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 |
| Stable release | /065y2k / October 1999 |
| Preview release | /066pα73 / May 27, 2009 |
| 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 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 |
| File | Size | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Version /065 Customization Kit | 158,407 bytes | December, 1995 |
| Version /065 Spell-checker dictionary | 477,087 bytes | September, 1999 |
| 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
| 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 |
| Discontinued | /064.2 / August 1993 |
| 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.
