Just wonding if anyone has any insight on dos bbs software popularity back in the 1990s. I know BBS software could be split into categories ranging from hobby to commercial and due to the fact its 2025 numbers wont really be available. That said, its a fun topic. I remember some rage posts (fido) back in the day on what BBS software was best/most used/etc <g>.

I used Spitfire bbs back then. It was in the categorie of Hobby and was only $85 for any amount of nodes you could get it to run on. Mike Woltz was the owner/programmer and once a year he would publish Spitfire Registered Stats in
his Newsletter. The following is Spitfire BBS reg stats for the of 1994. I think Spitfire did pretty good.. Thoughts?

I still have some of the old GT Power nodelists around somewhere so I could probably track its use somewhat, if I wanted to.

Where I lived, you could dial into GT Power, PC Board, WWIV, C-NET,
Wildcat, and a couple of other one-offs. One board I called a lot ran RBBS until he switched to GT Power. Another ran some software on a Coco system
that I don't remember the name of, and I never saw it anywhere else.
Another system, called Track 68000, also ran something unique on what I
think was non-PC clone hardware.

The local library BBS, and a few others, ran Opus or clones. There were *a lot* of part-time CNET boards... some would come and go and others were
around for a while.

Telegard and Renegade both seemed to be popular a little later, not long
before I moved out of that area. Major and Maximus maybe, too.

I don't remember visiting a Spitfire BBS, but that doesn't mean there were none.


* SLMR 2.1a * "We use language??" - Beavis
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þ Synchronet þ CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP

If Spitfire BBS can be telnet accessible, I'm sure TAG can :) SF is not fossil
aware and it has a date bug that hit on 1-1-2025. I got it working with Linux win7 VM > Spitfire using NetSerial.

Woohoo! > https://x-bit.org/32bit.html

I still have my old GT Power board running. It is not telnet aware but I
was able to get it working under linux > haproxy > DOSBox-X.

Before that, it was working under linux > haproxy > tty0tty > tcpser >
dosemu. Actually, one node still runs using that. ;)

GT Power is real picky about the serial port and will barf on other
emulators because they are not "hardware like" enough. It is also not
fossil aware but will usually work with one. If it will run and
be telnet aware, I figure just about any DOS BBS software ought to work.


* SLMR 2.1a * Southern Serves the South
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þ Synchronet þ CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP

Re: 90s bbs software populari
By: Dumas Walker to XBIT on Fri Jul 04 2025 08:56 am

I still have my old GT Power board running. It is not telnet aware but I was able to get it working under linux > haproxy > DOSBox-X.

I still have my old Atari 8bit BBS running that first went online in 1984. It went online on the internet in 1999 running on a PC using the Altirra Atari 8bit emulator.

It is also accessible thru a phone line (thanks to Rob's Sexpots) although it is VOIP and may be a bit flaky.

bfbbs.no-ip.com:8888

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