tmux + weechat. Also connect to it via weechat-android on my phone. Great for getting pings and quick replies while not at the desktop.

Did you ever manage to get off hotmail/outlook spam filters? I ran my own server for years and had no issues with gmail, but was never able to reliably send to hotmail. That was the nail in the coffin in the end as so many businesses I communicate with were on outlook and my mail would always goto spam causing endless issues.

How does a current day BBS work? Landline phone connections are a thing of the past here.