Atari Message Information System

The Atari Message Information System (AMIS) was one of the first BBS (Bulletin Board System) software packages available for the Atari 8-bit family of computers. It was known to crash pretty often and could not be left unattended for more than a few days. The autorun.sys file which contained the modem handler was at cause. Versions of the AMIS BBS were modified with the modem handler (written by Atari) supplied with the Atari XM301 modem and was deemed much more stable.
The original AMIS BBS software was written in the BASIC programming language by Tom Giese member of the MACE (Michigan Atari Computer Enthusiasts). The program included instructions for building a "ring detector" circuit for the board maintainer's modem (Atari 1030 modem) to enable it to answer incoming calls – modems at the time were most often capable of making outgoing calls, but not receiving incoming ones. The one exception being the Atari XM301 modem which had a ring detector built-in.
A sector editor was required for the BBS maintainer to manually allocate message space on their disk, one hex byte at a time.
As of March 2021, there is still an active AMIS BBS, called Amis XE, that one can connect to using telnet (amis86.ddns.net:9000) or a web client provided by the Telnet BBS Guide.
Alternate versions.
The software was released into the public domain, and was heavily modified by enthusiasts and BBS maintainers. As such, several versions of AMIS exist, including: