Telegard
More info
- Creator
- Martin Pollard, Eric Oman
- Released
- 1985
- Type
- BBS software
- Platform
- DOS
- Successor
- Renegade (via leaked code)
A DOS bulletin-board package whose leaked source code became the ancestor of a whole family of other systems.
Telegard was written by Martin Pollard and Eric Oman and appeared in 1985. It grew into a popular free and shareware BBS through the late 1980s, with ANSI menus, door programs, message bases and FidoNet via a FOSSIL driver.
Around 1990 its source code leaked. That code in turn became the basis for several other packages — most famously Renegade — which makes Telegard an unexpectedly important branch in the BBS-software family tree. The program itself faded as the internet replaced dial-up boards, but its descendants lived on well into the 1990s.