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A modern resurrection of the classic ViSiON/2 BBS software, by people who were around and involved when it was really cool.

We're rebuilding the BBS experience the way it should have evolved -- if the internet hadn't come along and ruined everything.

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[S] SSH, Not Dialup

Connect over SSH. Any terminal. Any client. It's not 1993 -- we don't need to tie up your mom's phone line, but this ain't point and click.

[M] Messages & File Areas

Compose, read and newscan messages. But lets be honest, most of you just browsed the file areas. This was the core of what made a BBS a BBS.

[D] Door Games

Run external programs with dropfile generation. TradeWars, L.O.R.D, FoodFight? They were terrible but a lot of people loved them - now you can too.

[A] ANSI Art

Never have so few done so much with so little. And damn it was pretty! CP437 and UTF-8 support. If you don't know what TheDraw is, you don't care about this either.

[C] Menus & ACS

.MNU, .CFG, .ANS files -- the whole setup. Fully scriptable, completely configurable. Your board, your rules, your access levels.

[O] One-Liners & Last Callers

The one-liner wall. Last callers list. Who's online. The stuff that made you feel like you weren't the only weirdo calling this thing at 2am.

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[Title]: Running Your Own 1 of 3 [Author]: felonius [When]: 02/11/26 [To]: All [Area]: General

Docker (Recommended):

 

git clone https://github.com/stlalpha/vision3.git

cd vision3

docker-compose up -d

 

Manual:

 

git clone https://github.com/stlalpha/vision3.git

cd vision3

./setup.sh

./build.sh

./bin/vision3

 

Listens on port 2222. Default login: felonius / password

ssh felonius@localhost -p 2222

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[Title]: We Need You 2 of 3 [Author]: felonius [When]: 02/11/26 [To]: All [Area]: General

Do you write Go? Do you have fond memories of waiting 3 minutes for a single GIF to download at 14.4k? Are you looking for a project that will impress exactly nobody at your day job but might make a dozen middle-aged nerds unreasonably happy? Boy, do we have the unpaid volunteer opportunity for you!

If you aren't old enough to have experienced it first-hand, have you read a weird text file or listened to some wild-eyed GenX nutjob ramble on about how much we enjoyed it and decided "I need me some of that?"

Your reward? The satisfaction of knowing that somewhere, someone is reliving their misspent youth thanks to your code. Also, we'll put your handle in the credits. Not your real name though - this is a BBS, we have standards.

Join the Discord View on GitHub Questions? Email Us
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[Title]: Where It Came From 3 of 3 [Author]: felonius [When]: 02/11/26 [To]: All [Area]: General

ViSiON/2 appears to be derived from the ViSiON code, and was written by Crimson Blade circa 1991-1993.

FORUM → LSD → ViSiON → ViSiON/2 → ViSiON/3

ViSiON/2 was beautiful out of the box, insanely configurable and ultimately grew to include the ability to completely emulate any other BBS you could think of via its completely user scriptable workflow and display setup.

ViSiON/2 was my absolute favorite of all the hundreds of bbs programs I played with, and was the only one what I ever worked on.

I got to know Crimson Blade at some point in 91 or 92. I ended up being a ViSiON/2 sysop and provided a ton of feedback - solicited and unsolicited - to Crim and the other guys that pitched in.

We were kids, working together on a software project, servicing users all over the country, in a mostly pre-internet world.

We were friends, we spent an enormous amount of time on the phone and on party lines when someone had one, hanging out talking and working on V2.

It was amazing.

ViSiON/3 is built in tribute to that software and those friendships.

ViSiON/2 Welcome Screen

Welcome screen

ViSiON/2 Credits

Credits

See the original source → Watch the BBS Documentary →