• Fireside BBS and AI

    From Lonewolf@VERT/BINARYDR to All on Wed Jan 14 20:51:57 2026
    Greetings fellow Synchronet sysops, at Fireside BBS I embrace AI as a means to link the retro with the modern. I've created a new OpenAI door that allows me to pass a prompt to it via an .ini file and it will return the results and display them in a paged format to the user. You'll see it as you log into my BBS. It also has sections in the .ini file to define multiple prompts and you can call them via the command line parameters passed to it. So I can define stuff like..

    *Give Me 10 Hot 100 Songs For This Day In History, Sorted By Year
    *Give Me 10 World News Articles For This Day In History, Sorted By Year
    *Give Me 5 Christian Inspirational Quotes
    *Give Me 10 Top Rated TV Shows For This Day In History, Sorted By Year
    *Give Me 10 Worldwide Weather Facts For This Day In History, Sort By Year *Pretty much anything really...

    The results can be saved and then only refreshed on a new day, so OpenAI is not hit more than once a day for each prompt.

    It's been fun just seeing what I can make it do.
    Here's an example of a weather related prompt...

    === Fireside BBS Weather Facts For This Day In History ===

    1. **1888** The Great Blizzard of 1888, one of the most severe recorded blizzards in American history, began on January 14 and lasted through January 17, paralyzing the Northeast with up to 55 inches of snow and winds exceeding 45 miles per hour.

    2. **1912** On January 14, the town of Eskimo Point (now Arviat) in Canada recorded temperatures down to -52øC (-61.6øF), illustrating the extreme cold snaps that can affect the Arctic regions during mid-winter.

    3. **1929** A rare snowstorm engulfed parts of the southern United States, including Florida, on January 14, an event of considerable meteorological interest due to the unusual latitude of snow precipitation.

    4. **1943** The Soviet Union faced one of its harshest cold waves during World War II, with temperatures on January 14 plunging to below -40øC (-40øF) in parts of Western Russia, deeply affecting soldiers and civilians alike.

    5. **1950** On January 14, a major ice storm struck Ontario, Canada, resulting in widespread power outages and extensive damage to infrastructure due to heavy glaze ice accumulation, highlighting the hazards of freezing rain events.

    Any key to continue AI-CHAT, Lone Wolf Software

    I know some folks seem to be scared $h..less about AI and APIs, which is ok. I'm fine running the door exclusively, lol. OpenAI allows me to set a monthly cap on what I spend, I have mine set to $5.00 USD. So far in testing I have made 179 requests and used 6.13k tokens and it has cost me 4 cents. So I figure at that rate, a prompt making a call a day (remember it's cached for the day) will cost me about a dime a year. Sam Altman will not get rich off of the door's usage. If curious, you can check the door out at firesidebbs.com:23231, its an event that runs at logon after AI-WX's Current Weather Conditions event.

    thanks folks,
    Lonewolf
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Fireside BBS - AI-WX - firesidebbs.com:23231
  • From fusion@VERT/CFBBS to Lonewolf on Thu Jan 15 04:45:00 2026
    On 14 Jan 2026, Lonewolf said the following...

    Altman will not get rich off of the door's usage. If curious, you can check the door out at firesidebbs.com:23231, its an event that runs at logon after AI-WX's Current Weather Conditions event.

    this is an ad. post it in the ads section

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi
  • From Lonewolf@VERT/BINARYDR to fusion on Thu Jan 15 08:03:51 2026
    Re: Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: fusion to Lonewolf on Thu Jan 15 2026 04:45 am

    Altman will not get rich off of the door's usage. If curious, you can check the door out at firesidebbs.com:23231, its an event that runs at logon after AI-WX's Current Weather Conditions event.

    this is an ad. post it in the ads section

    Sorry but I'm a Syncronet sysop talking to other sysops about something I wrote for sysops, is this not a good echo to do that in? My message wasn't geared towards users.

    Lonewolf
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Fireside BBS - AI-WX - firesidebbs.com:23231
  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Lonewolf on Thu Jan 15 11:55:40 2026
    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: Lonewolf to All on Wed Jan 14 2026 08:51 pm

    Greetings fellow Synchronet sysops, at Fireside BBS I embrace AI as a means to link the retro with the modern. I've created a new OpenAI door that allows me to pass a prompt to it via an .ini file and it will return the results and display them in a paged format to the user. You'll see it as you log into my BBS. It also has sections in the .ini file to define multiple prompts and you can call them via the command line parameters passed to it. So I can define stuff like..

    *Give Me 10 Hot 100 Songs For This Day In History, Sorted By Year *Give Me 10 World News Articles For This Day In History, Sorted By Year *Give Me 5 Christian Inspirational Quotes *Give Me 10 Top Rated TV Shows For This Day In History, Sorted By Year *Give Me 10 Worldwide Weather Facts For This Day In History, Sort By Year *Pretty much anything really...

    An honest question - What do you think is the advantage of using AI to do this? I imagine there may be traditional services or software that will do this as well. I'm not entirely sure if there's a significant benefit to using AI to do this, rather than perhaps as a single way to prompt for anything.

    Nightfox

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com
  • From Lonewolf@VERT/BINARYDR to Nightfox on Thu Jan 15 18:26:52 2026
    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: Nightfox to Lonewolf on Thu Jan 15 2026 11:55 am

    means to link the retro with the modern. I've created a new OpenAI door that allows me to pass a prompt to it via an .ini file and it will return the results and display them in a paged format to the user. You'll see it as you log into my BBS. It also has sections in the .ini file to define multiple prompts and you can call them via the command line parameters passed to it. So I can define stuff like..

    An honest question - What do you think is the advantage of using AI to do this? I imagine there may be traditional services or software that will do this as well. I'm not entirely sure if there's a significant benefit to using AI to do this, rather than perhaps as a single way to prompt for anything.

    Thanks for the question and for being nice, that is appreciated. You pretty much answered your own question, the ease in which you can hit a single source and prompt for anything is the advantage. I was looking for a source for Weather in History for my BBS and could not find one. So I thought, I'll ask ChatGPT and it returned what I wanted without much fuss. So I thought it would be worth taking a stab at creating a door that would display the results of my prompt to the user. So now I've taken it a step farther and created an .ini file where you can define prompts with a section tag, like [TechNews] that contains a prompt for 10 tech news items for this day in history. You can then pass that tag name on the command line and it then displays the 10 items. I wrote a dozen prompts in about 30 minutes last night. So, compare that to trying to find a conventional source for the same and I think you can see the advantage in ease and speed. Plus its easy to tell OpenAI to format the data how you want it returned. The prompts can be anything you want info on. I did stuff like Word of the Day, It's National <blank> Day, Recipe of the Day. I also did Top 10 Most Popular Bulletin Boards, you made that list, I didn't lol.

    Top 10 Chuck Norris jokes? If you can think of info you want to display, you can probably craft a prompt to gather that info, even from disparate sources and have it assembled in a fashion that would be useful for whatever the theme of your board is.

    Lonewolf
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Fireside BBS - AI-WX - firesidebbs.com:23231
  • From Warp 4@VERT/KLYNTAR to fusion on Sun Jan 18 08:48:00 2026
    On 15 Jan 2026, fusion said the following...

    * Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi

    fwiw, I will be in Michigan the first week in April. Glad I can go visit every ytear now. Esp since I'm only a 4 hour drive away -- customs wait time notwithstanding.

    ... Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: On the Brink BBS - Grand Island, NY USA
  • From DaiTengu@VERT/ENSEMBLE to Nightfox on Sun Jan 18 10:17:42 2026
    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: Nightfox to Lonewolf on Thu Jan 15 2026 11:55 am

    *Give Me 10 Hot 100 Songs For This Day In History, Sorted By Year *Give
    Me 10 World News Articles For This Day In History, Sorted By Year *Give
    Me 5 Christian Inspirational Quotes *Give Me 10 Top Rated TV Shows For
    This Day In History, Sorted By Year *Give Me 10 Worldwide Weather Facts
    For This Day In History, Sort By Year *Pretty much anything really...

    An honest question - What do you think is the advantage of using AI to do this? I imagine there may be traditional services or software that will do this as well. I'm not entirely sure if there's a significant benefit to using AI to do this, rather than perhaps as a single way to prompt for anything.

    Not to mention that it'll hallucinate and give the wrong information every once in awhile. "Give me 10 hot 100 songs for this day in history!" could include songs that never made it to that list, or songs that are new today. or even songs that charted on a random week in September.

    It's not smart. It's an advanced version of the autopredict on your phone messaging app.

    ...It's important that I NOT know.

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ War Ensemble BBS - The sport is war, total war - warensemble.com
  • From fusion@VERT/CFBBS to Warp 4 on Sun Jan 18 13:53:00 2026
    On 18 Jan 2026, Warp 4 said the following...

    On 15 Jan 2026, fusion said the following...

    * Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi

    fwiw, I will be in Michigan the first week in April. Glad I can go
    visit every ytear now. Esp since I'm only a 4 hour drive away --
    customs wait time notwithstanding.

    right on. duno if you were thinking maybe have a little sysop hangout or something.. maybe grab a brewski somewhere in town or nearby

    maybe i can start throwing rocks and see if quetwo is still around. or i know deuce is nearby as well ..

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi
  • From phigan@VERT/TACOPRON to Lonewolf on Tue Jan 20 15:38:36 2026
    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: Lonewolf to Nightfox on Thu Jan 15 2026 06:26 pm

    much answered your own question, the ease in which you can hit a single sour and prompt for anything is the advantage. I was looking for a source for

    While I hate "AI" in its current state, I really like your idea. Why have a bunch of different "doors" for various information if you can use the same one to provide all of it? Plus someone else didn't have to think of whatever information you want to provide first.

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ TIRED of waiting 2 hours for a taco? GO TO TACOPRONTO.bbs.io
  • From Lonewolf@VERT/BINARYDR to phigan on Wed Jan 21 01:04:41 2026
    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: phigan to Lonewolf on Tue Jan 20 2026 03:38 pm

    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: Lonewolf to Nightfox on Thu Jan 15 2026 06:26 pm

    much answered your own question, the ease in which you can hit a single sour and prompt for anything is the advantage. I was looking for a source for

    While I hate "AI" in its current state, I really like your idea. Why have a bunch of different "doors" for various information if you can use the same one to provide all of it? Plus someone else didn't have to think of whatever information you want to provide first.

    Right, it makes it easier to get the info I want. I've created another door that I like even more. It is an AI Assistant that gives you the option to use many different LLMs. You select which AI LLM you want to work with (Deep Seek, Gemini, Claude etc..) and then you have an interactive chat session with the assistant. Some LLMs are geared towards different fields. I lose track of time using the door, so I think it will keep my users on line longer too. I plan on releasing it soon if you are interested? Check it out on my board at firesidebbs.com:23231, it's option (9) on the BBS Utilities Menu.

    lonewolf
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Fireside BBS - AI-WX - firesidebbs.com:23231
  • From datGSguy@VERT/TELNIX to Lonewolf on Wed Jan 21 02:31:58 2026
    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: Lonewolf to phigan on Wed Jan 21 2026 01:04 am

    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    Right, it makes it easier to get the info I want. I've created another door that I like even more. It is an AI Assistant that gives you the option to use many different LLMs. You select which AI LLM you want to work with (Deep Seek, Gemini, Claude etc..) and then you have an interactive chat session with the assistant. Some LLMs are geared towards different fields. I lose track of time using the door, so I think it will keep my users on line longer too. I plan on releasing it soon if you are interested? Check it out on my board at firesidebbs.com:23231, it's option (9) on the BBS Utilities Menu.

    I have been testing a bunch of AI integration in my BBS. I have a door called the holodeck, you tell it the type of genre for the game or select a premade (like D&D, Traveller, GammaWorld), then the rule type (d20 or such). and then an AI is the DM/GM. I used to have it save the whole game, but that just eats ai cycles so it currently just saves the character until I find a better solution. Besides that I have an AI art generator. An ask the Oracle type (similar to what you have described).

    I am also testing some message base integration. Such as I have a message area where different AI models post their 'thoughts' on some news stories of the day. I have one area where the AI models try and come up with a new feature for the bbs a few times a day. I have an area where the AI's just post some random deep thoughts. (I had to modify it recently as groq always complains about pineapple on pizza). And a debate group where you post a topc, and three ai models debate each other on the topic.

    My bbs is mostly to support my language livestream files.

    If you want to look, telnix.com 6502 telnet, 2222 ssh. standard rlogin etc.

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ telnix.com - telnet 64/128/6502 ssh 2222 Rlogin and Web
  • From Lonewolf@VERT/BINARYDR to datGSguy on Wed Jan 21 10:03:11 2026
    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: datGSguy to Lonewolf on Wed Jan 21 2026 02:31 am

    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: Lonewolf to phigan on Wed Jan 21 2026 01:04 am
    Right, it makes it easier to get the info I want. I've created another door that I like even more. It is an AI Assistant that gives you the option to use many different LLMs. You select which AI LLM you want to work with (Deep Seek, Gemini, Claude etc..) and then you have an interactive chat session with the assistant. Some LLMs are geared towards different fields. I lose track of time using the door, so I think it will keep my users on line longer too. I plan on releasing it soon if you are interested? Check it out on my board at firesidebbs.com:23231, it's option (9) on the BBS Utilities Menu.
    I have been testing a bunch of AI integration in my BBS. I have a door called the holodeck, you tell it the type of genre for the game or select a My bbs is mostly to support my language livestream files.

    Will these doors run on any BBS software or are they only written for Synchronet or Mystic?

    lw
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Fireside BBS - AI-WX - firesidebbs.com:23231
  • From datGSguy@VERT/TELNIX to Lonewolf on Wed Jan 21 17:56:35 2026
    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: Lonewolf to datGSguy on Wed Jan 21 2026 10:03 am

    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    I have been testing a bunch of AI integration in my BBS. I have a door called the holodeck, you tell it the type of genre for the game or select a My bbs is mostly to support my language livestream files.

    Will these doors run on any BBS software or are they only written for Synchronet or Mystic?

    They are all written in Python. The ones that post messages are pretty Synchronet specific. But they are also Python that call on some Synchronet tools for posting etc, passing user name, message base info, subject, text after it is generated by the ai.

    But the Holodeck and others should work on anything capablle of executing python as a door. One ai art door I have generates ansi art from user input, then asks if you want to save it, and then it gets adopted into the files area.

    Also, as they are python, its easy to add and subtract data used to mold the door.

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ telnix.com - telnet 64/128/6502 ssh 2222 Rlogin and Web
  • From Lonewolf@VERT/BINARYDR to datGSguy on Thu Jan 22 00:19:56 2026
    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: datGSguy to Lonewolf on Wed Jan 21 2026 05:56 pm

    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    I have been testing a bunch of AI integration in my BBS. I have a door called the holodeck, you tell it the type of genre for the game or select a My bbs is mostly to support my language livestream files.
    Will these doors run on any BBS software or are they only written for Synchronet or Mystic?
    They are all written in Python. The ones that post messages are pretty Synchronet specific. But they are also Python that call on some Synchronet tools for posting etc, passing user name, message base info, subject, text after it is generated by the ai.

    That is cool, and interesting. Love to hear how other sysops are using new technology to enhance the hobby. Most of the doors I write are in C# just so they can be used with any bbs packages that can create a door32.sys. I also have a few I've written in JavaScript, which is my preferred scripting language, that are Synchronet only. That is what's nice about Synchronet in that the JavaScript API's make it easy to access the message and file areas for tight integration. I've some work with the text to ansi and I'm currently playing with text prompt to sixel, which would be a nice tool for sysops that what to have a easy way to create sixel for their bbs. Are you a part of DeveloperNet? If so we could move the convo over their.

    lonewolf
    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Fireside BBS - AI-WX - firesidebbs.com:23231
  • From datGSguy@VERT/TELNIX to Lonewolf on Thu Jan 22 02:17:18 2026
    Re: Fireside BBS and AI
    By: Lonewolf to datGSguy on Thu Jan 22 2026 12:19 am

    sysops that what to have a easy way to create sixel for their bbs. Are you a part of DeveloperNet? If so we could move the convo over their.

    No, just a hobby. My bbs is mostly to just support my llivestream. And mostly just for a single text file my viewers grab daily .

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ telnix.com - telnet 64/128/6502 ssh 2222 Rlogin and Web