Support the project

µnleashed BBS is free software, and it stays free. This page is how to help pay for making it, if you would like to.

It is a bulletin board system that runs on an ESP32, a microcontroller on a board from about $15. Callers reach a board over telnet, or SSH on an ESP32-S3 board, from an Apple II, an old PC, a VT220 or a laptop bought this year, for chat, forums, mail and file areas, with no web and no cloud in between.

Support it on Buy Me a Coffee. Once, or every month. Giving once needs no account there: a card, Apple Pay or Google Pay will do.

Where the money goes

The software costs nothing to use. Making it costs something every month.

• AI tools. µnleashed BBS is built by one person, Rob, with AI doing a great deal of the development, the writing and the design: the firmware, the screens a 40-column machine draws, and the page you are reading. The decisions are his. The tools are a monthly bill, and not a small one. The page about the project, what this is, says the same, because it is better said than found out.
• This site and the directory. The server they run on, around the clock whether anybody visits or not, and the three domain names.
• Hardware to test on. ESP32 boards, SD cards, LEDs, and other ESP32-S3 boards. The Waveshare S3 runs the BBS because one was on the bench, and a board goes on the tested boards page only once a build has run on it.

The software of the future

That is Rob's phrase for it, and the claim is narrower than it sounds. Software you own, on hardware you can hold in one hand, that nobody can switch off from a data centre. Old machines as callers in their own right rather than as a novelty: a Commodore gets real PETSCII and a serial terminal gets text that fits it, and both sit in the same chat room as a laptop bought this year. Nothing in it depends on a company still being there next year, which is more than most software written this year can say.

What stays free

• The firmware, under the GPL, version 3 or later.
• The installer that puts it on a board from your browser.
• The directory, and a listing on it.
• Every page on this site.

Supporters get posts and development news on Buy Me a Coffee, some of them for members only. What support never buys is features or priority. Nothing in the software is held back for people who pay, and a bug reported by somebody who has never given anything gets the same attention as anybody else's.

No board depends on this site, either. If the directory went dark tomorrow, every board would carry on answering calls. Support keeps the work moving; it is not what keeps your board alive.

Thank you

Every supporter gets the posts and news on Buy Me a Coffee. Lifetime members are also named, or left anonymous if they prefer, in the credits on the ABOUT screen of the firmware, which ships on every µnleashed board, and in the list below.

Helping without money

The project only means something if boards exist, so some of these count for more than a coffee does.

• Run a board. It is what the software is for. Build one, or install from the browser in about five minutes.
• Put it on the list. A directory is only as useful as what is on it. Getting listed is switching the board's announce plugin on and waiting three hours: how to get listed. A board running Synchronet, Mystic or something you wrote yourself is welcome too.
• Report what breaks. Problems with the board's software go on the firmware's issue tracker, and problems with this site or the installer on the directory's public issue tracker. What you did, what you expected and what happened instead is most of the work of fixing it.
• Tell somebody. A friend who still has an Atari or an Amiga in the loft, a club that wants somewhere to be between meetings, a teacher who would like a network the class can hold. Send them who it's for.

About Buy Me a Coffee

It is a company, separate from this project, and it takes the payment: this site never sees your card. It keeps 5% of each payment, and card processing costs about another 3.5% and 30 cents, a little more outside the US and on monthly support. Those are its own published figures as of September 2026, and they are its to change. It has its own privacy policy.

This page is a plain link. Nothing on this site loads anything from Buy Me a Coffee until you follow it.