Telegard

Telegard BBS was originally developed starting in 1986 by Carl Mueller, Dave Boisvenu, and a developer known as Bill, who began modifying the Pascal source code of WWIV v3 while they were still in their teens. The group was all in the Detroit area.

Around 1989, the project was turned over to Eric Oman, a prolific young programmer who was reported to be in middle school at the time of working on Telegard. Under Oman, Telegard became a highly popular, modular platform. Martin Pollard joined as a co-programmer and alpha tester by version 1.8(?). Pollard sought to professionalize the software and distance it from its immature or warez-oriented reputation. Eric Oman leaving the project because it was "not fun anymore".

The software's history took a definitive turn when the version 2.5 source code was accidentally leaked to the public. This leak became the foundation for several other legendary BBS packages, most notably Renegade, Iniquity, Impulse and others.

Martin Pollard was frustrated by dealing with Telegard users and shut down Telegard development and support in December 1991.

Tim Strike revived Telegard in 1993, with version 3.x releases. Today, the software is preserved as a cornerstone of BBS history, with the original telegard.net domain recently restored for archival purposes.

Key Figures and Version Milestones

• Carl Mueller: The original creator who branched the software from WWIV source code in 1986.
• Eric Oman: The lead developer during Telegard's peak popularity; he was active until version 2.5g, which is considered the last version he worked on.
• Martin Pollard: A key programmer and coordinator who managed the project through the early 90s and released the "So long" email in December 1991.
• Tim Strike: Took over the project in September 1993, leading the transition to the 3.x series. There was talk about a ground-up rewrite in C++.
• Version 2.7: Released in 1991, this became the "mainstay" version for many SysOps and was the final version written in Turbo Pascal.
• Version 3.09 / 3.10: Later stable releases maintained by Tim Strike and the Telegard Development Team through the late 1990s.