Excalibur BBS was a

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

-based

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

BBS BBS may refer to: Ammunition * BBs, BB gun metal bullets * BBs, airsoft gun plastic pellets Computing and gaming * Bulletin board system, a computer server users dial into via dial-up or telnet; precursor to the Internet * BIOS Boot Specificat ...

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

developed by Excalibur Communications. Released in 1993, it has not been supported since 1999, when Excalibur Communications ceased operations.

Client Software

Users connected to the BBS by

modem A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...

or over a

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

connection with the Excalibur Client. For its time, the client provided a rich graphical environment allowing users access to

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

, games, music,

message boards An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

, and

web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

like hyperlinked navigation screens. Excalibur provided the platform for add on functions called plugins. These plugins included games with/without animation/sound and expanded functions for file searches, local and Internet E-Mail, Fido net, Who's on, chat, change handle/password, edit your account info, etc. Some systems used WAV files for background music incorporating a "jukebox" like interface with multiple music choices. Others used very clever screen changes to provide different degrees of visual input. Due to programming limitations, Excalibur BBS does not work properly on

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

or newer. The original program was written in

Borland C++ Borland C++ is a C and C++ IDE (integrated development 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. Libraries O ...

by Tim Robinson.

External links

Excalibur's Entry at the BBS Software Directory
{{network-software-stub Bulletin board system software