Hey everyone, hope your weekends have started off nicely.

Following on from the mass of helpful suggestions I received in response to
my earlier post asking for BBS client suggestions, I have got hold of a couple of lantronix UDS-10 devices & have finally got my retro 286 setup to use one with dos comms software as nice functional BBS client.

Thought I would share my setup here, as there are few mistakes/traps to avoid & although the UDS-10 doesn't do DNS, there is a way around that so you can
'dial' your favorite telnet BBSes using their DNS names & not have have to
find their IP address to dial.

So first of you need the following to get started:

1 - A lantronix UDS-10, I got mine off ebay pretty cheap. There seem to be a
lot of them there.

2 - The UDS-10 user guide: https://www.lantronix.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/UDS10-UDS100_UG.pdf. This is critical to understanding how to setup the network, com port an a number
of other parameters. I advise that you look through this. I will be referring to various tables in this document throughout.

3 - A null modem cable wired as per the user guide. This may not be needed, a standard null modem cable may work, however I have not tried this. I didn't have a null modem cable with the correct connectors so I ended up just making one as per the user guide....

4 - A `server` computer/vm with a static IP address & internet connectivity which will be used to run tcpser as an ip232 server. I used a linux VM, though you should be able to do this in windows as well, I have not tried.

5 - tcpser. There seem to be various versions of this about. I compiled from source using this version: https://github.com/fozztexx/tcpser

Ok so first of all, setting up the UDS-10. The initial setup can be a bit fiddly so you'll need a bit of patience.
The initial setup:
1 - Connect your UDS-10 to PC with working serial port, obvious I know, however I found out that one of my com ports was broken in a very odd way after much pointless messing about... also turn the UDS-10 on.
2 - Connect to that port with whatever comms sofware you prefer at 9600 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit & no flow control.
3 - This is a bit fiddly, while holding down the x key in your terminal software, reset the UDS-10. If you do this just right, this will force the UDS-10 into a failsafe setup mode & you should see a message in your terminal software asking your to press enter to enter setup mode.
4 - Set factory default with option '7' & save and exit with '9'
5 - The UDS-1o will restart & you'll need to repeat step 3 again to enter setup mode.

6 - Setup the Server configuration (network setup, ip address ect) with option '0' and you will be prompted for the following:
6.1 - IP address. If you intend to use DHCP to assign the UDS-10 an IP, set this to 000.000.000.000
6.2 - Set Gateway IP Address. Not needed for this setup, answer N.
6.3 - Netmask: Number of Bits for Host Part. Depends on your network setup. My network is a class C network, so for me this is 8. If you are unsure what to set, get your netmask & look up the correct value in table 5-1 & 5-2 of the UDS-10 user guide.
6.4 - Change telnet config password: If you want to use a password for the telnet config (we enable this later) set it here. Its only 4 chars though... 6.5 - Change DHCP device name: set this to whatever you want. It will appear in your DCHP server's (usually our internet router/modem) list of active leases.

7 - Channel 1 configuration, option '1'. This is where we setup com port settings, handshaking & configure the UDS-10 to connect to our server.
7.1 - Baud rate: I'd advise you stick to 9600 initially & experiment with increasing it later once you are happy everything is working correctly.
7.2 - I/F Mode: I advise '4C' which is RS-232, 8 bit, no parity, 1 stop bit. See tables 5-3 & 5-4 of the user guide for more info on this setting.
7.3 - Flow (Flow Control): Initially '00' (no flow control) is probably fine, once you start experimenting with higher baud rates you'll probably need to
set this to something else, I ended up using '02' (RTS/CTS) at higher speeds with my terminal software configured accordingly. See Table 5-5 for more info. 7.4 - Port No: This is the port for incoming connections, I left this
set to the default of 10001. Knowing this setting is helpful for debugging.
7.5 - Connect Mode: Set to 'C5' to enable incoming connections & to auto connect to the configured remote IP (that is coming up). See table 5-6 for
more info.
7.6 - Remote IP Address: This is the IP address of your server computer/VM.
7.7 - Remote Port: The remote port that you'll configure tcpser to list for connections on. I used '10002'. Make sure it is a port that is unused for anything else on your server.
7.8 - DisConMode: I left this at the default of '00'. There is a massive table on pages 64-65 of the user guide that shows all the options available for this setting.
7.9 - FlushMode: Again I left this at the default of '00'. The possible settings are covered in an even larger table than DisConMode that spans
pages 66 to 71 of the user guide.
7.10 DisConnTime: I used the '00' the default value to disable inactivity timeout. If you want to set a timeout, specify it in 'minutes:seconds'
format.
7.11 SendChar 1 & SendChar 2: I left both set at the default of '00'. There is more information about this setting on page 35 of the guide.

8 - Security option '6'
I won't go through this in detail, however ensure that "telnet setup" is not disabled & I advise disabling the web setup as it is unlikely to work & needs
a web browser from the windows 98 period running a really old and insecure version of java to work......

9 - Save and exit the setup with '9'.

Now that you have made these changes, I advise checking a few things out first before going any further.
1 - The USD-10 should now be configurable via telnet at port 9999 on its IP address. Check that this works.

2 - Check that you can send/recieve data with the UDS-10. Connect your terminal/comms software to it via com port & on another computer on your network, establish a telnet connection with the UDS-10's port (10001 if you followed these instructions). You should be able to send messages from the telnet client to your terminal software and back if all is working correctly.

Ok now for the final bit, setup your server. This is pretty simple.
1 - Get tcpser from https://github.com/fozztexx/tcpser, I just used git to clone it & ran 'make' to compile it on my linux vm server.
2 - Run tcpser configured for the correct baud & to listen on the port that you configured your UDS-10 for in step 7.7 above. If you followed my suggested settings this will be 10002. So the command to run is:
tcpser -v 10002 -s 9600 -l 4
-v set the port to listen to for incoming ip232 connections
-s sets baud rate and should be equal to what you set the UDS-10's serial port to.
-l set the logging level. Use higher numbers to get more info about what tcpser is doing.

And that's it! with all this setup, reset your UDS-10 & open your terminal/comms software and try dialing a telnet BBS of choice with: ATDTbbs.roonsbbs.hu:1212 <- replace with your BBS of choice!

At the server end you should see messages like this from tcpser in the
console:
ip232 device configured
Connection accepted from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx <- your UDS-10's IP address
Link has come up
taking modem off hook
Connecting line
Connecting to somebbs.that.i.dialed established
Detected telnet

Pretty quickly you should see the BBS you dialed displayed in all it's glory!

I've used this setup to get RIPterm for dos working on my 286 retro build & so far have got it working fine at 38400 baud without any problems. When I get more time I will try this setup with GTO power BBS's terminal sofware as I believe it will also supports RIPscript & looks like it could be a bit more flexible as a terminal client.

If you are not able to use high baud rates, check what UART you've got on your com port, (I used a program called UART, I believe I found it on Titantic BBS ttb.rgbbs.info) & if you have 16550A or better, use a tool like 16550 (also available at titanic) to enable the UART's fifo buffers. This helped in my case.

Anyhow I hope this of interest to some of you & should make it easier for others to get online using one of these UDS-10 devices.

... It's not that I mind being chained in the basement...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Following on from the mass of helpful suggestions I received in response to my earlier post asking for BBS client suggestions, I
have got hold of a couple
of lantronix UDS-10 devices & have finally got my retro
286 setup to use one
with dos comms software as nice functional BBS client.

That's great you're online with the UDS-10. Are you noticing any issues with it, or does everything just work great after the initial setup? What speed are you running at, 9600 or did you bump it up a bit faster?

Thought I would share my setup here, as there are few
mistakes/traps to avoid & although the UDS-10 doesn't do
DNS, there is a way around that so you can
'dial' your favorite telnet BBSes using their DNS names & not have have to find their IP address to dial.

Thank you for sharing that great writeup for configuring the UDS-10 for BBS telnet use! There's definitely enough to the process to make documentation like this really valuable.


Chris/akacastor


--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

That's great you're online with the UDS-10. Are you noticing any issues with it, or does everything just work great after the initial setup?
What speed are you running at, 9600 or did you bump it up a bit faster?

Seems to top out at 19200 baud for me, anything higher and I start running into issues with zmodem file uploads/downloads ect.

Also there is one persistent issue that only seems to affect connections to BBSes running Mystic BBS. It is really strange but mystic's indexed file and message readers just do not work with this setup. Everything else is fine though... very strange. For some reason with my setup, attempting to browse files/message areas with the up and down keys just does not work. I've tried several different terminal clients and the result is the same... up/down sometimes work, sometimes do nothing and sometimes does an escape instead kicking you out of the indexed reader/file browser...

Thank you for sharing that great writeup for configuring the UDS-10 for BBS telnet use! There's definitely enough to the process to make documentation like this really valuable.

Thanks and I hope this is useful for others in future. Also worth pointing out that you can leave out tcpser if you are happy dialing ip addresses. This setup is described here:
https://famicoman.com/2020/08/22/get-your-vintage-computer-online-with-a-lantron
onix-uds10/

I haven't checked if this setup has the same issue with Mystic BBS's indexed reader/file browser but I will check this out & play with a few other settings to see if there is a way around this.

... You and me against the world? Great! When do we attack?!?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Seems to top out at 19200 baud for me, anything higher
and I start running into issues with zmodem file
uploads/downloads ect.

19.2k isn't too shabby at all! That sounds pretty good.

Also there is one persistent issue that only seems to affect connections to BBSes running Mystic BBS. It is really strange but
mystic's indexed file and message readers just do not
work with this setup. Everything else is fine though...
very strange. For some reason with my setup, attempting
to browse files/message areas with the up and down keys
just does not work. I've tried several different
terminal clients and the result is the same... up/down
sometimes work, sometimes do nothing and sometimes does
an escape instead kicking you out of the indexed
reader/file browser...

Interesting issue. Sounds like the keycodes for the arrow keys are being remapped? Maybe related to a 'doorway mode' switch or similar?

Arrow keys from terminals are shrouded in mystery - how will each terminal act seems hard to predict. (at least I haven't entirely wrapped my head around it)

Thanks and I hope this is useful for others in future.
Also worth pointing out that you can leave out tcpser if
you are happy dialing ip addresses. This setup is
described here:
https://famicoman.com/2020/08/22/get-your-vintage- computer-online-with-a-lantron
onix-uds10/

Thanks for the link to the IP-only setup also!


Chris/akacastor

--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

Interesting issue. Sounds like the keycodes for the arrow keys are being remapped? Maybe related to a 'doorway mode' switch or similar?

Arrow keys from terminals are shrouded in mystery - how will each
terminal act seems hard to predict. (at least I haven't entirely
wrapped my head around it)

Also strange that this seems to only be a problem with BBSes that run mystic. AFAIKT this is transmission speed issue, I am doing all this on a 286 so even in dos my terminal software struggles to keep up with everything leading to at times quite severe input lag. I think that sometimes the full ANSII escape code sequences for up/down arrow (ESC[U & ESC[D) not being send all at once, i.e. there is a significant delay between the transmission of the ESC char and the rest which is probably confusing mystic.

Pretty much confirmed this in procomm plus for DOS. Disabling the comm sofware's status bar improved performance noticeably... and all of a sudden the arrow keys started working correctly.

I can only imagine how bad this would be on a 8088/NECV20 machine...

Thanks for the link to the IP-only setup also!

The main differences from my instructions are:
1 - Set a gateway in the Server Setup.
2 - Set connect mode to D6 in the Channel 1 Setup.
3 - Skip setting up a remote IP and port in the Channel 1 Setup.
4 - Tcpser & a server to run it on no longer required.

The rest should be the same or at least should work even if it

... Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Also strange that this seems to only be a problem with
BBSes that run mystic.
AFAIKT this is transmission speed issue, I am doing all
this on a 286 so even in dos my terminal software
struggles to keep up with everything leading to at times
quite severe input lag. I think that sometimes the full
ANSII escape code sequences for up/down arrow (ESC[U &
ESC[D) not being send all at once, i.e. there is a
significant delay between the transmission of the ESC
char and the rest which is probably confusing mystic.

Wow that was not an issue I was expecting! I assume it's not an issue with BBS software written for modems, as there was always some delay between bytes, but for a telnet BBS like Mystic there could be an assumption that the multi-byte characters would arrive all at the same time (in the same TCP packet). Interesting edge case.

Pretty much confirmed this in procomm plus for DOS.
Disabling the comm sofware's status bar improved
performance noticeably... and all of a sudden the arrow
keys started working correctly.

That's some good detective work!

I can only imagine how bad this would be on a 8088/NECV20 machine...

I have such fond memories of XT machines, but I do find using them today to be so much more painful than I remember.


Chris/akacastor

--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

I can only imagine how bad this would be on a 8088/NECV20 machine...

I have such fond memories of XT machines, but I do find using them today to be so much more painful than I remember.

Yes! After persisting with a NECv20 based retro pc build I finally gave it up for a 286. The performance difference between even a 'fast' XT class machine and a slow 286 is really quite staggering.

Also you get nice things like more IRQ lines and DMA channels. The number of IRQ lines is so horribly limited on an XT as between com ports, parallel port/printer interface & hard drive controller, there's not many left of the 7 available IRQ lines to use for anything else.

... Two maggots were fighting in dead Earnest.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Yes! After persisting with a NECv20 based retro pc build
I finally gave it up for a 286. The performance
difference between even a 'fast' XT class machine and a
slow 286 is really quite staggering.

I don't have a 286, just the fond memories of playing games on friends' 286s. I got a Book8088, fun little XT mini-laptop made new from old parts, and while I enjoy it, the limitations show up pretty often. Then the Pocket386 (386SX mini-laptop made new from old parts) came out and I realized that's probably a lot more interesting/useful for me. Maybe I'll find an old 286 desktop someday and fill the gap between the XT and 386. :)


Chris/akacastor

--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

Also strange that this seems to only be a problem with BBSes that run mystic. AFAIKT this is transmission speed issue, I am doing all this
on a 286 so even in dos my terminal software struggles to keep up
with everything leading to at times quite severe input lag. I think
that sometimes the full ANSII escape code sequences for up/down
arrow (ESC[U & ESC[D) not being send all at once, i.e. there is a significant delay between the transmission of the ESC char and the
rest which is probably confusing mystic.

The main differences from my instructions are: 1 - Set a gateway
in the Server Setup. 2 - Set connect mode to D6 in the Channel
1 Setup. 3 - Skip setting up a remote IP and port in the Channel
1 Setup. 4 - Tcpser & a server to run it on no longer required.

Ponder, I haven't followed this much at all, but a 286 12Mhz+ ought to be
able to push 19.2k on an 8250/16450 with no fuss.

I started this reply before noticing that you'd swapped TCPser out for something else. You'll need to keep in mind that any serial/tcp conversion
is going to add latency to the stream. So does any port extra port
forwarding. I have this kind of problem on TLP. I'm using RLFOSSIL for the serial/tcp conversion, and I have inboard port forwarding to make each node active off one outside port, which has already been forwarded to the system with node selection on it. Even running all of this on the same system adds significant overheard.

I believe all that gets in the way of ANSI detection, involving some escape sequence, it fails 50-75% of the time. Also stops file transfers in their tracks too.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

I don't have a 286, just the fond memories of playing games on friends' 286s. I got a Book8088, fun little XT mini-laptop made new from old parts, and while I enjoy it, the limitations show up pretty often. Then the Pocket386 (386SX mini-laptop made new from old parts) came out and I realized that's probably a lot more interesting/useful for me. Maybe
I'll find an old 286 desktop someday and fill the gap between the XT and 386. :)

To be honest the performance difference between a 286 and 386sx of similar clock speed is not much. With the 386sx you'll get more convenient memory management with emm386/QEMM ect windows 3 & deskview will both work much better - this is all a bit more complicated with 286 class machines & is more dependent on chipset/bios. If you do decide to get a 286 you might want to do some research first.

For example I have a couple of 286 boards that should support EMS memory in hardware, but can I find a driver that works with either of them? no I can't.

... Don't ask me, I just work here.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

To be honest the performance difference between a 286
and 386sx of similar clock speed is not much. With the
386sx you'll get more convenient memory management with
emm386/QEMM ect windows 3 & deskview will both work much
better - this is all a bit more complicated with 286
class machines & is more dependent on chipset/bios. If
you do decide to get a 286 you might want to do some
research first.

I don't think I've ever dealt with the quirks of 286 systems, and adding EMS memory etc - thanks for the tip that it can get a bit complicated.

My biggest memory of "oh damn, a 286 is pretty powerful!" was playing Wolfenstein 3D on a friend's 286. I forget the specs of the machine other than being a 286, but I remember playing Wolfenstein 3D and being surprised that was possible. Seems like a 286 can do everything important. :)

For example I have a couple of 286 boards that should
support EMS memory in hardware, but can I find a driver
that works with either of them? no I can't.

I assume you already checked 'the usual places', I think the VCF forum and Vogons forum are the most active places to locate this kind of stuff? Winworldpc and Archive.org are usually my first stop for files.

I mention this less to give you advice and more in hope that other good resources get mentioned. :)


Chris/akacastor

--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

I disagree with the previous poster's minimizing the difference between 286 and 386 systems -- I went from a 286-13 (I replaced the crystal myself) to a 386SX16, and the difference was very noticeable - moreso
then a couple of mhz more.

Interesting, how much of that speed increase was due to processor & how much to the motherboard & chipset?

I've got two 20Mhz 286 motherboards with different chipsets, one SARC the other Headland.

The SARC based board is a real slug, and basically performs about
as well as a couple of the 16Mhz boards I have. The headland board is noticeably faster though, I don't have any figures. It's noticeable
in games like wolf3d where you can run the game with the window size a few steps bigger & have a reasonable experience.

All this talk of performance begs the question, what do folks here use to benchmark and compare systems of this age?

... Familiarity breeds contempt - and children. (Mark Twain)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Re: Re: Using Dos Comms Software with Lantronix UDS-10
By: AKAcastor to Kirkspragg on Thu Jun 06 2024 10:52 am

Wolfenstein 3D on a friend's 286. I forget the specs of the machine other than being a 286, but I remember playing Wolfenstein 3D and being surprised that was possible. Seems like a 286 can do everything important. :)

I had a 286 when I first played Wolfenstein 3D. I had just gotten a VGA graphics card & monitor, and I remember having a Sound Blaster card as well. I didn't really think about powerfulness at the time; I just enjoyed playing it. I got a 386SX-16 a bit later, in order to play some games that required a 386, but it seemed it was about the slowest 386 there was. I could play Doom, but it worked best if I shrank the video size down as small as it would allow. I also wanted to play Microsoft's then-new Flight Simulator 5.0 on it, and it did run, but it was like a slide show.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Re: Re: Using Dos Comms Software with Lantronix UDS-10
By: AKAcastor to Kirkspragg on Thu Jun 06 2024 10:52 am

To be honest the performance difference between a 286
and 386sx of similar clock speed is not much. With the 386sx you'll get

I don't think I've ever dealt with the quirks of 286 systems, and adding EMS memory etc - thanks for the tip that it can get a bit complicated.

I disagree with the previous poster's minimizing the difference between 286 and 386 systems -- I went from a 286-13 (I replaced the crystal myself) to a 386SX16, and the difference was very noticeable - moreso then a couple of mhz more.

Those were the days when incremental upgrades were significant - that was a 19% speed increase!
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

I disagree with the previous poster's minimizing the
difference between 286 and 386 systems -- I went from a
286-13 (I replaced the crystal myself) to a 386SX16,
and the difference was very noticeable - moreso then a
couple of mhz more.

I like the 13 MHz - makes me wonder if that machine was lucky, or cursed? :)

Those were the days when incremental upgrades were
significant - that was a 19% speed increase!

As nice as it is to have computers that last a bit longer, being able to run newer software (a 10 year old computer in 2024 is a lot more usable than a 10 year old computer was in 1994!) - I do miss the huge jumps in capabilities that we used to see with upgrades. It was exciting!


Chris/akacastor

--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

All this talk of performance begs the question, what do
folks here use to benchmark and compare systems of this
age?

I'm also curious about this topic!

One that I have heard of is TOPBENCH (The Oldskool PC Benchmark) by Trixter: https://dosbenchmark.wordpress.com/

I watch Adrian's Digital Basement on youtube pretty regularly so I should be familiar with some other benchmark tools but nothing else is coming to mind.

Something that Adrian Black (Adrian's Digital Basement) pointed out is that different benchmarks include different subsystems in their final score - in some cases this means that video cards have a very large influence in the benchmark. If comparing two complete systems to each other it's probably ideal to factor in as many subsystems as possible, but when comparing motherboards it's something to keep in mind.


Chris/akacastor

--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

Re: Re: Using Dos Comms Software with Lantronix UDS-10
By: poindexter FORTRAN to AKAcastor on Thu Jun 06 2024 12:57 pm

I disagree with the previous poster's minimizing the difference between 286 and 386 systems -- I went from a 286-13 (I replaced the crystal myself) to a 386SX16, and the difference was very noticeable - moreso then a couple of mhz more.

Similarly, I went from a 286-12 to a 386SX-16, and I thought the difference seemed a bit more than just a few mhz faster. It also allowed running games that required a 386 - They would at least run, but wouldn't necessarily be fast. For Doom, I had to shrink the display as small as it would go, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.0 just didn't have a good frame rate (it was like a slide show).

I later upgraded to a 386DX-40, and it was much better.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

On 06 Jun 2024, Nightfox said the following...

Similarly, I went from a 286-12 to a 386SX-16, and I thought the difference seemed a bit more than just a few mhz faster. It also
allowed running games that required a 386 - They would at least run, but wouldn't necessarily be fast. For Doom, I had to shrink the display as small as it would go, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.0 just didn't
have a good frame rate (it was like a slide show).

yeah MHz has never really translated well between generations or types of processors..

the 386dx for example does 2.15 million instructions per second @ 16MHz
the 286 does 1.28 @ 12MHz .. here MHz doesn't really scale the same

the 486dx @ 33MHz, 11.1 MIPS
AMD Am386 @ 40MHz, 9 MIPS

however the 386dx above @ 33MHz does 4.3MIPS .. same base scales a little
more consistently (486dx2 also, from intel)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

For example I have a couple of 286 boards that should support EMS memory in hardware, but can I find a driver that works with either of them? no I can't.

You sure they support EMS and not XMS? Back then standards were all over the place. If I recall right, XMS is older, and if you're lucky you'll find a driver that will make XMS available as EMS.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

Interesting, how much of that speed increase was due to processor & how much to the motherboard & chipset?

I've got two 20Mhz 286 motherboards with different chipsets, one SARC the other Headland.

The best performing 286 I had was a Chips n Tech chipset with a AMI NEAT BIOS on it. It was nominally a 21, there wasn't much you couldn't tweak on it, but all the way back then it was a bit like black magic.

I have no idea what its lowest rated component was, but I couldn't get it
past ~23Mhz and at that the difference was barely noticable.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

All this talk of performance begs the question, what do folks here use to benchmark and compare systems of this age?

These days nothing, back then Landmark as much as anything, it was useful
until mid range 486s arrived after which it wasn't scaling very well.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

I started this reply before noticing that you'd swapped TCPser out for something else. You'll need to keep in mind that any serial/tcp

I'm still using TCPser. I did try without using the UDS-10's build in telnet capabilities just to see if it helped & it does. But that doesn't support DNS, so I'd have to get & update the ip addresses of my fav BBSes if I continues down that route.

something else. You'll need to keep in mind that any serial/tcp conversion is going to add latency to the stream. So does any port
extra port forwarding. I have this kind of problem on TLP. I'm using RLFOSSIL for the serial/tcp conversion, and I have inboard port
forwarding to make each node active off one outside port, which has already been forwarded to the system with node selection on it. Even running all of this on the same system adds significant overheard.

I believe all that gets in the way of ANSI detection, involving some escape sequence, it fails 50-75% of the time. Also stops file transfers

That fits with my observations. I think the combination of serial/tcp conversion and my comms software being a bit laggy mess up the ANSI detection. I managed to alleviate this by using door mode or something similar which disabled a few features (status bar, pop up menus ect) in my comms software & things started behaving.

Have been playing around with procom plus & GTO Power's terminal software for dos. I've got telix and terminate downloaded somewhere to also play with.

Ponder, I haven't followed this much at all, but a 286 12Mhz+ ought to be able to push 19.2k on an 8250/16450 with no fuss.

I've not been able to get anything over 19.2k to work reliably so far & I have been using a util called 16550 to enable the fifo buffers. I'll try other comms software out and see if that helps.

... Battle Creek makes cereal terminals.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

One that I have heard of is TOPBENCH (The Oldskool PC Benchmark) by Trixter: https://dosbenchmark.wordpress.com/

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll give it a whirl.

I watch Adrian's Digital Basement on youtube pretty regularly so I
should be familiar with some other benchmark tools but nothing else is coming to mind.

Love his channel, I can do some really basic repair but nothing like what he does, the man is a champion!

... May the horse be with you. -- Obi Wan to Roy Rogers

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

You sure they support EMS and not XMS? Back then standards were all
over the place. If I recall right, XMS is older, and if you're lucky you'll find a driver that will make XMS available as EMS.

Lets be clear about acronyms here as EMS and XMS tend to get mixed up.

By EMS I mean Expanded Memory AKA LIM memory which is the earlier standard developed to support apps using more than 640k on an 8088 class machine.

XMS is extended memory is available on 286+ machines with more than 1mb of memory.

Anyhow I'm currently using EMM286 which emulates EMS/LIM but is quite slow as it copies memory around to simulate how the EMS page frame works.
Hardware support would improve performance a bit, but it's not a big deal for me at the moment.

... Don't fight with a bear in his own cave

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

The best performing 286 I had was a Chips n Tech chipset with a AMI NEAT BIOS on it. It was nominally a 21, there wasn't much you couldn't tweak on it, but all the way back then it was a bit like black magic.

I'll need to keep an eye out for something similar. Though finding one on Ebay that hasn't got corrosion damage could take a while. The NEAT bios & chipset has a reputation for being quite nice to play with.

... Individualists unite!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

I'm still using TCPser. I did try without using the UDS-10's build in

I never had any joy with TCPser on anything. I was able to get a functional result by using a Raspi as a pad, serial to it, and telnet from there.

That fits with my observations. I think the combination of serial/tcp conversion and my comms software being a bit laggy mess up the ANSI detection. I managed to alleviate this by using door mode or something similar which disabled a few features (status bar, pop up menus ect) in my comms software & things started behaving.

I'm a little perplexed that disabling terminal options appears to improve performance. It would be saying to me that either the serial work isn't well optimised or the whole thing is to much for the grunt of the system you're driving it with.

for dos. I've got telix and terminate downloaded somewhere to also play

If I recall correctly Telemate has direct support for 16550s. I do recall problems with Telix at higher speeds later on, not sure if it was handshaking problems or something else. But it was showing its age and not getting
updates.

I've not been able to get anything over 19.2k to work reliably so far & I

19.2k tends to be the limit for 8250/16450 on anything up to a 286, even the old 21Mhz wouldn't reliably 38.4. You'd probably need more horsepower.
16550A may improve things, but it wasn't really aimed at slow machines, it
was aimed at faster systems where the actual interrupt service time was shorter. So it could dump what it had in a short time.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

You sure they support EMS and not XMS? Back then standards were all

Lets be clear about acronyms here as EMS and XMS tend to get mixed up.

Been a long time since I had to think about them, and despite minimal
knowledge never really used them beyond the 384k on 286 systems. Mine only
ever had the 1Mb total.

Extended Memory vs eXpanded Memory.

There used to be drivers around for conversion in all directions. Even in
QEMM support still existed, not sure if available in all versions. Again my experience is pretty limited but in the 286 age you had systems looking for both types of memory. Off hand pretty much everything ought to have XMS but EMS generally requires support.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

By EMS I mean Expanded Memory AKA LIM memory which is the earlier standard developed to support apps using more than 640k on an 8088 class machine.

Ponder, the only memory I saw for those was on Cards which were pretty much
all LIM. But its been to long, and I never used them...

XMS is extended memory is available on 286+ machines with more than 1mb of memory.

Huh, I got it backwards again...

Anyhow I'm currently using EMM286 which emulates EMS/LIM but is quite slow as it copies memory around to simulate how the EMS page frame works. Hardware support would improve performance a bit, but it's not a big deal for me at the moment.

Makes me wonder if you could get Win3.11 to run on that thing, however
slowly. So far as I was able to tell Memory access was the biggest issue.

never saw EMM286, went looking for a looooong time... for that and QRAM I
think it was... had the possibility of getting 4Mb into one 286 but never got there.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

Makes me wonder if you could get Win3.11 to run on that thing, however slowly. So far as I was able to tell Memory access was the biggest Sp> issue.

Am running Win3.11 on my 286 right now. With trumpet winsock you can even run early telnet clients on it (one of which which I am using to write this message).

No sure how much XMS you need as a minimum to make this work but I've got 10Mb total ram in this thing (so 9mb XMS) and it works just fine.... if a little slowly at time.

I'd say it's usable (if you can find software that doesn't require a 386) but a bit slow.

I have no idea if win 3.11 will use EMS. I suspect not, but I'm not sure.

... Drop your CARRIER - we have got you surrounded!!!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Am running Win3.11 on my 286 right now. With trumpet winsock you can even run early telnet clients on it (one of which which I am using to write this message).

Woot, never had near that kind of memory available on any 286, I suspect largest supported configurations would've been ~4Mb. Only had 256k SIPPS in one, I think I tried some 4Mb SIMMS in adapters but it wouldn't recognise
them.

If this is the thing you're running ProComm on I'm not surprised it
struggles. Win would put to much phutz between the terminal and actual serial port. Straight DOS software ought to do MUCH better.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

If this is the thing you're running ProComm on I'm not surprised it struggles. Win would put to much phutz between the terminal and actual serial port. Straight DOS software ought to do MUCH better.

Procomm for windows using a serial port is a disaster on my 286. It can do telnet over tcp/ip with trumpet winsock however, and is actually Ok, but the screen updates are a bit slow. It does do a better job of ANSI/ASCII than MTCP's telnet client & that's one of the reasons I keep using it.

Regarding DOS terminal clients, I've tried RIPterm, Procomm for dos & GT Power. RIPTerm does RIP script graphics & actually works on a 286 so that's nice, but it's not a great performer & isn't great to use on text only BBSes. Procomm for dos can't dial DNS "numbers" from the dialer menu so that's out & GTO Power is something I need to play with a bit more because it can do RIPScript apparently (if only I can find the time to set it up), has a nice dialer menu & seems to support ANSI/ASCII correctly from what I have seen so far.

All this started a couple of months ago when I finally got sick of the limitations of the MTCP's telnet client. It doesn't have dialer/favourites menu and doesn't quite work right on some ANSII art heavy BBSes which sucks - for example ANSII TV at the vault thevaultbbs.ddns:2323 does not quite work right & I've seen it mess things up with some of the art on 20 For Beers.

... Now go away, before I taunt you a second time!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Procomm for windows using a serial port is a disaster on
my 286. It can do telnet over tcp/ip with trumpet
winsock however, and is actually Ok, but the screen
updates are a bit slow. It does do a better job of
ANSI/ASCII than MTCP's telnet client & that's one of the
reasons I keep using it.

I haven't actually tried mTCP's telnet client, so I'm a bit ignorant on the topic. I'm curious if you've tried the jhpyle fork of mTCP with enhanced telnet capabilities?
https://github.com/jhpyle/mTCP

It says it supports sixel graphics which caught my attention right away! (though I haven't tried it)


Chris/akacastor


--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

Procomm for windows using a serial port is a disaster on my 286. It can do telnet over tcp/ip with trumpet winsock however, and is actually Ok, but the screen updates are a bit slow. It does do a better job of ANSI/ASCII than MTCP's telnet client & that's one of the reasons I keep using it.

Not sure if you've mentioned what video card you have in this thing...
depends just where the bottleneck is though, something like an ET4000 might help, seeing as the system doesn't have to spend as much time servicing the video, but if its a rendering problem, it's probably pretty much what it is.


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

Re: Re: Using Dos Comms Software with Lantronix UDS-10
By: AKAcastor to Poindexter Fortran on Thu Jun 06 2024 15:20:30

As nice as it is to have computers that last a bit longer, being able to run newer software (a 10 year old computer in 2024 is a lot more usable than a 10 year old computer was in 1994!) - I do miss the huge jumps in capabilities that we used to see with upgrades. It was exciting!

Yes, working on this 20 year old Acorn reminded me of the fact (long forgotten) that for a good while back in the day a 2 year old computer was basically fit for the bin.

Not that I want to bin the Acorn... It's just when I'm coding on it I start work in an emulator on an M1 Mac, then move it to the real Acorn for optimisation. It's literally 100 - 1000x faster in emulation, and this was a quick machine for its time!

BobW
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: >>> Magnum BBS <<< - bbs.magnum.uk.net (21:1/205)

I haven't actually tried mTCP's telnet client, so I'm a bit ignorant on the topic. I'm curious if you've tried the jhpyle fork of mTCP with enhanced telnet capabilities?
https://github.com/jhpyle/mTCP

It says it supports sixel graphics which caught my attention right away! (though I haven't tried it)

The sixel graphics thing is interesting I will have to take a look, do you know of any BBSes/Door games that have/use sixel graphics?

... Don't be hesitant. Digital electronics can detect fear

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Not sure if you've mentioned what video card you have in this thing... depends just where the bottleneck is though, something like an ET4000 might help, seeing as the system doesn't have to spend as much time servicing the video, but if its a rendering problem, it's probably
pretty much what it is.

Yup got an ET4000 so my setup is probably as fast as its going to get in windows.

Originally had a trident 9000 or something like that, I can't remember the exact model number. I was a bit skeptical about the forum posts & web pages that said the ET4000 was unusually fast for an ISA video card - that was until I got hold of one. They really do perform surprisingly well.

... May all your PUSHes be POPed.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Yup got an ET4000 so my setup is probably as fast as its going to get in windows.

Originally had a trident 9000 or something like that, I can't remember the exact model number. I was a bit skeptical about the forum posts & web pages that said the ET4000 was unusually fast for an ISA video card - that was until I got hold of one. They really do perform surprisingly well.

Trident, Oak, I'm sure there's another one... S3 they were all pretty similar you could find some performed better than others but usually within cooee of each other. Tseng Labs in general, and especially the ET4000 were head and shoulders better than anything else, right up until 3D became a thing. I
think the ET6000 was meant to be the 3D card for them, and it was a slug,
they ended up selling their IP to ATI/AMD.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

Trident, Oak, I'm sure there's another one... S3 they were all pretty similar you could find some performed better than others but usually within cooee of each other. Tseng Labs in general, and especially the ET4000 were head and shoulders better than anything else, right up until 3D became a thing. I think the ET6000 was meant to be the 3D card for them, and it was a slug, they ended up selling their IP to ATI/AMD.

So Tseng lost the 3D race to ATI/Nvidia just like so many others. Was the other one you were referring to Paradise or maybe Cirrus Logic? They made VGA cards as well. Cirrus Logic vesa local bus cards were supposed to be quite decent performers, I wonder if they made any ISA vga cards??

... Bedfellows make strange politicians.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

The sixel graphics thing is interesting I will have to
take a look, do you know of any BBSes/Door games that
have/use sixel graphics?

I found out about sixel graphics on Dock Sud BBS bbs.docksud.com.ar - there are a couple sixel graphics shown after logging in (I think there are multiple that are in rotation), it's very cool.

On my BBS, Another Millennium, another.tel there is the astronomy picture of the day viewable as sixel, and a small photo gallery with a few photos I've taken.

20 For Beers 20forbeers.com:1337 and The Quantum Wormhole bbs.erb.pw both have options to see a picture of the sysop on the main menu.

I think some others were mentioned in discussion about sixels in the past couple months here on fsxNet but names are slipping my mind.


Chris/akacastor

--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

On my BBS, Another Millennium, another.tel there is the astronomy picture of the day viewable as sixel, and a small photo gallery with a few photos

I think off hand, don't hold me to it, Particles BBS has sixels, it's running on original commode hardware...

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

So Tseng lost the 3D race to ATI/Nvidia just like so many others. Was the other one you were referring to Paradise or maybe Cirrus Logic? They made VGA cards as well. Cirrus Logic vesa local bus cards were supposed to be quite decent performers, I wonder if they made any ISA vga cards??

It was actually Cirrus I was trying to recall not S3.. I don't recall any of the VESA cards being particularly good. In my area 95% of VESA cards were Tridents.

Tseng somehow got caught out by the whole 3D thing. Someone either thought
it was just a flash in the pan, or it moved forward a lot faster than they expected it. The ET6000 was s'posedly a rushed project to get anything with
3D on it. But it was a slug as mentioned and they never recovered from
there. They just weren't prepared for the 3D boom.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

Hi Spec,

On Monday June 10 2024, Spectre said to kirkspragg:

Tseng Labs in general, and especially the ET4000 were head and shoulders better than anything else, right up until

Yeah, the ET4000 was a beast of a card for the time.. Sold lots of those bad boys.! #0-;


\/orlon
aka
Stephen

Rocking FSXnet with an Amiga 4000 and Zeus BBS.

--- Zeus BBS 1.5
* Origin: -:-- Dragon's Lair --:- dragon.vk3heg.net Prt: 6800 (21:1/196.0)

Yeah, the ET4000 was a beast of a card for the time.. Sold lots of those bad boys.! #0-;

I saw a few 3000s kicking around, but they were few and far between. They
were pretty impressive also..

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

Am running Win3.11 on my 286 right now. With trumpet winsock you can run early telnet clients on it (one of which which I am using to writ this message).

Woot, never had near that kind of memory available on any 286, I suspect largest supported configurations would've been ~4Mb. Only had 256k
SIPPS in one, I think I tried some 4Mb SIMMS in adapters but it wouldn't recognise them.

i have a few mobos of the 286 that can support 16 mb i have one comming in today!
Sp>

If this is the thing you're running ProComm on I'm not surprised it struggles. Win would put to much phutz between the terminal and actual serial port. Straight DOS software ought to do MUCH better.

??


how dose one use the lan tronix thingy with a 286?

--mary4 (Victoria Crenshaw) the 286 enthusiast

... Help! I can't find the "ANY" key.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Datanet BBS | telnet://datanetbbs.net:23 (21:1/166)

I haven't actually tried mTCP's telnet client, so I'm a bit ignorant on the topic. I'm curious if you've tried the jhpyle fork of mTCP with enhanced telnet capabilities?
https://github.com/jhpyle/mTCP

It says it supports sixel graphics which caught my attention right away! (though I haven't tried it)

mtcp alone is really nice. i typed this message on mtcp on my 10MHz 286 i got from VCF SW

--mary4 (Victoria Crenshaw) the 286 enthusiast

... Help! I can't find the "ANY" key.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Datanet BBS | telnet://datanetbbs.net:23 (21:1/166)

Yeah, the ET4000 was a beast of a card for the time.. Sold lots of those bad boys.! #0-;

i have a couple of them! they are bad ass as fuck cards so fast! <3

--mary4 (Victoria Crenshaw) the 286 enthusiast

... It said "insert disk #3", but only two will fit...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Datanet BBS | telnet://datanetbbs.net:23 (21:1/166)

I saw a few 3000s kicking around, but they were few and far between. They were pretty impressive also..

they are cool!

also i just got a super fast 25MHz 286 mobo the m216 rev 1.2 mobo!! :> it costed me 300$

--mary4 (Victoria Crenshaw) the 286 enthusiast

... A SQL query walks into a bar and sees two tables. Asks: 'Can I join you?'

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Datanet BBS | telnet://datanetbbs.net:23 (21:1/166)

mary4 wrote to Vorlon <=-

Yeah, the ET4000 was a beast of a card for the time.. Sold lots of those bad boys.! #0-;

i have a couple of them! they are bad ass as fuck cards so fast!
<3

--mary4 (Victoria Crenshaw) the 286 enthusiast

How cute.



... Apathy Error: Strike any key...or none, for that matter.
=== MultiMail/Linux v0.52
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)

How cute.

Mary mary quite contrary?

There's something odd going on. I see you replying to a message I'm yet to
see here.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

mtcp alone is really nice. i typed this message on mtcp
on my 10MHz 286 i got from VCF SW

That's awesome, I've looked at mtcp a bit but I haven't been using it. The 286 from VCF SW sounds exciting! That was the recent VCF SW (2024)? How was it? I've never been to a vintage computing event, VCF SW looks like it would be pretty huge!


Chris/akacastor

--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

Hello Mary4,

Note: this message is aimed at guiding you and is not a personal attack
on you. I have only spotlighted the swearing that is in most of your
messages.

On Friday June 21 2024, Mary4 said to Vorlon:

Yeah, the ET4000 was a beast of a card for the time.. Sold lots of
those bad boys.! #0-;

i have a couple of them! they are bad ass as f**k cards so fast! <3

Every other message from you has a swear word in it. People have been
tolerant of you so far, but you need to cut it out. You want to be accepted,
as you are, then start acting like your not a 13 year old.

This community has a very deverse range of people and backgrounds, but
you won't get very far swearing like your a drunken salor. A few others have also picked up on this, but have reframed from saying anything directly.


\/orlon
aka
Stephen

Rocking FSXnet with an Amiga 4000 and Zeus BBS.

--- Zeus BBS 1.5
* Origin: -:-- Dragon's Lair --:- dragon.vk3heg.net Prt: 6800 (21:1/196.0)

Re: Re: Using Dos Comms Software with Lantronix UDS-10
By: Vorlon to mary4 on Sat Jun 22 2024 11:23 am

Howdy,

Note: this message is aimed at guiding you and is not a personal attack
on you. I have only spotlighted the swearing that is in most of your messages.

Howdy, I was on the verge of writing something similiar.

I agree, its not nessary (the foul words) to the extent its being used. The conversations can be just as engaging without them.


...ëîåï
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: I'm playing with ANSI+videotex - wanna play too? (21:2/116)

Note: this message is aimed at guiding you and is not a personal de> > attack
on you. I have only spotlighted the swearing that is in most of your messages.

I agree, its not nessary (the foul words) to the extent its being used. The conversations can be just as engaging without them.

then let me add my two cents: i picked up on it simply as a mannerism (a "typing quirk" so to speak if you're of the persuasion of a particular webcomic) and wasn't bothered about it at all. if we're going to complain
about what others on fsxnet are saying i'd much rather complain about the queerphobia i've experienced in my very first week here!

|08- |05maple "|13mavica|05" syrup |07(|10byte/byteself|07 or it/its)
|09https://maple.pet/

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Retro32 BBS (21:1/215)