Citadel+

Citadel+

Citadel+

Typical Citadel BBS screen
Original author(s)	Brent Bottles (aka resident) Richard Finegold (aka Richard Goldfinder) Don Kimberlin (aka err head) Elisabeth Perrin (aka Livia) Matthew Pfleger (aka The Gremlin)
Developer(s)	Anticlimactic Teleservices, Ltd.
Initial release	October 1994 (1994-10)
Stable release	/065y2k / October 1999 (1999-10)
Preview release	/066pα73 / May 27, 2009 (2009-05-27)
Written in	Borland C++
Operating system	MS-DOS Win32 (/066) Linux (via WINE)
Platform	x86
Website	http://zombiechow.com/citplus
Child of	Gremlin's Citadel
Related	ACit, Citadel (by Gremlin), dars, Squiggle, Titanic, perladel

Brent's notes

Citadel+ is really nothing more than a renamed Gremlin's Citadel. The name Gremlin's Citadel was mostly as a joke, given when Matt Pfleger did not expect it to become such a success. While at least Matt and Brent wanted to rename it simply "Citadel", others objected that it was too generic, and also a bit conceited to claim to be the One True Citadel. Thus, the + was added to make it a bit different. Of course, we later learned that there was already a Citadel Plus. Oh well. Life will always be confusing.

Citadel+ grew to be the most widely used variant of Citadel before the development team lost interest and went different ways. The unfinished version 66 was intended to bridge the gap between dial-up systems and the Internet: it runs on Win32 (such as Windows 95 and 98 and NT) and supports multiple simultaneous users connected through either modems or Telnet. However, it is not complete. It is missing some features, and is only somewhat stable. Brent and Matt still tinker with 66 at times, and might even finish it eventually.

Jesse's notes

As of 2010 Brent has long since lost interest, but occasionally thinks about picking it up again if he weren't working full time. He is supposedly in possession of an incomplete port of /066 to Mac OS X, but it is unknown which alpha he started this from. Additionally he may have started work on an /067 which moves to a new database type (MySQL? Maybe I should go back the ages of logging chat)

Occasionally Jason Simpson (aka waxed) tinkers with the Citadel+ code base, and seems to be in possession of the most current, and still used Citadel+/Win32/066 code. Most of this has been minor bug cleanup, and some improvements to <C>hat as well as tweaks to make Cit+ behave a little better under WINE There is an svn currently available at http://zombiechow.com/citplus.

There still exists a somewhat annoying bug for sysops who wish to offer dial-in service. It is known as the COM1 bug, as the symptom is sometimes when a caller hangs up from the modem connected to COM1, the BBS will crash.

net6969, which was supposed to replace Net 6.9 for Citadel+ networking can be difficult to get working between nodes, documentation is practically non-existent and the implementation is still quite buggy, but if working it is possible to have messages propagate to network nodes almost immediately, as well as shared chats.

Recent development hasn't actually been on the Citadel+ code base, but on a bot called Jab which interacts with the BBS, and a webchat page which has url linking and thumbnailing features, as well as a few CSS themes to choose from. Webchat sends your chats to the BBS via net6969, which never worked all that well for networking (hey, it was in alpha!) but seems to work well for this!

Slumberland BBS (Beacon Hill, Seattle, WA, USA) is still up and active, and is currently believed to be the only active Citadel+ still around, it is also the only known place where Jab, waxed's webchat and andy's WJE webchat add-on are in use.

I should question the date, or the description of the documentation files. As /065 came out in 1995 or late 1994 sometime, the files are unlikely to be the preliminary docs if they came from 1999.

Personally, Jesse bets the date is wrong.

As of 2018, Slumberland's Cit+ pooped out and doesn't want to run after prodding. So the BBS is basically dead. The webchat is still present and functional for existing users, as webchat reads from the user DB file directly to authenticate. But no new users can sign up unless Citadel+ itself can be fixed.

---

The most recent version is now available below, /066pα73. The copies of 72 and 73 here were built by jesse. The 72 build does not include the patches which were released after the 72 source was, but before the revision was bumped to 73. The 72 source below, however, does. If Jesse wasn't bored he'd compile a new 72 build from it, but since 73 exists he likely won't bother. The 73 source was obtained from Jason's SVN, but required the moving of one #include in comp.cpp to compile properly. 73 is also packaged with a copy of the /065 manual and the various bits and docs that have been released with earlier /066 alpha releases.

Cit+ Files

File	Size	Date
Version /065 first release Auxmem (EMS, XMS, Virtual) for DOS	587,802 bytes	July, 1995
Version /065 first release Regular (conventional memory only) for DOS	583,901 bytes	July, 1995
Version /065 first release Source Code	1,412,204 bytes	October, 1999
Version /065y2k Regular (conventional memory only) for DOS	563,280 bytes	October, 1999
Version /065y2k Auxmem (EMS, XMS, Virtual) for DOS	565,835 bytes	October, 1999
Version /065y2k Source Code	1,413,720 bytes	October, 1999
Version /066α03 alpha demo for Windows	770 kilobytes
Version /066α18 alpha test for Windows	815 kilobytes
Version /066pα67 alpha test for Windows	849,104 bytes	March, 2002
Version /066pα67 source code	1,509,880 bytes	March, 2002
Version /066pα72 alpha test for Windows	836 kilobytes	2002
Version /066pα72+patches source code	1.6 megabytes	2003
Version /066pα73 alpha test for Windows	1.1 megabytes	August 29, 2010
My occasionally updated copy of Jason's svn of current Cit+ code (/066pα73)		May 27, 2009
big pile of things I haven't sorted yet

Documentation

File	Size	Date
Version /065 preliminary documentation (Text)	200,462 bytes	September, 1999
Version /065 preliminary documentation (Word 6.0)	261,205 bytes	September, 1999
Version /065 preliminary documentation (WordPerfect 5.1)	233,531 bytes	September, 1999

Support Files

File	Size	Date
Version /065 Customization Kit	158,407 bytes	December, 1995
Version /065 Spell-checker dictionary	477,087 bytes	September, 1999

Some script files that you might find useful

File	Size	Date
Transfer Net 6.9 packets over the Internet with a dial-up shell account	7,056 bytes	January, 1996
On-line user questionnaire (/065)	10,381 bytes	September, 1999
Use your Citadel to receive faxes, if you have a fax modem (/065)	5,063 bytes	September, 1999
A perl script from Audin to dump messages from a MSG.DAT - doesn't handle compressed messages		Late-2010s?

Gremlin's Citadel

Gremlin's Citadel

Original author(s)	Brent Bottles (aka resident) Richard Finegold (aka Richard Goldfinder) Don Kimberlin (aka err head) Elisabeth Perrin (aka Livia) Matthew Pfleger (aka The Gremlin)
Developer(s)	Anticlimactic Teleservices, Ltd.
Initial release	1992 (1992)
Discontinued	/064.2 / August 1993 (1993-08)
Written in	Microsoft C and Borland C++
Operating system	MS-DOS
Platform	IBM PC
Child of	Dragon's Citadel
Parent to	Citadel+
Related	ACit, Citadel (by Gremlin), dars, Squiggle, Titanic

Gremlin's Citadel was renamed to Citadel+ in October 1994 with the /065 release.

GremCit Files

File	Size	Date
Gremlin's Citadel/054 source code	263,084 bytes	April, 1992
Gremlin's Citadel/059 source code	279,780 bytes	July, 1992
Version /062 Regular (repacked)	172 kilobytes
Version /062 Regular (conventional memory only)	190 kilobytes
Version /063.1 Regular (conventional memory only)	299 kilobytes
Version /064.2 Auxmem (EMS, XMS, Virtual)	258,468 bytes	August, 1993
Version /064.2 Regular (conventional memory only)	249,661 bytes	August, 1993
Version /064.2 Regular Kit	515 kilobytes	August, 1993
Version /064 sample configuration files	35,044 bytes	November, 1993
Version /064 Customization Kit	380,969 bytes	July, 1993
Version /064 Spell-checker dictionary	311,193 bytes	September, 1999
Version /064 preliminary documentation	102,906 bytes	July, 1993
Version /064 help files (Repacked)	34,177 bytes	September, 1999
Version /064 help files (Original .ZIP)	35,909 bytes	September, 1999
Add Soundblaster support to version 64	155,648 bytes	June, 1993
Make version /064 compatible with more door programs	9,493 bytes	September, 1999
Pile of files I haven't sorted at all, yet