141:, after which it would perform another processing group, before displaying two characters and a carriage return, more processing, and finally displaying three characters, a carriage return and then the main prompt. The default character was an asterisk (*), but could be changed to any character by the sysop. Because the software was displaying these series of characters and carriage returns in between processes, the delay before displaying the main prompt was rendered imperceptible.
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without the need for the kind of extensive optimization employed by Blue Board. However, Blue Board was instrumental in the social development of online culture in
Vancouver which relied on text messages and email rather than file downloading, so it remained perfectly suited for that purpose long
133:, further improving both speed and memory efficiency. Another extremely clever innovation was the use of a trick of perception to make the board seem even faster. Sikes was unable to eliminate a slight, but noticeable pause before displaying the main prompt, as the software had to do some serious
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Because all user accounts and message headers are stored in the C64's limited RAM, which had to be shared with the program itself, the program only supported up to nine message areas and nine download file areas. Further limitations include a maximum of 239 user accounts, and a four-character
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Blue Board was one of the first BBSes, and probably the first
Commodore 64 BBS, to support features such as voting and one-liners which they called "scribbles." Additionally, it reserved a small block of the C64's memory space for external programs that could include additional file transfer
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In addition, starting up the program was cumbersome. First, the program itself had to be loaded and run, then the RAM-resident user and message data had to be loaded, and then the disk had to be replaced with the message text disk. The whole process took several minutes.
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At the peak of Blue Board's popularity (the latter half of the 1980s), many Blue Boards were in operation, and the software was widely pirated. As 8-bit computing fell into decline, so did Blue Board. The availability of more powerful hardware such as the
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after the C64 platform became obsolete. It was not unusual in the early 1990s to find Blue Boards still thriving while BBSes run on far more powerful computers languished or were relegated to
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crunching before it was ready for user input. So he split up the processes into groups and executed each group of routines in between displaying a single character on a line, followed by a
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42:, Blue Board boasted very fast performance for a BBS on that hardware platform. In fact, Blue Board was faster than most if not all BBSs run on
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Developer Sikes originally created Blue Board for his own BBS, called Blue Hell, which he ran from his home under the
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capability, or rudimentary games that presaged the door games that would become enormously popular on later BBSes.
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series of racing games, among others), before his sudden death while sleeping on
December 24, 2007, at age 39.
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file depositories. The real death-knell to Blue Board was the rise of multi-line chat systems, starting with
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sometimes led users to believe that they were calling a BBS running on a much larger and faster computer.
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1571, Blue Board could use both sides of the disk, one for the message text and one for download files.
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available in its day, Blue Board was notable in that it made creative use of the computer's limited
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Where is Blue Board? - A site dedicated to finding the Blue Board BBS Package and preserving it.
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would have to manually enter the time of day, because the
Commodore 64 has no
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76:, then a long career in the video game industry, including as co-founder of
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72:"Beelzebub." He later went on to an Electrical Engineering degree from the
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271:. It is not known whether any Blue Boards are still operational today.
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made feasible the development of more powerful BBS software in
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software created by Martin Sikes (1968–2007) for the
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that interfaced as floppy disks, with a device number and
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computers. This speed combined with its use of the
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84:, where he worked as a programmer on the
281:Modified Blue Board 3.0 Documentation
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157:Each time the BBS was started, the
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231:1650, 1670 and compatible modems
306:Bulletin board system software
74:University of British Columbia
16:Bulletin board system software
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203:If the primary drive was the
267:and progressing to STS and
61:and the Commodore-specific
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286:Martin Sikes memorial page
219:compatible command set.
120:1541 floppy disk drive
55:file transfer protocol
311:Commodore 64 software
237:Decline in popularity
106:space, including the
94:Technical innovations
24:bulletin board system
256:high-level languages
226:Fast Load Cartridge
250:, and entry-level
173:Supported hardware
50:character set and
154:password length.
40:memory allocation
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36:British Columbia
30:in the 1980s in
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82:Electronic Arts
78:Black Box Games
63:Punter protocol
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100:BBS software
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57:rather than
28:Commodore 64
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213:Hard drives
198:disk drives
149:Limitations
124:file system
110:behind its
300:Categories
165:hardware.
108:shadow RAM
20:Blue Board
261:shareware
248:Macintosh
116:passwords
70:pseudonym
32:Vancouver
269:MajorBBS
217:CBM-DOS
59:PETSCII
98:Among
52:XModem
265:DDial
244:Amiga
159:sysop
48:ASCII
44:8-bit
22:is a
223:Epyx
196:1581
192:1571
128:6510
112:ROMs
252:PCs
183:128
181:or
135:CPU
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104:RAM
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