BBS Preservation Demo board online
LINE 1DIAL TONE · ANSI · CP437

Save the hobby. Bring back the BBS.

Before the internet, there were thousands of little ones: bulletin boards for every hobby, every game, every scene, and a few you probably shouldn't have been calling. The boards are still out there, but running one takes a server and calling one takes a terminal program, so the hobby is fading.

This project fixes both. Run a board on cheap web hosting, and call one from any browser.

Hotkeys work here too. Just press the letter.

The mission

Get the BBS back on line.

Plenty of boards still answer. Most of their callers were there the first time around, back when a 2400 baud modem felt fast and the phone bill showed up with a lecture attached.

That's a shame, because a BBS was something the web never quite replaced: a small place where the SysOp knew your handle and the regulars knew exactly what you thought about Star Trek, since you'd told them at length in the message base. Old callers miss that. People who never called one would like it just as much, if anybody told them it was there.

So the goal is easy enough to say: more boards, and more people calling them. That means BBS software built for the way people use the internet now, running on the cheap web hosting they already pay for. The old software counts just as much: the original DOS boards and door games, preserved byte for byte and every bit as easy to run. Nobody should need a spare PC humming in a closet to put up a board.

Above all, the hobby needs new people. Somebody who's never heard a modem handshake should be able to call a board from the browser they already have open, then stay up too late playing LORD on a work night. No terminal program. A few of those callers will end up running boards of their own, the way a lot of us did.

If your old board's on floppies in a shoebox, dig it out.

Why I started this

New boardsOn cheap web hosting
Old boardsRunning, byte for byte
CallersAny browser, no setup
Cost to youNothing

What was a BBS?

Never called a board?

In 1990, you met people online by dialing up a computer in somebody's spare room. You read the message bases, answered your mail, grabbed a file, played your turns in a door game, and hung up so the next caller could get in.

Early boards had one phone line. One caller at a time. The big ones grew to dozens of nodes, and every node needed its own modem and its own phone line.

Tens of thousands of boards ran through the eighties and nineties. Most were gone by 2000. A handful moved to telnet, and some of that software is still being updated today.

Want to try one? Nineteen of the original DOS boards are answering on the ATA demo, from RBBS-PC to Renegade, and any of them will take your call from a browser.

Call a classic board Read the history

The projects

Two ways to run a board. Two ways to skip it.

The boards and doors install on the shared hosting you already pay for, and every caller gets in with a browser.

Three of the names are Hayes modem commands: ATDT and ATA are the dial and the answer, and ATO is what you typed after +++ to put a call back on line.

Run a board

▚▚▚

ATDT

A new board, built the old way.

A complete BBS in PHP with ANSI art (and a built-in ANSI editor), hotkey menus, message bases, and live chat. It runs its own native doors and the original 16-bit DOS doors, multi-user.

  • Takes less than five minutes to install
  • Door API or classic DOS doors
  • LORD, TradeWars, The Pit and Usurper, playable today
  • Imports legacy BBS message bases, tested with a large 60,000 message import

Available now · atdtbbs.com

▓▒░

ATA

The original boards, without the hassle.

Install an unmodified 1980s or 1990s DOS BBS in one click, and whatever worked over telnet works here, just as fast.

  • Supports 19 classic 16-bit DOS BBS systems with one-click install: Renegade, T.A.G., Maximus, PCBoard and more
  • Multi-user, with file transfers and doors
  • SysOp chat and echomail
  • Or import the board you already run

↓ Download the alpha

Alpha out now, beta soon · atabbs.com

Skip the board

▙▟▙

ATO Doors

The door games, without the board.

The original 16-bit DOS doors run unchanged on a small DOS machine inside the page, so the game runs on the player's own computer and the server only needs PHP and SQLite.

  • Seven classic doors in the demo, LORD and TradeWars among them
  • Multi-user: players see each other, duel, trade and chat
  • Runs on a $5 host, with no daemon to keep alive
  • Free and MIT licensed. You bring the doors

Available now · atodoors.com

◤◥◤

Usurper

The classic door, finally fixed.

A PHP rewrite that follows the original Pascal source 1:1, except for bugs and exploits that sat unfixed for years. Set up a whole multi-user realm without a board.

  • GPL, like the original
  • Source cross-references the Pascal
  • SysOp guide lists every change
  • Fully multi-user, on ordinary shared hosting

Out now in door and web editions · getusurper.com

Make the art

▀▄▀

ANSI Paint

Paint ANSI art in your browser.

A TheDraw-style editor that grew out of the one built into ATDT. It saves real .ans files that any BBS or scene viewer can read. Nothing to install.

  • Half-block and shade brushes, lines, fills and big fonts
  • Exports .ans, .bin, .xb and .png, with a SAUCE editor
  • Invite someone by link and paint one canvas together, live
  • Free account and a private gallery. No paid plan, ever

Available now · ansipaint.com