was a Telix for Windows, I don't remember much about it except
for it using the same "bloop boop beep" connect sound.

I was doing work on systems that needed full VT220 emulation, and
Procomm Plus for DOS/Windows were the only common apps that provided a
decent emulation.


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I'm going to see if I have the archives for Telix and Telemate here still ( using Telix right now) and make sure they're on my board.

They're over here if you need them.

... In life.....pain is mandatory....misery is optional

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Procomm Plus for Windows was nice - resizable, rescalable screens and
decent ANSI emulation. I'm sure there are some old copies floating
around the aether.

I use procom plus for windows myself on my win 3.1 rig. Its the only terminal emulator I've found thus far that has decent ANSI emulation & has telnet support that will run on win 3.1. It works rather well to be honest.

I wonder if the more recent versions of it will run in win xp without needed
to be run in a VM?

I know for a fact that procom plus 2 for windows will work in win 10 using otvdm/winevdm (mendelson.org/otvdm.html), I tried it in the weekend and it runs just fine which surprised me. I wonder if that would work in win xp??

... Schizophrenia beats being alone.

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Re: Re: BBSing on early WinXP era systems
By: poindexter FORTRAN to phigan on Mon Aug 11 2025 08:51:49

Procomm Plus for Windows was nice - resizable, rescalable screens and
decent ANSI emulation. I'm sure there are some old copies floating
around the aether.

I was just ranting on Phigan's board about the amount of effort it takes to get off the starting blocks with Windows XP. It can't do modern SSL / TLS ciphers so even on the newest version of Chrome it will run you can't open half of the Internet. Even most retro style terminals live on GiHub or Sourceforge, which basically don't work on XP.

After many attempts at various softwares (lynx browser, Syncterm, etc, etc) I've now got Netrunner up and running, with thanks to Winrar from archive.org. It makes this laptop run hot as hell but at least now I have x/y/zmodem and can try pulling something a bit kinder off a BBS somewhere.

Procomm Plus would definitely tick my nostalgia box - I am pretty sure it was Procomm Plus that my dad used when I got to watch him connect to a BBS once in the late 80s / early 90s.

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions.

BobW
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