The idea for The Official BBS Day was something that came up during an MRC (Multi-Relay Chat) discussion around October of 2022.  We thought that it would be cool to have a day to celebrate and advertise our beloved hobby---a date that we can all rally behind and promote one of the world's best social groups.

You can help out The BBS Day in several ways, such as using people's BBS systems, running your own, or advertising the hobby.  There is nothing more dear to a sysop than to hear that his or her system is enjoyed by a large number of people and serves a useful purpose.  The sysop's BBS is like their own little baby, which they give their heart and soul into making just right.  By thanking a sysop your are showing appreciation for a work that may have had hundreds or thousands of hours invested into its development.  Show kindness and appreciation and it will go a long way.

We will be publishing posters to advertise BBS Day through the mail and posted at various college campuses on their physical bulletin boards.  For BBS Day specifically we will have 5x9" postcards that can be mailed to interested groups or given out in mass at technology-related events.  You will be able to find those posters and post cards in high-resolution from the Downloads section of this website.

One of the best places to get involved in and learn more about the BBS Scene is through the Multi-Relay Chat weekly MeaTuP hosted by MeaTLoTioN every Friday at 20:00 UTC.  This Multi-Relay Chat or MRC can be connected to through the majority of BBSes out there that are actively still being worked on.  At the time of this writing there are around 110 BBSes connected to the MRC instant messaging service.  By listening to the pro's and The Scene's personalities you can quickly get an understanding of what being a member with us is all about, and you can use the experience to inquire about just how these systems work from the people behind the implementations.  It is a lot of fun and there are often 20 or more people on this messaging system, most being really eager to help you answer your questions.

The top four BBS systems, listed in order of popularity are: Mystic BBS (www.mysticbbs.com), Synchronet BBS (www.synchro.net), Enigma1/2 (enigma-bbs.github.io), and CyberBBS (www.cyberbbs.com).  All of the programmers of these BBS software put many hours of work into making quality and free software for the BBSing community; they have invested their lives into making quality platforms for sysops to configure and modify, it would be most excellent to offer one of these programmers some coin so that they can buy some coffee to keep them going 🙂

There are three main BBS client software solutions.  It is a draw of whether NetRunner or SyncTerm is the best.  However, there are many people who pick one of these two, or even both at the same time to get the functionality of both of these.  NetRunner can be downloaded from www.mysticbbs.com and SyncTerm can be downloaded from syncterm.bbsdev.net.  Both of these solutions are wonderful and they both support the Z-Modem 8K (ZedZap) protocol as well as iCE Colours which make for a better palate of colours to display more vibrant graphics.