Re: Still Active
By: R4 to MIKE POWELL on Mon Jan 12 2026 04:45 am

Re: Still Active
By: MIKE POWELL to GWYLBERT on Sun Jan 11 2026 09:28 am

does anyone still read messages on the board in 2026? or post?

Yes there are lots many posts in this area just about every day. I have at least two users (aside from myself) who post on one of my boards regularly.

that is great to hear!
I wonder what the age ranges are of the users? Not that it matters. I wonder how many people my age are really into bbs? I think there is going to be a surge in them at some point. Also I think they are great to have. There is something about them that is just diff then the reg internet . Have a great one!

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I would love to see a huge surge in bbsing in the future. I think if companies keep screwing with our privacy, people will look for other options. A lot of people aren't going to know how to use the terminal though. They want icons, pictures, and point and click. I have seen people run from bbsing because of the terminal. Wouldn't it be nice to bring back a universal terminal client like world group manager? It allowed major bbs users to connect to boards, with a gui, icons and multitasking.

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■ Synchronet ■ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com

Re: Still Active
By: morningstarr to R4 on Thu Jan 22 2026 12:53 pm

I would love to see a huge surge in bbsing in the future. I think if companies keep screwing with our privacy, people will look for other options. A lot of people aren't going to know how to use the terminal though. They want icons, pictures, and point and click. I have seen people run from bbsing because of the terminal. Wouldn't it be nice to bring back a universal terminal client like world group manager? It allowed major bbs users to connect to boards, with a gui, icons and multitasking.

The RIP protocol (Remote Imaging Protocol) was becoming a thing for BBSes in the early 90s, but as BBSes faded away, there wasn't really enough time for it to take hold. Aside from that (which I think was the most standardized), I remember seeing a BBS package called RoboBoard that had its own GUI standard, and with its client, you had a fairly good GUI experience when connected to a BBS (I remember it looking somewhat like Windows 3.0). I didn't know MajorBBS had one too.

Nightfox

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■ Synchronet ■ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com

Re: Still Active
By: The Wanderer to morningstarr on Thu Jan 22 2026 02:56 pm

It would be great if we had enough skill & interest to take the Synchronet web features and continue to modernize & enhance. I think the underlying system is entirely there, but a push on the web front could be helpful in this regard.

I think echicken has done a good job making ecweb (the latest being v4) - It looks like a fairly modern web forum package.

Nightfox

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■ Synchronet ■ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com

Re: Still Active
By: morningstarr to MRO on Thu Jan 22 2026 02:32 pm

No, they will not. The terminal and old school games run
them off. I read synchronet servers can have a robust
website. Maybe even mimick some of the behaviors and
features of facebook. That would keep potential new users
from running off because of the terminal windows and
ansi/text. There will never be a large resurgance of new
users for the bbs scene. I would love to see it happen
though.

That may be so, but i think overall there is no need for something structured like bbses.

Even for local interaction we've snoozed and been replaced by
facebook groups, nextdoor, reddit/r/city and dating sites.

If you compare a bbs, which is usually a walled off system ran by an unprofessional person who's system may not be around long, nor do they have the reach to get the interest of thousands. Likely they do not even have the hardware muscle to handle large groups of people interacting the way they do on popular sites.

When i showed my old gf bbses she said they looked 'ghetto'.
So yes, you may be onto something with the visual aspect of it.

There are a few bbs softwares that have web interfaces, but they aren't
really robust or interesting for new users to use. they also aren't
replacing widely used forums.

I don't think there's anybody still around that did more than me for
promoting bbses. I ran all kinds of sites on rented servers and also i did all kinds of things with popular sites and intergrated them with bbses. I spent a lot of money, i would even buy google ads for bbses inwhich i didn't know the owners. I did free or donation based hosting for bbs people for
many years.

I used all forms of social media and did a lot of online 'legwork' to get new people into bbsing and old bbs users back in.
Sadly, what we have is not what people want.

People don't like to think about that, but the proof is in the pudding.
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Still Active
By: MRO to morningstarr on Fri Jan 23 2026 02:53 am

I don't think there's anybody still around that did more than me for promoting bbses. I ran all kinds of sites on rented servers and also i did all kinds of things with popular sites and intergrated them with bbses. I spent a lot of money, i would even buy google ads for bbses inwhich i didn't know the owners. I did free or donation based hosting for bbs people for many years.

No wonder you're a grumpy old man, you spent your life savings promoting ancient technology, BBS's are mainly a hobby of the older generation just trying to reclaim a small piece of our glory days.
There are younger people that pop in from time to time, most of those don't hang around long, and those who want to give it a try you run them off, so much for you promoting BBSing eh...

Denn

... Prunes give you a run for your money.

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■ Synchronet ■ the Outwest BBS - outwest.synchro.net - Home of BBSBASE 6.0

morningstarr wrote to R4 <=-

I would love to see a huge surge in bbsing in the future. I think if companies keep screwing with our privacy, people will look for other options. A lot of people aren't going to know how to use the terminal though. They want icons, pictures, and point and click. I have seen
people run from bbsing because of the terminal. Wouldn't it be nice to bring back a universal terminal client like world group manager? It allowed major bbs users to connect to boards, with a gui, icons and multitasking.

Isn't Citadel like that? Maybe that's not it, but there was a BBS
package with a more featureful web interface...



--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
■ Synchronet ■ .: realitycheckbbs.org :: scientia potentia est :.

Re: Still Active
By: MIKE POWELL to R4 on Tue Jan 13 2026 08:02 am

I am not sure what your age is, but most folks on BBSes are probably 45+ which makes them old enough to remember bbsing when it was still at, or shortly after, its prime.

It would be nice if some younger persons saw it as an alternative to what social media has become.

I want to report I exist.


--
gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken

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■ Synchronet ■ Palantir BBS * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL

On 23 Jan 2026, poindexter FORTRAN said the following...

Isn't Citadel like that? Maybe that's not it, but there was a BBS
package with a more featureful web interface...

citadel is cool.. though i only called a really active citadel system once a long time ago..

it definitely had a different vibe.. like if you hacked a message board into a MUD game and mixed it with twitter or something lol

last i checked there were a couple with the web frontend still working and fairly recent messages.. like if you posted "are you alive" there might be more people sort of habit watching the site than you'd expect and they'd respond.. but that pretty much takes the BBS part and turns it into a groupware looking thing.. like something you'd post work messages to.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi

Re: Re: Still Active
By: poindexter FORTRAN to morningstarr on Fri Jan 23 2026 07:21 am

Isn't Citadel like that? Maybe that's not it, but there was a BBS
package with a more featureful web interface...

citadel, wildcrap! and vadv have nice web interfaces. well wildcrap HAS one but it's not nice.

citadel and vadv have good interfaces that are fast.
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Re: Still Active
By: fusion to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Jan 23 2026 03:20 pm

On 23 Jan 2026, poindexter FORTRAN said the following...

Isn't Citadel like that? Maybe that's not it, but there was a BBS package with a more featureful web interface...

citadel is cool.. though i only called a really active citadel
system once a long time ago..

it definitely had a different vibe.. like if you hacked a message
board into a MUD game and mixed it with twitter or something
lol

yeah it's totally different. it's entirely not what we are used to. the
thing is, they get a lot of callers and users. also i think they gate that chat into irc, discord, etc. so they have the mud style chat with rooms for chat and then the groupware shit on the web. it's something that is totally alien to us.
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Still Active
By: MIKE POWELL to MORNINGSTARR on Fri Jan 23 2026 08:33 am

Yeah too bad, it goes right over my head. I have been
doing a lot of research and I'm interested in running a board. There
are some guys on dovenet that ma asking any question a sin. The way
some of the guys talk to people on here, have kind of turned me off
on running a board.

Luckily, synchronet is pretty popular so as long as you are asking
general questions and not trying to report a bug, you can probably
get assistance with it on just about any network... fsx, tqw, etc...
with a BBSing forum.

you guys should have referred him to sysopsfinest! it has it all on a forum! ---
■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Re: Still Active
By: Robert Wolfe to POINDEXTER FORTRAN on Fri Jan 23 2026 08:05 pm

Isn't Citadel like that? Maybe that's not it, but there
was a BBS package with a more featureful web interface...

Citadel is kinda like that, but WINServer def is like that.

well i would say citadel is more modern looking than the winserver interface.
i was on one the other day and it looked pretty crummy. also i couldnt search msgs.

vadv is nice.
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Still Active
By: Nightfox to morningstarr on Thu Jan 22 2026 05:55 pm

The RIP protocol (Remote Imaging Protocol) was becoming a thing for BBSes in the early 90s, but as BBSes faded away, there wasn't really enough time for it to take hold. Aside from that (which I think was the most standardized), I remember seeing a BBS package called RoboBoard that had its own GUI standard, and with its client, you had a fairly good GUI experience when connected to a BBS (I remember it looking somewhat like Windows 3.0). I didn't know MajorBBS had one too.

Yeah major bbs had a gui, it looked like windows 95ish. Reminded me of aol. You could multitask in it too. Good times!
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■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Re: Still Active
By: The Wanderer to Morningstarr on Thu Jan 22 2026 06:47 pm

That is truly awful, and I know of what you speak. There are other boards that don't have so much focus on DoveNet, have better moderation and hence, fewer people that deter from the hobby. I hope you'll have a further look around.

I tried to install synchronet in linux today..outcome was negative. I watched robs video and rtfm and still no luck. I guess I will keep trying. I did get mystic to compile and run so that's an option. Mystic is really good, but missing features. Maybe I will have to settle and run a mystic board, or get a cheap laptop with windows on it and go that route. I have to be careful on here and make sure I spell everything correctly and try to use proper punctuation. Something as simple as that will cause an uproar on here.
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■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Re: Still Active
By: MRO to morningstarr on Fri Jan 23 2026 02:53 am

That may be so, but i think overall there is no need for something structured like bbses.

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■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Isn't Citadel like that? Maybe that's not it, but there
was a BBS package with a more featureful web interface...

Citadel is kinda like that, but WINServer def is like that.

well i would say citadel is more modern looking than the winserver interface.

Are there any active Citadel BBSes, with web interfaces, online?


* SLMR 2.1a * If an experiment works, something has gone wrong
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■ Synchronet ■ moe's tavern * 1-5028758938 * moetiki.ddns.net:27

Re: Re: Still Active
By: poindexter FORTRAN to MIKE POWELL on Sat Jan 24 2026 09:59 am

Since others are posting AI slop to the echoes now...

SYNCHRONET BBS SOFTWARE PRESENTS A COLLECTION OF FUNCTIONAL
CHALLENGES THAT CAN BE CHARACTERIZED AS BOTH PERSISTENT AND
DISCONCERTING IN THEIR STRUCTURAL COMPLEXITY - THE CONFIGURATION
SUBSYSTEM DEMANDS A DEGREE OF USER ENGAGEMENT THAT COULD BE
DESCRIBED AS EXCESSIVELY RIGOROUS, AS THOUGH THE SOFTWARE EXPECTS

maybe that explains why you have so much problems running ftn and having a stable system.


thanks for the capital letter spam


--
"Before using Wildcat....This Company did not have a convenient way of
looking after some of the richest clients in the world...Now we do!"
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Re: Still Active
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Morningstarr on Sat Jan 24 2026 09:59 am

I know I've told this story multiple times, but my company ended up with a $400 phone bill because the lead developer set it up to poll every 10 minutes.

Well I haven't heard the story! I can't believe the guy didn't listen to your idea. I remember running up my parents phone bill. Let me just say the outcome was a pink rear end!

I had a telco broker who had some interesting ideas. He suggested I purchase call forward on busy service for the hub. It was $3/month. Set the call forward busy destination to the number in the toll area. Set the hub to call "itself". The line was busy, naturally, and forwarded to the destination for essentially a penny a call.

Now that sir, is a crafty idea! Our phone company would charge long distance for a call to the next county.
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■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net