NJ: Attic Static DDIAL? 2AM BBS? Drew Underground
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Remembering the BBS
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· Score: 1
Here's my story, not that anyone cares:-)
Sigh... I started BBS'ing in New Jersey (201/908) middle school in '85 on a friend's borrowed 300 baud 1650 modem. I was badly *hooked* and couldn't live without it after I received a 300 baud Mitey Mo (Commodore) modem for my birthday.
At that point I owned a computer for many years and was already a decent BASIC/ASM programmer.
I eventually evolved to a 1670, which was a damn fine Commodore 1200 baud modem. I could call a BBS by phone and know if it was a 1670 or not by the way it'd respond if you whistled into the receiver (the 1670 would hang up *instantly*) I used to be obsessed with the # of clicks heard after the remote modem would hang up. Yes, I was that far gone.
That was a magical time. I soon discovered "Phone Man" software and calling card war dialers and had all types of good phun... until I was caught by US Metro. I cleaned up my act real fast.:-) I also had an interesting chemistry hobby from the online "cookbooks" which became notorious in the schools I attended. Whoops, the pressure sensitive iodine crystals REALLY work. Of course if I was like that now I would have been expelled or accused of being a terrorist or some other B.S.. How times have changed.
Does anyone remember all of those old cracking groups? UCF? Eagle Soft (ESI?) Razor? 1911? Some of the stuff they did, the crack intros, were freaking brilliant.
I remember pissing a Central NJ BBS Sysop off named "The Tarantula Keeper", who was a young mad genius in his own right. He was my age and called my parents at 3am one morning bitching about my behavior on his system. We later became friends and he fixed my 1541 drive with a multimeter and a soldering gun when it died about a year afterwards. Uh, he was like 13 years old then.
I quickly started a BBS running 6485 BBS by "Ivory Joe".. on a C-64 w/ single 1541 floppy in the summer of 85... I also remember AABBS. I'd go to bed when my parents forced me to and whenever I'd hear my floppy spin up I'd run over to see who was logging on. Of course usually I'd stay up all night hacking away. Sometimes I'd pee in a cup and pour it out my window so my parents wouldn't know I was awake. I ran a BBS off and on from 85-93 and eventually this C-64 system evolved to C-128 running eBBS by Ed Parry, various C-Net versions (which is still IMHO the best BBS software ever written), and so on.. Ken Pletzer, one of the C-Net authors, was a programming God:-)
In middle school I'd make mods to this older (adult) man's C-Net system who lived down the street. This guy was so cool that he even had a 20 meg external hard drive on his C-64! In exchange for my coding he'd supply me with, ahem, videos. Yes, I had a few early Traci Lords tapes.. Faces of Deaths, and even Caligula..
Well, I had them until my mom busted me. I stupidly ratted the guy out which effectively ended that porn supply channel.
My grades sucked hard because I didn't give a sh?t about school and spent all of my time on the computer. Of course I was smarter than most of my peers and teachers so it was a waste of time anyway. Ironically my parents used to take away my computer gear when I'd flunk classes. The only time I made honor roll was when my old man told me he'd buy me a C-128 if I did.
Eventually moved through the Amiga and to an IBM PC first running Colossus BBS and then 2AM by Neil Clark from Drew University. That was great software and the first BBS program I actually *bought*! After time I wrote most of a BBS program with a good friend "Drone" from DroneFone BBS in QuickBasic. I guess this was around 1987/8.
In 87 I briefly ran QBBS and even got on Fidonet!
I took a few years off from computers from 88-90 when I discovered heavy metal, girls, guitars, and alcohol. I grew my hair long, sold all my computers and bought a guitar and amp... I killed many brain cells during that period and had great times. But I couldn't stay away from my first love..
In 1990 my old man put about $15,000 into my biz idea of a 8 line system (7x2400 1xHST) with 2 CD-Rom drives running G-Comm. This was heavy duty during that time.. We advertised in the back of Computer Shopper magazine and built a very active system with a huge file library. The BBS ran for several months before it was shut down for personal reasons but I learned C programming and an incredible amount of general business tactics. What a GREAT *practical* education that prepared me for "real life"...
I eventually worked as a software developer for the largest (& most successful) commercial BBS software company in the world before leaving in 93 to join the dot.com craze. RIP Tim Stryker, you ruled.
As David Lee Roth sang, "Those were Good Times."
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Here's my story, not that anyone cares :-)
Sigh... I started BBS'ing in New Jersey (201/908) middle school in '85 on a friend's borrowed 300 baud 1650 modem. I was badly *hooked* and couldn't live without it after I received a 300 baud Mitey Mo (Commodore) modem for my birthday.
At that point I owned a computer for many years and was already a decent BASIC/ASM programmer.
I eventually evolved to a 1670, which was a damn fine Commodore 1200 baud modem. I could call a BBS by phone and know if it was a 1670 or not by the way it'd respond if you whistled into the receiver (the 1670 would hang up *instantly*) I used to be obsessed with the # of clicks heard after the remote modem would hang up. Yes, I was that far gone.
That was a magical time. I soon discovered "Phone Man" software and calling card war dialers and had all types of good phun... until I was caught by US Metro. I cleaned up my act real fast. :-) I also had an interesting chemistry hobby from the online "cookbooks" which became notorious in the schools I attended. Whoops, the pressure sensitive iodine crystals REALLY work. Of course if I was like that now I would have been expelled or accused of being a terrorist or some other B.S.. How times have changed.
Does anyone remember all of those old cracking groups? UCF? Eagle Soft (ESI?) Razor? 1911? Some of the stuff they did, the crack intros, were freaking brilliant.
I remember pissing a Central NJ BBS Sysop off named "The Tarantula Keeper", who was a young mad genius in his own right. He was my age and called my parents at 3am one morning bitching about my behavior on his system. We later became friends and he fixed my 1541 drive with a multimeter and a soldering gun when it died about a year afterwards. Uh, he was like 13 years old then.
I quickly started a BBS running 6485 BBS by "Ivory Joe" .. on a C-64 w/ single 1541 floppy in the summer of 85... I also remember AABBS. I'd go to bed when my parents forced me to and whenever I'd hear my floppy spin up I'd run over to see who was logging on. Of course usually I'd stay up all night hacking away. Sometimes I'd pee in a cup and pour it out my window so my parents wouldn't know I was awake. I ran a BBS off and on from 85-93 and eventually this C-64 system evolved to C-128 running eBBS by Ed Parry, various C-Net versions (which is still IMHO the best BBS software ever written), and so on.. Ken Pletzer, one of the C-Net authors, was a programming God :-)
In middle school I'd make mods to this older (adult) man's C-Net system who lived down the street. This guy was so cool that he even had a 20 meg external hard drive on his C-64! In exchange for my coding he'd supply me with, ahem, videos. Yes, I had a few early Traci Lords tapes.. Faces of Deaths, and even Caligula..
Well, I had them until my mom busted me. I stupidly ratted the guy out which effectively ended that porn supply channel.
My grades sucked hard because I didn't give a sh?t about school and spent all of my time on the computer. Of course I was smarter than most of my peers and teachers so it was a waste of time anyway. Ironically my parents used to take away my computer gear when I'd flunk classes. The only time I made honor roll was when my old man told me he'd buy me a C-128 if I did.
Eventually moved through the Amiga and to an IBM PC first running Colossus BBS and then 2AM by Neil Clark from Drew University. That was great software and the first BBS program I actually *bought*! After time I wrote most of a BBS program with a good friend "Drone" from DroneFone BBS in QuickBasic. I guess this was around 1987/8.
In 87 I briefly ran QBBS and even got on Fidonet!
I took a few years off from computers from 88-90 when I discovered heavy metal, girls, guitars, and alcohol. I grew my hair long, sold all my computers and bought a guitar and amp... I killed many brain cells during that period and had great times. But I couldn't stay away from my first love..
In 1990 my old man put about $15,000 into my biz idea of a 8 line system (7x2400 1xHST) with 2 CD-Rom drives running G-Comm. This was heavy duty during that time.. We advertised in the back of Computer Shopper magazine and built a very active system with a huge file library. The BBS ran for several months before it was shut down for personal reasons but I learned C programming and an incredible amount of general business tactics. What a GREAT *practical* education that prepared me for "real life"...
I eventually worked as a software developer for the largest (& most successful) commercial BBS software company in the world before leaving in 93 to join the dot.com craze. RIP Tim Stryker, you ruled.
As David Lee Roth sang, "Those were Good Times."