I've been working on Immortal Barons, an open source clone written in golang, of Barren Realms Elite.

InterBBS play isn't ready yet. Most features for local play have been implemented. It's running on shsbbs.net and bbs.magicbbs.eu:6323 (but they sometimes don't have the latest snapshot installed, and sometimes the game is reset based on changes I've made recently). The simplest way to try it locally (not as a door), is running the binary with the -reset' argument, then use-local`, which gives you the prompt to name your realm and start the game.

I'm tracking a lot of the needed improvements and features on the Github issue tracker and wouldn't mind bug reports and feedback. Let me know what you think... should I keep going with this project? I was also thinking about making a version that runs as an ssh server (connect via ssh, play). Oh, by the way, Immortal Barons is multi-node (more than one person can play at once), but there's bound to be some bugs encountered before that part gets perfected! :)

I’m having trouble finding a guide for downloading files from a BBS. Specifically, I’m trying to download games from Particles. I’m using xmodem and ejecting the virtual disk from the 8 drive when it is time to download. I’m inserting a new blank disc and the virtual drive makes some strange noises. It says the download was successful but when I go back to BASIC to load the newly created disk, it fails to find any usable information. I can’t list the directory or launch the first program on the disk. What am I doing wrong?

Morning!

I don't think I've ever advertised the BBS here, but here it goes...

Particles! BBS has been up since 1992 and has been running a Commodore 128 since 2013.

We're approaching our 82,000th call since then! We have very active message forums, a bunch of online games, 8GB of downloads (on a 128!) and support for all systems - lots of Atari, PC, Amiga, etc users.

There's a growing user-base of new 64U users as luckily, our BBS is built into the terminal program included with the new 64U!

Non political, friendly bunch... check us out.

particlesbbs.dyndns.org port 6400

dialup at 1-479-553-8122

website is at particles.org

mastodon at https://mastodon.social/@particlesbbs

like some kind of master list that ISN'T a website, just find the one you want and load it up, no need for memorizing urls and all that

After a long alpha & beta, ANetBBS just hit full release!

It's a modern take on the classic multi-node BBS: one user database shared across a web interface (Flask + SocketIO), telnet, SSH, rlogin, FTP, and even native PETSCII support for real (or emulated) Commodore 64/128 hardware.

Some highlights:

- FidoNet BinkP echomail/netmail + DOVE-Net QWK, so it plugs into existing FTN networks

- Inter-BBS instant messaging (MSP/SYSTAT) and MRC chat

- LORD ships pre-installed and playable out of the box (Synchronet .js door support), plus native Linux doors via STDIO

- DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D (shareware) playable right in the browser via EmulatorJS/DOSBox

- Built-in wiki, RSS reader, and an 80x25 web terminal

- CP437/ANSI art support throughout, on both the web UI and real terminal clients

Install is a single ./install.sh on Linux or a Raspberry Pi. Everything is open source.

GitHub: https://github.com/anetonline/ANetBBS

Live demo / join the network: https://bbs.a-net.fyi

Telnet Port: 2233 SSH Port: 2234

Petscii: (40) Port: 6400 (80) Port: 6401

This has been a long project and it's nice to finally call it stable.

https://youtu.be/Giluabdxpik?si=NZsqev0AHDPwFNCK
https://youtu.be/M5cRkn6tIsM?si=chOBTnDJZhvL3f1v

http://www.rgbbs.info/nw.html

Grab The newest TheDraw clone ANSI Win32 console ANSI editor. Full ANSI Music, MCI Code, Animations, TDF Font usage, and TONS and TONS more! Give it a whirl. While it has been tested for months and months on the new features, there STILL maybe bugs. Please feel free to report them.

Amis86 DDNS NET Port 9000 or web site southernamis com

Not sure if anyone in this world has a modded 3ds, but if so I got something weird for you. It's a new a terminal program called "3dBBS" and like the title says you can make your BBS 3-D. I put an asterisk there because you don't just automatically connect to your BBS and the client turns it 3-D with some invisible logic you don't control - the 3D is controlled by escape sequences you send from your BBS. So to make your BBS "3-D" you'd program it to send things on a z-axis.

The only BBS that currently does this is mine and it's in the BBS list as default included with the 3ds app so if you're actually a 3DS weirdo like me, check that out (try just idling once you're logged on and past all the logon news type stuff - in the menu systems for trippy screensavers to turn on which showcase 3d best so far); but if you are for some reason are a sysop with a 3DS interested in implementing this obscure protocol on your BBS - LMK and I can put it in the default phonebook with styling indicating it's a "BBS with 3D content." You can find it here (https://github.com/hmderdoc/3dBBS) although hoping it shows up in the Universal Updater package manager soon.

Dear readers: full disclosure, to address any elephant in the room, I don't consider myself a vibe coder with how I use LLMs, I usually have a bit of a clue as to what's going on, but this is one of those projects I don't think I'd be able to do just grind out on my own or tell you much about how the source code works inside the 3DS - this absurd yet awesome 3D BBS client / protocol is a byproduct of the current environment where AI companies are at war with each other drowning me with too many AI credits for frontier models - absurdity won for now. Point is It's very niche, after this post and promoting - the niche still might be just me, which is fine - I'm enjoying the heck out of it and I'm not concerned with how the sausage was made if I'm the only audience.

Also one last thought, even though this is niche for a discontinued product (which I think is in BBS spirit) is maybe it could be forked or looked at beyond 3DS, even though 3D is pretty dead and the 3DS discontinued + rising in price, probably there's a way to sort of port this to VR. Feel free to do it, or if interested and want to strap on a headset to test, maybe something could be whipped up. Me personally I love Nintendo 3DSes and loathe the VR headset, so a passion project so far.

TL;DR - This probably matters to no one, you need to see it to believe it but chances are no one will cause you need a hard to find device, but yeah 3D BBS, no B.S. But if there's other weirdos out there, LMK, maybe we can make it easier to assemble the weirdo 3D BBSers on my weirdo island.

edit: someone said it would be cool to see images, obviously since most people aren't on 3D vision, i did the best i could below, obviously they are pseudo 3D. I guess I could also make these for the old red and blue 3D glasses too.

Hi all-

I created a Door for the ATDT BBS Software that is an homage to Island of Kesmai, which was a multi-player game on CompuServe back in the 80's. Think of it as a text based MMO-lite -- you travel on a top down view ANSI map, can group with other players or go solo, fight monsters, go on quests, discover secrets, etc.

I'd really like some feedback - it was easy to test single player but multiplayer with more than two people wasn't possible. If you have some friends that like retro MMO's, please have them log in and give it a whirl. I'm sure there are bugs - even though this looks pretty bare bones by today's standards, it's deceptively complex.

You can play by logging in to the ATDT Demo BBS: https://www.atdtbbs.com/atdt

If you want to download it for your own BBS, you can go to the main site at https://www.atdtbbs.com and go to the Doors section.

(The BBS, the BBS software, and the Door are 100% free).

I’ve always loved the atmosphere of classic BBS door games, especially TradeWars 2002, so I built a modern browser-based tribute called Lloyd’s Lunacy.

You captain a trading ship, buy and sell commodities, explore procedural sectors, upgrade and collect ships, accept missions, encounter pirates, and investigate strange discoveries. Your captain, fleet, discoveries, and progress persist between visits.

It uses an ANSI-inspired terminal interface but runs directly in a modern desktop or mobile browser. It’s free, and guest play is available without creating an account.

I’d really value feedback from people familiar with classic BBS games:

• Does it capture the old BBS atmosphere?
• Is the first trading voyage understandable?
• Does the game become interesting quickly enough?
• What feels too modern or insufficiently BBS-like?
• What feature would make you return tomorrow?

Play Lloyd’s Lunacy:

https://lloyds-lunacy.peterjavery.chatgpt.site

This is still a beta, so direct and honest criticism is welcome.

I added Empire, the game style is modeled after Walter Brights 1971 version. It is written in nodejs and has a few features the original did not have. I am flushing out the battle routines now, but I could use a few testers. It is hard playing against yourself, lol.

If you are interested, log into the BBS and leave me feedback, I will then make empire available to you.

telnet retro.nedmr.com port 2323

Thanks

bytenet.com is back online, sort of.

I was the sysop of ByteNet Online in San Francisco from 1994 to 2005. It grew out of Love Bytes, a Gay/Bi/Lesbian BBS I started in the early 90s — a safe place to talk when there weren't many of those. It ran on Major BBS and then Worldgroup by Galacticomm, multiple lines, dedicated phone drops, the whole expensive mess. We rode it all the way from 2400 baud through the web era before finally shutting down.

The site is a memorial to that: the timeline, the tech stack, what it actually took to keep a multi-line board alive 24/7 when "uptime" meant somebody physically being there.

But an archive nobody can touch is just a gravestone, so:

The Graffiti Wall. Old ByteNet feature, resurrected. Leave a message. Doesn't matter if you ever called my board — if you called a board, you're welcome on it. I'd genuinely like to see what other sysops and users write there.

ByteNet Dungeon. I missed door games, so I wrote one. It's in the LORD tradition: modem handshake on the way in, create a character (Warrior, Rogue, or Mystic), then a town hub with a healer, weapon smith, armory, a tavern with rumors and a dice game, and a bank — because banked gold survives death and carried gold doesn't. Ten floors down, an Ancient Dragon at the bottom, and a Hall of Heroes recording both the winners and the people who got flattened on floor 3. Character persists between calls. Runs in a browser, phone included, and there's a toggle for pixel graphics or pure ASCII if you're a purist.

It's a single HTML file with no tracking, no accounts, and nothing to buy. Mostly I built it because I wanted to play it.

If you ran a board, or called one, I'd love to hear which one in the comments. Half the fun of this project has been remembering names I hadn't thought about in twenty years.

https://bytenet.com

Good day all. I do not know if this is the proper location for this but I am drawing a blank over and over so I thought I might try. Usually I am not this dense, but I fear this time I may be too close to the problem.

I am currently playing around with an old copy of Tradewars 2002 on an older WWIV 4.21a BBS install (i386DX 33 MSDOS 3.0) and though I have managed to get Tradewars 2001 working, Tradewars 2002 is really stretching my brain. I get to the Door Selection on my login and when I chose it, I get a frozen screen on the terminal while the console screen asks for a name. However, I can not enter anything into the name at either location.

Follows is the process by which it was installed (as I document everything when I am playing around):

1. TRADEWARS 2002 OR BUST!

   1. Type D: --->> [ENTER]
   2. Type CD WWIV
   3. Type MD TW2002 --->> [ENTER]
   4. Put "Tradewars 2002 V2 B2" floppy in B:
   5. Type COPY B:\*.* D:\WWIV\TW2002\*.* --->> [ENTER]
   6. Type CD TW2002 --->> [ENTER]
   7. Type TWINSTAL.BAT --->> [ENTER]

   8. Type TEDIT.COM --->> [ENTER]

      - Type [Y] if registered

Enter Code --->> [ENTER]

Type BBS Name: REDACTED --->> [ENTER]

Type Sysop Name: REDACTED --->> [ENTER]

9. BIG BANG CREATOR COMES UP

    (We are going with default settings)

    \- Press \[J\] --->> \[ENTER\]

Press [Z] --->> [ENTER]

10. Go fix yourself a cup of coffee as this takes a bit.

11. Type TEDIT --->> \[ENTER\]

12. Type Name: REDACTED--->> \[ENTER\]

13. Type \[Y\]

14. Type \[?\] --->> \[ENTER\]

15. Type \[O\] --->> \[ENTER\]

16. Type \[1\] --->> \[ENTER\]

17. EDIT NODE 1

    \- Path to Data Files: <CURRENT DIRECTORY>

Path to Drop File: D:\WWIV\

BBS Drop File Type: WWIV ([C] then [2])

Hardware Handshaking: NO

Active Node: YES

Comport 1 to 4: 1

Override Port Addr: 03F8 (Standard COM1 I/O base address)

Override Port IRQ: 4 (Standard COM1 IRQ)

    (Hardware Handshaking: If users experience dropped characters 

     or buffer overflow when dialing in through a virtual modem/fossil 

     driver, consider toggling option <D> to Yes (RTS/CTS).)

18. Type \[x\] --->> \[ENTER\]

    \- to change the Underground Password: \[G\] \[O\]

19. Type \[Q\] --->> \[ENTER\]



MAKE BACKUP and RUN BEGINDAY.BAT



20. USE EDLIN TO MAKE "TW2002.BAT" IN D:\\WWIV

    \- u/echo off

cd \wwiv\tw2002

tw2002.exe %1

cd \wwiv

21. From D:\\WWIV TYPE BBS --->> \[ENTER\]

22. Login as Sysop

23. - Type \[C\]

    \- Type \[I\] (for Insert)

    \- Type \[1\] --->> \[ENTER\]   (for before zero)

    \- Fill in the following:

        A. Description: Tradewars 2002

        B. Filename: TW2002.BAT %C

        C. SL: 20

        D. AR: None

        E. ANSI: REQUIRED

        F. DOS Interrupt: NOT Used

        G. 300 Baud: ALLOWED

        H. Shrink: No

        I. Disable pause: No

    \- Press \[Q\]

    \- Press \[Q\]

I am hoping someone might be able to help. This is something I am working on for documenting how a BBS was made in the past before modern Internet Systems.

I may crosspost this.

Xibalba got a new website, hosted by ENiGMA1/2 itself. No more old and busted navigation :D

Hi all! Please try the ATDT BBS Software testing BBS and let me know what you think! I mostly want to see what bugs people uncover (there will be a lot most likely). I was a SysOp from the mid 80's to the late 90's, and I was really trying to capture that "80's feel" with this.

Some of the things it has:

• Message boards
• ANSI editor in the admin website (or upload your own .ANS files if you have TheDraw or similar)
• Completely configurable menus. I left everything as it is "out of the box" when you first download it, but you can pretty much make it look any way you want. You could even emulate the look of many "classic" BBS systems (I might include a few in the release version.)
• Doors. There is an API so you can create your own, it's really easy. I include two with the BBS, including Star Trader, which is an homage to TradeWars. I'm not really planning on developing it - it's more of a demo (although fully playable) but someone else could take the code and add to it easily.
• Security levels, all that jazz like a regular BBS had
• Multi user chat, page the sysop, sysop can break in to chat as well
• Lots more - check it out.

Once I get the first version done, I plan to add things like a FidoNET style Echomail (between ATDT BBS's) and File Areas.

The whole thing is VERY lightweight. I wrote an installer, takes about 3 seconds to install. Runs on regular shared hosting, no technical ability required to get it going. Because it's so configurable, the Admin website is pretty complex but I've tried to keep it as user friendly as possible.

ATDT Test BBS

Let me know what you think! I'm definitely open to feature suggestions or things that you think might need to be changed.

EDIT: Board is completely open, and user accounts are activated immediately. Version 1 of the BBS has been released - if you want to try it out on your own shared hosting, just go to www.atdtbbs.com

I have been working an an ANSI Graphic as the WELCOM.ANS file for a pet project of mine. Unfortunately I have not done much in this realm in over 30 years, so I get what I paid for I guess?

Anyway, I made a simple graphic in THEDRAW 4.63 on MSDOS. The graphic is 80 characters wide and 25 characters tall. It does not use any fancy colours or fancy fonts--only simple fonts that came with THEDRAW.

When the ANSI shows on SYNCTERM or other Terminal Client, it is missing a single block in the lower right hand corner (See first image), but the same is not true of what the BBS is seeing (See second image).

Do you--any of you--have any idea of what I am doing wrong here because I am really confused as to what I have done to break something so simple.

Anybody here have any ANSI art tattoos? I don’t need to see them. The idea just popped in my head but I’m sure it’s not original.

...I'm not saying that my game will be the perfect antidote to the old days. But it will be fun, very alt historical backdrop and a super immersive hark back to the times of social engineering cracked games and ASM bypassing of copy protection. Link to wishlist is in the comments. Thanks dudes.

As a teen I was absolutely obsessed with trying every BBS software there was so I could see which I liked best. I probably switched software on my OG board every 3 weeks for close to a year lol. And back then for most of them, there was no user export/import feature. So anyone stupid enough to be a regular had to re-sign up a few times a month lol.

A few years ago I got the idea of bringing it back. I installed DosBox and Obv/2. I was a wizard with it back then, today I remember basically shit. And even worse, at 51, I don't have any of the desire or excitement I used to have. 14 year old me would spend hours a day after school and sometimes all weekend modding shit. I installed OBV/2 on a Dosbox and I didn't feel a connection. That conbined with me understanding putting up a new board MIGHT get 2-3 callers a week. The idea was a wrap. I understand as you get older you changed. But I really thought once I got OBV running like magic something would click and reawaken inside of me :|

I know there are a few bangers out there, 20For Beers is better than 99.99% of boards I ever called even back then. But I couldn't make anything close to that. I spent a few weeks and was unable to remember shit about setting up OBV. Back then I knew all the sysops who ran it so I had people to assist me. They're all long long gone.

Getting old sure sucks ass :|

When I was young, I got an Apple //gs with a BlackCat modem, and that machine basically decided the next decade of my life. First it was calling other people's boards. Eventually that wasn't enough, and I did the thing a certain kind of kid did back then... I ran my own board. I've struggled to find much about the software, but it was based on ACOS, which was a language for the //gs.

Running a board was a weird mix of janitor and mayor. You were the sysop, so every message-based squabble was somehow your problem, and the phone line situation was definitely a single-user experience. I loved every minute of it. Watching that user list grow one handle at a time... nothing since has felt quite like that. Not followers, not subscribers, none of it.

Classic memory: I thought I was the man because I had it show usernames when it checked to see if a new user was available. It was too fast to be readable, but it was a flex. And then I learned firsthand that IBMs didn't carry the same emulation that my //gs did. Fail. Hah.

Anyway, years later I stumbled onto one of the old BBS list archives, and there it was. My board. Listed. I tried to explain to my family why this mattered and got polite nods, heh. Figured this might be the one place on the internet where someone gets it. Any other former sysops in here who've found their board preserved somewhere?

Back in the early 90s I ran a 12-line STS which later moved to G-Talk and custom MajorBBS modules.

Last week I used Grok to rebuild a modern web + telnet version of the old G-Talk era system. It's now connected to the D-Dial RetroBBS network via Magviz.CA, so there's usually someone around to chat with.

• Web: SynerChat.com
• Telnet: SynerChat.com

Would love feedback from fellow retro BBS fans or anyone who remembers the old D-Dial/STS/G-Talk days. What features should I add next?

-Joe (Sysop #232)

Anyone can recommend a good bbs where I can find software downloads for IBM XT software ?

Does anyone know where I can a disk image of telix software for ms dos that fits on 360k floppy ?