Fruity Dog

Fruity Dog was the only FidoNet mailer written for the Apple II series of computers, using the shell programming language (not a shell scripting language, but its own separate compiled language). The Yllar17 and Third Stone From The Sun BBSes were the home base for the code.

Two authors were responsible for the creation of the software. George Powell started the project with Terry Clabaugh, operator of a local FidoNet BBS, to win a bet that an Apple II version of FidoNet could not be written. Clabaugh provided much help in the initial design phase of the code. After a short while, a help wanted advertisement was placed on national Apple II BBSes requesting a top of the line 65C02 programmer to assist with the creation of the project. Evan Molnar answered the advertisement and proved to be one of the best 65C02 programmers of the time.

An offer was made to purchase the rights to Fruity Dog by Nibble magazine, but was turned down because of the low royalties that were offered. It was decided shortly after to make Fruity Dog freeware, with the only restriction being that the user was required to obtain a registration code from the developers.

The Fruity Dog project was subsequently abandoned due to both the demise of the Apple II platform, and the decline of FidoNet as the Internet became more popular.