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Cheepware is my line of freeware BBS doors and utilities written in Pascal. I began working on my first BBS door, "The Magic Oracle", in 1998. I originally wrote TMO for myself but distributed it to the public hoping other BBS sysops would find my door entertaining. I've been releasing my software to the public ever since. I am proud to say that I have been writing and supporting Cheepware for over 25 years!
The Cheepware name is a play on "cheap wares" since BBS sysops are notoriously cheap and don't like to pay for anything...
In addition to this website, I hatch out Cheepware via my Fidonet CH-WARE filebone and in Micronet's MIN_BBS filebone. You can download Cheepware from my FTP site at bbs.outpostbbs.net in /cheepware. I will release software via Cheepware for other fellow BBS-related software authors from time to time as a favor to them.
I support my software via the Fidonet CHWARE and the Micronet MIN_BBS echoes (conferences). Please note that support for my programs is on an "as-is" basis and can end at any time with or without notice or reason.
The software below is what I currently support. If you are looking for other older Cheepware releases, you can get them by visiting my BBS in the BBS.OLDCHEEP file area or anonymous FTP to ftp.outpostbbs.net in /old_cheepware.
My BBS doors should run on any BBS that supports 16-bit DOS doors, a FOSSIL driver (I use X00), and produces either the DORINFO1.DEF or DOOR.SYS dropfile. For multinode use, SHARE.EXE must be loaded at runtime. ANSI.SYS is not needed since the door has its own ANSI driver but the user must have a terminal client that supports ANSI graphics.
These doors have been successfully run under DOS, OS/2 and its newer derivatives, 32-bit Windows, and Linux using DOSemu. I have been told they do run under 64-bit Windows using NTVDMx64, DOSbox, and DOSbox-X but I am unable to offer support for doors run by these methods.
| Attitude Assessment 2.8 | A fun, non-scientific "attitude assessment test" you can take to see how others might possibly view you and your personality. |
| Augury 1.0 | A tarot card reader door I wrote for a former friend. Please note Augury is written in QuickBASIC and uses a different setup than the rest of my doors. |
| Chinese Zodiac 4.7 | Shows the user their Chinese zodiac sign based on their birth year and famous people who they share the same sign with. |
| Dr. Seuss Purity Test 2.2 | A silly "purity" test for adults 18 and over. |
| Freeliner 1.4 | An easy-to-use "oneliner" door for your BBS users. Supports pipe and Telegard color codes. |
| Quote Of The Day 1.6 | A simple "quote of the day" door. It has a few special features to be run as part of a BBS login setup. |
| The Magic Oracle 15.4 | "You've got questions; we've got stupid answers." A sarcastic "fortune teller" inspired by the Magic 8-Ball® toy. |
| DOOR32.SYS | A DOOR32.SYS MECCA script written for Maximus/2 but should work with all versions of Maximus BBS with minor modification. |
| DORINFO1.DEF | An improved version of Maximus's DORINFO1.DEF MECCA script for Maximus/2 but should work for all versions of Maximus BBS with minor modification. |
These utilties can be used with or without a BBS. Some utilties have native executables for different operating systems. The OS/2 and Windows executables are 32-bit. The DOS executables are all 16-bit.
I do offer support for the utilities I've written but not for ones that I've simply compiled and released (i.e. UUUtils).
| CWait (OS/2, Win32) | CWait pauses the execution of a batch file for a specified number of seconds. |
| PassGen (DOS, OS/2, Win32, Win64) | PassGen is a simple command-line password generator that will create passwords using alphanumeric characters from 8 to 255 characters in length. For Linux/BSD systems, I recommend installing pwgen using your system's package manager. |
| SWait (OS/2, Win32) | SWait pauses the execution of a batch file until a pre-created, user-specified semaphore file is deleted and can optionally wait a user-specified number of seconds before allowing the batch file to continue execution. |
| UUUtils (DOS, OS/2, Win32, Win64) | UUUtils is a set of UUencode/UUdecode programs using source code from SWAG that I compiled for 16-bit DOS, 32-bit OS/2, 32-bit Windows and 64-bit Windows. Linux/BSD systems have their own native versions of these utils. All versions and source code are included in this archive. |