PurpleJillybeans

So, I'm gonna assume his parole is going to be revoked for this. OK movie. Not good, but somewhat entertaining. #Monsterdon #ClassOf1999

This is basically a KungFuSat flick pretending to be a Monsterdon flick. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing... #MonsterdonDoubleFeature #ThunderOfGiganticSerpent

Poor snake 😢 #MonsterdonDoubleFeature #ThunderOfGiganticSerpent

Had a spooky power outage earlier but everything's more-or-less back in order now, so now I'm ready to settle in for Fedi's favorite weekly tradition and largest watch party: @Taweret@timeloop.cafe 's #Monsterdon! #HouseOnHauntedHill1959

Old Computer Challenge 2026: "Make Something"The #OldComputerChallenge is underway, with the theme being "make something." I've been going crazy making services for #CGHMN pretty much all year:

• ShaRetro, a text and image sharing service
• Weather.retro, weather conditions and forecasts
• Three live RealMedia channels
• A webring service
• A ZIM reader
• An FTP server with over 3 terabytes of vintage PC warez
• Arcturus, an Archie-compatible FTP search engine
• A QuakeWorld 2.30 server
• A reverse-engineered data server for NCAR's old Java METAR viewer

This week, I set up a classic Majordomo listserv and started the "retrochat" mailing list, giving CGHMN members a place to share and discuss whatever #retrocomputing -related things they've been up to. It ended up spurring interest in email on the network, and IRC has been buzzing with chatter about people trying to get accounts and clients set up.

#blog

Late start! #FridayThrillerClub #Jaws1975 root post

Putting Graal Online Back OnlineAll of the talk over the last couple weeks about people starting up vintage World of Warcraft and Minecraft servers on #CGHMN made me start thinking about an experience from my youth: an old MMO called Graal Online. It started in 1998, originally as Zelda Online with assets ripped from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, but quickly evolved beyond that. I played actively through most of 2000 into 2001 before calling it quits around the time the NewMain stuff got started. Technically it's still around, but now it's a freemium mobile game, a mockery of what it once was.

I remembered seeing the leaked source code to the v1.3.1 server back in the day and I wondered if it was still out there. That set me off on a trip down a deep and twisted rabbit hole.

First ResultsI started by heading to archive.org and searching for software tagged graal. That turned up a partial client collection taken from the remnants of an old fansite called Spider's Page of Stuff, as well as a collection of playerworld backups that included a few historic dumps of the original main world.

The v1.3.1 server source I was looking for wasn't in there, but I did see an "unlimited server" for v1.1. This was a Win32 server with a GUI, rather than Linux as the other one was. Some reading revealed that this server was included with the v1.1.9 release of "Graal Gold." The v1.1.9 client wasn't part of the set, but the v1.1 client was, and that seemed to be compatible. I fired up the server under WINE, connected to it with the v1.1 client, and tested things out.

I ran into two issues early on, both related to one another. First, the v1.1 client was hard-coded to connect to a server at www.graalonline.com, so a DNS override was needed in order to connect to my test server. Second, I was getting failures whenever I tried to leave the online start map. I suspected that it might be trying to pull map data from an HTTP server, so I started one up and watched the logs. Sure enough, I was seeing 404'd requests for files under /levels. A quick redirect to the levels directory in the game data was all it took to fix that; the game worked!

With that milestone cleared, I set up a Windows NT 4.0 VM on my vintage VMware GSX box and installed the Graal server on it, along with a web server for level data. I asked to have the CGHMN DNS server poisoned to direct www.graalonline.com to my VM. With that, CGHMN had its first Graal server!

Digging DeeperI decided to take a closer look at the Wayback Machine archive of Spider's Page and see if there was anything else of potential use there. Sure enough, I pretty much immediately found the old GServer 1.3.1 source package I had been looking for earlier! I grabbed it and started combing through the code. Excitement turned to disappointment though when I realized that it was missing some needed data files. I would need a weapons.txt with info about available inventory items, and a directory of account data. I figured I could put together some account files by tracing through the parser functions, but I was at a loss for what to do with the weapon data. I set it aside.

I did more reading and found a mention that all Graal clients from v1.1.9 to v1.3 beta included a Win32-based server, like the one I had just set up. I grabbed the v1.3 one and gave the server a try. Much to my surprise, this one didn't seem to require a weapons.txt file, and it had a built-in graphical account manager! On shutdown, it saved the account data to a file called accounts.txt, which the v1.3.1 server source seemed to have an ability to import and convert to its own broken-out directory format. That seemed like it would make getting the v1.3.1 server going a bit easier, but I still didn't have any kind of lead on the weapons.txt file.

Continuing to dig, I came across a mention of NekoRoy's Graal Site, which was well-covered by the Wayback Machine and held a massive treasure trove of old Graal files, including a bunch of clients and servers that weren't on Spider's Page. That included the Graal Gold v1.1.9 client! I grabbed it and gave it a test. First revelation: unlike the v1.1 client, this one wasn't hard-coded to www.graalonline.com, so I could simply enter another domain or IP and connect. It did still seem to want to get levels from there though, so the DNS redirect was still needed to make it fully functional.

Fork BombAmong other things, the file collection on NekoRoy's site included several community-produced forks of the v1.3.9 server, which had apparently been leaked much like the v1.3.1 server. These mostly dated to 2002-2003, though following the breadcrumbs led me to the GServer-v2 GitHub project. It seems to have been active up until sometime in early 2025. That seemed focused on NewWorld-era stuff though, with support for pre-2001 clients and maps not being a priority.

One thing did catch my eye though: one of these packages, the one for Matriark's GServer 1.3.9 fork, included a weapons.txt file! That, combined with account data from the 1.3 beta server, would probably allow me to get the v1.3.1 server going. At this point, though, I no longer considered that a priority. Nice to have the option open at least.

Stepping into the New MillenniumWith the v1.1.9 server going nicely with an early-mid 1999 world, I was still thinking of getting something from the 1.3 era going. I had a dump from early 2000, just before I originally started playing, and it'd be a big nostalgia hit to bring it back to life. I decided the easiest, lowest-friction approach would be to try out the v1.3 beta server and client. Despite being a beta, both seemed perfectly stable.

I transferred everything over to my NT4 VM and fired up the server. Using the GUI account manager I created a guest account, plus an admin account for myself. Because the server seems to only load account data at launch (unlike the Linux v1.3.1 server which used a broken-out format), there would likely be no way to add or edit accounts from an outside source (like a PHP or CGI script) aside from trying to implement the GServer Remote Control protocol. That'd probably be doable, but given the low level of expected demand I decided that just doing things manually was good enough. Aside from that, I suspect that this server was one of the LAN servers with an eight-player cap. I doubt there'd ever even be that many players active on CGHMN at one time, but if demand ever start growing I'll probably have to try something different.

Limitations like that aside, everything seemed to be going well. I did run into one oddity while testing: if you're logged in with the guest account, most of the treasure chests with equipment upgrades don't appear. They only show up if you're using a 'real' account. That one took me awhile to figure out.

Seek the GraalIf you're on CGHMN, give Graal a try sometime!
=> http://graal.n8fq.retro

If you're not on CGHMN, and retro stuff like this interests you, you should be!
=> https://cghmn.org

#RetroComputing #RetroGaming #blog

Borrowing from the Star Wars SFX library I see... #Monsterdon #ClassOf1999

#MovieClub #KungFuHustle2004 root post

#Comedon #SilverStreak1976 root post 📽️

How many light blue 80s Ford Tauruses do they have? #Monsterdon #ClassOf1999

I just went through and tweaked the formatting on my earlier blog posts to make them more gemtext-like, so if you got a bunch of old stuff from me popping up in your timeline all of a sudden, that's why.

#Monsterdon #StarOdyssey1979 root post 📽️🛸

#MondayActionMovie #Zombie5KillingBirds1987 root post 📽️🐦‍⬛

One Small Step into GeminispaceAround this time last year I decided to dig out a #Gopher hole for myself. Without much else to offer, I figured my best bet for content would be a phlog built from a copy of my blog posts here on my #snac server, so I threw together a shell script to periodically grab my posts and export them as a Gopher tree. It was crude, but it's been working well. When I first announced it, several people asked if I had any plans to make a #GeminiProtocol capsule. I wasn't really considering it at the time since I felt like I was accomplishing all I wanted to do with Gopher, but now I've decided I want to give it a shot. I installed Solderpunk's Molly Brown server (which I chose because it was the only one in Debian's repo) and, after much struggle with cert permissions, got it up and running. For content, I went with the same thing as with Gopher: a gemlog powered by a snac-to-Gemini exporter. snac uses Markdown for formatting, which is of course very similar to Gemtext. I went back and edited my earlier blog posts to make them more Gemtext-like, which mostly meant adding header lines. The only real complication was inline links: I would need to strip them out of the Markdown source. Since I'm doing this all with shell scripts (as opposed to something like Python that'd probably work better), an actual Markdown parser wasn't really an option, so I decided to do it with a regex. The thing is, I'm not very good at writing regexes. After many, many fruitless searches trying to find an existing solution I came across a bash script that did what I wanted. The script itself was obvious vibe-coded filth, but it did contain a sed -E command that did exactly what I needed. The exporter is a comically-inept hackjob and has a backslash-itis problem (which I imagine is coming from the JSON parser I'm using) but it does, somehow, work. Some day I'll see about redoing the whole thing in Python, but for now it's good enough. Take a look if you're interested: gemini://gemini.n8fq.org #blog

#MovieClub #TheLongGoodbye1973 root post

Too hot and muggy to do anything tonight so might as well watch a movie!

Why did the bus explode? #Monsterdon #ClassOf1999

I'm... not sure I particularly care about this movie or anyone in it. Kinda tuned out for awhile to work on something and I don't think I missed anything important. Still think tiny teenage mall tramp was kinda cute though. #Monsterdon #Zarkorr1996

#KungFuSat #SwiftSword1980 late start! root post

Ah, NOW we get to the good part. #MonsterdonDoubleFeature #ThunderOfGiganticSerpent

When has disturbing a mummy EVER gone well? #Monsterdon #Ultraman

Terminator in a School, right down to the stop-motion animation. #Monsterdon #ClassOf1999

See? Kids being assholes, making the monster "cooler", i.e. more dangerous. #Monsterdon #Ultraman

Kumite! Kumite! Kumite! #Monsterdon #ClassOf1999

Seriously, who thought shooting a sleeping monster with tanks was a good idea? #Monsterdon #Ultraman

#Monsterdon #TheDunwichHorror1970 root post Laid down for a nap earlier and almost slept through it!

If the trailer is anything to go by, this is going to be a MUCH better movie. #MonsterdonDoubleFeature #ThunderOfGiganticSerpent

Yep, sure looks like America alright. #Monsterdon #ClassOf1999

It's a giant squeaky toy! #Monsterdon #Ultraman

#KungFuSat #BigTroubleInLittleChina root post 📽️🥋

A Vintage Web Game GalleryMy major project over the last week and a half or so has been curating a collection of old Flash, Shockwave, and Java games on my #CGHMN site. Your first thought is probably, "why do that when Flashpoint Archive already exists?" Indeed, most if not all of these games are already preserved and curated there. The difference is that, while Flashpoint uses emulators and containers to make the games playable on modern systems, I'm specifically targeting vintage machines with the original plugins. You can visit my site from Win95 or System 7 running Netscape 3 and everything will work exactly like it did in 1997. Or WinXP, IE 6, and 2002. You get the idea.

I downloaded a few Flash and Shockwave collections from archive.org, and pretty much all the Java games I could get from Java Boutique for my initial population. The curation process is slow since I'm working alone. For each game I have to figure out the correct window size, minimum plugin version, any needed parameters, and often the correct locations and filenames for extra data files. For most games I use my own viewer page written in PHP but some need to be run from a static HTML file in a separate directory in order to work correctly. And then there's getting a screenshot, writing a description, and correctly crediting the author. I try to add a game or two each day.

Flash games are generally pretty easy to deal with, but Shockwave and Java are harder. Java games are often extremely picky about what browser and JVM you use, while Shockwave games sometimes need Xtras which the player tries to download from a no-longer-existent (but thankfully somewhat-preserved) server. Both usually need data files and parameters to run properly. Getting the necessary info often involves trying to find the original website in the Wayback Machine and digging through the HTML source.

Anyway, if you're on CGHMN and you want to take a look, it's at:
http://www.n8fq.retro/webgames/

#RetroComputing #RetroWeb #blog

It's time for M-M-M-M-#Monsterdon! I'm sitting in a wind tunnel of box fans so having to turn the volume up a bit in hopes of hearing any of the dialogue. Not that dialogue is what any of us are here for. 😁

#Monsterdon #NightOfTheComet1984 root post 📽️☄️