Install ipbt with Homebrew, MacPorts, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• ipbt
• ipbt-dump

Project history

The official page explains IPBT as a player for ttyrec recordings, a format commonly used to record Unix terminal sessions and NetHack games. Instead of streaming bytes directly to a terminal, IPBT first analyzes the entire recording through an internal terminal emulator, then stores screen states so playback can move forward, backward, or to arbitrary frames.

IPBT is a derived work of PuTTY because it uses PuTTY's terminal emulator internally. That connection is historically important: Tatham reused his own mature terminal-emulation code to make random-access replay feasible rather than writing a terminal parser from scratch.

Adoption history

IPBT occupies a small but durable niche among Unix terminal-recording tools. The official page asks for patches and describes the program as working but unpolished, while Homebrew, MacPorts, and Nix packaging keep it easy to install for people who handle ttyrec or nh-recorder files.

Its adoption is closely connected to communities that record text-mode sessions, especially roguelike and NetHack playback. The official introduction names NetHack and alt.org as examples of routine ttyrec use.

How it is used

Users run `ipbt file` on ttyrec, nh-recorder, or raw terminal recordings. After loading, the curses interface supports pause, frame stepping, jumps, speed changes, logarithmic time compression, on-screen status, and text search through recorded frames.

The main cost is up-front analysis time. The manual notes that simpler players can begin immediately, while IPBT trades that startup cost for reverse playback and frame-level navigation.

Why package nerds care

IPBT is significant because it is a tiny package with a deep implementation trick: it packages PuTTY's terminal model into a Unix curses replay tool. That makes it more than a wrapper around ttyrec; it is a terminal-state indexer.

For maintainers, it is also a classic Simon Tatham utility: small, MIT-licensed, hosted on chiark and git.tartarus.org, and documented with a precise standalone man page.

Timeline

• 2000s: ttyrec became a common way to record Unix terminal sessions and NetHack games.
• IPBT project era: Tatham built IPBT around full-file analysis and PuTTY terminal emulation to enable random-access playback.
• 2026-05-27: The official site offered source archive `ipbt-20260527.fdcd2b0.tar.gz` and documented the Git repository.
• Package-manager era: Homebrew, MacPorts, and Nix packaged IPBT for repeatable Unix installation.

Related projects

• Related projects include ttyrec, ttyplay, nh-recorder, PuTTY, ncurses, and NetHack recording sites such as alt.org.
• A third-party GitHub tree by Jonathan Amazon describes patches adding an autoplay mode, showing that IPBT's architecture invited experimentation around startup latency and streaming behavior.

Sources

• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/ipbt
• https://git.tartarus.org/simon/ipbt.git
• https://github.com/jmazon/ipbt
• https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/ipbt/
• https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/ipbt/ipbt.html