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systems, and probably more than 100 over the years. Numerous suggestions from sysops and users, both local and national, guided the growth of
Citadel-86, including the addition of a network capability as well as enhancements to the command set. Hue's contributions were substantial enough that several other porting projects used Citadel-86 as source material, such as Asgard-86 (MS-DOS), Macadel (
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permitted any user to create a room, resulting in a dynamic ebb and flow closer to true conversation than most other BBS packages achieved. Certain versions of
Citadel extend the metaphor of rooms with "hallways" and/or "floors," organizing groups of rooms according to system requirement. By contrast, previous bulletin board software emphasized the availability of files, with a single
328:), and Citadel:K2NE (MS-DOS), and many of these contributed back to Hue Jr's project. Most of these ports were compatible with the growing Citadel-86 network (C86Net). Local systems would network with each other on a demand basis (due to the work of David Parsons), while the long haul network was serviced late at night.
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Version 2 debuted on David
Mitchell's ICS BBS, and with the release of 2.11, Prothero's involvement with the project ended following a conflict centered around a user called "sugar bunny". He released the source to the public domain and it became available as a download from various systems as well
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This elegantly small command set made the system so usable that many daily users during
Citadel's golden era were never aware that Citadel also provided sophisticated capabilities. These are known as the "dot" commands and build logically from the set of single keystroke commands. A simple example
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of the United States, where development of the software was ongoing. Citadel BBSes were most popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but when the
Internet became more accessible for online communication, Citadels began to decline. However, some versions of the software, from small community BBSes
207:'s philosophy of user-interface design, "Simple things should be simple; complex things should be possible," and influenced by the fact that Citadel was developed in an era of 300 baud modems, the basic and most heavily used commands are accessed via single keystrokes. The most common commands are
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An early fork from
Citadel-86 was DragCit, written by The Dragon. DragCit also introduced networking code, but the DragCit network was not generally compatible with the Citadel-86 network. DragCit forked to several more versions, eventually leading to efforts to merge several code bases under the
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and called it
Citadel-86 ("C-86"). His board, Citadel-86 Test System, served not only as a discussion board and distribution center for the software, but also was the focal point for a lively Citadel-86 community in the 612 area code (the Twin Cities), which at their peak numbered roughly forty
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as a way to organize topics. Messages are associated with rooms, to which the user moves in order to participate in discussions; similarly, a room could optionally give access to the underlying file system, permitting the organization of available files in an organic manner. Most installations
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but referred to simply as "Citadel" in the mainstream open source community. This version of
Citadel is still being developed, extending the Citadel metaphor to enable what its developers call "a messaging and collaboration platform (for) connecting communities of people together": a
142:(BBS) computer program, and of the genre of programs it inspired. Citadels were notable for their room-based structure (see below) and relatively heavy emphasis on messages and conversation as opposed to gaming and files. The first Citadel came online in 1980 with a single 300
308:, innovations were never incorporated into a central source repository, as such a thing did not exist. Initially, Bruce King, David Bonn (releasing under the name Stonehenge), Caren Park, and James Shields, amongst others, picked up the opportunity in the Seattle area.
387:, including Webadel, written by Jarrin Jambik, a former Citadel-86 sysop, and Anansi-web, anansi-web.com hosted by former Citadel-86 Sysop, Ultravox the Muse. The only current actively developed web-enabled Citadels are Citadel/UX and PenguinCit, a PHP-based Citadel.
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Implementations that share the familiar
Citadel user interface, but are not derived from the original Citadel code base, are also common. They have ranged from vanity projects such as a Citadel-like control program to control the
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guidance of Matt
Pfleger, Richard Goldfinder, Brent Bottles, Don Kimberlin, and Elisabeth Perrin, the end result being Citadel+, a multiuser capable version of the software, which also included advanced
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544:(archived), the largest repository of historical information about Citadel implementations. Contains archived software of many different Citadel versions, as well as
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to large systems supporting thousands of simultaneous users, are still in use today. Citadel development has always been collaborative with a strong push to keep the
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At this point, the history of Citadel becomes complex as many individuals began modifying the source to their own ends, and lacking modern distributed
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protocol. Filters for users, keyword searches, and other capabilities have been implemented, depending on the version of Citadel.
237:, where the text between the brackets is user typed, while the rest is filled in by the system. A more complex example might be
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The longest lived fork from the 2.10 code started in the American Midwest, when Hue White (aka Hue, Jr.) ported the code to
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565:(archived), containing interesting comments from CrT about the basic philosophy behind the Citadel user interface.
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257:), which results in all of the new messages in all of the rooms known to the user being sent to the user via the
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written and distributed by Leor Zolman. The first installation came online in December, 1981, running on a
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548:(archived), which shows the relationship of the various code branches descending from the original Citadel.
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An original 916 Citadel now running 931, The Sanitarium/The Amiga Archives began in Sacramento, California.
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modem; eventually many versions of the software, both clones and those descended from the original
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Citadel's primary improvement over previous BBS packages was the introduction of the metaphor of
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One of the last remaining Citadel+ (established in 1991) (appears to be down as of 2018sep17).
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This article is about the history of Citadel BBS software. For the modern Citadel system, see
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Citadel further improved the user experience in the area of command and control. Based on
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nter a message into the room. Other single keystroke commands exist as well, such as
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353:, to full-blown efforts to modernize the Citadel interface with modern protocols.
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would be the requirement to go directly to a specified room. The user would type
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operating system in 1981 by Jeff Prothero, known to the nascent Citadel world as
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281:-based BBS programs of the time, it was written in a fairly standard dialect of
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150:(but all usually called "Citadels"), became popular among BBS callers and
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Several efforts have also been made to present the Citadel paradigm as a
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implementation called Minibin, a clone of Cit-86 intended to run on a
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ew messages (display the New messages in the room to the user), and
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message area that could only be read linearly, forward or backward.
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The flagship site of modern Citadel systems, established in 1988.
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Started in 1989 and still an active DOC (Dave's Own Citadel) BBS.
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processors called Cit/68, and a Unix version, technically called
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Homepage for the modern Citadel software, an open source project
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H-89, and in its 6 month lifetime achieved immediate success.
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Some of the more notable ones included Glenn Gorman's
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nown rooms, which lists the rooms known to the user.
49:. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
559:, about CrT's Citadel and its earliest descendants
171:. This makes Citadel one of the oldest surviving
498:A "modern" Citadel 931, always in development.
8:
563:The release notes from Citadel 2.1 in 1982
109:Learn how and when to remove this message
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594:Public-domain software with source code
269:Citadel was originally written for the
211:oto (the next room with new messages),
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154:, particularly in areas such as the
47:adding citations to reliable sources
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23:
34:needs additional citations for
599:Software using the GPL license
579:Bulletin board system software
301:as through the C Users Group.
16:Bulletin board system software
1:
604:Free software programmed in C
340:Other Citadel implementations
324:, fnordadel), Citadel-68K (
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187:Typical Citadel BBS screen
179:The Citadel user interface
158:, Northern California and
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234:⟨roomname⟩
121:Not to be confused with
546:the Citadel Family Tree
488:uncensored.citadel.org
58:"Citadel" software
557:Early text file (1982)
524:secure.wallofhate.com
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506:citadel.smashbot.com
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140:bulletin board system
43:improve this article
542:The Citadel Archive
351:graphing calculator
277:(CrT). Unlike most
512:The Sanatarium BBS
494:Smashbot's Citadel
230:⟨.G⟩
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156:Pacific Northwest
138:is the name of a
123:Citadel (malware)
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476:UNCENSORED! BBS
434:www.karanet.at
412:with login=bbs
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391:Active Citadels
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60: –
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54:Find sources:
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32:This article
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584:DOS software
422:The largest
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41:Please help
36:verification
33:
458:Slumberland
440:ISCABBS.com
418:KaraNet BBS
401:Description
385:web service
367:running on
347:serial port
320:), STadel (
165:source code
573:Categories
531:References
426:BBS (DOC).
380:platform.
373:Citadel/UX
175:projects.
130:Citadel/UX
69:newspapers
398:Name/site
378:groupware
334:scripting
318:Macintosh
285:known as
245:ll rooms
198:uncoupled
148:code base
99:June 2010
424:Austrian
369:Motorola
322:Atari ST
295:Heathkit
291:compiler
205:Alan Kay
265:History
167:in the
136:Citadel
83:scholar
405:telnet
358:TRS-80
313:MS-DOS
259:ZMODEM
249:modem
152:sysops
85:
78:
71:
64:
56:
361:BASIC
326:Amiga
287:BDS C
279:BASIC
255:.RAZN
193:rooms
90:JSTOR
76:books
365:Unix
289:, a
271:CP/M
241:ead
232:oto
173:FOSS
144:baud
62:news
520:Yes
502:Yes
484:Yes
470:No
466:Yes
452:No
448:Yes
430:Yes
410:ssh
45:by
575::
239:.R
283:C
251:N
247:Z
243:A
221:K
217:E
213:N
209:G
132:.
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106:(
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97:(
87:·
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73:·
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