I saw there was a lively AI/vibe-coding discussion on Dove-Net. :) I'm vibe-coding a clone of Barren Realms Elite, and hit a snag, and looking for human feedback regarding this charset issue:

https://github.com/andy5995/immortal-barons/issues/18

Excerpt:

A sysop who tested the Win32 snapshot door on a BBS reported that the
"output appears to be UTF-8 instead of CP-437." On a CP437 terminal, that >means the box-drawing and block characters render as garbage (mojibake).

The observation is correct. Immortal Barons emits UTF-8 on the wire, and there >is no output-side character-set layer.

I've been testing locally in my terminal (on Manjaro Linux in XFCE terminal), and set up a Mystic BBS locally, telnetted in and opened it as a door, with no trouble.

I'd appreciate it if anyone could provide me with definitive feedback about the

design.

--
-Andy
Website: https://andy5995.github.io


... 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.53
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Re: charset question for Immortal Barons
By: Andy Alt to All on Wed Jul 08 2026 08:45 pm

Subject: charset question for Immortal Barons

I saw there was a lively AI/vibe-coding discussion on Dove-Net. :) I'm vibe-coding a clone of Barren Realms Elite, and hit a snag, and looking for human feedback regarding this charset issue:

https://github.com/andy5995/immortal-barons/issues/18

Excerpt:

A sysop who tested the Win32 snapshot door on a BBS reported that the >"output appears to be UTF-8 instead of CP-437." On a CP437 terminal, that >means the box-drawing and block characters render as garbage (mojibake).

The observation is correct. Immortal Barons emits UTF-8 on the wire, and there >is no output-side character-set layer.

I've been testing locally in my terminal (on Manjaro Linux in XFCE terminal), and set up a Mystic BBS locally, telnetted in and opened it as a door, with no trouble.

I'd appreciate it if anyone could provide me with definitive feedback about the

design.

Traditional BBS terminals (including even modern ones like SyncTERM, Netrunner, etc.) do not (yet) support UTF-8 - just CP437. And Synchronet assumes all doors, by default, output CP437. So you need to convert your output character set to CP437. It's not a "design" so much as an implementation detail.
--
digital man (rob)

Rush quote #51:
Suddenly you were gone from all the lives you left your mark upon
Norco, CA WX: 69.0°F, 74.0% humidity, 0 mph NW wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs
---
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Digital Man wrote to Andy Alt <=-

Traditional BBS terminals (including even modern ones like SyncTERM, Netrunner, etc.) do not (yet) support UTF-8 - just CP437. And
Synchronet assumes all doors, by default, output CP437. So you need to convert your output character set to CP437. It's not a "design" so much
as an implementation detail. --
digital man (rob)

Thanks! That pretty much confirms things. Regarding sbbs, has there ever been a

discussion about configuring a door to use the charset the user has enabled (or

what's been auto-detected) in their settings?

On a loosely related topic, I've been working on modemu2k, and for testing, I use it with minicom. On Vertrauen (and other boards), cp437 is auto-detected, but I get odd characters (mostly '?'s) at some of the ANSI screens. When I tried minicom's '-R CP437' option, the characters were correct, but some of the

block chars weren't positioned properly (at the main menu, for example), and the prompt appeared in the lower-right corner of the menu, buried in the border. Other sbbs boards I've tried recently have an option where I can manually change to UTF-8, and that always gives me the correct output when using minicom. On Vert, I've changed to US-ASCII (I didn't see a utf-8 option).

I've used syncterm (telnet/ssh client) a little and so far never have to change

any settings on vert or in syncterm for proper operation.

--
-Andy
Website: https://andy5995.github.io


... The number you have dialed...Nine-one-one...has been changed.
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.53
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Digital Man wrote to Andy Alt <=-

Re: charset question for Immortal Barons
By: Andy Alt to All on Wed Jul 08 2026 08:45 pm

Subject: charset question for Immortal Barons

I'd appreciate it if anyone could provide me with definitive feedback about the

design.

Traditional BBS terminals (including even modern ones like SyncTERM, Netrunner, etc.) do not (yet) support UTF-8 - just CP437. And
Synchronet assumes all doors, by default, output CP437. So you need to convert your output character set to CP437. It's not a "design" so much
as an implementation detail. --
digital man (rob)

I and Claude took care of the "implementation details" ;) Issue resolved.


--
-Andy
Website: https://andy5995.github.io


--- MultiMail/Linux v0.53
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Re: Re: charset question for Immortal Barons
By: Andy Alt to Digital Man on Thu Jul 09 2026 07:30 am

Subject: Re: charset question for Immortal Barons

Digital Man wrote to Andy Alt <=-

Traditional BBS terminals (including even modern ones like SyncTERM, Netrunner, etc.) do not (yet) support UTF-8 - just CP437. And Synchronet assumes all doors, by default, output CP437. So you need to convert your output character set to CP437. It's not a "design" so much as an implementation detail. --
digital man (rob)

Thanks! That pretty much confirms things. Regarding sbbs, has there ever been a
discussion about configuring a door to use the charset the user has enabled (or
what's been auto-detected) in their settings?

Most recent builds of SCFG (v3.22a) allow the sysop to enable "Untranslated" for any external program (door) I/O mode, in which case, it's entirely up to the door itself to do any charset/encoding conversions (e.g. CP437->PETSCII, UTF8->CP437).

But other than some recent experiments I've been working on, I know of no doors that actually handle the charset conversions themselves.

On a loosely related topic, I've been working on modemu2k, and for testing, I use it with minicom. On Vertrauen (and other boards), cp437 is auto-detected, but I get odd characters (mostly '?'s) at some of the ANSI screens. When I tried minicom's '-R CP437' option, the characters were correct, but some of the

block chars weren't positioned properly (at the main menu, for example), and the prompt appeared in the lower-right corner of the menu, buried in the border. Other sbbs boards I've tried recently have an option where I can manually change to UTF-8, and that always gives me the correct output when using minicom. On Vert, I've changed to US-ASCII (I didn't see a utf-8 option).

UTF-8 must be auto-detected on Synchronet (upon connect). There's no mechanism to manually-force UTF-8.

I've used syncterm (telnet/ssh client) a little and so far never have to change

any settings on vert or in syncterm for proper operation.

Sounds right.
--
digital man (rob)

Steven Wright quote #12:
OK, so what's the speed of dark?
Norco, CA WX: 87.7°F, 46.0% humidity, 12 mph WNW wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs ---
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Digital Man wrote to Andy Alt <=-

But other than some recent experiments I've been working on, I know of
no doors that actually handle the charset conversions themselves.

Immortal Barons does now.

https://andy5995.github.io/immortal-barons/charset/

--
-Andy
Website: https://andy5995.github.io


... Heisenberg may have slept here.
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.53
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Re: Re: Immortal Barons (BRE Clone)
By: Andy Alt to Digital Man on Thu Jul 09 2026 06:13 pm

Subject: Re: Immortal Barons (BRE Clone)

Digital Man wrote to Andy Alt <=-

But other than some recent experiments I've been working on, I know of no doors that actually handle the charset conversions themselves.

Immortal Barons does now.

https://andy5995.github.io/immortal-barons/charset/

How do you suppose the BBS software is going to add the -utf8 or -cp437 option on the command-line when invoking the door, only for UTF-8 callers?
--
digital man (rob)

Synchronet "Real Fact" #44:
Synchronet added JavaScript suppport with v3.10a (2001)
Norco, CA WX: 81.6°F, 53.0% humidity, 8 mph WNW wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs ---
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

On 09 Jul 2026, Digital Man said the following...

How do you suppose the BBS software is going to add the -utf8 or -cp437 option on the command-line when invoking the door, only for UTF-8
callers? --

mystic can accept:

door.exe -%C

and it'll replace %C with "UTF8" or "CP437"

what can Synch do? run some javascript and check the ACS for UTF8 or CP437? print an error to the user if it's neither?

seems like the sysop will figure it out somehow.

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

Re: Re: Immortal Barons (BRE Clone)
By: fusion to Digital Man on Fri Jul 10 2026 09:30 pm

On 09 Jul 2026, Digital Man said the following...

How do you suppose the BBS software is going to add the -utf8 or -cp437 option on the command-line when invoking the door, only for UTF-8 callers? --

mystic can accept:

door.exe -%C

and it'll replace %C with "UTF8" or "CP437"

what can Synch do? run some javascript and check the ACS for UTF8 or CP437? print an error to the user if it's neither?

I added %> (for terminal charset) as a command-line specifier just for this purpose:
https://wiki.synchro.net/config:cmdline

I didn't know that Mystic already had an equivalent.

seems like the sysop will figure it out somehow.

Most likely, they'll just leave it default and have the door output CP437. Is there any advantage to native UNICODE - like does the door send emojis or send text translated to non-English languages/locales?
--
digital man (rob)

Steven Wright quote #23:
My mechanic told me, I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder Norco, CA WX: 80.5°F, 55.0% humidity, 6 mph WNW wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs ---
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net