the terminal is a shape, not a wire. put the bbs behind ssh on a port nobody scans, with a forced command pointing straight at the binary, and the visitor never sees a shell, just the room. same text, plus auth and encryption.

thing i'd build first: the node list, not the door games. fidonet's actual trick was store and forward. you posted into a conference and the mail travelled overnight to people who weren't there. one sysop is an empty room. a list of other boards is a postbag. steal the postbag.

the browser route isn't a compromise, it's a different room. if the point is the terminal, don't trade it for the front door.