Latest News & Updates
July 27, 2024
Wow, it's been a year since my last update. Had to read the last one to see where I left off. I have gotten in contact with several door game authors. Some say they would like to help but have long ago lost all the files. Some of them are happy to help, and that is very awesome. In the update below I don't remember what computer I moved the BBS over to, but I finally decided to move it over to an old gaming computer I had. I took the video card out of it to save energy and installed the SSD's. It seems to be running smoother. I am going to set back up my Wildcat game server again, on a seperate computer, running VirtualBox on my BBS computer took too many resources.
I started a project to sort door games by author. This is taking a long time and I had to take a break. I'm at around 650 authors and 3400 files. A lot of the files are different version of the same game, but I feel that is important to preserve. It is available for download as one large zip file on the main BBS webpage, (look in the lower right hand corner). I'd like to sort through them more and make an Excel spreadsheet. I have found a lot of interesting games.
July 15, 2023
The computer I had my BBS running on started to get a little sluggish and lock up from time to time. A couple of years ago we upgraded our computers at work and I was given several of them since we were only going to scrap them anyway. I had upgraded the hard drives to SSD's and that was nice, quieter and less power consumption. I only had 8 Gig of ram and found 16 on eBay for a pretty cheap price. I figured that'd be easier than buying a new computer and setting it all up again. Faster is better though... I looked a one of the other old work computers and I noticed it had a lot faster processor. I decided to use it and go with a clean install of Windows 10 after all. Copied everything from the old computer and moved it over to the new one. I must be getting better at setting this thing up cause it went pretty flawless, (knocking on every piece of wood I can find). At an estate sale I had found a really nice 27" Dell monitor for $8. Hopefully the BBS will run better now.
June 29, 2023
In my desperation to play the registered version of the game Meldon I decided to setup a Wildcat 5.3 game server of my Synchronet BBS. Under the WINServer file format I was able to get several door game registration numbers, including Meldon. I took quite a bit of time stripping down Wildcat to only play door games. All the message, file, new user questions, bulletins, pretty much everything. Since I had to use Telnet to just from Synchronet to Wildcat you do have to register for the door server. But now I can run WINServer games.
May 1, 2023
My Comcast modem finally quit working. I came home to no internet connection. As I unplugged the modem to reset it, I noted it was extremely hot. Time for a new one. I had the older black one and I knew the new white models were out. Hopefully new is better, it was not. If you run a BBS you know you have to "Port Forward" several ports so people can get past your router to the computer running the BBS. The new modem did not show my BBS computer as active and thus I could not set up the port forward. I had ran an ethernet cable to my home office to provide my main and BBS computers Internet connection, better speed than WiFi. Finally through multiple reboots of the router, being on line with tech support for an hour (which did nothing), I was able to see my BBS computer and quickly set up the port forwards. The app that Xfinity offers is too limited, and they don't allow you to make any changes if you log into the router locally using your browser. My BBS was back online.
Here is a completely bizarre thing, I could connect to my BBS on the ConnectBot app on my phone, via the FTELNET set up on my webpage, but not my main computer. I like to connect to the BBS by using my telnet address: fqbbs.synchro.net, not the local IP address. The wired computer would not connect to the other wired computer. I tried my laptop, using WiFi, connected. Tried the garage computer using WiFi, connected. Tried the test computer, which is wired, could not connect.
I got brave, or desperate, and went to the Xfinity store to ask a live human, I actually got lucky and found one who understood what I was trying to do. I figured I had three main options, Xfinity has a fix, buy a third party router, or take the BBS wireless. Xfinity did not have a fix, I really like my PODS so a new router was not my favorite options. So, I stopped by Best Buy and picked up a WiFi USB device and took the BBS wireless. It showed up on the Xfinity App. I set up the port forwards again, (new IP address with the WiFi adapter), and many reboots of the router later, all set. I can now see my BBS on wired and wireless computer by using my telnet address.
March 4, 2023
I updated all my game menus. Put the games in alphabetical order, each starting letter in it's own menu. I also have seperate menus for my favorite top ten by catagory. I updated the webpage to reflect putting the games in alphabetical order.
January 29, 2023
Still adding door games. I have a date and time stamp towards the top of the page that will tell you when the last update was put in. I was informed a link wasn't working. When I checked, it was about a dozen links not working. I apprecitate Ryan alerting me to this. They should all be fixed now and I'll start checking them as I add the new files. Some of these games are just difficult to install. I'm sure it has a lot to do with trying to get a game designed to run on DOS to run under Windows. Enjoy, and let me know if you have any issues.
January 22, 2023
I've added a new page for BBS Door Games with active registrations. Well at least as far as I can tell. I am waiting on N-E-Ware, home of Lunatix, to get back with me. And on an off change I emailed Gamespot to see if they would respond about registering LORD. I sent Ambroshia an email a couple of weeks ago, nothing from them yet.
January 1, 2023
I'm continuing to check out and add new games to the BBS. I've successfully tested and installed 21 games over the last couple of days. It's at the point my testing menu is full and I need to move them to the correct game menus. The website has around 100 games online, with their associated code generators, as needed, for your download pleasure. This should help new Sysops starting out to install games on their BBS. I just had a hell of a time installing Tunnels-n-Tombs. Turned out the copy I had was flawed and would not install. Then I found out I needed to use the drop file DORINFOx.DEF instead of DOOR.SYS. But it works and it show's it's registered. I think when I'm done I'll zip up the entire bunch and offer it as a single download.
December 17, 2022
I'm putting my first round of free(ish) BBS door games up for download. If you find a link that does not work please let me know. I have install 90% of these games on my BBS and plan on seeing if the remaining ones will work. If not I'll take them off the list. I'm sure they'd work just fine under a dos based BBS, maybe. I run Synchronet under Windows 10 32 bit, that is what I'm setting up for and understand.
December 12, 2022
I've had the BBS setup for a couple years now. I am still finding door games that have been offered up for free use. Recently I found the key generator for GAC Software games, I did have to use my DOS computer to run the key generator. I'm not saying all these games are really good. But it's nice that door author took the time to release the key generators. If you look around there are still people releasing their entire catalog of games as freeware. Mike Wilson just gave me a set of keys for his games. Sunrise doors offers quite a few very popular games for a donation to the coffee fund. I spend quite a bit of time looking around the internet collecting door games. I can't get all of them to run under Windows but I can get quite a few of them up. I like the challenge. Now I think it's time to start making a list of those games and offering them for download with the key generator. It'll take a lot of work, but I think it'll be worth it.
May 20, 2022
I was offered a registered copy of Esterian Conquest 1.50. The version of EC150 would work under DOS but not Windows. Out of the blue I got the offer to get it working and make the registration files cracked so anyone could register it. I've had version 1.10 registered from before but 1.50 had several better features. Several BBS's have the game running now.
March 27, 2022
The 486 laptop came in the mail two days ago. The power supply is listed as some 21vdc unit which seems to be unavailable locally. I tried a 20vdc supply and it seems to work fine. The computer came to life with a DOS boot up disk I had. It did come with a floppy drive that works, the eject button sticks quite a bit, I'll see how the one I have coming works and replace it as needed. I am still waiting on the 810MB hard drive I ordered since the eBay posting said it didn't have one. It did have one, it was a little over 1GB but was completely full and messed up. I formated it and ran fdisk on it to delete the old partitions, trying to salvage the drive. It seemed to have worked. I loaded DOS on it, then Windows3.1. The computer works. The hinges are pretty much toast and the roller ball needs to be cleaned, but it's an old working laptop.
March 23, 2022
I had a lapse of judgement the other night and ordered a 486DX4/100 laptop off eBay. I don't really need one, but I kind of wanted one. I made an offer of half what they were asking, never expecting it to be accepted. They showed a picture that it booted to the CMOS, along with a couple of others. It is a HP Omnibook 4000CT, TFT screen, it looked nice. The next morning, I found out I won the bid, I decided to read the ad a little more. To my surprise, the laptop does not come with a hard drive or power cord. Looking at the CMOS picture I don't think it has a floppy drive either. However, believe it or not, you can still buy those things online. I found a site called CPU Medics that had a refurbished 810 MB hard drive. I found another one that sold the floppy. The floppy on this laptop pulls out and you can put in a spare battery. The power supply is obtainable too. I think I might have one that will work so I haven't decided to pay the $40 online to get one. This ought to be interesting. I guess the worst case being I get it all setup with DOS and Win3.1 installed and sell it for more than I bought it for. Most likely, I will just set it on the shelf as a show piece and use it when I need something on DOS. Although, I do have a full desktop computer set up with DOS in my work area. So again, the laptop is probably not really needed.
March 19, 2022
I spent the last couple of days going through SCFG and copying over all the door setup file information into an Excel spreadsheet. I'll save it as a PDF and put it online for other Sysops to use if they need help setting a a certain games. While going through each file I noticed about a dozen games were messed up. A couple not even installed correctly. If you see anything weird let me know so I can fix it.
March 14, 2022
After making an awesome webpage for my BBS I found out it did not work. Probably an older template that did not play well with modern browsers. It's too bad, I thought it really looked nice. I still have some work to do on this new layout but at least it works (I hope). One thing I still need to setup is the door game set up files. I'm still not sure how I'm going to do that yet.
March 13, 2022
I took the Trade Wars Server down. The Windows 7 computer it was running on messed up. I don't really think it's worth while to have the server running until there is an update to the server which is Windows 10 friendly.
March 13, 2022
I added another door menu called Arcade(ish). The existing menus were running out of room. There are currently over 175 games online and I'm continuing to look for more registered games to put up. I did send the registration fee to Scott Baker for Land of Devastation, but I don't hold out too much hope. I did find a key code which I'm using right now and will replace it if Dr. Scott responds. I hope he does, it'd be nice to see someone else is still supporting door registrations. Dungeon Master is now registered. I will try my hand at designing my own dungeons. There are still a couple more of Mike Jordan's games to put up. Check out the Testing and New menu for any current games.