Virtual Advanced

VBBS is an acronym for Virtual Bulletin Board System. It was a shareware bulletin board system (BBS) for DOS (and later OS/2) that was conceived by Roland De Graaf in 1990. Written from scratch in QuickBASIC, it developed a loyal following. Originally it was a door for WWIV, but quickly grew into an original BBS concept on its own. By 1993, there were thousands of computers running VBBS around the world. VirtualNET, the largest VBBS message network, had close to 1500 members by version 6.14 in 1993.

Up to this time, VBBS remained shareware, but in 1994 Roland released version 7.0 as a commercial product. The lifetime registrations of prior versions were not honored for this version and required anyone who wished to use this version to pay. While some did decide to pay again for the upgrade, others became unsatisfied and began looking for other alternatives. There would not be another release of VBBS.

Instead, Roland switched gears again in 1995. He released Virtual Advanced (VADV) as the successor to VBBS. VADV contained many improvements to the old system. One notable feature was a much more powerful scripting language. It was a step forward for the software but once again SysOps were required to purchase the new software.