Copyright © 2015-2024 Bill Kochman

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The purpose of this tutorial is to assist you in properly adjusting the settings in the macOS Terminal app for viewing PC-ANSI graphics while BBSing, that is, while visiting old school BBSes, via dial-up connection or telnet connection.
• Any flavor of macOS (not Mac Classic)
• A basic knowledge of typing commands in the Terminal app
• A little time and patience
1. Some of the following steps may require that you provide your admin password. If so, simply do so.

2. Depending on what version of macOS you are running on your machine, you may not even need to follow this tutorial, being as in the most recent versions of macOS, the Terminal app appears to display PC-ANSI graphics just fine.


Before proceeding with this tutorial, please note that since I wrote this tutorial back in 2015, Apple has made significant improvements in the Terminal app. As such, if you have a recent version of macOS installed, you may not even need to follow the instructions which are contained in this tutorial, other than making sure that you have a PC-ANSI compatible font installed on your system, which contains the Code Page 437 ANSI characters. If you are not sure, you will find four such fonts on the Armageddon BBS, which you can freely download.
Did you know that you can visit the Armageddon BBS using the Terminal app that is included with every version of Mac OS X? This tutorial will explain to you exactly how to do it. Even if you use another operating system -- or OS -- other than Mac OS X, you can still learn something from this tutorial which will help you to have better telnet experiences.

Only a few years ago, using the built-in Mac OS X Terminal app to visit BBSes was not a very nice affair. Try as I might, and no matter what settings I used, I couldn't get the Terminal app to properly display PC-ANSI characters and colors on my computer. Thankfully, I recently discovered that Apple has apparently taken some steps to improve the user experience in this regard. However, even with those improvements, visiting a BBS was still not quite up to par. Thus, I wrote this tutorial.
The first thing that we need to do is to launch the Terminal app. You will find it in the Utilities folder in your main Applications folder on your startup drive. In other words, look for it here:

/Applications/Utilities/Terminal

Once you launch it, and since you may be using it a lot in the future, you may want to add it to your Dock at the bottom of your screen. To do that, right-click or control-click the Terminal app's icon in your Dock, and then select Options, following by Keep in Dock in the submenu. That's it. Now the Terminal app will remain in your Dock until you undo what you just did.

Now, before I tell you exactly how to visit the Armageddon BBS using the Terminal app, we are going to pretty up its colors, make sure that you are using the right terminal emulation, and make sure that the window size is correct so that you see everything properly on my BBS, as well as on other BBSes.

Please note that these instructions are based on the appearance of the Terminal app in Mac OS X 10.10.2, or Yosemite. If you are using an older version of Mac OS X, the settings windows may possibly look a little different, but probably not by much.

Now that you have launched the Terminal app by double-clicking its icon in the Utilities folder, or by clicking it once in the Dock, you should have a Terminal window in front of you. If not, select New Window under the Shell menu.

Let's begin by adjusting the prompt at the bottom of the Terminal window, and colorizing certain aspects of it. To do this, we will be using Mac OS X's built-in editor called nano.

In the Terminal window, use your keyboard to type the following. This will open the profile which is currently in use:

nano .profile

Once the nano editor window has opened, using your mouse or trackpad, select the FOUR lines of text that you see below:

export PS1="\[\033[36m\]\u\[\033[m\]@\[\033[32m\]\h:\[\033[33;1m\]\w\[\033[m\]\$ "
export CLICOLOR=1
export LSCOLORS=ExFxBxDxCxegedabagacad
alias ls='ls -GFh'

To reiterate, you should see only FOUR lines above. The first long line ends with:

$ "

The first line may possibly be wrapped on your screen to make it look as if there are five lines, but there are really only four lines to enter into the Terminal app. That string that ends with $ should be a part of the first line that you are going to copy and paste into your Terminal window.

Now use command-c -- that is, hold down the command key while you simultaneously type the letter c -- to copy the first line above -- or all four lines at once if you are able to -- into your computer's pasteboard.

Next, switch over to the open Terminal window where the nano editor has been opened. You will know that you are in the right place, because you will see a few rows of commands at the bottom of your screen.

Now, using your keyboard -- or however you do it with a trackpad -- use command-v -- that is, hold down the command key while you simultaneously type the letter v -- to paste the first of the above four lines -- or all four lines at once if you are able to -- into the nano editor window.

Repeat the same steps to copy and paste the other three lines into your Terminal window as well, if you cannot do all four at the same time.

Once you have all four lines copied into your Terminal window, hit your return key.

Finally, type control-x -- that is, hold down the control key while you simultaneously type the letter x -- to exit the nano editor.

If you see a prompt which asks you if you want to save the modified buffer, simply say yes by typing the letter y.

If everything went well, you should now see a difference in the appearance of the Terminal prompt at the bottom of your screen. There will be other color changes you will see if you ever use the ls command in the Terminal to list the contents of your computer's hidden directories.

NOTE: How you accomplish the above may be a little different, depending on your particular computer operating system. The main thing that you want to consider is that you want to copy and paste, and then save, all four of those lines in your Terminal profile. Please do whatever it takes to get that accomplished. You may possibly even be able to copy and paste all four lines at once, and then just save one time, which will make things a lot easier for you.

We are not done quite yet.

Still using the Terminal, under the Terminal menu, select the Preferences option in order to open the Preferences window.

Once the Preferences window opens, click on the General button if that pane is not already selected for you.

On the General pane, where it says On startup, open:, make sure that New window with profile is enabled.

In the pull-down menu below it, select Homebrew if it is not already selected.

Next, click on the Profiles button.

When that pane opens, click on Homebrew in the left side of the window.

If it does not have the word Default directly below it, then click on the Default button which is located in the bottom left-hand corner of the pane.

Next, with the Homebrew theme still selected, click on the Text button near the top middle of the pane. There will be five buttons in a row in Yosemite, and Text is the first of them.

Make sure that all five boxes under the Text section have a checkmark. They are:

• Antialias text
• Use bold fonts
• Allow blinking text
• Display ANSI colors
• Use bright colors for bold text

You can adjust the three colors to the right of those five boxes to whatever you like. Just click in each box, and a color wheel will appear on your screen.

Right below those five buttons that are near the top of the pane, you can also adjust the font family and the font size. Personally, I have found that the ASCII TrueType Font works great. You can download it at the bottom of this same page, as well as from the Armageddon BBS itself, and also from the Armageddon Hotline Server. On the bottom of this page, look for a link called ASCII TrueType Font. The archive includes a Read Me file in both text and PDF format. Please carefully follow the instructions therein.

Returning to the Text pane in the Terminal prefs, in the bottom middle corner of that same pane, you can likewise choose whatever cursor style and color you like.

Next, click on the Window button that is located near the top middle of the pane. It is located in that same row of five buttons.

When that pane opens, make sure that the Window Size is set to 80 columns and 48 rows. The reason why we are setting Rows to 48 instead of the standard 24 rows for BBSing, is to make sure that when you visit the Armageddon BBS, nothing will flip off of the top of your screen before you have had a chance to read it. That can be quite confusing for BBSing newbies.

Right above the Window Size settings, you will see a section called Background. Click on the color box that says Color & Effects right next to it. When the color wheel opens on your screen, make sure that the color is set to solid black, Opacity is set to 100% and blur is set to 20%.

The final adjustment we are going to make is found on the Advanced pane, so please click on the Advanced button. It should be the last button in the row of five buttons near the top of the window.

In the Terminfo section where it says Declare terminal as, make sure that xterm-256color is selected in the pull-down menu.

IMPORTANT: Once you log on to my BBS, the Welcome screen that you see should look exactly like what you see at the top of this page. If you see a lot of strange symbols and characters which you do not understand, do the following:

1. Log off of the BBS by typing the letter O.

2. Go back into to your Terminal preferences.

3. On the Advanced pane, instead of using xterm-256color, try using ansi instead.

4. Close the Terminal preferences window.

5. Log back on to the BBS and see if you see any improvements.

Returning to our original instructions, once you make the adjustments on the Advanced pane, you can close the Profiles window by clicking on the red button in the top left corner.

Now you are ready to begin BBSing, and seeing Bulletin Board Services in all of their colorful ANSI and ASCII graphics glory! Hey! It was cool back in the day during the 1980's and early 1990's!

Just to get a fresh start, I suggest that you close the current Terminal window, and shut down the Terminal app. Next, relaunch it.

Once the Terminal window is open, at the new colorful prompt that you now have, type the following:

telnet 202.128.66.10 7777

Let me offer a brief word of explanation for the uninitiated . . .

Telnet is the Internet protocol that is used to access BBSes, just as http is the protocol that is used to access web pages which use the hypertext markup language, and ftp -- or file transfer protocol -- is the protocol that is used to download files from file transfer servers.

For the record, 202.128.66.10 is the current static IP address of the following Internet services which I offer to the public:

The Armageddon BBS
The Bill's Bible Basics website
The Christian Social Network
The Armageddon Hotline server

In fact, using the following domain names instead of the above IP address should also work as well:

armageddonbbs.net (website)
billkochman.com:7777 (BBS)
billkochman.com (website)
csnet.live (website)
billkochman.com:5500 (Hotline server)

So the above terminal command is telling your computer to telnet to my IP address -- that is, to my computer -- so that you can log on to my BBS.

After you type telnet 202.128.66.10 7777, just hit your return key, and let the "magic" of BBSing begin.

Wait a few seconds, and the Welcome/Log in screen of the Armageddon BBS should appear in your Terminal window. If not, close the window, and open a new window by choosing Homebrew under the Shell menu and the New Window submenu. In fact, if you have set Homebrew as your default theme as you were supposed to do, anytime you open a new Terminal session, it should automatically open a window using your Homebrew settings.

Now, more about the BBS log in process . . .

IMPORTANT: As a new visitor to my BBS, you need to type the word new at the first prompt that you see. Do NOT attempt to enter a name or an alias or a user number, because you don't have one yet. If you try doing that, the BBS will not recognize you, and you will be kicked off after three attempts. So again, you need to type the word new -- obviously without the quote marks -- at the first prompt when you see my BBS Welcome screen.

As soon as you type new, hit your return key.

Immediately after doing this, you will be presented with a few short, basic questions in order to setup your free account on the Armageddon BBS. Don't worry; there is nothing really personal. In fact, I don't even force you to provide a real name. Just use an alias; that is, an online name.

With some of the questions, I have offered the best answers in brackets or parentheses in order to avoid confusion with new users. Please follow them for the best experience on my BBS.

Once you provide answers to the questions, and establish a password, you will be logged into the BBS as a new user. From there, just follow the screen prompts, and read whatever you see before you.

Now listen up!

You cannot break the BBS -- or your computer -- by trying out all of the options that you see on the Main Menu, the Transfer Menu, or in the Online Library -- or G-Files -- section.

The way that a BBS works is by typing letters, numbers, or certain other characters, or a combination of characters, at the prompt. The commands that you are supposed to type are in a different color from the rest of the text that you see on the Main Menu and the Transfer Menu. That is how you know they are commands that you can type.

Get curious, and don't worry. Just take your time, see what each command does, pay attention to whatever appears on your screen, and enjoy this old computer technology from decades ago. It is what we did before the Internet and the World Wide Web came along. Yes, I am sorry to disappoint you, but online communities did NOT begin with the current generation! :)

I hope that this tutorial has been a help to you.

Happy BBSing!