History of BBS Archives

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BBS Archives started out as a BBS and BBS Utility file section on the PC Micro BBS, which was a support and distribution site for several BBS related programs in the early 1990's. PC Micro BBS went online in 1989, originally running a mixture of QuickBBS and Telegard BBS under a DOS/DESQview environment. In 1990 we switched the BBS software to RemoteAccess, allowing the BBS to handle muiltiple modems and phone lines. Soon afterwards, we became a beta and support site for RemoteAccess, as well as a distribution site for several RA related programs and groups. Most of the files in the Archives were downloaded over a dialup modem connection from Europe to USA.

In 1995 the BBS Archives web site was created to host the files publicly, on the newly aquired PC Micro domain. The linux based Web/FTP server was built by Mike Ehlert, the sysop of PC Micro, and it was co-located on a T1 connection thanks to Steven Stone, owner of Westworld Communications (ISP). Steven and Mike had previously worked together as consultants for a modem manufacturer known as Practical Peripherals in Thousand Oaks, California. Westworld continued to host the site at no charge until 1999, when it was bought out by another company. PC Micro's dialup BBS switched to ProBoard in 1996 after RemoteAccess was discontinued, only to switch to EleBBS two years later after Proboard BBS was sold to Pat Clawson of Telegrafix.

in 1999 the BBS Archives web/ftp server was moved to PC Micro's office, and was reassigned to the archives.thebbs.org domain, becoming one of several BBS related sites that became part of the BBS Organization. Up until this time, BBS Archives had no download limits or ratios, but this lead to another site known as Darktech (run by a Justin Scott), mirroring the entire BBS Archives onto their site, and renaming it "Ultimate BBS Archives" without any link of credit to the original site. This resulted in changing the download policies of BBS Archives, limiting batch downloads to 15 files within a 12 hour period. We decided this would be a reasonable number of utilities or doors for a sysop to install per day (or evening), while denying access to people using mirroring software, and we ask that you kindly refrain from mirroring our file folders on other sites. About the same time, the PC Micro BBS switched from running under DESQview to Windows NT4 (soon followed by Windows 2000).

Early in 2000 PC Micro joined forces with Tactical and SpartaCom, and became the primary sales/support site for several COM port to telnet redirection solutions for Windows as well as LANtastic networking software for DOS. In 2001 the NetFoss FOSSIL driver was released, providing a faster solution then using their NetSerial virtual COM port software. PC Micro also developed a modem pooling server known as NetModem to replace the legacy SpartaCom software and Microsoft's SBS. By this time BBSes had become far less common, and the few that remained were almost all using telnet.

In 2002 the BBS Archives site stopped being activly maintained, and the BBS dialup phone lines and were taken down. In 2003 the telnet BBS was also shut down, and the IRC server remained active until 2006. PC Micro continues to host the BBS Archives, and will continue to do so for decades to come.

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