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Information about Door Games

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ANSI art from the title screen of TradeWars 2002
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Screenshot from Legend of the Red Dragon (LORD)
A BBS door was a mechanism to execute and communicate with an external program, commonly a game on bulletin board systems (commonly referred to as door games).

The BBS software would start the external program, and the door system would pass data back and forth between the door program, the BBS, and the remote user. To supply the door program with the user's information (such as the user's alias and the amount of time they had spent online), the BBS software would create a dropfile containing information for the program to read. A few door programs including Front Line operated the opposite way, as Front Doors, answering the modem and then giving control to the BBS software. This method was particularly commonplace for hubs of networks.

FOSSIL was a popular communications hardware/software interface standard used by MS-DOS compatible BBS software and door programs which has helped these legacy programs remain compatible with modern communications technologies such as Telnet and Rlogin.

While many of the most popular and memorable BBS doors were games, numerous doors had non-entertainment applications such as user polls or the time bank, permitting users to time-shift their rationed BBS use. Frequently they would act as a front-end to themed databases on subject such as astrology, numerology and fortune-telling, recipes, weather prediction, personal ads (sometimes with additional match-making functionality), classified ads and "for sale" listings (sometimes permitting auctions), BBS lists and parting comments from the most recent BBS callers.

Prodoor provided a different message editor for use with the PCBoard messagebase. Many doors including Markmail and Qmail provided QWK functionality for convenient use with offline readers. Sysops who were away from the BBS computer sometimes called in and used DOORWAY by Marshall Dudley, which could run many DOS programs by modem, including file managers, DOS prompt, and the specialized editing programs that administered the BBS.

Popular door games

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A computer program is one or more instructions that are intended for execution by a computer. Specifically, it is a symbol or combination of symbols forming an algorithm that may or may not terminate, and that algorithm is written in a programming language.
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personal computer game (also known as a computer game or simply PC game) is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine.
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Bulletin board system, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to dial into the system over a phone line (or Telnet) and, using a terminal program, perform functions such as downloading software and data, uploading data, reading news, and exchanging
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A dropfile is a simple binary or text file used by a bulletin board system (BBS) to pass information about the BBS itself and the current user to an external BBS door.

Formats

Many different dropfile formats exist; most of these are application-specific.
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For other uses of the term, see Fossil (disambiguation)


FOSSIL is a standard for allowing serial communication for telecommunications programs under the DOS operating system.
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For the packet switched network, see .


TELNET (TELecommunication NETwork) is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area network (LAN) connections.
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In computing, rlogin is a Unix software utility that allows users to log in on another host via a network, communicating via TCP port 513. It was first distributed as part of the 4.2BSD release.
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time-based currency is an alternative currency where the unit of exchange is the hour.

Time-based currencies value everyone’s contributions equally. One hour equals one service credit.
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PCBoard (PCB) was an bulletin board system (BBS) application first introduced for MS-DOS in 1983 by Clark Development Corporation. Clark Development was founded by Fred Clark.
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QWK is file-based offline mail reader format that was popular among bulletin board system (BBS) users, especially users of FidoNet and other networks that generated large volumes of mail.
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An offline reader (sometimes called an offline navigator) is computer software that downloads e-mail, newsgroup posts or web pages, making them available when the computer is not connected to the Internet or, in the late 20th century, bulletin board systems.
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Sysop (pronounced /ˈsɪs.ɒp/, or more rarely, /ˈsaɪ.sɒp/) is short for "system operator".
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File Manager was a file manager program bundled with Microsoft Windows 3.0[1], Windows 3.1x, Windows NT 3.1, Windows NT 3.5 and Windows NT 3.51 to replace the previous MS-DOS Executive interface.

Ian Ellison-Taylor was the shell developer on the Windows 3.
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COMMAND.COM is the filename of the default operating system shell (or command line interpreter) for DOS and 16/32bits versions of Windows (95/98/98 SE/Me). It also has an additional role, as the first program run after boot, hence being responsible for setting up the system by
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Arrowbridge II is a freeware BBS Door written in Quickbasic by Mark Sinclair. The game was written as a sequel to the original BBS Door, Arrowbridge I.

Players can select from one of six character classes.
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This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article.
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A brothel, also known as a bordello or whorehouse, is an establishment specifically dedicated to prostitution, providing the prostitutes a place to meet and to have sex with the clients.
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Cripple Smash was a BBS door released some time around 1992. It was a humorous game in which you fight people with disabilities as well as movie stars and even the programmer of the game, Ben Freeman.

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A dominion was a self-governing colony or autonomous state within the British Empire, a concept eventually replaced by Commonwealth Realm. Particularly:
  • The Dominion of Newfoundland, the former name of Newfoundland and Labrador prior to it becoming a Canadian province in

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Drugwars is a popular calculator game for various Texas Instruments calculators (TI-82, TI-86 etc), based upon the PC version of the game. It was originally ported to the TI-82 by Simon Lehrer and Brian Barnes, and further ported to the TI-86 by Jonah Cohen.
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Please help recruit one or [ improve this article] yourself. See the talk page for details.
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Food Fight was a multiplayer BBS door game popular in the early 1990s. In the game, you played a kid who loved getting into food fights. You'd do various things for money, use the money to stock up on groceries, and unload it in a violent fashion at the other players of the game.
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Kannons and Katapults is a BBS door game written by Alan Davenport. The last version released was 4.4 and compiled 9/12/95. It has since then been ported over to the TI-86 calculator.
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Legend of the Red Dragon (LORD) is a text-based role-playing game written in Pascal and run on Bulletin board systems as a third party door game. It was created by Seth Robinson of Robinson Technologies and is currently maintained by Michael Preslar.
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Modern warfare involves the widespread use of highly advanced technology. As a term, it is normally taken as referring to conflicts involving one or more first world powers, within the modern electronic era.
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PimpWars is a DOS-based video game created in 1990 by Paul J. Martino. The author gave up development of the game in the late 1990s, but the community continued to contribute to the game and its code.

Current development of PimpWars is done by James Coyle.
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The Pit is a Bulletin Board System (BBS) game using basic ANSI art (compare with ASCII art) and text database information. A graphical front end is also available, with EGA graphics and sound. Players fight in a rectangular grid against computer or human opponents.
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Solar Realms Elite or SRE is a multi-player bulletin board system strategy game similar in design to its successor, Barren Realms Elite (BRE). In Solar Realms Elite, players rule a solar empire. The goal is to become and remain the most powerful empire.
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Space Dynasty is a multi-player bulletin board system strategy game that grandfathered Solar Realms Elite and Barren Realms Elite. Players rule an empire with the goal of acquiring the most planets.

Space Dynasty was written by Hollie Satterfield for the PC.
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Swords of Chaos is a computer game by Mark Peterson of the type called a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon). It can only be played in a telnet session over a bulletin board system.
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