In case anyone is curious, although the www.tbbs.org fansite is still running, it is notorious for going off-line randomly, for sometimes months at a time.

I have archived all of the files from that site, including full installations of TBBS, TIMS, Flame, etc.

TBBS at one time was "the" software for running a commercial BBS; and was only one of two packages I know of, that internally multi-tasked up to 96 nodes on a single computer without using a multi-tasking operating system. The other I think was MajorBBS/Worldgroup? Sean am I right?

Nick

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/426)

On 05/09/16, Nick Andre said the following...

In case anyone is curious, although the www.tbbs.org fansite is still running, it is notorious for going off-line randomly, for sometimes
months at a time.

I have archived all of the files from that site, including full installations of TBBS, TIMS, Flame, etc.

TBBS at one time was "the" software for running a commercial BBS; and
was only one of two packages I know of, that internally multi-tasked up
to 96 nodes on a single computer without using a multi-tasking operating system. The other I think was MajorBBS/Worldgroup? Sean am I right?

I think you are right about that. Galacticomm and eSoft were major competitors. I remember an issue of BoardWatch that featured a whole article about a speed test that Phil Becker conducted between eSoft's TBBS and Galacticomm's MajorBBS. They tested a full 96 nodes of each and found that TBBS outshined MBBS.

"No matter where you go, there you are!" - Buckaroo Bonzai

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A13 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Cyberia BBS | Cyberia.Darktech.Org | Kingwood, TX (1:106/324)

Nick Andre wrote to All <=-

TBBS at one time was "the" software for running a commercial BBS; and
was only one of two packages I know of, that internally multi-tasked up
to 96 nodes on a single computer without using a multi-tasking
operating system. The other I think was MajorBBS/Worldgroup? Sean am I right?

Yeah, MBBS/WG boards were the shiznet. Used to hang out on a 16-(phone)
line one back in the day in Killeen, Texas.

--Sean

--- MultiMail/Linux
* Origin: Outpost BBS * Limestone, TN, USA (1:18/200)

On May 11, 2016 10:06pm, Sean Dennis wrote to Nick Andre:

Nick Andre wrote to All <=-

Yeah, MBBS/WG boards were the shiznet. Used to hang out on a 16-(phone) line one back in the day in Killeen, Texas.

The best incarnation of my BBS was with TBBS...

Used FLAME to toss echomail for fidonet PIMP for Internet e/mail Usenet and a host of other add ons. The Author was pretty cool to... worked for NASA. I actually used TBBS first when I left the old Atari BBS Express. I wrote the authors and let them know I was in high school and used BBS as a "science" project. (Actually did) and they sent me a complimentary copy of it... and shortly after that got two USR 14.4 modems. My science project was using a
BBS to collaborate an laboratory experiment with other people across the
world. I had my 1/4 page of fame in a magazine article.

I ran a BBS in some form since the 300 baud days in the 1980's as a middle schooler.

Allen

... Buckle up; it makes it harder for the aliens to suck you out of the car. --- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
* Origin: Derby City LiveWire - Louisville, KY - livewirebbs.dy (1:2320/100)

Allen Prunty wrote in a message to Sean Dennis:

The best incarnation of my BBS was with TBBS...

I always saw TBBS boards as those corporte ones hardware companies ran to update your drivers. I never saw a TBBS that was configured more then the stock out of the box setup. :(

The message areas never seemed easy to use to me either... Too bad there isn't one left running anywhere that had been configured.

Shawn
... Software independent: It won't work with any software.
---
* Origin: Tiny's Trailer (1:229/452.1)

On 05/12/16, Shawn Highfield said the following...

The message areas never seemed easy to use to me either... Too bad
there isn't one left running anywhere that had been configured.

I connected to one the other day to see what TBBS was all about, because I can't recall ever seeing one in my area back in the 90s. Anyway, my
impression of the software was exactly what you described. The message system seemed clunky.

I feel like one of the main purposes of a BBS is the exchange of messages,
and I've always felt like so many packages just get that fundamental aspect wrong, mainly with a poorly designed browsing/reading/writing interface.

--- Mystic BBS v1.11 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Alcoholiday / Est. 1995 / alco.bbs.io (1:123/525)

The best incarnation of my BBS was with TBBS...

I always saw TBBS boards as those corporte ones hardware companies ran to update your drivers. I never saw a TBBS that was configured more then the stock out of the box setup. :(

TBBS was an amazing system... Every message conference on my system had
it's own menu. It was quite easy to use if the sysop took time to
develop their own UI. The machine it was on got hit by lighting and
back then I did not have a USB drive or carbonite to back it up. My
setup was very elaborate and everyone said it was the best incarnation
of the livewire ever.

Unfortunately, I had over 500 360kb floppies they were all low density
then the high density ones were not developed yet. I tried to restore
from backup but one critical disk would not load so it was lost forever.
I went from TBBS to an earlier form of QUICKBBS and I did not stay
there long because I outgrew the Hudson MSG Base.

The message areas never seemed easy to use to me either... Too bad there isn't one left running anywhere that had been configured.

Oh, mine were VERY easy to use... the interface was much like QuickBBS / RemoteAccess.... even more refined since I fine tuned it. John and
Steve Richardson was in Louisville at the time and they wrote Toped and
a lot of RA utilites. They talked me into changing to RA which I ran
for many years before I went to wildcat version 3 then to PCBoard...
which had issues for me. I went back to Wildcat 4 to get UUCP back...
users were revolting since they lost access to internet e-mail that I
had with TBBS. It was there in PCB but VERY VERY limited. I stayed
with Wildcat for many years after that very satisfied.

TBBS was, by far, the best that I ever ran hands down period! But it
was customized to the n'th degree and when it crashed I did not have a
means to restore it to it's full glory without months of downtime.

Allen
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
* Origin: Derby City LiveWire - Louisville, KY - livewirebbs.dy (1:2320/100)

Andrew Haworth wrote in a message to Shawn Highfield:

I connected to one the other day to see what TBBS was all about,
because I can't recall ever seeing one in my area back in the 90s.

We had a couple around here because we're close to Toronto, but they were all
corporate boards, with one exception, but the guy who ran that was a total dweeb and I wouldn't ever connect to his BBS out of pure spite.

Can't remember his name, but hated him.

I feel like one of the main purposes of a BBS is the exchange of
messages, and I've always felt like so many packages just get that fundamental aspect wrong, mainly with a poorly designed browsing/reading/writing interface.

Agreed. Which is why I like The RA and Telegard style systems.

Shawn
... HE has not a single redeeming defect.
---
* Origin: Tiny's Trailer (1:229/452.1)

Allen Prunty wrote in a message to Shawn Highfield:

TBBS was an amazing system... Every message conference on my system
had it's own menu. It was quite easy to use if the sysop took time

You could do that with RA and PCB which I'm sure you know. :)

Unfortunately, I had over 500 360kb floppies they were all low
density then the high density ones were not developed yet. I tried
to restore from backup but one critical disk would not load so it

That's a shame. That's what happended with my Telegard setup as well. Well... bad backup tape.

wrote Toped and a lot of RA utilites. They talked me into changing
to RA which I ran for many years before I went to wildcat version 3
then to PCBoard... which had issues for me. I went back to Wildcat
4 to get UUCP back... users were revolting since they lost access to

I ran RAUUCP at that time. It worked. ;)

TBBS was, by far, the best that I ever ran hands down period! But
it was customized to the n'th degree and when it crashed I did not
have a means to restore it to it's full glory without months of
downtime.

Still a shame man, I'd have loved to see a configured one. :)

Shawn
... I knew she was shareware the first time I laid eyes on her.
---
* Origin: Tiny's Trailer (1:229/452.1)

I feel like one of the main purposes of a BBS is the exchange of messages, and I've always felt like so many packages just get that fundamental aspect wrong, mainly with a poorly designed browsing/reading/writing interface.

When I got back into BBSing in 2007, I decided on running Synchronet for my BBS software. When I started reading messages with it, I was surprised at Synchronet's message reader interface - Namely, that it seemed to want you to read through every single message in a message area. When you start reading messages, it drops you right into your first unread message, and then you can go
"next" through each message. I used BBSes quite a bit in the 90s, though I don't
remember if most BBS packages worked like that; however, Synchronet's reader interface seemed odd to me. I tend to like to see a list of messages and choose
which ones I want to read based on the subject (although I do know that message threads tend to drift off the subject after a while). I ended up making my own message lister/reader mod for Synchronet where I could bring up a list of messages and choose the ones I want to read, rather than being (pretty much) forced to read through every single one.

Eric
--- SBBSecho 2.32-Win32
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (1:340/7)

Re: TBBS
By: Eric Oulashin to Andrew Haworth on Thu May 12 2016 03:33 pm

I feel like one of the main purposes of a BBS is the exchange of messages, and I've always felt like so many packages just get that fundamental aspect wrong, mainly with a poorly designed browsing/reading/writing interface.

When I got back into BBSing in 2007, I decided on running Synchronet for my BBS software. When I started reading messages with it, I was surprised at Synchronet's message reader interface - Namely, that it seemed to want you to read through every single message in a message area. When you start reading messages, it drops you right into your first unread message, and then you can go
"next" through each message. I used BBSes quite a bit in the 90s, though I don't
remember if most BBS packages worked like that; however, Synchronet's reader interface seemed odd to me. I tend to like to see a list of messages and choose
which ones I want to read based on the subject (although I do know that message threads tend to drift off the subject after a while). I ended up making my own message lister/reader mod for Synchronet where I could bring up a list of messages and choose the ones I want to read, rather than being (pretty much) forced to read through every single one.

Synchronet's built-in message reading interface was heavily influenced by WWIV. So if you're used to WWIV or one of its spin-offs (RG, Tag), it would seem familiar to you (e.g. use 'T' to list the next 10 messages, 'L' to list them all).

Of course, I've seen and used other BBS software which always wanted the user to "pick" a message to begin reading and I never liked that design, probably just because it's just not what I was used to.

So it's great that you were able to design something more to your liking and integrate that with Synchronet for your users and other sysops who prefer a different take on traditional BBS message reading. The fact that you were able to do that (and of course, I had to make enable some external "hooks" and probably fix some bugs along the way to make it more "seemless") is a testiment both to your programming abilities and the extensiblity of Synchronet.

One of these days, I plan to replace the "built-in" message reading interface with one written in JS (though it will likely function much the same, since that's what I'm used to) and that should facilitate simpler replacement of that functionality with 3rd party modules, like yours.

digital man

Synchronet "Real Fact" #52:
Synchronet Blackjack was the first multi-node/multi-user game for Synchronet. Norco, CA WX: 80.4°F, 44.0% humidity, 8 mph E wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs

On 05/12/16, Rob Swindell said the following...

One of these days, I plan to replace the "built-in" message reading interface with one written in JS (though it will likely function much
the same, since that's what I'm used to) and that should facilitate simpler replacement of that functionality with 3rd party modules, like yours.

I've always like like the built-in message reading system of synchronet, once
I figured out how it works.. :)

There are times I'd like to be able to use the up arrow key but only the down key works AFAIK.

Ttyl :-),
Al

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A13 (Linux)
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Re: TBBS
By: Alan Ianson to Rob Swindell on Thu May 12 2016 06:56 pm

On 05/12/16, Rob Swindell said the following...

One of these days, I plan to replace the "built-in" message reading interface with one written in JS (though it will likely function much the same, since that's what I'm used to) and that should facilitate simpler replacement of that functionality with 3rd party modules, like yours.

I've always like like the built-in message reading system of synchronet, once
I figured out how it works.. :)

There are times I'd like to be able to use the up arrow key but only the down key works AFAIK.

Yeah, when reading a message, there's no built-in "scroll-back" type function (use SyncTERM's Alt-B key for that). I bet Eric has it that feature in his message reading mod though. :-)

digital man

Synchronet/BBS Terminology Definition #8:
CR = Carriage Return (ASCII 13, Ctrl-M)
Norco, CA WX: 73.0°F, 58.0% humidity, 9 mph SE wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs

"next" through each message. I used BBSes quite a bit in the 90s,
though I don't remember if most BBS packages worked like that; however, Synchronet's

It is pretty much the standard way to read messages, used by just about every BBS not just Synchronet. I think Mystic and one called WME were the only software I ever saw back in the 90s that provided an alternative to the traditional message reading, like you're describing.

There were hardware and bandwidth limitations that made it much trickier to do back then, but I also think people creating these interfaces maybe just didn't have the vision to make something different either.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A14 (Windows)
* Origin: Sector 7 [Mystic BBS WHQ] (1:129/215)

Re: TBBS
By: James Coyle to Eric Oulashin on Thu May 12 2016 21:20:16

"next" through each message. I used BBSes quite a bit in the 90s,
though I don't remember if most BBS packages worked like that;
however, Synchronet's

It is pretty much the standard way to read messages, used by just about every BBS not just Synchronet. I think Mystic and one called WME were the only software I ever saw back in the 90s that provided an alternative to the traditional message reading, like you're describing.

There were hardware and bandwidth limitations that made it much trickier to do back then, but I also think people creating these interfaces maybe just didn't have the vision to make something different either.

My inspiration for having a message list and choosing a message to read mainly came from newsgroup and email readers (such as Forte Agent, etc.).

Eric
--- SBBSecho 2.32-Win32
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (1:340/7)

On 05/12/16, Eric Oulashin said the following...

surprised at Synchronet's message reader interface - Namely, that it seemed to want you to read through every single message in a message
area. When you start reading messages, it drops you right into your
first unread message, and then you can go
"next" through each message. I used BBSes quite a bit in the 90s,
though I don't

Mystic has great message listing and selection. I think SBBS is quite good
with messages too, as it was sort of based on WWIV, which I generally like quite a bit just for reading.

Nice work on your mod too BTW!

--- Mystic BBS v1.11 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Alcoholiday / Est. 1995 / alco.bbs.io (1:123/525)

On 05/12/16, Rob Swindell said the following...

Synchronet's built-in message reading interface was heavily influenced
by WWIV. So if you're used to WWIV or one of its spin-offs (RG, Tag), it would seem familiar to you (e.g. use 'T' to list the next 10 messages,
'L' to list them all).

Yep, I love this method myself. I started in a WWIV-heavy area, so that
reading system has always felt very comfortable to me. Some of the other reading methods just seem to involve too much button pushing!

--- Mystic BBS v1.11 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Alcoholiday / Est. 1995 / alco.bbs.io (1:123/525)

Allen Prunty wrote in a message to Shawn Highfield:

TBBS was an amazing system... Every message conference on my system
had it's own menu. It was quite easy to use if the sysop took time

You could do that with RA and PCB which I'm sure you know. :)

Actually I've never found any system as configurable as Tbbs. It used a message base much like the hudson base but did not have the same
limitations.

I could define what every command looked like right down to the
keystroke. I could make TBbs look slike any BBS software you could
imagine.

I ran RAUUCP at that time. It worked. ;)

It was becoming harder to find a provider for UUCP that provided UUCICO
type connections as providers were transitioning to NNTP. Wildcat used
NNTP, PCB and RA used UUCICO. With winserver I can provide a UUCICO
feed to those who want it today, but even at that it's limited.

Still a shame man, I'd have loved to see a configured one. :)

I lost most o fmy userbase when it crashed. I ran it for the longest
other than winserver. I got a lot back when I came to wildcat, but for
the longest I lost a lot of users.

But then, in the TBBS days the users used the message bases and files...
as it progressed they wanted games, tradewars, and more. When I was
with D.I.S.K. it was an alternative to compuserve and genie. Prodigy
was just starting to come out in those days... and AOL was it's own
service altogether. The BBS was popular becuase most of them were free.
When I ran TBBS I asked each user for $1-5 a month for donations. I had
three phone lines as that was th emax we could have at our house
normally it was two but we had a separate apartment in the basement that
had it's own address. The donations paid for the phone lines. I spent
a fortune with MCI back in the day even with friends and family to move
the netmail. Sadly, I had one bill where I called 10 times a second to
my host for over an hour it was astronomical and they counted each call
as one full minute. I had to get the public utilities commission to get
them to back down on the bill as they wouldn't budge for months.

Allen
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
* Origin: Derby City LiveWire - Louisville, KY - livewirebbs.dy (1:2320/100)

My inspiration for having a message list and choosing a message to read mainly came from newsgroup and email readers (such as Forte Agent, etc.).

Interesting that you say that. I remember someone about a year ago telling me they were trying to get someone to make a reader that worked like Mystic for their Synchronet BBS, and a bit later he was testing early versions of yours.

Did the ANSI messages come from Forte too? Or the kludge toggle, or or
or... ;)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A14 (Windows)
* Origin: Sector 7 [Mystic BBS WHQ] (1:129/215)

Re: Re: TBBS
By: Andrew Haworth to Eric Oulashin on Thu May 12 2016 22:42:00

Mystic has great message listing and selection. I think SBBS is quite good with messages too, as it was sort of based on WWIV, which I generally like quite a bit just for reading.

Nice work on your mod too BTW!

Thanks. :)

Eric
--- SBBSecho 2.32-Win32
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (1:340/7)

Re: TBBS
By: James Coyle to Eric Oulashin on Fri May 13 2016 00:22:31

Did the ANSI messages come from Forte too? Or the kludge toggle, or or or... ;)

? :) Forte was a newsgroup reader and as such, didn't do that stuff. It was mainly the message list and pick-and-choose interface that inspired me, at least with my original message lister (which morphed into my reader).

Eric
--- SBBSecho 2.32-Win32
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (1:340/7)