Related, 16c is an artpack archive site (ANSi, RIP, etc). Will have to go back to early-mid 90's packs, but there's a lot of awesome there... 94-96 ACID, CIA and ICE packs are probably the best places to start.

https://16colo.rs/

very cool, thank you!

Prodigy[1] had already been doing the EGA vector graphics thing for years before, so it wasn't that mind blowing. RIP was neat but most users weren't interested in switching BBS software, or terminal programs, just to see slower-than ANSI menus.

Also, the RIP paint program was not free, and the free alternatives weren't very good. It was neat but not different enough to catch on. Nothing like when I saw my first web page a couple years later.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service)

Around the same time, someone attempted a more ambitious "BBS 2.0" called Excalibur [2] in '93 that also had vector graphics. Compared to a BBS with RIP it was way more impressive, more like the web would be.

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/bbs/comments/72740b/found_an_old_ma...

Roboboard and RoboFX come to mind.

I remember one local BBS that had a RIP-based menu (and I think it was in fact running Searchlight BBS [1], from looking at this) and it always felt so weird going on that system. People did all kinds of neat stuff using ANSI graphics, but it still all basically looked like ANSI text/graphics. The RIP stuff was like entering a totally foreign land, where you can understand the language but all the road signs are different and they drive on the wrong side of the road.

Quite a blast of nostalgia looking for the source of this, not something I've thought about in a couple decades. Found via BBS Documentary page on RIPscrip [2].

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20011217063957/http://telegrafix...

[2] http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/PROGRAMS/GRAPHICS/RIPS...

I had done some work on a RIP viewer in Javascript a year ago if anyone's interested. It's not yet complete. There's a link to a demo to view some examples.

https://github.com/cgorringe/RIPtermJS

hi, everyone--

Hopefully there is some other old fart out there who does remember this: an even older - ca. 1983 - graphical BBS host, but I can't remember the name.

Users would run a BASIC program which installed a TSR. When connected to the host, you would opt for the graphics pages. The TSR would use the BASIC DRAW statement to render simple vector images while you waited. It required a CGA display, or clone Hercules mono video plus a cool little utility called SimCGA to emulate one.

Ring any bells?

Thanks in advance, John Kwasnik

Wikipedia on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol

What the reason HTML was chosen over RIP? I’m not sure if it was urban legend but I thought there was a story that they were going to use it for the web but there were royalties demanded

HTML was what was created with HTTP in mind (a stateless protocol), RIP was always meant to be an extension of a serial connected/stateful connection protocol.

Licensing/royalties aside.

HTTP came after HTML. First FTP was used. HTML is was simplified SGML.

Hypertext as a concept (and application) predated HTTP. IIRC HTTP, HTML and Mosiac were largely developed together.

ah the "any" key. I remember that from my helpdesk days.

I wonder how many people read "RIP" as "Rest In Peace" and were really confused by the article.

At first, absolutely.

But then I started reading, and the nostalgia overload hit like a tsunami!!!

Everything was so much more interesting back then IMO.

it's probably inversely correlated with the age of the readers ;)

I'm old enough to remember RIP but still thought it was going to be about graphics being dead. :(

Well, it's about that too.

My first thought was to RIPscrip (there was no T), from the BBS days. But most of the time, it doesn't line up to the articles, pleasantly surprised.