I remember "Back in the day", in the early 90's, I actually went to Will Boyett's house in Lakewood, CA. and picked up my copy, got the "Sound effects pack" too lol. I used to absolutely LOVE how that program made the game look, and was wondering if anyone knew where I could get a copy of it online, I've looked all over the place and can't find it. I still live here in L.A., and was thinking about trying to look Will Boyett up, I personally don't see how anyone could just step away from the game after investing that kind of time to it (enough to create a helper, that is) If anyone knows where I could find this program, PLEASE share the wealth, lol. *Side Note* I remember when I went over to his house to get my program, he actually showed me a game he was playing, that he had been in for OVER A YEAR! He showed me sector after sector of L6 planets, and I was floored. He was a very pleasant guy.

Here is a link to one version of it.
http://www.ziskind.com/bbsdoors/tw2002.asp
but I'm not sure how good it will be in todays world of tradewars.

I'de suggest a $26 investment in Swath now at v 1.9.2
It is a grafix interface with plenty of features.
When used with Twx proxy 2.04

Makes one great interface.
But its up to you.

I hope this helps.

I used to love TWTerm! Had some pretty cool features too, if I remember right... dropping a fig while express moving, great map, and loved the sound pack.
I got it going over the internet by using COM-IP and hmm..TurboComm Pro? (will look into this.) Had to basically make a virtual modem to have twterm 'dial' into, then connect the 'modem' to the telnet addy. Almost sure it was Eleq' who had the details on the setup.
I think actually Vid is right about SWATH, it's really the next evolution of TWTerm. Swath works ok 'standalone' which is probably the experience you want.
You can upgrade it to modern play level by using TWXproxy to connect and use Swath or Zoc to connect to TWXProxy. Once you run a few twx scripts and compare speed to swath, you'll never go without twxproxy again.

I already do use TWXProxy, with Swath (regged YEARS ago) and ZOC both through TWX, but I was feeling "retro" and wondered how it would look today, and if I could actually still use it in some sort of way, lol. I was also a "Fallout" player.. all the way back to Fallout 1, and they are coming out with Fallout 3 now from Bethesda Studios (the company that "took over" the game) and they are doing an EXCELLENT job with it, it will be released this fall, so if some of you guys don't only play this game, Fallout 3 will NOT disappoint you! its coming out on XBOX360, and PS3, I have both and the PS3 with Blu-Ray, is TOPS in my book. But back to The Computers, for some reason, I remember using Twar, and TWTerrm together, and another *sidenote*, I used to play in games with this guy, his name was "Dean" if i remember correctly, and what made him stand out, is the fact that he was BLIND, and could play the hell out of Tradewars... he had some speciallly rigged up computer, and he was a MASTER when it came to tactics, anybody ever run into this guy? I remember when I used to call him, I would call the number, a person would answer, and type what I was saying to him, he would receive the message on some kind of machine that would translate it to braille, then he would type his answer back to the person I was actually "talking" to and she would say what he typed, anybody ever hear of this either? But before I saw "Vid Kid's" post, I actually found the TWTerm program at the same site he directied me to, and a WHOLE lot of other "early" TW stuff, since I have an 500Gig external drive, I'm gonna start collecting that old stuff! Thanks for the replies guys, Priceless!

Be prepared for many of those files not to work. Many of those were released back when windows 3.1 was the latest thing. Sound and graphics drivers have changed over the years. Also some of the helpers and addons won't work because Tradewars itself has been upgraded several versions since then. Unless the source code is available, they probably won't do you much good.

Yep Big D, VERY true! I tried to fire up TWTerm and it was asking for DOS settings and it wanted to connect through a 9600 baud modem, lol!!! I did get to get to the main screen though, were it made it seem like you were looking out your spaceship's forward window, too cool, Will Boyett was WAYYY before his time with that program. A program like that one but "up to date" would Kick butt, lol. All these "coders" that we have here could do this I'm sure, I'd like try to arrange a project like this, if there are some people in the L.A. area that would like to delve into this, let me know. I think I might be on to something here.

Hello Predator!!

Will Boyett here. Thanks for the kind comments. I just love Google Alerts. You put your name into it and if anyone talks about you on the Internet, Google notifies you. That's how I found your post.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you what really happened when I "walked away". When we all played TW and I was coding TWTERM, everything was on BBS's. It was just about that time that the Internet was coming. I knew that with the Internet there would be big companies such as Microsoft and other who had big bankrolls. I knew online gaming would be big and they had the money to develop fantastic games and software. There were also a couple of other TW interfaces I was competeing with at the time.

This gaming company (can't remeber their name, Metro or something) came along and bought the rights to my software. I had to sign a non compete contract, and so by selling I was forced to stay out of coding TWTERM or any other TW program for three years.

Is Tradewars still alive and are lots of people playing?

Only one thing I regret.. after selling TWTERM I should have gone into making an interface for the Internet. Netscape could have been me, lol.
They promised they would take care of my customers and keep the program alive. I think they might have just scraped it though and only bought me out to get rid of their competition.

At the time I was working on TWTERM I was a one man show and it took a lot of time to keep up with the game and also to keep up the program to stay competitive with my competitors. I swear I was probably working 8-12 hours a day, seven days a week. My family life and marriage was suffering. Another good reason to sell.

Anyways, I'm still alive, sold that house in Lakewood five years ago and bought a house twice as big. I now live two blocks from Disneyland in Anaheim. I still have copies of those old programs along with the code if the magnetic disks they are on have not lost their magnetism.

How have you been? I'm sorry I don't remeber exactly who you are.. I did have a few people who stopped by to pick up their copies in Lakewood.

Wow - gotta love the internet! Welcome back Will. I think it is high time some of us programmers form even an online coding team (who needs to be local anyway) and get to work. I am a certified Java programmer, but I am also now in training with C# and all of the new Microsoft VS2008 suite and coding tools like WCF, WF, LINQ, etc. I would love to be involved in creating and sustaining a top level helper using the latest and greatest coding tools. It would not only hone (sp?) our skills, but keep them sharp. Please post here if there is anyone else who is ready for something like this.

ElderProphet and I are working on a web-based client (JavaScript-based with a bit of Java thrown in) that leverages TWX Proxy, so you are welcome to join our effort. Also, several years ago, I worked on a Java-based helper called Kokua, which is also open source, although I'm focusing on TWX Proxy now so I don't know if I'll go much farther with it.

Thanks Rgorion, I didn't even know that Tradewars was still being played. I thought the Internet and the much fancier games that followed would have killed it.

Where can I find a game of tradewars to join (just in case I wanted to check it out again)?

Try http://www.TheStarDock.com they have a game search tool to help you find a game.

twx proxy is a proxy you use along with a helper such as zoc or swath. It includes several database files for quick reference, and includes many scripts such as the script he's using against you. Lawnmow or mower scripts can sometimes get past some of the ptorp & pdrop scripts used today. You won't survive in any game today keying by hand. To competed you'll need to learn how to use the latest helpers and scripts.

As for a tutorial for setting up TWX, one of my players put together something fairly comprehensive...

You can check it out here.

I merged the smack part of this thread into the same named thread in the Smack forum. Please keep comments in this area clean and script / helper related.

Smack thread here: http://www.classictw.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=20905

+EP+

No problem Elder, figured we were getting out of line in this thread.

I d/l twproxy and swath, now to see if I can get it all up and running, however swath looks VERY limited unless you register it. I think they should just give you an unlimited version for 30 days. But I'll give it a try and see if the evaluation version has enough to test.

From everyone around here it seems this is the only way to go. TWproxy and SWATH