Back in the early 90s, my buddy Bill Reamy wrote his first and only door
for my BBS. Like most of the code Bill ever wrote, it was awesome and different.
Here was a platform shooter that used nothing but ANSI and stick
figures. It didn't take the world by storm, but I and many others
thought it was very cool.
Sadly, Bill has recently passed away.
I would like to get Stickman running on my Synchronet BBS as sort of a memorial.
Would one of you be willing to write up a step-by-step guide to
installing Stickman on a 64-bit Windows OS and Synchronet?
I have the shareware version and the registered version along with the branding tool to personalize copies. Unfortunately the Turbo Pascal
source code is long since lost.
In case anyone wants to look at the shareware version, here is a link:
https://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/bbs/stickman/T_STM111.ZIP
> Would one of you be willing to write up a step-by-step guide to
> installing Stickman on a 64-bit Windows OS and Synchronet?
I suspect it's a 16-bit DOS program (right?). Do you have any other 16-bit DOS programs work on 64-bit Windows? If not, then you'll need to look at https://wiki.synchro.net/faq:win#win64
Although I was very happy with NTVDMx64 on Windows 10, it did weird and strange things to my Windows 11 installs:
https://github.com/leecher1337/ntvdmx64/issues/240
So... I just run an instance of Synchronet inside a VM running 32-bit Windows 7 as a guest OS.
Sure. Did you have any issues with installing it in Synchronet, other than it being a 16-bit DOS program?
So... I just run an instance of Synchronet inside a VM running 32-bit Windows 7 as a guest OS.
I'd rather not do that for security reasons.
Sure. Did you have any issues with installing it in Synchronet, other than it being a 16-bit DOS program?
My Synchronet is running on a Windows 2016 Server VM. I plan to replace
it with either a Server 2022 or perhaps a Windows 11 instance. My preference would be to use something like DosBox.
DosBox might work. I've honestly never really tried as I was all too aware of DosBox's limitations with sharing files between multiple instances (i.e. meaning DosBox only run *single* user doors). If your friend's game is single user, that might not be a show-stopper for you. Let us know how it goes!
Of course, there's also DOSBox-X, which claims "support for file-locking and record-locking functions": (https://dosbox-x.com/wiki/DOSBox%E2%80%90X%E2%80%99s-Feature-Highlights)
So if you wanted to run this door or any other door as multi-node, then, in theory, DOSBox-X could be your ticket.
or at least multi-node aware. Since it's not really stated here either way, assume single-node and DOSBox is a good fit.
I just skimmed through the STICKMAN.DOC file, and it's unclear whether multi-node use is supported. I'm usually inclined to treat any door as single-node unless the
Are you running your BBS in Windows? Although I'm running my BBS in Linux now, I'd be curious how DOSBox is set up to run DOS doors. Currently I'm using dosemu (rather, dosemu2) in Linux; I thought I had heard DOSBox probably wouldn't work as it doesn't support the use of a communications handle which is needed to pass control from the BBS software to the emulated environment (and door) - but maybe what I heard was incorrect?
To: DOVE-Net.Synchronet_Sysops
@MSGID: <656CF7E2.7638.dove-syncops@bbs2.ipingthereforeiam.com>
@TZ: fed4 Back in the early 90s, my buddy Bill Reamy wrote his first
and only door for my BBS. Like most of the code Bill ever wrote,
it was awesome and different.
Here was a platform shooter that used nothing but ANSI and stick
figures. It didn't take the world by storm, but I and many others
thought it was very cool.
Sadly, Bill has recently passed away.
I would like to get Stickman running on my Synchronet BBS as sort of a memorial.
Would one of you be willing to write up a step-by-step guide to
installing Stickman on a 64-bit Windows OS and Synchronet?
I have the shareware version and the registered version along with the branding tool to personalize copies. Unfortunately the Turbo Pascal source code is long since lost.
In case anyone wants to look at the shareware version, here is a link:
https://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/bbs/stickman/T_STM111.ZIP
Email me at sysop@iptia.com for a free personalized copy of the
registered version. Include the name you want displayed on the registration and the name and address of your BBS. Included are map and monster editors.
I do NOT have Stickman working under DosBox or anything else. I was
hoping someone with experience would do so and spoon-feed me and others
on how to do it. ;-)
Are you running your BBS in Windows? Although I'm running my BBS in Linux now, I'd be curious how DOSBox is set up to run DOS doors. Currently I'm using dosemu (rather, dosemu2) in Linux; I thought I had heard DOSBox probably wouldn't work as it doesn't support the use of a communications handle which is needed to pass control from the BBS software to the emulated environment (and door) - but maybe what I heard was incorrect?
This is my write up on it: https://conchaos.synchro.net/yt_info.html
I would like to get Stickman running on my Synchronet BBS as sort of a memorial.
Would one of you be willing to write up a step-by-step guide to
installing Stickman on a 64-bit Windows OS and Synchronet?
Re: Re: StickMan DoorYou'll have problems trying to use dosbox to run doors, especially if
By: Codefenix to Digital Man on Mon Dec 04 2023 05:49 pm
or at least multi-node aware. Since it's not really stated here
either way, assume single-node and DOSBox is a good fit.
Are you running your BBS in Windows? Although I'm running my BBS in
Linux now, I'd be curious how DOSBox is set up to run DOS doors.
Currently I'm using dosemu (rather, dosemu2) in Linux; I thought I
had heard DOSBox probably wouldn't work as it doesn't support the use
of a communications handle which is needed to pass control from the
BBS software to the emulated environment (and door) - but maybe what
I heard was incorrect?
Nightfox
---
â– Synchronet â– Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com
looks like it's only for Windows. I tried on Linux for several hours but couldn't get it to compile. Anyway...dosemu2 works great for everything now, from what I can tell.
There are a couple things I've noticed with dosemu2:
There were a few doors (mainly a few trivia doors I had installed) that ran extremely slowly, and I saw that dosemu2 had 100% CPU usage when they were running.
Also, after my BBS PC has been running for a while, dosemu2 will start to exit with an error rather than run the program - I don't remember offhand what the error is, but I think it had something to do with too many file handles open. Rebooting my BBS PC fixes that, until it happens again. I still want to see if I can find the root cause and fix it.
(mainly a few trivia doors I had installed) that ran extremely slowly, and
I saw that dosemu2 had 100% CPU usage when they were running.
Can't say I've noticed but I'll keep an eye on it.
Can you list which games, specifically, it's having problems with?
Also, after my BBS PC has been running for a while, dosemu2 will start to
exit with an error rather than run the program - I don't remember offhand
what the error is, but I think it had something to do with too many file
handles open. Rebooting my BBS PC fixes that, until it happens again. I
still want to see if I can find the root cause and fix it.
I've never seen this problem but then again, I update frequently. Can you say how long it is until you get that error?
How many file handles do you have allocated on your system for your bbs user?
If you have LimitNOFILE set in your systemctl startup file for sbbs then that should be how many open files you can have. You can use ;SHELL on your bbs and then type ulimit -n keeping in mind your login shell may have a different value to your BBS shell.
I'd also like to try and find the root cause. Maybe you can monitor open files while running games and see if any leave them open for some reason.
Also, after my BBS PC has been running for a while, dosemu2 will start to
exit with an error rather than run the program - I don't remember offhand
what the error is, but I think it had something to do with too many file
handles open. Rebooting my BBS PC fixes that, until it happens again. I
still want to see if I can find the root cause and fix it.
I've never seen this problem but then again, I update frequently. Can you say how long it is until you get that error?
Those games were:I saw that dosemu2 had 100% CPU usage when they were running.Can you list which games, specifically, it's having problems with?
- Sunrise Trivia
It looks like 10000 (and I do have a LimitNOFILE set to that).
Yeah, I should give that a try.
I forgot to answer this in my previous response.. I've noticed it can start to happen after a few days, sometimes after a week or longer. It doesn't seem to be consistent.
I saw that dosemu2 had 100% CPU usage when they were running.
Can you list which games, specifically, it's having problems with?Those games were:
- Sunrise Trivia
I tried Sunrise General Knowledge and did see high CPU usage, but it didn't affect the system at all. We could open an issue and have it looked at.
Now that I check that issue again, I see one of the last comments is that he said he applied a different fix in another commit. I haven't tried that yet.. I'd have to get the source and build it, but normally I install dosemu2 via my distro's package manager..
Now that I check that issue again, I see one of the last comments is that
he said he applied a different fix in another commit. I haven't tried that
yet.. I'd have to get the source and build it, but normally I install
dosemu2 via my distro's package manager..
If you're using Ubuntu it's available via PPA.
I monitored fs.file-nr and it's at 1760 with two users loggedin. It increases when one user goes and runs one of the dosemu2 door programs but comes back down afterwards so I'm not seeing any sort of file handle leak. At least with sunrise. I'll try a few others.
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 371 |
| Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
| Uptime: | 174:22:09 |
| Calls: | 7,915 |
| Files: | 12,983 |
| Messages: | 5,797,648 |