WizTerm
Frequently Asked Questions

What's this all about?
This page is dedicated to WizTerm and its many past and (hopefully) future users. Although the original WizTerm program has been around since 1993, new developments are still under way, and part of the reason for this site is to co-ordinate the development effort.

What is WizTerm?
WizTerm is a terminal emulator I wrote to facilitate playing the MUD called British Legends, nowadays called MUD1.

What is British Legends? MUD1?
If you've never heard of either British Legends or MUD1, then you're probably here by some accident and won't be interested in WizTerm. But just in case, I've prepared some information about British Legends and MUD1

What's so special about WizTerm?
WizTerm offers a number of convenience features, such as:
  • command history
  • back scroll buffer
  • player names from WHO automatically mapped to function keys
  • automatic hit point update/estimation during sleeping and fights
  • limited macro facility
  • Game time and real time clocks
  • Special feature support for Necromancers and above

WizTerm will not make anyone a better player, but it makes playing more convenient.

Why not just use ZMud?
ZMud is a fine program; I use it myself. But it's just not the same as WizTerm. Some people really, really want their WizTerm back. Come to think of it, so do I.

What's the current status of WizTerm?
WizTerm was very popular back in the days of CompuServe, and a number of people would like to use it with MUD1. Alas, it can't be used for MUD1. The main problem is that it is meant to run on a serial connection, i.e. directly connected to a modem rather than through a "standard Internet" TCP/IP Telnet connection. As the author, I have the source code to WizTerm, but it's just not that easy to build Telnet support into a DOS program.

Instead, I've chosen to re-write WizTerm in Delphi as a modern, 32-bit Windows program. It's now complete or very nearly so, and working well for many of MUD's players. You can obtain the latest version from the WizTerm32 page. However, there may always be enhancements bolted on in the future.

In addition, for those who don't run Windows on their machine or who are unable to or not comfortable with downloading my program to their PC, I'm rewriting WizTerm yet again as a Java applet which can be run from most Java-capable browsers. As of this writing, JWizTerm is still in beta testing and missing many of the features of WizTerm32. More information is available on the JWizTerm page.

What about WizTerm for Linux? MacOS? BeOS? XYZ?
WizTerm32 should be portable to Linux, thanks to Borland's Kylix product. I may tackle this sometime soon. It may also run in Linux under Wine. I don't think I'll ever get it running under any other operating systems, though.

JWizTerm should (mostly) run on any system with a Java-enabled browser.

Are you planning to charge for this?
No. WizTerm in all its incarnations is free, as in "free beer". The old C source is already available to everybody, and when the Delphi source stabilizes I will probably publish that as well. You can do whatever you want with it for your own use, but please contact me before publishing any spin-offs.

I like MUD and WizTerm. Can I help with all this?
Of course! Download and/or use WizTerm32 and/or JWizTerm. Play the game. Have fun! And if you notice anything about either program that you don't like or that could be improved, please email me your comments or suggestions.

But I've never heard of Sirsloth! Who are you?
My "RL" name is Carl Smotricz. I'm a computer programmer and a fellow MUD player. British Legends was my first MUD, and I played a lot back in 1993/1994. In fact, I was then and am now a Wizard in the game. You can find out more about me on my home page.

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