Hi,
I currently run a BBS on my BBC Micro (beebs.ddns.net for info), its running
over telnet and supports vt100, ANSI and Viewdata/Teletext (on a machine that
supports this i.e. a BBC Micro or Acorn Archimedes). With the machine running
the BBS most of the time I don't actually get to use it so I was hoping to
transition to SBBS but cannot figure out how to send the correct control codes
to send viewdata to a BBC Micro client, I've tried a few different formats of
files created in a teletext editor (replacing the .msg menu files) but on the
BBC Micro it displays the control codes as text rather than interpreting them
as teletext control codes over terminal. Is what I'm trying to achieve possible
within the currenet parameters of SBBS?
Many thanks,
Fred

---
� Synchronet � Vertrauen � Home of Synchronet � [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Re: Acorn BBC Mode 7 (viewdata) conrtol codes
By: vela025 to All on Fri Feb 09 2024 08:22 am

Hey Fred,

> ...
> that supports this i.e. a BBC Micro or Acorn Archimedes). With the machine
> running the BBS most of the time I don't actually get to use it so I was
> hoping to transition to SBBS but cannot figure out how to send the correct
> control codes to send viewdata to a BBC Micro client, I've tried a few
> different formats of files created in a teletext editor (replacing the .msg
> menu files) but on the BBC Micro it displays the control codes as text
> rather than interpreting them as teletext control codes over terminal. Is
> what I'm trying to achieve possible within the currenet parameters of SBBS?

I'm not sure that SBBS can be "configured" to give out Mode 7 graphics - it only understands Raw, ANSI and C64 (I think).

I've always been interested in Viewdata (working for a service provider in Australia in 80's for Australia's national viewdata service) - I started creating a "shell" that rendered Mode 7.

Actually my "shell" makes SBBS work as a viewdata server and supports ANSI (on port 23) and Viewdata (on port 516), and while I have the rendering of viewdata frames done, I havent implemented rendering and replying to messages - I've started work on it (on the ANSI side, with FSX on page *10021#) but its far from complete.

I'll finish it one day, but I'm distracted by other things ...

....δεσ∩

---
■ Synchronet ■ AnsiTEX bringing back videotex but with ANSI

Thanks for the reply, your mode 7 shell sounds great. My current BBS software
is OBBS from 1984 which I've modded to support sending full Mode 7 graphics
frames and ANSI which it does via terminal rather than acting as a viewdata
server it just uses bget to read each byte of either a teletext frame or ansi
file and sends it over serial. So on a BBC you get mode 7 graphics but on an
ANSI terminal you get ANSI (there's also vt100 if you have neither). It really
supprises me that I can't find a BBS host which can do the same.

---
� Synchronet � Vertrauen � Home of Synchronet � [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

On Fri, 9 Feb 2024 08:22:05 -0800
"vela025" (VERT) <VERT!vela025@endofthelinebbs.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> I currently run a BBS on my BBC Micro (beebs.ddns.net for info), its
> running over telnet and supports vt100, ANSI and Viewdata/Teletext
> (on a machine that supports this i.e. a BBC Micro or Acorn
> Archimedes). With the machine running the BBS most of the time I
> don't actually get to use it so I was hoping to transition to SBBS
> but cannot figure out how to send the correct control codes to send
> viewdata to a BBC Micro client, I've tried a few different formats of
> files created in a teletext editor (replacing the .msg menu files)
> but on the BBC Micro it displays the control codes as text rather
> than interpreting them as teletext control codes over terminal. Is
> what I'm trying to achieve possible within the currenet parameters of
> SBBS? Many thanks, Fred
>
> ---
> _ Synchronet _ Vertrauen _ Home of Synchronet _
> [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Videotex uses escape sequences. I can't say I've tried to use a mode 7
type file with synchronet. I wrote my own videotex script which runs on
a different port since sbbs doesn't auto detect the protocol and it's
just easier that way.

To change color and graphics, double height, separated or contiguous
etc, they're all preceded by an escape character, often referenced as
^[ it's ascii 27.

So for red text you'd put something ^[ followed by a letter A-G to
change the color to red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, or white
or @ for black.

^[] should change the background to previous foreground color

See if you can get that working to start with.

^[D^[] ^[FVIDEOTEX^[S^?^?5j^?j|^?}~j ^?55^?^?^?^?57h4k

This should provide some text and graphics. Replace ^[ with a literal
escape and ^? with a CTRL-?

If you want to download it, I've put my index page at
https://www.endofthelinebbs.com/1a.vtx if you want to download it. I'm
actually going to change the format of my files but this will work. You
could try changing it to a .asc file and just accessing it from sbbs.

Good luck.
--
End Of The Line BBS - Plano, TX
telnet endofthelinebbs.com 23
---
� Synchronet � End Of The Line BBS - endofthelinebbs.com

On Fri, 9 Feb 2024 08:22:05 -0800
"vela025" (VERT) <VERT!vela025@endofthelinebbs.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> I currently run a BBS on my BBC Micro (beebs.ddns.net for info), its
> running over telnet and supports vt100, ANSI and Viewdata/Teletext
> (on a machine that supports this i.e. a BBC Micro or Acorn
> Archimedes). With the machine running the BBS most of the time I
> don't actually get to use it so I was hoping to transition to SBBS
> but cannot figure out how to send the correct control codes to send
> viewdata to a BBC Micro client, I've tried a few different formats of
> files created in a teletext editor (replacing the .msg menu files)
> but on the BBC Micro it displays the control codes as text rather
> than interpreting them as teletext control codes over terminal. Is
> what I'm trying to achieve possible within the currenet parameters of
> SBBS? Many thanks, Fred
>
> ---
> _ Synchronet _ Vertrauen _ Home of Synchronet _
> [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Ah, also keep in mind that you're probably trying to mix terminal and
videotex which isn't going to work. videotex is 7E1 and it sends a #
when you press return, which is actually a _ sign ASCII 96 if I
remember correctly, so that videotex page probably wont work.

In the case of terminal I would expect sending ascii 129 to change text
to red but sbbs seems to want to do something with that and sends -U
when using something like ;TYPE sysop command.

Maybe there is some way to stop sbbs of processing a file and send it
"as is". Maybe I'm talking out my ass :)

So I loaded up commstar and went into viewdata move a did ;TYPE
/sbbs/text/1a.asc and it actually worked, sort of. First you'd need to
insert ^L at the top to clear the screen, and because it's all 1 line,
sbbs doesn't display it all correctly.

I've created https://www.endofthelinebbs.com/1b.asc which does display
correctly when using the ;TYPE sysop command if you're in viewdata
mode, but your problem there is twofold, there's no scrolling, it only
wraps around to the top and the user still has to use ^M rather than
enter unless you re-write the shell to deal with that.
--
End Of The Line BBS - Plano, TX
telnet endofthelinebbs.com 23
---
� Synchronet � End Of The Line BBS - endofthelinebbs.com

Thanks for the info, I'm not sure why but I'm unable to access
endofthelinebbs.com the connection times out so am unable to see the files you
have pointed to. Out of interest what editor do you use to edit your menu files
that accepts ESC as an ASCII entry?

>Ah, also keep in mind that you're probably trying to mix terminal and
>videotex which isn't going to work. videotex is 7E1 and it sends a #
>when you press return, which is actually a _ sign ASCII 96 if I
>remember correctly, so that videotex page probably wont work.

My current BBS is sending the Mode 7 graphics via terminal using 8n1, obvoiusly
it only displays the mode 7 graphics on a terminal that supports it (so either
an acorn computer with filtering off in whichever comms software you use (e.g.
commstar) or either of the PC connection options here
http://beebs.ddns.net/connecting.html)...or just good old syncterm, but
displays as vt100 or ANSI depending on what you select.

I was hoping there might be some BBS package out there that will just bget the
file as is rather than trying to process it. Feel free to check out
beebs.ddns.net to see the mode 7 graphics over terminal.

---
� Synchronet � Vertrauen � Home of Synchronet � [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net