Rob Swindell has been interviewed for the documentary. BBSes are not dead, although dial-up BBSes have been in a relative decline. The documentary will cover the move to the Internet by many BBSes.
I have gigabytes of ANSI at the moment that I'm sorting through (Check out ansi.textfiles.com to look at them) but no, the footage so far is of actual people talking about things, including ANSI. (I have an interview with Rad Man of ACiD, Lord Soth of iCE, etc.)
In terms of "notable" Sysops, you'd have to be more specific. Dozens of the interviews I've done have been with Sysops, many of whom got some amount of fame within their scenes or groups of people.
"Notorius" sysops and traders, well, again, that's an odd classification to figure out. I am/will be interviewing people who were incarcerated over BBS activities. Is that what you mean?
I switched to a boom mike after that interview. Cost a pretty penny and was well worth it. The sound of the interview is vitally important and I spent some time getting the right equipment for the job, which has worked out.
My girlfriend made it VERY clear she didn't want a big fat-ass diamond on her hand; she wanted something special. Black Pearl was mentioned, and so I had a mutual jeweller friend whip up a nice ring that I presented to her in the back of a Checker Marathon taxicab in Kalamazoo Michigan.
The ring's main item is a BLACK PEARL. Let me tell you, that gets a lot more attention than any diamond.
At the last second, I asked that he throw a few token diamonds around the edge. They were tiny, almost ornamental. And the ring barely scraped four figures. Barely.
Best choice we ever had, avoiding the fat-ass diamond.
There's a little difference between a show being pitched to a Network from the street, and the know-it-all guys who run your most consistently top-rated show for the last decade saying "So, we feel like making another show. Push over."
We don't know the relationship between the Simpsons people and FOX: It could be hostile, it could be friendly. Remember what Fox's solution was when the actors wanted more pay (after a decade of being on the show): Fire them all and bring in replacements.
The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA runs one or two different films every night, and a good number of Anime often enters the mix. They have a non-easy-to-remember URL for their website, so I registered brattletheatre.com and you can get to the schedule from there. Well worth the effort.
Re:H2K2 from Boston to NYC. HACKER BUS. $20
on
H2K2 Conference
·
· Score: 1
A modded-low writer mentions one of the Boston-Chinatown lines has a $10 each way fee, if you leave at 11:30pm, getting you in at roughly 3:30am or slightly later. I barely consider that an option (overnight on a bus is like hell on Earth), but it would be misleading for me to not revise and say yes, you could spend $10.
Re:H2K2 from Boston to NYC. HACKER BUS. $20
on
H2K2 Conference
·
· Score: 1
Well, first of all, it's not $10 - it's $15 if you leave during certain hours, and it can be anywhere from $20 to $35 depending on other factors.
Second, the Chinatown express takes you to just that - Chinatown. The Hackerbus is going to take you right to the front of the Hotel Pennsylvania. It'll pick you up in front of the Hotel Pennsylvania as well, on Sunday. Don't discount the pain in the ass of taking the trip to and fron Chinatown to the con. For example, I'm bringing video equipment and it's well worth it to me to take the bus and load my stuff that way.
Last of all, the price is only part of it (although the HackerBus is much better than train or air travel). The other thing is that every single person on the bus will be going to H2K2. Make friends, hang out, know what's going on, and the rest. Don't discount that part of it. How many people on the Chinatown bus you happen to choose (there's a couple lines, and buses leave at various hours) will be going to H2K2?
Enjoy your time with the chickens. I'll be on the HackerBus.
- Jason Scott, Hackerbus Organizer.
Popping In to Give You the URLs:
on
Remembering the BBS
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Apparently you're unaware of the purpose of a "pitch".
The idea behind a pitch is to explain, in hopefully under a minute or two, why a project should get your attention, money, or time. It is intentionally focused on the positive, the sizzle, and above all the universal themes attached to your project. It is intended to grab your interest and make you do whatever it is you do, for the filmmaker/songwriter/artist.
At the bottom of the pitch, it invites you to take a more involved read into what I'm doing, and of course the bulk of my research is located on the website as well. I think it's interesting to note that further down this thread, I'm accused of being too negative about the history of the BBS! (That is, focusing too much on the busts in the timeline.) I address that issue as well.
I guarantee that I will cover both the positive and negative aspects of BBSes. Otherwise it's just a smear job, either way I bias it.
Apparently you haven't read the site or the text of this story. From what I submitted:
"...The list is not complete, but I've so far gotten a great list of interviewees who helped make the Dial-Up BBS what it is in history (and today, I rush to add)...."
That is, BBSes are very much alive. The documentary is primarily about the Dial-Up BBS, which has declined in the US and Canada but is experiencing a strong "aftershock" in other parts of the world. You can't argue that the BBS is as strong a presence in terms of pure dial-up as it was in, say, 1994, but I am not dancing on any graves prematurely or dismissing the efforts of today to bring the best parts of the "BBS Mentality" to the Internet and the world.
It's especially annoying when an anonymous coward insults your reasons for shooting a documentary and doesn't check the facts. For shame!
This is specifically what I am trying to avoid by doing the documentary.
The timeline is currently heavy on busts and negative events because they were the easiest to find in the media searches I've been doing. That's not where I'm going to leave it.
Through the hundreds (!!) of interviews I've got lined up, I can guarantee a much fuller picture will arrive of the experience of BBSes. If I wanted to bring another "Computer Undergr0und" documentary in the world, I'd hardly have had to bother with the work I've been doing contacting everyone from Ward Christensen to the current BBS sysops on the Internet.
I would, however, appreciate if people could mail me days and events they think should be covered. And don't just say "There was this thing that happened once, I can't remember when..." because that's what I'm already working with; I've got hundreds of events in my mind but it's difficult to nail them down.
The reason the timeline is currently so bust-heavy is because those events tend to have specific days attached to them, and could therefore be entered.
It's rather difficult to put an entry in the timeline like:
September 12, 1987: A warm sense of community floated throughout the Chattanooga BBS scene.
As I cover elsewhere, there's a very strong attempt on my part to get the people who were behind BBSes in for interviews. You'll get the sense of community from them.
There's certainly some information on those packages, in both the timeline and software information sections:
http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/IBM/MSDOS/WWI V/
http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/IBM/MSDOS/MAJ OR BBS/
http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/IBM/MSDOS/REN EG ADE/
I admit that sections themselves are thin, but this has been because my biggest concerns have been retrieving information on more more obscure BBS packages, for example those that predate the Internet. I'll go by and flesh out these sets of you.
If you use the text-browser Lynx to browse the BBS Documentary site, the centering goes away. And if the idea of a text-based web-browser isn't of interest to you, you probably wouldn't have liked the documentary anyway.
They probably mean building 20, an asbestos-tiled "temporary" structure built in 1943 during World War II that went on to be a vital place of innovation for 57 years. It was finally decomissioned and destroyed this year, but not before MIT pranksters made one last comment: sticking an MIT "discard property" tag on its side, a tag that indicates MIT has dropped it from inventory and the item can be removed. (Usually done for smaller pieces of MIT equipment, of course.)
While I can't speak for the product itself, I can tell you that I've known the CEO, Andrew Rubin, since I was 14. In fact, he ran one of the better BBSes I've been on, a huge multi-line BBS called "Spies in the Wire" that became "spies.com" and a mass of other things. I've kept in touch through the years (although he's harder to reach these past few, go figure), and Andy's always got his hand in something or somewhere cool. Beyond that, he's a great guy all around, who often gave great technology or computer resources away for free to people just to ensure that more folks could share in the fun (we're talking the 1980's, when it was a bit harder to get access to systems and resources beyond home use).
He's put in his dues as far as working at companies and startups are concerned, and I've seen him "walk the walk" when it came to actually producing neat stuff.
The Documentary will definitely cover ANSI groups, ASCII art groups,.MODs (Music Files), RIP, and a host of other similar protocols that were important parts of the BBS experience.
At the VCF east, I picked up a Radio Shack Model 100 for $40, including case and manual, a bunch of old Creative Computing Issues for $1, and an obscure Psygnosis game for the Amiga called "ORK", shrinkwrapped, for $10.
Maybe I'm being weird, but this little Slashdot Blurb implies these older artifacts are going only for premiums, and that's not the case.
The way I heard about it was in a mailing from an old friend of mine who used to be my ISP. The way the letter came in, I thought he was organizing it and showed up to give him support.:)
This was a relatively quiet event. Now that we know it'll work, I expect that a ton of us locals will do our best to get the word out next time. I know I will.
...many thousands of hacker types are on their way to DEFCON 9 right now. (My plane leaves tonight). That might explain the lack of activity you're seeing.
The reason for this is that I only have datestamps for the times of the BBSes. Very few of the BBS lists (with the exception of the USBBS List) gave anything like a "time span" when describing a BBS, and the process is somewhat complicated for determining the time span in the USBBS list! As people have given me more accurate years, I've added them, and the time-span has grown.
I hope people don't call these numbers. Some are 10 years in the past.
Many of the listings now include the e-mail addresses and websites of the sysops who used to run the BBSes. I'd suggest sticking with those.
The Fire Escape BBS has been sent to me by a ton of people, with many different copies, and that's really helped to have 314 shoot ahead of a lot of the other area codes in terms of completeness (for the 1990's period) and accuracy of information. Thanks for all your work on that list; I'm sorry it didn't end up as positive at the end for you.
Slashdot Mirror
Rob Swindell has been interviewed for the documentary. BBSes are not dead, although dial-up BBSes have been in a relative decline. The documentary will cover the move to the Internet by many BBSes.
I have gigabytes of ANSI at the moment that I'm sorting through (Check out ansi.textfiles.com to look at them) but no, the footage so far is of actual people talking about things, including ANSI. (I have an interview with Rad Man of ACiD, Lord Soth of iCE, etc.)
In terms of "notable" Sysops, you'd have to be more specific. Dozens of the interviews I've done have been with Sysops, many of whom got some amount of fame within their scenes or groups of people.
"Notorius" sysops and traders, well, again, that's an odd classification to figure out. I am/will be interviewing people who were incarcerated over BBS activities. Is that what you mean?
The deal is: I want to tell the story of BBSes.
I switched to a boom mike after that interview. Cost a pretty penny and was well worth it. The sound of the interview is vitally important and I spent some time getting the right equipment for the job, which has worked out.
My girlfriend made it VERY clear she didn't want a big fat-ass diamond on her hand; she wanted something special. Black Pearl was mentioned, and so I had a mutual jeweller friend whip up a nice ring that I presented to her in the back of a Checker Marathon taxicab in Kalamazoo Michigan.
The ring's main item is a BLACK PEARL. Let me tell you, that gets a lot more attention than any diamond.
It looks like
this and this.
At the last second, I asked that he throw a few token diamonds around the edge. They were tiny, almost ornamental. And the ring barely scraped four figures. Barely.
Best choice we ever had, avoiding the fat-ass diamond.
There's a little difference between a show being pitched to a Network from the street, and the know-it-all guys who run your most consistently top-rated show for the last decade saying "So, we feel like making another show. Push over."
We don't know the relationship between the Simpsons people and FOX: It could be hostile, it could be friendly. Remember what Fox's solution was when the actors wanted more pay (after a decade of being on the show): Fire them all and bring in replacements.
I think you're glossing over things here.
The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA runs one or two different films every night, and a good number of Anime often enters the mix. They have a non-easy-to-remember URL for their website, so I registered brattletheatre.com and you can get to the schedule from there. Well worth the effort.
A modded-low writer mentions one of the Boston-Chinatown lines has a $10 each way fee, if you leave at 11:30pm, getting you in at roughly 3:30am or slightly later. I barely consider that an option (overnight on a bus is like hell on Earth), but it would be misleading for me to not revise and say yes, you could spend $10.
Well, first of all, it's not $10 - it's $15 if you leave during certain hours, and it can be anywhere from $20 to $35 depending on other factors.
Second, the Chinatown express takes you to just that - Chinatown. The Hackerbus is going to take you right to the front of the Hotel Pennsylvania. It'll pick you up in front of the Hotel Pennsylvania as well, on Sunday. Don't discount the pain in the ass of taking the trip to and fron Chinatown to the con. For example, I'm bringing video equipment and it's well worth it to me to take the bus and load my stuff that way.
Last of all, the price is only part of it (although the HackerBus is much better than train or air travel). The other thing is that every single person on the bus will be going to H2K2. Make friends, hang out, know what's going on, and the rest. Don't discount that part of it. How many people on the Chinatown bus you happen to choose (there's a couple lines, and buses leave at various hours) will be going to H2K2?
Enjoy your time with the chickens. I'll be on the HackerBus.
- Jason Scott, Hackerbus Organizer.
http://www.bbsdocumentary.com: The BBS Documentary, currently in production.
http://bbslist.textfiles.com: My list of BBSes, ever growing, and needing your help (and lists).
- Jason Scott
TEXTFILES.COM
Apparently you're unaware of the purpose of a "pitch".
The idea behind a pitch is to explain, in hopefully under a minute or two, why a project should get your attention, money, or time. It is intentionally focused on the positive, the sizzle, and above all the universal themes attached to your project. It is intended to grab your interest and make you do whatever it is you do, for the filmmaker/songwriter/artist.
At the bottom of the pitch, it invites you to take a more involved read into what I'm doing, and of course the bulk of my research is located on the website as well. I think it's interesting to note that further down this thread, I'm accused of being too negative about the history of the BBS! (That is, focusing too much on the busts in the timeline.) I address that issue as well.
I guarantee that I will cover both the positive and negative aspects of BBSes. Otherwise it's just a smear job, either way I bias it.
Write me if you want to be interviewed.
Apparently you haven't read the site or the text of this story. From what I submitted:
"...The list is not complete, but I've so far gotten a great list of interviewees who helped make the Dial-Up BBS what it is in history (and today, I rush to add)...."
That is, BBSes are very much alive. The documentary is primarily about the Dial-Up BBS, which has declined in the US and Canada but is experiencing a strong "aftershock" in other parts of the world. You can't argue that the BBS is as strong a presence in terms of pure dial-up as it was in, say, 1994, but I am not dancing on any graves prematurely or dismissing the efforts of today to bring the best parts of the "BBS Mentality" to the Internet and the world.
It's especially annoying when an anonymous coward insults your reasons for shooting a documentary and doesn't check the facts. For shame!
This is specifically what I am trying to avoid by doing the documentary.
The timeline is currently heavy on busts and negative events because they were the easiest to find in the media searches I've been doing. That's not where I'm going to leave it.
Through the hundreds (!!) of interviews I've got lined up, I can guarantee a much fuller picture will arrive of the experience of BBSes. If I wanted to bring another "Computer Undergr0und" documentary in the world, I'd hardly have had to bother with the work I've been doing contacting everyone from Ward Christensen to the current BBS sysops on the Internet.
I would, however, appreciate if people could mail me days and events they think should be covered. And don't just say "There was this thing that happened once, I can't remember when..." because that's what I'm already working with; I've got hundreds of events in my mind but it's difficult to nail them down.
The reason the timeline is currently so bust-heavy is because those events tend to have specific days attached to them, and could therefore be entered.
It's rather difficult to put an entry in the timeline like:
September 12, 1987: A warm sense of community floated throughout the Chattanooga BBS scene.
As I cover elsewhere, there's a very strong attempt on my part to get the people who were behind BBSes in for interviews. You'll get the sense of community from them.
There's certainly some information on those packages, in both the timeline and software information sections:
I V/
J OR BBS/
N EG ADE/
http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/IBM/MSDOS/WW
http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/IBM/MSDOS/MA
http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/IBM/MSDOS/RE
I admit that sections themselves are thin, but this has been because my biggest concerns have been retrieving information on more more obscure BBS packages, for example those that predate the Internet. I'll go by and flesh out these sets of you.
If you use the text-browser Lynx to browse the BBS Documentary site, the centering goes away. And if the idea of a text-based web-browser isn't of interest to you, you probably wouldn't have liked the documentary anyway.
Sorry, I'm a moron. I meant software.bbsdocumentary.com and not hostnet.net. Just goes to show that 5 previews is STILL not enough.
They probably mean building 20, an asbestos-tiled "temporary" structure built in 1943 during World War II that went on to be a vital place of innovation for 57 years. It was finally decomissioned and destroyed this year, but not before MIT pranksters made one last comment: sticking an MIT "discard property" tag on its side, a tag that indicates MIT has dropped it from inventory and the item can be removed. (Usually done for smaller pieces of MIT equipment, of course.)
Information on building 20:
http://tmrc.mit.edu/bldg20.html
While I can't speak for the product itself, I can tell you that I've known the CEO, Andrew Rubin, since I was 14. In fact, he ran one of the better BBSes I've been on, a huge multi-line BBS called "Spies in the Wire" that became "spies.com" and a mass of other things. I've kept in touch through the years (although he's harder to reach these past few, go figure), and Andy's always got his hand in something or somewhere cool. Beyond that, he's a great guy all around, who often gave great technology or computer resources away for free to people just to ensure that more folks could share in the fun (we're talking the 1980's, when it was a bit harder to get access to systems and resources beyond home use).
He's put in his dues as far as working at companies and startups are concerned, and I've seen him "walk the walk" when it came to actually producing neat stuff.
Good luck with the Danger, Andy!
- Jason Scott
TEXTFILES.COM
BBS Documentary?
The Documentary will definitely cover ANSI groups, ASCII art groups, .MODs (Music Files), RIP, and a host of other similar protocols that were important parts of the BBS experience.
At the VCF east, I picked up a Radio Shack Model 100 for $40, including case and manual, a bunch of old Creative Computing Issues for $1, and an obscure Psygnosis game for the Amiga called "ORK", shrinkwrapped, for $10.
Maybe I'm being weird, but this little Slashdot Blurb implies these older artifacts are going only for premiums, and that's not the case.
The way I heard about it was in a mailing from an old friend of mine who used to be my ISP. The way the letter came in, I thought he was organizing it and showed up to give him support. :)
This was a relatively quiet event. Now that we know it'll work, I expect that a ton of us locals will do our best to get the word out next time. I know I will.
I went on Saturday (got wrapped up in stuff and couldn't go back on Sunday). I took lots of pictures; they're here:
http://www.cow.net/album/VCF
I had a great time, guys! You bet I'll be there next year!
...many thousands of hacker types are on their way to DEFCON 9 right now. (My plane leaves tonight). That might explain the lack of activity you're seeing.
The reason for this is that I only have datestamps for the times of the BBSes. Very few of the BBS lists (with the exception of the USBBS List) gave anything like a "time span" when describing a BBS, and the process is somewhat complicated for determining the time span in the USBBS list! As people have given me more accurate years, I've added them, and the time-span has grown.
I hope people don't call these numbers. Some are 10 years in the past.
Many of the listings now include the e-mail addresses and websites of the sysops who used to run the BBSes. I'd suggest sticking with those.
The Fire Escape BBS has been sent to me by a ton of people, with many different copies, and that's really helped to have 314 shoot ahead of a lot of the other area codes in terms of completeness (for the 1990's period) and accuracy of information. Thanks for all your work on that list; I'm sorry it didn't end up as positive at the end for you.