Bulletin Board System

Current Status: UP (2024-12-13)

Back in the early 1980's, I used to run a BBS (bulletin board system) on my Commodore computer. I initially started out with a VIC-20, and eventually moved up to a Commodore 64, and then ultimately IBM-compatible computers. I ran a BBS on all those platforms from 1983 up until 1993. I was also the sysop (system operator) for the Microsoft Canada BBS in the early 1990s, which had a bank of 32 high speed modems!

A bulletin board system is a program that runs on a computer server, and it allows users to dial into the system to read bulletins, send and receive messages, and upload and download files. They were quite common back in the 80s and early 90s and were essentially the precursor to the Internet.

I still run a BBS to this day on a Commodore VIC-20. It's called (of course) The DeepSkies BBS. You can access it over the Internet at:

bbs.deepskies.com:6400

You can use a real Commodore computer (VIC-20, C64, C128, etc) and a WiFi modem, or you can use an emulator like the VICE emulator, or you can use a piece of software such as MuffinTerm, SyncTerm or CGTerm.

Screenshot of the DeepSkies BBS

The software that runs the BBS is my own custom BBS program called VIC-BBS v1.0. It runs on an actual Commodore VIC-20, and uses a VIC-1011A RS-232 adapter to talk to a small Linux server that acts as the "modem". The BBS works fine with real Commodore modems as well.

In addition, the VIC has a 35K RAM expander in it to allow both the large BASIC program to run as well as the machine language input/output routines. A VIC-2407 cartridge houses the RAM expansion as well as a real time clock (RTC12885/87) provided by Jaystonian’s Retro Wares. This allows the VIC and the BBS to keep track of the time and date accurately (a task the VIC cannot do on its own). Storage for the BBS is provided by an SD2IDE drive using a 64GB SD card.

Links to Hardware:

SD2IEC Drive: https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/828193032/ (8bitphoenix)
VIC-1011A Adapter: https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1124333824/ (HALsFriends)
VIC-2407 35K + RTC: {link coming!} (JaystoniansRetroShop)
VIC-20 Power Supply: https://portcommodore.com/rcarlsen/customPS.html (Ray Carlsen)

Links to Software:

VIC-BBS v1.0: https://github.com/RickT137/VIC-BBS (RickT137)
tcpser: https://github.com/go4retro/tcpser (go4retro)

If you have any questions about my board or about BBSing in general, feel free to send me an email to [email protected].