BBS Links Database Back Online

leviathan writes "After being down for almost a year, the original BBS Links Database is back in action. Started back in 1999, almost a third of the original entries have been pruned out, and others are in dire need of updating. If you run a BBS related web site, please help us out by adding it to the database, or updating your existing entries."

Comments

damn

[Anonymous Coward]

this is my third fp today.

i must be bored.

BSD Links Database Back Offline

[Anonymous Coward]

After being featured on Slashdot's front page today.

Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't use a analog modem anymore so i couldnt dial the bbs (909) LINUX-SUX any way

In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

The have no links database!

At subway, you get a sub prepared anyway you like, by the friendly, efficient staff. Choose from mouth-watering veggies, succulent meats and cheeses, and a variety of freshly-baked bread. Why not stop in today and pick up some subs for the whole family to enjoy. I suggest the Italian BMT, piled high with genoa salami, pepperoni, ham, and provolone cheese. Top it with lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickles, add a few spritzes of italian dressing and you've got a meal fit for king. Subway: eat fresh!

g to the oatse
c to the izzex
fo shizzle my nizzle click here (note: the site is currently down. I expect it to come back online around Thanksgiving) to dispatch Jared and his formerly overweight goons to crack down on Subway if they don't honor the $3.49 Troll Tuesday deal. Make sure you provide the store number and address. Mine is store number 5839. Don't believe me about the concept of the jared dispatch? Yahoo has an article about it here, although it is pretty light on the details.
Note: I've gotten a few comments that the link to Jared Dispatch doesn't work. I think the site got taken down because of abuse of the service. Although the site got taken down, I still highly reccomend Subway and their high quality subs. To show my appreciation, here is a link to Free Subway Coupons. I had to redirect it through Yahoo's site redirector, because my of the filter at work. Anyways, here is the link!
Note 2: I've received word that those links to yahoo actually point to goatse.cx. I am truly sorry about that, and I found the cause. A couple weeks ago, a hacker broke into yahoo and set up some scripts that redirect the user to goatse.cx if a file is in a certain directory. I accidentally tried to access a file in one of those haunted directories. I fixed the links (I have a cousin who works at yahoo), so they should bring you to the actual sites now, not goatse.cx. Update 10/28: The hacker, or should I say hax0r, actually has posted a page on yahoo on how he did it and how the goatse redirector works. It's a very good read. I suggest reading it soon before yahoo finds out about it and takes it down. Check it out ASAP!
Note 3: I am working on locating the articles using google's cache. It is taking some time because I don't remember the exact titles. However, I hope to have the links fixed and working very soon. Keep eating at Subway in the meantime, and request that they bring back the jalepeno cheese roll. It is a fanscrumptiously brilliant roll.
Note 4: To all those who think that sub is an incorrect term, I live in upstate NY, and we call it a sub here. There are no hoagies, grinders, po'boys, footlongs, heroes, or any other made up names. It's not hoagieway after all, its Subway.
Important: It is my duty to report to you, loyal low-threshold readers, of a very disturbing incident that happened to me last week. I went into subway at the normal lunch time, but instead of the standard line out the door, the restaurant was vacant. Normally, the queue doesn't concern me, since the crew knows enough to make me a footlong Italian BMT with my standard fixin's and have it ready at 11:30 sharp, on tuesdays. I approached the counter casually, when two bulky men appeared from each side of the potato chip display rack. They held me down, and Jared appeared from behind the counter. He took my preprepared footlong BMT and cracked an evil grin. The manager grabbed the bottle of italian dressing and lubed up my general ass area. Jared shoved the footlong Italian BMT repeatedly into my ass, mixing it with the chucks of feces that were in my bowels, until the fresh crisp veggies resembled brown spoiled food. I begged him to stop, but little did I know the torture waiting for me. He took the italian dressing, and squirted it into my pee hole. Now, it burns when I pee, and it hurts when I sit. I asked him why he was doing this, and he said that they had tracked me down for my abuse of the Jared Dispatch system. You see, Jared gets airsick, and his constant flying over the country has caused him to lose weight due to his vomiting on planes. Normally, this loss of weight would be a good thing, but Subway can't actually claim that he lost weight by eating Subway subs. They told him to put the weight back on and then lose it again by eating subs, somthing Jared does not want to do. As a result, they are the ones who closed down Jared Dispatch. I am begging you, loyal readers DON'T GO TO JARED DISPATCH ANY MORE. Thank you for your time. I have to go to Subway now, and tell them that I want less italian dressing on my footlong Italian BMT. Remember, if you don't eat at subway, then the terrorists win! (note: On the link above, I used client-side redirection. Therefore, if it sends you to goatse.cx, it is a problem with YOUR COMPUTER, NOT THE WEB PAGE!)

FINALLY

[Uhh_Duh]

So.. we can track down the people we used to talk to in the days when we had no life and compare TradeWars scores. This service in invaluable! :)

Except they don't list my old l33t undergr0und BBS I used to run with information on how to build a beige box.

Ah.. the days when I was young an innocent.

Forgive the nostalgia. :)

Re:FINALLY

[Anonymous Coward]

TradeWars, that's the first time I have heard that game mentioned in a LONG time. That brings back a lot of memories. I wonder if I can still find it....

Re:FINALLY

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Arrgh. I am sick and tired of the Slashbot groupthink 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:FINALLY

[Kallahar]

Tradewars is still alive and well, I still play a lot by telnetting to twgs.at3000.com

Travis

Re:FINALLY

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the big difference between BBSs of now and long ago is the sense of a local community that you got with the dial-in bbs.

By the way, when people say BSDs are dead, they do actually mean dial-in BBSs, and not online ones. No one means to offend people like you who actually run on-line BBSs.

Re:FINALLY

[t0rnt0pieces]

By the way, when people say BSDs are dead

I think you misspelled BBS.

Re:FINALLY

[Anonymous Coward]

>> And the Internet-connectedness of it all has made it possible for BBS communities to attain

The Internet-connectedness is what ruins it as a BBS experience. The BBS was a local community phenomenon that was limited by the toll call. You were (virtually) guaranteed to be talking to humans that lived in your physical neighbourhood, back in the BBS days. You only had to sift through a couple dozen messages a day, instead of several thousand. In the old days, BBS picnics and get togethers were quite common. The BBS actually fostered real-world meeting. Now you are talking to strangers thousands of miles away you will probably never meet, and as such the "Internet" BBS will never be as close-knit as the old hometown BBS.

Re:FINALLY

[sirinek]

"BSDs are dead"?

Was that a freudian slip? :)

siri

Re:FINALLY

[Reziac]

While I'd agree that telnet/web/etc access are the dominant methods of the present and no doubt of the future, dialup isn't quite dead yet. Earthquake City BBS isn't pulling the dialup plug any time soon. Call us at 818-368-3337 [/shameless plug] :)

IANAL

[Anonymous Coward]

but didn't Britain rule that deep linking was illegal?

If so, are you sure it's such a good idea to be so obvious about collecting someone's links, especial the BBC?

Database record count

[Anonymous Coward]

Now stands at 8 BBS's. Sadly, two of those will be closing at the end of the year.

Re:Database record count

[cjsnell]

Heh, when is the last time that you saw a BBS announce that it was closing? For me, it was always a shocker. I'd get home from school and dial up, only to get a ring-no-answer or phone-line-disconnected message. A few weeks later, you'd see their BBS in the nodelist diff and know that it was indeed over.

Re:Database record count

[Citizen-Y]

I usually found out when I would dial out and hear "THE BBS IS DOWN! STOP CALLING!" out my modem.

Of course this happens at 2 am.

Now I can sit around...

[craenor]

...and pretend I'm old school l33t.

Clarification?

[Flashbuster 2000]

Could someone please explain what BBSes are used for now, in 2002? The Internet does a great job for warez and pr0ns of all sorts.

Note to moderators: I'm not trolling, or being offtopic, or being flamebait. This can be a legit discussion.

Re:Clarification?

[kaxman]

I was going to ask the same thing, but I didn't have the balls.

I raise my cap to you. Good job.

Re:Clarification?

[Camhorn]

Could someone please explain what BBSes are used for now, in 2002? The Internet does a great job for warez and pr0ns of all sorts.

Nostalgia.

Re:Clarification?

[night_flyer]

Community, LORD, BRE, FE, Trade Wars, Mostly Spam Free Message Boards, files (warez, p0rn and others... mostly others)

Re:Clarification?

[Anonymous Cowrad]

Eh, nothing that's going to convince you to start using them.

I still connect to a few to play TradeWars, L.O.R.D., and other goofy console games. They're not fantastic games by today's standards, but I still dig them.

Other than games, I don't know what people connect for. textfiles.com takes care of all my old skool textfile cravings, so there's little need for a bbs in that regard.

Mostly, I think it's just an anachronism. It's nice to fire up a telnet app and get back to your roots.

Re:Clarification?

[throbbingbrain.com]

BBS's provided many of the same things the Internet does, but not in such BULK.

Someone else touched on the community of bulletin boards. In my opinion, the Internet can never approach the sense of community that was offered by bulletin boards.

Re:Clarification?

[GaveUp]

I couldnt agree with that more. Ever since the internet started becoming more and more popular and the bbs's started to dwindle I've missed the sense of community that a local bbs had. It really is too bad that almost all of the dialup bbs's, at least in my area, have disappeared. Was nothing like going on a bbs and playing tw2002 or fe with 10 or 20 other people from around the same area instead of just faceless players you'll probably never get to know over the internet.

Re:Clarification?

[dacarr]

I use a telnet bbs (yes, telnet!) periodically for the same reasons, and even have a QWK reader, if you'd believe it. (This thing uses zmodem and requires a terminal that handles zmodem - it's something else entirely to see a zmodem transfer over a DSL.)

If you'd believe it, this bbs is acting as a fully functional hub for Fight-o-net, RIME, Family and even Animenet, as inactive as the latter regretfully is.

Re:Clarification?

[Reziac]

Current uses for a BBS:

Secure messaging. I don't know about the others (well, I know of holes in PCBoard and Renegade) but Wildcat is VERY secure. If you place a private message via dialup, only you, the recipient, and the sysop can see it (gotta trust the sysop, who is not readily distinguishable from god :) Nothing is ever sent over the net, so your only risk of interception is if you're already compromised with a keystroke sniffer. Added benefit: since this is a for-really phone connexion, it presently needs a proper warrant to be tapped by the Authorities. This doesn't mean much right now, but it might in the future, if paranoid gov'ts get too heavy on monitoring ISP traffic. And while in the pre-internet days there were cases of unwarranted raids on BBSs, now they're pretty much under the radar.

Messaging for people who don't have access to an ISP of any sort. A great deal of eastern Europe, Russia, and Africa still uses FidoNet (transmitted via BBS) for email, since they don't have internet access. FIDO can be slow (especially in areas where it still relies entirely on BBSs calling each other to transfer mail packets) but it works.

File storage: Sometimes it's real handy to be able to call a dialup BBS and fetch some utility that you need to fix a client's balky machine, which meanwhile refuses to log onto an ISP.

Modem diagnostic: I use the dialup BBS to check whether modem hardware is working (in cases where you can't tell for sure if it's dead hardware or just that DUN got hosed).

Email server hosed? Gotta send something NOW? Telnet into an internet-connected BBS that offers email, and send your mail from there instead.

Anyway, those are some practical uses for a BBS, in addition to the door games and community aspects. Admittedly all these aspects are a niche market, but niche markets offer alternatives, and access to alternatives is always better than a lack of alternatives.

Oh, and before the internet, BBSs were where you'd go for warez and pr0n. Of course, you had to know *exactly* where to go, just like you do on the net today. :)

Re:Clarification?

[McFly69]

Don't BBS still have that? That was one of the cool factors in the hey-day.

Old bbs - still working

[Anonymous Coward]

+449067590216. Got some cool stuff.

Re:Old bbs - still working

[markmullen]

I don't want to piss on anyone's parade and I might be wrong but isn't an 09 number a premium rate call? Just thought it was worth noting before anyone ran up huge bills.

And don't forget to visit BBSmates.com

[Spy4MS]

To hook up with your old friends from BBSing days. I only wish a few of mine would show up. Sigh... Underworld Network Hawaii, where are you?

Be nice, he's using IIS

Re:And don't forget to visit BBSmates.com

[cscx]

Be nice, he's using IIS [bbsmates.com]

I'm curious as to what you mean by that, because IIS has traditionally smoked Apache in serving benchmarks in terms of sheer numbers of connections it can serve up.

Also, the fact that he might be serving it up on a DSL line could be a factor.

Re:And don't forget to visit BBSmates.com

[nullvaper]

Yep, IIS is not the bottleneck. BBSmates.com is hosted on a DSL line. so you should have said "he's on a 144k DSL line.. be nice" :) -aron

Re:And don't forget to visit BBSmates.com

[cscx]

he's on a 144k DSL line.. be nice" :)

I've always loved thinking about how people might approach that. "Maybe if I click the link really slowly..."

Need to hurry up and re-start my BBS!

[rickthewizkid]

I found my old tapes from when I used to run a BBS... and I think I still have a QIC-80 drive hidden somewhere in the closet. I'm gonna put my old BBS online again, I just gotta get a second phone line (or RingMate off my first line) and come up with a way to run it multi-node telnet. hmmmm... and I hafta remember how to run Renegade BBS...

RickTheWizKid
Score: 5, Nostalgic

Re:Need to hurry up and re-start my BBS!

[Anonymous Coward]

I recommend that you remember how to spell first.

Re:Need to hurry up and re-start my BBS!

[RY]

VBBS mmm.
Wonder how htat looks in a browser?

Re:Need to hurry up and re-start my BBS!

[throbbingbrain.com]

I've seen a couple versions of IP enabled FOSSIL drivers that will talk to telnet clients.

Get your tapes working, move everything over to a modern box (unless you're feeling extra nostalgic), and run it through the net. A dedicated dialup line would be plenty of bandwidth (compared to 1200BPS/300baud, etc).

if ya cant find the time to update the bbs records

[deft]

dont forget you can always use the time other people would be using to interact with other life units via voice commands.

true communities

[Alien54]

It's interesting to see what a true community was like, again, after all these years

vs the september that never ended, when AOL first gave internet access.

even in a large forum, most of the key players only number in the large handfuls.

Great, a BBS List!

[Tsar]

I've still got 2.5 megabytes of download credit to use up on Rusty & Edie's, but for some reason the phone number doesn't work any more.

Good news

[daitengu]

The Days of the BBS are not long dead, Fidonet is still alive and kicking, in fact the Zone 1 Nodelist (USA) is growing... Software such as Synchronet is actively developed by the Author again, with a win32 interface, and a Linux port that does everything but play door games. File areas are available via FTP, and Fidonet still has a huge File backbone, My BBS usually recieves about 100 megs of files a week, (sometimes more) with many geared towards games.

Message areas are not only availible through QWK packets (can be downloaded via FTP as well) but also through NNTP, and Gopher.

Everyone loves door games as well, and there are many Leages (Inter-BBS) that still run games such as BRE, Falcon's Eye, Arrowbridge, and more.

So, to all of you who think the BBS got left in the dust with the Modem, think again! :)

Re:Good news

[Anonymous Coward]

loads of bbs stuff here.

Re:Good news

[Jonny 290]

I agree. Although I haven't gotten on Fido yet, i run a very fun and active BBS on my home DSL line. I've gotten an entire generation of kids that never BBS'ed addicted to LoRD and Tradewars, and am a node on DoveNET. Synchronet is truly a slick, nice piece of software, and my hats off to the developers.

And no, I'm afraid that I can't post the link to it. Slashdotting the home 128k upload DSL line would seriously piss off the rest of the household. :) Just keep an eye out for the Renegade Warehouse on DoveNET.

Re:Good news

[cjsnell]

Funny you mention old Fidonet. For the hell of it, I went and read a Fidonews issue a few months ago. Even though it's been ten years since I read FidoNews regularly, and even though Fido is a mere ghost of its former self, THEY ARE STILL FIGHTING! IT WILL NEVER END! When there are two people left on FidoNet, they will still argue about who gets to be the ZC.

Re:Good news

[Reziac]

I still get two QWK packets a day -- one for the ILink network, and the other for my main email which comes to a BBS. Ironically, the email QWK packet arrives via internet email, and I log into the other BBS via telnet. Nice to be able to access 'em both without daily LD calls. :)

they are just darn fun

[mt2mb4me]

the thing is people like me just like the nostalgia of playing LORD, or any of that stuff, and I think they are making a mild comeback, as for me and my house i go to telnet://fame.darktech.org. (shameless plug) and it is fun just to stroll down memory lane

Hee yeah...

[grub]

So there I was saying to myself "Self, don't you find the gig fiber to work and the cable modem at home too fast?" and I replied "Yup. Sure do, how I long for the Olde Days." so I said to myself "Self, dust off that old Prometheus 1200 baud modem, hook it into the Apple ][+ and relax for a bit. Enjoy life at a slower pace when the hectic rush of modern life was unheard of." so I did.

Then I downloaded some ASCII pr0n and said "Self, are you out of your fucking mind?"

Re:Hee yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

The trolls are going to have to hook you up with an ANSI goatsecx image.

Re:Hee yeah...

[darqchild]

http://www.goatse.cx/contrib.html here you go

Re:Hee yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about this ==> (*)

(It's from a bit of a distance.)

Let me count the ways

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Nostalgia
You ever want to play old door games, and hang out in an even tinier, community, just for old time sake? Send emails in a closed system, make postings that only make sense to members? Then a telnet BBS is the place for you to hang out.

2. Cool factor
Cause it sounds so much more attractive (IMHO) than blog.

3. Privacy
The chances of an honest to goodness dial up BBS adds a bit of privacy to every posting and conversation.

4. Community
This is sort of the same, or at least touched on in the first post. We have it here, but not quite so cohesive. BBS's (and now a days blogs) offer like minded people a place to go to share, socialize, and feel welcome.

I have several friends, that even in the day of Everquest and UO continually play MUDs for many of the reasons I have outlined.

Renegade 5u0rs.

[EnderWiggnz]

OB/2 all the way babeee YEHHHH!!!

at least you were advocating WWiV or telegard...

Re:Renegade 5u0rs.

[bobdehnhardt]

Nah, go with PCBoard! Beats the rest by a mile.

Heh, who'd have ever expected a BBS war in 2002?

Re:Renegade 5u0rs.

[Reziac]

Wildcat, man, that's the only way to go. :)

BTW, WC is still under active development. Tho Santronics is not nearly as good at bug-stomping as Mustang was. :(

Geez, I feel old :)

Re:Renegade 5u0rs.

[Reziac]

Back in the day, Telegard and Renegade were the same codebase. I forget the details but there was some spat between the two guys who built it and they went their separate ways, with Renegade becoming the free version. IMO both of 'em sucked, but WWIV sucked worse. :)

BBS and Databases: Homeland Security

[Anonymous Coward]

Scam.

You've got to fight for your right to resist and
impeach George W. Bush and His Cabal

Be Patriotic: Smoke Amerikan Grown Marijuana!

Cheers,

Woot

BBS's long from dead

[sdelic]

There are actually quite a few VERY active BBS's around the net that have more than enough activity to keep you busy into the wee hours! Fidonet is still alive as it seems. The problem is there is alot of telnet based boards that have ZER0 activity. A cool homegrown BBS to check out is at telnet://toga.cx if you want an example of current BBS development in progress!

Re:BBS's long from dead

[Anonymous Coward]

This is /. ... for some reason, I just don't trust *any* system on Christmas Is. ...

Re:BBS's long from dead

[rabbitear]

huh?

16 Colour Pr0n!

[Myriad]

I've still got 2.5 megabytes of download credit to use up on Rusty & Edie's, but for some reason the phone number doesn't work any more.

Aaaaagh EGA pr0n! Mine eyes!

CGA was even worse though... nothing living - that anyone would want to get near - should ever take on that particular shade of magenta... or cyan.

Re:16 Colour Pr0n!

[Anonvmous Coward]

"CGA was even worse though... nothing living - that anyone would want to get near - should ever take on that particular shade of magenta... or cyan."'

The black/yellow/red/green CGA wasn't so bad. You're right, though, Magenta/Black/White/Cyan was AWFUL.

Anybody know who chose those colors and why? It's hard to imagine an engineer in those days deciding those particular colors would be useful because they're pretty.

not /.ed yet...

[dirvish]

They bring it back up after a year and now /. is trying to hose it on its first day back.

Re:not /.ed yet...

[dtdns]

I think the server will be able to handle it.. it's the bandwidth I'm concerned with (only on a T1 here).

Typical.

[vslashg]

So finally this great database comes back online, and immediately we try to /. it. ;-)

Hmmmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Now where did I put that copy of Oblivion? or better yet.....VBBS....

Wow!

[SatanicPuppy]

These BBS things sound cool as hell!
Ummmm....
How do I switch my cable modem to "dial up" mode?

Re:Wow!

[Jonny Ringo]

Man I just relized that this could lead to the result of hacking computers for dialing out on their slower 1400 baud modem connections. What Irony!

Re:Wow!

[giantsquidmarks]

I'm sure you'll figure it out soon after Comcast owns all cable modem networks...

Started BACK ... ?

[frodo from middle ea]

1999 is just 3 years OLD.
but some how saying
Started BACK in 1999 makes it sound like

Started BACK in 1899.

Guys get a perspective of Time.

Re:Started BACK ... ?

[dtdns]

In Internet time, 3 years IS a LONG time.

BBS's

[Anonymous Coward]

that's where phreakin' info was da bombos from Capn' Crunch.

Old ideas can be new again.

[kitzilla]

You know, with Der Department auf Homeland Sekurity and the Pentagon sniffing around the Net, maybe it's time to revive the dialup BBS. Not that dialups are inherently more secure, but they're not so much on the radar.

I remember reading an article some years ago--maybe it was in the book MEGATRENDS--speculating that the time would come when the Internet would be too crowded or too dangerous in the future. I sorta brushed-off the idea. The author went on to say he thought like-minded folks would form stand-alone network "guilds" to afford a more secure computing environment.

Maybe privacy will push some of us in that direction. It would be funny to see a new generation of BBS operators springing up here and there.

I wonder what new hardware and programs might come of it?

Re:Old ideas can be new again.

[Reziac]

Similar to a point I make above, and have made in previous BBS comment threads hereabouts. If things continue on their present trend, the time will come when secure messaging (ie. that can't be readily intercepted) becomes a problem. Dialup BBSs could well be the solution. And you won't need anything that hasn't already been invented. Our Wildcat 4.2 BBS (dialup) runs on DOS and Netware 3.2, on a string of salvaged 486s.

With an offline mail reader (OLMR), you can do all your mail reading and writing offline, then transfer the compressed QWK (new mail) and REP (reply) packets in one to two minutes -- so even if you have to call long distance, it's still pretty cheap to accomplish. Check out the list of OLMRs at http://www.kannoncom.com/~jhanoian/readers/

Hopefully it'll never get to where we really NEED the good old dialup BBS just to keep Big Brother out of our email, but I don't plan to throw out my Wildcat disks, either. :)

Shameless plug...

[badboy_tw2002]

BBSing is alive and well for door games.

I make a Tradewars2002 helper for java.
Its even open source!

Go to www.j-twat.com to check it out, or to the sourceforge page here

Good linux bbs client?

[RomikQ]

Sorry to be a bit offtopic, but does anyone know of a good bbs client for linux that understnads RIP graphics? Even windows 2000 telnet does, but linux telnet tries to display wrong characters...

PS DungeonBBS forever!!!
telnet dungeonbbs.org now!

Heck, why not use current tech with BBS'es?

[josh crawley]

I know if I was making a BBS style setup, I'd use VPN to be a part of the network, then use login/passwd between the link to authenticate. Just have a FreeBSD or debian box as the gateway.

Now THAT would be cool. Even cooler is if you got IP's for the 6-bone (Assuming you can do that).

What's a BBS

[alue]

Sorry, could somebody explain what a BBS is? It looks to me like just a website with a bunch of rated links.

Re:What's a BBS

[aheath]

A BBS is an electronic bulletin board system. The first BBS was created by Ward Christensen who also invented the XMODEM file transfer protocol. A typical BBS allows e-mail, public discussions, and file transfers. Some BBSs allowed online games, typically by loading the game in a 'door' program. Many BBSs were set up to exchange messages using protocols and networks such as FidoNet. Each BBS was maintained by a system operotor also known as a sysop. There are still some old style BBSs that are alive and well. Some of these BBSs can be accessed via telnet. There are also BBS software packages designed for use on the Internet such as WebBoard.

Re:What's a BBS

[Reziac]

Assuming that's a serious question -- it's NOT the "forum" thing that's lately taken over the term "BBS". What we're talking about is a locally hosted system accessable by modem (originally dialup, but now also by telnet or web). Usually messaging-oriented, but sometimes revolving around live chat or file transfers. A couple examples: http://bbs.fonix.org (web and telnet) and telnet://techware.dynip.com (mostly telnet). These are both Wildcat systems, which is the most straightforward BBS for a beginner to get around in. I use Techware every day for messaging thru ILink (one of several surviving private messaging networks).

In the dialup era, BBSs tended to develop their own distinct personalities, reflective of both the sysop and the user base, which at the time tended to be drawn from the surrounding community. People on BBSs tended to become good friends and even held local get-togethers. Folks who've only known forum or usenet messaging don't know what they're missing.

Fidonet alive in Russia & Africa

[satsuke]

I used to run a small BBS in Kansas City and remember the time the nodelist got so large it broke the automated nodediff tosser virtually everyone used.

More to the point, if you look at the zone file you'll notice that a majority of the activity is outside the old major activity zones (1-6)

Turns out that places like various countries in Africa and Russia are thriving using the old fido mailer programs.

Who'd have guessed that there would still be a market and place for a store and forward mailing and discussion list for nodes that only connect to the network once a day or less.

Sounds an awful lot like usenet back in the day when UUCP transmisions between sites was a common way to transfer stuff and there was actually a maintained uunet list. (wasn't there something on /. 2 years ago about the maintainer of that list stopping ?)

Last year when I logged onto a fido BBS, most of his mail read year 1901 .. but still kept on working... (The sysop had not logged into the system in 1 1/2 years)

Oh for the days when in an echomail group when you can see the second generation of replies to a message before actually seeing the original message. (If the originator had less than steller connections .. the whole store and forward this is great, except when your mail has to go out 4 or 5 mail batch points to get where it is going)

Re:Fidonet alive in Russia & Africa

[cjsnell]

Oh for the days when in an echomail group when you can see the second generation of replies to a message before actually seeing the original message. (If the originator had less than steller connections .. the whole store and forward this is great, except when your mail has to go out 4 or 5 mail batch points to get where it is going)

Actually, I thought routed netmail [was that the term for it? it's been a while...] was cool as hell. For the heck of it, I would write messages to sysops in Africa (even to the little Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius once!) asking them about their board and their countries. Sometimes, for the heck of it, I would attempt a direct modem connection and then would have to explain to my parents why I made a one-minute call to Tunisia. Most of the time, I'd send the message via routed netmail and eagerly await the response, which would let me view the headers for the lengthy return path. Once, I sent a routed netmail to one of these far-away sysops, only to have him direct-dial his response back to me!

Damn, those were the days!

Shell providers...

[tgrotvedt]

UNIX access systems provide a BBS much of the time. These machines are run by really cool people (albeit they think it's still 1991) that let everyone log in to their UNIX machines. Check out Grex and The Super Dimensional Fortress.

Pretty 31337 huh? Sure beats 15 year old MS-DOS "admins" flanking warezed copies of the latest Infocom game....

Re:Shell providers...

[tgrotvedt]

sorry

i've been working...

[rebelcool]

on something similar for awhile, though its web-based. Link to my site is in the sig, the project is on sourceforge at here.

You mean ANSI not RIP.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean ANSI not RIP.

Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Try something like "IN SOVIET RUSSIA, BBS calls you!".

When I was a kid..

[xchino]

I once spent ~12 hours straight one night logging into this one BBS, creating a new login, and using my lmiited temp login download credit to download softcore pr0n jpegs one by one over 2400 baud modem.

Now I can leech full Porn DVD's over cable. Isn't technology grand?

It Was... Um...

[Greyfox]

A Year 2000 Problem

Documentary Still Chugging Along

[Jason Scott]

The BBS Documentary is still chugging along at the usual place. Over 120 interviews so far!

I'm not listed on the BBS Links, but that's OK. I also maintain a historical BBS List and a few BBS-era textfiles.

Re:Documentary Still Chugging Along

[aheath]

Thanks for maintaining the historical BBS list. I took a quick trip down memory lane looking at the BBS listings for the 617 area code. I was quite amused to see all the comments from Winston Smith. He used to be regular on the Boston Bullet TBBS and the Teele Square TBBS. It's been many years since I had two BBSs running in my living room. Every so often, I'm tempted to dust of my TBBS collection and set up a new BBS.

BBSes are *very* efficient file repositories.

[Richard Steiner]

The OS/2 Shareware BBS is a BBS I still visit (via a Zmodem-capable telnet client) in order to obtain software.

Why?

Not only does it remain one of the best file repositories for the main OS I use here (OS/2), but I find its MAXIMUS/2 interface to be superior to the one used by the http or ftp-based file collections out there.

Re:BBSes are *very* efficient file repositories.

[Reziac]

Good point. You don't often see FTP or HTTP file collexions with the search, view inside ZIPs, view one file inside a ZIP, virus checking, etc, that are pretty much standard for BBS filebases.

*nix MUDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know any good MUD games like MajorMud that would run on *nix? Free would be nice ;) I miss Majormud...sigh....

TheMage from the old metrobbs.

Re:*nix MUDs

[Aciel]

CircleMUD runs on *nix. http://www.circlemud.org

I live 3 miles from darktech.org...

[MREBoy]

I'm not kidding. I could drive to the address listed in WHOIS for darktech.org in less than 5 minutes. Wow. :) do a whois on mreboy.com (which I currently own) and compare that address with the one for darktech if you don't believe me. Maybe I should go over just to say "Hi!" :)

ObSortaOnTopic: Courts of Wisdom BBS - 941-927-3313. Existed here in Sarasota for over 3 years. 6 lines of CNet on a souped up Amiga 2000. I spent many a night re-dialing that phone number in order to get on. Even bought my 1st 14.4 modem from the sysop (and I still have said external SupraFAX modem).

MRE

___

Re:I live 3 miles from darktech.org...

[dtdns]

hehe.. I remember CoW myself.. swing by if you like. We have a setup here that even The Grunt would be proud of ;)

Renegade BBS

[Plug]

Renegade was a very popular BBS package derived from the Telegard 2.7 source, developed by a Canadian programmer named Cott Lang.

What amuses me is to look at the 'official Renegade BBS site' and #1 Google hit, which still reads

April 5/00

The Renegade page is currently getting its update. It'll be finished by the weekend at the latest.

Wildcat rules!

[boy_afraid]

Ha ha! I remeber Renegade! But I always prefered Wildcat, in fact I had the latest version a while ago but tossed it away since I didn't think I'd ever need it.

Last Post!

[alpg]

But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a
brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and
lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877, was the
phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where
it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented. But Edison's
greatest achievement came in 1879, when he invented the electric company.
Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit:
the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then
immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is
the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again.

This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of
electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few
customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact the
last year any new electricity was generated in the United States was 1937;
the electric companies have been merely re-selling it ever since, which is
why they have so much free time to apply for rate increases.
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...