Need Small Mod for 6.25

[Info-Seeker]

Hey Guys,

I have posted in another forum here about my intention to put up a Commodore / Amiga BBS running on MBBS for dos. I have made some decent progress with it, but have run in to a stumbling block incorporating the Commodore Petscii charset in to my menus.

The Commodore had a strict 40 colums, and most of the char graphics screens that were designed for it back in the 80s/90s took full advantage of the 40 colum width, letting the computer wrap to the next line without a carriage return. When I try to get around this by setting the the screenwidth to 40 chars, the graphics get all messed up because Major counts the ctrl-codes and color changes as a printable character.

I thought about leaving the screen width at 80 chars, and using a hard carriage return on colum 40 to advance the line, but this screws up all the text based help menus and online games.

So I was wondering if someone could write me a small add in module that would allow me to load a text file like any other menu, full of characters that shouldn't count as a space in the screen width counter.

I could write it in basic in a few lines by putting the chars in an array or a string and check against each one, but don't know how I would incorporate it in to the bbs.

It would really help me a lot on this, and would allow me to champion Major in the Commodore scene...

Would anyone be kind enough to help me with this? If not, what would you charge me to make it happen?

Thanks in advance...

Info-Seeker

[Info-Seeker]

I find it troubling that for a bbs and system we are supposedly trying to keep alive, I can not get such a simple mod done. Do I have to offer to pay for it?

How much would it cost to get this very small mod done?

[Stoneslinger76]

I find it troubling that for a bbs and system we are supposedly trying to keep alive, I can not get such a simple mod done. Do I have to offer to pay for it?

How much would it cost to get this very small mod done?

Have you treid changeing the language mode to "TTY - ASCII on a dumb terminal mode"

Go to offline utils, then option 4 or 5 to change the base language to TTY. Page 49 in the Major bbs sysop manual (v6) for more help about editing creating new languages, it maybe a simpler to get you running.

[Info-Seeker]

what good would changing the base language to ascii text be? does it only count the ascii chars in the screen width then? because other than that, I don't think it will be of much help.

I have created a new language for the Commodore Petscii. The problem is, like I stated above, they use ctrl-codes to change colors. If I type 20 chars on a line, change the color, then fill in the last 20 chars which are now in a different color, that line is actually 41 characters, including the control code. If I set it to a 40 colum width in major, then the last character gets wrapped and pushes the next line out of sync. Change the color 20 times per line and its 60 chars wide...

In the commodore world, every screen is 40 colums, so no need for a c/r at the end of the line, since character 41 is the first char on the next line. So unless I can set the width to 40 chars, it gets all screwed up.

When I do set the width to 40 chars, any color change or control code causes the end of the line to truncate and wrap to the next line causing the same problem.

I could make each screen 39 chars with a hard c/r in the last position, then make the width 80 chars, but that screws up the plain text menus for the rest of the system.

[Stoneslinger76]

what good would changing the base language to ascii text be? does it only count the ascii chars in the screen width then? because other than that, I don't think it will be of much help.

I have created a new language for the Commodore Petscii. The problem is, like I stated above, they use ctrl-codes to change colors. If I type 20 chars on a line, change the color, then fill in the last 20 chars which are now in a different color, that line is actually 41 characters, including the control code. If I set it to a 40 colum width in major, then the last character gets wrapped and pushes the next line out of sync. Change the color 20 times per line and its 60 chars wide...

In the commodore world, every screen is 40 colums, so no need for a c/r at the end of the line, since character 41 is the first char on the next line. So unless I can set the width to 40 chars, it gets all screwed up.

When I do set the width to 40 chars, any color change or control code causes the end of the line to truncate and wrap to the next line causing the same problem.

I could make each screen 39 chars with a hard c/r in the last position, then make the width 80 chars, but that screws up the plain text menus for the rest of the system.

Try it, see if it works with out ansi in terminal mode. then use the language creation tools to create your custom 40 wide language from the text only terminal mode language and add in ansi one step at a time once you have the message responses down to about a length of 30-34 (+2 color changes=40)
It would be much esier than attemping to edit all the msg strings or setting the major bbs dev kit and editing/compiling it that way.
I am curious how the system console will dispay as it is more than 40 wide? The terminal mode is your best option to start with then move on to the amazing ansi graphics. Rember no flashing ansi.
Good luck!

[Info-Seeker]

You guys aren't listening...

I do not care about the system text messages. Who cares if they are longer than 40 chars, they will just wrap to the next line. There is no issue with the system messages.

The problem is when I try to display a Petscii graphic. Commodore Ruled the bbs scene because of it's famous Petscii graphics character set. I don't need the whole thing rewritten to 40 columns, all I need is for a number of characters, like the 16 color codes, not to count in the column width.

I appreciate you guys trying to help but I need help with the problem I originally posed, not what you think is the problem.

[frcorey]

You guys aren't listening...

I do not care about the system text messages. Who cares if they are longer than 40 chars, they will just wrap to the next line. There is no issue with the system messages.

The problem is when I try to display a Petscii graphic. Commodore Ruled the bbs scene because of it's famous Petscii graphics character set. I don't need the whole thing rewritten to 40 columns, all I need is for a number of characters, like the 16 color codes, not to count in the column width.

I appreciate you guys trying to help but I need help with the problem I originally posed, not what you think is the problem.

just put the petcii codes in with the mbbs's ansi handler. then it will look for both.

[Info-Seeker]

just put the petcii codes in with the mbbs's ansi handler. then it will look for both.

Now that's an idea, where do I do that?

[frcorey]

just put the petcii codes in with the mbbs's ansi handler. then it will look for both.

Now that's an idea, where do I do that?

well, I thought it was just a charactor table, but it's logic. if you want to see it, look in emulate.c
that is where the ansi handlers seem to be. you can see how they do that and mod the routines to do the petcii also.

[Info-Seeker]

Corey you Tease!

So I guess I am right back to needing someone to make a quick mod for me... just don't build up my hopes like Corey there, then yank the Carpet out from under me in the very next post.

Are there any kind souls with source willing to make a mod for me on this?

Thanks for the info Corey, it gets me a little closer to my goal!

Info-Seeker

[frcorey]

Corey you Tease!

So I guess I am right back to needing someone to make a quick mod for me... just don't build up my hopes like Corey there, then yank the Carpet out from under me in the very next post.

Are there any kind souls with source willing to make a mod for me on this?

Thanks for the info Corey, it gets me a little closer to my goal!

Info-Seeker

sorry, there are not many programmers for mbbs anymore, let alone worldgroup. you could ask dan spain, but I don't think he is working with the majorbbs anymore. if I knew petcii and how it worked maybe I would do it for a programming excercies.

[Info-Seeker]

Petscii is just commodore's version of the ascii table... they used a small subset of the ascii set, then replaced the rest of the chars with graphical characters allowing for some pretty sweet text based graphics...

there is a sweet program called dirmaster 2.1 for the pc, that allows you to view commodore 64 disk images, .d64 files (176k each), on the PC. It also has a graphic viewer built in so you can see all the petsciis. Dirmaster is free to download, and I'd be happy to throw a zip file online for you with some graphics on a few disks so you could check them out. It is what made the Commodore BBS scene dominate all others, because we had character graphics when everyone else was just text or ansi...

I really only need 20 or 18 codes put in, and I could get you the ascii value of each code.. I really do not believe it would be that difficult to add. there is no escape code or anything before them, so it would just be anytime it encountered these codes to treat them like ansi and not increment the column count.

It would mean a great deal to me, and while I am currently unemployed and strapped for cash, I may have a part around here you would like, or some other form of compensation. I also know a lot of people if u ever need a favor or something...

in fact, I have a chart with the color codes right here...

Black is 144
white is 5
red is 28
cyan is 159
purple is 156
green is 30
blue is 31
yellow is 158
orange is 129
brown is 149
lt red is 150
gray is 151
med gray is 152
lt green is 153
lt blue is 154
lt gray is 155

so any time 1 of those ascii chars shows up in a text file, it gets treated as an ansi.. or you could just decrease the column count by 1 so it doesn't count in the total. The char still needs to be displayed on the screen, it just can't count in the column width.

[dspain]

Petscii is just commodore's version of the ascii table... they used a small subset of the ascii set, then replaced the rest of the chars with graphical characters allowing for some pretty sweet text based graphics...

there is a sweet program called dirmaster 2.1 for the pc, that allows you to view commodore 64 disk images, .d64 files (176k each), on the PC. It also has a graphic viewer built in so you can see all the petsciis. Dirmaster is free to download, and I'd be happy to throw a zip file online for you with some graphics on a few disks so you could check them out. It is what made the Commodore BBS scene dominate all others, because we had character graphics when everyone else was just text or ansi...

I really only need 20 or 18 codes put in, and I could get you the ascii value of each code.. I really do not believe it would be that difficult to add. there is no escape code or anything before them, so it would just be anytime it encountered these codes to treat them like ansi and not increment the column count.

It would mean a great deal to me, and while I am currently unemployed and strapped for cash, I may have a part around here you would like, or some other form of compensation. I also know a lot of people if u ever need a favor or something...

in fact, I have a chart with the color codes right here...

Black is 144
white is 5
red is 28
cyan is 159
purple is 156
green is 30
blue is 31
yellow is 158
orange is 129
brown is 149
lt red is 150
gray is 151
med gray is 152
lt green is 153
lt blue is 154
lt gray is 155

so any time 1 of those ascii chars shows up in a text file, it gets treated as an ansi.. or you could just decrease the column count by 1 so it doesn't count in the total. The char still needs to be displayed on the screen, it just can't count in the column width.

so what exactly does it need to do?

i could use the wgsmsx source to make a converter or you want it to do someting else?

sorry so late somehow this post slipped past me.