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Blizzard Births BBS

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

15 of 182 comments (clear)

  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 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.

    2. 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.

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

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

    4. 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?

  2. 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.

  3. 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

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

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

  5. 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!
  6. 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.

  7. 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
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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