Modern BBS software for the people who remember when forums were forums. Born from rebuilding spring.com — an Austin BBS that ran 1996–2014 — from the Wayback Machine. Yapp-inspired, archive-aware, no algorithm, no ads, verified email + optional phone.
ATXbbs (pronounced "A-T-X B-B-S") is a web-based conferencing platform — a modern descendant of PicoSpan (which ran The WELL) and Yapp (which ran spring.com 1996–2014). It's built specifically to do something neither of those could: resurrect a long-dead BBS from its Wayback Machine archives, then let modern visitors post on top of it.
Built-in theme switcher (phosphor / light / sepia / high-contrast) and 4 font sizes from small to extra-large. Floating toggle in the bottom-right of every page. Preferences persist across visits via localStorage. No account needed.
Reconstruct any yapp-era BBS from Wayback. Each topic gets a static page; each post-2026 reply lands underneath the original 1998 conversation.
Yapp's three-tier model. Not "channels" or "threads" or "posts" — the language the original BBS cohort speaks.
Email when someone replies to a topic you've participated in. Per-user opt-out. One-click unsubscribe in every email.
Handle + password, that's it. Email optional (used only for password reset + reply notifications if you want them).
Admin queue for spam. Posts are never hard-deleted — flagged + hidden, undoable. Audit trail by design.
Per-conference, all-activity firehose, eventually per-thread. Subscribe to a topic without an account.
What's new since you left. Last 50 / 100 / 333 / 500 (yapp's pulse view). Member count, daily new posts, all on the homepage.
Built to live alongside other community sites. Auto-injects banner cross-links between thematic conferences and their reference sites.
language Python 3.12
web Flask + Jinja2 + gunicorn (single-worker on a $6/mo droplet)
db SQLite (single file, b2 nightly snapshot)
templates Static HTML for archive (1,000s of pages, served by nginx)
Dynamic Flask for live conferences + auth
email Resend HTTPS API (DigitalOcean blocks SMTP)
backup B2 (nightly sync + 30-day dated snapshots)
deploy systemd unit, cron-managed, SSH-only
total LoC ~2,500 (Python) + ~1,500 (templates + CSS)Every mainstream platform now sorts your words through an engagement model and rents your attention to advertisers. ATXbbs is a deliberate step the other way — a place where a conversation is a conversation, ordered by time, owned by the people in it, and built to still be readable in twenty years. The reference BBS has threads that have stayed coherent since 1996. That's the point.
Conferences, topics and responses appear in the order they happened. Nothing is boosted, buried, or reordered to keep you scrolling. You decide what's worth reading.
The model is software you run, not attention you sell. The live BBS has no feed ads and no trackers following you between topics.
Soft-delete moderation means nothing you write quietly vanishes. Posts are flagged and hidden, never hard-deleted, with an audit trail by design.
Static HTML for the archive, a single SQLite file for the live data, nightly off-site snapshots. If the server disappears tomorrow, the conversation survives as plain files.
A source release is planned once the API surface stabilizes (see Status below). Until then, austinspring.com is the canonical reference implementation — the best way to see exactly what the software does.
The reference BBS runs on a single $6/mo droplet: one gunicorn worker, one SQLite file, nginx serving thousands of static archive pages. There's no database server to manage and no per-seat licensing — it's designed to host a real community on hobbyist hardware.
That's the goal. The Manual walks through install, configuration, and bringing up your own instance; the Specs cover the data model and URL conventions. Email is handled over the Resend HTTPS API because DigitalOcean blocks outbound SMTP — one of several small lessons baked into the deploy notes.
Spam and abuse go to an admin queue and are soft-deleted — flagged and hidden rather than erased, and fully undoable. The intent is a moderation model you can trust: mistakes are reversible and there's a record of what happened.
No. Reading is open to everyone, RSS is first-class (per-conference and an all-activity firehose), and the theme and font-size controls work without logging in. You only need a handle and password to post; email is optional and used only for password reset and reply notifications if you opt in.
Yes. The 1996–2014 archive is reconstructed from the Wayback Machine as static pages and is backed up nightly to Backblaze B2 with 30-day dated snapshots. New replies land underneath the original conversations without altering the historical record.
v0.1 · public preview · 2026-04-19. ATXbbs is in active soft-launch ahead of the May 1, 2026 official launch of austinspring.com. The reference implementation is the canonical "what does this software do." Source release coming once the API surface stabilizes.