Published on October 21, 2026

I've just added a new page to the navigation menu at the top: hTelnet. It's a proof of concept plugin-less BBS client using new HTML5 features. There's no servers supporting the connection yet, so it doesn't do anything, but I thought it was cool enough to upload anyway!

Published on July 6, 2026

I've received a few emails about fTelnet-Modern, so figured it might be good to share some of the questions/answers here:

• How do I get fTelnet-Modern?  It's available on Tom Swartz's GitHub repo here: https://github.com/comicslut-png/fTelnet-Modern
• Will the embed wizards be updated to use fTelnet-Modern?  Not the existing embed wizards, but if Tom creates a new embed wizard then I'm happy to help with an fTelnet subdomain (eg maybe embed-modern.ftelnet.ca)
• Can I use the public proxies with fTelnet-Modern?  Yes, the public proxies will work fine with fTelnet-Modern.
• Will you implement any of the fTelnet-Modern features in fTelnet "classic"?  Possibly, but probably not.  It's not that I don't think the new features are awesome and worthwhile to backport, but I don't have the time at the moment, and it would just be a duplication of effort.  That said, after Tom let me know about the fork I did a quick/hacky backport of the zmodem code to see if it would work in the "classic" codebase, and it only took a few minor tweaks, so if any feature is backported that's the most likely to be (I didn't implement the transfer dialog or auto-start feature, so still a fair bit of work needed, but nothing compared to the massive effort Tom undertook to get zmodem working in the first place)

If this is the first you're hearing about fTelnet-Modern, then I suggest you click the GitHub link above to take a look!

Published on September 10, 2023

There's been a couple noteworthy changes in the last year, which I've neglected to mention!

The most recent is really recent (as in a few days ago), and is a fix for YModem-G transfers.  The public proxies had a couple bugs that needed fixing, and now that they're sorted, transfers are working again.

While testing the changes, I noticed the transfers were pretty slow at around 20KB/s or so, so I also made some additional tweaks to fTelnet, fTelnetProxy, and Synchronet's websocketservice.js to speed things up.  If I remember correctly the fastest transfer I saw after all the changes was around 3MB/s, which is still pretty slow in the grand scheme of things, but a 150x speedup isn't too bad at all.

Another older change is related to how the user's IP address is reported, if the BBS requests it.  Previously both SEND-LOCATION and TTYLOC were supported, but since TTYLOC doesn't allow sending an IPv6 address, support for that was disabled.  This means your BBS will now need to use SEND-LOCATION to request the user's IP address, if it isn't already.

And the oldest changes from November of last year are actually pretty cool, so I should have mentioned them sooner!  fTelnet now has mouse support, if the BBS requests it, so for example in Synchronet you can click on menu options instead of hitting hotkeys!  A new screen size dropdown was added to the menu as well, allowing users to select a larger screen.  Both of these changes were made to improve the Synchronet Minesweeper experience, but hopefully will be useful elsewhere as well.

Published on November 5, 2022

Unfortunately that new provider I moved 3 of the 4 proxies to in July is shutting down the service I'm using, perhaps as early as tomorrow.  (Their host is using IPv4 exhaustion as an excuse to majorly jack up the cost of IPs, so it's nowhere near profitable for them to keep offering the service I'm using, so I don't blame them).

I found a good deal with another provider for the US East and West coasts, so am in the process of setting those up.  As of right now us-east has been setup, and I see connections coming in, so it looks like things are working well.

The AU and EU locations are a bit less common, so I don't have a replacement for them yet.  If my service is shut down before I do find a replacement, then unfortunately I'll need to redirect those requests to the US locations, which will significantly increase lag.  The provider that is shutting down the service I'm using may be bringing a new NAT-based service online in those locations, in which case I'll sign back up for that.

The main issue with a NAT-based service is that I'm given a small block of IPs that I can use, so the proxy can't run on the usual port 80 and 443 anymore, which in the past meant you would need to update your fTelnet configuration to specify the new ports.  But yesterday I updated fTelnet, along with the v2 embed wizard, to automatically update proxy configuration when the values you're using need correcting.  If you're already using the v2 embed wizard then you're good to go, but if you're self-hosting fTelnet then you'll need to manually update to the latest version, and if you're using the old embed wizard then you'll need to switch to the v2 embed wizard.

Sorry for any trouble this causes.  I didn't want/expect to be messing around with the proxies so soon again either!

EDIT: All four locations are back online, and are using the same ports as before, so no changes are needed on your end. That said, it is STRONGLY recommended that you update to the latest version of fTelnet (either by using the Embed Wizard v2, or if you self-host, by downloading the latest javascript from GitHub). That way, if I need to switch to a NAT-based service in the future, fTelnet will automatically detect a change in ports and you won't need to manually reconfigure anything.

Published on July 26, 2022

Sorry if you've experienced problems with any of the proxies over the last few days.  I made some changes to allow connecting to IPv6-only systems, but on US-CA and US-NJ things weren't working correctly.  After seeing they were still running on Ubuntu 14.04 I thought I'd upgrade them to something more recent, which ended up fixing the IPv6 problem but then it introduced another problem because these are very low resource servers and Ubuntu 20.04 doesn't seem too happy with 64MB RAM.

So for the east coast I've found a new provider with a reasonably-priced 512MB server based in Virginia, and requests for the US-NJ proxy are now being redirected there.  Based on the usage I'm seeing on the various proxies, I will likely redirect US-GA there as well, and then have US-VA as the sole east cost proxy going forward.

Unfortunately that provider doesn't have a west coast option, so the temporary fix for US-CA is to redirect requests to US-WA, which has slightly more RAM (96MB) and doesn't seem to be crashing.  I'll look for another provider with something in the 256MB-512MB range as a more permanent solution.

The new provider does have an Australian location though, so I've switched to them for the AU proxy.  In theory the old provider worked fine, but because it didn't have a dedicated IPv4 address it means having to use different ports compared to all the other proxies, so this slightly simplifies things for me.

And lastly, they have a UK location, so at some point I'll probably start a server there and shut down the NL location.

Published on February 28, 2022

fTelnetProxy was updated recently, so a restart is no longer needed when an SSL cert is renewed, which should help minimize downtime on the public proxies (sometimes I had to restart even though there were active connections).  It also supports switching to a non-root user after the port is bound, so you can run as a non-priviledged user on Linux.

Since I switched to Visual Studio 2022, I also had to update from .NET 4.5 to 4.6.2, which I believe means it will no longer work on XP.  But you probably shouldn't have been running a server on XP anymore anyway!

And for anybody using the Dallas, TX location, it is being shut down by the hosting provider due to it being an unprofitable location for them to operate in.  You shouldn't need to update your configurations though, I've already redirected the hostname to the Atlanta, GA location, which seemed to have the lowest ping time from Dallas.  This is bad news for anybody in the Dallas area, but good news if you're in the Seattle, WA area, as that's where they'll be migrating my VPS to, so there'll now be a proxy available in the pacific northwest.

Published on March 12, 2020

If you're using one of my public proxy servers, you can ignore this message.

But if you're self-hosting an fTelnetProxy installation, then you'll need to download the latest binaries from GitHub to fix a TLS issue.  Firefox 74 has disabled TLS 1.0 and 1.1 by default, so this new fTelnetProxy release enables TLS 1.2 support to ensure Firefox users can still connect.

Unfortunately this required upgrading to the .NET framework version 4.5, which means if you don't already have that version of the framework installed you'll have to install it first. 

Which also unfortunately means XP is no longer supported, because as far as I know XP does not have an install for .NET 4.5.  So if you're using XP either stick to the old version and turn off https when serving the fTelnet client, or switch from self-hosted to one of my public proxies.

Published on October 15, 2017

I've just pushed some changes to GitHub, and also to the v2 embed wizard, which will enable 24-bit Ansi support.

More info available on the PabloDraw blog.

Published on March 12, 2017

fTelnet is now available as a native Android app!  Check out the beta here, and please let me know how it works:

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.randm.ftelnet

Windows store should follow shortly, and I have plans for iOS too, but need to figure out how that will work since I don't have either a mac to develop with, or an iOS device to test with!

Published on December 10, 2016

The new embed wizard I mentioned in my previous post is online (and has been for awhile but I never got around to posting here!), and can be accessed via http://embed-v2.ftelnet.ca. It still needs more testing so I'm not sure I would trust it on your live site yet, but it would definitely be helpful if you could try it out on a test page on your site and let me know if you run into any problems.  If you do use it on your live site, I strongly suggest you email me to let me know, as I don't consider it finalized yet and may end up making breaking changes to the embed code (not likely, but you never know), and I'll give a heads up to anybody that let's me know they're using it.

I have no plans to retire the original embedded version of fTelnet, so while testing of v2 would be much appreciated, there's no rush as you can stay using v1 for as long as you want.  I also have no plans to implement new features on v1 though, so at some point it may be in your best interest to move to v2.

And the proxy server fix I also mentioned in my last post seems to have done the trick...two of the servers have handled over 100,000 connections since I started them.  Of course that's mostly just port scanners looking for vulnerable DVR and security cameras to take over and use in DDoS attacks, and not actual users wanting to connect to a BBS.  Wouldn't it be cool if BBSes still had that many people connecting?!?

Published on October 11, 2016

The proxy servers haven't been overly reliable lately...UptimeRobot is still able to ping the servers, so I don't get notifications that they're offline, but they're not accepting WebSocket connections so they really aren't doing their job.

I've just made a change to fTelnetProxy (which powers the proxies) that I'm hoping will address this problem.  If it doesn't fix it, I'll keep digging because I hate that they keep going offline for everyone!

Also, I've been working on fTelnet a bit lately.  It's bothered me for a long time that RIP support significantly adds to the size of the fTelnet .js file, to the point that I considered removing it.  I really would like to finish RIP support, or at least improve it to the point of being usable, so removing it didn't seem like a great option.  So instead I've reorganized the fTelnet project into multiple smaller projects.  This has allowed me to create 4 different versions of fTelnet that vary in features, and thus in size.  The smallest, which doesn't support RIP or YModem is down to just 140kB (current release is 263kB, so that's nearly half the size!)

I've also switched to non-static classes, which means you'll now be able to embed two (or more) client windows on the same webpage.  This is a feature that some people have asked for, and I know at least one organization hacked in support on their own, but now it'll be built right in.  This means a completely different way of using fTelnet though, so to ensure things don't break for existing embedded users I'll be creating a new "v2" embed method.

Which leads me to my final item: If you'd like to be notified of fTelnet updates, please use the contact form to send me a "subscribe" message.  I'll try to get a proper mailing list in place at some point, but for now I'll just keep a contact list in my email client (and will be sure to use BCC for any announcements I send, for your privacy!)

Published on September 11, 2015

I recently received an email asking how to use fTelnet from behind a corporate firewall.  Since ports 1123 and 11235 are non-standard ports that I just picked because of their slight resemblance to telnet's port 23 (and also because they're the start of the Fibonacci sequence), they're going to be considered unknown ports and get blocked by some corporate firewalls.

To get around this, I've moved many of my public proxies from ports 1123 and 11235 to ports 80 and 443.  These are standard HTTP and HTTPS ports, so have a much greater chance of passing through a corporate firewall.  (If they're really nosy they could use DPI to see that the connections over port 80 are not really HTML and block on those grounds, but since 443 is encrypted I don't think there's anything they can do to block that without also blocking legitimate HTTPS traffic...not a firewall/network expert though, so I could be wrong).

I'll leave ports 1123 and 11235 active indefinitely, but if you're using one of my proxies, and you want the greatest level of connectivity to your BBS, you should really consider updating the port numbers to 80 and 443 instead.

The reason I moved "many" instead of "all" is because some of my proxies don't have a dedicated IPv4 address, so I don't have control over what ports I can use.  Currently this is proxy-au and proxy-us-tx, so they have to stay at whatever ports they are currently using.  I'd like to replace them at some point to standardize everything, but I haven't found any great deals in those regions yet so we're stuck with them for awhile.

Published on September 2, 2015

If you're using the embedded version of fTelnet, you should notice that I just pushed some new changes.  If you're not using the embedded version, these are changes worth upgrading for!

Here's a list of what's new:

• Updated virtual keyboard layout (slightly more compact, allowing for slightly larger keys)
• Virtual keyboard will show on mobile and hide on non-mobile by default
• Virtual keyboard is WAY more responsive on iOS (and possibly other mobile) devices
• Replace ugly looking Connect/Upload/Download/etc links at top of client area with a pop-up menu on the status bar
• Non-mobile has a new, much more user friendly scrollback buffer.  Mobile devices I tested didn't have the horsepower needed to support this feature, so they still have the clunky scrollback buffer
• Non-mobile also has copy/paste support!  Every browser supports this a little differently, so it works a bit different in each.  In time I think they'll all support seamless copy/paste (ie no pop-ups like you currently see in Firefox)

If you run into any problems with this new release, please use the Contact link to let me know!

Published on August 18, 2015

It's been about a year since I setup the first proxies, so it's time for renewal for some of them, and I'm going to be shaking things up as a result:

• proxy-jp will be going away. It had great uptime, but was hardly ever used, so might as well invest in other locations that will see more traffic.
• proxy-nl will be replaced. It has the second-worst uptime, so there's no point wasting money on it. I'll be ordering a RamNode server in the near future -- their USA locations are amazing, hopefully the NL location will be as well.
• proxy-uk will be going away. By far it has the worst uptime, and it's probably close enough to proxy-nl or proxy-fr to not bother finding a replacement.

All three of the old hostname/port combinations will continue to work, but the connections will be routed via the new proxy-nl server.  This is ideal for the old proxy-nl and should be pretty good for the old proxy-uk, but proxy-jp users (if there were any) might want to update their settings to use proxy-au instead.

Published on March 12, 2015

I've removed proxy-ca-on from the list of proxies, as I've found another use for the box it's running on.

From the logs I can see it wasn't used too much, but to avoid breaking things for the few people that were using it I've updated the hostname to point to the IP of the next closest box, which is proxy-us-nj (when I tested my ping times at proxy.ftelnet.ca it was only about 20ms slower, which isn't bad considering it's about 7x further away from me than proxy-ca-on was).

Published on February 11, 2015

LowEndSpirit got stock back in their Dallas, TX location, so I've added a proxy there since it's so cheap. 

I think that's the last one I'll be adding, until someone requests an additional area to be covered.  LowEndSpirit is the best deal for these proxies, and while I don't have a proxy in every city they offer, I do have a proxy in every general area (ie have one in UK, France and NL, so unless somone says they're not good enough I won't bother with their Germany and Italy locations).

And I just mentioned the fTelnet Proxies page in my last post, but this map is cool and worth a separate mention:

Check out the fTelnet Proxies map here.

Published on February 8, 2015

I had a VPS idling in Toronto, Ontario, so I figured I'd re-provision it and get it up and running with FleckProxy!  So the first Canadian proxy is now online at proxy-ca-on.ftelnet.ca!

I've also created a website for listing the (now 10) proxies, which contains uptime statistics provided by Uptime Robot, and a "ping" test to let you know which one is likely to give you the best performance.  I put ping in quotes because it isn't a true ping, it's actually a measure of how long it took to establish a WebSocket connection, which will be 10s to 100s of milliseconds longer than it would take for a standard ping reply.  So use the value more as a comparator than a performance indicator.

Check out the fTelnet Proxies list here.

Published on January 28, 2015

I just finished updating My fTelnet with a few changes.

First, and most importantly, I finally implemented the ability to add your own entries to the address book.  Previously you were limited to my default entries, which was kind of pointless!

Second, I've moved the client connection out of the main window and into a popup window (or new tab, depending on your browser settings).  This makes it so you can load multiple connections at once, and also simplifies my life because I can re-use the work I put into the embedded version of fTelnet.

Click here to check it out now!

Published on January 3, 2015

Someone on DOVE-Net recently mentioned they liked the RIP support in the old fTelnet, but one day it stopped working (I fixed the problem after that, so it should be working again).

This made me think about all the effort that went into adding support for RIP (it was probably close to as much effort as all the other features combined...and that's only for partial support, full support likely would require more effort than all the other features combined), and what a waste it would be since I'm not supporting the old fTelnet anymore. 

But ActionScript and TypeScript/JavaScript are pretty similar languages, so I figured it probably wouldn't be too difficult to take the RIP support out of the old fTelnet and transplant it into the new fTelnet.  And it turns out it wasn't!  The screenshot below shows the experimental RIP support in the new fTelnet:

It's only partially ported, there are a few things I skipped to get it up and running, and then of course the original code wasn't a full implementation to begin with, so it's not ready for prime time.  But a small number of the RIP screens from the sixteen colors archive render quite nicely, feel free to log into my demo system and check them out for yourself.

Published on December 3, 2014

As the title says, my.ftelnet.ca and embed.ftelnet.ca have been updated.  They're now both powered by fTelnet instead of HtmlTerm.  No, not fTelnet the old Flash based telnet client, but fTelnet the the new HTML5 based telnet client.

If that's a little confusing, here's a bit of history:

• In 2010  I developed a Flash based telnet client and called it fTelnet
• A month later I also developed an HTML5 based telnet client and called it HtmlTerm
• In 2012 I stopped working on both clients.  fTelnet because it worked pretty good, HtmlTerm because fTelnet was better
• In 2013 I started working on HtmlTerm again.  It quickly surpassed fTelnet in features and compatibility
• In early 2014 I officially abandoned the Flash based fTelnet to focus on HtmlTerm instead
• Now I've decided that since I have the fTelnet.ca domain, and no product called fTelnet, I might as well rename HtmlTerm to fTelnet

So the new fTelnet is just HtmlTerm under a new name.  I also ported it to TypeScript and added some new features in the process, but basically it's just a renamed HtmlTerm.

Published on September 23, 2014

Saw lots of connections to proxy-us-ga after I switched it to FleckProxy, and there haven't been any complaints, so I've now rolled FleckProxy out to all 9 of the proxies.

So owners of the original iPad (or any other Apple device stuck on iOS 5, or owners of the HP TouchPad) should now be able to connect via any of the proxies!

If you run into any problems with any of the proxies, just let me know via the contact page.

Published on September 20, 2014

I'm using websockify on all my public proxies because my public proxies are all running Linux, and I thought websockify was the only proxy that would run on Linux.  Turns out FleckProxy runs just fine, and since it also supports some of the legacy versions of the WebSocket protocol, I'm testing it out to see if I can switch to it. 

It would probably be best to test with one of the less popular proxies, but that would take awhile to get enough usage to know if it's going to work, so I've just gone ahead and fired it up on the most popular proxy, proxy-us-ga (aka proxy-us-atl)!

So if you run into any problems using that proxy, or the my.ftelnet.ca site, let me know and I'll switch back to websockify.

Published on September 9, 2014

The first donation since March came in last week, so I figured I'd use it to open up a few more public proxies.  Jacksonville, Florida and Los Angeles, California are the second and third for North America, and the sixth and seventh overall.  Here's the updated list:

• United States (California): proxy-us-ca.ftelnet.ca port 1123
• United States (Georgia): proxy-us-ga.ftelnet.ca port 1123
• United States (Florida): proxy-us-fl.ftelnet.ca port 1123
• United States (New Jersey): proxy-us-nj.ftelnet.ca port 1123
• Australia (Sydney): proxy-au.ftelnet.ca port 8410
• France (Roubaix): proxy-fr.ftelnet.ca port 18910
• Japan (Tokyo): proxy-jp.ftelnet.ca port 2710
• Netherlands (Rotterdam): proxy-nl.ftelnet.ca port 9010
• United Kingdom (Newcastle): proxy-uk.ftelnet.ca port 2910

None of these particularly close to you?  Let me know where you are and I'll see if I can find something in your area.  I've only spent half the donation so far, so there's enough for another 1-3 depending on the cost of each VPS.

Published on September 8, 2014

I've added several new options to the My fTelnet embed wizard, so if you've set it up on your site have a look and see if there's anything new you'd like to customize. If so, just replace the old embed code with the new one and you'll be good to go.

Published on August 20, 2014

My fTelnet has been updated with a cool new embed feature that will allow you to easily embed the client into any website of your choosing.  It'll do this via an iframe that you generate and copy/paste into whatever page you want on your website.

Why would you want to do this?  Because it's about 1000x times easier than the traditional method of using fTelnet/HtmlTerm, where you have to download it, put it on your web server, configure it, and then upgrade it every time I make a new release.  Now you just add the iframe wherever you want it, and that's all there is to it!

It's still a work in progress, so I'm not sure that I'd throw out your existing setup just yet, but I'd definitely appreciate it if you try it out and let me know what you think.

Published on March 7, 2014

Check out My fTelnet and let me know what you think!

(Just ignore the TODO markers, it's still a work-in-progress -- and being a work in progress it'll be prone to breaking unexpectedly, although hopefully that won't happen too often!)

Published on January 7, 2014

I forgot all about the fTelnet and HtmlTerm demos when I migrated my website to GetSimple CMS!  Just now I noticed they were "coming soon...", so I've finally put the demos in place.

Published on September 29, 2013

HtmlTerm has been modified slightly to allow it to work with websockify.  So if you're running Linux and want to use HtmlTerm, this is now your best option.

websockify can also act as a flash socket policy server, so can also be used with fTelnet!

Published on July 25, 2013

So I never got around to releasing a new fTelnet like I said I would in the last post. The RIP support is in a non-working state, and I haven't felt inclined to work on it to get it compiling again. I have recently started working on HtmlTerm again though -- started with just implementing a few fixes to the Crt unit, but now both uploading and downloading is also working (via YModem-G of course)!

Not quite ready to make a new release yet, but if you're feeling lucky you can check the Release directory on the GitHub page for HtmlTerm. I update those files occasionally, but don't actually test them so there's no guarantee that they'll work at any given time!

Published on March 15, 2013

Haven't released a new version of fTelnet in awhile. I still work on it occasionally, usually tinkering with the RIP support (even though I don't think anybody uses it!), but there hasn't been anything significant enough to warrant a release, so I haven't bothered.But today I added a method for detecting and notifying the user when the fTelnet app loses focus, which has always been a cause of frustration to users since they don't understand why their keypresses aren't being accepted.

So that's not a significant change, but I'm sure some people will find it useful so I'll probably try to get a release out in the near future anyway.

Published on August 29, 2012

Forgot to make a release after making the July 10 fix. Oops!

Published on July 1, 2012

A new release for the TouchPad was submitted today, which brings some changes to the UI that makes fTelnet look a little better, especially when used in conjunction with a bluetooth keyboard (the virtual keyboards can be hidden, allowing fTelnet to use a larger font, allowing more of the screen to be used).

Thanks to Chris for sending a bluetooth keyboard for me to test with!

Published on April 17, 2012

Just uploaded a new release with an important HtmlTerm fix and a pretty cool new fTelnet feature. There were also updates to Client*.js, so make sure you incorporate those changes into your versions of the file (if you don't just want to overwrite your versions and start fresh).

The cool new fTelnet feature is scrollback mode! This has been on the TODO list pretty much since the beginning, and since several people asked about it recently, I finally got around to implementing it. Hit CTRL+UP ARROW to enter scrollback mode, and then UP/DOWN or PGUP/PGDN to navigate. When you're done, hit ESC to get back to "live" mode.

Published on March 20, 2012

Just uploaded a new release. I don't think there were any fTelnet related changes, just a few fixes for HtmlTerm that were reported recently. WBA was also updated to make it a little more sane in its operation (the close button now really closes the form, and the minimize button will minimize it to the tray).

Published on February 27, 2012

Been so busy with mobile stuff lately that I've been ignoring the original web based version. Well today I finally got everything cleaned up and have made a new release of fTelnet! There isn't a whole lot of new stuff, since the mobile stuff has been getting all the special attention, but one major improvement is the addition of a virtual keyboard that will allow users visiting your site on a tablet device to use fTelnet to connect to your BBS (before they could connect, but had no way to bring up the virtual keyboard). Make sure you check the ClientVars.js file to read about that setting if you're upgrading and don't want to overwrite that file.

I also rewrote a lot of stuff to support the web and mobile (and soon stand-alone desktop) versions, and so in the process of doing that it's entirely possible that I broke something, so please let me know if you run into any problems.

Published on February 16, 2012

Already a few people have pointed out that the webOS virtual keyboard doesn't have arrow keys (and the bluetooth keyboard's arrow keys don't seem to be supported outside the core webOS OS), so I have an updated release in the queue that adds an arrow icon overlay to the bottom-right corner of the flash control. It's been 'Ready for Review' for a few days now, so hopefully it'll be updated and available any day now.In addition to a webOS version, I also ported fTelnet to run on the BlackBerry PlayBook as an AIR app. I really didn't have any interest in going further than the TouchPad, since that's all I own, but then I read about the free PlayBook tablet offer and couldn't resist! Just received confirmation earlier this afternoon that my app has been accepted, so it's now on RIM's BlackBerry App World! As with the webOS version, this one has a new release in the queue that will address the missing arrow keys, but it'll probably take somewhat longer for this update to appear since there's LOTS of developers trying to get a free PlayBook, so their review team is stretched pretty thing right now.

In the next little while I'll probably investigate porting fTelnet to Android, which also supports AIR apps, so it should also be pretty simple. Since my TouchPad is running an early alpha of "ice cream sandwich" I'm not sure how useful it will be for debugging, so I may or may not be able to work on this right away.

From what I understand iOS also supports AIR apps now, which means the $600 barrier to entry (bottom of the line Mac mini) should no longer exist, but until Apple removes the $99/yr developer program membership fee, don't expect to see fTelnet on your iPad.

Published on February 14, 2012

Another oops...I uploaded the wrong WBA.exe yesterday, so Chrome 16+ was STILL broken! So if you downloaded 11.11.02 yesterday or earlier today, then please download it again. Hopefully that's got it fixed now!

Published on February 13, 2012

Oops, totally forgot to upload the new release with the updated WBA, which added support for the latest version of Chrome. I've now finally uploaded it, although since it was only WBA and not fTelnet that was changed, I didn't bother increasing the version number. So if you use WBA, please download 11.11.02 again, and if you don't use WBA, then just ignore this post.On somewhat related news, fTelnet was finally accepted into the HP webOS App Catalog early last week! I've already got a second release in the review stage, so an update is already on the way. And in addition to that, someone pointed out there's no way to use the cursor keys (since the TouchPad's virtual keyboard doesn't have arrow keys, and the bluetooth keyboard's arrow keys don't work in Flash), so a new update should be coming shortly with an on-screen overlay that will allow you to use arrow keys.

Also on a somewhat related note, I've ported fTelnet to the BlackBerry PlayBook, since they're running a promotion giving free PlayBooks to developers right now. So anybody with a PlayBook can look for that in the BlackBerry App World soon! (They're backed up due to the large number of submissions they recently received, so I'm not too sure exactly how soon though!)

Published on January 10, 2012

Happy New Year! Thought I'd share this screenshot of fTelnet running on my HP Touchpad! I picked one up during the fire sale awhile back, and haven't had much use for it until now! And the coolest part of all is that webOS allows me to embed a proxy server, so you can use it like a REAL telnet client, and not require the remote side to be running a flash socket policy server!

Also, for those of you using WBA, I'm hoping to get a new release out later tonight to support the latest version of Chrome (HtmlTerm currently won't work with it).

Published on November 2, 2011

Forgot to put the crossdomain.xml file in place, so RIP mode was unable to load a necessary file from www.ftelnet.ca, which was causing it to fail. It's now in place, so hopefully RIP will finally work!

Published on November 2, 2011

I've just fixed a bug in fTelnet that was causing the RIP parser to work incorrectly in some cases, resulting in a blank screen. This was known to affect NetFoss and Renegade, and there were possibly others. So if you tried to use fTelnet in RIP mode with your BBS and found it didn't work, then try again and hopefully it works now (and let me know if it doesn't!)

Published on November 2, 2011

I've just released a new version with an update for WBA and a (hopefully) fix for the RIP icon problem. I don't have LORD installed to test right now, so please let me know if it does or does not load the RIP icons now.

Published on October 23, 2011

I've just released a new version with a bugfix for WBA and a bunch of changes to fTelnet. Most of the changes to fTelnet are rather unimportant feature wise, but helped reduce the size of the .swf greatly! I'm a little concerned I may have broke something in the process, so if you notice anything not working right, please drop me a line.

Published on September 28, 2011

OK, the updated HtmlTerm and WBA have just been uploaded. If you are using either of these products, then I would definitely recommend upgrading (or users of the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome won't be able to connect). If you only use fTelnet, then it's not such a big deal to upgrade since that wasn't updated at all.

Published on September 26, 2011

Looks like there has been some progress on the HTML5 WebSocket front, and this has caused some problems with HtmlTerm. Basically some of the major browsers have upgraded to a newer version of the WebSocket protocol, and this means that the WebSocket servers (like WBA and Synchronet's websocketservice.js) need to be upgraded too.I now have the websocketservice.js upgrade complete and am testing it out...if all goes well then I'll upload it to the CVS for everyone else to download, and then I'll use the new logic to upgrade WBA next so I can make a new release of it as well.

Additionally, as of Firefox 6 the WebSocket API has been "temporarily namespaced in prevision of upcoming changes to the specification", which means I'll also need to update HtmlTerm to support it and future versions. I'll make this release at the same time as the new WBA release, so it'll all be made available at once.

The good news is that with these changes, all the major browsers should be supported in one form or another:

• Chrome as of version 4
• Firefox as of version 4
• Internet Explorer as of version 10 developer preview
• Safari as of version 5
• Opera as of version 10.70

Published on August 22, 2011

Some users have been reporting that ANSI screens haven't been displaying correctly in the latest releases of fTelnet, and it looks like it's because I broke something when adding VT100 support! BBSs expect that the cursor will wrap to the beginning of the next line when something is written to the 80th column of the screen, but that wasn't happening in the newer versions, so some screens displayed poorly as a result.

So that's now fixed, and so screens should be displaying correctly again. If you notice any other issues, please let me know!

Published on August 12, 2011

fTelnet was hanging when attempting to upload a file under certain circumstances, so I've updated the telnet option negotiation code (which seemed to be the culprit).

A new javascript function ClientSetLocalEcho() has been added, allowing you to enable or disable local echo at the push of a button. Probably could have added a configuration option for this as well, but I guess that'll have to wait for the next release now!

Published on July 28, 2011

The new WBA was complaining about a missing AutoUpdateURL parameter, so I've removed the auto-update code. It wasn't ever used anyway, since I don't have WBA available as a stand-alone release.

So if you use WBA then this should fix the error, and if you don't run WBA, then I wouldn't bother upgrading because there were no changes to fTelnet since yesterday.

Published on July 27, 2011

Left a bit of debug code in the last release, which caused the close button to prompt you to open a local file rather than to disconnect you.

Maybe this local file loading will interest somebody, so I've left that functionality in there, but it only works in the disconnected state (so when you're connected the button will act as a disconnect button again)

Published on July 26, 2011

A new release with experimental RIP and VTxxx terminal emulation support has just been uploaded! As usual, the changelog will have a somewhat complete list of changes (I'm bad at keeping a list, so may have forgotten some changes).

I developed a test suite that I'll now use for future versions, which will hopefully catch any obvious bugs in the major features, but if something got through feel free to let me know.

Also, the RIP and VTxxx support is incomplete. For RIP most things work, but there's still a few things left on my TODO list. For VTxxx I've been testing with vttest and most of the displays are correct, but I think the input isn't quite there yet.

Published on July 18, 2011

Just wanted to post an update about the next release...I was really close to uploading a new version but I had a request for VT100 support come in, and in looking into that I discovered some of the escape sequences were being handled incorrectly, so I'm now in the process of implementing a much more complete, yet simpler, parser. So I apologize to those who I told I would be "uploading a new version later tonight", since that obviously never happened! But hopefully in the next couple days I'll have time to work on and complete the new parser.

Published on June 12, 2011

Just uploaded a beta version of fTelnet that supports RIPScrip! Support is still in the early stages, so only a small portion of the protocol has been implemented, but it's somewhat usable so I thought I'd upload it for people to have a look at.

Published on March 25, 2011

With the recent release of Firefox 4, I've had a few people email me letting me know that HtmlTerm isn't working. The issue here is that early beta versions of Firefox 4 did support WebSockets (which is why the message in HtmlTerm mentions Firefox 4 beta suports HtmlTerm), but then support was removed after it was shown to be vulnerable to attacks.

Unfortunately there's nothing that I as the programmer of HtmlTerm, or you as the administrator of your website, can do to fix this -- it's up to each user to individually enable WebSockets support in their browser if they want. I'm working on updating the error message in HtmlTerm to give instructions on how to enable WebSocket support in both Firefox and Opera (since it suffers from the same "disabled by default" problem). Hopefully I'll have a chance to upload this new version this weekend.

Published on March 14, 2011

I've just uploaded fTelnet and HtmlTerm (and Web BBS Assistant, though it wasn't updated) v11.03.14! It's a fairly minor update from the last beta, so if you've been running that then there's not much new in this, but if you're still using the last non-beta version from last September, then there's been a lot of changes to digest.

Probably the biggest change is that HtmlTerm is now quite functional, so you have a decent alternative to fTelnet for users who don't run an OS supported by Adobe Flash! Although it comes with its own compatibility issues, since not all browsers support all the required HTML5 features yet.

Published on January 19, 2011

This is kind of old news, but it slipped under my radar until just now...apparently Apple finally enabled WebSocket support in Safari on the iPhone/iPad as of the 4.2 update. So this means that HtmlTerm will now work on those devices!

The screen is REALLY tiny on my iPod Touch, so I'm not sure how useful HtmlTerm will be on that device, but it might look alright on the much larger iPad. Unfortunately the closest thing I have to an iPad is the iOS Simulator that ships with XCode (which I run on the closest thing I have to a MacBook, my Toshiba Tecra running OSX in VMWare), so it's pretty hard to tell exactly how well it works on that device.

So if you have an iPad, please check it out and let me know how it works. You'll have to click in the textbox to bring up the on-screen keyboard, but after that things should work pretty good. Well except for the fact that the on-screen keyboard doesn't have arrow keys, so if your BBS needs them (lightbar navigation or something), then you're going to have problems. But maybe I'll see about adding arrow key buttons to the webpage so you can use those as necessary.

Published on January 18, 2011

Just uploaded Beta 4 of fTelnet/HtmlTerm/WBA. Didn't expect to have time to make these changes so soon, or I wouldn't have released Beta3 yesterday!

Anyway, this release includes several changes:

• ClientVars.js has a new ConnectAnsi parameter that you can use to specify a custom location for the connect.ans file. Both fTelnet and HtmlTerm will understand this new setting
• ClientVars.js also has a few new codepages added to support Atari ASCII (ATASCII) systems. Unfortunately this is only partially implemented at this time, so it only half works in fTelnet, and doesn't work in HtmlTerm at all
• HtmlTerm will no longer throw errors when run from IE8. It still won't work, since IE8 doesn't support Canvas or WebSocket, but at least it'll fall-back to fTelnet for those of you using that setup
• WBA had it's interface changed around a little. Now you'll use the close button to hide the form (and double click the tray icon to restore it), and to actually quit theres a File -> Exit menu option

Published on January 17, 2011

Just uploaded Beta 3 of fTelnet/HtmlTerm/WBA. The only change in this release fixes a Firefox related fTelnet problem, where the client wouldn't display. Turns out this is due to a change I made to allow for the transparent portions of the border to actually be transparent (rather than white, like they originally were), so unfortunately the only fix for now is to take the transparency back out, which means those of you with dark backgrounds are going to see white pixels in the border again. Sorry!

Published on December 27, 2010

Just uploaded Beta 2 of fTelnet/HtmlTerm/WBA. This release doesn't change anything for fTelnet/HtmlTerm, but it fixes a bug in WBA that prevented it from acting as a socket policy server in many cases. So if you were having problems getting fTelnet connecting to your BBS while using WBA, please download the updated version.

Published on December 20, 2010

Oops, forgot to include a DLL necessary for WBA to operate. I've updated the Beta1 archive, so if you previously downloaded it, please download it again.

Published on December 13, 2010

I've just uploaded a beta version of fTelnet packaged with HtmlTerm and WBA (Web BBS Assistant). This archive includes examples for running either fTelnet or HtmlTerm in stand-alone mode, or for running them in fallback mode (so if the users browser doesn't support the preferred client, it'll try the other client too). It also includes WBA, which implements both a Socket Policy server (for fTelnet) and a WebSocket to Telnet redirector (for HtmlTerm).

If you're feeling brave and would like to give it a try, here's Beta 1. Please let me know if you run into problems with any of the 3 pieces of software, being beta quality I didn't put as much testing in as I normally would for a release version.

Published on September 28, 2010

I've uploaded a new release of fTelnet...nothing too major in this release (aside from open sourcing under the GPLv3), I've just disabled the min/max buttons (confusing to users), and added Amiga font support (as per a user request).

I've also implemented a few more features to HtmlTerm (such as file uploads), but I've also transitioned from a proof-of-concept to a full port based on the fTelnet source, and the port isn't ready yet so don't look for the new features to be available on the test page yet. Soon though!

Published on September 18, 2010

Fixed a bug which prevented Safari from working with HtmlTerm. All should be good with it now.

Published on September 17, 2010

Made a few minor improvements to HtmlTerm, and also fixed a bug with the ESC[K ANSI escape sequence.

Published on September 16, 2010

hTelnet has been renamed to HtmlTerm (which in turn has had many improvements made). The hTelnet name didn't really make sense, since the Telnet protocol wasn't being used at all.

For those curious to try the client, I've also created a simple WebSocket to Telnet redirection server.

Published on September 5, 2010

A minor update was released today. It corrects a problem where ProBoard wasn't detecting ANSI, so if you run ProBoard, I'd recommend updating.

Published on August 25, 2010

A new release containing a few bugfixes was just uploaded:

New variable: BitsPerSecond. Let's you get all nostalgic and slow your display down to what it would have been like with a 300bps modem! (Or any other bitrate you'd like to use)

The TAB key no longer switches focus away from the flash client in IE

Fixed YModem-G uploads where the receiver does not properly ACK header packets (Async Pro does this for example)

Fixed a stupid bug where a reply to ESC[255n was incorrectly being sent when ESC[6n was received

Published on August 24, 2010

A couple feature requests came in, so a new build of fTelnet is available. This release implements a custom ANSI escape sequence that will allow the BBS change the font codepage/size dynamically. Simply have it send ESC [ CP ; WIDTH ; HEIGHT Q, so for example to set CodePage 866 at 9x16, it would look like ESC[866;9;16Q (where ESC is byte 27 (or 1B in hex)).

The code to handle incoming TAB characters was also fixed so it is position only, and not destructive. The code to handle outgoing TAB keypresses was also fixed so they're actually sent, rather than having the focus move to the minimize button.

A new Screen Capture option is available on the right-click context menu, allowing you to save the screen as a PNG.

And lastly, incoming data is processed 1024 bytes at a time, so long/large ANSI screens will display and scroll correctly, rather than pause and just display the last screen of text (I'll probably make the 1024 block size configurable in the future).

Published on August 23, 2010

OK, I guess the last build wasn't the last for awhile, as I've just uploaded a new one already. This one adds one final font optimization to reduce the SWF size without sacrificing performance, but I can't think of what else to do, so this should really be the last for awhile now.

Published on August 22, 2010

What may be the last build for awhile has been uploaded. This new build fixes an annoying problem I had with batch downloading (having to save each file individually) by saving the files in a single TAR file. Hopefully most users will have software to handle this file type. A Save File(s) button also now pops up with a download (batch or otherwise) has completed, making it that much simpler for a user to complete the process. Shortcuts for starting uploads/downloads have also been implemented in the way of CTRL-PAGEUP and CTRL-PAGEDOWN keyboard combos, and the minimize/maximize buttons. And lastly, many new font codepages were also created at the default 9x16 size.

The reason this may be the last build for awhile is because I think I've pretty much got all the features implemented that I want, so I'll only be working on it as problems arise and are reported. I'm still open to feature requests if you think there's something useful that could be added!

Published on August 21, 2010

I've just uploaded a new build of fTelnet. The biggest change in this version is that it's compiled in release mode, shrinking the SWF and speeding it up some. The fonts were also optimized for size and speed, and re-embedded into the SWF (so you can remove them from the img subdirectory, if you have any in there). (Notice the download size dropped from 900k to 150k...that's a lot of optimizing!)

Published on August 19, 2010

I've just uploaded a new build of fTelnet. This version adds a 9x16 font for CodePage 866 (Russian characters), fixes a display problem with custom connect.ans files, removes the statusbar for a cleaner look (popup messages will be added later, if necessary), and updated the file transfer screens a little.

Published on August 18, 2010

I've just uploaded a new build of fTelnet. I don't keep very good track of what I implement between releases, but I think this one implements a new file transfer dialog for uploads and downloads. It also adds new fonts from different codepages, which will hopefully help our international users (please let me know if it does help or not!)

This build is also the first with a release archive, so you can now download fTelnet and try it out for yourself. As always, feedback is appreciated.

(I also resized the website to be a little friendlier to the 1024x768 users, although I couldn't quite shrink it enough to eliminate the scrollbar!)

Published on August 17, 2010

I've just uploaded a new build of fTelnet. This one fixes a screen clearing bug, where systems sending FORMFEED instead of ESC[2J weren't having the screen cleared. It also implements a new connect button, along with the ability to change it on a per system basis. There's also an intro ANSI that can be changed on a per system basis. And lastly, I rewrote the file transfer code to be easier to maintain (and possibly add fallback support), so hopefully I didn't break anything in the process!

If I don't hear about any problems by end of day today, then a release package will be put together and released tomorrow.

Published on August 15, 2010

I've just uploaded a new build of fTelnet. This one includes a couple fixes identified by users, and implements batch downloading. The method for starting a transfer has also changed, rather than the CTRL+ALT+U and CTRL+ALT+D that previous versions used, there's now options on the right-click context-menu. After files are downloaded, options to save them will also be added to this context-menu.

If no big errors exist, I hope to put together a release package in the next day or two so it'll be easier to implement fTelnet on your own site.

Published on August 14, 2010

I've just launched the new website for fTelnet. It's just a copy of my personal website, partly because I really like the design, partly because I'm too lazy to find another design I like better!

I still need to replace some of the stock images, but as I just mentioned, I'm a little lazy and would rather spend my time coding, so who knows when I'll get around to it!

Published on August 2, 2010

Today, work has begun on fTelnet! There aren't a lot of choices out there for sysops who want to provide telnet access to their BBS from their website, so I've decided to try to give them a new option.

My aim is to be as good as some of the existing clients out there, while also implementing some much desired features they lack. I don't know if I'll be able to deliver everything that everyone wants, but I'm willing to give it a shot!

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Thank you!