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Synchronet - News For up-to-the-minute Synchronet news and developments, read the announcements or the Git Commit Log! January 2, 2022
Synchronet v3.19b has been officially released for Windows.
The biggest new features v3.19 are:
September 20, 2020
Synchronet v3.18b has been officially released for Windows.
There is a fresh installation/setup program as well as an upgrade package (from v3.15+). August 23, 2020 After 20 years of using CVS, the Synchronet project is switching to Git (and GitLab). So long, crufty old friend. January 1, 2019 Synchronet v3.17b has been officially released for Windows. There is a fresh installation/setup program as well as an upgrade package (from v3.15+). August 15, 2015 Synchronet v3.16c has been officially released for Windows. There is a fresh installation/setup program as well as an upgrade package (from v3.15+). May 20, 2010 I'm in the process of upgrading the computers (and operating systems) that host the various Synchronet sites and services (including the BBS), so please be patient while I work out all the kinks and get everything back to 100% functional. April 18, 2010 There's a new Synchronet Wiki at wiki.synchro.net, where most of this sites contents (mostly, documentation) will be moved over time. News, official downloads, and the like will remain here. Take a look-see! January 11, 2009 For those that don't already know, there are (and have been for over a year now) daily Win32 builds of the current development code in CVS as sbbs_dev.zip. If you wish to upgrade (e.g. from v3.14a) to the latest and greatest, this is your opportunity. I finally got around to scanning in the various 1990's era Synchronet / Digital Dynamics ads and other memorabilia I had in stored in boxes in the garage. If you're interested in the commercial history of Synchronet, you can now peruse the museum! May 14, 2008 I've had to move web host (actually hosting on my DSL connection using Synchronet now), so please forgive any broken links for now. June 16, 2007 I've released a new program for Synchronet External Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) Support. The program is named SEXPOTS, with homage to the very successful SEXYZ project. This program adds dial-up modem support to any Windows TCP/Socket/Telnet-based BBS (e.g. Synchronet-Win32). Deuce has a *nix version in the works and has also recently added dial-up modem support to SyncTERM to complete the old-school BBS experience using actual <gasp> modems! Vertrauen can now be dialed directly at 951-549-9994. December 31, 2006 Happy Birthday to me... (I'm 37 today). Funny out history repeats itself. Anyway, yes, there's a new Synchronet-Win32 release (v3.14a) in 2006 (barely)! Major new features include:
For a complete list of changes, see v314_new.html. December 10, 2005 I'm moving and my DSL service will be transitioning (to new IP addresses) at the new house on December 14th, so expect some disruptions in service (DynDNS, QWKnet, CVS, etc.) for *.synchro.net. Sorry for the temporary inconvenience. October 14, 2005 Jason Scott sent me this response to my review of the BBS Documentary DVD set. To clarify, I wrote the review he's quoting in July 2005, before Jason and I had a public discussion on the subject here (also available on USENET), where we hashed out our differences over what the documentary could've/should've been (Jason posted as textfiles, while I posted as digital man). I still whole-heartedly endorse the DVD set and sincerely appreciate Jason's gift to the BBS community (and those who have never even heard of us). If you still haven't purchased/seen it, you really should! Thanks again Jason! September 11, 2005 Synchronet v3.13a-Win32 was released today. Enjoy! July 22, 2005 If you haven't you haven't already seen Jason Scott's BBS Documentary DVD set, you absolutely must buy it and see it today! He did an excellent job of capturing the "human element" of BBSing and covered the early history of BBSing very well. The production quality is first rate and with 3 (three!) DVDs over-flowing with interviews of the heroes, r0d3nts, and luminaries of "the day", there's plenty of entertainment and educational value for anyone who has ever been interested in (any combination of) technology, innovation, communities, and industry. It's fabulous! Now, that being said, I have my critiques as well (of course). :-) There seems (to me) to be an unbalanced coverage of the eras, scenes, elements and aspects of BBSing. Examples:
BBS Software It's not surprising that the big commercial packages (TBBS, PCBoard, Wildcat, and MajorBBS) were well represented, but there were so many thousands of BBSes running other programs. The "old school" packages (Fido, Opus) got plenty of mentions, but how about their natural successor, Maximus? Or AdeptX? I thought the WWIV->Telegard->Renegade heritage was a particularly interesting story that should've been covered. To get Wayne Bell's thoughts on that would've been cool. And the lineage of the Forum hacks of the day (complete with screen shots) would've been cool. GAP, SpitFire, RBBS, RoboBoard (and Robo/FX), GTPower, PowerBoard, ProBoard, Remote Access, TAG, TurBoard, Falken, TriBBS, etc. Obviously, there are hundreds of BBS packages, and I'm honored that Synchronet had at least some part to play in the documentary (thanks to my brother, Mike), but over-all, I feel the coverage had some tunnel vision and seemed to focus on the BBS software of ancient history, where Synchronet really doesn't have much of a story. Innovation Inaccuracies Post Mortem Just because BBSes are dead to Jason, does not mean they are dead to everyone. July 16, 2005 The initial release of SEXYZ (v1.65-Win32) was made in June and has thus far demonstrated excellent performance, reliability, and compatibility. If you haven't switched from your 16-bit file transfer protocol driver (e.g. DSZ, FDSZ, CE-XYZ) yet, you are strongly encouraged do so as soon as possible! The days of Zmodem file transfers dragging down your system and user complaints of CRC errors (especially on uploads) are forever over, finally! SyncTERM (for Win32 and various *nix flavors) has also been coming along nicely (thanks mostly to Deuce) and includes the Zmodem file transfer module from SEXYZ. I recently took some time to write-up a list of answers to frequently asked questions regarding Synchronet v3 and TCP/IP. Deuce and I spent a little time updating the table of Synchronet-supported platforms. As usual, there have been a whole bunch of fixes and improvements to Synchronet since the last release. I still anticipate the next release (for Win32) will be v3.12b and expect it to be the last of the version 3 series (yes, the v4 development will commence soon after). I'm in the process of moving my family (again) to a new house and city over the next few months and hope to get the v3.12b release in during this time-frame (which may prove difficult). And don't forget, RuneMaster continues to make improvements and fixes to the Web/SSJS interface (see the January 27 notes on upgrading/updating these files). RuneMaster also sparked some recent discussion and experimentation with different bug tracking systems, so there will likely be an official Synchronet bug database in the near future (likely, GNATS based). Thank you for your patience and for the early CVS/alpha builders and testers out there! January 27, 2005 The v3.12a release has gone pretty well, with the exception of some upgrade problems for v3.xx-Win32 systems, some problems with the ListServer module, and the default SSJS (Server-Side JavaScript) Web Interface. To address these problems:
There will be a v3.12b release pretty soon (February time-frame) to address these issues as well as any other critical bugs that are discovered/reported and fixed in the near future (so keep those bug reports coming!). We're currently holding off on any "new feature" development until v3.12b is out and verified stable for a period of time. In the mean time, I'm working on a new external file transfer driver called SEXYZ (Synchronet External X/Y/Zmodem). This program will replace the 16-bit DOS file transfer drivers that we've been stuck with (e.g. FDSZ, CE-XYZ, etc.) on Win32 BBSes and will hopefully be included in the v3.12b-Win32 release. Stephen (AKA Deuce), meanwhile, has been developing his terminal program, SyncTERM, which supports RLogin and Telnet sessions from Win32 and Unix consoles and will soon be integrating the X/Y/Zmodem file transfer modules developed for SEXYZ. You're gonna dig BBSing in 2005! December 31, 2004 Happy Birthday to me... (I'm 35 today). Well, I got the v3.12a-Win32 release out in time for the new year! It was a lot of work, and while I was working my ass off to get this release out by today, I can't say I appreciated receiving annoying e-mails like this one:
Hey Rob,
I know you got a family and all, but just to bring this to your attention..
You said that you would release the next version of Syncrhonet this December..
Well dude you got until Friday before that time runs out ya know? Maybe
because of the holiday and all that you should edit that and change it for a
later date? Just a suggestion, is all it is since December is almost over with
by Friday.
And there were others. Even after I said, right here, last month "Sorry I can't guess the exact date any better than that (please don't ask)". This is a perfect example of why I don't like to give release dates. Anyway, enough bitching. The cool new features can be found in v311_new.html and v312_new.html and it can be downloaded here. I've got some celebrating to do... Happy New Year! November 20, 2004 It's been a long time since my last update (didn't have FrontPage installed). Emma is now 8 months old, cute as a button, and crawling all over the place. Baseball season is over and the Angels won the west! But that's not why you're here! You want to know what's up with Synchronet!?! Well.... a lot. Just because I don't update the web-site doesn't mean we're not developing. :-) Anyway, there's going to be a release (v3.12a) sometime in December. Sorry I can't guess the exact date any better than that (please don't ask). If you want to build v3.12 from source code, you're more than welcome to. Some of the new features in v3.12 include:
February 27, 2004 My family is going to have a new addition (baby Emma) very soon. And baseball season is just over a month away (Go Angels!). So I pushed myself to get Version 3.11b-Win32 beta (311bBeta.zip) "out the door", so you sysops and users can hammer on it while my wife and I get used to having 2 little girls and continue to get moved into our new house (which we love). This beta release is really a release candidate for the final release of v3.11; it contains mostly bug-fixes (see docs/v311_new.html for details) and a few minor enhancements. Thanks so much for the bug reports, keep them coming! After the final release of v3.11 is out (soon), we will dive into v3.20 development which will include:
So stay tuned! BBSing with Synchronet in '04 is going to be awesome! December 19, 2003 I'm moving to a new house in the next few days. I already have DSL service installed and active at the new house, but there will likely be a gap (of 1-5 days) between when the DSL service will be terminated at the current/old house (sometime today) and when I get everything online at the new house (estimating Tuesday, the 23rd at the latest). In the mean time, vert/bbs/rob/cvs.synchro.net will be offline, so there will be no DOVE-Net service, CVS source code repository, irc.synchro.net server-linking service, and no yourbbs.synchro.net dynamic DNS (dyndns) update service available. We do have a secondary name server (thanks to Deuce at nix.synchro.net), so any existing entries in the synchro.net DNS zone file will continue to resolve, but no changes to the IP addresses may be made until Vertrauen is back online. Thanks for your patience! Oh, and while I'm here I'm going to
answer the current #1 most frequently asked question: Answer: December 7, 2003 Version 3.11a-Win32 Beta is now available as an upgrade (311aBeta.zip) from v3.1x (e.g. v3.10L beta or v3.11a alpha). For a (nearly) complete detailed list of what's changed since v3.10, see v311_new.html. Some highlights include:
Version 3.11a Beta is also available for Linux and *BSD in source format. October 18, 2003 The next release (v3.11a beta) will be out "soon". If you'd like to track the progress, see the new dynamic CVS commit log. I also have a new dynamic Synchronet to-do list which is much easier for me to edit, update and keep current than the old static HTML list (which is now very stale), but most of the things in this list are slated for the v3.20 release time-frame. I recently started putting together a what's new list for v3.11a and it's just crazy how much new stuff there is. This list isn't even half done! Probably the neatest new thing (in my opinion) in Cyan's IRC daemon (server), written completely in JavaScript for Synchronet! You can check it out at irc.synchro.net (using any standard IRC client like mIRC). This is a growing IRC network that will soon have cool Synchronet-only features/enhancements. I recently spent some time creating some pages outlining how to get technical support, and a list of credits to those who have contributed to Synchronet over the years (knowingly or unknowingly). June 18, 2003 I am now offering free (experimental) dynamic domain name services (DynDNS) for Synchronet sysops wanting a yourbbs.synchro.net host name for their Synchronet v3.10 BBS. To get your own synchro.net host name:
Enjoy this free new service, exclusively for Synchronet sysops! June 2, 2003 Switched to a new web host, Interjuncture, run by an old BBS author even! March 2, 2003 Version 3.10L Beta is now available for Win32 (sbbs310L.zip) and Unix-x86 (sbbsunix.tgz)! This is a beta release, but it does include a full-blown Win32 installer (no prior Synchronet installation is required). The Win32 installer can be used for a full installation or to upgrade an existing installation (of v2.3 or v3.x). The Unix installer can be used to build Synchronet from the v3.10L source code or the current CVS code snap-shot - thanks Deuce! Synchronet v3.10L now offers:
See v310_new.txt for a complete list of what's new since v3.00c (the last "official" release). November 10, 2002 Version 3.10k BETA for Win32 (310kbeta.zip) is now available! Synchronet v3.10k now offers:
See v310_new.txt for a complete list of what's new since v3.00c (the last "official" release). Synchronet
for Unix now builds and runs on OpenBSD (thanks to Deuce!), so that makes it
compatible with Linux-x86, FreeBSD-x86, and OpenBSD-x86! November 1, 2002 Version 3.10j BETA for Win32 (310jbeta.zip) has been available since July! Sorry for not updating the site sooner, but I was married in September and with the preparations and honeymoon and all that... (http://swindellfamily.com). Synchronet v3.10j now offers:
See v310_new.txt for a complete list of what's new since v3.00c (the last "official" release). Version 3.10k BETA will be out soon (with once again, many improvements), and hopefully it will not contain any show-stopper bugs and will basically be the release candidate of v3.10 (finally). Version 3.20 will begin beta shortly after the official release of v3.10. This version will introduce an integrated web server with CGI and server-side JavaScript support. The current console mode build of sbbs (from cvs) already has the beginnings of the web server code in it (and can be enabled by editing the ctrl/sbbs.ini file). A new file database format (based on SMB technology) will also be introduced in v3.2. This new database format will eliminate all the short-comings of the antiquated v1 file database format still in use. I also am planning on writing a small Win32 utility to enable dial-up users to connect to Synchronet v3 (or any Telnet-only BBS software). It's basically a small Modem<->Telnet gateway application. If you already know of something like this (please don't say NetModem or COM/IP), let me know. You can now buy Synchronet merchandise! April 30, 2002 Version 3.10i BETA for Win32 (310ibeta.zip) has just been released. Synchronet v3.10 now offers:
See v310_new.txt for a complete list of what's new since v3.00c (the last "official" release). Synchronet for Unix (Linux and FreeBSD) is really coming along nicely. Due much to the involvement of supportive Synchronet sysops and code contributors (most especially, Deuce). For build, installation, and configuration details, see sbbsunix.txt. Please do not try to build the v3.00c source code for Linux and then report warnings and errors to me. That code is really old now. Use the current source as instructed in sbbsunix.txt. February 24, 2002 There has been much progress since the release of Version 3.10F Beta. Here are the highlights (which will appear in the soon-to-be-released Version 3.10G Beta):
See v310_new.txt for a complete list of what's new in v3.10 Revision G. November 30, 2001 Happy Holidays! Version 3.10 is turning out to be a pretty major advancement in BBS technology, if I don't mind saying so. :-) The Win32 build is currently in public beta testing and is now up to Revision F. Thanks to the prodding of Angus McLeod via DOVE-Net, I've added a very extensible "services" feature that allows JavaScript modules or native executables to handle incoming TCP connections on specific ports (ala Unix inetd). This services feature has already given birth to the following new additions (all written in 100% JavaScript):
Utilizing the finger service and the SMTP server, I've introduced a new Inter-BBS "Instant Messaging" technology. You can logon and see it in use at vert.synchro.net (hit 'I' from the [C]hat menu). See v310_new.txt for a complete list of what's new in v3.10 Revision F. High-lights include:
Synchronet for Linux and Synchronet for FreeBSD have also made pretty major strides lately thanks in large part to interest from Deuce, the FreeBSD/Perl dude. There is still no release, but if you're willing to build the source (not a big deal really) and deal with the configuration file headache, you'll find the following new features in the Unix builds:
October 6, 2001 Obviously I haven't been updating the site much over the past nine months or so. But I have a good excuse - I had a baby girl! So to reward you for checking the site out again, I've introduced a new, cleaner, more easily readable design (thanks again for the logo, Mike). On to the news... Version 3.10 for Win32 has been in active development and public beta testing, is currently up to Revision E, and appears to be very near release quality at this time. See v310_new.txt for a complete list of what's new. The major new features are:
Synchronet for Linux is mainly awaiting the Linux C++ development tool from Borland before I can make further progress on the configuration program. I plan on writing a new GUI SCFG replacement for both Win32 and Linux platforms. I could be working on external DOS program support and native door support, but without a configuration program, not many people will be using the Linux version anyway. The "Linux version" is built from the same source code base as the Win32 version (excluding the control panel and some other utilities), so it gets most of the same features. I've yet to integrate the JS engine into the Linux build, but probably will do that soon. I continue to run the Linux version 24/7 at cvs.synchro.net and have not lost interest. January 1, 2001 Version 3.00c for Win32 has been released. You can get it now (as a full install or upgrade) at vert.synchro.net or ftp.synchro.net (mirror). See v300_new.txt for a list of new features and other changes. November 12, 2000 The Synchronet for Linux port is well under way and actually compiles, links, and runs. You can see it online at cvs.synchro.net (via Telnet or FTP). The current development source code can only be accessed via CVS or CVSweb at cvs.synchro.net. Some of the Synchronet utilities have also been ported to Unix/Linux (e.g. baja, node, chksmb, fixsmb, and smbutil), but there is currently no Unix/Linux flavor of the Synchronet configuration program (SCFG). So, in the mean time, you will need to use dosemu or a DOS box and run SCFG to edit your .cnf files. To use Synchronet for Linux, you will need to check out the following projects from cvs.synchro.net (in addition to the src project): ctrl, text, exec, and node1. Caution: this code is very alpha and is not intended for general public consumption at this time. Only interested hackers/co-developers should be trying to compile/run Synchronet for Linux at this time. Version 3.00c for Win32 was released in a public beta upgrade (from v3.00b) package and more releases are expected before the official release probably in December. More Major new features in v3.00c:
October 25, 2000 Version 3.00c for Win32 is slated for release sometime this fall. This upgrade adds support for pre-OSR2 versions of Windows 95 as well as Windows NT 3.x. Major new features in v3.00c include:
I've been plugging away at the GNU C/Linux port and have made significant progress in the past week. I'm also seriously considering adding support for MinGW at some point, which along with the Borland C++ Builder Compiler would give us a pair of free Win32 compilers compatible with the Synchronet source (in addition to Microsoft Visual C++). I'm consciously maintaining as much "generic Unix" compatibility as possible in anticipation of ports to other free Unix-like operating systems (e.g. FreeBSD). If you're willing and able to contribute to the porting effort, please take a look at the source code and let me know what you think. Pistol Grip has made significant contributions to the HTML conversion of the Sysop documentation. You can follow our progress here. More contributors are welcome to join! October 10, 2000 Synchronet Version 3 has been Copyrighted, but remains free software and is now available as Open Source (under the GNU General Public License). June 25, 2000 Synchronet v3.0 for Win32 was officially released to the public and is available for download now. Click here for a list of what's new in v3.0. While I was over-hauling the source code for v3.0, I found and fixed a few bugs (including some minor Y2K issues) in v2.3. You can download the upgrade to v2.3c beta (for DOS and OS/2) here. Planned features for the near future include integrated IRC and NNTP servers and GUI sysop utilities. Click here for the current "to do" list. January, 2000 If you haven't already heard, I've resumed development of Synchronet. My initial project (v3.0 for Win32) is a Telnet-only multi-user Windows 95/98/NT4/2000 BBS/Internet suite. It includes integrated Telnet, Mail (SMTP/POP3) and FTP Servers. All "nodes" may be run on a single computer in a single window/process (unlike v2.x), or distributed across multiple computers. A Linux version is eminent and an OS/2 port is still a possibility (although SBBS4OS2 v2.3 still runs great and meets the needs of sysops according to reports from the OS/2 community). |
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