About gtermix
gtermix is a gtk+ telnet client intended for calling BBSes. It utilizes a custom VGA textmode emulating terminal widget that allows it to accurately render bulletin board systems as they were in DOS terminal programs.
- Features
- - gtk+ user interface - Dialing directory - Support for ANSI, vt100, Avatar and TextFX terminal emulations - Proper rendering for DOS-style BBSes
About the terminal emulation
gtermix uses a custom terminal widget for rendering. It's designed to closely emulate a VGA textmode console as utilized in DOS BBS programs. This includes support for VGA palette and font control. Additionally, IBM extended (8-bit) ASCII is supported as this is the standard for BBSes.
gtermix supports ANSI, vt100, Avatar, and TextFX terminal emulations.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- How is gtermix better than xterm + telnet?
gtermix is most appropriate for telnet BBSes. It does not intend to replace xterm + telnet/ssh for UNIX shells.
2. How does gtermix relate to Termix?
Termix was a program I also wrote awhile back with similar goals. The difference is that gtermix uses a gtk+ interface rather than the console. This allows gtermix to portably support VGA palette and font manipulation, and consequently support for TextFX. Termix also had annoying rendering issues such as the inability to display low-ascii characters (due to the use of ncurses). Such problems should not exist in gtermix due to the custom terminal widget.
2. What is TextFX?
TextFX is a VGA textmode terminal extender targetted at BBSes. TextFX supports many extensions to emulations like ANSI such as VGA palette and font manipulation, window scrolling, and palette morphing. Aside from these extensions, the protocol itself is also more efficient than ANSI in that BBS graphics will typically take up fewer bytes for the escape sequences.
TextFX was originally created by Mike Fricker for Iniquity BBS Software (for DOS and OS/2). TextFX never really took off, probably due to the fact that it was released rather late in the life of active dial-up BBSes, and also because the only terminal that supported the emulation was Iniquity's own.
See http://gtermix.sf.net/textfx/ for more information on TextFX, including the specification. gtermix includes a TextFX demo under the "Help" menu which demonstrates some of its capabilities.
Resources
Homepage: http://gtermix.sf.net
Maintainer: Nate Case <nacase@stabby.com>