RuBBS

rubbs is an in-house Ruby gem for building Telnet BBS servers — from a one-screen line prompt to a full Synchronet-style multi-window application, all in Ruby. It powers our BBS Server.

What you get

Telnet & ANSI — IAC negotiation (SGA, ECHO, NAWS terminal size), full-screen ANSI with a double-buffered delta diff, xterm 1000/1006 SGR mouse for clickable menus and wheel-scroll lists.
Widgets — Label, Button, TextInput, TextArea, Checkbox, ListBox, ScrollView, ProgressBar, Spinner, plus HBox / VBox / Panel containers and a CP437 ANSI-art viewer.
Pre-built windows — Info, Form, MasterDetail, Stream (chat / log), opened imperatively or from a window DSL.
Theming — five presets (synchronet, nortoncommander, dosnavigator, neumanntronics, mono), each a frozen role-name → ANSI palette, overridable per key.
Markdown & ASCII art — Markdown-to-ANSI renderer, box-drawing banners, FIGlet (Artii) big banners, ERB screen templates.
Persistence — BBS::Store: a thread-safe, upsert-by-session_id CSV file with an in-memory cache.

Overview

The gem is named bbs. It boots a TCP listener, handles Telnet negotiation, hands each connection a Session, and gives you three layers to build on. Your code declares only screens, windows and services.

RUBY

require 'bbs'

BBS.configure do |c|
  c.flow = BBS::Flow.define do
    big_banner 'My BBS'
    ask :name, prompt: 'Your name'
    say 'Welcome!', style: :success
  end
end

BBS.start

Connect with telnet localhost 2323.

The three layers

Layer	What it is	When to use
`BBS::Flow`	Line-oriented declarative dialogue (ask / say / menu / persist)	Login, registration, simple wizards
`BBS::TUI`	Single-screen page router with frame-buffer delta rendering	Single-purpose full-screen UIs
`BBS::Application`	Widget framework: Menubar, Window, Button, TextInput, ListBox, …	Multi-window Synchronet-style BBSes

They mix in one session — typically Flow for login, then Application for the main shell. Inside a flow you can hand off and return when the user exits.

TEXT

TCPServer → Session → FlowRunner ─┬→ TUIRunner
                                  ├→ Application#run
                                  └→ FlowRunner (sub-flow)

Installation

RUBY

gem 'bbs', git: 'https://git.teletypegames.org/engines/rubbs.git'

Used by the Teletype Games BBS

Our public BBS Server (games.teletype.hu:2323) runs on rubbs. The gem provides the ANSI interface, menubar, stacked modal windows, Telnet server and mouse support; the bbs-server repo holds only Teletype-specific configuration — service wiring, window definitions, formatters.

Source layout

File	Responsibility
`lib/bbs.rb`	Public surface: `BBS.configure`, `BBS.config`, `BBS.start`.
`bbs/server.rb`	TCP accept loop, one thread per client.
`bbs/session.rb`	Telnet negotiation, mouse enable/disable, idle timer.
`bbs/telnet.rb`	Telnet protocol, key parsing, xterm SGR mouse.
`bbs/flow.rb`, `bbs/flow_runner.rb`	Flow DSL + interpreter.
`bbs/tui.rb`, `bbs/tui_runner.rb`	Page router with frame-buffer rendering.
`bbs/frame_buffer.rb`	Double-buffer, delta diff, ANSI string utilities.
`bbs/application.rb`	Widget event loop, window stack, builder DSL.
`bbs/widgets.rb`, `bbs/widget.rb`, `bbs/container.rb`	Widget tree + built-in widgets.
`bbs/window.rb`, `bbs/windows/*`	Window + pre-built window types.
`bbs/theme.rb`	Style palette presets.
`bbs/markdown.rb`	Markdown → ANSI line renderer.
`bbs/store.rb`	Thread-safe cached CSV upsert.

Repository

https://git.teletypegames.org/engines/rubbs