What Is This Place?
Dead Parrot is a proper old-school bulletin board system — a text-based world you connect to over SSH, built for people who tinker with the technology the mainstream forgot. Retro computing, the small web, hobby operating systems, vintage hardware, and the dead protocols that are still very much alive in practice: Gemini, Gopher, twtxt, Finger, IRC. No feeds, no likes, no engagement metrics — just slower, better conversation.
The board itself is meant to be a living example of the things its community talks about: small, self-owned, protocol-first, and built to last. If you've ever soldered a fix onto a dying machine, run your own gemlog, or kept a 30-year-old OS booting just because you could — welcome. Where dead tech comes back to life.
Connect to the BBS
An actual bulletin board you reach over SSH. Message boards, door games, ANSI art, and text-only charm. Your SSH key is your identity — no passwords.
ssh -p 4000 bbs.deadparrotbbs.comBBS Guide
What's inside, which clients work, and how to get connected in a couple of minutes.
cat bbs-guide.txtAbout / Manifesto
Why we built this, what we believe, and our extremely reasonable house rules.
cat manifesto.txtA Genuine BBS, Brought Back to Life
Behind that ssh command is a genuine, old-school bulletin board:
text-based, menu-driven, and stocked with message areas, door games, and the odd
Easter egg. It's intentionally a bit nerdy and perfect for anyone who's ever felt
a pang of nostalgia for the days of dial-up — except instead of a modem, you
connect with the SSH client you already have.
Curious? The How to Join page walks you through connecting, and the BBS Guide tells you everything you'll find inside.
Door Games & Feeds
Dead Parrot bridges out to classic door games — Legend of the Red Dragon, TradeWars 2002, and more — plus the InterDoor network of federated text games. And because the open web should still talk to itself, the board publishes its activity as twtxt and RSS feeds you can subscribe to.