T.A.G. is a DOS

DOS

DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...

-based bulletin board system

Bulletin board system

A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...

 (BBS) software program, released from 1986 to 2000.

T.A.G. was written in Borland Pascal and is free for business or personal use (They considered it fun to give the program away while others tried charge for them).

Authors over the years: Victor Capton, Randy Goebel, Alan Jurison, Paul Loeber, Robert Numerick and Paul Williams.
All live in the Detroit (MI) area except Alan Jurison who lives in Syracuse (NY).

Peak number of running systems: Just over 1000, mostly in the US and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

Areas of major T.A.G. BBS concentrations:

• Michigan
  Michigan
  Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
  
  : Detroit (where it started), Lansing, Flint
  Flint
  Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...
  
   and Battle Creek
• California
  California
  California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
  
  : Oakland
• Connecticut
  Connecticut
  Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
  
  : Hartford
• Florida
  Florida
  Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
  
  : Jacksonville and Cocoa
  Cocoa, Florida
  Cocoa is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. The population was 16,412 at the 2000 census. As of 2008, the estimated population according to the U.S. Census Bureau was 16,478. It is part of the Palm Bay–Melbourne–Titusville Metropolitan Statistical Area.-History:Cocoa was...
  
  
• Maryland
  Maryland
  Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
  
  : Baltimore
  Baltimore
  Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
  
  .
• New Jersey
  New Jersey
  New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
  
  : Newark
  Newark, New Jersey
  Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
  
  
• New York
  New York
  New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
  
  : Syracuse
  Syracuse, New York
  Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
  
  
• North Carolina
  North Carolina
  North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
  
  : Raleigh
  Raleigh, North Carolina
  Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...
  
  
• Ontario
  Ontario
  Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
  
  , Canada
  Canada
  Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
  
  : Windsor
  Windsor, Ontario
  Windsor is the southernmost city in Canada and is located in Southwestern Ontario at the western end of the heavily populated Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. It is within Essex County, Ontario, although administratively separated from the county government. Separated by the Detroit River, Windsor...
  
   and Hamilton
  Hamilton, Ontario
  Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
  
  
• Pennsylvania
  Pennsylvania
  The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
  
  : Pittsburgh
• Texas
  Texas
  Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
  
  : Houston, Beaumont
  Beaumont, Texas
  Beaumont is a city in and county seat of Jefferson County, Texas, United States, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city's population was 118,296 at the 2010 census. With Port Arthur and Orange, it forms the Golden Triangle, a major industrial area on the...
  
   and Fort Worth
• Virginia
  Virginia
  The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
  
  : Norfolk
  Norfolk
  Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
  
  

A quote from one of the authors:

We all poured countless hours into the development and support of people running BBSs. Even today I don't think the internet has come close to the sense of community and simple accomplishment that BBSing provided. Building and running a complete environment on your local computer and watching people use it is a far different experience than putting up a web page on some remote server. We all made and still have a great many friends from being sysops and BBS developers.

Other Notes:

No one ever got them to answer definitively on what their name stood for, but there was a reasonably reliable rumor that it was from "The Adventurer's Guild" which was a Dungeons and Dragons sort of reference.

The only known T.A.G. BBS still in existence can be accessed via telnet at diskbox.homeip.net

Intro Screen

The intro screen to the T.A.G. BBS login was:


/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
/\/\/\/ [>> Welcome to <<] \/\/\/\
| /\/ ______________ ______ ___________ \/\ |
| / / / /| / /| / /\ \ \ |
| / / TTTTTTTTTTTTTT/ AAAAAA /| GGGGGGGGGGG\/| \ \ |
|/\/ /\ TT | AA|___AA /| GG | GG/ /\ \/\|
|-< < > TT | AA/ AA /| GG | _____ < > >-|
|\/\ \/ TT | AAAAAAAAAAAA | GG | / /| \/ /\/|
| \ \ TT | AA | AA | GG |__GGGGGG | / / |
| \ \ TT | AA | AA | GG/ GG | / / |
| \/\ TT/ <> AA/ AA/ <> GGGGGGGGGGG/ <> /\/ |
\/\/\/\ /\/\/\/
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/