You might be thinking: Blast from the past? Braindead? BBS? What the hell is he talking about?
It’s been almost exactly 30 years since my own Bulletin Board System (BBS) went online. I already had the hardware for a few months, and I was deep in the weeds configuring and customizing everything.
This story is about a piece of me — one that never really went away.
BBS?
I found this definition of a BBS on Wikipedia:
“A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user performs functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email.”
BBSes were the thing when it came to connectivity — before the internet exploded in the late ’90s.
In 1994, I bought my first computer: a 486 DX2 66MHz with 4MB of RAM and a whopping 1.1GB hard drive — a Quantum Fireball 1080, running in glorious PIO Mode 4!
In 1995 — right around this time — my BBS, BRAiNDEAD, finally went online! It hosted tons of files: music, PC demos, ANSI artpacks, and much more.
Unfortunately, I’ve lost all the original files. I might have a backup somewhere, but I haven’t been able to find it — which means I can’t show any actual screenshots of BRAiNDEAD as it ran back in 1995.
However! All is not lost.
Braindead reloaded!
With the 30th anniversary of my BBS, I was hit by a wave of nostalgia. I genuinely miss those days — the BBS itself, the friends I made, and the time in my life when I earned the nickname that stuck: Brain.
While digging through my archives, I actually found a few artifacts that survived the era. Some old files from the Chaos Net days (a FidoNet clone), and a handful of ANSI files straight out of the ’90s.
And in case you’re wondering what ANSI files are: ANSI was a now completely defunct standard for creating graphical content — including color — using only the default character set.
Here’s an example!
This particular piece was created by a guy named PiNO^Ooze — if I’m not mistaken. He made it back in 1996 for my music group, Sound Alliance.
And with that, a little quest began:
Would it be possible to run a BBS on modern hardware — and connect it to the internet?
But not just that — could I actually bring back Chaos?
( The net, not the real deal… 😛 )
Software
And then there’s the software stack — and yes, this will probably sound weird, obscure, or downright alien to most readers:
- RemoteAccess as the main BBS software
- FrontDoor as the mailer frontend
- FMail or FastEcho for tossing netmail and echomail
- AllFix for file tossing and file request handling
- GoldED, the gold standard for reading echomail
And yes — all of this has to run under pure DOS.
The only liberty I’ve allowed myself is using slightly more modern versions of the original software stack. Instead of MS-DOS 6.22, I’m running everything on FreeDOS. And as for FrontDoor — believe it or not — there’s a 16-bit version natively compiled for DOS, released in 2024/2025 by the original author.
Of course I’m using that.
I already have a fully functional FreeDOS VM running on my Proxmox host. In the meantime, I’m also rebuilding my BBS using DOSBox-X on my local machine.
So… where did all that get me?
Well — brace yourself.
Yes. I have Remote Access up and running! And it will actually respond to me using telnet when I connect to it!
When I use a telnet client like SyncTERM, I can connect to my BBS — and RemoteAccess actually recognizes it, sees a RING, and connects.
1995 is back.
I’ve started creating brand-new ANSI files for all the menus. And in the meantime, I’ve also dug up a whole bunch of old BBS utilities and tools I used back in the day.
Welcome to BRAiNDEAD – Reloaded!
Serving files from 1994–1998… and maybe 2025+?
I tried to match the old ANSI color scheme — red, purple, grey-blue — but it never felt quite right.
Then it hit me: this isn’t the old BBS.
It’s 2025. It’s Reloaded. And it doesn’t need to be a carbon copy to feel like home.
BRAiNDEAD – Back online.
ANSI art, nostalgia, and the faint sound of a modem somewhere in the distance…
Sysop Brain! Out!