WWIV
Encyclopedia
WWIV was a popular brand of bulletin board system
software from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. The modifiable source code allowed a sysop
to customize the main BBS program for their particular needs and aesthetics. WWIV also allowed tens of thousands of BBSes to link together, forming a worldwide proprietary computer network
, the WWIVnet
, similar to FidoNet
, but with fewer problems related to forum management.
, run by Wayne Bell, who wrote the original 1.0 version in BASIC
as a high school programing project, and shared the software with 25 of his friends.
As the popularity of WWIV spread in the mid-1980s, for practical reasons Bell switched to Pascal
— specifically Borland
's Turbo Pascal
2.0 — creating a compiled version of the BBS but distributing the source code
for it to anyone who was interested in their own BBS. This encouraged sysops to develop new features for WWIV, and these ideas were released as "mods" that others could add to their own copies.
Shortly after releasing the 2.0 version, Borland updated the compiler to the 3.0 and 3.1 versions; WWIV's versions were revised to reflect the compiler versions. One of Turbo Pascal's strong features was the ability to easily "chain
" sub-programs and external modules into memory only as required; as the average available RAM for a program to load and run in MS-DOS
was 384 kilobyte
s, this became a very important feature. "Chaining" allowed for online games and other utilities to be used with WWIV without having to add the new source code for the game and then recompiling the entire BBS again. These programs — referred to as "chains" or "doors"
— became very popular.
4.0 and changed the structure of how compiled programs behaved — which made "chained" sub-programs such as the popular game Trade Wars II and Geopolitik impossible to run — Bell switched to Borland C++
, which allowed for remote shell operations and easy porting of the old games and utilities written for the Pascal versions. Until WWIV version 5.x, WWIV was written in C
. For the open source
release, WWIV was converted to C++.
Bell also modified the base source so that multiple instances of the BBS could be running on the same system, with nonconflicting access to the various user databases. This was done to not only allow multiple-line BBSs to exist using WWIV, but to allow all WWIV sysops to access their own BBS without having to wait for a user to log off and/or be rude and kick them off. One other side-effect of the multi-line capability was that IBM
's OS/2
— specifically the Warp version — became a popular choice for some WWIV sysops, as the default two instance configuration could easily run under the most basic OS/2 system with ease. In the BBS world, WWIV was referred to sometimes as the "only killer app for OS/2, and it wasn't even written for it!". WWIV did run well even in Microsoft Windows
, though — often better than Windows-native BBSs —because DOS applications ran preemptively, even with Windows 3.1. WWIV also ran well under Quarterdesk's DESQview
and DESQVIEW/X multitasking shells.
The switch to C also allowed for Bell to implement a rather flexible BBS network, WWIVnet
, allowing all WWIV boards to link to each other. Bell also took the opportunity to try and make some small amount of money back for his efforts. Starting with the C version, those who paid a registration fee, as high as $80 in 1994, received copies of the source code to modify and recompile. The ability to modify WWIV as a sysop saw fit was one of its selling points — something that RBBS
, Opus
, Genesis, and many of the other BBS programs of the era refused to provide, usually on the basis of the perceived security risk. Nevertheless, source code availability was not lost on the thousands of WWIV sysops, who had begun to regard Bell as a cross between a father figure and a revolutionary. Registration also was required for membership in WWIVnet, which encouraged the growth of alternative WWIV-based networks.
This also generated a subculture of unregistered WWIV boards, which at its peak represented a multiple of the number of officially registered boards, and even passed around pirate copies of the source code, as well as forming their own networks.
, which soon connected thousands of boards together into a network spread across several nations. Boards in a WWIV network are identified within the network by a node number. Local e-mail within a board was sent by sending a message to a BBS user's user number (the sysop always being user 1). However, to e-mail a user at another board within a WWIV network, the @ sign would be added (similar to an internet e-mail address), followed by the node number. In the case of WWIVnet, node number 1 was a WWIV BBS named Amber, the BBS run by Wayne Bell in the South Bay
region of Los Angeles County, California
. The e-mail address 1@1 on the WWIVnet belonged to him. The Dragon's Den, another important node of the WWIVnet BBS network (@5252), was operated in Austin, Texas
by Wig De Moville (a.k.a. "Filo"), who assumed the position of administering the sales of the WWIV source code.
Wayne Bell wrote and released the "Net30" program which made the joining of WWIV bulletin board systems possible, which was not freely available. WWIVlink was the next WWIV-based BBS network to be created that did not require the member BBS systems to be registered. As versions of WWIV became available that would support WWIV-networking "plugins," there were suddenly dozens of new WWIV networks such as IceNET (run by Jim Nunn in Buffalo, New York
), FILEnet (run by Dennis Myers in Richmond, Virginia
) and WWIVlink, TerraNET (run by Cris McRae), EliteLink, ChaosNET (centered around Jacksonville, Florida
), and TriNet around Washington DC. It soon became very common for systems to be members of multiple networks. One drawback of being a part of multiple networks was that in order to transfer your mail packets for each network, separate calls were necessary. One system operator named Jayson Cowan developed a program called Linker that combined those packets into one that would be routed properly on the receiving system. The receiving system had to be configured to accept those network packets and agree to have their system process them. Linker played an integral part of increasing the popularity of systems being on more than one WWIV based network.
As the Internet began to rise in popularity and availability a new method of packaging WWIV messages for transport by internet email was developed. The test network (PPPnet) was a great success. It later was merged into FILEnet, which provided for the transfer of large files between systems. The merged FILEnet shortly became the backbone for WWIV-based network traffic over the Internet, eliminating costly long distance calls as well as the need for Linker.
At their peaks, the large WWIV-based networks each had:
–FidoNet
gateways that allowed some interconnectivity between the two traditionally hostile networks. Similar WWIVnet gateways even allowed messages to be sent to and from standard Internet email addresses and USENET
newsgroups by means of the UUCP
protocol.
Thanks to the network implementation, WWIV sysops and their users worldwide became united to one another much in the same way forum communities exist on the Internet today. This camaraderie gave rise to WWIVCons, annual meetings where sysops and users of WWIV boards met in some central, real-life location to share stories, discuss the future of BBSing, and even hang one or two infamous sysops in effigy. It gave everyone a chance to see just what the person on the other side of the screen actually looked like in a day when GUIs and browsers with tons of pictures available at a click simply hadn't been invented yet.
administrators were quoted on several occasions that they firmly believed that running a WWIV board meant that you were probably running a "pirate" or "hacker" BBS, and that no WWIV BBS should be allowed access to FidoNet. This would lead to Bell's creation of WWIVnet
in 1987, which at its peak, was the world's largest proprietary BBS network, and while the total number of systems never exceeded 1600, the sheer amount of traffic passed over the network was almost double that of FidoNet for almost a two year period between 1991 and 1993.
, written by Roland DeGraaf in 1990 using QuickBASIC
, contained a WWIV-type interface and networking that was compatible with WWIVnet. Early versions of VBBS listed features such as "WWIV Compatible" and "Can be run as a door from WWIV BBS." Telegard
and Renegade
BBS packages were heavily based on an older version of WWIV source code. WWIV was ported to the Apple Macintosh by Terry Teague and later a WWIV clone for the Macintosh named Hermes
was written by Frank Price.
and the Internet, WWIV and other popular software still exist and are supported today. One popular WWIV support site is owned by Frank Reid, who runs Eagle's Dare BBS near Washington, DC.
The current 5.0 release has enhanced Internet gateway capabilities such as telnet accessibility, and other modern features.
WWIV is now owned by Dean Nash aka Trader Jack; his BBS is at [telnet://bbs.wwiv.com bbs.wwiv.com].
WWIV uses the Synchronet
FOSSIL
driver and is released under the Apache Software License.
Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
software from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. The modifiable source code allowed a sysop
SysOp
A sysop is an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system or an online service virtual community. It may also be used to refer to administrators of other Internet-based network services....
to customize the main BBS program for their particular needs and aesthetics. WWIV also allowed tens of thousands of BBSes to link together, forming a worldwide proprietary computer network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
, the WWIVnet
WWIVnet
WWIVnet was a Bulletin board system network for WWIV-based BBSes. It was created by Wayne Bell on December 1, 1987.-Network layout:WWIVnet consisted of several participating BBSes, each referenced by a unique number called a node number. Originally, WWIVnet nodes were numbered by area code...
, similar to FidoNet
FidoNet
FidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems. It was most popular in the early to mid 1990s, prior to the introduction of easy and affordable access to the Internet...
, but with fewer problems related to forum management.
Origins
WWIV started out in early 1984 as a single BBS in Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, run by Wayne Bell, who wrote the original 1.0 version in BASIC
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
as a high school programing project, and shared the software with 25 of his friends.
As the popularity of WWIV spread in the mid-1980s, for practical reasons Bell switched to Pascal
Pascal (programming language)
Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal...
— specifically Borland
Borland
Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...
's Turbo Pascal
Turbo Pascal
Turbo Pascal is a software development system that includes a compiler and an integrated development environment for the Pascal programming language running on CP/M, CP/M-86, and DOS, developed by Borland under Philippe Kahn's leadership...
2.0 — creating a compiled version of the BBS but distributing the source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
for it to anyone who was interested in their own BBS. This encouraged sysops to develop new features for WWIV, and these ideas were released as "mods" that others could add to their own copies.
Shortly after releasing the 2.0 version, Borland updated the compiler to the 3.0 and 3.1 versions; WWIV's versions were revised to reflect the compiler versions. One of Turbo Pascal's strong features was the ability to easily "chain
Chain loading
Chain loading is a method used by computer programs to replace the currently executing program with a new program, using a common data area to pass information from the current program to the new program. It occurs in several areas of computing.Chain loading is similar to the use of overlays...
" sub-programs and external modules into memory only as required; as the average available RAM for a program to load and run in MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
was 384 kilobyte
Kilobyte
The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...
s, this became a very important feature. "Chaining" allowed for online games and other utilities to be used with WWIV without having to add the new source code for the game and then recompiling the entire BBS again. These programs — referred to as "chains" or "doors"
BBS door
A door is a computer program, on a bulletin board system, that runs outside of the main bulletin board program. Sometimes called external programs, doors are the most common way to add games, utilities, and other extensions to BBSes. From the 1990s on, most BBS software had the capability to...
— became very popular.
The switch To C++
After Borland released Turbo PascalTurbo Pascal
Turbo Pascal is a software development system that includes a compiler and an integrated development environment for the Pascal programming language running on CP/M, CP/M-86, and DOS, developed by Borland under Philippe Kahn's leadership...
4.0 and changed the structure of how compiled programs behaved — which made "chained" sub-programs such as the popular game Trade Wars II and Geopolitik impossible to run — Bell switched to Borland C++
Borland C++
Borland C++ is a C and C++ programming environment for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. It was the successor to Turbo C++, and included a better debugger, the Turbo Debugger, which was written in protected mode DOS....
, which allowed for remote shell operations and easy porting of the old games and utilities written for the Pascal versions. Until WWIV version 5.x, WWIV was written in C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
. For the open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
release, WWIV was converted to C++.
Bell also modified the base source so that multiple instances of the BBS could be running on the same system, with nonconflicting access to the various user databases. This was done to not only allow multiple-line BBSs to exist using WWIV, but to allow all WWIV sysops to access their own BBS without having to wait for a user to log off and/or be rude and kick them off. One other side-effect of the multi-line capability was that IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
's OS/2
OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
— specifically the Warp version — became a popular choice for some WWIV sysops, as the default two instance configuration could easily run under the most basic OS/2 system with ease. In the BBS world, WWIV was referred to sometimes as the "only killer app for OS/2, and it wasn't even written for it!". WWIV did run well even in Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, though — often better than Windows-native BBSs —because DOS applications ran preemptively, even with Windows 3.1. WWIV also ran well under Quarterdesk's DESQview
DESQview
DESQview was a text mode multitasking program developed by Quarterdeck Office Systems which enjoyed modest popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s...
and DESQVIEW/X multitasking shells.
The switch to C also allowed for Bell to implement a rather flexible BBS network, WWIVnet
WWIVnet
WWIVnet was a Bulletin board system network for WWIV-based BBSes. It was created by Wayne Bell on December 1, 1987.-Network layout:WWIVnet consisted of several participating BBSes, each referenced by a unique number called a node number. Originally, WWIVnet nodes were numbered by area code...
, allowing all WWIV boards to link to each other. Bell also took the opportunity to try and make some small amount of money back for his efforts. Starting with the C version, those who paid a registration fee, as high as $80 in 1994, received copies of the source code to modify and recompile. The ability to modify WWIV as a sysop saw fit was one of its selling points — something that RBBS
RBBS-PC
RBBS-PC was a public domain, open source BBS software program. It was written entirely in QuickBASIC by a large team of people, starting with Russell Lane and then later enhanced by Tom Mack and including Ken Goosens and others.It supported messaging conferences, questionnaires, doors RBBS-PC...
, Opus
Opus-CBCS
The Opus Computer Based Conversation System was a Fidonet Bulletin Board System.Originally developed by Wynn Wagner III in 1985, Opus was one of the leading Bulletin Board Systems during the late 1980s and early 1990s....
, Genesis, and many of the other BBS programs of the era refused to provide, usually on the basis of the perceived security risk. Nevertheless, source code availability was not lost on the thousands of WWIV sysops, who had begun to regard Bell as a cross between a father figure and a revolutionary. Registration also was required for membership in WWIVnet, which encouraged the growth of alternative WWIV-based networks.
This also generated a subculture of unregistered WWIV boards, which at its peak represented a multiple of the number of officially registered boards, and even passed around pirate copies of the source code, as well as forming their own networks.
The rise of WWIVnet
Registration also provided permission to link to the main network, WWIVnetWWIVnet
WWIVnet was a Bulletin board system network for WWIV-based BBSes. It was created by Wayne Bell on December 1, 1987.-Network layout:WWIVnet consisted of several participating BBSes, each referenced by a unique number called a node number. Originally, WWIVnet nodes were numbered by area code...
, which soon connected thousands of boards together into a network spread across several nations. Boards in a WWIV network are identified within the network by a node number. Local e-mail within a board was sent by sending a message to a BBS user's user number (the sysop always being user 1). However, to e-mail a user at another board within a WWIV network, the @ sign would be added (similar to an internet e-mail address), followed by the node number. In the case of WWIVnet, node number 1 was a WWIV BBS named Amber, the BBS run by Wayne Bell in the South Bay
South Bay, Los Angeles
The South Bay is a region of the southwest peninsula of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The name stems from its geographic features stretching along the southern shores of Santa Monica Bay which forms its western border.The picture at right uses the broadest definition of the...
region of Los Angeles County, California
Los Angeles County, California
Los Angeles County is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 9,818,605, making it the most populous county in the United States. Los Angeles County alone is more populous than 42 individual U.S. states...
. The e-mail address 1@1 on the WWIVnet belonged to him. The Dragon's Den, another important node of the WWIVnet BBS network (@5252), was operated in Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
by Wig De Moville (a.k.a. "Filo"), who assumed the position of administering the sales of the WWIV source code.
Wayne Bell wrote and released the "Net30" program which made the joining of WWIV bulletin board systems possible, which was not freely available. WWIVlink was the next WWIV-based BBS network to be created that did not require the member BBS systems to be registered. As versions of WWIV became available that would support WWIV-networking "plugins," there were suddenly dozens of new WWIV networks such as IceNET (run by Jim Nunn in Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
), FILEnet (run by Dennis Myers in Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
) and WWIVlink, TerraNET (run by Cris McRae), EliteLink, ChaosNET (centered around Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
), and TriNet around Washington DC. It soon became very common for systems to be members of multiple networks. One drawback of being a part of multiple networks was that in order to transfer your mail packets for each network, separate calls were necessary. One system operator named Jayson Cowan developed a program called Linker that combined those packets into one that would be routed properly on the receiving system. The receiving system had to be configured to accept those network packets and agree to have their system process them. Linker played an integral part of increasing the popularity of systems being on more than one WWIV based network.
As the Internet began to rise in popularity and availability a new method of packaging WWIV messages for transport by internet email was developed. The test network (PPPnet) was a great success. It later was merged into FILEnet, which provided for the transfer of large files between systems. The merged FILEnet shortly became the backbone for WWIV-based network traffic over the Internet, eliminating costly long distance calls as well as the need for Linker.
At their peaks, the large WWIV-based networks each had:
- WWIVnetWWIVnetWWIVnet was a Bulletin board system network for WWIV-based BBSes. It was created by Wayne Bell on December 1, 1987.-Network layout:WWIVnet consisted of several participating BBSes, each referenced by a unique number called a node number. Originally, WWIVnet nodes were numbered by area code...
, 1700 systems - IceNET, 850 systems
- WWIVlink, 675 systems
- TerraNET, 470 systems
Gateways to non-WWIV computer networks
As the WWIV software continued to be improved, and more third-party software was being developed for the BBS system, new gateways systems were set up. Most notably, WWIVnetWWIVnet
WWIVnet was a Bulletin board system network for WWIV-based BBSes. It was created by Wayne Bell on December 1, 1987.-Network layout:WWIVnet consisted of several participating BBSes, each referenced by a unique number called a node number. Originally, WWIVnet nodes were numbered by area code...
–FidoNet
FidoNet
FidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems. It was most popular in the early to mid 1990s, prior to the introduction of easy and affordable access to the Internet...
gateways that allowed some interconnectivity between the two traditionally hostile networks. Similar WWIVnet gateways even allowed messages to be sent to and from standard Internet email addresses and USENET
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroups by means of the UUCP
UUCP
UUCP is an abbreviation for Unix-to-Unix Copy. The term generally refers to a suite of computer programs and protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of files, email and netnews between computers. Specifically, a command named uucp is one of the programs in the suite; it...
protocol.
Thanks to the network implementation, WWIV sysops and their users worldwide became united to one another much in the same way forum communities exist on the Internet today. This camaraderie gave rise to WWIVCons, annual meetings where sysops and users of WWIV boards met in some central, real-life location to share stories, discuss the future of BBSing, and even hang one or two infamous sysops in effigy. It gave everyone a chance to see just what the person on the other side of the screen actually looked like in a day when GUIs and browsers with tons of pictures available at a click simply hadn't been invented yet.
WWIV vs Fido: controversies and BBS wars
Despite its popularity, WWIV wasn't without its share of controversy. To quite a few non-WWIV sysops, using WWIV was a sign of rebellion against the status quo; in fact, several key FidoNetFidoNet
FidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems. It was most popular in the early to mid 1990s, prior to the introduction of easy and affordable access to the Internet...
administrators were quoted on several occasions that they firmly believed that running a WWIV board meant that you were probably running a "pirate" or "hacker" BBS, and that no WWIV BBS should be allowed access to FidoNet. This would lead to Bell's creation of WWIVnet
WWIVnet
WWIVnet was a Bulletin board system network for WWIV-based BBSes. It was created by Wayne Bell on December 1, 1987.-Network layout:WWIVnet consisted of several participating BBSes, each referenced by a unique number called a node number. Originally, WWIVnet nodes were numbered by area code...
in 1987, which at its peak, was the world's largest proprietary BBS network, and while the total number of systems never exceeded 1600, the sheer amount of traffic passed over the network was almost double that of FidoNet for almost a two year period between 1991 and 1993.
Influences
Due to its popularity, WWIV influenced later BBS programs. VBBSVirtual Advanced
VBBS is an acronym for Virtual Bulletin Board System. It was a shareware bulletin board system for DOS that was conceived by Roland De Graaf in 1990. Written from scratch in QuickBASIC, it developed a loyal following. Originally it was a door for WWIV, but quickly grew into an original BBS...
, written by Roland DeGraaf in 1990 using QuickBASIC
QuickBASIC
Microsoft QuickBASIC is an Integrated Development Environment and compiler for the BASIC programming language that was developed by Microsoft. QuickBASIC runs mainly on DOS, though there was a short-lived version for Mac OS...
, contained a WWIV-type interface and networking that was compatible with WWIVnet. Early versions of VBBS listed features such as "WWIV Compatible" and "Can be run as a door from WWIV BBS." Telegard
Telegard
Telegard is an early bulletin board system software program written for IBM PC-compatible computers running MS-DOS and OS/2. Telegard was written in Pascal with routines written in C++ and assembly language, based on a copy of the WWIV source code....
and Renegade
Renegade (BBS)
Renegade is a freeware bulletin board system written for IBM PC-compatible computers running MS-DOS that gained popularity among hobbyist BBSes in the early to mid 1990s...
BBS packages were heavily based on an older version of WWIV source code. WWIV was ported to the Apple Macintosh by Terry Teague and later a WWIV clone for the Macintosh named Hermes
Hermes (BBS)
Hermes Bulletin Board Software was first released in 1989 as one of the early bulletin board system applications available for the Macintosh computer....
was written by Frank Price.
Current status
Although BBSes have been eclipsed by the World Wide WebWorld Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
and the Internet, WWIV and other popular software still exist and are supported today. One popular WWIV support site is owned by Frank Reid, who runs Eagle's Dare BBS near Washington, DC.
The current 5.0 release has enhanced Internet gateway capabilities such as telnet accessibility, and other modern features.
WWIV is now owned by Dean Nash aka Trader Jack; his BBS is at [telnet://bbs.wwiv.com bbs.wwiv.com].
WWIV uses the Synchronet
Synchronet
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 has been dropped in recent versions.-History:...
FOSSIL
FOSSIL
FOSSIL is a standard protocol for allowing serial communication for telecommunications programs under the DOS operating system. FOSSIL is an acronym for Fido Opus SEAdog Standard Interface Layer. Fido refers to FidoBBS, Opus refers to Opus-CBCS BBS, and SEAdog refers to a Fidonet compatible mailer...
driver and is released under the Apache Software License.
External links
- Official WWIV Sourceforge Website
- download latest binaries/source
- Eagle's Dare (BBS running WWIV) Website
- Porting WWIV 4.23 to FreeBSD UNIX Experimental port of WWIV to the FreeBSD operating system
- WWIVNews archive at Textfiles