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Remembering the BBS
Anonymous Coward writes "Nice reminiscence about BBS's, back in the day and all. Author describes them as "Where a teenage loser could lose himself", which for me would have been pretty accurate. I still miss being able to find cool ASCII graphics, text-based RPG's, and the Anarchist's Cookbook all in one place."
Just think about that!!
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
The story mentions ascii and ansi... but what about Avatar?! I know I was one of the few SysOps/users to use them, but, man, the speed ruled. Sigh... I guess maybe it's like my use of ogg and png today. Maybe the rest of the world will catch on.
I wasn't around for the early BBS days, but I saw them at their peak prior to the internet/web taking off and stealing most callers away. Sometimes, I miss my BBS, and think about setting it up again... and then reality hits me. You can't go back again.
Twitter.com/TrentonHyatt
I used a local BBS to play 'VGA Planets'. Anyone else remember that game?
Also my first email account. Man that was a long address.
Dig around a bit, lots of BBS places still up. Few boards with over 500 people on LORD. Good times.
Speaking of BBS' (fun days!), does anyone know if there are Web sites that keep ANSI art archives (with search engines)? I am trying to find cool ANSI arts that I used to love. I even drew a few (not that great) I regret not keeping them. I miss them. :(
:)
Thanks in advance.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Kevin Fox
I remember playing all sorts of online games - hack and slash, RPG, TradeWars, strategy games, etc. All text based, but a lot of them just as cool as any game with graphics today - cooler, even, since the BBS ones supported hundreds of users! Graphics aren't everything in a game... in fact, graphics are hardly anything in the kinds of games I like to play :-).
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
augment your senses: http://sensebridge.net/
back then the sysops were real men and the users looked up to us in such admiration.
On-line games such as trade wars were great, where you'd plan group strategy through mail and then log in at stepped, agreed-upon times to carry it out.
Back then, on systems with 2+ lines, multi-person chats were the big thing.
QWK packets were fantastic for reading messages off-line and freeing up the bbs for someone else. I kinda miss them now.
Also, networks like FIDONet were an incredible mess to set up (have seen few things so complicated since then), but once they were up and running it was incredibly fun and satisfying to exchange messages with other local boards, as well as with the guys from other countries.
And then the internet came and killed it all!
heheh
You couldn't animate with Avatar graphics.
I'm a 2000 man.
- acoustic couplers
- demon dialing
- connections dropping in the middle of your 57k Xmodem download
- All those modem connect noises
Bah! I don't miss it at all...I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
People really should have looked at BBSes and said "err, no money is ever going to be made out of this internet thingy".
Why did people do them? For fun, but so many of them closed down because the owners ran out of cash (or their wives told them they'd run out of cash and a lot more besides unless they shut them down).
They were fun, sure, When I got my first modem (94 or so) I used to visit them as much as I'd use my IP connection, but as soon as they started to charge I was outta there.
All sound familiar?
- Zmodem was the way to transfer files (I still use it in Linux with CRT!)
- HS/Link came along with bi-transfer support and chat during transfer
- Procomm/Qmodem/Telemate(sp?)
- Busy signals and redialing
- BBS mods like WWIV
- MUD
- Playing DOOM multiplayer (more than two players) the first time with Game Connection with MajorBBS
- You knew what "rodent" (think lamer) meant.
:)Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
A large download was a meg? And the biggest warez were like 10 megs? And a gig of files was nearly unimaginable?
The latest software, v4.30, combined with fossil drivers for Windows (new in v4.30), and with a virtual com port software (COM/IP) ... creates an online BBS, that can be accessed like a website ...
Please note that I currently don't have a board up ... since I don't have 24/7 access ... yet.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
We had a pretty thriving BBS community in our area, but naturally all the best boards were long distance. It's kind of strange to be able to access a server in Australia within seconds now without even thinking about what the line charge is going to be, or chat across five or six countries simultaneously, but there's been something lost in the transition between the boards and the Internet. I've never really felt the sense of community on a website, and nothing really seems to have the same sense of cool. Maybe I'm idealizing it, but communication over a network that wouldn't synchronize more than once every day or two seemed more fun for some reason... maybe people used to think more before posting?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
I didn't notice, there are still some around, I actually played some door games TODAY.
I wish BRE didn't have broken year 2000 stuff though.
They are just the gated communities of the online world. They may evolve, but I think they'll stick around in one way or another.
my good friend TheDraw !
Oh yeah, those were definetly good times.. anarchy all around. One of the big california BBS's (and temple of the screaming electron) is still up in web form at www.totse.com - and yes LORD still exsits, although I haven't seen it lately.. I think someone made a win32 version.
Trade wars rocked. I loved those games.
Back when there was online community.. the internet is just too big for that. Man, I remember when "Internet" was just a door.
A lot of BBS Doors are available to be played on Telnet BBS sites now... although nothing replaces being able to dial in to a BBS early in the morning...
--- Ãther SPOON!
...was the thing for me. Staying up till midnight so you can be the first to get in with the next days turns and overtake a few more countries in Global War, then boasting about your mighty empire via a FidoNet post. Ahhh, those were the days.
NN was absolutely the best BBS network on the planet. Well not counting fidonet. It had the best message boards and text files. It also only wanted a username and password. Anyone remember now many BBSes required a phone numer and would call you back to verify who you were before granting an account?
Seeing as NN was a subnet of fidonet, you could send email around the world (it took a day or 2) and had access to international message bases in addition to the local ones. They lasted from like the mid 80s until the mid 90s. They were mostly bay area BBSes.
The great thing about the BBS scene was that since most people were local, you could actually meet up for beers etc every once in a while.
As for games they ranged from things like Pimp Wars to Global War (a risk clone). For a while after dial up BBSes seemed to die off there were a few telnetable ones. I havent seen any worth a shit anymore.
I started using internet in about 90 but still called BBSes until around 94 or so. It seems the internet craze killed the local BBSes. I would love to see them return tho.
Anyone know how hard it is to set up wildcat as a telnetable BBS?
Sysops calling you by voice to validate your account. Sheesh! :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I remember when Proving Grounds was taken seriously (I once had a Vorpal Blade), and, then when TradeWars and FoodFight came out, I thought online gaming had gotten as sophisticated as it was going to get.
A lot of things are better these days, but I really do miss the quality of the posting. You were in a little culture of about 100 people, and you knew them all pretty well (even if they called themselves the "Dead Kennedy" and "PhonePhreak"). There were some quality political discussions back in the day, and the people would ally on the traditional idelogical grounds.
Ok, maybe I'm sounding like an Old Fart (TM), but I miss those days too.
Come on, give it up, that's
sigh... those were the days. I remember terms like SysOp, Co-SysOp, etc. You could page the SysOp and talk one on one (that was cool!!!), the sound of the modem connecting (replaced by the weird pings of now slow-compared-to-broadband 56k modems). I remember how excited everyone was when a sysop would add another "node" to the system, either through DesqView with QEMM under DOS or by using a fossil driver and running Windows.
.zip file and upload to another BBS as a response. Then again, now we have spam... hmm... which one is better, the 'net or BBS's? The question is becoming more ludicrously rhetoric the more I think about it...
I miss things like PCBoard and ProBBS... those were the days. Now, with the Internet, not only can anyone hide behind a mask of anonymity but anyone with half a brain (or half a paycheque) can connect to the Internet.
You know what? BBSes were far less commercial (depending on what services they provided). I remember a friend of mine down the street ran a BBS when he was 13 (I did quite a bit of ANSI and ASCII art for him, sloooow over a 2400 though, better at 14400). Back then, advertisements were things you saw on TV, magazines, bathroom stalls (er, scratch that last one).
I remember briding the child internet and aged BBS gap with "virtual" connections: a telnet driver that would respond via the internet and send "RING" or "CONNECT" strings to the running BBS so you could have numerous nodes on one machine through multiple telnet connections.
Now we have popup removals, filter proxies, all to try and eliminate if not reduce the barrage of banners and animations on just about any even remotely-commercial web site out there.
For many people, the hardware technology itself is the same. It's become slightly faster, but you still get your roommate or family member off the phone so you can wait for dial-up, then log in and check your mail. Only now you're responding to the world (neglecting FIDONet, but I had a few problems with that in the past).
The best was to download 1000's of E-Mails from one system for reading off-line, repackaging the
Check out textfiles.com for dumps of a lot of old BBS stuff. I stumbled across it while looking for documentation on the XMODEM (yes, xmodem) protocol.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
The BBS was about the first really cool and semi useful thing I can remember doing with a computer. Back when I upgraded the old Vic-20 to a C-64 I ordered a BBS software package from Holland, Michigan. It was installed on a 5.25" diskette and I had a second drive with another 5.25" diskette for data. The thing only ran at 2400 baud was it was still alot of fun.
:)
Had some simple message forums, a few downloads, a collaborative story book where users took turns adding their own chapters and a section to chat with the sysop. Called it Quicksilver BBS, located in Warsaw, Indiana.
Later I moved on to the PC platform with the World War II BBS and later tried Wildcat. With WWII I wrote my own "door" program add-ons in Turbo Pascal. Also had things like Trade Wars and all the other cool games of that time.
I never went as nuts as most people, we only had 2 phone lines coming into the thing. Oh, almost forgot, we also used Galacticom BBS just prior to closing down. I got involved playing text RPGs (Legends of Future Past) and that took up all the time and money I'd been using for the BBS.
I think even Legends was reachable through Novalinks BBS style front end back in the early days (Galacticom if I remember correctly) and was alot of fun for all text.
Just recently I ran across web pages for things like Synchro BBS that were running through Telnet. I'm thinking about finding one that runs under linux and using it as a front end for my Mud that's modelled after Legends of Future Past (Called Echoes of Future Past.
Cool stuff those Bulletin Boards, made alot of friends that I've since lost touch with. We used to have BBS parties where we'd all get together, eat pizza, talk computers, etc. Some parts I miss, but not the 2400 baud part
Gawd damn that was some nasty sh1t. The stuff I saw there puts the internet to shame. Anytime someone has tried to gross me out through the "internet years" I could say "Well at least its not as bad as those GYN exams gone bad that David brought back from from the BBS."
The only BBS's that seem to be around today run a game called MajorMud. You can find BBS's by looking through www.mudcentral.com's forums.
This is old news, but it's been updated recently, and it might bring back that BBS feel: Star Wars in ASCII.
Ahh the days of TradeWars, LORD, MajorMUD, WildNET, FidoNET, and about 100 other little stupid doors. We lived in the sticks and had a party line, the old lady down the road would always pick up the phone right when I was about to knife some fool sleeping in the LORD inn. There'd be about 5 secs of garbage on the screen then... NO CARRIER
My blog can kick your blog's ass
In fact my good friend still maintains a BBS. It's not as complete as it used to be, but it certainly works and there are a couple of good games of BRE, L.o.R.D., and Trade Wars 2002 going.
http://answeringmachine.org
telnet to bbs2.answeringmachine.org
The Best Baltimore Area BBS of ALL TIME is unquestionably The Idiot Box.
Captain Zero, Polaris, Maleficient - WORD UP! Miss u doggz.
I'm out
Tele-Arena rocked. I had so much fun when there was a local BBS around here. Now they are all shut down and going to one thats not local is no fun :(
---
Always standing, I am a tree awaiting the lightning. -Samael, Crown
There will be nothing like BBS again. The internet has superceded it in some areas and has faltered in others.
File downloads are clearly better on the internet, as are games.
Message boards, though, suck on the internet. There are islands of information our there, but nothing like it should be. For instance, for HTML help I go to one message board, for domain name advice another and to web hosting even another one.
Everyone remember Interlink, Fidonet, WWIVNet, RIME (PC Relay), etc? These were message networks that were all inclusive. Every topic under the sun was available and the messages were public. You could download your messages using a QWK compatible door and read them offline. Those were the days.
The closest thing we have now is USENET, where the noise to signal ratio is too high.
PC Pursuit is another vestiage of the BBS age. It was a service by Sprint that allowed you to X.25 into other POPs around the country for a low monthly fee. For instance, I could dial my local sprint number, connect to a pad in Boston and jump on Channel 1 with no long distance.
Everything is so bloated now. Not just the internet, programs too. My friends and I got out an old Com64 a while back and were amazed at how well the games actually looked. They still hold up. And you could get a dozen of those games on a 5 1/4" floppy disc.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
I remember getting the "Computer Shopper" every month, flipping to the back, and hoping to find a new BBS that was a local call away from my back woods town. Never happened. *sniff*
Thirty minutes of long distance calls a month was all I could afford at the time. I missed out on most of that grande era.
Other than the anarchist cookbook, I found that "mit lock-picking guide" from the BBS too.
I wonder if there's any "updated version" of these things ?
Teaching kids how to make anthrax or nerve gas, perhaps ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
reminiscence about BBS's ? Youngsters! Didn't even mention 110 baud like my trusty ASR-33, bought and used an appliance rather than building his own video terminal. And he thinks he's remembering the good old days!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Remember Demos? Those dope little assembly coded graphical displays groups would use as sort of a bad-ass business card. Man, that shit takes me back.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:-)
That was part of the mystique of Fidonet. You had to get it up and running on your machine and successfully send and receive mail before they would let you on. I wish I could remember my node number.
Tradewars 2002 and Tradewars Gold(?) I think are still alive and well. I couldn't find a main site for Tradewars 2002 but I did find this
looks like there is a new MMORPG/RTS on the block with elements of Tradewars in it.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
More than anything, I miss NeoNet. 'twas like FidoNet, only it was restricted to my area code. There was a sense of community there I haven't seen replicated anywhere else.
*sigh*
-handler
for some oldschool bbs action I play Legend of the Red Dragon to this day at telnet://otos.tzo.net
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
ZModem forever!
CiA
iCE
speaking of the bomb... ;)
i remember when i bought a 9600 pocket modem, about the size of a pack of smokes, for like $250. That was the *cooles* thing going. Aside from my Toshiba 286-based laptop with the Olivetti blue-and-white screen, of course...
I find it funny reading these replies from folks talking about "back in the day" being mid to early 90's, with their 2400 baud modems...
Go back another decade, kids.
I used to practically LIVE on a Ddial here in Austin from '85 until it went away in '88 or '89.
Lurking around the pirate boards, running wardialers all night so I could call up some of the bigger AE's like Metal Shop.
I loved my AppleCat. Being able to do Bell 202A (1200 baud half duplex). Using Cat-Fur to dial in, chatting with the person on the other end YEARS before things like BiModem.
Hacking cut and paste with ProTerm by telling it I had a serial printer running on the same port as my modem.
Sigh.
Life was so much simpler when I was 14...
-l
I can't remember the name, but maybe I can describe it and one of you can tell me what the game is so I can download it and relieve this return to adolescence fantasy I have.
Single player game in an area, ascii like characters, looked kinda like rogue but only one room and you fought monsters and you could upgrade your weapons from the bodies of your fallen foes. Had a leader board and such.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
To Lucia of the P&B: thanks for the memories. I still think of you whenever I type a smiley.... you were the one who told me about them. :-)
Miko O'Sullivan
Long Live Legend Of The Red Dragon, the best ASCII-RPG ever made!
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
I still miss being able to find cool ASCII graphics, text-based RPG's, and the Anarchist's Cookbook all in on place.
You mean, like Google?
-pmb, former 80's sysop.
yes, ascii pr0n, good old pr0n.
Land of Confusion, The Diamond mines, Wild Wild West, Triumvirate, etc (Pittsburgh BBSes if you are confused)
:)
These are where I cut my teeth. I downloaded the dos a86 assembler and learned to program. I set up Telix and downloaded with zmodem and h/s link. I entered a world where people had vastly different views than mine and I interacted with them and learned from them. Unlike the cold heartless internet, these were communities. That place, 10 years ago at the age of 14 is where Mark Earnest become finkployd
Never since has computing and networking been such fun.
Finkployd
Free Mac Mini
I always liked ZModem. I wish they would use it more on the internet envirmonet. It had nice features like CRT Checking, if you hade to cancel a Download you can continue DL where you left off. It was a well though out protocall. And it was fast too. The HTTP and FTP Protocals just dont seem as robust as ZModem was.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The face of BBSing has changed over the last few years, but I assure you that it is alive and well in the form of telnet bulletin boards connected to the internet.
Usually I would simply ignore a post like this; the idiocy and the base humor simply don't spark an interest long enough for me to form a thought about it.
However, I'm feeling frisky, and this one is fun.
Let's start with your title::
Homosexual fagots
Is this some insane double-negative of sexuality? Gay people who are so gay that they became straight again? Homosexual and fagots pretty much infer the same thing. But if I were you, i'd stick to using the first word, or perhaps "Yes, Sir."
Your Statement:
Linux is great!!!!!!!
Hmmmm. Obviously this is some ploy to encroach yourself within the community, build a sense of "trust" if you will, so that a similarly minded uber-geek would consider your title more seriously, and be misled to think that such "mega-gays," these "Homosexual fagots" actually exist.
Good ploy sir. Well played. You almost got me. But rest assured that your veil of coolness and "hipness" will wear thin; you will then be reduced to a -2, ne'er to be seen by any human eye, save your own.
Good day sir.
------
Well, that's how my ads used to start out. Now you can telnet to it. Stop remembering how it used to be and get on my BBS to expierence how it still is!
...
Telnet to bbs.schaefer.nu
-CyberBlob
Sysop: The Black Box BBS
Lord, TEOS, Usurper, BRE, Trade Wars,
No error correction built it! Saved you a couple bytes a second!
That was life on the EDGE!
Hehehe ... BBSs are what got my hooked on computes in the first place. Starting frequenting them as a freshman in high school in 1991. PLaying Doors and downloading files. Tradewars was a fun game. Also used a BBS to pick up a homecoming date or two, and my first girlfriend :)
:)
:)
Learned to suck up to the SysOps of the "elite" WaReZ BoardZ by creating animated ANSI logos for their sites and for the ZIP comments. -=2i6=- RulEz!
I used to frequent the BBS of the dude, Jim something or other (Barry?) who wrote the Searchlight BBS software. His BBS was called Flip Flop. I chatted with him once or twice online.
BBS were also my first real introduction to porn.
Ahhh, the memories. Managed to suck up to one SysOp well enough to be come his Adult Section SysOp at the ripe old, adult age of 14. People would upload the files, and I would have the really tough job of reviewing the new uploads; if the files were good enough, I approved them and gave the uploader ample credit so he could download new files from the adult and warez sections. Tough job, but someone had to do it.
With a 2400 modem I now understand why my mom was pissed about me tying up the phone line all night long, every night
I used to have to bum rides home from high school sometimes, and I could usually count on one of my teammates to give me a ride back home - I just had to pass him a floppy of the previous days' porn uploads
I was just remembering today about how JPEG and GIF were just becoming popular, and my 386 SX-25 took like 10 seconds to display the damn picture files.
i remember my years as a sysop of a-team bbs.. running on pcboard 15.22 by clark development. on 486 with 850MB, traderz and lamerz all day long.. PPE Coderz, Hackerz, Ansi Makerz and lot'sa things that end with "z" i remember the backdoors i used to code in some of the known ppe's, "spiderman login" anyone? and when i sent an email to myself containing %p$s i used to hang out on other ppl's DOS on friday night. waiting for the sysop to go sleep. because you need to be "secret" otherwise he'll be looking at the screen. [considering cisco PIX (WOW)] and the remoteaccess.. teleguard, and excailbur. with israeli BBZ'Z and o-1 wAreZ Asylum bbs, with sysop eitan deker, and ofcourse.. my old bbs in israel... a-team bbs, call now! 972-3-6736423 -sysop, the crazy mardoc.
-JAPAN: ol yor beys ar bilong tu as! -AH!
And most people I knew used BBSes and chat systems (like D-Dial), I don't remember much anomosity between these groups.
And while I do feel a bit nostalgic for some aspects of the 'old days' of BBSing, the Internet as it stands now is much much better. If you look around, you can still find small web communities to join. They aren't all crammed with 100,000k or more members like Slashdot.
Your account has to be verified before the games become available. It's a annoying way to prevent cheating in the games by people creating multiple accounts.
I run a bbs server of my home line telnet://djmax.homeip.net:1234
sysop djmaxm pacman
I run a 80's server disscousin of that decade
Does anyone out there remember the ISIS/Osiris BBS server software? From what I've read, it was packed with tons of features. I wanted to get a copy, but could never get in contact with whatever company wrote it. I'd still like to mess around with it. Can anyone help?
Also, I loved RoboBOARD/FXTerm! The Scorpion's Den was my favorite board!
-----
Ping? PONG!
The US Robotics Courier. Nothing said you were a bad ass like one of these babies.
They were incredibly upgradeable. For example, mine upgraded from 14.4 to 56k (v.90). Sadly, they don't plan on offering any v.92 upgrades for it. It could connect to basically anything and everything, and even had that strange HST!
I don't really use it much anymore since I have broadband, but it still kicks ass on the occasions I use it. (And they had a sweet SysOp deal!)
And the sex you get from the Internet isn't like the sex you had from the BBSes...
I liked Trade Wars and all, but my favorite WWIV games were Dominion, Leech, Pimp Wars, and Dick Wars. :-)
I have a friend who wants to port WWIV to the web: WWWWWIV. I don't even know how you would pronounce that..
cpeterso
I used to be very active "back in the day", myself. At one point around 1994 or so, I had accounts on upwards of 100 BBSes, just in my area code (610)!
:-)
I remember one day, I dialed into a WWIV board (Innovations BBS), and went through the signup procedure. The system said, "Your User Number is: 2", which I found interesting. 5 seconds later, the SysOp (Bob Pacifico) brings me into chat mode and tells me, "You're my first caller!".
I spent a couple of fun years on that BBS, making friends with folks, uploading files, participating in networked message bases, and playing door games against people from other BBSes. Barren Realms Elite, anyone?
Eventually, in 1996 I discovered the Internet and kind of made the transition to it. I called less and less BBSes, and eventually stopped calling all together.
*sigh* I'll miss those days...
Board 25 in greater Providence, RI. We named the BBS after the lead phone number we got: 252-5252. Ran PC Board v15.22 software. Had gangs of shareware using a 5 CD (1X!) changer (remember those shareware CD's?), text chat, community forums, echoes, door games, email, newsgroups and a whole other bunch of stuff. The BBS ran on a single 486SX-25 with 8 megs of RAM. DOS,QEMM and Deskview ran the whole thing. Those were the days.....
http://www.textfiles.com/history/proudlyserve.txt
I'm curious if there is a site out there like classmates.com , where people can register and associate themselfs with BBS' within the archive?
If it's not, I think it'd be a worth while (and simple) site to set up. I know I'd be more than curious to see where some of my (at the time) fellow 12 year old Tele-Arena cohorts are today.
Toilet Duck (1994-1998) - 619,858
DreamNet BBS
DragonDreams Elite
MCS BBS
LDC
My favorite online game. You walked around got attacked and chainsawed people to death.
"Blood explodes from the deranged soldier's head as you split it with an axe"
"Ouch! You just got Machine Gunned!"
It had a little 10x10 window that was the map. It kicked ass. You picked up weapons and even faught other players that were camped while offline.
Teleguard, Renegade and PCBoard were the shit.
I used to run a group of "PPE" coders, scripts for PCBoard.
Good old times...
And now you DO sit in the basement eating snickers bars and slathering on deoderant, because you're NOT getting laid and so you kill time being an ass on slashdot.
I wish I were as cool as you.
Text based RPG's still exist as muds and moos and such.
;-)
telnet horizon.mfx.net 6060 is a good one
http://www.mudconnect.com has thousands listed
Channel 1 was a granddaddy of a BBS based out of Cambridge, MA. Their BBS file archives are posted online and there's TONS of stuff there.
Russia was quite expensive to call.
I discovered a BBS Mailer called T-Mail. It was a great piece of software, with versions for DOS, OS/2 and Windows. But, the version I found was quite old, and it was made in Russia.
I search everywhere locally, as well as nationally, but I just couldn't find it anywhere... so I had to call. I called Russia, I downloaded the mailer, and a bunch of associated files, and it wasn't super quick. And, then, later, I had to check for a new version!
Well, it all added up. Sorta hard to explain to the parents why the phone bill was so high. I paid it though, so I never understood why they were so upset. Every hobby has it's costs, and this was mine. I eventually got a few other people to use T-Mail, too, so I think it was worth it.
i love to remember the good times in computer telecommunication history. the bbs's were defintly a huge step to the online community. jolly roger's cook book all over the place. and real programming of backdoors. i remember i could identify for SURE! the modem's company when i heard the sync going on.. i knew at which speed he'll download and which modem is it.. i remeber telling to my brother.. hey let's write atm0 string (or something.. what do i care.. i'm connected with a UBR today) to silence the modem.. otherwise it'll be noisy if we're gonna run it for 24H a day.. and the good old days of the traderz and lamerz list.. other bullshit like chatting with the sysop.. WOWY :)
o-3 WaReZ, razor1911, hybrid.. and all the rest...
i can tell you stuff forever.. damn! that was good! :)
-JAPAN: ol yor beys ar bilong tu as! -AH!
There came along a cool version of the ZMODEM protocol .. I think it was like Leech ZMODEM or something like that.
... upload a file or two, get some download credits ... use this version of ZMODEM which would download everything but the very last block (which ended up being a checksum or something "useless" if I remember), and it would then abort the download at the very end. The upside was the download would be aborted, you wouldn't lose any credits, and your download would still be complete because the last block was not ever actually written to disk. Of course, you would get some serious reprimanding when the SysOps caught on :)
Especially useful on warez sites that used uploads for credits for downloads
You can download free software here that includes lots of old BBS ATASCII movies.
It will even play them back any any baud rate you like, even 300 baud =)
Download ATS from www.atarimax.com.
Unfortunatly its windows software but its freeware.
It's funny this comes up now, because I was talking to a fellow modemer from the old days yesterday, talking about possibilities:
1. Take an old 486 running DOS and a multinode BBS package with a multiport serial card.
2. Take a modern PC running Linux with a cable modem or DSL connection and a multiport serial card.
3. Write a program that acts as a login shell. When a user logs in under that special account, it checks for a free serial port and, emulating the behavior of the sort of modem the BBS software on the DOS box expects, sends the appropriate RING string. Once the BBS answers, the program just passes data back and forth between the serial port and the net.
Result: an Internet capable BBS system that would have been the envy of the town back when you had to buy multiple phone lines to support this sort of thing.
Of course, it may be some time before I have a couple of spare weekends to code this (and perhaps longer to review serial programming under Linux), so if you have the time and the expertise, beat me to it!
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
I was very active on several BBSs in the 502 area code (Louisville, KY). I had some SysOp privs on some of the boards and even had access to a FidoNet feed. My handle was "Merlyn" (once I got on the Internet, someone was already using that on IRC, so I had to change it - thus my Slashdot user ID of "Singularity" with UID #2031)
//gs.
Once a month (first Saturday of the month) we would have a physical meeting (called "The Meat") at a local mall.
I remember being envied for my 2400 baud modem hooked up to my Apple
This was about 1991-1993 or so.
I have not talked with any of those people since. Is there any website devoted to reuniting (as it was) any people from these boards?
I did a simple search a few months ago, and foud a few dead message boards dedicated to boards that were mainly out in the Bay Area, but nothing more than that.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Wolf359 from the SE Mich area? Kevin, you readin this? jmw-at-ipbrothers.com
NT
Probably the most famous would be ice.org with archives from the current day to way back when..
That brought back many familiar memories. I lived in Queens NY, which used to have the 212 area code. This was before the great split to 718. Of course back then, we didn't have flat rate billing either - it was something obscene like 10 cents a minute.
My machine was a PCjr with 128KB, single floppy drive, and a Hayes 1200. It's amazing how nice the carrier signal sounded. The Hayes 1200 was a beautiful piece of machinery - brushed aluminum, with the black bezel and red lights. Solidly built, to have the old Western Electric desk telephone sitting on top of it. Once you were connected to a BBS, what machine you had didn't matter - C64s, Apples, Commodores, etc - they all joined the party.
Remember PC Board? FidoNet? Doors? File download areas that were meticulously organized? Downloading ratios? Sysops with "god" power? Sysops that you could actually talk to using a "Page Sysop" function of the software? ANSI graphics?
In 1984 a friend and I (John N.) decided to write our own BBS software. The first verion was horrible, but then again so was the language. (Interpreted BASIC.) The second and third versions were so much better - compiled ZBASIC with embedded assembly code. The software ran for two years on another friends computer. (Nick S.) The phone number was 997-1189. I'll never get that out of my head.
Using BBSs and trying to write one taught me a lot, not just about computers either. It was a great experience - much more personal that the Internet is today.
http://www.bbsdocumentary.com: The BBS Documentary, currently in production.
http://bbslist.textfiles.com: My list of BBSes, ever growing, and needing your help (and lists).
- Jason Scott
TEXTFILES.COM
It's really hard to find any mention of Cat Fur ][, MegaTERM, the Cat's Meow, etc. on the Internet. It's as if that whole scene didn't exist.... when 202 was king...
Now I wonder-- why do Macs of 2002 not have the same telephony capability of a 4-voice modem circa 1984?
(as an aside, you don't remember ProTALK BBS, do you?)
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I was a BBS user, also played Wumpus on a DEC-10 system way back - BUT is this just a way of flexing our muscles? (I mean this in the most polite way)
come on fhqwhgads
I remember reading about the first bbs created.
I think it was in Chicago, and was started in 1978, on an 8-bit computer..
Can anyone tell me what the name of this board is? I wish I remember what it was called..
And for downloading files, it used a protocol called Punter... ah, those WERE the days..
You miss Text RPGs? How can you miss them, there are still thousands of MUDs out there, which are pretty close to old text RPGs and very multiplayer...
Such as Moral Decay
Come play Moral Decay!
Busy signals. Slow connections. Long distance charges. Good riddance.
I have an extra phone line and want to start up a BBS for fun (and geek bragging rights).
:)
Can anyone recommend a software package? Requirements:
Must allow IP connections in some way (within itself or via addon package)
Must allow modem dial in connection
Should be easy to administer (lazyness)
Can have GUI interfaces in addition to text.
Any OS is fine, even DOS and OS/2
Anyone have a recommendation?
Frankly, I enjoyed BBS'ing more than I enjoy the internet. Don't even get me going on the signal:noise ratio. I remember hearing about it around 1991 and thinking ...so?
I remember waiting for 12:01 so I could log in and take my days turn of Tradwars.
Not really meant as a "it was better when I was a kid" rants but I guess it sounds like one, doesn't it? =)
My
Limekiller
lz/sz modem rock for multiple hopes. I have to jump thru 4 boxes to get to our network. Transfering core files and logs are much easier with I can "sz core" and have it on my laptop. Still use UUENCODE and UUDECODE. Sucks when your on a Xterm that cant save files, Just cut, paste, boom the file is moved.
http://www.dmine.com/bbscorner/history.htm
Created by Ward Christensen
It was called "the Computerized Bulletin Board System (CBBS)", when it was operational in February 16, 1978. It went public in 1979.
Yes you could animate.. you could do more stuff than with ANSI.. including changing directions of text flow in any of the four directions and lots of other stuff..
The problem was that many term programs didn't support all the newer stuff that Avatar could do.
ariven.com
How could the /. crowd forget bbs.ufies.org? :-)
who reminisces about BBSs?
:)
Memories, BBSs were awesome... I was like, zero years old, on my 286... good times
I still remember my first experience with a 1200 baud modem, and thinking "it doesn't get any better then this".
:]
Later I found out that I can read at just over 2400 baud. My family never understood what I was talking about.
I just wish more of the people on usenet, irc, and the rest of the internet understood more about *why* you trim messages when replying, *why* you don't spam, blah, blah, blah.
The internet has a place, but I really miss the local feeling that the BBS's had.
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
I saw the story, read it, and then expected to find what I've come to expect in the discussion-- a bunch of yahoos who hadn't even read that wonderful piece.
/.
I then I saw the magnificent posts (sorting by highest score) and other stories, and felt like the first time I found
yeah, I'm a little drunk.
---
I've got an emulator around here somewhere...
hmm I remember getting a very expensive 2400 baud modem. Of course most of the time I connected at 1200 because 2400 seemed just too fast and unless I was going to DL something there was really no need to connecting that fast.. And that not all systems were designed for 2400, missed features like a pause/more sometimes. Then came 9600, it was all my computer could handle, when transferring non-compressed data. I had a hard time keeping up. Ah those was the days.
my sig
Or those Commodore 64 losers.
Well. That was rather messed up. Our schools had either apple2 or c64s. I personally bought a C64, Thing was great, 40 col BBs'ing was lame. A few terminals came out that would split the blocks into 2 letters, so you could try to emulate 80 column.
Migrated to a 128D, running DesTerm I was able to get Ansi, 14.4 baud, and 80 columns. Then Amiga+Tcp later....
Hell, the C64 scene was larger then atari, mac combined, it still goes on today! They still have Demo parties for old C64 hackers. Scene Music I still listen to music from the old days, Giana Sisters(Chris Huelsbeck), Rob Hubbard, etc.. The BBS was my way of reaching the UK scene from the US, The real computer gurus. Strange thou, the family up the street, wrote Myst. Strange Strange world.
Wildcat 5 (don't know what it is called now...google would have it...) supports all that. Used to work in Technical support there. Hopefully it has gotten better as the years have rolled by. It tried to be so much to so many...yet failed in all attempts miserably.
You keep going until you die..."Me".
Wildcat BBS and wcUUCP? I remember a guy who would call into my board from Australia at 14.4, and a few times we chatted in split screen mode. Of course I remember going from 300 to 1200 baud years before. Man, was that fast :-)
I ran a BBS in Cincinnati using Maximus 3.0, which was discontinued at the end of 1998. Note their "plans" to release the code for Maximus under the GPL.
Well, that was written at the end of 1998, it's now mid 2002, and no updates to the site since 2000. Anyone know what Scott Dudley is doing right now? I wanted to port Maximus over to Linux so I could run it as a Telnettable BBS, or at least port over the script compilers and then grab some other source code for the communication routines.
Geez, Scott, if you've given up the idea of open sourcing Maximus, at least make some update to your site!
Well, if you're pretty good with linux, you could try dosemu under linux and run any old dos based BBS software under there. I searched around and found this post on the tux.org. Some further searching took me to the Linux BBS FAQ. Enjoy!
I used to run Random Thoughts BBS, located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Back in the days when life was so much simpler. When things made sense. Ah, nostalgia!
Haha, Squish message bases! I was always a JAM man myself.
Telemate, HS-Link, WWIV: a real trip down memory lane. WWIV was really popular here in St. Louis for some reason, and there were over 500 local BBS's at one time. Fire Escape had her complete list of all boards, updated each and every month.
I didn't start BBSing until '92, so most boards were 2400 bps by then, with a few 9600's. I had a 2400/V.42bis modem, so I benefited from the newer modems without having the high speeds. I got 16k per minute with compressed files, but 3 or 4 times faster with uncompressed.
Let me think, there was WWIV, WildCat, VirtualBBS, Renegade, Fido, Searchlight, Hermes, TBBS, First Class in later years. I remember a version of Zmodem that would display GIFs as they came in, so you could tell if you were getting a duplicate with a different name. Those with multiple lines were all either using DesqView or OS/2 for multitasking. I never tried setting one up myself, as I didn't even have a second line to dial out on.
I could go on, but I'm sure I'm starting to bore you guys.
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
BBS's are soley responsible for bringing me into the world of computers. When I was 15 I had a C64 and a 300 baud modem (which even at the time was quite an antiquated setup). But if it hadn't been for that 300 baud modem I honestly believe my life would have taken an entirely different path. The first BBS I ever logged onto was a 6 line MBBS. I dialed up the BBS, created a new account and somehow stumbled into a chat room. I don't think I even realized I was logged on to another computer. I think I thought I was just inside of a program on my own system. But once the realization hit that I was talking to other people in real time through my computer, I was hooked... and the rest is history.
:)
I *really* miss those BBS days. They were great. After about a year of being a user I jumped into the world of Sysop'ing and ran my own 10 line MBBS. At the time, 10 phone lines were a lot.
There's an MBBS project written in Perl called Fusion that I've been toying around with lately. Check it out if you were an MBBS/TradeWars junkie.
the BBS isnt' dead! my neigbour still runs one, it is the only one in our city and has about 3 or 4 hundred users
I ran a BBS called "Alternate Reality" in Idaho, USA> It had a whole two nodes which were busy 24/7. I really liked the more personal feel of BBS systems--when someone logged on, chances are they weren't in a different hemisphere and that you could actually meet them in real life(tm), if you hadn't already.
Few people posted trolls or space filler messages on the boards because their names were know, their numbers could be traced, and my BBS required phone call verification of accounts.
The online games were nice because most of the players were probably friends that you could call without spending huge amounts on long distance. You could gloat over killing somebody's LORD character or firing a Gooie Kablooie (sp?) at their empire in Barren Realms Elite.
What is the story of some of the BBSs that other slashdotters have run? It would be interesting to see someone on Slashdot that ran a BBS I logged into many years ago.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Get your Montreal, Canada BBS List at
telnet:juxtaposition.dynip.com
+1.514.364.2937
telnet://solarflow.dyndns.org
Who still includes those? I've not seen one in, oh, 6 or 7 years. Of course, I went Mac 8 years ago, so about the only ZIP files I've downloaded in recent years were UT maps.
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
I think what really killed the BBS systems had to do with the following reasons:
/. think of Microsoft, you have to admit that the inclusion of dial-up PPP access for Internet connections in Windows 95 was a major factor in the explosive growth of Internet usage.
1. The decision in 1992 to commercialize the Internet. That made commercial public access to the Internet really explode in popularity, to say the least.
2. The development of the Mosaic web browser to access the World Wide Web in the early 1990's. That made Internet navigation very easy to do, and indeed that's how much of the world access the Internet nowadays--through a web browser.
3. The arrival of operating systems with easy-to-setup Internet access. Depsite what many people here on
I remember the first time I "surfed the web," it took a long time to get comfortable with not logging out of a web site. In BBS land, only assholes dropped carrier -- you always logged out so that the BBS could recoup properly. The same gnawing feeling you get when you finish a semester of university and think you should still be doing homework.
Then there were the days where you could download special software (Excalibur BBS?) and get VGA GRAPHICS from sites! Or how about combing through my modem guide looking for cool shit to stick in my init string (at&Z1=5551212 anyone?) Of course, no feeling of exhilaration quite matched the Telix connect bell after 2 hours of redialing an awesome board
I also spent quite a bit of time as a sysop. I remember configuring every damn ANSI screen in the config directory, customizing every prompt in the options menu -- it was labour, but watching people enjoy your OWN BBS was a great feeling.
Chatting was cool, too. Installing the JModem protocol so that you could chat and download, or download and upload. Then again, listening to your PC speaker play Guns n' Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine" as a page tune was often better than talking to ass kissers trying to get Co-Sys :)
It all goes downhill from first post
We must accept the facts - the BBS is dying. You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the future of the BBS The hand writing is on the wall: the BBS faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for it because the BBS is dying. Things are looking very bad for the BBS. As many of us are already aware, the BBS has been superceded by the internet. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
[don@Mars>Kasei don]$ telnet terery.com
Wildcat! Interactive Net Server (c) 1998-2001 Santronics Software, Inc.
Registration number: 04-0238 v5.4.449 (Nov 18 2001) Node: 4
Connected with Telnet. Ansi detected.
You have connected to node 4 on Telery !
What is your first name?
101010b 2Ah 52o
TinMan was here. Hey guys!
:)
Fear SPT 3! (SkinnyPuppy Term) MuAHAHAHA
...still lives with all the great ANSI art!!
Point your telnet client to port #7000 at address www.microwavesoft.com
There's also a decent TELNET client at https://www.microwavesoft.com you can download for free, that supports sound and music.
Happy Hunting!
But still cheaper than the long distance call to get on the net. Compuserve, if I remember correctly. So you hung out on and supported your local BBS... it was local, you personally knew at least a few of the guys, and your parents wouldn't yell at you about the phone bill. Now that most of us are gainfully employed and the 'net is a fact of life, you probably won't run across too many people that you know in the meat realm unless you go to cons. And that seems strange, somehow.
Point your telnet client to port #7000 at www.microwavesoft.com and watch that old dragon paint!
There's also a free client d/l at https://www.microwavesoft.com that supports sound and music.
Happy Hunting!
If this hasn't already been mentioned... Textfiles is a huge repository of (mostly) old BBS textfiles. Also web.textfiles.com has newer ones.
"I have fallen off the wagon, for I am a slave to tea."
There is one bbs package for linux, called Mystic which is available, that is very similair to the old school bbs package Renegade. Sadly, this program is not opensource. There is at least one bbs that I know of running this underneath linux, at telnet://xtcbox.org. Including running the old DOS games underneath DOSemu, like BRE, Lord and a few other door games. The reason I like Mystic over some of the other bbs packages for linux, is because it retains it's own user database, seperate from the UNIX database. The reason I like it better that way, is because then you don't have to "cloud" up your passwd database, although, there are advantages to the bbs packages like MBSE where it IS stored in the passwd database(which I don't personally like). Mainly, what this allows you to do, is use other system services like ftp and stuff to grant that to your BBS users.
Also, you have Daydream BBS, which keeps it's own user DB, but the menuing system is a bit lacking. Also, there is a "wrapper" if you will for Mystic available, that is similair to ttysnoop. Let's you do what sysops love to do most - spy on their users. The "wrapper" also has a split screen sysop chat, and is available for CVS download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/bbslogin. Daydream has something like that too built into it, with it's program ddsnoop.
Is Fidonet still around? I remember how cool it was to post a message on a local BBS and get replies from people in other states. Those were the days.
anybody remember the seattle area citadel-based BBS code wars and the GremLink.. oh what a nifty device. call forwarding hooked to a PC as a relay! long distance BBSes were rarely an issue!
If this is Heaven I'm bailin out! I cant tolerate this ol tin-tub, so fulla trash and rats...
.. A living archive of those BBSs. How about restoring the g-files, warez, etc and making them available via emulator over the internet? The emulator would actually run the old BBS software.
Anyone still remember their old GBBS/Cat-fur logins and passwords?
Steve Punter was a guy who wrote a BBS (and a protocol) for the Commodore series (actually, I think for the Commodore PET, if you can believe it). Ward's protocol was XModem, as later posts have confirmed.
The Punter BBS was also a terrifyingly mess of spaghetti code, but it did, for the most part, run.
My last BBS was called the PsychedelicCat-Fur BBS in the 409 area code -- Redneck Texas!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Yea, but most clients supported ANSI cursor positioning even when set to AVATAR. That's how I got around that little problem "way back when".
As for the following poster claiming that no one coded for it; dosn't matter, I wrote bbs side (server) ANSI to AVATAR converter. Even fido ANSI art messages were displayed perfectly.
It really helped; in many cases menus would draw over 8 times faster. That was really due to compression (long high IBM ASCII for menu boxes, spaces for whitespace, etc,..) and much smaller color changes (fixed 3 char "^VA[colorbyte]" vs ANSIs 7-12 (or so) "ESC[0;1;3#;4#m").
My first system (and BBS) lived on one of the first //e systems, with dual 144k drives (with a hacked DOS 3.3 to read/write 44 tracks instead of the standard 40, of 16 sectors each).
The software was written in Applesoft, a hacked version of GBBS with the 6502 assembly backdoor removed, or rather improved to alert the curious SYSOP to the presence of another hacker who actually had the correct 16 character backdoor password.
In my mind, I'm still a goofy 16-year old kid (like most of us are/were) and staying up all night writing 6502 assembler, and missing my first class of each day in high school. Spending those nights developing real friendships with a few strange people, sharing our deepest thoughts and secrets while only knowing their alias, and while only typing back and forth in (C)hat mode. I remember actually going voice-mode (talking, that is) with a few people and being so shocked to hear their voices (and they mine). It never felt the same as the safe anonymity of just clicking those keys.
I donated my Apple to an elementary school, years after I switched to UNIX (due to school and work). Although I know the system went to a good cause, I still miss my old friend. The sound of its cheerful "Beep" and that familiar tempo of the 5 1/4" drive whirling and clacking the head to the boot sector. I wonder if I can find a WAV file of that sweet sound, to play when I start my Linux/Windows systems today...Hmmm..
Ahhhh the glory days...at least I have those few memories...the few I didn't burn out in college.
Suncoast Linux - Sarasota, FL
The site has been slashdotted before, but you can check out the BBS Documentary here.
I gave my interview in March and I thought it was a blast. Jason Scott (of textfiles.com) is doing this as a solo project and is a great guy to talk to.
If you haven't contributed something to this project, you might want to check this out.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
factland may bring back memories.
Yup, there are plenty of BBSes still up and running, especially in the Houston area... and hell, door games are still supported, including LORD - www.gameport.com
BBSes are still around, they've just morphed into Telnet BBSes! I sometimes satisfy my text-RPG BBS needs by logging into them. Here's a full list of Telnetable BBSes; there are over 500 hundred available!
If you've never heard of a Telnet BBS you can check out the Telnet BBS FAQ
Nope; at least one conferencing system is still going strong. It's called CiX. I think I've mentioned it before, but I can't find the link, though someone else mentions it here.
The model is similar to Usenet, but with a number of features that end up making a far better system. For example, user IDs are fixed and unfakeable, so you always know who you're dealing with, and people take responsibility for what they post. Messages are fully threaded, and there's a special area for user info so messages don't get cluttered with loads of quoting or sigs. The moderator(s) of each conference have the ability to withdraw messages (retrospectively) and even exclude troublemakers if necessary (which is very rare) – if you disagree you can of course set up your own conferences. And because it's hosted on a central server, there's always a full archive, and messages are available to everyone as soon as they're posted, which keeps threads moving. But the biggest advantage is the membership: there are several thousand regular users, who tend to be intelligent, interesting, articulate and knowledgeable people. There's a UK bias, but there are members from all over the world.
As a result of all this, the signal-to-noise ratio is exceptionally high, and users tend to be extremely loyal. I'm in tens of conferences and read several hundred messages a day; it's led to many Real Life(TM) meetings and get-togethers (including the famous barbecue), lots of good deals (both bought and sold), fascinating discussion, moral and spiritual support, invaluable technical assistance, and it's also the control point for many collaborative development projects. New members are always made very welcome, so why not join in!
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Yeah, my youth was spent searching out text-based entertainment on the computer before the internet really took off. One day I discovered a BBS called The Bionic Dog. It was on FIDONet, of course.
One thing I found there, but haven't seen since, was "The Never-Ending Story", this conversation that was basically a group story-telling experience. Everybody had their nicknames. I remember one person was called the Artful Dodger and another Southern Cross.
Just a memory now...
FFiiggguurriinngg oouutt wwhhaatt eecchhoo sseettiinngg ttoo uussee..
ALSO, EVERYTHING WAS IN ALL CAPS CAUSE YOUR TRS-80 DIDENT HAVE LOWERCASE
Oh and a shift-2 got you a quote, not one of those fancy 'at' symbols.
Whisteling 300 baud, 'cause your cheap ass modem diden't have an answer mode.
Misdialing.. and hearing some old lady cuss you out on the modem speaker.
Having to use Pulse dialing, cause your phone-company haden't updraded their system after man walked on the moon.
Acustic couplers.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I must say I quite fondly remember the long-gone era of the local BBS. Spent WAY too much time playing Trade War and hanging out in the FidoNet echos. TEEN, in particular. I was 14 -- not the same kind of mindset when one mentions "(Hot) Teen" and "Internet" in the same sentence today. :-)
At any rate, I'd wager that it taught me more about communication than anything I ever learned in school.
Pax, Ardax
Novation AppleCat ][
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I remember one time some guy had a crappy BBS up and running. It was one of the few in my area, so i got an account. 3 months later, the sheisty sysOp sent me a nice 70 dollar bill in the mail. It was not mentioned in writing, but the guy wanted a $10 registration fee, and $20 per month for the membership. On-line scams have been around longer than the Internet has. (Don't get me wrong....I still had fun on the free/cheap BBSes.)
Anonymous Coward's post stirred up some memories within me of days gone by, so here's my $0.02 cents worth:
I remember installing my first modem in an 8088-XT Turbo PC clone and my first fateful connection...the awe at computing beyond my computer, of communicating with someone I had never met but with whom I shared a common interest.
I remember spending $700 on one of the first 14.4Kbps USR HST Dual Standards only a few years later, and even now think it was worth every penny.
I remember Xmodem and Ymodem, the arrival of Zmodem, and the days of experimenting with all the other transport protocols which fought for dominance in days gone by - Super8k, Lynx, Puma, and Bimodem - the first protocol to offer simultaneous uploading and downloading.
I remember arc, pak, zoo, lzh, and ultimately zip...I've lost count of the ways in which files were squeezed, packed, stored, crunched, squished, imploded, deflated, and otherwise reduced.
I remember Procomm, Telix, and Qmodem, and configuring the IRQs, ports, and address settings for each one.
I remember remotely configuring and administering PC-Board for a division of the Maxxon company via a DOS shell door and being paid with a brand new modem for my efforts.
I remember when being online required technical savvy...
*sigh*
Especially useful on warez sites that used uploads for credits for downloads ... upload a file or two, get some download credits ... use this version of ZMODEM which would download everything but the very last block (which ended up being a checksum or something "useless" if I remember), and it would then abort the download at the very end.
Actually, it DID download the last block, it's just that it would send back that it didn't receive it and that it's canceling the transfer.
Situation: BBS runs Wildcat 4.20 via a Netware 3.20 server with two nodes on their own dedicated boxes. WC4 does not do telnet out of the box, but doesn't really care where a login comes from.
We also have a DOS-based router which handles a cable modem, and a linux mail gateway machine for the BBS's UUCP account.
The object here is to combine this mess so as to make the BBS telnetable (even if indirectly) -- any suggestions? I've heard it can be done, but have been unable to locate any info on how to do it. Any info or leads appreciated!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Anyone else out there ever run it? I remember spening 99$ for a 1 node license only to have it go to freeware with a 255 node limit. *SIGH* :)
anyone else out there?
I can remember reading mail using a QWK reader Blue Wave, which I still have around, and reading messages that had ANSI graphics. These could be animated and programmed to some degree. Of course, this could be used to play practical jokes.
One such joke mimicked a computer virus, which were just starting to become known.
You would click on the message, and you would see this full Red Screen with the big Label "Computer Killer" and the warning to not shut off the computer because it would hurt the hard drive. You would then see a series of progress bars marking how far along the computer was in erasing the drive, then the format, etc.
Of course, it was only a graphic display. If you had the presence of mind to look, you would see that the hard drive light would be completely idle.
But the sheer panic before figuring out what was going on ....
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Arrgh. I am sick and tired of the Slashdot editors pushing this idea that the BBS is a thing of the past. The BBS community is alive and well on the Internet. It's single-line dialup systems that are dead.
BBS's still provide the greatest sense of a cohesive online community out there. Better than "blog" type nonsense, and certainly better than what the likes of MSN and AOL have to offer.
I've run UNCENSORED! BBS for 14 years and I'm not about to stop now. And the 200+ users aren't going to stop logging in, either. Modern BBS's offer access via telnet/ssh or web, your choice. And the Internet-connectedness of it all has made it possible for BBS communities to attain geographic diversity, something which was not possible when you had to deal with long distance modem calls.
Please, people, let's get the perspective straight. The BBS is alive and well, so stop pushing this "bygone era" myth.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
I remember my BBS days pretty fondly. WWIV. Naughty .GIF's from McHenry BBS. Tradewars. Foodfite. HST gods. User meets. Entire forums dedicated to Wing Commander. Squeezing every possible byte out of conventional memory with QEMM. HSLink (the coolest BBS xfer protocol of all time.) The Anarchist's Cookbook. ANSI art. The list goes on.... :) Good times.
There's one BBS user meet I remember in particular, there was quite a rarity on one of the boards I was on, a girl who went by the handle "Jessica Rabbit", well one day she showed up to a user meet and looked the part. She could barely move around for all the geeks surrounding her. It was quite the sight. And when there weren't such, um, distractions around we'd chow down on pizza and talk shop, kind of like at a modern LAN party, but less competitive
It's strange, and I must be a total geek, but sometimes I'll sift through my ancient files I still have from back then, or maybe some old games or even hardware from that era I have in a few boxes upstairs and remember those days as if I was an old man looking though his high school yearbook. I remember moments in my life based on what kind of hardware I had at the time or what games I was playing, is that weird or what?
GTE - We h% *S^ear you
-R
telnet://bbs.darklands.org
That BBS has LORD, LORD2, TradeWars, BRE, FE and many other games...
I am a genius; therefore, you suck.
I started out with a 300 baud modem on a C-64 when Fido networks were the hot new BBS thing.
Later, I was a co-sys on a thriving mulitline (I think we got to 16 lines BBS in the SF Bay Area using call-forwarding to get complete regional coverage. We had a thriving community, I'm not sure how many accounts I had... I'll just say that A.Lizard was very well known locally.
There is something to be said for getting automatic "Elite" access wherever I went within my local call radius.
I even put together one of the very first virtual companies (hardware: modems) using a local BBS one of the collaborators on the project owned... we used a sub (=echo=conference) on the system for discussion and a private file transfer area for swapping ECAD files. The company fell apart due to personal conflicts, but I knew that "virtual companies" were a workable idea long before anyone invented that phrase.
I used a BBS my client had for telecommuting (turning in my work, getting work-related messages) before the word was invented. BTW, it was an early MacBBS and it sucked rocks. (No, not because it was based on Mac.)
For me, the most important thing about BBS systems was meeting interesting people of the opposite sex. My interests are a bit arcane, finding women that share them isn't that easy.
Suddenly in 1991, people were talking about something strange called The Internet where e-mail went overseas in hours instead of weeks. I put out messages on several BBS systems asking if anybody could give me access... I got replies within days. I got hooked the first time I had an actual conversation via Internet with a geekette (Hi,Stayka!) living in Germany... the BBS was set up to dial out on demand... message replies were coming back in a few minutes. My main Internet address back then was: alizard%tweekco%boo@Pacbell.com or if you prefer, pacbell!boo!tweekco!alizard
When I got Internet access, my pool of people to fish in went from the few thousand (mostly male) I could access via Fido, WWIV-Net/Link (and several more obscure WWIV-based networks), V-net (though e-mailed file attachments were k3wl)... to millions (this was 1991-1994)... my transition to the Net took a few years.
For meeting people, the Net has been much better for me. It came in just in time to save my sanity. I'm now contemplating a second trip to Holland to meet the second woman I've taken a personal interest in out there. (the first didn't quite work out)
For things like file transfer and other data-driven uses... it was much better even when I was accessing it via Waffle BBS. It suited the things I was trying to do on line a hell of a lot better than BBS systems ever did. All I wanted was a faster modem...
I rarely look back and really don't miss the "good old days". Even with getting viruses every day, having to firewall my dialup connection, and spam, I'm having a hell of a lot more fun online now. If I ever feel like discussing the "good old days", I can always talk to the sysadmins at my local ISP. They ran one of the BBS systems I used to use. I doubt they look back much. They can download via OC-12...
Tech Public Policy stuff
Ah, I can't let this thread slip by with mentioning my own BBS, CiX. It changed my life, forged friendships that have lasted to this day, educated me and others, and generally ensured that even someone like me (stuck in the dark ages that India represented back then) had a chance to reach out and touch someone. This may not sound like a big deal to you, but being the first and only BBS in the whole country back then meant that you suddenly had people from across the country calling in just to see what it felt like.
You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
People still don't believe that I used to run a BBS on an 8088 XT clone with a 5 1/4" floppy as the boot/BBS disk and a (then brand new to PCs) 720K 3.5" floppy for data. Every byte was precious.
I used a RAM Disk to improve performance. Yeah, you can make a real big RAM Disk out of the total 640Kb of available memory.
It would always have to go offline when I wanted to debug some Turbo Pascal programs.
"Let me think, there was WWIV, WildCat, VirtualBBS, Renegade, Fido, Searchlight, Hermes, TBBS, First Class in later years. I remember a version of Zmodem that would display GIFs as they came in, so you could tell if you were getting a duplicate with a different name. Those with multiple lines were all either using DesqView or OS/2 for multitasking. I never tried setting one up myself, as I didn't even have a second line to dial out on.
I could go on, but I'm sure I'm starting to bore you guys."
Not at all! I remember TBBS, Hermes (used to run one), WWIV, Fido, and yes, later, FirstClass (oooh... goooooey).
Tsk. I've said it before and I'll say it again: There should be a "Classmates.com" for old school BBS folk, so I can find some of the other couple hundred that frequented Billy's Place, Tommy's Place, Chastity's Playhouse (Val, where art thou?) and a bunch of the other Los Angeles boards...
Kevin Fox
I'd agree with you basically, but I think there's another factor:
When the 56K modem came out, it wouldn't connect at speeds above 33.6K unless one end of the phone circuit was a digital line. BBS sysops couldn't afford to pay upwards of $100 per month for ISDN circuits, just to put 56K modems on them so people could call in and get their 42K, 44K, or 48K connects.
On the other hand, the ISPs did -- so you got quicker file transfer rates doing a PPP connection over the Internet than you did connecting straight to a local BBS.
As a sysop myself, back in the day, I saw BBS's evolve (devolve perhaps?) into file sharing systems first and foremost. Multi-line chat was always better on large information services (AKA. Compuserve CB chat) because you simply had a lot more people online at the same time to talk with. BBS multi-line chat sort of petered out as users discovered IRC, AOL chat rooms, etc. Some BBS's still made messages their primary focus, but the trend went towards people using BBS's to get their "warez fix", download GIF and JPG photos (pre-Internet porn), and other types of data. This meant a fast transfer speed was critical, expecially as the average program size grew and grew.
Man... remember on commodore 64, the game EMPIRE? I'd log on 5 different bbses a day to play my rounds, then there was global wars on PC, oh and tradewars of course, then came the multi-line BBSES with games like telearena, those were the days...
Games, message boards, chatting with the Sysop, leeching with ratios, following the craze from 2400 bauds to 9600, to 14,400HST that wasn't compatible with anything else than USR modems, and you needed that Veverything that you couldn't afford, copy parties with people from a BBS, real GTs, argh... I miss those... sorry for the memories the olders will remember all this
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
http://www.rtsoft.com
Looks like he ripped off Rare's logo. :)
Anyone remeber this game ? It was the best game.... alas I discovered it too late. I also remember being the first Renegade board in the valley to have an "online" CD of files for people to download. Loading QEMM386 to run multiple nodes, a SCSI 1X CD-Rom drive to share the CD.... the first time I broke 100 message posts in 1 day! Man, I miss those days :)
Mike
aka Lucifer - the Abyss BBS - Walla Walla Valley
MajorMUD still rules!
I choose kermit for downloading.
I thought that Muppet download would go faster.
I was wrong.
I downloaded porn.
I had a Tandy HX 1000
I saw images that looked like they were in infrared
My keyboard never got sticky
I went on Prodigy.
There was a maze game or two.
And some dumb game about making money
I stuck to blowing up my towns in SimCity.
I played with my modem.
I got it to call people.
I could keep hearing them say, "Hello", "Hello"
Me and my friends laughed a lot.
Nobody knew what a modem was back then.
Oh, the good old days.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
In the 914 area I had a rival sysop that liked to start all types of crap with me. He was a late comer that didn't know dick, but had his daddy's money to throw at making a nice board.
Anyway, this dork started using generated and stolen credit card numbers to buy all types of equipment. Eventually the nervey prick tried to order a limo to take him and his little friends down to the New York City for the day. Suffice to say, the guy at the limo company got suspicious, checked into the CC #, and called the cops when he found out it wasn't his. The limo still came and picked them up, though.. and drove them straight to the state troopers!
I nearly busted a gut when a friend breathlessly called me and told me the news. Man, did that feel good.. I even kept the local newspaper clipping about the big "hacker buster" until today. Unfortunately, another friend of mine got caught up in this, because his board was networked to this dork's.. and the guy I knew was 19, while the punk was only 16. Guess who got hit harder, even though he very little to do with the matter? :-/
I can't help but miss those days... Reading these posts and the article really made me realize what a great time in life it was when there was BBS's with Tradewars, FIDONET, The Pit, USurper, etc. We would have a weekly BBSer's meeting, and my high school friends would all make fun of me for going. But there was something special about those people. They were like me... They enjoyed my presence and I enjoyed theirs. There is something about a community where people are allowed to be themselves. It was very freeing. I was able to be the person I really loved being (The real me) there... On the BBS's and at the BBSer's meetings. I really do miss those days. Thanks Fix.net, The Oger's Cave, and Excaliber.
Pascalaholics Anonymous was a cool place...
:) but it sure was fun collecting and passing it on to the next one...
Maybe I missed the 8-bit golden age, but I had a blast for years on an IBM XT clone - 640k, cga graphics, dual 5 1/4 floppy drives...
2400 baud rocked as for menus and stuff - data came in too quick to read as it "rendered" the screen, unlike my buds with their C64s and 300 baud...
'twas sweet downloading warez before they were called warez...I collected so much of that stuff, that I have yet to look at some of it to this day
Of course, I saw my first porn this way - real porn, not ascii porn - rocked, as my parents were utterly clueless...I labeled the floppies with porn, "arcade classics"...
Telix and DesqView was my software of choice, allowing me to multitask without getting disconnected...before i found that combo, running out of space on a floppy meant disconnecting just to find a blank disk or make some room...multitasking is SO taken for granted these days...
zmodem with auto transfer start and crash-recovery/resume was the shit too! I could ramble on for hours....hmmmm, wonder how much the article writer makes, as i'm currently jobless.
Here's my story, not that anyone cares :-)
Sigh... I started BBS'ing in New Jersey (201/908) middle school in '85 on a friend's borrowed 300 baud 1650 modem. I was badly *hooked* and couldn't live without it after I received a 300 baud Mitey Mo (Commodore) modem for my birthday.
At that point I owned a computer for many years and was already a decent BASIC/ASM programmer.
I eventually evolved to a 1670, which was a damn fine Commodore 1200 baud modem. I could call a BBS by phone and know if it was a 1670 or not by the way it'd respond if you whistled into the receiver (the 1670 would hang up *instantly*) I used to be obsessed with the # of clicks heard after the remote modem would hang up. Yes, I was that far gone.
That was a magical time. I soon discovered "Phone Man" software and calling card war dialers and had all types of good phun... until I was caught by US Metro. I cleaned up my act real fast. :-) I also had an interesting chemistry hobby from the online "cookbooks" which became notorious in the schools I attended. Whoops, the pressure sensitive iodine crystals REALLY work. Of course if I was like that now I would have been expelled or accused of being a terrorist or some other B.S.. How times have changed.
Does anyone remember all of those old cracking groups? UCF? Eagle Soft (ESI?) Razor? 1911? Some of the stuff they did, the crack intros, were freaking brilliant.
I remember pissing a Central NJ BBS Sysop off named "The Tarantula Keeper", who was a young mad genius in his own right. He was my age and called my parents at 3am one morning bitching about my behavior on his system. We later became friends and he fixed my 1541 drive with a multimeter and a soldering gun when it died about a year afterwards. Uh, he was like 13 years old then.
I quickly started a BBS running 6485 BBS by "Ivory Joe" .. on a C-64 w/ single 1541 floppy in the summer of 85... I also remember AABBS. I'd go to bed when my parents forced me to and whenever I'd hear my floppy spin up I'd run over to see who was logging on. Of course usually I'd stay up all night hacking away. Sometimes I'd pee in a cup and pour it out my window so my parents wouldn't know I was awake. I ran a BBS off and on from 85-93 and eventually this C-64 system evolved to C-128 running eBBS by Ed Parry, various C-Net versions (which is still IMHO the best BBS software ever written), and so on.. Ken Pletzer, one of the C-Net authors, was a programming God :-)
In middle school I'd make mods to this older (adult) man's C-Net system who lived down the street. This guy was so cool that he even had a 20 meg external hard drive on his C-64! In exchange for my coding he'd supply me with, ahem, videos. Yes, I had a few early Traci Lords tapes.. Faces of Deaths, and even Caligula..
Well, I had them until my mom busted me. I stupidly ratted the guy out which effectively ended that porn supply channel.
My grades sucked hard because I didn't give a sh?t about school and spent all of my time on the computer. Of course I was smarter than most of my peers and teachers so it was a waste of time anyway. Ironically my parents used to take away my computer gear when I'd flunk classes. The only time I made honor roll was when my old man told me he'd buy me a C-128 if I did.
Eventually moved through the Amiga and to an IBM PC first running Colossus BBS and then 2AM by Neil Clark from Drew University. That was great software and the first BBS program I actually *bought*! After time I wrote most of a BBS program with a good friend "Drone" from DroneFone BBS in QuickBasic. I guess this was around 1987/8.
In 87 I briefly ran QBBS and even got on Fidonet!
I took a few years off from computers from 88-90 when I discovered heavy metal, girls, guitars, and alcohol. I grew my hair long, sold all my computers and bought a guitar and amp... I killed many brain cells during that period and had great times. But I couldn't stay away from my first love..
In 1990 my old man put about $15,000 into my biz idea of a 8 line system (7x2400 1xHST) with 2 CD-Rom drives running G-Comm. This was heavy duty during that time.. We advertised in the back of Computer Shopper magazine and built a very active system with a huge file library. The BBS ran for several months before it was shut down for personal reasons but I learned C programming and an incredible amount of general business tactics. What a GREAT *practical* education that prepared me for "real life"...
I eventually worked as a software developer for the largest (& most successful) commercial BBS software company in the world before leaving in 93 to join the dot.com craze. RIP Tim Stryker, you ruled.
As David Lee Roth sang, "Those were Good Times."
hell, man. i still run a bbs. it's telnet only now, and *NO DOOR GAMES*, but it's still a bbs. i have custom ansi artwork and some nice posting still goes on.
telnet to tir tairngire (name means land of promise in gaelic), just make sure you use an ANSI client (go to http://tirtairngire.net for directions if you need one).
telnet
webpage
jinkusu
You're right about message boards but there's more to it than just that. There's no real sense of community on the internet; at least nothing compared to many of the BBSes I remember fondly. That's not to say all BBSes had a sense of community- many didn't. But that's dependent on the BBS owner, the software he used, and the types of users that frequented that board.
I remember that the totally l33t hax0rs ran Celerity...
Ah, for the days when I leeched software for my Atari 800 at 2400 baud on a Kaypro 4..and then transferring it at 300 baud, waiting hours upon hours to find out if any of the files I downloaded actually did anything.
Or the hours I spent at the virtual command prompts at Drexel Hill North Star,DHN* for short, hoping that there was more gaming goodness available there than LadDer 1, 2, or 3 (download the Java version...it's excellent...like Donkey Kong meets Rogue...vaguely). Remember Aldo's Adventures? Same damn set of games, minus the slick ASCII engine of the originals. Ahhh...
Or the time when I was about 8, when a spin with an ersatz chat with the sysop of some BBS or another offended me (or rather just confused me) for some reason or another (I think it asked me about my mother or some such). The sysops (who must have been at least post-pubescent...they were very amused by the situation) called to make sure nothing was up or to glean further amusement from the situation...anyway, when they asked what I was using to call the board I answered quite honestly, "a terminal for the upstairs computer." One responded, "when I was 8 I couldn't even spell terminal!"
I was so proud.
Hey man.. that was a good description of how it
was.
Yeah, I was a C-128 1200bps BBS'er..and no matter what anyone else says, THOSE WERE THE DAYS.
I exhibited a lot of thecrazy addictive symptoms you did.. and I suspect many others did, as well.
At least those of the old community.
The only good thing about things changing, is that I have more of a life now. Even though I still miss not having one then.
l8r..
P.S. I remember those groups.. remember
Fairlight?
I know this is cheesy.. and you can't go home
again.
But it'd be cool to maybe chat/meet up sometime.
And who knows? Kick start the old c64 and dialup
at 1200baud to connect with dusty geeks with 80's
wArEz.
Email me at img2usmd@yahoo.com
... And he does bring up a few good points,
t ex t.html
especially regarding homogenous communities
able to communicate better.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/8556/
God I wasted so much time making those things. Exitilus quests, too.
:P 2 of them local.
IIRC, there were 4 BBSs with my ANSIs for logon screens.
Oh the fun with maximus BBS software.
Scanning for new messages.... 1
Auto Displaying 1st Message
Hi, Goodbye haha!
+++ATH0
>
Reading articles like that make me feel old. ... there were even ansi magazines like blender etc.
I was sysop once, had my own BBS running on two nodes, man it was great! (the fun i had with the users together with my co-ops)
I was running that thing on a AMD486/40 with 16Mb ram and 1Gig HD space and two 28.8 USR modems running desqview in dos 6 with PCBoard. (this was at the end, i started with a 386 with 120Mb HD space 14.4 modem, no kidding!). But having a BBS with 1Gb storage space was like BBS heaven, people could upload whatever they wanted it would never get full. anyway my board was specialised in the demo/art-scene.
the demo scene was so alive back then, but what was even more great was the ANSI-scene! ACiD vs iCE vs Apathy vs Fuel vs
viewing these ansi-drawings in acidview, switching from ansi to vga mode and drawing ansis yourself in aciddraw/thedraw.
I too was an ansi artist (fuel member) and won several prices in several demo parties here in europe.
Articles like this makes me want to grab my CD's i burned when i took my board offline and wade through those megs of ansi packs again...
(oh yeah and no spam in my mail either, those were days)
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
I was thinking about my bbs days about three months ago and the thought crossed my mind that there maybe some that you can access through the internet. What I found nearly brought a tear of joy to my eye. There are thousands. All of them can be easily accessed through telnet. I believe Wildcat even makes a telnet client to access them. I've been playing LORD ever since.
Beer! It's what's for breakfast!
With native *nix software, dialin and IP connections are no different (it's all stdio, whereas old DOS/OS2/WIN style talked to the serial port and/or FOSSIL).
I recommend setting up a native *nix BBS (I use EleBBS), and DOSEMU with the vmodem patch to run old DOS doors/games. Getting DOSEMU setup correctly for this is tricky, but Google for BBS DOSEMU vmodem and you should find some howtos.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
Another BBS system that's survived since way back then is Monochrome. It used to run over the UK academic network JANET even before JANET had TCP/IP, but it migrated to an independent system a few years ago. It's classified into sections covering a whole load of different topics (news, technology, lifestyle, user diaries, music, humour [always worth a read], and so on), each with section moderators, and just like in the Elder Days, none of the files have threading.
(PS: I have nothing to do with Mono other than being a satisfied user.)
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
I used to run a BBS in North Jersey called "Storm Surge". It was the most fun I ever had! I ran it for about 6 years with T.A.G. (tho it was WWIV for a little while.)
Ahh the good old days.. I had an internal 1200 bps modem (a PS/2 modem that was a microchannel card!) and it didn't like my friends' 2400 bps modem (he ran a BBS too) so my little 1200 stepped down to 300. It was hilarious!
I ran my BBS under OS/2, so I could do stuff in DOS while the BBS was up. I remember it taking hours to set up different doors and getting them running the way I wanted to.
I wish those days would come back. Anyone know a way to run an old DOS BBS under DOSEMU and make the incoming telnets to a port act like incoming serial lines? That would kick ass.
RIP The Parole Board
Click here or here.
:)
- Jimbob
Ah the good old days, my warez site was nr 9 in europe (according to the DreamChart anyone remembers), ah and the carding.. mmmmmmm
Anyone remember "g-philes," little instruction books on hacking/phreaking/applied chemistry? I believe the term came from "general files" text file listings on RBBS's.
What is funny is that they are still out there, stuff me and my friends wrote back in 1986, probably on a handful of BBS's. And let's not forget about Phrack.
Who remembers Quantum Link? The Commodore only online BBS thing. Quantum Link was AOL.
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
Forget ANSI art! Remember ASCII porn? That ruled!
Can still find some on the net too!
I logged to it from the internet, and the moron tried to do a call back to verify if my 'modem' number is good but I don't even have a modem, that's so funny!!
What a moron this SysOp was.... hehee
You should used some funny fake adress like Police etc... SysOp had no way to verify if the adress was right anyways. Btw, after 1 year I always used fake infos on BBS, why would a 14 years old guy had to know everything about me ? haha
That they were a lot of fake women around just like today. lol
The best BBS were Amiga pirate BBS, some of them supported PC/Console etc, anyways, anyone remember Beyond Akira (416) or The Notice (514) or The Joker (418) ?
There still are some BBS's out there. And today's lamers and script kiddies are too dumb to know how to use them. I'm setting up a list of them at a site I run called "BBSList." http://bbslist.freehosting.net (Watch out, my provider uses popups. :P Feel free to suggest a better host, at least until I get off of my lazy butt and register a domain!)
...who wrote a weird Atari program.
Mine would list itself on the screen, reposition the cursor to the top of the program, and turn on some 'auto-carriage-return' feature that caused the system to behave like you were holding down the enter key. The first command in the program was 'list' or somesuch that would list out the approximately 12-line BASIC program. The last command in the program was 'new' which wiped out the program from memory -- but it was still listed on the screen. Once control was returned to the OS, it would start auto-CRing until it entered the
program back into memory, then it would auto-CR over the 'run' command on the bottom of the screen, and, viola, it would start all over.
Useless, but cool, to have a program that would both delete itself, re-enter itself, and run itself. Heh.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Sorry about the URL.
Ah, well, who cares?
They just have evolved..the strong survive www.thekeep.net is mine, been online since 1983 Greg
I started calling up BBS's the first time I started messing with computers with a 2400bps modem. It was around the early 90's before the internet became more mainstream so I got in late in the game. I remember the first time the sysop sent me a message I was like whoa! theres another guy at the end of line. Then of course my parents looked at the phone bill and prevented me from calling anyone outside local calls.
Over 10-years-old BBS still alive on the internet: telnet fabbes.flashdance.cx
SWEDISH ONLY.
Being excited at how z-modem rocked!
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
www.lordlegacy.org
www.lordlegacy.org
yes, there's a wn32.
michael is also working no a linunx version.
Now you're getting me all nostalgic. I ran my BBS (3 lines near the end) up until sometime in 1999. At the peak I could get 75 calls in a day, nearly everyone going on just to post and read messages (from time to time I put up online games, but that wasn't really the focus of the board). I was definitely running the board at a loss, but it was well worth it as: I met a lot of people through it. We would have "socials" fequently and these events would bring all sorts of strange people together. It's amazing how many friends I met through my bulliten board and how many are still around today. The sense of community was very strong, unlike anything one could possibly acheive on the internet.
Anyone know what happened to bbs.ufies.org? Was down when I tried earlier, after being prompted by this article to see if it was still around... was a nice nostalgia trip, when I discovered it a couple of years ago. Perhaps Pitr hasn't been able to dedicate the time to running it, what with his clone studies. :0
We can face anything... except for bunnies.
Telix was my "Netscape" of the pre-web era. I remember setting up scripts to access each different BBS system. And I remembered how great it was when a new version came out. I also remember the cool sounds it would make when it made a connection, or when it finished a download.
- Eric, InvisibleRobot.com
Oh yeah.
7,N,1
BBS Will be back
Remember the BigFlats Towne Crier
Radio Shack Mod 4P Dual Floppy
The article would have been more interesting had the author had his facts straight. Contrary to rumor, Hayes was not the ne plus ultra of modems and 300 bps was not state of the art by the time the Atari 800 came out. 4800 bps was available over voice grade lines in the 1960s, and even with accoustic couplers you could go faster than 300 bps in the 1970s.
(This article is already two days old, so I don't imagine I'll get any responses, but just in case...)
What ever happened to Terrapin Transit BBS? It was located in Berkeley, California, and was just about the best Commodore-centric BBS in the world. It was also one of the first few local BBS systems to adopt usenet feeds. I think the sysop (Sam?) renamed it to Brokedown Palace shortly before it faded out.
Was anyone else out there using a terminal program called CCGMS?
Yes, I'm on it. Seven times. I moved a lot. :-)
Money for nothing, pix for free
ahh... I have fond memories of Studs! and Studettes! door games from back in the day. Nothing beats watching ANSI animated sex while you click the "boff" button.
Prevent linux based DDOS's!
http://linux.denialofservice.org/
I totally disagree with this statement. Where I was, people used both and it wasn't a case of us vs. them as this author implies in his article. Most people that I knew had accounts on both.
The BBS was a place to hold a discussion about the latest new music out, hold flame wars about which computer was best, etc. Of course, BBS was the only option for downloads unless you had CompuServe. I remember some people who ran BBS' that only were up at certain hours so the sysop's mom wouldn't get mad at them tying up the phone line.
The D-Dial was a place to just kick back and chat about things. There were groups on the D-Dial that liked to get together and do stuff and there were those that didn't. Some people liked to lurk and others were active chatters. It was much better than the chat rooms of today because you generally knew these people. The operator of the D-Dial didn't charge a lot and had two systems in different locations that were linked together. This was done so they could service more prefixes as a local call.
Ok, the day I browse at 0 and do a search for my old handle.. sounds like R.B. to me.. I wrote a few (>cough Of course, huge apologies if I got this one wrong, there are only two other possibilities for QBasic, but I think I got this one right in the voice coder.
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...