From: "Janis Kracht"    
      
   Hi Dusty,   
      
   > A friend of mine and I have been looking into starting a local Chicago-based   
   > BBS... in looking around it seems quite disconnected I think and looking for   
   >some guidance on how to get started. The first software I found was OpenTG but   
   > looks like there are others such as Wizard and maybe one other.   
      
   > I'm lost and looking for a primer - anyone care to help? I ran a BBS 'back in   
   > the day' but used Wildcat! software.   
   > Dusty   
      
   Check out BBBS, there is a tutorial here:    
   http://www.filegate.net/zone1/bbbsfaq.html   
      
   This is a shareware program, but for just three nodes, I think the cost is just   
   @20.00. It's a loaded program with a lot of features (see http://www.bbbs.net),   
   such as mailer, filelist generator, fidonet binkp mailer, ftp, email server,   
   and    
   tons more.   
      
   I have 7 nodes that cost me $90.00.  That was over 10 years ago, so I'm not   
   sure    
   if the price is cheaper now.  I also run BinkD mailer for extra free mailer    
   nodes. For those downlinks, I move the mail from my BBBS outbounds to the   
   BinkD    
   outbounds with a java program I wrote. There is a tutorial of sorts for BinkD    
   also on that same page as the BBBS tutorial, as well as help for Argus on that    
   page.   
      
   There's also Synchronet BBS that also can use either arcmail attach (Argus,    
   Radius mailers) or B-O (bink outbounds) as in BinkD.  There is a tutorial for    
   Synchronet I believe on Synchro.net (home of that bbs program).   
      
   Feel free to email me at janis@filegate.net   
      
   Take care,   
   Janis   
      
   --- Internet Rex 2.29   
    * Origin: The gateway at Diskshop BBS (1:250/8)