Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Best BBS Memories?

Posted by Cliff on from the reminiscing-on-the-new-year dept.

TerryAtWork asks: "What are Slashdot readers' best BBS memories? The BBS ruled before the common man got on the Internet and a lot of older Slashdot reader's first on-line experiences were with them."

6 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. When I was 10 years old... by Exocet · · Score: 3, Informative

    My parents gave me and my brother our first computer - an Atari 520ST fm computer with an Emerson 2400 baud modem. This was on advice from a coworker of my dad's who ran an Atari-based BBS.

    From day one we were dialing up BBS's. I have since spent countless thousands (tens?) of hours downloading text files, images, programs, whatever. Posting on the boards, chatting with the SysOp if he (never a she) was around. Playing games like Tradewars 2002.

    Sometime in late 1996 I got my first email account and internet access from a local ISP, Europa. Until then, though, the only online world I knew was that of the BBS.

    BBS's were great but I'd never go back. The ol' internet is far more accessible and wide-reaching. BBS's just can't compete.

    BTW: don't dis the Atari. We could go from a cold boot to being dialed up to the local BBS (Puddle City) in less than 60 seconds.

    --
    Exocet Industries - Taking over the world, one computer at a
    1. Re:When I was 10 years old... by NickDngr · · Score: 2, Informative

      If anybody else was from Techlands BBS in South Florida, please e-mail me... I used to be "Davy Crockett" back then :-)

      Check here. This website is set up to reunite BBS users. Note: I am not affiliated, just happen to know of it.

      --
      Yoda of Borg am I! Assimilated shall you be! Futile resistance is, hmm?
  2. Re:as a sysop.. by zcat_NZ · · Score: 2, Informative

    my -earliest- BBS memory was using a 300 baud modem on an SV328, and manually dialling (no AT commands back then!) a part-time BBS in Auckland which was the only one operating in the country at the time.

    A bit expensive, so I didn't really do anything else
    until a friend got supplied with an XT and smart modem (1200 baud iirc) by his school to set up a BBS. The software was fairly experimental and buggy, and took a lot of setting up.

    --
    455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
  3. Re:CONNECT 1200 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Maybe you should look at this. ASCII art still lives in Japanese BBS (now web-based, of course), as "Mona-art"

  4. There is a BBS documentary in the works by Bob+Cat+-+NYMPHS · · Score: 2, Informative

    Jason Scott has been working on it for quite a while, see this.

    --
    The latest Slashdot meme.
  5. Still around.. by WiKKeSH · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hey, BBSes are still around, though they are only kept around for nostalgia nowadays...

    there are a lot of telnet boards such as east1999.acid.org and blackthursday.net

    There are stil plenty of groups thta draw ascii and ansi too...

    check them out at ansi.idledreams.net thuglife.org and scene.downmix.com

    --
    Downmix - The Artscene News Source!