I'm running linux with mystic bbs and dosemu 1.0.2.0, and in the tradewars games, there is a white line on row 25 displays like this:

||T=250|14:05:49|Ver 3.09|MerCru|^T=Chat|^K=Punt|

If people do not have their term's set to 25 lines the screen goes crazy and any sector information disappears. This line is similar in appearance to the Game in Local mode, but the game is not in local mode.

How do I turn this line off?

Next question, the linux bbs displays ansi files just fine, but the tradewars door game displays the ansi's incorrectly. Any thoughts?

any help is appretiated.

quote:
I'm running linux with mystic bbs and dosemu 1.0.2.0, and in the tradewars games, there is a white line on row 25 displays like this:

||T=250|14:05:49|Ver 3.09|MerCru|^T=Chat|^K=Punt|

If people do not have their term's set to 25 lines the screen goes crazy and any sector information disappears. This line is similar in appearance to the Game in Local mode, but the game is not in local mode.

How do I turn this line off?

Next question, the linux bbs displays ansi files just fine, but the tradewars door game displays the ansi's incorrectly. Any thoughts?

any help is appretiated.


Trade Wars was not meant to run under linux. I've yet to see any emulation package allow either the door version or the TWGS server version to run flawlessly on *nix platforms.

Lisa M. Cutler
aka Rave
EIS Product Support

quote:
I'm running linux with mystic bbs and dosemu 1.0.2.0, and in the tradewars games, there is a white line on row...

----88-----

Next question, the linux bbs displays ansi files just fine, but the tradewars door game displays the ansi's incorrectly.


These are both related to the same problem: you have all of your trade wars nodes set up as LOCAL instead of going through vmodem (I think that's what it's called under DOSEMU anyway...). The game configured this way thinks that someone is sitting there at the keyboard on your machine or running it locally on a network rather than dialed in to a BBS.

I've seen this done right, but like Rave said I've never seen either the DOS version nor the TWGS work in any kind of reliable way under a load running under UN*X.

on that note, would it be possible to port TradeWars to linux, I'm sure there is a market out there. Personally I'd be willing to pay up to around $200 for a TW2002 Gold Server that ran native on Linux. Just because getting a decent server on a decent line running windows costs about $100 more per month than getting a decent server running linux.

I like working with OC-48 lines, but is it worth paying an extra $300 a month just to have a TradeWars server on a decent line. I think not. Especially since that server wouldn't be that good for anything else, due to the security problems with windows.

Anyway, enough of my ranting...

Still wouldn't mind seeing the server ported. I'm sure there are programmers out there willing to do it. (I know in fact that there are).

Thanks,
Will Robertson

quote:
on that note, would it be possible to port TradeWars to linux, I'm sure there is a market out there. Personally I'd be willing to pay up to around $200 for a TW2002 Gold Server that ran native on Linux. Just because getting a decent server on a decent line running windows costs about $100 more per month than getting a decent server running linux.


The difference between what is *possible* and what is practical is vast in this case. EIS has stated flatly that Trade Wars 2002 version 3.x and the TWGS 1.x will not be ported to Linux. It is written in Delphi and TW2002 was ported over from Turbo Pascal. Because of some backward compatibility issues, Trade Wars 2002 cannot be ported to Kylix without basically rewriting it wholesale. Which is not going to happen.

However, it has been hinted that TW2002 version 4 which is in the planning stages will be a total rewrite....

quote:
Trade Wars was not meant to run under linux. I've yet to see any emulation package allow either the door version or the TWGS server version to run flawlessly on *nix platforms.

Lisa M. Cutler
aka Rave
EIS Product Support

DOSEmu in not Linux. It is DOS. The program doesn't know the difference. I have several door games running just fine under Linux's DOS emulator. I would bet that it is possible to get the DOS version of TW to run fine under it as well with a little finagling.
quote:
I'm running linux with mystic bbs and dosemu 1.0.2.0

One trick I've found in running door games over telnet is to trick the game program into thinking it's in local mode by rebuilding the drop file with the comm port line set to 0. For example with DOOR.SYS, the first line gets replaced with COM0: and the rest of the drop file gets tacked on to that. The game program thinks it's running in local mode so it does not try to access a com port while still accepting the player data. Let me know if you are interested and I will post the scripts.

DOSEmu can be tempermental, especially the older versions. Try the latest version installed globally. Also try different versions of DOS. I found some door games run well under FreeDOS and others run well under MSDOS. If you try FreeDOS, make sure it's the latest version. Also, don't use a DOS partition. The later versions of DOSEmu can run MSDOS and FreeDOS from the Linux native Ext2 file system.

Good luck!

In the SysOp forum I posted about thinking about setting up my TWGS on a Linux box, I'm beginning to think this is an impossibility, heh. Oh well. Guess I'll stick with Micro$oft.[:(]

quote:Originally posted by craig
One trick I've found in running door games over telnet is to trick the game program into thinking it's in local mode by rebuilding the drop file with the comm port line set to 0. For example with DOOR.SYS, the first line gets replaced with COM0: and the rest of the drop file gets tacked on to that. The game program thinks it's running in local mode so it does not try to access a com port while still accepting the player data. Let me know if you are interested and I will post the scripts.

Thats an interesting idea, but wouldn't that just be the same net effect as running it in local mode? (e.g. the pesky status bar on the bottom as the original poster mentioned?) The game works flawlessly under proper emulation except for that darn status bar on line-25 which screws up terms that can't handle 80x25.

I, too, would be interested in knowing if there's a way to disable that status bar, or otherwise force the game to 80x24 while in "local" mode.

quote:
Thats an interesting idea, but wouldn't that just be the same net effect as running it in local mode?


The short answer is No. As long as TW thinks it is communicating through a com port (gets its settings from a dropfile) the status line will not display. The opposite is also true; if it thinks that it is running in local mode the status line will display and there is no way to turn it off.

quote:Originally posted by Thistledown

quote:
Thats an interesting idea, but wouldn't that just be the same net effect as running it in local mode?


The short answer is No. As long as TW thinks it is communicating through a com port (gets its settings from a dropfile) the status line will not display. The opposite is also true; if it thinks that it is running in local mode the status line will display and there is no way to turn it off.


Actually, the status line appears to display either way. I was just fiddling with a DOOR.SYS file and got it to do the |^T=Chat|^K=Punt| thing as the original poster was mentioning above, by toggling the Local Display On in the General Setup 2 in TEDIT (option H then T) which only seems to apply if you have a drop file AND its set to something besides COM0: -- COM0: appears to be treated exactly as if you had set that node to LOCL mode in TEDIT. The status bar still displays at the bottom, regardless.

If you set the COMx: in DOOR.SYS to something besides 0 while having local display turned off (you guessed it) you get nothing on the screen at all, and it just "locks."

So short of using a "virtual modem" device through DOSEMU, it looks like we're stuck with the status bar, regardless. Not a biggie if your users use mTel or NetTerm that can support 80x25 (or the default telnet proggie that comes with Win9x, even though its colorless, it works also).

You probably already figured this out, but I figured I'd go ahead and share for the benefit of anyone else stumbling upon this thread with a search:

quote:Originally posted by killthraka

Next question, the linux bbs displays ansi files just fine, but the tradewars door game displays the ansi's incorrectly. Any thoughts?

This has to do with your TERM environment variable. If its set to the default 'xterm' or 'linux' I notice those "control codes" showing up in certain telnet clients as well. Just set it to 'ansi' in your script just before the line that launches dosemu and that should make those ANSI screens show up just fine.

The status bar only shows on the local display, not the users and allows you to enter chat with the player or kick them offline. It only shows when the local display is enabled and for other than testing purposes I won't play in a game where the local display is on, Unfortunately I have seen too many gameops that pass information they saw while you were playing to other players.

Ok, here's something I ran across this morning; a utility called DOSDoor which works in conjunction with vmodem to deliver door games via DOSEMU. I haven't had an opportunity to test it yet (no Linux box at the moment). http://www.linux.org/apps/AppId_5988.html