From: "Janis Kracht" 

Hi Dusty,

> A friend of mine and I have been looking into starting a local Chicago-based
> BBS... in looking around it seems quite disconnected I think and looking for
>some guidance on how to get started. The first software I found was OpenTG but
> looks like there are others such as Wizard and maybe one other.

> I'm lost and looking for a primer - anyone care to help? I ran a BBS 'back in
> the day' but used Wildcat! software.
> Dusty

Check out BBBS, there is a tutorial here: 
http://www.filegate.net/zone1/bbbsfaq.html

This is a shareware program, but for just three nodes, I think the cost is just
@20.00. It's a loaded program with a lot of features (see http://www.bbbs.net),
such as mailer, filelist generator, fidonet binkp mailer, ftp, email server,
and 
tons more.

I have 7 nodes that cost me $90.00.  That was over 10 years ago, so I'm not
sure 
if the price is cheaper now.  I also run BinkD mailer for extra free mailer 
nodes. For those downlinks, I move the mail from my BBBS outbounds to the
BinkD 
outbounds with a java program I wrote. There is a tutorial of sorts for BinkD 
also on that same page as the BBBS tutorial, as well as help for Argus on that 
page.

There's also Synchronet BBS that also can use either arcmail attach (Argus, 
Radius mailers) or B-O (bink outbounds) as in BinkD.  There is a tutorial for 
Synchronet I believe on Synchro.net (home of that bbs program).

Feel free to email me at janis@filegate.net

Take care,
Janis

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: The gateway at Diskshop BBS (1:250/8)