A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), was a computer server running software that allowed users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user could perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email.
Kermit is a computer file transfer and management protocol and a set of communications software tools primarily used in the early years of personal computing in the 1980s. It provides a consistent approach to file transfer, terminal emulation, script programming, and character set conversion across many different computer hardware and operating system platforms.
Synchronet is a multiplatform BBS software package, with current ports for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and BSD variants. Past versions also ran on MS-DOS and OS/2, but support for those platforms were dropped in version 3.0.
ZMODEM is an inline file transfer protocol developed by Chuck Forsberg in 1986, in a project funded by Telenet in order to improve file transfers on their X.25 network. In addition to dramatically improved performance compared to older protocols, ZMODEM offered restartable transfers, auto-start by the sender, an expanded 32-bit CRC, and control character quoting supporting 8-bit clean transfers, allowing it to be used on networks that would not pass control characters.
Demon Roach Underground (DRU) was a Lubbock, Texas based BBS that was popular in the "hacker" scene.
Punter is a protocol for file transfer developed in the 1980s by Steve Punter. There are various types of Punter such as PET Transfer Protocol (PTP), C1 and C2.
Charles Alton "Chuck" Forsberg developed two data transmission protocols popular in the 1990s, for uploading and downloading files from dial-up bulletin board systems. He received a Dvorak Award for Excellence in Telecommunications in 1992 for developing ZMODEM. He was also the project engineer on the Tektronix 4010-series graphics terminals.
ProTERM is a terminal emulator and modem program for the Apple II and Macintosh lines of personal computers, published by Intrec Software. Most popular in the late 1980s and 1990s, it was most commonly used for calling bulletin board systems (BBSes) via a computer's modem, experienced users could also Telnet into Unix server and shell account thereon and FTP and tunneling to various destinations therefrom, and once logged into a Unix shell account, other forms of telecom all across the pre-Web Internet; via VT100 terminal emulator or ANSI art, this later ushered in Graphics to the scene.
HyperACCESS is a family of terminal emulation software by Hilgraeve. A version of HyperACCESS called HyperTerminal is included in some versions of Windows.
Telix is a telecommunications program originally written for DOS by Colin Sampaleanu and released in 1986. On October 10, 1988 in the release note for Telix 3.10, Sampaleanu announced the creation of 'Exis Inc.'; name used to develop the software until September 25, 1992; which is when Exis Inc. sold Telix to former Exis Technical Support Manager Jeff Woods, who founded 'deltaComm Development Inc.' and it was distributed by them thereafter, including the Microsoft Windows version they developed and released in 1994.
BiModem was one of the last file transfer protocols developed for use in bulletin board systems. It was created by Erik Labs, and was revolutionary for its day.
Novation, Inc., is an early modem manufacturer whose CAT series were popular in the early home computer market in the late 1970s and early 1980s, notably on the Apple II. The Hayes Smartmodem 300, introduced in 1981, helped kill off Novation and many other early modem companies over the next few years.
An offline reader is computer software that downloads e-mail, newsgroup posts or web pages, making them available when the computer is offline: not connected to a server. Offline readers are useful for portable computers and dial-up access.
McBBS was a Bulletin Board System developed by Derek E. McDonald and distributed by DMCS Technologies between October 30, 1989, and May 30, 2000, and operated over 18 versions.
Qmodem was an MS-DOS shareware telecommunications program and terminal emulator. Qmodem was widely used to access bulletin boards in the 1980s and was well respected in the Bulletin Board System (BBS) community. Qmodem was also known as Qmodem SST and Qmodem Pro.
Blue Board is a bulletin board system software created by Martin Sikes (1968–2007) for the Commodore 64 in the 1980s in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and sold worldwide. Due to optimized code and memory allocation, Blue Board boasted very fast performance for a BBS on that hardware platform. In fact, Blue Board was faster than most if not all BBSs run on 8-bit computers. This speed combined with its use of the ASCII character set and XModem file transfer protocol rather than PETSCII and the Commodore-specific Punter protocol sometimes led users to believe that they were calling a BBS running on a much larger and faster computer.
ZTerm is a shareware terminal emulator for Macintosh operating system. It was introduced in 1992 for System 7 and has been updated to run on macOS. Its name comes from its use of the ZModem file transfer protocol, which ZTerm implemented in a particularly high-performance package. In contrast to the built-in macOS Terminal app, which only communicates with other programs, ZTerm only communicates with hardware serial ports.
GT Power is a bulletin board system (BBS) and dial-up telecommunications/terminal application for MS-DOS. It was first introduced in the 1980s by P & M Software, founded by Paul Meiners. GT Power can be used both to host a BBS as well as to connect to other BBS systems via its full-featured dial-up "terminal mode". GT Power was a shareware package that required a registration fee in order to access its proprietary network mail transport/handling software and, by default, the GT Power Network. The software is distributed in two "flavors": a terminal-only version, nicknamed GTO, and the full-featured host and terminal version.
