BadTerm

The badass terminal: an ANSI-BBS client for Windows, macOS and Linux, with the glow of a real CRT.

Telnet and SSH, ZMODEM file transfers, iCE colors and pixel-exact VGA fonts, so BBS art looks the way it did in 1994. Free software under the GPL.

Download Call The Vortex BBS

Early development: version 0.1.

The Vortex BBS welcome screen in BadTerm, with the CRT glow and scanlines of phosphor mode
The Vortex BBS in phosphor mode.

Everything a BBS needs

Pixel-exact ANSI

BadTerm draws its own screen with the IBM VGA fonts, 8 or 9 dots wide, at 80x25 or 80x50. iCE colors, blinking, xterm 256-color and 24-bit color, all rendered the way BBS software expects.

Phosphor mode

Press Alt-P for the look of a CRT: glowing text, scanlines and curved glass, in color or as a green or amber monochrome monitor. Alt-A shows the screen at 4:3.

Telnet and SSH

Telnet with the options BBSes use, raw TCP, and SSH with keys, your SSH agent or a password. Passwords can be kept in your system's keychain.

ZMODEM, YMODEM, XMODEM

ZMODEM downloads start by themselves; YMODEM, YMODEM-G and XMODEM are a keypress away. Pick files to upload in a file browser, or drop them on the window.

A real dialing directory

Search, sort, pin favorites, auto-login and keyboard macros. Import SyncTERM, NetRunner, EtherTerm and MagiTerm directories or the Telnet BBS Guide's list. The Vortex BBS comes pre-loaded.

Keep and view art

10,000 lines of scrollback, including screens the BBS cleared. Copy as text or ANSI, capture sessions, save the screen as .ans or .png, and view art files with their SAUCE credits.

ANSI music

BBS tunes play through your speakers as a PC speaker would play them.

Your colors

Nine color schemes for BadTerm's own screens, or color every part yourself, as in QModem and Telix. Save your colors as a theme file to share, and import other people's.

Monitor bezels

Put the screen in a beige 1980s monitor, a platinum or charcoal 1990s one, or a terminal, or in a photo of your own old monitor.

Free software

Written in Rust and licensed under the GNU GPL, version 3 or later. No accounts, no telemetry.

Pick your phosphor

The Vortex BBS with phosphor mode off: crisp pixels at 4:3
Off: crisp pixels
The Vortex BBS on a green-screen monitor
Green screen
The Vortex BBS on an amber monitor
Amber screen

Pick your monitor

The Vortex BBS on four monitor bezels: beige 1980s, platinum 1990s, charcoal late 1990s, and a green-screen terminal
Beige, platinum, charcoal, and a terminal: Settings, Monitor bezel

Built in text mode

The dialing directory and dialogs are drawn with the same CP437 characters as the BBSes themselves.

The dialing directory, with The Vortex BBS pinned at the top
The dialing directory
Searching the dialing directory
Search as you type
The SSH login dialog, offering to remember the password in the keychain
SSH login

Download

Version 0.1.17. Free, with no account needed.

Windows

The installer adds BadTerm to the Start menu and opens telnet:// links with it. The zip has just badterm.exe, to run from anywhere.

Installer (x64) Zip

macOS

A disk image: drag BadTerm to Applications. The first time, Control-click it and choose Open, as it isn't notarized yet.

Disk image (Apple silicon)

Linux

Packages for Debian and Ubuntu (.deb) and Fedora, RHEL and openSUSE (.rpm), or an AppImage that runs on most distributions (chmod +x it).

.deb .rpm AppImage Tarball

Every version is on the releases page, with SHA-256 checksums. Or build it yourself: cargo build --release.

BadTerm's home BBS

The Vortex BBS is where BadTerm lives. Call in, say hello, and tell us what to build next.

telnet://vortexbbs.com