BBS Guide

What Is a BBS?

A BBS (bulletin board system) is a pre-web message board you connect to with a terminal. It's all text, menus, ANSI art, and door games. Before the World Wide Web existed, this is how people talked to each other online. Dead Parrot keeps that tradition alive — for the retro-tech and small-web minded — running on a small custom server you reach over SSH.

Connect via SSH

Host: bbs.deadparrotbbs.com
Port: 4000
Protocol: SSH (public-key only)

From a command line:

$ ssh -p 4000 bbs.deadparrotbbs.com

Your SSH public key is your account — there are no passwords. On your first connection the board asks you to pick a handle; after that the same key logs you straight in. New here? The How to Join page covers keys and registration step by step. This works on Linux, macOS, and Windows 10/11, all of which include the OpenSSH client.

Recommended Clients

OS Client Notes
Linux OpenSSH (ssh) Installed by default. ssh -p 4000 bbs.deadparrotbbs.com and you're in.
macOS Terminal / iTerm2 + ssh OpenSSH ships with macOS. Run the same command from any terminal.
Windows OpenSSH / Windows Terminal Built into Windows 10 & 11. Run it from PowerShell, Windows Terminal, or PuTTY (key auth).
A note on BBS terminal apps: SyncTERM, NetRunner, and mTelnet are wonderful for classic boards, but they log in with passwords and can't present an SSH public key. Dead Parrot is public-key only, so those clients return an error and won't connect. Use your system's OpenSSH client (or PuTTY configured for key auth) instead — that's the intended way in.

What's Inside Dead Parrot BBS

Message Boards

Discussion areas for the retro-tech and small-web minded:

  • Introductions — Say hello, tell us your first computer, what you tinker with, or what brought you here.
  • The Workbench — Hardware projects, vintage repairs, and things that smell like solder.
  • Dead Protocols Society — Gemini, Gopher, twtxt, Finger, and other protocols the mainstream left behind.
  • The Parrot Cage — General discussion. Off-topic, on-topic, somewhere in between.
  • Small Web, Big Mouth — Indie web, personal sites, phlogs, gemlogs, and the fight against platform monoculture.
  • Iron & Silicon — Retro computing, hobby OSes, old iron, and the machines that refuse to die.
  • Under the Hood — Programming, scripting, sysadmin war stories, and tools you actually built yourself.
  • The Dead Drop — Announcements, board news, and sysop dispatches.

The lineup grows as the community does — log in and have a look at what's new.

Door Games

Dead Parrot bridges out to classic door games and to the InterDoor network of federated text games, all from the doors menu. See the Door Games page for the full lineup and a play-in-browser terminal.

Feeds

The board publishes its activity as twtxt and RSS feeds, and carries an inbound twtxt "wire" you can read from the menu — the open web and the BBS, talking to each other.

Easter Eggs

There are a few hidden surprises scattered around. We won't tell you what they are — that would defeat the purpose — but keep your eyes open.

Getting Started

  1. Connect

    Open a terminal and run ssh -p 4000 bbs.deadparrotbbs.com.

  2. Pick a Handle

    On your first connection the board recognises a new key and asks you to choose a handle (and an optional tagline). No password required — your key is your login.

  3. Explore

    Navigate the menus, read messages, try a door game, and have a look around. Press ? at any menu to see available commands.