A Little Bit Of BBS Nostalgia

Ron Harwood writes: "I was getting nostalgic for the BBS door games of the late 80's and early 90's -- and decided that some of these could quite easily be brought onto the Web. So, with help from some of the players, I've created a Web version of the old BBS game TradeWars -- and released it as open source. You can try it out at BlackNova.net or download the source for your self at SourceForge. It's made with PHP and MySQL and it's getting reasonably bug free. :)"

Comments

Oh man...

[pb]

I loved BBSes. I loved them even when I had a 14.4 modem, 'cause I'd still connect at 2400 just to chat to the same people all the time...

Maybe slashdot was like this. In the beginning. A little. But I'm sure I could configure a machine to be much more like a BBS, on the web, or not. I think that having a small community of quirky people is a requirement as well...

But if it had to be a web page, then I suppose you'd have to have topics and comment threads (we have those, but the topics are somewhat regulated). You'd also have to "Login" and "Logout", and optionally be able to post silly comments that show up at Login. You'd have a file area, with lots of useful stuff (freshmeat.net?) random text files ("How to get HBO for free" => textfiles.com?) and funny stuff. Of course we always had polls...

So yes, the Internet has elements of the BBS community, and places like slashdot have it more than most, but it still isn't the same, and every BBS feels different, too, with a very unique, ingrown sense of community.

I remember Another World felt very friendly and homey, and Cedar Republic felt more serious, (but it had TWO lines! You could chat with a friend!) and Psychotronic was basically a nest of Trolls... :)

In retrospect, I wouldn't give that up for anything. Maybe not even for the computer I have now instead of my 386 back then...
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