A fully featured Bulletin Board System written in GW-BASIC for DOS — preserved from the 1980s.
BOSS BBS (Bulletin Board System) is a complete, single-line BBS written entirely in GW-BASIC by Mark Longo in the late 1980s. It ran on a standard DOS PC connected to a modem, letting remote callers dial in to read messages, share files, and chat — decades before the web existed. This repository preserves the original source code and data files exactly as they were.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| User Accounts | Registration, login, password verification, security levels |
| Message Areas | 15 boards (Town Centre, Movies, Sports, Debate, Fantasy, Adult, SysOp, and more) |
| Message Editor | Full-screen editor — insert, delete, replace, and format lines |
| File Areas | 7 libraries (Games, Utilities, Communications, Programmers, Windows, Private, Stomp) |
| File Transfers | Upload and download via Zmodem using DSZ |
| Door Games | Launches external programs via DORINFO1.DEF standard |
| SysOp Chat | Break-in real-time chat with live callers |
| ANSI Graphics | Optional colour terminal art support |
| Time Limits | Per-session countdown with low-time warnings |
| Modem Management | Auto-init, baud-rate detection, carrier monitoring on COM1 |
BOSS BBS requires a DOS environment. The easiest way to run it today is with DOSBox or DOSBox-X.
- Install DOSBox for your platform.
- Mount the BOSS directory inside DOSBox:
mount c d:\Github\BOSS-BBS\ c: cd BOSS - Start BOSS BBS and load the main program:
BOSS.EXE - The system expects a modem on COM1. For local testing (no modem), the code detects when no carrier is present and can run in local mode.
Tip: DOSBox-X includes better support for COM port emulation if you want to test the modem path.
dosbox.conf emulate modem example
[serial]
serial1=modem
serial2=disabled
serial3=disabled
serial4=disabled
[modem]
modem=true
comport=1
listenport=23
BOSS/
├── BOSS.BAS # Main BBS program (GW-BASIC source)
├── USERS.BBS # User account database
├── MESSAGE.BBS # Message base
├── MENU/ # ANSI and ASCII menu screens
├── FILE1–FILE7/ # File library directories with descriptions
├── SCREEN/ # Screenshots
├── ADVBAS40/ # Advanced BASIC library used by BOSS
├── QWIK/ # Supporting utilities
└── *.BAS / *.BAT # Utility programs (packing, purging, events, etc.)
Bulletin Board Systems were the social networks of the pre-internet era. From the late 1970s through the mid-1990s, hobbyists would dial into BBS servers using modems to exchange messages, share software, and play door games — all over standard phone lines.
BOSS BBS was written entirely in GW-BASIC, the Microsoft BASIC interpreter bundled with MS-DOS. Despite the constraints of interpreted BASIC, it delivered a full-featured, multi-area BBS with ANSI art, Zmodem transfers, and real-time SysOp chat. It is a testament to what dedicated hobbyist programmers could accomplish with minimal hardware.
This source code is preserved here as a piece of retrocomputing history.
Contributions are welcome — bug fixes, DOSBox setup guides, ANSI art improvements, or historical documentation. Please open an issue or pull request.
MIT © Mark Longo. See LICENSE for details.