Macintosh BBS Software

[stephenwhite]

Hey All,

I am new to the forum. My brother and I used to run a Macintosh bulletin board system back in the early 90's. We started it on a Mac Plus using Second Sight software. From there, we moved to a IIci. There was a door game called Battlefield we used to have which we really enjoyed. It was written by Greg Shaw. I actually dug out the old Mac Plus the other day, however I couldn't find out old 20mb Hard Drive. I couldn't locate Second Sight, but I found an old copy of Red Ryder Host on ebay. For nostolgia sake, I loaded it up. I also found two disc images of BBS in a Box shareware CD's on Macintosh Garden. They had the Battlefield door game on them. I am going to load it, but I remember that if you didn't register it with Greg Shaw, it would uninstall in 2 weeks. No big deal, but my brother and I actually did save up for weeks to send him 35 dollars to register it like 20 years ago. I can't find him online though. Anyone heard of him or have any insight? Thanks!

-Stephen White

 

[CelGen]

I would be curious about this too. Running a WGS with a BBS sounds fun.

 

[IPalindromeI]

The TCP/IP Mac BBS world ran on Hotline. In the other parts of the world, there was stuff like Wildcat, Synchronet, etc.

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

The TCP/IP Mac BBS world ran on Hotline. In the other parts of the world, there was stuff like Wildcat, Synchronet, etc.

As a former -- eight consecutive years running my Hotline server -- and current  -- back up and running again -- Hotline admin, I can tell you first hand that the Hotline server/client software suite is not a BBS in the truest sense of the word.

Yes, Hotline has similar functionality as a BBS, but it is not a true PC-ANSI graphics based system. Furthermore, you cannot connect to a Hotline server using a typical dial-up modem connection, which sets true BBSes apart.

In our modern day, BBSes also now have the ability to be accessed via the telnet protocol. Not so with Hotline. It uses its own proprietary protocol, which is why you need a Hotline client of some type to connect to it. In contrast, anyone with a telnet client/terminal app installed on their system can access any BBS around the world.

BTW, I have been running my Macintosh-based BBS on and off since early 1994. It is up and running again as well. Check out its official home page at the URL in my signature.

You can likewise telnet there using telnet armageddonbbs.com or telnet 202.128.4.177

Enjoy a blast into the past and become a regular!

 

[Cory5412]

Although not identical to a direct-dial BBS, I'd say that Hotline/KDX/Carracho et al (there were a few commercial offerings focused more on being commercial groupware as well) are interesting specifically because they weren't text. It makes almost no sense at all to run an exclusively text-based BBS on a Classic Macintosh, because that's not how anything else on the platform (except, of course, remote access to other systems) worked.

By the time of the 1990s, it made sense to make use of the fact that with a Mac's graphical user interface and system software you could do more than one thing at a time, both on the server side and on the client side. I was frequently both transferring files and chatting with people on some of the 68kMLA-Adjacent hotline servers back in like 2000-2001/2002 and using local software for other tasks, checking my real e-mail, etc.

Text BBSs are neat and all, but hotline made the functionality accessible to Mac users, not all of whom (it's worth noting) had ever been Apple II/III/IIgs users, or even users of other 8-bit systems, or PCs.

I'd say today if you wanted to run a "BBS" on a Mac with Mac-like functionality, hotline/kdx/carracho or FirstClass (which was the aforementioned commercial solution whose name I couldn't remember.)

I guess it depends on what you're trying to simulate. Hotline et al are pretty representative of the 1990s, but if you're really into the idea of something the owner of a Mac Plus might have been doing, then accessing direct-dial systems like SDF or using a text BBS may be your best choice, although the other thing is the early days of Mac, you probably weren't online as often as you might have been as the 1990s wore on and line rates went down and second lines became more common.

I think "True BBS" is valuable, but I'm personally not interested, nor do I really think it's very Mac-like.

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

Cory5412, I am not dissing Hotline or any of the other client/server suites which were popular at that time. After all, as I have already said, I was -- and still am -- a Hotline admin, even if my resurrected Hotline server is totally dead in the water. I don't have bots or fake users logged on to it like some of the others do.

Surprisingly, my Hermes II BBS is getting considerably more traffic, so that seems to indicate where the interest lies.

At any rate, I think you are totally missing the point of my comments. While you may hold to the view that running a text- and PC-ANSI-based BBS on a Classic Mac makes no sense, there are in fact those few of us who still find it charming and quaint, because it takes us back to our roots when we were new computer users. This has nothing to do with whether or not it makes sense. It goes deeper than that.

Of course, that is NOT the only reason why I have resurrected my Hermes II BBS once again. As you well know, BBSing is a part of our computer history. As such, I want the younger generation to have an opportunity to see what we old geezers did with our computers, long before many of them were even born. Yes, the point-and-click generation may find it strange, archaic, and perhaps even challenging to have to constantly type things at the keyboard, but it will also be an experience for them.

If there is one thing that Steve Job believed in, it was in being unique, and being different. Well, my friend, in this day and age, you can't get any more unique and different than running "ancient" software like a PC-ANSI-based Bulletin Board Service on a modern, powerful Macintosh.

If you believe that it makes no sense to run a BBS on a Classic Mac, I can only assume that you think I am totally insane and off my rocker for running both Hotline and Hermes II in SheepShaver on a 24" iMac running Yosemite.

What a contradiction, eh?  
 

To each his own, my friend, to each his own. In my case, I operate a Hotine server, a Hermes II BBS, four web domains, two messageboards, and a blog. Plus I am syndicated all over the place to most of the popular social networks. So I do it all, and I enjoy it all. The old and the new. So again, whatever floats your boat.

 

[Cory5412]

My guess as to why your text-only BBS is more popular is because it more realistically lines up with what people expect when they try to get into retrocomputing, it's something people can do on modern computers (WIndows 8.1U1 doesn't have telnet built in, but Windows 7 does, and of course there's PuTTY, and OS X has telnet built in) and it's reminiscent of something more people had, and that was cheaper than a Mac even up through the 1990s.

It's also easier for most people who want to experience something nostalgic, but who don't specifically care about any given type of old computer, just to telnet to something from Terminal.app than to set up a Basilisk II machine.

It's charming and quaint, and in the 1980s while there were still more Apple II and COmmodore 64 users than Mac users it made sense that Mac users would access those types of online services. However "when in Rome" as they say and my personal interests for communications on old Macs are definitely with the graphical applications, or with graphical applications that accessed normal Internet services such as FTP, IRC and e-mail, which provided communication tools that leveraged the Mac as a system.

As far as my non-Mac systems go, VMS notes all the way.

Tangentially: I've for a while wished I could find a menu driven shell for UNIX systems. One of the first remote systems I ever accessed was the Solaris server at my university and it had this menu driven system through which you could use a variety of normal UNIX tools in a way that made it feel a lot more unified than it really was.

 

[ScutBoy]

There's smit on AIX, and AT&T System V had FACES(?) which was a curses based menuing system.

I can't think of anything in the current Linux/BSD space that compares, but that doesn't mean there's not one out there.

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

Hoping not to sound like a nit-picker -- smirk -- I don't think that it is completely accurate to refer to BBSes as being "text-only".

Yes, I know that you base this on the fact that all commands were/are executed by typing numbers, letters, symbols or a combination thereof on the keyboard. However, let us not forget the amazing ASCII and ANSI graphics which were displayed on many BBSes back then, some of which were even animated.

I am sure that I don't need to remind you of TheDraw, ACiD, etc. Today we even have PabloDraw which works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. In fact, just today I added a number of such files and utilities to both my Hotline server, and to my Hermes II BBS. Why? For the same reason that I run my BBS in the first place: to keep the art alive a bit longer.

As I said, there was some amazing ASCII and ANSI art talent back then. Some of those guys really honed it into a craft. Just look at the PabloDraw website, and you will see what I mean. Yes, some of their artwork was/is truly strange indeed.

The tragedy is that animated ANSI is now a dead art, because its very existence depended upon the slow modem speeds that we had back then, which served to let the animations run at the right speed. Being as escape codes cannot control the speed of the ANSI animation, with today's fast machines, and fast Internet connections, you wouldn't even notice the animation, because it would be gone before you could blink an eye. However, some of it has been preserved in ANSI art videos that certain people have made.

Oh, BTW, you are right: I am retro! But I am also in the 21st century as well.

Also, from what I understand, it is very easy to install telnet on Windows 8 using the command line. I offer a short file on the Armageddon BBS website which explains how to do it. It's in a link at the bottom of the page.

Yes, nostalgia has a lot to do with it as well. No doubt about that.
 

 

[bse5150]

Back in the nineties our local Mac User Group had a BBS that ran First Class software.   First Class was a BBS in the truest sense of the word.   It had a graphical interface for Mac users and a text based interface for everyone else.  I miss dialing up the old User Group BBS.

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

Yes, I am familiar with First Class, as well as with TeleFinder, and with just about every other Macintosh-oriented BBS package, whether it had a graphical interface or not. In fact, I collected them all, along with piles of add-on modules and externals, documentation, etc. Years ago, I offered it all on my BBS. However, I think it was the last time that I ran my BBS that I trashed it all, because I didn't think that I'd get back into BBSing again. Well, we know how that went.

Aside from the steep price scheme and the limited number of users which were allotted to each plan, one of the big reasons why I went with Hermes II and public address, was because I didn't want to use a proprietary BBS package which required a proprietary client. I wanted my BBS to be open to all, regardless of the software that they were using, or not using.

Yes, I understand that some of the Macintosh packages handled both, but still, I settled for what was the cheapest, and the most accessible to the highest number of users.

An interesting thing is that over two decades ago, our local university ran a Macintosh BBS using First Class. In fact, I was in charge of it for a while. However, being a university, they found the price of expanding their user base using First Class a bit prohibitive. I encouraged them to switch to Hermes II instead, so that they could have as many users as they wanted. However, they never embraced the idea.

I don't know what happened after that, because I stopped going to MUGG meetings. I think they started getting too political with certain people trying to control it. It was a long time ago, so I just vaguely remember the facts.

 

[techknight]

FirstClass was used in our school system, at least all the way up until I graduated in 2004. It was their central email/conference/announcement service. I am unfamiliar with the BBS part of it. I think I still have the Mac OS X, and the Mac System 7/8/9 clients somewhere, as we had to constantly install those on replacement systems, etc.. 

I assume SharePoint sort of takes over this in the corporate world. 

 

[Elfen]

Here is where being old counts for something - lol! I used run run a BBS on my Vic20 in the old days and helped a friend on this TRS80 and later helped out with NYMUG's First Class BBS (I still have it somewhere...). SecondSite BBS Software?

There might be a download in this ancient archive - http://software.bbsdocumentary.com A lot of BBS software is archived there for educational purposes.

Scroll down to Apple, then Macintosh and it should be there. I see a link to a description page but did not test out the link.

There are many BBS Software that now links up to the net. ELEBBS and WildCat for the PC, FirstClass and Pancake (which is not on the list) for the Macs are a few off the top of my head.

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

The big question, in my view, is this: How many Macintosh-based BBS packages are still being developed and updated on a regular or semi-regular basis, and how many are being used by a large number of  people?

I think answering this three-part question really tells the tale regarding Macintosh BBSing.

 

[IPalindromeI]

I don't think most Mac users were interested in ANSI BBSes, as they were very non-Mac like. Hotline and later the web turned the concepts into something Mac users wouldn't mind.

ANSI BBSes are primarily an IBM PC/Amiga/8-bit thing.

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

I don't think most Mac users were interested in ANSI BBSes, as they were very non-Mac like. Hotline and later the web turned the concepts into something Mac users wouldn't mind.

ANSI BBSes are primarily an IBM PC/Amiga/8-bit thing.

Excuse me, but I think that you are a little confused in your facts.

First of all, PC-ANSI-based Macintosh BBS packages PRECEDED by years First Class, Telefinder, Hotline and other iterations of the graphic-oriented BBS.

Second, I don't think that it is wise for you to speak for Macintosh users as a whole. Someone is bound to take offense if your opinion differs from their own.

Third, if there was no interest in running Macintosh versions of PC-ANSI based BBSes, then popular BBS packages such as Hermes II, Public Address, MacCitadel, Mansion and Starbase7 would have never been written. Yet they were written.

So clearly, my friend, there was a serious interest amongst Macintosh users to run PC-ANSI based BBBes, BEFORE the GUI became popular.

Fourth, as far as PC-ANSI BBSes primarily being an IBM PC thing, well, of course it would seem that way, because as still occurs in our present day, that platform remains the default computer installation of most businesses, government institutions, etc.

Apple is very powerful, very rich, and very popular, but it still only holds a small fraction of the market, and it was even smaller when Macintosh BBSing was in full swing. Thus, Macintosh BBS SysOps were clearly in the minority as well.

Don't get me wrong. I love the Mac GUI, and I would never switch to anything else. I have been a staunch Macintosh user since 1990.

However, I felt that your comments weren't exactly accurate.

 

[Cory5412]

Overall, I really think that it was best summarized in the line about "keeping the art alive."

The BBS is a dead concept, almost completely. It's replaced, appropriately, by either using separate tools on UNIX systems (gopher, IRC, locally delivered mail and lists) or with new software that uses the capabilities of modern computers (graphics and new networking protocols and easier access to TCP/IP in the 1990s, and the web here in the 2000s) to make communication with others easier for more people.

Aside from serving as a platform for people who have specific nostalgia for them, I personally don't see a reason to run a BBS. (I even have a writer group full of people who have specified that they'd be interested if I wanted to run something wild for our group's communication, and the craziest I'm willing to go is giving them accounts on my own Windows domain, which I don't even see a reason to do, because there really are better ways for our group to communicate, especially if we should ever pick up any members who aren't comfortable on a text-commands console of some sort.

Pablo Draw is interesting for ASCII art purposes though, and what I'd advise is that it's worth not confusing "ASCII art" with "BBS" -- BBSs often carried ascii art, but that's by no means the only place it can exist, so while it's neat to see that there's software specifically designed to create it, I don't know if I'd consider it strictly relevant here, just because the whole point of this conversation seems to be justifying BBSes.

Not that you shouldn't run your BBS, just that I don't think they'll ever get more popular than they are today. Web sites have mass appeal, and if you wanted to cater to the Linux or Unix crowd, I don't think that a monolithic piece of software storing all of its information in a database that was meant to be dialed into by home computers is necessarily the best way to appeal to that crowd, which prefers small single-purpose binaries, pipes, and text files.

Excuse me, but I think that you are a little confused in your facts.
 
First of all, PC-ANSI-based Macintosh BBS packages PRECEDED by years First Class, Telefinder, Hotline and other iterations of the graphic-oriented BBS.
 
Second, I don't think that it is wise for you to speak for Macintosh users as a whole. Someone is bound to take offense if your opinion differs from their own.
 
Third, if there was no interest in running Macintosh versions of PC-ANSI based BBSes, then popular BBS packages such as Hermes II, Public Address, MacCitadel, Mansion and Starbase7 would have never been written. Yet they were written.

 
It's moderately possible that the ANSI BBS packages for Macs were 1) ports from other platforms (such as maccitadel in particular) and that they existed before other enabling technologies (such as PPP, from 1994) enabled better solutions.
 
How many of those packages were updated on the Mac after Hotline et al shipped with graphical interfaces for the Mac?
 
There's interested in that software, but very little of it is on the Mac, especially these days when there are much more Mac-like solutions available, and when most of the problems previously solved by BBSs are now solved by other groupware solutions, most of which are either integrated with phones and proper Internet e-mail, or are a web application.
 
ANSI BBSs are a very technical solution to a problem that now has a much easier solution, and for that reason are doomed to either only being used by very specific people, or in "retrocomputing" contexts.
 
I'd say that the ANSI BBSes that existed for Macs in the early days was one of those anomalies that often happens on the Mac simply because technology isn't at a certain place yet.
 
 

I assume SharePoint sort of takes over this in the corporate world.

 
Exchange, Lync, and SharePoint are essentially the corporate/institutional productivity holy grail, and they together do a lot of things you might expect a BBS or an older integrated communication solution (profs, notes, firstclass, etc.)
 
To be honest, they're better tools than a BBS. They're not the only tools, but they are very popular, and one of the things Microsoft is trying to get even more into is using Lync as an IP-PBX, to integrate voice and video to make the whole thing a Unified Communications solution, but that's pretty tangential.
 
Another thing they do that most BBSes and even a lot of other groupware solutions don't is that SharePoint document libraries are a document storage and versioning system. It's essentially svn/git/mercurial but for Office documents, implemented as a web interface with WEBDAV and usable by people who odn't specifically care about computers.
 
 

The big question, in my view, is this: How many Macintosh-based BBS packages are still being developed and updated on a regular or semi-regular basis, and how many are being used by a large number of  people?
 
I think answering this three-part question really tells the tale regarding Macintosh BBSing.

 
And, what's the answer? Do you know it or are we speculating or is this a recommended research project?
 
1) Hermes was last updated in 1999. It's more recently than Citadel for Mac, which is still being updated for Linux, and seems to focus on being open source and group collaboration, essentially it's trying to be a competitor to the communications functions in Exchange/SharePoint/Lync. (Next up: it'll be the default webmail client and group calendaring solution in Zentyal. The project site is very confident in its ability to replace SharePoint and Exchange, but they've arranged the functionality in a different way and it doesn't have all the functionality of either, so they're definitely relying on somebody having bought and then pretty massively under-utilized both of those things.)
 
2) Widely used by people who have a specific interest in BBSes, and widely used by "regular people" are different things, and these days, BBS software is widely used by people who have a specific interest in BBSes and that particular aspect of retrocomputing. Even Google Groups isn't very popular in the face of much more modern solutions such as facebook, discourse, and other web applications.

3) I only see two parts to this three part question.

 

[Elfen]

Your basic BBS functions like a forum such as this one by IP Board. The only difference in the layout of the functionality. Nothing more. True there is some features that can be added to make into a BBS of old like email from forum site to forum site which existed in many BBSes through Hologates.

Like I stated, there are BBSes out there that do work on TCP-IP like First Class for the Mac and PC, ad they do allow email sensing/receiving. But that number of BBSes that do this is very limited. HotLine is not secure as it was a hacker created software which other hackers decided to try to break it and they did on every occasion. It was created for storing Warez and other Hacker VooDoo; but all BBSes can be used for that.

Very few machines, Macs, could handle more than one Modem. Hayes used to make a 33.6 Nubus Modem which you can shove 5 into a IIfx and use them on a BBS. But that took a lot of software configuration, and large phone bills for 6 lines into your house for that BBS. To do that now is more difficult, getting Nubus Modem Cards, or hell - PCI Modems for your G4/G5/Intel Mac Tower, and then find drivers for them!

If you are doing a BBS on a Mac, heh..., it is easier now to use the internet as  connection. Firstclass is the only way to do it as is. You can try with Pancake, if you can find it and then you need to set up a webserver for it and run it from the webserver. Anything else? Oh yeah, you can telnet to a FirstClass server as I remember but now its easier to use a web page or FirstClass Client. I think First Class is still being updated but I can't be too sure on that. Most BBS Software ended their support around 2002 or so.

 

[Hardcore SysOp]

1) You are correct. Some Macintosh BBS packages were indeed ported from their PC counterparts. Even Hermes II -- the software that I use -- was ported from, and improved upon, WWIV.

2) You noted: "The BBS is a dead concept, almost completely." Agreed. That was precisely the point of my three-part question; that is, to demonstrate that Macintosh BBSing is more dead than alive. Trust me; I have no illusions. I don't anticipate a flood of people -- Macintosh users or otherwise -- returning to PC-ANSI-based BBSing and typing commands at their keyboard; particularly when point-and-click-and-scroll has been around for over two decades now.

3) I can't speak for anyone else here, but personally, there is no confusion in my mind regarding the relationship between ASCII and ANSI art and BBSes. True; ASCII and ANSI art can be, and has in fact been done outside of the sphere of BBSing. Nevertheless, it was an integral -- and huge -- part of the BBSing scene.

4) You likewise noted: "the whole point of this conversation seems to be justifying BBSes." No, that isn't it at all. I could just as easily argue that from my perspective, your whole point seems to be to knock it down the best you can. You are certainly entrenched in your views.

I believe that I have already made it clear a few times why I personally chose to resurrect my BBS after so many years. We both agree that there is the nostalgia factor. But that isn't the only reason.

For me personally, it has also been a lot of fun to set up my board again, draw new ANSI screens, etc. Even if my BBS only receives a handful of visitors, that is still okay, because I have been having fun in the process. Actually, there are just under three dozen registered users now.

Resurrecting my BBS has also been quite the learning experience, because through trial and tribulation, and with help from the patient folks over at emaculation.com, I learned how to set up both SheepShaver and Basilisk II, and get Internet connectivity working with both my BBS and my Hotline server. I loved the challenge, and I feel that I have accomplished something on a personal level. So there is that as well.

Also, as I mentioned before, setting up my board again provides an opportunity for the younger generation to experience a part of computing history. It has also allowed other people in my own age group to reminisce and relive the past a bit. There's nothing wrong with that.

So again, my goal here has not been to try to justify BBSing in some way. It has merely been to explain why I personally am doing it again, and invite anyone else along who may want to go for the ride.

5) You also stated: "Hermes was last updated in 1999." That is not an accurate statement. As I mentioned previously, Hermes II was last updated in 2013. If you visit the GitHub website, you can examine the commits yourself. I in fact downloaded the source and compiled it in THINK Pascal -- with the developer's assistance -- so that I am now probably the only SysOp who is running the very latest version: Hermes II 3.5.11.

As I likewise mentioned before, Michael Alyn Miller -- who is the current owner of the code, and the most recent developer -- made Hermes II open source in 2013, and no one has touched it since that time. For all intents and purposes, Hermes II probably is dead, unless some resourceful and motivated THINK Pascal programmers decide to modernize it and recompile it for Mac OS X. However, it isn't very likely that that is ever going to happen.

6) Actually, I probably could have stated my question more clearly:

a. How many Macintosh-based BBS packages are still being developed?

b. How many Macintosh-based BBS packages are still being updated?

c. How many Macintosh-based BBS packages are being used by a large number of  people?

If you accept my definition of what a true BBS is, then the answer to all three questions is obviously "None."

And with that statement, I don't think that I have much more to say regarding this issue. I don't seek to justify, and feel no need to justify, what I do. BBSing is just a fun thing for me, plain and simple, so I am doing it.