TAG
T.A.G. (usually written TAG) is a freeware bulletin board system for MS-DOS, written in Turbo/Borland Pascal and released from 1986 to 1999 by "The TAG Team" of Troy, Michigan. The original authors were Robert Numerick and Victor Capton; Randy Goebel, Paul Loeber, Paul Williams and Alan Jurison joined the team in later years. TAG began as a fork of early WWIV source code and grew into a full-featured system with its own FidoNet-compatible mail processor (TagMail), a menu editor, a string compiler for customising every prompt and, from version 2.6, multinode support.
At its peak just over 1,000 TAG boards were running, mostly in the United States and Canada, with the heaviest concentration around Detroit, where TAG had a friendly rivalry with Telegard, another Detroit-area WWIV descendant. TAG was always free; the team asked only for optional donations and a small handling fee for disks by mail.
Each release was split into companion packages that share a version suffix: TAGS (start-up package for a new board, including the installer), TAGM (main program, TAG.EXE and TAG.OVR), TAGD (documentation), TAGR (Pascal and C record structures for third-party developers), TAGC (conversion utilities for upgrading data files), TAGU (update releases and release notes) and TAGW (spell-check dictionary). To bring up a new board you need the TAGS, TAGM and TAGD packages of the same version.
Version 2.7 (May 1994) was the last major release, adding RIP graphics and JAM message base support; 2.7b, 2.7c and 2.7d were maintenance updates, and the final release was 2.7d2, a Y2K fix, in December 1999.
Release chronology
Dates are taken from the RELEASE.DOC in each package, or from file timestamps where noted.
| Version | Release date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2.5c | 1989 | Referenced in the November 1989 HOWTOTAG guide as the current version |
| 2.5f | 1 Jul 1990 | Start-up package still named GFILE25F |
| 2.5g | 2 Oct 1990 | Complete set of start-up, programs, documentation and record structures |
| 2.5g patch | Apr 1991 | Security patch fixing two problems |
| 2.6 | 1 Jan 1992 | Major upgrade; 2.5g documentation remained current |
| 2.6b | 19 May 1992 | First multinode release; introduced the TAGINST installer and MCONFIG |
| 2.6c | 21 May 1992 | Follow-up two days after 2.6b |
| 2.6d | 23 Jan 1993 | New main and menu documentation; first release credited to "The T.A.G. Team" |
| 2.6e | 27 Apr 1993 | EXE/OVR bug-fix release only |
| 2.6f | 1 Sep 1993 | Internal QWK offline mail support |
| 2.6f1 | late 1993 | Minor update, referenced by the 2.7 conversion package |
| 2.7 | 3 May 1994 | Last major release; RIP graphics and JAM message bases |
| 2.7b | Oct-Nov 1994 | Maintenance patch; CHAT.DAT chat tunes |
| 2.7c | 28 Dec 1994 | Maintenance patch |
| 2.7d | 1 Jan 1998 | Full EXE/OVR replacement after a three-year gap |
| 2.7d1 | 1999 | First Y2K fix, mentioned in the 2.7d2 notes |
| 2.7d2 | 26 Dec 1999 | Final release; JAM message base Y2K fix |
This category holds the core TAG Team releases every sysop needed. Optional official packages (nodelist indexer, spell-check dictionary, record structures for developers) are in TAG Team Add-Ons, the monthly TAGLIST BBS lists are in TAG BBS List, and third-party utilities, doors and sysop guides written for TAG are in TAG Utilities.
27 archives
Subcategories
| Title | Year | Files | Size | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TAG 2.7d Maintenance Release (TAGU27D) | 1998 | 6 | 337.7 KB | JAM TAG TAG Team upgrade |
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Maintenance release bringing any TAG 2.7 or later system to version 2.7d, dated 1 January 1998. Unlike the 2.7b/2.7c patches this is a full replacement. TAG27D.DOC lists the changes
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| TAG 2.7d2 Y2K Maintenance Release (TAGU27D2) | 1999 | 3 | 314.2 KB | Alan Jurison TAG TAG Team upgrade Victor Capton Y2K |
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The final TAG release: version 2.7d2, dated 26 December 1999. 2.7d2 corrects a JAM message base Y2K issue. Contacts given for problems are Alan Jurison and Victor Capton.
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