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Telnet BBSes and other things – part 2

A while back I posted about a number of BBSes that are accessible online, and can therefore be easily ‘dialed’ with ATD using a WiFi Modem over the internet. I recently came across this huge list of online resources accessible via telnet and took a look through some of them: https://www.jumpjet.info/Offbeat-Internet/Public/TelNet/url.htm

It seems like most of these are no longer accessible. The library online catalogs all seem to no longer be available. It’s not surprising given the insecure nature of telnet, and accessing library catalogues via your browser would be a much more secure and user friendly experience.

There’s a few things in this list that are interesting however. Ignoring the massive list of BBSes, there’s a few other oddities that are worth checking out and as of posting this, are still up and available. Here’s a few that I tested out using an Atari ST running the Taz terminal software, connected to my VT132 modem/terminal.

lynx.scramworks.net

Need access to the web but your older computer doesn’t have a browser and/or is limited to text? This site is running a telnet accessible copy of Lynx, the text mode browser. Works just as you’d expect if you were running it locally.

nethack.alt.org

Online version of the all time classic dungeon crawler, nethack

Zork and many other text based adventures: zork.retroadventures.net 6502

I’ve played around with frotz before, looking at getting some text adventures running over Amateur Radio using Packet. If you fancy accessing some classic text adventures online, this site has plenty, and there’s background info on how this was setup here:

Viewdata, glasstty.com and Telstar

Here’s an interesting one. If you were into computers in the UK in the 1980s you probably heard of BT’s Prestel service, and even if you’re not familiar with it, you’ll recognize the graphical style if you ever used Ceefax or Oracle on your TV. glasstty.com have a service called Telstar, which is a recreation of a Viewdata/Videotext system. It can be accessed online with a Viewdata terminal client app (details in the link above), or even online via a browser here.

Unfortunately the only Viewdata terminal app for the Atari ST seems to be FaSTcom, but that app crashes on my ST when it loads (I have TOS 1.04, not sure if that’s an issue or not).

Connecting with a regular VT terminal app loses all the color formatting of the pages, but you can still connect with ATDglasstty.com:6502 :

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Reconfiguring CosmosEx for the Atari ST

My CosmosEx (a floppy and hard disk replacement for the Atari ST) has recently started to hang on booting up with 3 yellow lights, and never completes it’s boot. It’s random though, if I power if off and try again, it seems it boots successfully about 1 in 5 tries.

I guessed it might be the original SD card that was starting to fail, so downloaded the latest image, flashed a new SD card. Rebooting now, it’s booting reliably every time.

Since this is a new startup from a fresh install, the initial disk device settings after first boot, are back to defaults. Accessing the CosmosEx via the web interface (the IP is displayed on the boot output if you connect an HDMI monitor), here’s the default settings:

I reconfigured the devices per the quick start guide here:

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Disk already full on new custom build PC specifically for Microsoft Flight Simulator: how-to move your packages folder to a different disk

In less than 10 months the disk on my new custom PC I built specifically for play Microsoft Flight Simulator is already full:

I put a 500GB m.2 NVMe drive in this machine, so while 500GB is not massive, it’s surprising that the updates, patches and scenery cache so far has already filled the entire disk. This main NVMe was a Corsair Gen 4 m.2, so was slightly more pricey than alternatives but faster than the other Gen 3 m.2 sticks at the time. I have since added a second 1GB m.2 stick, a cheaper but not as fast Sabrent Rocket.

Rather than reinstalling MS Flight Sim from scratch (which would have required another multiday download from Steam), I moved the packages folder from C: to D: – steps to do this are described here.

In summary for Steam installs, edit the UserCFG.opt file in this location:

C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator

… and change this line:

InstalledPackagesPath "C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages"

… to point to any new location. You can move the existing content of this folder to the new location, and when you restart, any new updates or add-ons will go to this new location.

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Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Update 5 : First Impressions

Update 5 for Microsoft Flight Simulator was released on on 7/27/21 this week, and my first impressions (after waiting 2 days for my download to complete) are … WOW.

It’s smooth, buttery smooth. In 1080p with a Ryzen 5 3600XT and a RTX 2060 I was previously getting around 30 fps at best, and dipping below that in heavy city areas like New York. After the update with the same settings I’m now getting around 60fps, but the even without the increase in fps, the sim is noticeably smoother with less stutters that I used to notice before.

There’s plenty of other updates and changes:

  • the world map now shows satellite imagery and place names on the map which makes it much easier to find interesting places to fly (unlike the plain grey non-descript map we had before)
  • while the game load time seems about the same, the load time from creating a flight from the map and arriving on the runway ready to fly has definitely been improved (it seems at least twice as fast as it was)
  • particle effects have been added for water, dirt and snow landings. For float planes, you now get a somewhat realistic wake behind your plane when you land or taxi on water. This is a massive improvement over none at all that we had before
  • there’s a number of ski and float plane options added for the stock planes
  • seaplane harbors have been added to the map, so you can start a flight from a harbor or see the locations of harbors on the VFR map
  • more POI markers on the maps and in game as you’re flying

I’m sure there’s plenty more to find, but these are the major changes I’ve seen so far.

Am I happy with the update so far? Yes, definitely. I’ve had one crash to desktop (CTD) so far after just flying for an hour, which is far more that I’ve experienced before. Posts in the forums suggest a lot of CTDs right now, so hopefully there’ll be more fixes to come. Right now though I’m enjoying being able to take off and land from water and have it look somewhat realistic, and feature we had on most of the MS FS versions.

As a comparison, shortly after launch I was comparing taxiing on water near the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in FSX:

Verrazzano Narrows Bridge, NY – Microsoft Flight Simulator X

Here’s what it looks like after Update 5 with the wake effects (but still a shame about the rendering of the bridge itself):

At least the water wake effects now look realistic (where previously there wasn’t any):

… those solid bridges really need to get fixed though.

On the plus side, one final screenshot – how stunning is this?

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