Jason,

More info for you.. I'm really surprised there isn't any MajorBBS info
up yet.  Here's a story about the first MajorBBS I ever used, as well
as some technical information about the software/hardware itself.

MajorBBS was something of an epiphany for me when I first encountered
it around age 12 ('87).  I grew up near Worcester, MA.  In 1987 (or
perhaps late '86), the Worcester Public Schools put up a 12-line/1200
baud MajorBBS called "The Broom Closet."  Predictably enough, it ran
out of a broom closet at one of the Worcester schools.

You had to be a student at a Worcester school (or in one of the
surrounding central MA towns) to get an account.  Once online, you
could chat in line-at-a-time teleconferences (irc style) with up to
eleven other people, in "real-time" with one person at a time, send
email, read/post from message groups, etc.  Later, multi-player
MUD-like games were added, as well as some incredible real-time
multi-player games, which I'll describe later.

I say that MajorBBS was an epiphany because it was my first real
introduction to multi-user on-line services.  At the time it was
incredible to me to use a service with a bunch of other people.  To be
able to talk with a bunch of people, play games, etc., was very cool.
This was probably also my first real introduction to on-line politics,
power-trips, foolish users, etc.  Picture a 12-line BBS filled almost
entirely with pre- and barely-post- pubescent squabbling kiddies and I
think you'll understand what I mean.

MajorBBS was also something of a technological wonder to me at the
time.  It was probably the first (and at the time only) BBS software
to allow multi-line access quickly and reliably on a single PC without
using any of the commercial multitaskers (e.g. Desqview).  The
MajorBBS code was written using a sort of concurrent, cooperative
multitasking.  The code retained state for each of the serial channels
and ran in a round-robin fashion, performing a small bit of operations
on each channel each time around the channel pool.  If a user was
sitting at a prompt, the state machine handling that particular
function of the BBS would simply exit and the software would move on
to processing the next channel.  If a user was performing an operation
(say, hitting 'enter' in a teleconference channel to send a message),
the state machine would do the appropriate bits of work to send that
message, then move on to the next serial channel and perform its
processing, etc.

Accomplishing a huge number of dialup lines in a single PC was no easy
task given the available hardware at the time.  Galacticomm (makers of
MajorBBS) had a small line of their own hardware that they sold to
SysOps.  I know that, for example, The Broom Closet ran off of two of
their 6 line x 1200bps modems.  I also vividly recall that during the
summer time, there would often be one or more lines blown on these
cards due to lightning storms, resulting in endless "ring of death"
scenarios.  Galacticomm also sold ISA expansion chassis for pooling a
bunch of their modem cards external to the PC, as well as "dumb"
UART-only multi-port serial cards, etc.

The first versions of MajorBBS had teleconference capabilities much
like the old IRC (circa 1989/1990).  Channels were numbered instead of
named.  I don't think the early versions allowed any sort of
moderation capability.   Later versions supported named channels, and
definitely did support channel topics and moderation, much like later
versions of IRC.

Most importantly, Galacticomm developed an impressive little protocol
called "Flash" (in about 1989).  Flash was a technology that
allowed multi-player real-time games with up to six participants.
These games were client-side (PC being the only official platform),
and they communicated with a special module in the MajorBBS
teleconference software.

The Flash software on the BBS side handled synchronization of clients
by sending out "ticks" at fixed intervals.  It also handled the
nitty-gritty of clients connecting and disconnecting, numbering those
clients, etc.  The first two programs developed for Flash came from
Galacticomm.  One was a simple 6-person realtime chat client (i.e. you
see the keystrokes as soon as the person types them) called Flash Chat
(see
http://www.gweep.net/~prefect/retrocomputing/bbs/MHD/Flash%20Chat.jpg).
The second program was an extremely addictive game called Flash
Attack, which was based on a game that one of MajorBBS's developers
had written in the early 80's for the Commodore PET.

Flash Attack was a great text-graphics real-time game in which you
controlled four tanks and a base.  You "drove" the tanks around a
randomly generated map to try to find your opponent's base.  Tanks
could drop mines or "pods," which were basically like base walls.  You
could secure your own base using these mines and pods to prevent your
opponents from driving right up to your base and eliminating you.
Tanks could also fire in any direction, so you could have a real-time
melee with another tank.  Your base could fire "nukes," which you aim
using angle and distance numbers entered on the keyboard.  All in all
a very simple game structure, but the game play was always varied and
interesting.

Several interesting game aids and cheats hit the scene fairly early
on.  It was very popular to use keyboard macro programs to make "base
building," "tank evasion," and other types of macros.  A few months
after release, several people (myself included) wrote TSR programs
that would do the trig to automatically set your base nuke
distance/angle so you could very precisely bomb your opponent.  The
sorts of politicking that would go on in pre-game chat (which was just
like Flash Chat) rivals that which goes on in the real world now!  It
really was a great time, and I wasted at least two solid summers
playing this game while I was in high school.

Later, I became a licensed Flash developer, and started (but never
finished) several Flash-based games with a friend of mine in the
Worcester area.  This friend ran Mithril Hall BBS, a four (later ten)
line MajorBBS, which lived in our hall closet when we were roommates
in 1994.  I was a co-sysop on this BBS in the early 90's as well.
Pictures of some of the never-finished games are at:
http://www.gweep.net/~prefect/retrocomputing/bbs/MHD/

The SysOp of Mithril Hall, Jaime Bozza, had purchased the source code
for MajorBBS and among other projects, had written most of a fully
extensible MUD/MUSH game for MajorBBS.  Unfortunately the timing of
this was such that BBSes were kind of starting to fade away.  The
internet revolution was kind of knocking on the door.  Once I had
started college (and started my serious GweepNet involvement), my
interest in traditional BBSes was already starting to wane.

MajorBBS was also one of the first BBSes to support "RIP" (I think
that's what it was called), which was this really klunky graphics
interface for BBS use.  I can't remember too much about it, but what I
do remember was not positive.  RIP was 10 times klunkier and buggier
than even the first web browser I used in 1993.

Sadly, Tim Stryker, who was a founder of Galacticomm and author of
Flash Attack and big chunks of the BBS, committed suicide in 1996 (I
see from your texfiles site, August 6, 1996).  By this point,
Galacticomm had already released an internet-based version of their
BBS, which I don't think did all that well.

I'm sure I can remember more details of MajorBBS.  I have disks
somewhere with source code and probably a somewhat working version of
the BBS.  It was probably the BBS program that influenced me the most,
and the communities that sprang up on those BBSes are among the most
memorable.

(sorry this got so long! hope it's helpful)
-Steve

--

 Stephen S. Richardson                    Hardware & Firmware Engineer
 prefect@tangentaudio.com                 Digital Audio Products
 http://www.tangentaudio.com/~prefect/    Sound Design & Studio Recording