WWIV: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:10, 31 January 2005

Revision as of 18:11, 31 January 2005

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The '''WWIV''' [[Bulletin Board System]] was one of the most popular dialup computer hosting systems in the online world during the late seventies and early eighties. One of its most unusual features was a proprietary networking system, allowing tens of thousands of systems running the software to link themselves together into various networks.

This system started out as a single BBS in [[St. Louis, MO]], run by [[Wayne Bell]], who wrote and compiled it in [[BASIC]]. Because it was in an [[interpreted language]], though, it attracted the interest of various other potential [[SysOpsSysOp]]s, who obtained copies to modify and run for their own boards.

Eventually, for practical reasons, Bell switched to [[Pascal]], creating a [[compiled]] version of the BBS but distributing the source code for it to anyone who was interested in their own BBS. Eventually he moved to [[C++]] and added networking, allowing all WWIV boards to link to each other, and those who paid to recompile with the source code and to link to the main network, [[WWIVNet]], which soon connected thousands of boards together.

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This software even spawned clones, as with VBBS, a system based on Visual Basic but using a WWIV user interface and compatible with WWIV networking.

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