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BBS Documentary Starting To Film
Jason Scott writes "Well, the BBS Documentary, after years of research and 4 months of pre-production, is set to film starting the first week in January. Once the filming starts, it's a solid year or more of interviews, travel, and hopefully some great footage of some very unique and interesting people. I'd like to thank Slashdot for the burst of letters and support, and I really appeciate the contacts they've helped me make with an amazing spectrum of folks to interview. The list is not complete, but I've so far gotten a great list of interviewees who helped make the Dial-Up BBS what it is in history (and today, I rush to add). Of course, the research is never done, and I encourage people to check out the BBS Software List and the timeline to help me flesh them out even more."
At the risk of turning your BBS history into a telephony history, I'd include the first translantic phone call (Virginia->Paris, 1915) on any list of communication milestones.
Oh, and I'm getting no route to http://software.hostnet.net/
I still like how Searchlight worked - redirect BIOS and DOS display routines (basically stdout), and emulate color changes and positioning using ANSI. Any program that used BIOS calls for i/o could run under it - in fact the core BBS program itself was just a regular program with no modem handling routines whatsoever - you just loaded the TSR, and told an init style program what to use as the inital login program.
I SysOped a half dozen boards from 1981 to 1993. I even got paid for two of them, and did many installs and configurations, some for friends, some as consulting work. My Dad got me into it - he was logging into some system via TeleNet back at the very end of the 70s for something having to do with Scientific Products. The community was still mostly Ham types who could soldier, and one threw a big BBQ twice a year at his small farm. One party he unveiled his new creation - one of the first BBSes in the area.
Ironically, I'd like to point out that at one of those parties somebody showed off a horribly slow but fun game that had you running around a 3D maze and shooting stick figures (the crosshair was always in the middle of the screen, and I believe that the stick figure moved back and forth). Some people still think Wolfenstein 3D was the first FPS. :)
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
A great way to see the history and evolution of BBS's (and the internet) is by checking out the Boardwatch magazines, online, from the current issue thru 1995. The mag goes back before then, and they don't show any of the ads, so you'd have to check at a good library for older issues. If they do an interview, Jack Rickard, founder of Boardwatch, would be a must.
Lord's still around.. http://lord.lordlegacy.org .. Being ported to Win32 w/ door32, OS/2, and Linux. (some people might ask "why os2?" its easy for me to do win32 and os2 versions. change compile target, recompile, poof. done.) A telnet server and web version are both planned as well.
.. Make sure to use a good telnet client, such as Mtelnet..
Seth Able, the original author, got burned out on bbs coding.. Sold all of his software (Lord, Lord2, Teos, and TLord) to Metropolis.. They had the games for a good 2 years before allowing me to work on them.. This next June will make 3 years that Ive been working on them.
Want to see what the games like nowadays? telnet://bbs.lordlegacy.org
BBS's, while not as popular as they once were, are still going pretty strong. With telnet helping out, theyre making a good come back. Check out Synchronet, EleBBS, or Mystic for good telnet softwares.
Maybe looking for bbs chat? Grab an IRC client and go to irc.lordlegacy.org or irc.thebbs.org in #bbs
Looking for a list of boards? TheDirectory has a telnet list and a dialup list.
Looking for the bbs files? TheBBS's Archives is huge.
Looking for some good links? Sysops Corner has them