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Accurate ANSI Emulation in Mac OS X?

Posted by pudge on from the all-terminals-suck dept.

bedouin writes "I occasionally telnet to some BBSs that are very rich in ANSI graphics. While I can usually navigate fine through message areas and file boards, playing classic door games like Food Fight is almost unbearable. For about a year I've been searching for a Mac OS X terminal emulator that can accurately draw ANSI graphics just as they would appear on DOS systems with ansi.sys, but haven't found anything yet. Any suggestions? A native (and free or shareware) Mac OS X app would be prefered, but I'm willing to use an X11 or maybe even classic alternative as well. So far I've experimented with iTerm, GLterm, and aterm with unimpressive results."

3 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Re:iTerm (International Terminal Emulator) for OS by shufler · · Score: 5, Informative

    PuTTY is pretty solid, and I believe it handles ANSI.

    It's primarily Win32 software, but there is a UNIX source. Might work in OS X, though there is an OS X port on the way (according to the FAQ)

  2. Ahhh.... Fellow BBSer by nka1993 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just when I thought I was the only one who checked the boards, I find out there are two. j/k.

    Anyhow, I've encountered the exact same problem, and our friend who posted the fonts on his .Mac site looks like a good bet.
    http://homepage.mac.com/kiddailey/files/misc/ibm-f onts.sit

    There are a couple of other things I'd like to bring up. First, I noticed that the backspace doesn't work automatically under the terminal when connecting to telnet sessions. There is a check box in the preferences to change that. Secondly, I write messages in some of the games and apparently the terminal puts in some bogus characters here and there. This may be related to the fonts yet again. However, I thought it was worth mentioning.
    For those of you who scoff at playing some door games on the BBS, I suggest you try Usurper. It is a lot of fun. Here is a link to a page that talks about the game in detail, and has some links to where you can telnet to, and play it.
    http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Castle/7177/u surper.html

    P.S. Some BBS installs have a web front end leveraging Java, which work quite well.

  3. Re:GLTerm by buserror · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, I'm GLterm author, and AFAIK GLterm is perfectly ANSI, which is different to being a DOS "ANSI".
    I've had plenty of users using iirc ANSI ascii "art", MUD players using GLterm with their ANSI art as well. Gee I've been sent megabytes of sometime pretty borderline "films" to ensure they work.

    My own suggestion is to get a lame DOS box, old laptop or something. I'll probably be cheaper than a GLterm registration :D