Interviews

Interview with George Roberts of Nexus BBS Software

As Editor of the Fidonews, a publication of the Fidonet mail network, I'm trying to interview various Authors of BBS related programs and other software for the Fidonews.

With your permission, I'd like an E-Mail address and Web page, if available, to publish in the Fidonews.

Sure! http://www.nexusbbs.net/, sales@nexusbbs.net, and telnet://bbs.nexusbbs.net for my BBS.

Questions:

Q: Tell us a little about George Roberts. Just who are you? :)

I am a 28 year old computer analyst for a Fortune 500 company. My wife Jessica and I are expecting our first child August 1, 2001. I have been singing in a semi-professional a cappella group for about 11 years now.

Q: What got you first interested in BBS?

I started calling BBSes when I got my first computer back in 1987. I was fascinated by the fact that I could use my computer to dial into someone elses computer and download files, play games, read/write messages and chat.

Q: How long have you been programming?

I've been programming for 14 years, ever since I got my first computer. I started with BASICA, Microsoft's Advanced Basic, on DOS 3.3 I believe it was. Since then I have learned to program in QuickBasic, Turbo Pascal, Visual Basic for Windows, C++, Delphi, Perl, and Javascript.

Q: What prompted you to begin writing Nexus?

Well, it started out just as a personal project to see if I could do it. I didn't have any grand plans in mind for it, but mainly just for my own use. A couple of friends of mine who were also sysops saw it and begged me for a copy for themselves. I gave in. :-) Of course, the inevitable feature requests, bug reports, comments, and suggestions followed. Before long they were telling me I should plan it as a public software package. I started the initial beta team back in, oh, 1996 I think. Development actually started on Nexus way back in 1992.

Q: What do you see as the strong points of Nexus? Give us a quick review.

Well, Nexus is a very configurable BBS software package. Most of the display strings and such are completely configurable, and before the "final" release, almost all of them will be. Nexus supports the standardized message formats of *.MSG, JAM, and Squish. It has a very flexible menuing system and what is right now only a rudimentary scripting system, but that will receive more work as time goes on. The security and priveledge system is VERY powerful. The file system is very innovative, allowing the sysop to choose how many description lines per file they would like to store.

The software is still in public beta mode and has quite a bit of work left to be done on it. Currently it is only available as a DOS application, but plans are already being made to port to Win32, OS/2, and probably Linux as well.

Q: Have you written any other BBS related software?

If so, please tell us a little about it.

I recently wrote a small utility that is being tested called NLLIST that will create a BBS List from a St. Louis-format nodelist file.

I've also written many other small utilities, but most of them are several years old now and not really maintained. If I remember correctly, they were all freeware.

Q: Where do you see BBS systems going in the future.

I think that as broadband internet connections become more prevalant, sysops will move their boards to the net. We're already seeing a lot of this now in Zone 1. I think that BBS software will allow sysops to take advantage of the speed and worldwide nature of the Internet, but continue to provide the ability to create a community.

Q: Anything else you want to add or tell the readers?

Well, Nexus has been released in Public Beta for people to try. Please feel free to download the latest public beta from http://www.nexusbbs.net or my BBS at telnet://bbs.nexusbbs.net. I'm always open to ideas and suggestions, so if you try it out, let me know what you think!

> Thanks for your time and help in this interview.

You're welcome Frank! Anytime.

George