PCBoard (PCB) was a

bulletin board system A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as ...

(BBS) application first introduced for DOS in 1983 by Clark Development Company. Clark Development was founded by Fred Clark. PCBoard was one of the first commercial BBS packages for DOS systems, and was considered one of the "high end" packages during the rapid expansion of BBS systems in the early 1990s. Like many BBS companies, the rise of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

starting around 1994 led to serious downturns in fortunes, and Clark Development went bankrupt in 1997. Most PCB sales were of two-line licenses; additional line licenses (in ranges of 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250 and 1000) were also available. A native 32-bit IBM OS/2 version became also available with PCB V15.22 and higher. There were also a few tools available for PCBoard, which were specifically developed for the OS/2 2.0 and OS/2 Warp operating system.

Multinode support

PCBoard supported the 16C550 UARTs ( universal asynchronous receiver transmitter), such as

16550 UART The 16550 UART (universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter) is an integrated circuit designed for implementing the interface for serial communications. The corrected -A version was released in 1987 by National Semiconductor. It is frequently u ...

("Fifo"), 16554 UART and 16650 UART, which made it possible to run multiple nodes of the BBS on a single ( multitasking) computer using either using IBM OS/2 or the DOS multitasking tool DESQview in combination with the memory manager QEMM. Some

sysop A sysop (; an abbreviation of system operator) is an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system (BBS) or an online service virtual community.Jansen, E. & James,V. (2002). NetLingo: the Internet dictionary. Netl ...

s tried to run PCBoard on the (then) new

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

and reported mixed results. Stability was critical for a BBS, which was usually running

24/7 In commerce and industry, 24/7 or 24-7 service (usually pronounced "twenty-four seven") is service that is available at any time and usually, every day. An alternate orthography for the numerical part includes 24×7 (usually pronounced "twenty ...

, and the early version of the Microsoft 32-bit operating system lacked it. Windows 95 was never officially supported by CDC. Standard PCs then and today have only one or two (if any) serial ports (COM ports), which are needed to connect an external

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 ...

to a computer. This made multiport cards like the G-Tek "BlackBoard", "BBS550" or "SmartCard" and the "DigiCard" by

Digi International Digi International is an American Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology company headquartered in Hopkins, Minnesota. The company was founded in 1985 and went public as Digi International in 1989. The company initially offered intelligen ...

popular among sysops. Other options were internal multi-modem cards and multiple computers connected by

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...

. PCBoard also supports ISDN ( Integrated Services Digital Network) and

Telnet Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet control i ...

access via the Internet. The open source terminal emulator

SyncTERM 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 were dropped in version 3.0 (circa 2000). History ...

, available for Win32, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris and Mac OS X can be used for example to connect to the few remaining PCBoard BBS installations that are connected to the Internet.

Multi-BBS networks

Starting in 1988, the RelayNet, also known as RIME for RelayNet International Mail Exchange, allowed BBS's running PCBoard to join a network that exchanged messages with other BBS's in a system similar to the older FidoNet.

History

The first version of PCBoard was released in 1983. Clark Development Company (CDC) pioneered the

FILE ID.DIZ FILE_ID.DIZ is a plain-text file containing a brief description of the content of archive formats, archive to which it belongs. Such files were originally used in archives distributed through bulletin board systems (BBSes) and is still used in the ...

formatRichard Holler (May 17, 1994)
FAQ file_id.diz
''ASP (Association of Shareware Professionals)'', online version from Textfiles.com retrieved August 4, 2007 as well as a powerful

scripting language A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled. A scripting ...

(PPL), which supported modifications and to a large degree replacement of most standard commands and processes. A compiled interpreter script written in PPL was called PPE (PCBoard Programming Executable). PPEs were generated by the PCBoard Programming Language Compiler (PPLC), which was an optional tool provided by Clark Development Company and was also available for purchase as stand alone tool. It was less than $100 by itself and less than $50 in combination with any BBS license. This allowed programmers to develop PPEs for PCBoard without having to purchase a PCBoard BBS license. Also optional and available by itself were the printed PCBoard manual and the printed PPLC reference handbook. The script language was introduced with version 15.0 and made this version of PCBoard even more successful than PCBoard V14.5. Various door programs were in use, including Sam Smith's Prodoor, which added a full screen editor and other features which were later included in PCBoard itself. The script language PPL and PPE's which became more and more available, increased the popularity of PCBoard and emerged by the mid nineties as the de facto-standard BBS system for

warez Warez is a common computing and broader cultural term referring to pirated software (i.e. illegally copied, often after deactivation of anti-piracy measures) that is distributed via the Internet. Warez is used most commonly as a noun, a plural ...

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 ...

on the IBM PC. The warez BBS's used mostly pirated versions of the BBS software and thus did not appear in any official sales or usage statistic for the software. What PCBoard was for warez BBSes on the IBM PC, was

Amiexpress AmiExpress - also known as /X - by Synthetic Technologies was a popular BBS software application for the Commodore Amiga line of computers. AmiExpress was extremely popular among the warez scene for trading (exchanging) software. AmiExpress was cr ...

for BBSes running on Commodore Amiga computers. Despite the high price tag Clark Development Company sold more than 50,000 PCBoard licenses by 1995. The last full release of PCBoard by Clark Development Company was version 15.3 in September 1996. Clark Technologies, a division of Clark Development Company announced on July 29, 1996 the availability of source code and OEM licenses for the PCBoard BBS software. The final release was 15.4 beta, which had a one-month trial period. Later, the lead software engineer from Clark Development Company released information on how to bypass the trial period timeout; the timeout had been inserted as a reminder and had not been intended to permanently disable the software. Clark Development Company went bankrupt in July 1997 and closed its offices without prior warning, leaving a great number of upset customers behind. Customers were never notified by the company, and customers who had just purchased licences for the software were not notified, refunded or provided access to the software they had paid for.

PCBoard after CDC

Sysops continued to use PCBoard around the world, even after support by CDC stopped when the company went out of business. Help was available from many individuals who created tools and documentation for the PCBoard system. The company did not exist anymore when the Year 2000 problem, also known as the Y2K problem or millennium bug, made headline news. However, PCBoard only had a few minor problems with the year 2000 (and 2001) and fixes were made available by several individuals. The last full release version of PCBoard, version 15.3, never really caught on and most systems that were online after 1997 continued to use the previous 15.2x versions of the software. PCBoard is still in use today by nostalgic BBS fans. There is a freeware

FOSSIL A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

driver called

NetFoss NetFoss is a popular Network FOSSIL driver for Windows. A FOSSIL is a serial communications layer to allow DOS based software to talk to modems without dealing with hardware I/O and interrupts. A Network FOSSIL redirects such software to a TCP/IP a ...

which allows PCBoard to be accessible via

telnet Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet control i ...

under Windows. There was also a DOS based PCBoard add-on "PCB Internet Collection" which allowed telnet access by installing a (DOS-only) packet driver.

Awards

;PCBoard programming language / PPLC compiler *1994 - Dvorak Award for "Outstanding PC Telecommunications Technology" ;BBS Software *1995 - PC Magazine Editors Choice Award (August 1995 Issue) *1995 - Dvorak Award for "Best OS/2-based BBS software" *1997 - Inducted (Clark Development) into the Shareware Hall of Fame in 1997 by the SIAF board

Features

*Packet switch support *Full Internationalization of dates & code page *FOSSIL support for virtually any intelligent serial card(/M code) *File attachment to messages *Multiple daily events *Full support for 2 byte international character sets *Built-in .QWK message packet support *Jukebox & "slow" CD-ROM support *Incoming fax support *Carbon-copy list support *Return receipt message support *Caller-ID support *ALIAS support by conference area *RIPscrip support for remote callers *PPL (PCBoard programming language compiler) (optional) *Automatic 16550 UART recognition & support *Intelligent & non-intelligent multi-port serial card support *Full screen text editor *ANSI graphics support *Full color operation *Thread reading of messages *Supports up to 65,535 conference (message base) areas *36 file transfer protocols supported *Supports 32,767 DOORS per conference *Real-time 255 channel node chat (CB chat) *Long message headers for all NetMail programs including Internet, Usenet & others. *Local network logins for in-house e-mail support *Direct connect support for in-house serial networks & PADS *Communicates directly with OS/2 COMM drivers to allow large number of multiple nodes under OS/2 *Automatically detects OS/2 operation for time-slice control *Full network support for any NetBIOS compatible network, including

NetWare NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol. The original NetWare product in 19 ...

LANtastic LANtastic is a peer-to-peer local area network (LAN) operating system for DOS and Microsoft Windows (and formerly OS/2). The ''New York Times'' described the network, which permits machines to function both as servers and as workstations, as all ...

, 3-Com, Vines & more. *Full remote DOS access for SysOp if desired *True & complete multi-lingual language support

Requirements

*IBM PC compatible *Minimum 320k RAM *DOS 3.1 or higher *Modem to support remote dial-in, a Virtual Modem such as NetSerial, or the

telnet FOSSIL for Windows. PCBoard/M *Needs

80386 The Intel 386, originally released as 80386 and later renamed i386, is a 32-bit microprocessor introduced in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...

licensing. A number of release groups who were specialized in PPE and other PCB/BBS tool developments were formed, such as the French group Aegis Corp, the Russian group Brutal PPE/PCE/PRO Coders (BPC) and the German groups Peanuts (PNS) and Paranoia (PNA). Warez groups Such as PWA and DOD released several PPEs which were used by many sysops, including the PWA "NewScan" PPE, the PWA "Files-Reverse" PPE and the DOD "LARS Upload Processor". The French group Aegis Corp distributed a PPE De-compiler (PPLX) written by Lone Runner, which allowed the de-compilation of PPE binaries back to human-readable PPL code. Lone Runner also wrote the Aegis PPL compiler, which produced smaller and faster code than Clark Development's original PPL compiler. Other tools for PPE developers followed. Another PPE De-compiler was PPLDecompiler (PPLD) written by CHiCKEN, a member of the "Swiss Coding Division" of the group Electronic Rats (EcR).

PCBoard ''Metaworlds''

''Metaworlds'' was an attempt by CDC to establish a BBS-like environment on the Internet, basically a closed mailbox in HTML format online. Access to the content was only possible for registered users who had to authenticate themselves with username and password to access the system. Metaworlds supported the parallel operation with the standard ANSI based PCBoard BBS software and used

Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of storing and retrieving data as requested by other software applications—which ma ...

as underlying database. A runtime-version of Microsoft SQL Server came with the Metaworlds software. CDC went out of business before Metaworlds was finished. Metaworlds was developed by CDC to make the transition to the Internet when the decline of the BBS became apparent.The Mighty SC
PCBoard Newsletter #2 - FAQ Section
(German),''Underground Empire'',retrieved June 16, 2007

References

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