Terminals
You probably already have what you need. A standard Linux, macOS or BSD terminal with ssh is generally enough to get on the board and enjoy it.
A dedicated BBS terminal is better, though. They're built for this kind of content, so you get faithful CP437 and ANSI art, authentic DOS fonts, ANSI music, and proper X/Y/Zmodem file transfers — things a general-purpose terminal was never meant to do.
In a hurry, or on someone else's machine? The web terminal runs right here with nothing to install.
icy_term
start hereOur pick. Actively developed, fast, and broad in its emulation — ANSI-BBS, Avatar, PETSCII, ATASCII — with X/Y/Zmodem transfers and a built-in dialing directory. Part of the icy_tools suite.
The long-standing reference terminal. Excellent CP437 and ANSI music support, and the closest thing the scene has to a standard.
From the author of Mystic BBS. Friendly, with a built-in dialing directory — a good first terminal.
If the art looks wrong
BBS art is drawn in CP437, not Unicode. When block graphics show up as rows of accented letters, that's a character set mismatch. Try a font with proper box-drawing coverage, check that your terminal isn't forcing an encoding, or use one of the terminals above — they handle CP437 natively and sidestep the problem entirely.