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Blizzard Births BBS

Posted by michael on from the havoc-gunstar dept.

Foundryman writes "Nice bit of history at ZDNet about how the blizzard of 1978 led to the creation of the BBS."

182 comments

  1. why in my day... by faeryman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why, in my day, when it was a blizzard we didn't have no fancy BBS. We had to walk 15 miles (uphill bothways, of course) to the nearest house to trade our warez. All we could afford was one piece of paper though, and we had to write the zeros and ones on it. Bah, kids. Zzzzzzz....

    --


    ,
    faeryman
    1. Re:why in my day... by antiprime · · Score: 2, Funny

      ob You had zeros? We had to use the letter 'o'.

    2. Re:why in my day... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      You may be joking, but I can really remember walking miles through blizzards to trade Apple ][ software in the early eighties. We did have floppy disks by then, though, and being as we didn't live on a Klein bottle it was only uphill one way.

    3. Re:why in my day... by Jason1729 · · Score: 2, Funny

      We were so l337 that we used *both* sides out our piece of paper.

    4. Re:why in my day... by UniverseIsADoughnut · · Score: 4, Funny

      >>You had zeros? We had to use the letter 'o'.

      yeah but 'o' is smaller then '0' so you had more compact code.

      anyone ever think printing out something like windows or FreeBSD in 1's and 0's on 3 foot wide paper and making wallpaper of it would be neat.

    5. Re:why in my day... by ubugly2 · · Score: 1

      did you punch holes in it?

    6. Re:why in my day... by Troll_Kamikaze · · Score: 4, Funny

      All we could afford was one piece of paper though, and we had to write the zeros and ones on it. Bah, kids. Zzzzzzz....

      Sheit, kid. When I was growin up we didn't have no paper... had to smear the ones and zeroes on birch bark with the bloody stumps of our fingers.

    7. Re:why in my day... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I remember hearing that the single-sided paper wasn't safe to use on both sides, even if you punched a hole. It must have been true...why would the paper manufacturers lie?

    8. Re:why in my day... by Jason1729 · · Score: 4, Funny

      We had to punch one hole in it to double-side it.

    9. Re:why in my day... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Yeah, whatever. I remember hearing that about condoms too. Both the hole-punching and the turning inside-out to use both sides. Someone's always trying to double their sales!

    10. Re:why in my day... by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm confused by this article. Do we like or hate Blizzard this round?

    11. Re:why in my day... by ExEleven · · Score: 1

      Jebus, a wall paper, with all the stuff in either you could cover a lot more then that. How about a compiled Linux 0.01 kernel binary, in binary, for a wallpaper, or maybe somthing a bit newer (1.0?) Its not a bad idea either way, im sure someone from think geek will see it.

    12. Re:why in my day... by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      you had to punch 2 holes. 1 for the rotation sensor and one for the write protect tab location.

      BTW, Verbatim disks usually didnt have the second side of the floppy media coated. so it was hit am miss while the 3m floppies were always coated.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    13. Re:why in my day... by rusty0101 · · Score: 1

      Is the binary for Linux large enough that if the bits were mapped to an image, it would work as a background image? No real need for compression, you would just link to the actual binary, with a header to make it look like a bitmap.

      --
      You never know...
    14. Re:why in my day... by kasperd · · Score: 1

      Is the binary for Linux large enough that if the bits were mapped to an image, it would work as a background image?

      I typically use kernels of size 2-3MB in uncompressed form and 0.7-1MB in compressed form. I typically use a screen resolution between 1024x768 and 1600x1200, if you use a black/white picture that is 96-234KB. So the kernel is certainly large enough to make a black/white picture for your background. If you want 24-bit truecolor image it might be difficult to fill your entire screen.

      --

      Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
    15. Re:why in my day... by rusty0101 · · Score: 1

      Tile, center or stretch, choices choices. Or I could use 8 bit color, or greyscale...

      Next, how much would stay the same between minor and major revisions...

      -Rusty

      --
      You never know...
    16. Re:why in my day... by Phroggy · · Score: 1

      We had to punch one hole in it to double-side it.

      You had a puncher? Ha! Kids these days! Why, back in my day, we had to cut the write-protect holes out of our floppies with a pair of kitchen scissors!

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    17. Re:why in my day... by Polyphemis · · Score: 1

      [DanaCarvey] AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY!! Smeedily feedily smeeeee! [/DanaCarvey]

    18. Re:why in my day... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Once again, you think you're joking, but...I really did this because I didn't have a hole punch. When your real life reminiscences start to look like Monty Python humour...

    19. Re:why in my day... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I assume most of these jokers are referring to Apple ][ 5.25" disks for the Disk ][. These were soft-sectored, so the little hole near the hub didn't do anything.

      I do remember some very early floppies (quite possibly Verbatim) that were slick and uncoated on one side. I think by 1980 or so all manufacturers were using double-sided media, and either not testing both sides or using disks that were bad on one side as single-sided (a bit like Intel selling CPUs with a bad FPU as "SX"). The incidence of the latter would have dropped very quickly as yield went up and the demand for floppy media skyrocketed, fueled by "piracy" (the secret fuel of the microcomputer revolution). I don't think I ever had a media problem with the back side of a hand-punched disk.

    20. Re:why in my day... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you had kitchen scissors? you were lucky! in my day we had to put holes in the disks with our own dicks! circumcision via floppy hole punch. it was a right of passage! you kids these days with your scissors... bahh!

  2. Out of Curiosity by Adolatra · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Out of curiosity, does anyone know what ultimately happened to the original CBBS referenced in this article?

    1. Re:Out of Curiosity by yppiz · · Score: 5, Funny
      Few know this, but CBBS, running on its original hardware, is the comments server for slashdot.org.

      --Pat

    2. Re:Out of Curiosity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's morphed into www.chinet.com

      It has a BBS system that's php based (I liked it better when it was `pico`).

    3. Re:Out of Curiosity by Candlelight · · Score: 1

      Not sure now, but I recall calling it in the mid 90's (for old time sake) and it was still running... using the original software. I rmember calling my first BBS in the late 70s, and the fever resulted in massive phone bills, and setting up my own BBS. An expensive hobby no dobt, but a hell of a lot of fun. Candlelight

      --
      --John Candlelight Software http://www.candlelight.com
    4. Re:Out of Curiosity by MsWillow · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm not sure what happened to the *original* CBBS hardware, but several years ago, Randy Suess sold me one of the old hard drives, a 10-meg one, that had been used in *a* CBBS. He also sold off a bunch of S-100 boards, and an old chassis, so I suspect the original CBBS hgardware was sold off, over the years, as parts no longer needed.

      Randy's running Chinet nowadays, and last I heard, Ward had CBBS. You could always ask Randy, if you're curious.

      --

      Lemon curry?
    5. Re:Out of Curiosity by ka9dgx · · Score: 1
      I just saw it about 3 hours ago, at the 25th anniversary party. It's not complete, (no floppy drive) but it is being watched over.

      --Mike--

  3. BBSs were great: by Globe199 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I loved owning a BBS.

    Until I realized that using OS/2 on a 486 with 8 MB of RAM, and playing Doom under Windows under OS/2, all the while running WWIV in the background, was not such a good idea.

    Globe199

    1. Re:BBSs were great: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You to huh. But I only had a 386 ( with coprossesor of course). While I was messing with OS/2, one of my buddies was still running his BBS on his first computer, an IMSA 8080. Now that brings back memories!

    2. Re:BBSs were great: by fodi · · Score: 0

      Long live the DX... Stuff those SX fools!!

  4. my heroes by Army+Eye · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What are these guys doing these days? Maybe they can come up with something to get the BBS scene going again. I miss it.

    1. Re:my heroes by josh+crawley · · Score: 1

      What are these guys doing these days? Maybe they can come up with something to get the BBS scene going again. I miss it.

      Kinda when the thing called the "Internet" made BBS'es defunct. The long distance charges really sucked.

      Who cares about BBS'es when you can set up telnet accounts for friends along with talk (or IRC).

    2. Re:my heroes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Think "meta" - route around the Internet.

      Work with your neighbors. Build a wireless network using the common pool of equipment. You're not allowed to let other people on the Internet through your connection (check your AUP - many ISPs say something like this), but nothing says you can't let them get to things on your own network!

      Start creating content that only exists on the 'wireless' side of your network. Get other people to do the same. When enough compelling content exists on the "other" net, people will find their own way to get to it.

      Incidentally, this also sidesteps another problem that many people face on their home connections: "no servers". You're serving inward, not outward, so that never becomes a problem.

      I ran a BBS from 1990 to 1999 and shut it down due to a lack of interest. The fundamental concept of a bulletin board where people post about stuff is still needed - stare at your monitor for awhile if you don't believe it. Bring it back at a neighborhood level and you'll find the community that's been waiting all this time.

    3. Re:my heroes by Army+Eye · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I know, it makes no sense. The Internet can do everything a BBS can do, and better. But BBSes were still cooler.

    4. Re:my heroes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think Ward Christensen is on a strict regime of self-flagellation for the invention of XModem, from which the BBS scene basically never recovered.

    5. Re:my heroes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any ISP that has a "no servers" clause in its contract is not worth your money. Odds are they can't handle the full-out bandwidth you pay for anyway. Like Verizon.

    6. Re:my heroes by haroldK · · Score: 2, Informative

      Why do I keep seeing stuff like this here? If you like BBSs, join one. I'm a member of one and I run one. Mine doesn't have that many users, and is only up for testing purposes, but the other one I'm on has 17 users and 27 rooms as well as a LORD clone (Scary Caverns). There are many others out there with many more users.

      Seriously, if they're cool, use them.

    7. Re:my heroes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I often use a text based web browser to surf to various message boards. It is not exactly like the BBS days, but it is still close enough to make me nostalgic. Aslo check out the cool ANSI art at ICE.ORG, that stuff will really take you back to the old bbs days...

    8. Re:my heroes by Black+Rabbit · · Score: 1

      Maybe those days aren't so far off! The way the Internet is getting more restrictive and more expensive, the old Fidonet may prove useful once again!

    9. Re:my heroes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Er... there's no reason why you can't do the same thing using just the plain 'ol Internet. In fact, that's what a lot of communities already do.

      Building a free wireless network is interesting, but even in the day of the BBS you had to pay for toll calls which is pretty much the same as the Internet fees of today (ignoring phreaking and stealing AOL accounts).

      Face it man, BBS's are dead.

    10. Re:my heroes by gmack · · Score: 2, Informative

      ARE still cooler. Some still exist. Some friends have one running at telnet://bbs.mysticone.com
      We even have registered Tradewars and LORD.

      It's like... the BBS days minus the long distance charges(and multi node is suddenly much cheaper).

    11. Re:my heroes by scott1853 · · Score: 2, Funny

      And by doing everything over a telnet session you get the nostalgic feeling of using a 9600 baud modem while on your broadband connection :)

    12. Re:my heroes by Bakaneko · · Score: 1

      Any good Linux BBS servers? I notice that's running Synchronet on Windows... I've see a number of BBS packages for Windows, but blessed few for Linux...

    13. Re:my heroes by gmack · · Score: 1

      I've seen some but the problem is the complete lack of door games for linux.

      Most of the BBS software hasn't been updated in the past few years so tends to be for either DOS or windows.

      I actually tried it with DOSemu but had a problem with connections remaining open if the player kills the telnet sesstion without logging out.

    14. Re:my heroes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      ARE still cooler. Some still exist. Some friends have one running at telnet://bbs.mysticone.com

      Existed until you posted it on slashdot, at any rate.

    15. Re:my heroes by ka9dgx · · Score: 1
      I'm trying to get Ward back into assembler programming. Tales of 61k operating systems might help. ;-)

      --Mike--

    16. Re:my heroes by netringer · · Score: 1

      They're still working in Chicago. Ward is a systems engineer who happened to be assigned to my workplace. I walked in and found him toiling away in our computer lab.

      Read more from when this story was mentioned a few days ago.

      --
      Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
    17. Re:my heroes by Old+Uncle+Bill · · Score: 1

      Telegard was the BOMB! And long distance charges? Obviously you never heard of Code Thief? I really, really miss those days of the BBSes. A real sense of community.

      --
      Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
    18. Re:my heroes by Old+Uncle+Bill · · Score: 1

      Oh yeah, almost forgot, the guys who started this board used to log into my BBS. Nostalgia will kill you, it really will... I remember when the only reliable board was running Wildcat over at the now named Careerline Tech center.

      --
      Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
  5. Snow day... by vspazv · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder if the internet would even exist if those guys had had girlfriends during that week snowed in.

    1. Re:Snow day... by mbadolato · · Score: 1
      I wonder if the internet would even exist if those guys had had girlfriends during that week snowed in.

      Considering that they had nothing at all to do with the Internet, I'd say yeah it probably would...

    2. Re:Snow day... by DarkKnightRadick · · Score: 1

      They may have not had anything to do with the internet we know today, but they are indeed the fathers of the BBS, which evolved into the internet, after a fashion.

      --
      "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
    3. Re:Snow day... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The internet would still exist. The internet was a tidal wave just behind the BBS scene. Like a bunch of live wires on the ground suddenly ending up in water. :)

    4. Re:Snow day... by rusty0101 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually what became the Internet already existed. ARPAnet existed, and I seem to recall it celebrating it's 30th birthday in the last couple of years.

      What the BBS provided, respective to the Internet, was a bunch of people who had some experience administering equipment that connected computers over the telco PSTN. Many of these people started their own ISPs or went to work for new ISPs when it became obvious that the internet was the way of the future.

      Running a BBS gave you experience with user accounts, privledges, various chat and application options, modems, and in some cases even billing. In many cases it also provided you with a crash course in customer relations or even what has become known as Customer Relationship Management, as you usually were the tech support for your BBS.

      If you did not back end your BBS with a network of some sort, other than fidoNet or RHYME, you probably did not have experience with routers, or file servers. The vast majority of BBSs were single systems with 1-4 modems attached. If you wanted more than four modems you would have to buy special cards that would allow 8, 16 or even 32 serial ports per card. These cards may have been expensive, but in most cases they were less expensive than the added computer, network equipment, etc to add more phone lines.

      If you participated in one of the back end file and message passing services, and there was not a local hookup with another BBS, you almost always ended up paying monthly $100+ phone bills.

      -Rusty

      --
      You never know...
    5. Re:Snow day... by Forgotten · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, it really didn't. It seems that way to many people because they started on BBSes, then moved to dialup shell account access and eventually SLIP and PPP access. But on the actual network side of things, there's little connection between BBSes and the Internet. Some big multiline boards became small ISPs, but that's really more like repurposing old equipment. The only real connection I can think of is between Waffle boards and other UUCP systems, and those notably weren't really ever part of the BBS scene - precisely because they were leaf nodes to the Internet instead. There were FIDONet gateways and such in the early nineties, but rather than evolving they mostly just did out as cheap, real net access came along and the sysops lost interest.

      The relationship of the BBS scene to the ARPAnet/Internet is really one of parallel evolution or microcomputer imitation of what the real iron had already been doing for a decade. It didn't evolve into anything - it died out, as many parallel evolution strains do. I'm not dissing it exactly (you can probably tell I was right into BBSes) but it was the toy version, and the people involved basically outgrew it and left it behind.

    6. Re:Snow day... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some big multiline boards became small ISPs...

      You mean like AOL?

  6. Damn Blizzard!! by Nyktos · · Score: 4, Funny

    First BBS's, and then Warcraft!!! What next?? Some sort of fancy persistant universe?? CRAZY!!

  7. Slow News Day? by Quaoar · · Score: 4, Funny

    Two stories from three decades ago...I guess Linux can only have so many kernel updates to report about...

    --
    I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
    1. Re:Slow News Day? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone's on a nostalgia kick alright...midlife crisis?

    2. Re:Slow News Day? by Phroggy · · Score: 1

      Two stories from three decades ago...I guess Linux can only have so many kernel updates to report about...

      Just wait til 2.6 is released (or did I hear they're gonna call in 3.0?); they'll release an update every couple of weeks.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    3. Re:Slow News Day? by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 1

      "Two stories from three decades ago...I guess Linux can only have so many kernel updates to report about..."

      Not to worry, Mozilla will have a minor version update soon. Soon there'll be much rejoicing!

  8. Ahh Those were the days by Saoi · · Score: 5, Funny

    single character commands, harsh bootings, sounds like my kinda system, pity I wasn't born yet :(

    1. Re:Ahh Those were the days by antiprime · · Score: 5, Funny

      Get drunk to simulate the slow response time, then try to navigate through your favorite modern windowing shell without using a mouse, tie the power cord to your ankle to simulate random rebooting that you somehow blame yourself for: exactly the same effect. For advanced nostalgia, futz with your monitor and display settings so everything's a shade of green and black.

    2. Re:Ahh Those were the days by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds kind of like being in the military.

    3. Re:Ahh Those were the days by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Get drunk to simulate the slow response time

      I'll drink to that!
      : )
      Cheers!

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    4. Re:Ahh Those were the days by BinBoy · · Score: 2, Funny

      If you wanted a color monitor, you could buy one of those plastic covers that made the white text look amber.

    5. Re:Ahh Those were the days by RedCard · · Score: 1
      ...single character commands, harsh bootings,...

      BBS?? Heck, sounds like my ex-girlfriend.

    6. Re:Ahh Those were the days by macrom · · Score: 1

      BBS?? Heck, sounds like my ex-girlfriend.

      Don't you mean BBW? The 'W' and 'S' keys are so close together I can see how such a typo could be made.

    7. Re:Ahh Those were the days by FuzzyBad-Mofo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ..tie the power cord to your ankle to simulate random rebooting that you somehow blame yourself for..

      So you're saying that you had a Spectrum or Timex/Sinclair? <rimshot>

      My Commodore had color graphics, rarely crashed, and had no mouse. It needed no mouse. CBM BBSs' were neat, because they could do color PETSCII graphics and even animated screens made from the graphics characters. It was similar (and possibly superior) to ANSI graphics, but this was at a time when the IBM PC had a green screen and a beeping speaker.

  9. 5 million solders? I dont think so. by DaPhoenix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "The answer was two weeks later, when the Computerized Bulletin Board System first spun its disk, picked up the line and took a message."

    "Christensen wrote the BIOS and all the drivers (as well as the small matter of the bulletin board code itself), while Suess took care of five million solder joints and the odd unforeseen problem."

    Okay time for quick math.

    60 secs a min * 60 mins a hour * 24 hours a day * 14 days (a fortnight) = 1209600 seconds.

    5 million solders / 1209600 seconds = ~4.13 solders per second.

    Aint no way in hell he did that by hand.

    --
    -- -=innocent ramblings from the mind of an insomniatic programmer=-
    1. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by DaPhoenix · · Score: 1

      By the way, honestly, what kind of sentence is this!?

      "Christensen wrote the BIOS and all the drivers (as well as the small matter of the bulletin board code itself), while Suess took care of five million solder joints and the odd unforeseen problem."

      What the heck is the odd unforeseen problem! The author might be refering to later in the article where they design a mechanism to detect an incomming call, start the floppy drive, etc, but they dont mention a problem beforehand.

      Seriously I expected 'more better' proofreading out of ZDNet :P

      --
      -- -=innocent ramblings from the mind of an insomniatic programmer=-
    2. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um, the writer meant "odd" in the sense of "occasional". It is perfectly standard usage.

    3. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone's attempt at creative exaggeration perhaps. It's generally not a very solid article anyway. Another example is "Three-hundred baud is around five words a second - you can read faster than that". First of all it's more like fifty words per second, and no, you generally can't read novel material faster than that (and I've tried, on live chat with a 300 baud connection when other people were using 2400bps modems - and I'm a fast reader).

      Oh well, shocking enough that the story was run at all, I suppose. It'd be too much to ask for a firm grasp from the author.

    4. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Student_Tech · · Score: 1

      I think 5 words a second is resonable.
      300 baud ~ 300 bits/sec
      each character is about 10 bits (8 + start/stop bits)
      so it is about 30 characters/sec
      using normalish 5 characters word
      30 characters/sec / 5 characters word = 6 words /sec
      Even at 8 bits/character it would still only be 7.5 words/sec. And all of this doesn't count spaces between the words.

    5. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First of all it's more like fifty words per second

      No, it isn't. A 300 baud modem transmits at three hundred bits per second (and yes, I do know the difference between bps and baud, thanks. For the standard Bell 103 300 baud modem protocol they were the same). At 8-N-1 that's 9 bits per character. 300/9 ~= 33 characters per second. Average word length ~= 5 characters (depending on who you believe, this varies quite a bit). Therefore, throughput ~= 33/5 ~= 6.6 words per second, pretty close to the article's figure and a long way from yours.

      no, you generally can't read novel material faster than that

      Yes, you can. I can read signifanctly faster than a 300 baud modem can transmit. I remember too many painful hours of doing it.

      Looks like your reading skills and your arithmetic skills are about equally bad.

    6. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, look. 300 baud is about 40 bytes per second (a little less actually). If you figure about 5 letters in the average word, plus spaces, you get a little less than 7 WPS. A little more than 5, granted, but nowhere near 50.

    7. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      skills are about equally bad.

      equally poor

    8. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Man, I love you people

    9. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by DaPhoenix · · Score: 1

      honestly what the heck are you replying to? That has nothing to do with the claim that "Suess took care of five million solder joints"

      To quote Captain Murphy, "Your an ass."

      --
      -- -=innocent ramblings from the mind of an insomniatic programmer=-
    10. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by DaPhoenix · · Score: 1

      no that'd be me. Okay so forget my last post.

      In the words of the french guy from sealab...

      "Aww beep."

      --
      -- -=innocent ramblings from the mind of an insomniatic programmer=-
    11. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by teamhasnoi · · Score: 2, Funny
      Sorry, that was a typo. It was supposed to be, "Suess took care of five million soldiers, joints, and the odd unforeseen problem."

      I'm guessing that Suess was a huge pothead, and traded dope to the soldiers in exchange for the hardware. The "odd unforseen problem" was when he ran out.

      It's all right here in this web site. Just don't /. it. Five million soldiers don't take kindly to DoS.

    12. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Phroggy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Another example is "Three-hundred baud is around five words a second - you can read faster than that". First of all it's more like fifty words per second, and no, you generally can't read novel material faster than that (and I've tried, on live chat with a 300 baud connection when other people were using 2400bps modems - and I'm a fast reader).

      Um, dude, yes, you can read text at 300bps. You might have trouble reading a novel at that speed, but you can certainly read text from a chatroom (or teleconference, as they were called in those days). Assuming N81 (no parity, 8 bits per byte and one stop bit), that's 33 characters per second, which is about 5 words or so. Maybe 6 or 7 if they're short.

      If everyone else was at 2400bps, 300bps may have seemed fast if you were also trying to type at the same time the text was coming in. That was kinda challenging.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    13. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by DaPhoenix · · Score: 1

      Point well taken.

      Note to self, be sure to reread before posting after a long night of festivities ;)

      --
      -- -=innocent ramblings from the mind of an insomniatic programmer=-
    14. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I must say this has been one of my more successful trolls. I feel blessed.

    15. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Leeji · · Score: 1

      Where are my Mod +Funny points when I need them? :)

      --
      It all goes downhill from first post ...
    16. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If by "successful" you mean "made you look like a fucking mental retard", then you're absolutely right.

    17. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can you tell me where the library is at, asshole?

    18. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by automag_6 · · Score: 1

      Yes, it was an exageration. However, I'm pretty sure you could float solder that much. For those that don't know what float soldering is, you heat the back of the board, (or not, works both ways) then you simply lay your circut board on a vat of molten solder. The solder will stick to the metal, and the green boards we are all familiar with repel solder. You then remove the board, and within seconds, the solder is cool, and the board is ready for use. In industrial applications, a line of boards can be 'floated' across a vat of solder, in production line manner, hence the term 'float solder'ing.

    19. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Mike1024 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hey,

      Suess took care of five million solder joints and the odd unforeseen problem... 4.13 solders per second.

      Aint no way in hell he did that by hand.

      He did not do it all by hand,
      he did not do it with Ayn Rand,
      he did not do it for a band,
      he did not do it to command.

      He could have used a solder bath,
      that could have worked with your math,
      or may have used another path,
      for the figures which cause your wrath.

      Michael

      --
      "Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
    20. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Pharmboy · · Score: 1

      Um, dude, yes, you can read text at 300bps. You might have trouble reading a novel at that speed, but you can certainly read text from a chatroom (or teleconference, as they were called in those days). Assuming N81 (no parity, 8 bits per byte and one stop bit), that's 33 characters per second, which is about 5 words or so. Maybe 6 or 7 if they're short.

      And thus abbreviations were born. ie: :) lol, rofl, btw, wtf

      I also think 300 baud modems are partially to blame for L33+ 5p34k, in some way. I wonder how many people claim to have invented that. Algore perhaps?

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    21. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      eh? oh..Suess...Seuss...I get it now

    22. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1
      No he purchased his micro-computer as a kit. The only soldering he did was to add an aditional 8k of ram.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    23. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Phroggy · · Score: 1

      And thus abbreviations were born. ie: :) lol, rofl, btw, wtf

      This is exactly right. "A/S/L?" came from AOL chatrooms though.

      I also think 300 baud modems are partially to blame for L33+ 5p34k, in some way.

      I don't think so - l33t sp34k doesn't save characters, and certainly doesn't make things easier to type (or read). I think it evolved from the warez crowd (the ones who deliberately misspelled "wares" with a "z").

      I wonder how many people claim to have invented that. Algore perhaps?

      I'm not sure, but I've heard people pronounce "warez" as "war-ez" instead of as "wares", and swear up and down that they know what they're talking about. Morons.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    24. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No he purchased [chinet.com]his micro-computer as a kit. The only soldering he did was to add an aditional 8k of ram.

      Dammit, Gates, I know your memory of that era has always been rather...flexible...but you could at least read the article you linked to:

      The original CBBS consisted of a S-100 motherboard picked up at some fleamarket. This was a "kit" of course, so I had to solder all the connectors. (lotsa soldering done in those days, such as 8 k memory boards filled with 1kX1 chips)

      This is why they called it a "kit" - you had to put it together yourself. Since snap-together computer kits never seemed like such a good idea, that meant lots of soldering. Note that the phrase "such as" in English rarely means "only".

    25. Re:5 million solders? I dont think so. by Pharmboy · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure, but I've heard people pronounce "warez" as "war-ez" instead of as "wares", and swear up and down that they know what they're talking about. Morons.

      Yea, warez is NOT a city in Mexico, lol.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
  10. BBS Games by Jason1729 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What I really miss about BBS's were the game doors, Especially Tradewars and GTWar. I know people run Tradewares via telnet not, but it's just not the same thing. I got to know the other players and it was more fun because it was personal.

    I still hold a grudge against Telus because they bought the company that bought the ISP that bought my BBS to shut it down and harvest their customers. I even cancelled my ClearNet cell phone when Telus bought them.

    Jason
    ProfQuotes

    1. Re:BBS Games by xmutex · · Score: 1

      Don't forget The Pit!

      --

      jack's bicycle is music to my ears
    2. Re:BBS Games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TELUS hey.. hmm..

      Calgary or Edmonton? Which BBS's did you frequent?
      I was into the Calgary BBS scene pretty heavily before the good ole internet came along

    3. Re:BBS Games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know every time a BBS article comes up on Slashdot people say how they miss door games. I don't get it. Door games were the last thing i was interested in at BBSes. For me it was about the text files, demos, warez and mods. The majority of the time we chatted with the ScYZo (yeah and we were fuckin 1337 - i'm not afraid to admit it) about random shit while we were downloading. No "trusty XModem/YModem" stuff, there were about 20 protocols - many of which supported chat-while-download or download-upload-simultaneously... you had to have the latest terminal program, or at the very least one which supported plugins. Yeah we had flashing ANSI graphics, and we loved it. We didn't have BBS "picnics", we got together and shot the shit, smoked some bowls, went out clubbing, went to the big gatherings and watched the latest Future Crew demos. Is this a European vs American thing, or is everyone here a way oldskool BBS user from before DOS, or just boring? Not trolling, just curious.

    4. Re:BBS Games by CodeMunch · · Score: 1

      Nucleus, Octapode, Other?

    5. Re:BBS Games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was in the BBS scene in Houston in my pre-DOS days. The C-64 BBS scene was alive and kicking in the late 80s, including a few meetings where people hooked up in real life. Imagine that.

      Around 1990 (I think), there was a meeting of something called SFU - Sysops for Unity? - in a motel on the northwest side. A bunch of local warez/BBS people piled into a pair of connecting rooms to trade things, tell stories, and play with computers.

      One guy had a program that displayed a high-res (for a C-64, remember) picture while playing back some music that someone had painstakingly recorded and compressed. That was pretty impressive for such a tiny box with a CPU to match.

      Another one had a nifty hack that ran on the CPU inside the 1541 disk drive. It pulsed the red activity light and varied the duty cycle, so the light appeared to grow brighter then dim, and then grow brighter again.

      I even ran a public Commodore BBS there for about 8 months. We weren't "(3)1337" - that hadn't been invented yet. Things were still called "elite" back then.

      Oddly enough, most of the 5.25" disks from that BBS are still readable, and there are 13 year old posts from my former users just waiting to be restored. If you thought the expansion of Google Groups was embarassing for some people, you should see some of the junk in here. At least we all had handles, so there's no direct correlation from "then" to "now".

    6. Re:BBS Games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nucleus & Octopode were OK, I liked the smaller ones though .. I'm trying to remember the names (I've been trying since last night) but they keep eluding me..
      There were a few RoboBoards that were around at that time, one of them was my favorite.

      (lame I know, with a statement like the above I *should* be able to remember the names :P)

    7. Re:BBS Games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know Telus is all across Western Canada, right?

    8. Re:BBS Games by CodeMunch · · Score: 1

      I started out on a few of the smaller ones & then ran into Nucleus and just stuck with it. Alas, I can't remember any of the names of the smaller BBS either except for one i frequented in Manitoba called CompuTech.

    9. Re:BBS Games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everything you mention is available on the internet. The only thing missing is the door games.

    10. Re:BBS Games by Jason1729 · · Score: 1

      Toronto actually, and the BBS was Canada Remote Systems. They were bought and killed by I-Star who wanted to try and convince the users to subscribe with them. At the time, I was already using Interlog internet service as an ISP. Interlog's backbone was connected through I-Star, so I cancelled my Interlog account and told them exactly why.

      I-Star was bought by PSINet, and then both PSINet and ClearNet were bought by Telus, so I cancelled my ClearNet phone and told them exactly why.

      I know the companies don't care and probably got a laugh out of it, but it was still fun to tell them off.

      Jason
      ProfQuotes

  11. My idea for bringing a new form of BBS back by zymano · · Score: 1, Interesting
    The phone manufacturers could add some software and modems and then why not have a convergence of technologies like France had with minitel but with cellphones and all other types of phones. Have you ever called a local store to find a certain product but too late and they they had closed ? If you could just call their personal BBS/OS then you could see if they stocked what you were looking for and store hour times.

    There you have it. If these idiot electronic companies could get together with a plan to install this stuff then i think life would be easier for everybody. I don't think it could be done without government prodding though.

    1. Re:My idea for bringing a new form of BBS back by awing0 · · Score: 1

      We have this technology, it's called the internet. It's not worth the trouble for most stores to setup an entire interface for customers to see their stock while they aren't open. That's why it won't happen. Government prodding? Are you suggesting to make laws against not having a publically available electronic inventory? And if the store is closed, what good is knowing they have it in stock when you have to wait till their open to buy it!

      --
      Cthulhu Saves.
    2. Re:My idea for bringing a new form of BBS back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      why cant the store get a website?

    3. Re:My idea for bringing a new form of BBS back by gregmac · · Score: 1
      Yes, it certainly makes more sense to dedicate a business phone line, get some system running with a modem, and install some old no-longer-in-development software (though, you could always continue development yourself, it's not like that takes a lot of time) in order to be able to show one person at a time your price list in ASCII. And all they have to do to find it is somehow guess that you have a BBS, open up their phone book to find the number, and install a program capable of using a modem to dial up.

      Of course, I'm being optimistic here and assuming people even HAVE modems still.. (i only ever put a nic in my new systems).

      --
      Speak before you think
  12. Bulletin: by $$$$$exyGal · · Score: 2, Funny
    Bulletin:
    Bill brainstorms bulletin board before bedtime. Blizzard buoyed brainchild.

    --bare babes

    --
    Very popular slashdot journal for adul
  13. Flashbacks???? by sickboy_macosX · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I thought This was discussed last week, leave it to slashdot to start beating a dead horse..repeadtedly, until people start complaining.

    Not trying to be a troll, just saying hey, we have already discussed it.

    Memo To Malda: Make sure your not posting the same story a week later...

    --
    --- /* In Soviet Russia, the Mac OS X kernel panics you! */
    1. Re:Flashbacks???? by pVoid · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      hey! Please, Dead horses only beat YOU in SOVIET russia.

    2. Re:Flashbacks???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      That was the 9600bps version. This is the 300baud line. Not everyone's parents can buy them the latest, fastest modem ya know!

    3. Re:Flashbacks???? by DarkKnightRadick · · Score: 1

      Actually, the refrenced /. article does talk about the 300 baud modem. :-P

      --
      "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
  14. Some BBS's begat great Internet dynasties by 87C751 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Northwest Nexus, the major ISP headquartered in Bellevue, WA, began as halcyon.com. And halcyon.com was originally a 386, 8 MB of memory, DESQview 386 and the MS-DOS version of Waffle, all running in Ralph Sims' bedroom. With that kit, Ralph was running very close to a full newsfeed to over 100 leaf nodes back in the early 90's. When someone made a DEC Unix box available (it might have been an Alpha, come to think of it), he migrated and I ported BBStevie to big iron for the first time. Soon afterward, halcyon stepped into the ISP business and Ralph got to quit his day job. I recall that Tom Dell was pretty impressed with what Ralph achieved with Waffle. And I think I had a shell account on halcyon until halfway through the decade.

    Those were the days...

    --
    Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
  15. I only sigh.... by jlleblanc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I caught the tail end of the BBS era in the mid 90's just as AOL was beginning to ship out their free trial floppies, which everyone else used to get online. Where I lived, AOL didn't have access numbers, so I explored the local BBS'es and learned about modem commands and such instead. (Much better use of time :) Those days were fun.

  16. nerds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bloody nerds...with no *one* to do, they came up with some *thing* to do....

    wonder if there was minor population explosion too?

  17. One slow day in the news world... by pVoid · · Score: 3, Funny
    Man, this article reminds me of the simpson's episode where bart picks up a magazine of "Find Waldo", and all you see in the picture is this big empty room with waldo in the middle, to which bart says "man he's just not trying anymore"...

    The article is a dupe, and it's not even a karma whore, it's a single line, with a single link.

    I'm not really complaining though, so don't think I'm a troll or something. It's just good to have a sense of humour about ourselves every once in a while.

    1. Re:One slow day in the news world... by jericho4.0 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I'll back you on this.
      This is a dupe. From what? Three or four days ago. Yesterday we saw a multiple dupe about some interview Bill Gates gave 8 years ago.
      I realize I'm not paying anyone for the right to post this, but someone is paying the editors, no? Christ, start _trying_ to look like pros, at least. Take a fucking journalisim class and discover the concept of journalistic responsibility. I, for one, am tired of seeing dupes that anyone who actually reads the damn site could recognize.

      IMHO, slashdot needs to produce a mission statement that clearly states what slashdot is. Are you news? A gossip site? A bunch of kids playing in Mom's basement?

      I realize that 'go start you're own site if you don't like it' is a valid response to this post, but I simply don't understand the lack of professionalism I see here. We are talking about 20 posts a day kids, get with it.

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    2. Re:One slow day in the news world... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SLASHDOT: a bunch of kids playing in moms basement.

      I like the sound of that!

    3. Re:One slow day in the news world... by lkaos · · Score: 1

      In all fairness I imagine it has to do with co-ordination. I don't think that the /. editors read every article on /. like some of us readers do. In fact, if the editors are like most folks, they probably want to do something completely different from /. on their off-time.

      So, with a bunch of editors, it's only natural for things to get lost. Most of the time, the dupes have titles that could easily be mistaken for different stories.

      --
      int func(int a);
      func((b += 3, b));
    4. Re:One slow day in the news world... by Big+Mark · · Score: 2, Funny
      Yesterday we saw a multiple dupe
      Three identical stories == tripe?

      -Mark
    5. Re:One slow day in the news world... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They've had at least a year without any major code changes that I can see. They really did whip up the payment code pretty fast though when they wanted us to give them money. They ignore all complaints about the dupe problem. They could at least take steps to prevent dupes, but they obviously don't.

      If they want to ignore /. in their off time, fine. Ignore it, but give us 8 hours of hard work every day like every other wage slave out there. Give us 4. I don't think we even get 4. If they're so sick of the site hire someone (and I think one motivated person could run the damn site) new and back off.

      You're making excuses for things that can be easily fixed. You're making excuses for a problem that has plagued this site for a _long_ time. They're linking the same URL in a good number of these cases and THAT can be compared.

      Face it, the fact is they don't care about the problem. They don't care about their users, and they don't read their own damn site.

    6. Re:One slow day in the news world... by JordanH · · Score: 1
      • I don't think that the /. editors read every article on /. like some of us readers do.

      The editors read /.? Are you kidding? Those guys made millions when they were bought out by Andover some years back. They don't sit around like a bunch of losers reading /. anymore.

      Uhhh... hmmm...

  18. Never would have known... by cabra771 · · Score: 5, Funny

    that those damn people at Blizzard not only killed all my social skills by releasing Diablo and Diablo II, but now I learn that they got me hooked even earlier! Damn all those BBS's I used to visit!!!

    --

    -my other sig is your mom
  19. New door? by MystikPhish · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one that saw the title and thought, "Cool! I wonder if they'll provide a door to Warcraft or a Warcraft version TradeWars?"

    Damn I spent too much time BBS'n.

    --
    "I'm about to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice!"
  20. I Just Turned 43 ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... a couple of days ago. So whats with all the nastalgia stories? Someone trying to make us seasoned programmers feel old?

  21. Makes me wonder... by Mattcelt · · Score: 1

    ...what great things will the blizzard of 2003 spark into being?

    I'd bet $10 that this time it has something to do with porn, though... Heh.

    1. Re:Makes me wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      "This time"? Are you suggesting BBSes didn't have anything to do with porn?

  22. OMG LOL OMG!!! by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 0

    When I first read this, I thought it was talking about Blizzard that makes Warcraft LOLOLOLOMGLOL!!!!!!!

    --
    -- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
  23. Anyone else hate? by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Am I the only one who hates recollection? Especially recollection about how shitty things used to be?

    I remember hearing people talk about the 'good old days', now all you hear about is "OMG REMEMBER WHEN OUR COMPUTARS HAD 3KB AND YOU HAD TO TRYPE INSTEAD OF SPEAK!?!" -- IT'S FUCKING ANNOYING. STOP IT. I DON'T CARE WHAT YOUR LIFE USED TO BE LIKE, IF IT WAS SHITTY OR GOOD OR ANYTHING. SHUT THE FUCK UP!
    [yes, I meant to do that.]

    --
    -- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
    1. Re:Anyone else hate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Guess you didn't have a very happy childhood!

    2. Re:Anyone else hate? by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 1

      I did, but I don't bother talking about it. People who talk about their happy childhoods bug me, because they are just talking about what they wished they were doing instead. You want to go build another tree fort and hang around with 8-year-olds? Nobody's fucking stopping you. Go ahead and do it, and stop whining. Micheal Jackson does it, why the fuck can't you?

      --
      -- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
    3. Re:Anyone else hate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another fine example of someone who needs something REAL to be upset about, because their boundries are getting all screwed up in the interim.

  24. i wish i lived back then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i'm sure there were newbies, but, at least the average jerk isnt on AIM going "har har, i'm leet" or even worse, the average moron going, "har har, i'm popular and still able to use computers". back then, only the nerds had control.

    1. Re:i wish i lived back then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trust me, it was even worse. The people involved had, on average, less social skills and ability to deal with even the slightest conflict. The BBS scene was a dead end. When I got a public access account and read my first RFC - (gasp) smart people cooperating! - I never looked back.

      Unfortunately all those people are still around and now involved in things like Linux code maintenance...but at least their presence is more diffused by folks who actually have some presence in the real world now.

    2. Re:i wish i lived back then by MagusSlurpy · · Score: 1

      Hey, it's "l337." G0d, j00 4r3 s0 /\/3\/\/8i3. :D

      --
      My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
  25. Kids and Doors (True Story!) by romper · · Score: 5, Funny

    In the late 80's my parents took away the monitor to "ground" me from playing Tradewars 2002 on the local BBS.

    Of course I could blindly launch telemate from DOS and knew how to turn on the printer log and start the dial-up.

    The printer didn't even have ink! We had to read the carbon copy.

    You kids now with your fancy monitors and colors.

    --
    Right is wrong when left is right.
  26. Hey! Mozilla is only 4 years old! by Netscurror · · Score: 1

    I didn't know what Chris Blizzard was doing in 1978! Wow!

  27. Speaking of BBS.. by xchino · · Score: 1

    Anyone know the cheat codes to Legend of the Red Dragon? Zandorf14 is killing me while I sleep every night, and that damn bar wench still won't put out..

    --
    Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
    1. Re:Speaking of BBS.. by Geburah · · Score: 1

      Funny LORD story for ya. Back in our BBS days and addicted to Legend of the Red Dragon, we would anxiously await 12:00 at night to make an attempt be the first to log on and reap the rewards. Problem was, there was one kid called Darklord that was the neighborhood rich kid and he had all the up-to-date hardware. He ALWAYS made it online first and hogged all the monsters... Therefor, he always got to do certain things in the game that others couldn't. Well, me and and a buddy did a little amateur social engineering and got his modem line number. At 11:59, we wardialed his phone line. He didn't make it online. We did, and finally got to enjoy the benefits of being an early bird. :) Well, that wasn't to exiting, but hey! We felt really smart then! You know how nostalgia is! Plus, I gotta keep my posting up. Tryin to get me some mod points. ;)

    2. Re:Speaking of BBS.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't have to post to get mod points, you can just hit comments.pl around the right neighbourhood of times. Posting gets you some tokens, but you'll probably get them anyway by just existing and appearing average when they're doled out. I keep a separate non-posting account for this.

  28. It was GREAT! by xchino · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh man, I remember how great those days were. Sitting for hours on end chatting away, playing door games, downloading shareware, adn :)(&(& )_& (*
    *&_(P&*
    (*()*+ *A+S)(*D+)( *

    I(_A)SD*_)Id
    +++
    NO CARRIER

    --
    Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
    1. Re:It was GREAT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      True story.. I once got banned from my favorite BBS for swearing in the chat room. the word ass appeared TWICE in a fit of line noise..

  29. Weather. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ironically fone line quality during adverse weather conditions, especially during such an extreme blizzard, can quite often be shit. Then again in 1978 with a 300 baud (probly less) modem u cld probly have a voice conversation over the line while sending a file with that kind of slow crapola (yeah if u didn't mind the screaching).

    1. Re:Weather. by OneFix · · Score: 1

      Umh, actually no...this was before most of the error correction schemes that appeared after the technology hit 14.4Kbps...

      Before that, when you would pick up a phone, the modem would drop carrier almost instantly.

      However, one of the kewlest things I've seen was what I was able to do with my Vic-Modem (C= 64)...the modem was a 300 baud modem, but you could force the modem to renegotiate @450bps after you were connected (for some reason it wouldn't dial out @450bps)...but this was so kewl at the time...imagine being able to squeeze out an extra 50 MegaBits from a 100 MegaBit NIC today...very kewl stuff at the time...

      As for the most resilient modem I've seen...it would have to be my old LineLink ProModem 144e (from my Amiga days)...the thing still works...

  30. Re:so what by TeknoDragon · · Score: 1

    uh... rather on-topic rather than off...

    to think, normal people get it on

    nerds invent the BBS

  31. Ummm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this the shortest Slashdot article ever?

  32. Can I have CoSys on /.? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Remember when elite was still a word? aND eLiTe SPeAk diDn'T inCluDe NumBErS? And KINGCOTT got you SysOps on renegade boards? And you could bag a fat chick at a BBS GTG?

  33. how appropriate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I've been trying to download the Diablo 2 expansion pack because the weather's been so terrible. ;)

  34. Re:ARPAnet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the internet was called the ARPAnet and started
    forming in 1969. all the major universities
    and research agencies were on it by the late 70s.

  35. Not the only thing... by liquidsin · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...conceived during that blizzard. I was born in November '78, roughly nine months after the blizzard. From what I know, the snow was so deep you couldn't leave the house for days (weeks?) on end. Thank you blizzard, for leaving my parents with nothing much else to do but have sex.

    --
    do not read this line twice.
    1. Re:Not the only thing... by dacarr · · Score: 2, Funny

      A blizzard? You were lucky! Here in southern California, in 1978, we had to make do with a really nasty rain storm and flooding in Yorba Linda.

      --
      This sig no verb.
  36. DUPE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Didn't anybody besides me notice that this story is a Dupe from a few days ago?

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/02/16/2028 22 0&mode=nested&tid=95

  37. Your wish is granted by ch-chuck · · Score: 1

    I just googled for "atari bbs telnet" and found this, clicked the link and was logging into BBS Express! It is part of a 'telnet bbs' webring so there's bound to be lots more. this one looks good, ten nodes, cable. Enjoy.

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  38. Usenet Born at the Same Time - Synchronicity by Futurian · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The impetus to electronically intercommunicate was strong. Usenet was born in 1979, one year after the creation of the CBBS. I was an undergraduate at Duke at that time, and recall being shown a prototype of the project by Tom Truscott. The early messages included arcane comments about operating system programming for "Unix wizards". I told Tom it was excellent, but with my limited horizons I internally felt that the early games "adventure" and "Zork" were more exciting. In retrospect, Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis and the other creators captured the zeitgeist and deserve lavish praise. A full Usenet feed topped 500 gigabytes in 2002, a mind-boggling size circa 1979, and the leviathan keeps growing.

    Tom and Jim were great people. They were enthusiastic, friendly, and helpful even to a "lowly" undergraduate. They were always trying to improve Usenet and spoke extensively about how the data structures of the news program had to be redone. Even in 1979 more sophisticated structures were needed to scale up and handle the growing number of news articles. The Duke graduate school did not have a budget item for long distance telephone calls to swap Usenet news items. Luckily, Bell Labs charitably became a hub of the early network and subsidized the long distance calls.

    Jim Ellis enjoyed reading SF and his programming skill helped make one positive SF scenario, inexpensive fast electronic communication, come true. I never had a chance to thank him for all his help and for suggesting I read "Shockwave Rider" and "Forever War". Thanks - via the celestial internet.

    1. Re:Usenet Born at the Same Time - Synchronicity by sirinek · · Score: 1

      A full Usenet feed topped 500 gigabytes in 2002, a mind-boggling size circa 1979, and the leviathan keeps growing.

      How much of that is spam? :)

      siri

  39. Interesting by FIT_Entry1 · · Score: 1

    cuz the blizzard of '72 gave birth to ME!

  40. Brings Back Memories by Chronos56 · · Score: 1

    During the mid 80's a friend and I created the "Deadlock BBS Construction Kit" for the C-64. Seeing this thread brought back a lot of memories. We never made a fortune on the program but we did have fun.

    I did a quick Google search and found the BBS software mentioned several times with good comments. Its nice to be remembered kindly.

    Jim Johnson

  41. Telegard by !Xabbu · · Score: 1

    Some of you will remember that bbs program.. it came out a year or two after I started calling out to the boards. I'd love to see what would have happened with this software if someone had of made it open source. Alas.. everyone liked the idea of OS but nobody wanted to release TG under that license. Telegard embodied everything I loved about bbs software. It had almost everything I needed until I switched from DOS to Linux.

    Time goes on and we keep on reinventing ourselves..

    http://www.clockworkorangebbs.org/bbs

    --

    - Jimbob
  42. Here is some more info by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2, Informative

    He worked as a consultant for IBM. Whenever you bought IBM mainframes and or mini's a consultant usually came with the purchase. My father purchased 1 mainframe and several mini's back in 79 and happened to recieve Christensen as a consultant.

    Anyway the link is here written by Christensen back in 88. Amazingly his old cbbs program for cp/m ran for 15 years before being retired!

    He tried to get my father to join his bbs but my old man didn't have a pc or I should say Micro-computer back in those days and did not see the fun in it or understand why anyone would need a computer at home. Back in 78 the pc's did not have any off the shelve software like development tools( besides Microsoft Basic), spreadsheets, or games. Christensen's z-80 computer for example only had 16k of ram, an editor and assembler compiler. Thats it. My father only knew cobal and IBM 360 assembler so he couldn't really program it.

    Anyway how it got started was that he loved to share diskettes and tapes with his buddy in Michican. The blizard of 78 was real bad. My parents could not leave the house for close to a week and snow drifts almost reached the roof. It took 2 days for my father to clear out a path to his car. We had close to 5 feet of snow. Anyway as the story goes he couldn't share the diskettes with his buddy so he decided to develop a way to use a phone line and a cbbs was born.

    He also came up with the idea of using phone lines before modems were around. Back in the early or mid 70's he was playing with a spectograph and was analzying analog data over an ethernet line. Out of curiousity he examined a phone line and saw striking similarities when examing the wave forms. He wondered if it were possible to use phone lines as a poor mans wan. He began working on a modem and hayes beat him to it before he was done.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  43. the blizzard of '78 also by mikesab · · Score: 1

    let to the birth of me.

  44. When was the blizzard? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Erm, am I the only one who remembers that the "great Chicago Blizzard" was in '79 not '78? Don't believe my rusty old memory? See for yourself.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    1. Re:When was the blizzard? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1

      Here's an even better link.

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    2. Re:When was the blizzard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Only the slashdot story is mistaken, of course. Christensen says "January 16, 1978 was a very snowy day." and the ZDNet article says "Winter in Chicago means snow, and lots of it. Twenty-five years and one month ago saw a doozy of a storm."

      Christensen obviously remembers it wasn't "The Blizzard Of" or he'd say it that way. The ZDNet article is iffy; they might have it wrong, but didn't say enough to pin them down. This oiliness is called "Professional Journalism". The slashdot article is simply wrong, since saying "The blizzard of" instead of "A blizzard in" clearly implies a great event.

      Moral: Ignore any text you see on slashdot, RTFA, and then do some light background research.

  45. online discussion systems on mainframes by thvv · · Score: 3, Interesting

    BBS-like functions were provided by
    various mainframe timesharing systems well before
    1978.

    Multics had an online threaded discussion system
    called "continuum" (later renamed "forum") which
    I used while housebound during the Massachusetts
    blizzard of 78. The Multics machine wouldn't
    fit in my apartment though: I had a TermiNet 300
    dialed up to MIT's Honeywell 6180.

    Multics continuum was first written in the mid 70s
    in order to bid on a RFP for the Executive Office
    of the President of the United States
    (we lost the bid, IBM got it).
    At the time we were told that the capability
    desired was similar to a discussion system on
    the Dartmouth timesharing system.

    The PLATO system at University of Illinois
    had a threaded discussion system in the 70s,
    as did a similar system, forget its name, at
    Stanford.

  46. Can you come up with some pseudo-Seuss for... by yerricde · · Score: 1

    Seuss Enterprises submitted an amicus brief supporting the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

    Now can anybody translate that brief into the verse style of Dr. Seuss?

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  47. funny you should mention... by vena · · Score: 1

    remember Renegade? the Telegard hack? well have a look here.

    who knows how far the project will actually get, however, as it appears to be lying dead in the water right now. perhaps some exposure on /. will help it get off the ground.

  48. Re:so what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But then the normal people's kids become nerds, and on blizzard days sit inside pointlessly wasting time on slashdot. Thus the circle of life is completed.

  49. TW2002 in 80's? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2002 came out mid 90's

    1. Re:TW2002 in 80's? by romper · · Score: 1

      It might not have been TW2k2 then (there were enough "space trading games" around), but the story itself is true.

      --
      Right is wrong when left is right.
  50. I remember well the blizzard of '78 by Ezekiel68 · · Score: 1

    I was 10 years old. We had no school for (it seemed like) forever. On other winters we would build snow forts but in '78 each kid on the block had his own personal snow palace, thanks to the plowing. We didn't see our curbside mailbox for a couple of weeks.

    There were t-shirts, "I survived the blizzard of '78."

    That's what I recall.

    Ezekiel68

    --
    Imagination is more important than knowledge -Einstien