Wanted: info on BBS software

[Peter Glaskowsky]

in article <1519 at bouwsma.oakhill.UUCP>, tomc at oakhill.UUCP (Tom Cunningham) says:
> 
> Does anyone have a synopsis of BBS software that is available for either
> Unix systems or IBM PCs?  We would like information on commercial products
> as well as public domain offerings.  The software must support multiple
> simultaneous callers and should be easily configurable by the sysop.

The only two quality commercial multi-user BBS packages for the IBM PC are
TBBS (from eSoft in Denver, CO) and The Chairman (dunno who sells it). I've
been a TBBS sysop for three and a half years now, but I don't know much about
The Chairman except it's fairly well regarded by users; I think the "PC
Magazine" Interactive Reader Service system runs The Chairman.

(In the disclaimer department, I used to work for a TBBS distributor, but
that was back in early '85.)

There are quite a few multi-user BBS packages for Unix, of course, but I'm
not particularly familiar with any of them.

TBBS is a really fine package. It allows you to run up to 16 users on a
PC-AT class machine (the next version, due out within the next month, will
allow 32 users), and it does this without any noticeable delays, even with
2400 bps modems. 9600 modems put a much greater load on the system, but a
fast AT clone can still run 8 9600's at full speed; a 386 machine should be
able to handle even more.

It does this without intelligent serial port boards, too, just normal
Digiboards, about $600 for the 8-port version. Even though multi-user
TBBS costs $895 (16-user version; the 32-user version should be $1495,
I think), this helps to keep the cost of the whole system down-- all
you need is an AT clone, a couple Digiboards, 16 modems, and 16 phone
lines.

TBBS isn't overwhelmingly sophisticated, to be honest; it's just good,
basic, reliable software. The development/test cycle for new versions
is quite long, close to two years; this has generally left TBBS
behind other packages in terms of handling the latest download
protocols, or gosh-wow stuff like ANSI graphics, but most of us who
run TBBS are more than happy to sacrifice today's technology for
tomorrow's reliability.

TBBS just doesn't crash. It just can't be broken into. With ten
thousand single-line systems out there ($295), some for over five
years, plus probably about a thousand multi-user systems, some for
more than two years, TBBS has well over a hundred million user-
hours of experience, and _no_ case where anyone has ever managed
to get around the security features.

In terms of specific features, I'll have to limit myself to the
current version, v2.0; I've used beta-test 2.1 systems, but I just
don't know how close they've been to what's coming out next month.

One particularly useful feature which isn't available with any other
multi-user BBS on the market is Fidonet compatibility. You may not
want to participate in Fidonet, per se, but this same feature (well,
option, really, it's another $100 or so) lets you exchange mail or
share public message boards with any other TBBS, Fido, Opus, or
QuickBBS system. This can be a great help if you need more than one
BBS to be connected together somehow.

The message base supports up to 52 message boards, and up to 30,000
messages total. On an AT, the whole message base can be searched for
a specific string in the from, to, or subject fields in about 30
seconds. Messages to each user are announced instantly when they
log on, though, since TBBS keeps track of what's waiting for whom.
Messages can have up to 9,999 characters each (if entered locally)
or anything up to 50,000 characters if they're received via Fidonet
echomail, or inserted into the message base manually by the sysop.
Messages are linked together by subject, are automatically word-
wrapped to the line length of the reader (unless this feature is
disabled), can be made private, or password-protected; files can
be "enclosed" in messages, uploaded via XMODEM or YMODEM (plus
several more protocols in 2.1). There's a line editor, but
unfortunately no full-screen editor (in 2.0, at least, and I
haven't heard anything about a screen editor in 2.1); there is a
global search/replace function which works pretty well, though.

A particularly nice aspect about TBBS is that the entire message
base goes into two files-- one for the headers, and one for the
text. As long as your system doesn't have any hardware problems,
these files will never get out of sync, and they don't waste any
space at all. Some packages put each message in a different file,
and under MSDOS, this wastes a _lot_ of space. I usually have
about 14,000 to 16,000 messages in my system, and they take up
less than half of a 32 meg DOS partition.

File uploading and downloading is pretty good in 2.0, and gets much,
much better in 2.1 (I have seen this part). 2.1 has examine-only
support for ARC files, plus seven or eight file transfer protocols
(the only major protocol missing is ZMODEM). You can have as many
file areas as you have room for on your disk drive(s).

There's a fairly comprehensive Question & Answer (QA) function,
which allows you to ask questions and record answers, plus a
voting function which anonymously tallies up answers to multiple-
choice questions.

All of this is tied together by sysop-designed menus; you can have
as many menus as you want, and they can have whatever functions you
want to put on them, in any order. There are about 50 different
functions, any of which can be assigned to any keystroke. Menus can
be nested deeply (30 levels? I don't recall off-hand), and access to
each function is controlled by 32 authorization flags and privilege
levels from 0 to 255. The flags can be set or reset by QA files, too,
although not by distinguishing between different answers.

TBBS comes with a whole raft of special utilities to edit the various
configuration / userlog / message base / QA files, plus another set
of Fidonet utilities if you get that option. While this is not as
convenient as having these utilities built into the BBS program itself,
since (especially in the multi-user version) it's necessary to take
the BBS down to use these utilities, at least it keeps the size of the
BBS down (I'd really prefer to have real-time access to the userlog
editor, at least, but that's life. Maybe in 2.1...).

Sorry for running on so, but this question does come up every so
often, and I figured I might as well answer it once. There are more
features in TBBS than I've mentioned here, and the people at eSoft
might describe these differently than I do, but what the heck. At
least this'll give you something to start with.

If you have any questions, the right people to ask are eSoft, Inc.
in Denver; however, if you want to give my system a call, or send me
mail, or whatever, feel free to do so. I'm moving on Oct. 3rd, though,
so don't waste time trying to reach me after that.

-- 
.                  png   |   Sysop, the John Galt Line TBBS: 305-235-1645.
                         |   ARPA: pglask%umbio.miami.edu at umigw.miami.edu
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