TriBBS
TriBBS is a computer bulletin board system (BBS) designed for MS-DOS computers. The popularity of TriBBS can be attributed to its affordable price tag coupled with its vast array of built-in features. TriBBS was written by Mark Goodwin and marketed through his company, TriSoft. Goodwin, a ProFicient computer programmer, constantly updated TriBBS with new features suggested by the SysOps who used TriBBS. To aid other software developers in creating 3rd party tools which would operate seamlessly with TriBBS, Goodwin developed the TriBBS Application Program Interface. As a result of this interface, many addons which enhanced TriBBS were quickly brought into existence by TriBBS supporters.
In later years, Goodwin sold TriBBS to Gary Price of Freejack's Software. Prior to his acquisition of TriBBS, Price had developed a collection of addons and tools for use with TriBBS. His knowledge and strong interest in TriBBS made him an ideal candidate to promote further development and continued support for TriBBS. Price added a handful of small features to TriBBS, but his most significant contribution was making the TriBBS software Year 2000 compliant.
Eventually, Price sold TriBBS to Joe Stollings and Frank Prue of PTC Software. Soon after acquiring TriBBS, they announced their intentions of releasing a 32bit version of TriBBS in the http://groups.google.com/group/alt.bbs.tribbs newsgroup. This announcement generated much excitement among the TriBBS community. Unfortunately, 7 years would pass without any notable changes being made to TriBBS. It seemed as though Stollings and Prue had no interest in TriBBS until they made an announcement that they would be selling the TriBBS source code to the higest bidder on eBay. Unfortunately the auction was cancelled as allegations of "bid running" and fraud surfaced. As a result, Stollings and Prue retained the TriBBS software and to this day (2007-June) they have produced no significant changes to the original TriBBS software.
The official TriBBS website is still online, though portions of it have not been functional for some time. If the last eight years are any indication of the future of TriBBS, it's safe to say that TriBBS has been laid to rest as a piece of history.