Roadmap ANSI · 38400 8-N-1 · CP437

The road ahead

Here is roughly what is coming to ATA, in roughly the order it is likely to arrive. There are no dates on any of it, on purpose.

▓▒░ Where things stand

Before the beta.

Sixteen boards run today and install in one click: RBBS-PC, Fido, Citadel-86e, Asgard-86, Maximus, T.A.G., QuickBBS, RemoteAccess, PCBoard 15.3, TriBBS, GAP, Spitfire, VBBS, Virtual Advanced, Telegard and Renegade. Doors run inside them the way they always did. There is a SysOp console, a DOS machine room, nightly events, snapshots, and a credential relay that keeps passwords off the wire.

Nothing has been released yet. The beta is the next milestone, and it will be a limited release: the four items below are what stands between here and there, and the four after that are what stands between the beta and a first proper release.

ATA is a hobby project, built alongside a novel, an executive job, and a PhD. It gets built when there is time and the inclination to build it. That is the honest answer about the schedule, and it is why you will not find a single date on this page.

▓▒░ The work to the beta

Prove the lines, move the files.

Complete

The board list

Done. Sixteen packages, each with a verified profile, a staged install, and a real call walked end to end before it shipped.

VBBS and Virtual Advanced are shareware and ship unregistered. A SysOp holding a valid registration, or importing a board that is already registered, runs them registered. VBBS 7 is a registered-user upgrade and cannot be bundled; you can upgrade a board yourself, but it is untested and may or may not work.

The list grows when people ask. Anything new joins after the beta: here is how to ask.

Planned

Multi-node, tested properly

The machinery works. What it has not had is a thorough shake across every supported package, for the board and for doors both, with several callers on at once doing the things that break file sharing: posting into the same base, fighting in the same door, logging on and dropping carrier at the wrong moment. That testing is what stands between working and trustworthy.

Planned

File areas that actually transfer

Every one of these boards has a file section, and a file section is worth nothing without a way to move the files. Uploads and downloads over XMODEM, YMODEM and YMODEM-G, working through the same serial line the caller is already on, so the board's own file menus do what they always did.

Planned

Page the SysOp

Every one of these boards has a key that pages the SysOp, and right now it rings a bell nobody hears. First step is surfacing the page in the console, so you know someone is asking. Then, if it proves workable, routing your keystrokes back into the caller's session so you can actually answer, the way a break-in chat did.

Planned

Documentation

A SysOp's manual, and a door installation guide for each supported board, using LORD as the worked example though any DOS door follows the same road. Plus the caveats for each package: the quirks, the settings that matter, and the things one particular board does differently from all the others.

▓▒░ The work to the first release

Your old board, and mail that moves.

Planned

Import an existing board

The one people ask for most. Upload the directory of the board you already run, or the one on a drive in a closet, and have ATA identify the package, check the version against a verified profile, and bring it up with its users, its message bases and its files intact.

Planned

A text editor in the console

Batch files and configuration files are the two things a SysOp edits constantly, and today that means the DOS machine room or an FTP client. A plain editor in the console makes the common case quick.

Planned

A light file manager

Create a directory, upload a file, and get on with it. Not a replacement for FTP or for the DOS prompt, both of which stay. Just the small jobs, without leaving the browser.

Planned

EchoMail and FidoNet

Message areas shared between boards, the way the old networks did it. A caller posts once and the message turns up on every board carrying that echo. This is the big one, and for a family of software that grew up on FidoNet it is the piece that makes a board feel connected rather than marooned.

▓▒░ Hear when these ship

Nothing here has a date.

The mailing list is how you find out when something arrives. One email when ATA is ready to download, and nothing else.

Read how ATA works if you would rather know what is already built than what is coming.