Other TPDs

Unfortunately, as time passes, we have lost a lot of information about some of the smaller ISVs. In some cases, they only had a product or two, or only shareware. In other cases, they closed up shop and their forwarding information is no longer current. Worse, some of them we have nothing but references in messages or catalogs. If you have any information about these companies, please share it with us!

These TPDs (Third Party Developers) first became active in the Major BBS v5.x era.

Cool Bear Software
Cool Bear Software was a TPD during the v5.x era, and it is not known if they ported any of their software to the v6 module DLL standard. Cool Bear was Joe O'Brien and
Scott Gualiardo from Fountain Valley, CA. Attempts to locate these gentlemen have not been successful. Cool Bear produced, that we know of, Cool Bear Bones, Cool Bear Talk, Lords of Death, and Target. No further information is available about these titles, and we have no copies.

Electronic Voice Expression Systems
Mainly a vendor of a multiuser voice chat/support system (called EVE), Electronic Voice Expression Systems was seen as a complimentary vendor by Galacticomm. They did produce one utility for the Major BBS 5.x, called Retry, which prevented lock-ups caused by use of CD-ROMs. The company was run by Gary Bacchetti of West Seneca, NY.

Jagware
Jagware produced a flash game called Flash Duel. Jagware was John Gillespie of Boerne, TX. We do not know how to contact John.

Les Bird
Les Bird was a programmer who had his own ISV. He eventually went to work for Galacticomm, but nobody can recall what the actual name of his ISV was! He wrote Super Lotto and SuperNova, which were later integrated into Galacticomm's Entertainment Edition.

Mages Inn, The
The Mages Inn was run by Michael Wiese of Omaha, NE. They developed two products for version 5.x that we're aware of: Fortune Cookie, which was freeware and included source code, and displayed a saying when a user logged on to the BBS; and Userlist, which was shareware, which let the SysOp look up information stored in the USRACC.DAT file and display it on the screen. Registration provided the ability to specify search criteria such as "display all males over 21 with IBM-compatible systems".

Medcom Information Systems
Medcom was actually one of the largest systems running Major BBS 5.x, and was a systems integrator. Located in Placentia, CA and run by Stephen Grande and Ray Burns, Medcom was an offshoot of the Midcom corporation. They hired a SysOp by the name of Jeff Reeder who developed many custom modifications to their system. Eventually, Jeff took over the system and moved it and renamed it Arena BBS, and started a TPD called CovyWare. But while Medcom was in operation, they actually produced some saleable products - language addon packs - Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Vietnamese. In addition, Medcom released the very first open source addon for The Major BBS 5.0, called QandA. It was a simple Question and Answer module, and was released as a tutorial for programmers to develop addons for The Major BBS.

Online Store AG
Online Store AG developed language addons for The Major BBS -- German and Spanish with BSI, and the German (Sysop Edition) and Spanish (Sysop Edition). They also developed a utility called I14TOSPX, which may or may not have been external.

Phoenix Resource Technologies / Psycho Software
Phoenix Resource Technologies was, I think, the company behind the BBS O.L.G.A. in south Florida. Psycho Software was none other than Jeff Kobal, who worked for Moonshae/Galactic Innovations. Only two products were released under the Psycho banner: Board Games, a fully configurable and easily-modifiable module for The Major BBS which pits users against each other in classic games of skill and strategy like Chess, Checkers, Backgammon, Reversi, Penta, Outwit, Tic-Tac-Toe and many more. Full ANSI and IBM character support, allows game spectators; and Mystery!, an interactive, multi-user, text adventure game complete with murder and mayhem, suspects and clues, and bad humor. Players look for incriminating evidence, interrogate game characters, and try to solve the murder mystery like private detectives. Mystery! was somewhat a sequel to Moonshae's Whodunit?. We hope to resurrect these two games in the near future.

ProStar Software
ProStar was run by Rob Michnick and was located in Auburn, WA. ProStar was primarily a reseller and integrator, and resold not only The Major BBS, but selected products from several TPDs.

Public Data Network
Public Data Network was run by Tony Javoric of Grants Pass, OR. It developed the addon ChatLink, which was a system interlinking module similar to Interlink, The Compass Chat, and Worldlink. It was eventually incorporated into The Major BBS' Entertainment Edition, but was later replaced by Worldlink.

Technical Magic
Technical Magic developed Amiga Flash Chat and Amiga Flash Attack, which were Commodore Amiga ports of Galacticomm's first two flash programs. Technical Magic run by Gary Hewitt from Nepean, ON Canada. We would love to resurrect these programs for Amiga-Nostalgia's sake!

Telegrafix
Telegrafix developed the RIP "language" addon for The Major BBS. The RIP protocol was invented by Jeff Reeder, and was commercialized by Telegrafix. Later, The Major BBS included the RIP language addon with the BBS package.