Break into Chat

Who can forget an encounter with the Ferengi? Flirting with Violet the barmaid? Nuking a neighboring empire?

TradeWars 2002. Legend of the Red Dragon. Solar Realms Elite. Classic games that were played once upon a time on dialup BBSes.

The Break Into Chat wiki was created to preserve the history of these and other BBS door games, after editors on Wikipedia began deleting door game articles.

I research and rescue old software on the Break Into Chat blog, such as the computer curiosities of Ya'akov Kirschen, or the innovative Instant Graphics and Sound protocol for the Atari ST.

On the blog you'll also find interviews with door game creators, my experiments with ANSI art animation techniques, BBS door game retrospectives, and much more.

Finally, Break Into Chat hosts a growing number of BBS- or retrocomputing-related special collections, such as 300,000 Fidonet messages from the 1990s or AtasciiTube, the ATASCII animation player.

I believe eventually academia will give BBS door games the scrutiny and research they deserve. I hope the articles on this wiki, as well as the original research on the Break Into Chat blog will be helpful in those future endeavors.

I have not simply preserved old Wikipedia articles. I have expanded them, and added new articles and more sources. But I could use help! There remain many, many BBS door games not represented on the wiki right now.

Can you help? Please get in touch to request access.

Josh Renaud (talk) 12:00, 28 November 2012 (CST)