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."

Comments

ANSI archive sites?

[antdude]

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. :)

Re:ANSI archive sites?

[Phoenix138tx]

Check out www.ice.org

Re:ANSI archive sites?

[rodbegbie]

Try http://archives.thebbs.org/index.html

rOD.

Re:ANSI archive sites?

[I_redwolf]

www.acheron.org - I used to hang out in #ansi and I can't remember who started this but it's been around for quite sometime now.

Re:ANSI archive sites?

[BrookHarty]

On WWIV BBs's, you could include an Ansi signiture. I put a fake "SysOp Chat mode Enabled" then pretrended to hang up them and pause. I dont Remember exact WWIV chat, but it was something like. And I put pauses between keystrokes, to fake a real person. :)

[SysOp Chat Mode Enabled]
Hey There, I have to remove your account, Nice knowing ya. :)

+++
NO CARRIER

Ahh the good ole days. God a few nasty emails about that.

Flashbacks

[KFury]

Flashbacks of:

• ANSI animations
• 300 baud connections even a 14-year-old could outtype
• when it was still called 'Elite'
• Telebit 2500 was the coolest thing in the world
• until the HST Dual Standard
• Making a 1-line Hermes board on my mom's fax line in the off hours
• and getting people calling all night
• The guy with the spare VAX and a 16-line BBS was tha coolest pimp in tha Valley.

Re:Flashbacks

[OMGWTFBBQ]

- Taking 5 hours to download one grainy porn pic.

Re:Flashbacks

[Reality Master 101]

I'm with you, except for...

300 baud connections even a 14-year-old could outtype

300 baud (in those days) was about 30 chars/second. Unless you're pressing keys at random, there's no way any human can keep up with that. It only seemed slow because of the latency of echoing your characters back to you. :)

Re:Flashbacks

[gmack]

being asked by the kid next door how to delete the porn before his parents see it.

those were the days

[Roadmaster]

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

Re:those were the days

[ahoehn]

Oh god, I've been waiting for this article for years. There is little more satisfying than gaining another level in Legend Of The Dragon, or giving your character a venereal disease visiting the prostitutes in Usurper, (heck, when I first played usurper I didn't know the meaning of venereal or usurper.) I remember the sheer glory of becoming friends with a sysop and becoming a co-sysop, being able to change things, snoop around, and all that. But none of that could compare to my discovery of Warez on a BBS. I remember all of the secretive glances shared by those of us at the local BBS picnic who had access to the Warez section of one of the BBS's, and that wonderful feeling of superiority. I think I ended up actually successfully downloading one warez game, Sim Ant, but it wasn't so much what you did do, it was what you could do, and the smugness, never estimate the power of smugness.

Re:those were the days

[Chasuk]

While technically you are correct, the Internet did indeed kill BBS's. Yes, BBS's didn't get their start until the early 1980's, which the Internet long predates, but vitually no one had Internet access at home until the early 1990's, after which BBS's rapidly declined.

However, the Internet was not the only killer of the BBS scene. BBS's were also killed by their own popularity. In 1986, it was possible to have intelligent, literate conversations on BBS's, but this had become nearly impossible a few years later. Why? The invasion of punks. The trolls, the flamebaits, and the emergence of "doodz."

I was a SysOp for many years, and as soon as the nicks and handles started to become WizzyTheOrgasmicGod and CyberFucker, I knew the end was nigh. I'm sure that others can recount similar stories about IRC and Usenet.

Those were the days...

The business model from hell

[00_NOP]

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?

Re:The business model from hell

[King_TJ]

I ran my BBS for over 10 years, in one form or another. During its "low point", I was stuck with only 1 phone line and a system shoved in a bedroom closet because the apartment I was living in would only allow a maximum of 2 phone lines - and we needed a voice line.

Despite all that, I put up with a *lot* to keep it running, but never looked at it as some sort of "business model" for making a monetary profit.

I also wouldn't say it was "just for fun", because believe me - staying up all those late nights validating users, correcting spelling mistakes and incomplete file upload descriptions and keeping everything updated wasn't exactly a picnic.

There was a sort of profit to it, but it was more intangible. For me, it was the thrill of going to the local computer store and having techs come running out of the back room to meet me when they heard I was the sysop. It was the opportunity to meet some of the most interesting and intelligent people I've ever run across (some of whom are still good friends of mine today). It was the personal satisfaction of knowing I was doing something that enriched so many other people's lives in some small way.

Near the end, yes, I did gladly accept donations and even did optional "subscriptions" that bought the user some extra online time and download credits -- but I never so much as broke even on it. I never expected to. Most hobbies are like that. If there's a mistake people were/are making with Internet sites today - it's being too obsessed with making it into a business. Do it because you enjoy and love it, and because the mere presence of it satisfies you in some personal way. If you do this, the money may well follow.... but people can tell if your heart is in a given web site or not.

WWIV ... still up and running ...

[ProfMoriarty]

WWIV has been around for many years now ... and it's still up and running over at Eagle's Dare BBS

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.

Re:WWIV ... still up and running ...

[C_nemo]

"... and it's still up and running over at Eagle's Dare BBS [wwiv.net]"

you just dont say that on /.

[aarsathe@morbo aarsathe]$ telnet bbs.filenet.wwiv.net
Trying 162.33.159.251...
Connected to bbs.filenet.wwiv.net.
Escape character is '^]'.

BUSY
Connection closed by foreign host.

OMG! a /.-ed bbs server :)

ah fare thee well

[llamalicious]

my good friend TheDraw !

Re:ah fare thee well

[phraktyl]

Actually, there's a version out for Linux now called DuhDraw:

DuhDraw is a program which almost perfectly simulates TheDraw for DOS. Back in the good old BBSing days, TheDraw was a program used by a SysOp in order to draw ANSI screens, the only graphics available on BBSes for quite a while. However, for a long time, nobody considered Linux, as Linux BBSes were uncommon. Other applications of the software include login screens, and mud screens. I always thought it ironic that MUDs were mostly run off of Unix machines, and yet they used DOS editors to generate the ANSI screens.

http://www.wwco.com/~wls/opensource/duhdraw.php

Re:ah fare thee well

[zsmooth]

You were supposed to pay for it?? Wow, I didn't have any idea...

Re:Don't forget

[KFury]

• Typing +++ (pause) ATH to hang up...
• 8 bit? 7 bit? Parity??
• Vi}}}sixxn}@ble l{ine noisxç}e

But at least there was no call waiting.

Re:Door games

[Billkamm]

http://lord.nuklear.org/ yes LORD 4 life indeed... this web page usually has at least 100 strong people playing daily.... great site if you still love the game

One important I forgot!

[antdude]

Sysops calling you by voice to validate your account. Sheesh! :)

Re:One important I forgot!

[LoveShack]

I remember when my mom started freaking out because a forty year old man was calling her 12 year old son because of something off of the "computer"...

Nostalgia

[silvaran]

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.

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 .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...

*Everything* gets archived on the Internet...

[Embedded Geek]

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.

PC Pursuit

[pgrote]

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.

Not to be forgotten...

[telstar]

CiA

iCE

Re:Remember when...

[MoneyT]

or when HDs were 100-200 megs?

a floppy could hold almost anything?

any game that used more than 5 megs of disk space was huge?

there were no such things as pop-up/under ads?

if your os used more than 14 megs of memory it was highway robbery?

those were the days

You know you're an old fart when...

[Pig Hogger]

You know you're an old fart when it took you a *WEEK* to download Linux at 2400 baud from a BBS.

And the sex you get from the Internet isn't like the sex you had from the BBSes...

Finding those people...

[singularity]

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)

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 //gs.

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.

Popping In to Give You the URLs:

[Jason Scott]

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

sometimes /. is still /.

[deaddeng]

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.

Re:Recommendations? Linux BBS FAQ

[t0qer]

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!

Tired of Slashdot "BBS==past" attitude

[IGnatius T Foobar]

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.

Re:Flashbacks (my list to add)

[zsmooth]

I remember that the totally l33t hax0rs ran Celerity...

Re:Door games

[darien]

So are there any public BBS's left?

See http://www.mono.org
Telnet to electron.mono.org to log in.