PCBoard (PCB) was a

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

(BBS) application first introduced for

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

in 1983 by Fred Clark's Clark Development Company. 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. PCB was used as the basis of some of the largest bulletin board systems of the era, like

Canada Remote Systems Canada Remote Systems, or simply CRS, was a major commercial bulletin board system located in the Toronto area. It was one of the earliest commercial systems outside the "big iron (computing), big iron" companies such as CompuServe or The Source (on ...

. PCB was notable for its support of large multi-line BBS systems, which it supported by running multiple copies of the program, either using multitasking systems like

DESQview DESQview (DV) is a text mode multitasking operating environment developed by Quarterdeck Office Systems which enjoyed modest popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Running on top of DOS, it allows users to run multiple programs concurr ...

or on multiple physical machines using shared storage. The system was licensed by the number of lines it would support; the majority of the systems were the basic two-line license, but it was also offered in 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250 and 1000 line systems. A native

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in a maximum of 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform la ...

IBM

OS/2 OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...

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 OS/2 is a proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, intended as a replac ...

operating system. Like many BBS companies, the rise of the

WWW The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

starting around 1994 led to serious downturns in fortunes, and Clark Development went bankrupt in 1997.

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 ...

("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

in combination with the memory manager

QEMM Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager (QEMM) is a memory manager produced by Quarterdeck Office Systems in the late 1980s through the late 1990s. It was the most popular third-party memory manager for the MS-DOS and other DOS operating systems. ...

. 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. Ne ...

s tried to run PCBoard on the (then) new

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

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 port A serial port is a serial communication Interface (computing), interface through which information transfers in or out sequentially one bit at a time. This is in contrast to a parallel port, which communicates multiple bits simultaneously in Pa ...

s (COM ports), which are needed to connect an external

modem The Democratic Movement (, ; MoDem ) is a centre to centre-right political party in France, whose main ideological trends are liberalism and Christian democracy, and that is characterised by a strong pro-Europeanist stance. MoDem was establis ...

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

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

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, campus, or building, and has its network equipment and interconnects locally managed. LANs facilitate the distribution of da ...

. PCBoard also supports ISDN (

Integrated Services Digital Network Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. ...

) and

Telnet Telnet (sometimes stylized TELNET) is a client-server application protocol that provides access to virtual terminals of remote systems on local area networks or the Internet. It is a protocol for bidirectional 8-bit communications. Its main ...

access via the Internet. The open source

terminal emulator A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote term ...

SyncTERM, available for

Win32 The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is the foundational application programming interface (API) that allows a computer program to access the features of the Microsoft Windows operating system in which the program is running. Programs can acces ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was fork (software development), forked. It continues to ...

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...

Solaris Solaris is the Latin word for sun. It may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Sol ...

and

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

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 RelayNet was an e-mail exchange network used by PCBoard bulletin board systems (BBS's). By 1990, RelayNet comprised more than 200 bulletin board systems. BBS's on RelayNet communicated via a communications protocol called RIME (RelayNet Internati ...

, 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 __ / \ /, oo \ (_, /_) _`@/_ \ _ , , \ \\ , (*) , \ )) ______ , __U__, / \// / FI ...

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 the archive formats, archive to which it belongs. Such files were originally used in archives distributed through bulletin board systems (BBSes) and is still used ...

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 In computing, a script is a relatively short and simple set of instructions that typically automation, automate an otherwise manual process. The act of writing a script is called scripting. A scripting language or script language is a programming ...

(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 In computing, a script is a relatively short and simple set of instructions that typically automate an otherwise manual process. The act of writing a script is called scripting. A scripting language or script language is a programming language th ...

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 refers to pirated software and other copyrighted digital media—such as video games, movies, music, and e-books—illegally distributed online, often after bypassing digital rights management (DRM). The term, derived from “software wa ...

BBS on the IBM PC. The warez BBSs used mostly pirated versions of the BBS software and thus did not appear in any official sales or usage statistic for the software. 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 In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

and OEM licenses for the PCBoard BBS software. The final release was 15.4

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

, 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 Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the de ...

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 The term year 2000 problem, or simply Y2K, refers to potential computer errors related to the Time formatting and storage bugs, formatting and storage of calendar data for dates in and after the year 2000. Many Computer program, programs repr ...

, 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 preserve ...

driver called NetFoss which allows PCBoard to be accessible via

telnet Telnet (sometimes stylized TELNET) is a client-server application protocol that provides access to virtual terminals of remote systems on local area networks or the Internet. It is a protocol for bidirectional 8-bit communications. Its main ...

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 In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into short messages in fixed format, i.e. '' packets,'' that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets consist of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used b ...

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 set Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using computers. The numerical values that make up a c ...

s *Built-in .QWK message packet support *Jukebox & "slow"

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

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 NetBIOS () is an acronym for Network Basic Input/Output System. It provides services related to the session layer of the OSI model allowing applications on separate computers to communicate over a local area network. As strictly an API, Net ...

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 final update release was ver ...

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 allow ...

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

Requirements

IBM PC compatible An IBM PC compatible is any personal computer that is hardware- and software-compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and its subsequent models. Like the original IBM PC, an IBM PC–compatible computer uses an x86-based central p ...

*Minimum 320k RAM * DOS 3.1 or higher *Modem to support remote dial-in, a Virtual Modem such as NetSerial, or the NetFoss telnet FOSSIL for Windows. PCBoard/M *Needs

80386 The Intel 386, originally released as the 80386 and later renamed i386, is the third-generation x86 architecture microprocessor from Intel. It was the first 32-bit processor in the line, making it a significant evolution in the x86 architect ...

CPU or higher since code is written using 80386 instructions for maximum speed.

PPLC versions

*PCBoard V15.00 PPLC V1.00 *PCBoard V15.10 PPLC V2.00 *PCBoard V15.20 PPLC V3.00 *PCBoard V15.21 PPLC V3.10 *PCBoard V15.22 PPLC V3.20 *PCBoard V15.30 PPLC V3.30 *PCBoard V15.40 PPLC V3.40 (both beta)

PPE/PPL groups

Thousands of PPEs were developed and published, often available free of charge, by individuals or scene groups. A number of commercial PPEs were also developed, mostly under

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 The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private nonprofit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organiz ...

based PCBoard BBS software and used

Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a proprietary relational database management system developed by Microsoft using Structured Query Language (SQL, often pronounced "sequel"). As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of ...

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

External links

*Brief history of PCBoard fro
bbsdocumentary.com
(and software downloads)

at ''The BBS Archive'' *PCboard File Archiv

at ''The BBS Archive''
PCBoard file archive
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060509063111/http://www.filegate.net/pcboard/ , date=2006-05-09 ,''Filegate.net''

''Mpoli.fi''
Sysop's corner
list of PCB related sites

and Collection of over 4,000 PPE's & Tools Bulletin board system software DOS software OS/2 software 1983 software