Download :: ATA BBS

One link, always the newest release.

The zip holds one file, ata-setup.php. It fetches ATA and the one board you pick from www.atabbs.com, checks every byte, and runs the install wizard. The same file, laid over an existing install, updates it and keeps your board.

[G]Download ATA BBS 0.1.67 Alpha

ata-bbs-latest.zip · MIT license · how to install · how to update

Four steps, about a minute.

Make an empty folder on your web host for the board, such as public_html/bbs/. One folder holds one board.

Upload ata-setup.php into it, from the zip. Your host's file manager or any FTP client will do.

Open it in your browser, at https://your-site/bbs/ata-setup.php. It checks your host, then lists the eighteen boards. Pick one and press Install.

Answer the wizard: your board's name, its phone number, its time zone, and a login for the SysOp console. The board comes up closed, so you can make it yours before anyone calls.

The manual's installing and first hour chapters take it from there, and each board has a page of its own.

Ordinary shared hosting.

PHP 8.1 or newer with SQLite (PDO), mbstring, zlib, json and hash. Nearly every host has them, and the setup page checks each one.

A folder PHP can write to, and a web server that serves static files as they are, .wasm included. Apache with .htaccess works as is.

Outgoing HTTPS from PHP, so the setup can fetch ATA. A host that blocks it still works: your browser carries the files instead.

Cron, recommended. One line, every minute or every five. Without it the housekeeping rides on caller traffic.

For callers: a current desktop browser and a keyboard. Phones can look; a board wants eighty columns and real keys.

Two game modules, built for ATA.

ATA ships no door and no game. These two are Major BBS modules that nobody publishes a build of for version 6.25, so ATA made one from each one's source, under its license, with the source in the kit. Each runs as one shared world for every line on your board. The Major BBS page installs both, step by step.

Galactic Empire for ATA

GNU GPL · Mike Murdock's 3.2e

Rule the universe, if you can. The classic Major BBS space game, one galaxy for every caller on every line. The kit carries the module, ATA's descriptor, the author's README, the GPL, and the exact source it was built from.

Download galactic-empire-for-ata-0.1.67-alpha.zip

Kyrandia for ATA

AGPL · Elwynor Technologies' 7.2

Legends of Kyrandia, the multi-player fantasy adventure Scott Brinker wrote, kept up today by Elwynor. One world for every line. The kit carries the module, ATA's descriptor, Elwynor's license, and everything it was built from, with a script that rebuilds it byte for byte.

Download kyrandia-for-ata-0.1.67-alpha.zip

Legend of the Red Dragon and every other DOS door you bring yourself, as a SysOp always did. The door guide says what to get and where it goes.

What it does, and what it does not.

The board runs on the caller's computer, so a caller's machine can write whatever the board's own callers could write in 1993. ATA keeps everything else out of reach: configuration, menus, programs, other members' records and private details. Every refused write is logged and counted on the dashboard.

The packages are their authors' own, limits included. A shareware board stops where its shareware build stopped: two lines on RemoteAccess, VBBS and Virtual Advanced, three on GAP. Citadel-86e and Asgard-86 are single-line boards by design. The rest run six lines out of the box and can be raised to the package's own maximum.

Supported boards only. ATA runs the eighteen packages it has profiles for, each one installed and proven with real calls. Another package becomes a profile in a later release; here is how to ask.

Importing a board you already run is on the roadmap for the first release, not in the alpha.

MIT, and the boards are their authors'.

ATA BBS is free software under the MIT license. One build, no registered edition, no keys, no banner. The eighteen boards belong to their authors and are distributed under their own terms, each with its credit line in the manual's credits. ATA installs each one the way a SysOp would have and never changes a package's programs.