Welcome to the Informational Website for
Cottonwood BBS & Borderline BBS

Located in Hemet, California, U.S.A.




Free Speech Online


This site is best viewed with any browser!



Cottonwood BBS



Operating on Color 64 v7.36
Running on a Commodore 64c with a Rear Admiral Thunderdrive (4.1 GB hard drive).
Message bases, text files, file transfers, and online games!

telnet://cottonwoodbbs.dyndns.org:6502
*or*
via dial-up at 1-951-652-1690.

Cottonwood BBS is best viewed on a real Commodore computer with a terminal program that supports Commodore Graphics (aka PETSCII). Alternatively, CGTERM is an excellent program for both PCs and Macs that emulates a real Commodore Graphic terminal program. Another option is 64 BlazerTerm. This terminal program was written for MS-DOS, but you can use DOSBox to run it on a Windows computer. Click here to download a zip file of 64 BlazerTerm (including complete documentation and source code), and click here to download a step-by-step guide that I wrote which explains how to run 64 BlazerTerm in DOSBox.

NEW! Connect with FlashTerm (currenty ASCII-only) at http://cottonwoodbbs.dyndns.org/flashterm/!

Borderline BBS



Operating on All American BBS v11.6b
Running on a Commodore 64c with 4 floppy disk drives.
Message bases, text files, file transfers, and online games!

telnet://borderlinebbs.dyndns.org:6400
*or*
via dial-up at 1-951-652-1690.

Borderline BBS is the very first "hybrid" BBS on a Commodore 64 (accessible via Telnet and dial-up). It's best viewed on a real Commodore computer with a terminal program that supports Commodore Graphics (aka PETSCII). Alternatively, CGTERM is an excellent program for both PCs and Macs that emulates a real Commodore Graphic terminal program. Another option is 64 BlazerTerm. This terminal program was written for MS-DOS, but you can use DOSBox to run it on a Windows computer. Click here to download a zip file of 64 BlazerTerm (including complete documentation and source code), and click here to download a step-by-step guide that I wrote which explains how to run 64 BlazerTerm in DOSBox.

IMPORTANT! The software that Borderline BBS runs on requires new users to be in ASCII mode to complete the application process, so do not use a Commodore graphic terminal program the first time you call. Instead, use FlashTerm (see link below), HyperTerminal, or another ASCII-capable terminal program for your first call. Following your first call, after you have an assigned ID number, you can use a Commodore graphic terminal program without any problems.

NEW! Connect with FlashTerm (currenty ASCII-only) at http://borderlinebbs.dyndns.org/blflashterm/!


Jeff Ledger has written an excellent document entitled Putting Your Commodore Online. This document explains, in detail, how to connect your Commodore computer to a PC, enabling you to call the Telnet-accessable BBSs with your Commodore! To download a PDF of this document, click here.


To view the latest edition of the Commodore 64/128 BBS List, click here.


To go to my personal website, which contains several useful documents, manuals, and files for Commodore computers, click here.


Nick Smith, the author of All American BBS, has authorized me to release his software to the Public Domain on his behalf. The following are the final releases of AA BBS for the C64 and C128, as well as the source code for each, in zipped d64 format:

All American BBS v11.6b

All American BBS v11.6b Source Code

All American BBS 128 v12.5c

All American BBS 128 v12.5c Source Code


I have been unsuccessful at tracking down Bill Jackson, the author of Ivory BBS. However, I was a registered owner of Ivory BBS software, and I have what I believe was the final official release of Ivory. It includes complete documentation. So in the interest of making this version publically available, instead of the cracked version with no docs that is floating around on other sites, you can download a zipped d64 of it here:

Ivory BBS v3.3

If anyone has any contact info for Bill Jackson, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know. That way, I can hopefully get his official permission to release this.

I've also come across a copy of Ivory v3.5. I'm not sure if this was an official release, but it does appear to include 1581 support, including support for partitions. You can download a zipped copy of both sides of the disk here:

Ivory BBS v3.5


Eric Green, one of the co-authors of ICE BBS, has licensed ICE BBS v1.1 under the GNU General Public License (GPL). This is effectively the same as releasing it to the Public Domain; it just means that you can't put your own copyright on it, basically. I scanned in all 122 pages of the original printed manual. Now, the manual and d64 disk images of both sides of the original disk are available for download here:

ICE BBS v1.1


Greg Pfountz, the original author of Color 64 BBS software, has authorized the release of the final version that he wrote of Color 64 (v7.37) to the Public Domain. A zip file containing all six disk sides in d64 format is available for download here:

Color 64 v7.37

More will be added to this website as time permits.

For questions regarding this website, Cottonwood BBS, or Borderline BBS, write to the SysOp, Andrew Wiskow (aka Balzabaar), at wiskow_at_gmail.com.

(Replace "_at_" in the e-mail address with "@")

Last updated on 25 April 2016.