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6
So you want to start a BBS? Page 1
So You Want to Start a BBS?
by Jerry Shifrin
SYSOP, East Coast Forth Board
703-442-8695, McLean, VA
May 23, 1987
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 2
1 Introduction
I was asked about starting a BBS. Rather than give a short,
private response, I thought I'd take the time to provide a more
detailed description.
First of all, it's almost impossible to overestimate the time
needed to run a good BBS. A lot of time is spent on adminis-
trative BS. Then there's the time you spend on managing files -
which to keep, which to review/plug, which to trash. The largest
chunk of time is spent on messages - answering questions (like
this one), helping new callers, moderating threads and
conferences, etc.
In this paper I'll attempt to give you some idea of what you're
letting yourself in for, but I'll probably overlook some of the
areas which you'll need to know about. Don't worry, SYSOPs as a
breed are very helpful and most will be happy to help you out
with any other problems you run into. Feel free to ask your
favorite SYSOP for help in any area.
Since I use PCBoard (from Clark Development Company, Inc., P. O.
Box 71365, Murray, Utah, 84107, 801-964-6692 (voice)), some of
the following discussion is specific to that system, but most of
the areas will be similar for whichever system you select.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 3
2 What's in it for me?
The first question you should ask yourself is "why am I thinking
about doing this?" Hopefully it's not to make money. You will
surely end up paying more in terms of hardware, software,
supplies, and telephone charges than you will ever take in from
user donations. At best, you can hope to recover your operating
expenses, but you should really write off your original outlay
for equipment.
Well, what else can you expect? Lots. If you provide a high-
quality service and attract a good set of users, you will benefit
from it in several ways:
1. Software - good users will reciprocate for their
download activities by uploading other software they've
come across while cruising the boards. Of course,
you'll get a lot of junk, but you'll also get a number
of good packages you'll enjoy using.
2. Information - BBS's have become the best place to share
information about new hardware, software, vendors,
books, etc. They are also the best place to get help
with hardware or software problems. The spirit of
sharing or, as the Capitol PC User's Group likes to
describe it, "users helping users" is alive and
thriving on the bulletin boards.
3. Friends and business contacts - it's not unusual for
casual conversations on bulletin boards to develop into
friendships, business arrangements, and sometimes even
marriages.
4. Karma - call it what you like, but by offering a good
bulletin board service, you're giving something back to
the community which helped you along with free soft-
ware, advice, etc. Without getting mystical about it, I
firmly believe that there is a balance to the universe,
or as the Beatles said, "the love you take is equal to
the love you make." Or call it the Golden Rule.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 4
3 Hardware
Well, let's go over some of this in a bit of detail. First of
all, hardware. Naturally, you need at least a PC, monitor, hard
disk, and modem. Don't assume you can just run the BBS when
you're not using it - you really have to dedicate the hardware to
the bulletin board, otherwise both you and your callers will get
frustrated at the intermittent system availability.
You really need at least a 20 megabyte hard disk. Your BBS
software, utilities, message files and logs will easily consume
4-5 megs. You'll be surprised at how quickly the rest of it fills
up with files for downloading. A larger disk minimizes the
frequency of required maintenance cycles. (about $400 with
controller card).
I prefer a monochrome monitor. Since your system will mostly be
showing text data, you'll find a monochrome monitor easier on
your eyes as well as being less expensive (about $100-150).
Of course, you need another PC for your own usage and for BBS
maintenance. One alternative is to run on an AT class machine
with two partitions (DoubleDOS, Taskview, or Desqview) and two
monitors, but you should realize that having this type of
complicated operating environment is much more fragile and will
fail with certain ill-behaved software.
I find it helpful to have both computers connected to a single
printer via a printer switch (about $30-40). This allows me to
print out some of the longer messages and refer to this listing
when composing a response on the other computer.
Obviously you also need a second phone line. It's helpful to also
have a second modem - this way you can test changes to the board
(e.g. doors, new BBS releases, utilities) without having to wait
for someone to call in and try things out.
I would suggest that for the BBS, you get the best modem you can
afford. Many of the inexpensive modems which promise Hayes
compatibility, really are not fully compatible and may not
operate correctly when used for a BBS. Additionally, the more
expensive modems have better equalization circuitry which will
give your callers cleaner connections. Also, consider getting at
least a 2400 bps modem - your users with faster modems will
appreciate the greater throughput. I really can't recommend that
you shell out for a 9600 bps modem yet - there are just too many
incompatibilities among the high-speed modem vendors.
You should probably consider adding an EMS card eventually.
Whether you use it as a RAM disk or disk cache, it will provide a
dramatic increase in system performance and save wear and tear on
your hard disk.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 5
Oh yeah, you need disks -- lots of disks. You should have at
least two sets of backup disks and alternate between them. Also,
you'll want to periodically move some things offline: outdated or
low-usage files, older messages, caller logs, etc. Naturally you
could just trash this stuff, but I find it occasionally helpful
to keep them available for reference.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 6
4 Utility software
While none of this is required, you'll find that having the right
tools will ease your workload and improve your system
performance. For most of these there are public domain or
shareware alternatives. In general, I prefer the commercial
packages - you will be using these a lot and for most of them
will require reasonable support and updates.
1. Backup utility - unless you can afford a tape drive
($500-1000), you really need a backup utility. I prefer
Fastback (about $100). Another alternative is the DOS
BACKUP program, but you'll find Fastback to be faster,
more reliable, easier to use for both backup and
restore, and able to put more data on a single floppy.
Even if you can afford a tape drive, you might want to
consider adding a second hard disk instead (about $300
assuming you put both disks on a single controller) and
use it strictly for backups. This is a lot faster, but
not quite as reliable since a huge power surge could
easily wipe out both disks (not to mention a fire).
2. Cache utility - whether you have an EMS card or not, a
cache utility will add a good deal to the performance
of your system, especially with an EMS card. I use
Vcache from Golden Bow Software (about $50). Other
choices are Lightening and a few shareware offerings.
3. Disk organizer - with all of the disk activity to
message bases, system logs, files, etc., eventually
your hard disks will become hopelessly fragmented,
increasing your system overhead. A disk organizer will
defragment your files, minimizing disk arm movement. I
use Vopt from Golden Bow Software (about $50). Other
choices are the shareware program DOG and a program
from Softlogic (whose name escapes me at the moment).
4. Disk Maintenance utility - considering that your system
will be running night and day for months on end without
interruption (hopefully), eventually you will have some
disk problems. The right maintenance utility can some-
times save you from having to do a full disk restore. I
use PCTOOLS from Central Point Software (about $30),
but a better choice might be the Mace Utilities (about
$100). Another possibility is the Norton Utilities.
5. Editors - I'm sure you have your own favorites here, so
whatever I say will be ignored, but I would suggest
that you need two different editors - a full-function
wordprocessor for composing lengthy messages,
bulletins, etc. and a quick little editor for making
little fixes to directories, configuration files, etc.
I use Framework II from Ashton-Tate (about $400) for
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 7
the large stuff and QEDIT, shareware from Sammy Mitchel
($35) for all the little things. The nice thing about
QEDIT is that it's real fast and doesn't require any
other files for its operation. Also you can configure
it to be similar to whatever other editor you're
comfortable with. Of course, there are hundreds of
alternatives.
I'd really suggest that you not stint on these tools. It's like
working on a car -- the right tool can turn a difficult task into a
real breeze, and the less time you spend on maintenance the better.
You'll have plenty of other things which will consume your time.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 8
5 Selecting a BBS package
OK, we have the hardware, the phone line, and the utilities. Next
we need to choose some BBS software. Assuming you're running an
IBM PC or clone you have three main choices along with a number
of less common alternatives.
Tom Mack's RBBS-PC is the grandaddy of PC BBS's. It has numerous
add-ons (utilities, doors), and may be the widest used (with
PCBoard nipping at its heels). It's semi-public domain (free, no
donation requested, but copyrighted). It suffers from the lack of
control over its operation - most RBBS systems will differ in
details of their operation and every caller has to learn each
board's individual operation.
FIDO is another widely used system and it features the ability to
have national and international messages, conferences, and file
transfer. Within each region there is a designated gateway node
and all of the FIDO boards will contact their gateways in the
middle of the night for message and file transfer. On the
negative side, FIDO is slow and suffers from, I think, an awkward
user interface. FIDO is also distributed as public domain (or
share-ware, I forget).
I use and (naturally) recommend PCBoard. It's considerably faster
than the above two boards, features a simpler, single-level user
interface. Also, to the best of my (limited) understanding it is
much simpler to operate from the SYSOP's point of view than the
other two. PCBoard is sold as a commercial product, costing
between $100-200 depending on features (doors or networking
support). For that price you also get some incredibly useful
utilities and a year's maintenance via the authors' BBS ($50 for
each following year). I can categorically state that the authors
provide great support. My questions are answered quickly and my
suggestions often show up as features in the next release. Also,
Clark Development releases improved versions of PCBoard about
every two or three months.
I think it's somewhat like paying for the right tools. If PCBoard
makes it easier to run your system, then the money you've paid
will quickly be recovered in terms of your time-savings. Also,
considering that this will account for 99% of your system usage,
it's a small component of the total cost.
All three of these packages have been around for a few years and
show no signs of becoming unsupported orphans.
Aside from these three there are several less-widely used
alternatives - DBBS, Collie, Wildcat, and others, but I'm afraid
I can't offer too much information on these (except that DBBS is
real fast).
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 9
Since I really can't discuss the others, I'll assume you've
chosen PCBoard, though most of what follows applies to every BBS
- you have to deal with callers, files, and messages no matter
what choice you've made.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 10
6 Getting Started
You'll probably find it fairly easy to do the initial BBS setup.
PCBoard comes with a couple of hundred pages of documentation
which explains how to set up your modem, file directories,
conferences, etc. You should be able to get going by just taking
most of the defaults, though as you become familiar with all of
the features you'll eventually want to start customizing things.
I'd suggest avoiding things like doors, graphic displays,
conferences, networks, timed-events, and the like until you
become fairly comfortable with the system's operational
characteristics. Start out small with a few directories and
bulletins until you know where you want to go.
There are a number of files you'll have to create to get going:
1. Welcome message - this is what your caller sees each
time he or she calls your system (though it may be
skipped). You should at least identify your system
here. Some SYSOPs put incredible amounts of energy into
designing flashy displays for these. I don't.
2. New user message - a file which is displayed to every
new caller the first time they logon. This should
provide them with a brief list of rules and let them
know where to go for more information.
3. Level message - a unique file for each level of user
you define for your system: unregistered, bad guy,
registered, participating, contributing, visiting
SYSOP, etc. You should let the user know where they are
and what to do next (answer the questionnaire, upload
files, etc.).
4. News - this is where you may put any daily news
announcements (system going down for maintenance,
important events, etc.).
5. Questionnaire - this file contains a list of questions
which will be asked of your callers if they issue the
[S]cript questionnaire command. Most SYSOPs use this
for caller validation.
6. Bulletins - Here's where you may put all the detail
information you want to make available: rules, helpful
hints, system statistics, honor role of users, etc.
Feel free to use any of the ECFB bulletins (with proper
accreditation) you think worthwhile.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 11
Several of these are optional and there are a few additional files
you may choose to provide: customized menus, additional
questionnaires, goodbye message or questionnaire, additional
versions of these files for each conference, graphics versions of
these, etc.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 12
7 File Directories
Naturally, a fair amount of your caller activity will be
uploading and downloading files (mostly downloading). You should
organize your files in a way which makes sense for your user
community: helpful files for novices, disk utilities,
communications, etc. You will probably find it helpful to set up
a separate directory for each category. There are a number of
utilities around which will help with this. The best of these
come with PCBoard: PCBFiler.
PCBFiler allows you distribute your uploaded files into the
proper directories, maintain file lists, edit file names, file
descriptions, etc. This program is worth the price of PCBoard all
by itself. If you set things up properly you will find your file
maintenance reduced to just a few minutes each week.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 13
8 Decisions, Decisions
You have a number of decisions to make on how you will run your
board. I can't begin to touch the surface of all these, but will
describe a few of them.
1. Open or restricted access? - will you let anyone dial
in and access all of your board's facilities (down-
loads, messages, conferences, doors, etc.)? Or will you
restrict access to those who have registered, answered
a questionnaire, read your bulletins, mailed in a form,
sent you a check, etc.? Many SYSOPs restrict downloads
to those who have answered a questionnaire and been
validated. A few go so far as to personally call each
and every new user and chat with them before granting
full access. I allow limited access until the caller
completes a questionnaire. I apply a "sanity check" on
their information (sometimes calling them if it looks
suspicious) and then grant then full access.
2. Free or pay? - will you accept, request, or demand
payment for use of the board? There are pros and cons
to each of these alternatives. If you accept payments
at all, then you are committing yourself to keeping the
board available and probably allowing your paying
callers to tie up your board without any other parti-
cipation. Is it worth the $20 or so to you to have a
paying caller logon every few days and do nothing but
download? If you demand payment then you may be exclud-
ing people who could possibly enrich your board in
other ways. On the other hand, if your board is totally
free and open, then you may find yourself swamped with
people who do nothing but download.
I would suggest that, until your board is fairly well
established, you not insist on payment. You may wish to
provide incentives for people to contribute money to
your boards operation - special conferences or download
directories, extra time, first crack at new files, etc.
3. Monitor downloads? - Many SYSOPs monitor upload to
download ratios, at least for their non-paying callers.
Typical is requiring at least one upload for each 10 or
20 downloads. A few SYSOPs are tougher, demanding 1:3
or 1:5 ratios. I guess the question is whether you're
doing this in order to collect software or if you're
trying to provide a public service. I'd suggest being
fairly loose about this until you have established a
good reputation for your board.
4. Games and pictures? - If you allow games and graphic
pictures (known as Readmacs, often R-rated) on your
board, then you will certainly get your share of
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 14
immature callers of all ages. On the other hand, games
are a important part of most people's computer usage.
What to do? What to do? Beats me.
5. 300 bps callers? - Many SYSOPs restrict 300 bps callers
since they tend to be in the category of immature
callers and they can't make as efficient use of your
facilities as callers with faster modems. Again, by
doing this you may deprive yourself of good, contribut-
ing callers who happen to lack a faster modem. I allow
300 bps callers on the ECFB, but restrict their down-
loading activities to the wee hours of the morning.
6. Operator page? - Do you want callers to be able to page
you by sounding an alarm on the PC speaker? It's nice
to be helpful to new callers, but I'm amazed at the
number of people who feel free to page you in the
middle of the night. If your PC will be located within
hearing distance of your bedroom, I'd suggest you
disallow the page bell, especially if you're married to
someone like my wife, who's a light sleeper and doesn't
like being awakened.
Well there are hundreds of other decisions you'll have to make to
set up your board, but this should give you some feel for the kind
of stuff you're getting into.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 15
9 Maintenance
9.1 Daily
You really need to check your board at least once a day. At first
this might seem like fun, but after awhile it becomes a bit of a
drag.
1. Message check - you really MUST read (at least scan)
every message on your board. Your standards are your
own, of course, but I'd suggest making sure that no one
is promoting software piracy, phone phreaking, or
whatever else you consider offensive. Some SYSOPs
disallow bad language; I don't feel strongly about
that, but don't want to have anyone leave abusive
messages on the board.
2. Registration - you should promptly register new
callers, especially if you require that they complete a
questionnaire to gain access to your board. It's
discouraging for someone to make several long-distance
calls before they're allowed to read messages or
download files.
3. File check - you should do at least a quick check of
any uploaded files to ensure that people haven't
uploaded commercial software. If possible, you should
verify that the software isn't a "Trojan" or "worm". If
you do this, try out new software on a system without
hard disks (or one on which you can disable the hard
disk). Also, there is some public domain software
around which will attempt to discover or protect you
from such software. Be especially careful with uploads
from people you're not yet familiar with.
4. Respond to questions - your callers will really
appreciate it if you're consistent in replying to their
questions within a day or so. You must be responsive if
you want to attract a good set of callers.
5. Defragment - I'd suggest that you run your defragmenter
(disk optimizer, etc.) daily. It'll surely improve your
overall system performance. I include Vopt as part of
my AUTOEXEC.BAT.
6. Reboot - PCs have gotten a lot more reliable in the
last few years, but I'd still encourage you to reboot
on a daily basis; this way you'll be starting out each
day with a clean slate.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 16
9.2 Weekly
There are several maintenance activities which are needed every
week or so.
1. File maintenance - distribute your uploaded files into
their proper directories. If you use PCBFiler, this
will only take a few minutes. Take the time to verify
that you aren't keeping several copies of the same
program with different names, or that you don't have
out-of-date versions of a package. If you let file
maintenance drag on for a month or so, you will find
yourself faced with an almost insurmountable task.
2. Backups - it's a real drag, but you really should do
full backups on a weekly basis. At the very least, you
should back up your user directory and message bases.
3. Message cleanup - if you have an active message base,
you should probably go though it once a week, deleting
older or irrelevant messages. I usually protect the
non-general interest messages (thank-yous, etc.) so
that they're only visible by the intended recipient.
Your other callers will appreciate not having to sit
through this stuff.
9.3 Monthly
You may need to do these things more or less frequently depending
on your board's activity.
1. User maintenance - eventually your user directory will
have a large number of entries for people who haven't
called in quite a while. They may have lost interest,
moved, or died. It doesn't matter. People who haven't
called in a while should be purged from your user
directory. I give unvalidated users (those who never
completed the questionnaire) 30 days, 90 days for
validated users, and 6 months or longer for those at
higher levels. PCBoard includes SYSOP commands to help
you with this.
Also, you will probably wish to sort your user
directory so that your best callers are at the top of
the file (this will slightly speed up their logons).
PCBoard comes with another excellent utility, PCBEdit,
which lets you sort and edit your user directory.
2. Message base maintenance - you must periodically prune
your message base of outdated or deleted messages.
PCBoard has a maximum limit of 1000 messages per
conference, but the larger the message base, the longer
it will take your users to logon and switch confer-
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 17
ences. Fortunately there is a SYSOP command you can use
to compress your message base. PCBoard will copy only
the active messages to a new file and leave your old
file available as a backup. I compress and save these
backups on floppies.
3. Caller log - PCBoard produces a log of all significant
caller activity (logons, uploads, downloads, messages,
doors, etc.). For an active board this can easily grow
quite large. You should probably start a new log at
least once a month. Also you may wish to run your log
through one of the analysis utilities (see below) which
will create a system usage file you may wish to post as
a bulletin.
4. Full backups - C'mon now - at least once a month! If
you use Fastback it will only take a half-hour (and
40-50 diskettes) for a 20 meg backup.
9.4 More than monthly
Here's a list of other things you'll want (or need) to do on a
periodic basis:
1. Hardware maintenance - especially if you're a smoker,
I'd suggest you give your machine a good cleaning every
so often. I dust or clean all the exposed surfaces.
Also, I vacuum around the keyboard, vents, etc. Clean
your monitor! Dusty or greasy monitors will make it
hard to read.
2. Software upgrades - you'll probably want to take
advantage of the new features in upgrades to PCBoard
and the various utilities. I'd suggest keeping copies
of the previous versions until you've verified the
correct operation of new releases in your environment.
4. Bulletin maintenance - you probably need to go through
your bulletins periodically and verify that they're
still accurate for your system. Of course, you may need
to do this more frequently if you maintain bulletins of
current events, software or magazine reviews, etc.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 18
10 Utilities
There are a number of public-domain or shareware utilities around
which will help you run a high-quality BBS operation. You can
find these on most of the larger BBS's, especially those which
have a SYSOP's conference. I couldn't hope to describe all of the
available utilities (besides, it changes every week), but here's
an idea of the type of stuff currently available.
1. PCBFiler - this one comes with PCBoard and was
described previously. It helps you do file and
directory maintenance in a fraction of the time it
would take you to do it manually. Essential!
2. PCBEdit - also described previously, this is also
distributed as part of PCBoard. It allows you to edit
all of your user directory information. You may also
use this to sort and print your user directory and
adjust their access level based on upload/download
ratios.
3. QNE - a nice little utility from Scott Pazur (of the
Fleamarket BBS which gives you a fast, simple way of
updating your PCBoard news file.
4. Arcvue, ARCDoor, PCBArc - doors which allow your users
to inspect an archived file without having to first
download them. I use Earl Beachler's Arcvue door since
I support non-IBM PC callers and Arcvue allows them to
extract files for subsequent download (in case their
system doesn't support the ARC file format).
5. CALLSTAT - analyzes your caller's log and generates a
file of interesting caller statistics (files most
frequently downloaded, number of callers in various
categories, bulletin/conference/door usage, etc. There
are several utilities which provide this capability.
This is the one I use.
6. PCBMSG, PCBMFIX - allows you to recover a damaged
message base. PCBMFIX also allows you to edit portions
of a message. Since I wrote PCBMSG I'm a bit partial to
it.
7. PCBMT - selectively copies portions of a message base
(based on message number, subject, protection, etc.) to
an ASCII text file. Includes a utility to summarize all
of the message subjects. Written by, ahem, myself. I
use it to create files out of some of the more
interesting message threads.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 19
8. File transfer doors - there are several utilities
around which allow callers to transfer files using
protocols not currently supported by PCBoard (e.g.
Kermit, Zmodem, etc.).
This doesn't begin to touch the surface. There are utilities around
for viewing messages and callers logs, creating databases of your
user's directory info, summarizing your questionnaires, doors for
playing games, etc. It seems that many of the PCBoard SYSOPs are
also programmers and it doesn't take much for them to generate new
utilities based on real or perceived needs.
May 24, 1987
So you want to start a BBS? Page 20
11 Where to go from here
If, after all this, you're still convinced you want to start a
BBS, I'd suggest you first decide which BBS system you'd like to
run. If you don't know, then dial into a number of your local
boards and decide which of these is easiest for you, as a user,
to navigate. Whichever is easiest to use will probably also be
easiest to operate. Performance is also of crucial importance.
It's no fun to pay long-distance charges to use a slow board. The
meter keeps on running, whether or not you're doing anything
useful.
Once you've settled on a system, establish contact with one of
the larger boards in your area of that system. If the board is
public domain or shareware, you'll probably be able to download
it from there. Make sure the SYSOP understands what you're doing
so that he or she will be more forgiving of the large amount of
downloading you're about to do. PCBoard has a demo version
available if you wish to check it out before shelling out your
money. You may find it helpful to experiment with that (but it's
really not suitable for operating an actual BBS).
Now it's up to you! Just remember that a BBS without callers
isn't very worthwhile. Be nice to them -- you'll reap dividends
in the long run. It's up to you to provide an interesting and
entertaining forum for people to visit. The files and messages
are for their benefit, not for yours. Also keep in mind that
every BBS started somewhere -- you'll make mistakes, but if you
work at it, you'll end up with an operation you can be proud of.
Finally, keep in mind that there are hundreds (thousands?) of
other SYSOPs who have already gone through the hassle you've set
out to deal with. The vast majority of these people will be
happy, even eager, to help you along. Feel free to ask them how
they've dealt with the problem with which you're struggling.
You'll be amazed at just how helpful we can be.
May 24, 1987