Awesome news that somehow slipped by, jDOSBox has been updated!  Check out these awesome features!

0.74.24 July 2, 2011 
* Fixed some mouse sensitivity issues 
* Reduced flicker 
* Ported Tandy sound 
* Ported IPX

I’ve updated my site, and I’ll have to see what it takes to get the IPX going…!  For those of you who want to run it on your own, download it here.

Woo new update, and here is what’s changing!

0.74.23 June 5, 2011
* Fixed a serious memory error that mostly affected EGA era games
* Increased performance of the dynamic core a bit
* Improved audio by reducing stuttering on some games

0.74.22 May 29, 2011
* More fixes for Windows 3.11

0.74.21 May 27, 2011
* Fix for Windows 3.11 that affected Freecell

0.74.20 May 27, 2011
* New dynamic core, most games are 2x faster than build #19
* Fixed lots of minor bugs, mainly around installers

Download it here!

So i did update my jdosbox stuff, for anyone that enjoys this stuff. Hopefully it won’t blink like crazy on OS X.

Or at least that’s what I’m going to call it.

Click to run!

Basically it’s a super minimally configured copy of Synchronet configured to run on jdosbox.  There is no external ‘world’ to talk to.  There isn’t even any ‘persistence’ all changes will be lost after a simple refresh.

There also isn’t any user id’s it’s completely virgin!

Simply click on the picture, and hit the space bar once the menu comes up and you can login!  Since it’s just console access there is no modem, dialing, tcpip stuff to worry about.  If you can run java you can run this.

So why would I or you bother?  I guess its an importunity to suffer through the BBS experience.  Maybe I’m just leading up to something else, something really involved to setup so for most people this click & go java thing is about as close as they want to go to ‘feel’ it and it doesn’t involve any actual setup, nor any programs to configure.  And of course, you cannot ‘trash’ this thing beyond hope as the moment you refresh your browser, it’ll reload the image and you are back to the start.

And maybe it’s a sign of the times as well.  Comparing a BBS install to any *AMP install of today really shows in some way just how far we’ve come, in terms of installation.  Not to mention back in the BBS days nobody used SQL, everyone wound up writing their own multiuser database.  Actually in retrospect I have to wonder why more were not based around Dbase/Clipper/FoxPro.

At any rate, it’s really impressive to see that Synchronet is not only still going but thriving out there.  And the center of it all is DOVENET.  A quick and easy way of distributing messages easily can make a community…   Which sadly this thing doesn’t have any network IO so … no community.  See it’s like a bubble, easy to pop, and in it’s own little brief world.

For anyone crazy enough to take the plunge you could download version 2 of Synchronet right here. Then you can telnet to vert.synchro.net and setup an ID for your prospective BBS.  The best part is the simplicity of getting messages in & out… FTP!  You can even use ncftp to make scripts to send / get messages.  I cooked up something terribly simple to do that here.

While I did add TradeWars 2002 as a door, but you’ve also got the other defaults Synchronet Blackjack!, Domain Poker,Supernet Centipede..

Click to play!

I just found out that jdosbox can do the ‘boot’ command.  So as a test here is TradeWars 2002 running in single user mode.  I suppose I could go all out and make a standalone single node BBS with tradewars configured for the ‘full effect’.

But for now this will have to do.

Click the picture to launch! (needs Java).