BBS Network

Ten boards answer on teletypegames.org, each on its own port, each in the browser on bbsweb too. TTG Gate BBS on teletypegames.org:2399 reaches all of them from one port.

The boards

All ten are built on rubbs, and all ten have two faces on one port: a modern one for ANSI terminals (windows, menus, mouse; TTG Blog BBS is line by line) and a Commodore 64 one in PETSCII, 40×25. A call starts with the same question (rubbs' BBS::Terminal): the board guesses from the telnet answers (a window wider than 40 columns is a modern terminal, 40 or no answer a C64), 1 picks modern, 2 the C64, RETURN takes it.

Calling

• One port for all — telnet teletypegames.org 2399: TTG Gate BBS, a dialing menu that puts the call through to any board and takes it back when the board hangs up.
• A telnet client — telnet teletypegames.org 2323, or SyncTERM, NetRunner, PuTTY.
• A browser — bbsweb.teletypegames.org: one card per board, xterm.js, mouse and ZMODEM downloads; the C64 switch shows the PETSCII face. See BBS Web.
• A Commodore 64 — a terminal program (CCGMS, StrikeTerm) behind a WiFi modem: ATDT teletypegames.org:2323.

Between the boards

Each kind of thing has one board, and the others do not repeat it: the Teletype BBS keeps the community (boards, mail, chat) and the doors that live only there (SERMO, the Commodore 64 and Plus/4, Chat of Ra, TTG Trivia), and tells where the rest is. It has no gateway doors since 2026-11-01: a caller reaches another board by calling its port, or through TTG Gate BBS on 2399, which puts the call through to any of them (rubbs' BBS::Gateway) and takes it back when that board hangs up.

Board > BBS Network on the Teletype BBS (on the C64 face: N) shows every board as a building of the town map on the clubhouse wall, with what it carries, and its TTG Master answers the same.

How they run

Every board is a Docker stack on the VPS, deployed from Woodpecker by a push to master through ci-deploy (see Deployment):

Each container updates rubbs at start, so a pushed rubbs reaches the boards with their next restart; devarea/scripts/bbs-lock-bump.sh --push moves every board's Gemfile.lock to the same revision (since 2026-11-01 all eleven are on rubbs 0.29.1, and their C64 screens, logos, goodbyes and Discord posts come from rubbs' shared blocks). The ports are open in ufw (Server ports). In Grafana, VPS: BBS shows the live sessions per board and the gate, how many of the eleven run, their resources and error lines.

A new board

A new board leaves a trace in several repositories; it is done when all of these follow it:

1. The board — a repo in the bbs org on rubbs, BBS::Terminal.flow for the two faces, the next free port (2333; 2399 is the gate's), compose.yaml publishing it. devarea/scripts/new-bbs.sh writes a working one from the house template (the domain layers, both faces on rubbs' BBS::Petscii::Screen, BlockFont and Goodbye, Docker, CI); the full checklist is devarea/procedures/bbs-server-creation.md.
2. Deploy — infra/host-config: files/etc/ci-deploy/<name>.conf (ALLOW_PORTS), its MANIFEST line, the deploy key; on the server ufw allow <port>/tcp, the stack folder, the Woodpecker secret.
3. Monitoring — infra/host-config vps-textfile-metrics: the container in the BBS map (sessions, up; the VPS: BBS dashboard matches every .+-bbs container by itself); infra/observability: the port on the public-port allowlist in grafana/provisioning/alerting/rules.yaml.
4. TTG Gate BBS and bbsweb — an entry in bbs/ttg-gate-bbs config/boards.yml, and a card in services/bbs-web config/config.json (petscii: true for the C64 switch).
5. Teletype BBS — a row in lib/content/network.yml and the board's two buildings on the town map (lib/content/art/modern/building_ID.yml, 12×4, and lib/content/art/c64/building_ID.yml, 3×3), and the TTG Master's facts (master_knowledge.yml and master_knowledge_c64.yml): where the new kind of thing is now.
6. Wiki — its own page, a line in the Services sidebar, this page and Server ports.
7. devarea — scripts/repos.list and WIKI_CONNECTION.md.