Best BBS Memories? 154
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."
What is algebra, exactly? Is it one of those three-cornered things? -- J.M. Barrie
CONNECT 1200 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:CONNECT 1200 (Score:1, Informative)
In the UK... (Score:5, Interesting)
You see, we pay even for our local calls here, which did put rather a downer on the whole BBS thing.
I remember being envious of the US with the free local calls thing.
"Back in the day" in the UK it was not uncommon to get phone bills of around $300 a month for BBS usage at wonderful 2400 baud.
Then of course we got the "high speed" 9600 model modems. Ahh nostalgia.
Re:In the UK... (Score:2)
Re:In the UK... (Score:2)
When I was 10 years old... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:When I was 10 years old... (Score:3, Interesting)
Memories of playing Legend Of the Red Dragon in the early 90s, my first chatroom, learning what shareware was for the first time... All things I fondly remember. Getting laid by Violet back then somehow made me feel like more of a man (er, boy)
And the cool thing is they were all local for the most part ('cept those comming in from telnet, of course). Some of the best memories I have, for instance, are from years after that B
Re:When I was 10 years old... (Score:3, Informative)
Check here. [bbsmates.com] This website is set up to reunite BBS users. Note: I am not affiliated, just happen to know of it.
Re:When I was 10 years old... (Score:2)
Some of my favorite memories are probably of playing DOOM (with the Brickyard map) on the local Dayton Gamenet. There was a great multiline BBS called "The Living City." I believe that it ran off of an Amiga. It had quite a local following. Also, I can remember having one of the fastest modems around... It was a Zoom Telephonics
Re:When I was 10 years old... (Score:2)
Being a yonger
Anyway, I like telnetting into my favorite BBS [darktech.org] and playing all those text mode games.. (and robbing the minutes bank)
Too sad that Linux telnet + KDE Konsole can't handle ASCII color shading effects
Re:When I was 10 years old... (Score:2)
Internet, BBSes and 802.11 (Score:2)
That reach doesn't replace the BBS.
The best thing I remember about BBSes was being able to get out and meet people, there was even the odd adult BBS (one without porn... and open enough that couples would hang around on.), people would be able to get together for dinner, picnics, all sorts of stuff.
The Internet killed those BBSes, so now for the mostpart, I can't meet the people I chat with or game with. That social scene died.
I rather hope that wireless networking can do something to replace it. Fr
Re:Internet, BBSes and 802.11 (Score:2)
Some guy took a big-ass 1980's-style ghetto blaster and fitted it with (stolen from Linuxjournal.com): a Via mini-ITX motherboard, wireless interface card hooked to an antenna, Debian (Woody) loaded onto a CompactFlash card, and a 120GB hard drive.
Here's the idea. He takes this ghetto blaster and rips out the internals. It's for show, only. Puts in some basic computer bits along with a 802.11b WiFi card. Runs a public AP. When peopl
My first porn .GIF (Score:5, Funny)
In the third, no wait, fourth world ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember expensive phone bills (which my dad covered at the time of course, it's a good thing DSL finally found our little country by the time of my financial independance), and a terrible sense of envy for the folks with 9600 and 14400 connections (i had a 2400 modem).
On a more positive note though, i got a 24 hour reminder of the whole 'BBS era' thing, since i met my wife in one of those networks
Re:In the third, no wait, fourth world ... (Score:4, Interesting)
The Best Part... (Score:3, Funny)
as a sysop.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:as a sysop.. (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Thor (Score:2)
Re:Thor (Score:2)
Sex (Score:4, Funny)
LORD (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sex (Score:3, Funny)
"Cranx didn't care what they would say"...
"He killed in the town, the lands"...
"He wanted evil's blood, on his hands"...
"A true man was Cranx, a warrior proud"...
"He voiced his opinions meekly, never very loud"
"But he ain't no wimp, he took Violet to bed"...
"He's definately a man, at least that's what she said!"
The song makes you glad you are male!
YOU RECEIVE TWO EXTRA FOREST FIGHTS!
Trade wars 2002 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Trade wars 2002 (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone? Bueller?
Trade Wars (Score:2)
Re:Trade wars 2002 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Trade wars 2002 (Score:2)
I'll raise you a Global Wars while I'm at it.
And maybe a "King of the Board" trivia game
Legend of the Red Dragon (Score:2)
Re:Trade wars 2002 (Score:2)
wormhole add on (Score:2)
Anyone use Mad Hatter's Worm-hole add-on? There were ALL kinds of bugs associated with it.
I remember running bigbang.exe and giving it 30-45 mins to create an universe.
I really miss Tradewars. It was an incredible game.
Soundtrack music files (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Soundtrack music files (Score:2)
They sound really good mixed at 48KHz.
Re:Soundtrack music files (Score:2)
Virginia Tech ROLM Phone Network (Score:2, Interesting)
RIP Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate
RDI (Score:4, Interesting)
To be young and phreakin' again...
(tig)
Re:RDI (Score:2)
Re:RDI (Score:2)
Thankfully there still is a demoscene around, though it has maybe lost a bit of the orginal flavor. You can listen to some of the old & new tunes at http://www.scenemusic.net/.
Re:RDI (Score:2)
As always, please correct me as necessary.
(tig)
Tradewars (Score:1)
My mammories (Score:2)
For the first time, having access to really whacked out text documents, like the one about how Reagan's SDI ("Star Wars") program was not about defending against nuclear strikes but really about defending against alien invasion...
Playing a serial MUD. There were multiple players, which was cool (even cooler because I knew most of them), but since the BBS had only one phone line, only one person could play at once. (I imagine this
My first BBS experience? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My first BBS experience? (Score:2)
The upnote is one of the orginals apparenlty has the hardware and is in the process of setting up a new home for it and plans on having it up and running again sometime later this month. So the BBS that used to bill themselves as "The world's largest bbs" back in early 90s will live again.
Re:My first BBS experience? (Score:2)
Re:My first BBS experience? (Score:2)
Skeepa Troll (Score:4, Funny)
The ski resort motif was complete enough that whenever the BBS program encounted a software error, it would say "AVALANCH" and dump you off line.
Across town there was Worm-O-Net. This was run on a Commodore 64 with a very common and very bad Commodore 64 BBS program (something even worse than C-Net). They did NOT have Auto Answer. Run by the Worm family, you connected to it by dialing the number with the modem. On the other end, little Tina Worm would answer the phone, see if she heard a screech, and then turn on the BBS software.
L.O.R.D, Star Wars MUD, The ANSI Artwork... (Score:1)
Warez back then just rocked too, when programs that were over 100 megs was unheard of, and nearly every BBS in my area had them.
Meeting my wife (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Meeting my wife (Score:2)
Good times.
BBS Memory I'd Like to Forget (Score:2, Funny)
Datormagazin (Score:2)
So at age 25, I'm supposed to be all ancient now? Wow. Anyway, I have very fond memories of the BBSes I used to dial with my 2400 bps modem. Unfortunately no local ones were available and I had to dial long-distance. My favourite BBS, particularly at first, was that owned by a great geek C64/Amiga magazine called Datormagazin (legendary in Scandinavia in the late eightees and early to mid ninetees). It had debates better
*@#$*&^#^%$NO CARRIER (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry.
Re:*@#$*&^#^%$NO CARRIER (Score:2)
I remember borrowing some random terminal from my dad and running about 100 feet of phone line outside of the house so that I could connect an old-skool phone to my 300 baud acoustic coupler in my room when I was home sick.
I remember telemate, and redialing bbs'es that had only *ONE* line.
I remember paying money to be part of S.P.A.C.E bbs and downloading file
Chat-BBS (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was 15 years old I got my first modem. And my cousin was sysop for two local (I'm from Munich) BBS's, one was a chat-BBS called StadtNet.
It literally changed my life, since for the first time I met people with whom I could talk about computers (noone in my suburb was into programming, and by the age of 15 I already knew four or five programming languages). But the most important part was that since we were all from Munich or from suburbs of Munich we did a lot together, like having brunch every Sunday or meeting at different restaurant every Tuesday, going to the cinema together, having parties, etc.
I met a lot of people that heavily influenced me because they really impressed me (like a guy who was a real old-school gentleman... it really did me good to have known such a guy, helped later on with flirting to have learned from him ;-)
FidoNet? (Score:1)
Re:FidoNet? (Score:2)
There is a BBS documentary in the works (Score:2, Informative)
BBS parties (Score:2)
After moving 1500 miles from where I grew up, and not knowning any of the locals, meeting fellow geeks at a local BBS party has to rank up there pretty high for me.
1989, a Mac SE, Zterm, and 1200 baud. (Score:2)
A bunch of us played an RPG game on one of his BBS forums. That was a trip. Basically the GM would give us the setup overnight and we would have all day to write up our actions. Some of us coordinated our plans by telephone. Then the GM would read our messages and respond accordingly. During the thick of it, we were doing two rounds a day.
BBS's and GEnie (which was like Compuserve or early AOL) got me through the half-dozen years between having
MUD BBS (Score:2, Interesting)
Most of my boarding occured in Texas, most notably on After Hours BBS, Adrenalyze (later just called Adren), and Adam's Garden.
Through these boards, I made the best friends of my teens, some of which I still talk to now (and others, I've lost contact with for eons, and then seemed to re-meet 8 years later on some random MUD). I also recall having two short-lived boards of my own, one running Renegade, the other running MajorBBS (which la
Usurper (Score:2)
C-Net (Score:2)
I'm sure there were still some C-Net BBS's running when someone decided to use the name as an Internet news/download site. When I first heard of www.cnet.com [cnet.com], I wondered "Why bring a bad BBS into the Internet era?"
Re:C-Net (Score:2)
Both C-Net and Image are well regarded for being very programmable (used an ML core but most of the functions and game modules are moifyable BASIC) and they are very stable - I have my BBS running for MONTHS without even looking at it. (minor syntax errors in the modules just makes the board jump back to a main prompt, and add a report to th
Re:C-Net (Score:2)
Re:C-Net (Score:2)
Re:C-Net (Score:2)
Re:C-Net (Score:2)
Do you have ANY version of the C-Net or New Image "Empire" P-Files???
I had also written a message board networking system for C-Net and New Image.. was working on making it comp
A major high point of my life ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I wrote my own software that ran on a Microport Unix system. I had an assistant named REM, and he kept on telling me SCO was better, but I could never afford it. Considering current developments, I thought that was worth noting.
My system was always crashing because I was running it on flaky hardware. Unfortunately, revenues from my rates ($7.50/month, $35/6months, $60/year) were enough to pay the phone bill and maybe give me a few bucks in spending money, but not nearly enough to replace the hardware.
I wrote the software myself, including a very nice WELL-like public board system. The boards would be intelligent one day and horrible flamewars the next. I never figured out how to balance free speech versus flames, a problem that I think was solved pretty well on Slashdot. Perhaps if I'd had the time to think things through instead of having a real job, I could have figured it out. But of course there were no revenues.
I had a fancy dating questionnaire system, which I still think was the best in the industry. It let you answer questions multiple choice and by writing essays, whichever you liked better. Unfortunately, with only five phone lines plus one "secret" one outside of the rotary, there weren't enough lines for a real chat board, and I didn't have the bucks to expand.
When the hardware finally died, so did the system. A few years later I became a minor-league ISP but things were never the same. The BBS world was a lot more fun.
I got spoiled by the local nature of the BBS, where everyone knew your name, and you could put together parties at local restaurants and the like. It was so much nicer then than the current, more anonymous and harder to crack, community. Even after 1,500-odd posts on Slashdot, I don't feel I really know anyone; it's just too big.
But on the BBS, I knew everyone.
My love life never recovered from dropping out of the BBS world
D
memories (Score:5, Funny)
Me to dad: Don't worry, I got about $1000 worth of free software.
Re:memories (Score:2)
Back in '91, I was in my freshman year at Drexel. I quickly discovered BBSing and before I bought my own modem at home I was using the four Mac SE/30s with dial-out capability they had in the computer center for hours at a time, basically doing nothing but downloading software. Often I would turn down the brightness on the screens all the way, so people wouldn't notice what was going on-- then I'd go to class, and return to load up the box of blank floppies in my backpack with the now-d
this line of reasoning sounds familiar... (Score:5, Funny)
Wife to me: Don't worry, I got about $1000 worth.
The Day I Got my Dual Standard... (Score:5, Interesting)
The 9600/14.4 modem retailed for almost $1500 in the late Eighties, and there was a sysop's discount of 50%. It took me months to save up that $795 plus shipping. I had them ship it to my office so I wouldn't miss being there to receive it. Fortunately my immediate boss (who also operated a BBS) had an appreciation of the finer things in life, and we spent half the afternoon looking at it, reading its large and content-filled manuals, and going over what I would need to do to to get it to function with my Fido/Opus BBS setup.
I well remember stopping by Baynesville Electronics to pick up my 16550/AFN UART, and as well the new driver chips. These were quickly installed, and I set to work after supper configuring the system and the modem. It had a wonderfully rich and complex set of registers and commands; you could get it do do just about anything you wanted. Friends passed around prized init strings the way church ladies pass around prized recipes, and I received several "Heard you got your modem. How's it going?" phone calls that evening. I had it up and running by midnight. Most fun was to watch the mail transfers running along at warp speed. The final touch: Adding that prized "HST" to the BBS's tag line. Noblesse oblige, and I became a mail point with the next Nodelist update.
I mostly remember two things:
First, I enjoyed and greatly miss the sense of community among most of the BBS sysops of that net--Net-261. Knowledge was shared freely, help was forthcoming, and the group was an extended family. I formed friendships that are still valued almost twenty years later. We often got together personally, and our families got to know one another as well.
Second, there's never been a piece of hardware as much fun to work on as a modem that's intended to drive a BBS.
Anne
The Keeping Room: Opus 1:261/1055 HST
Gone these many years, but never forgotten
Re:The Day I Got my Dual Standard... (Score:2)
i think it's 99 dollars to upgrade it from 16.8 to v.90 with a daughterboard.
Re:The Day I Got my Dual Standard... (Score:2)
Still around.. (Score:2, Informative)
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
My BBS memories... (Score:1)
Downloads: MODs, Shareware Demos (DukeNuken, Stunts, Wolf3d, Doom)
Dwango - for you Doom players out there, it was local for us Houston,TX-folk.
My computer when i started BBSing was a 286, 40Mb HD, EGA monitor, 2400baud modem. This was all given to me by a now good friend of mine. Thanks Stevie G!
Right after Wolf and Doom, i realized i needed one of those fast 386/DX machines, so again Steve hooked me up. got a 386/DX-66, 4Mb, 125Mb HD, VGA, and a 14.4baud... i was ready
My favourite BBS (Score:1)
Unfortunately, the day I upgraded to 14.4k was the day he shut down.
Fidonet Used Book Squad (Score:2)
Chatting on local message boards and then discovering Fidonet. Back then I hung out in the Fidonet SF Echo. One day someone in the echo mentioned that he had been looking for a particular book that was OOP and couldn't find it at any of the local used bookstores. Somebody elsewhere in the country said "Hey, I saw that book the
"The Uke" and Fidonet (Score:2)
Also, I ran one of the very few Apple II based Fidonet nodes, "Radio Free Earth". I got to be a moderator for the Apple and Writing echoes (e.g.
Re:"The Uke" and Fidonet (Score:2)
So what's my Prize?
Re:"The Uke" and Fidonet (Score:2)
Sorry, no cookie. The second line in the second verse is "Because a genuine hawaii ukulele cost me 30 guineas".
But at least that was an honest attempt. Sooner or later someone will Google it out as an instrument supposedly played by Brian May of Queen on "A Night At The Opera". For all I know he really did play one. But that's where the name's from.
Why, the disconnects of course! (Score:4, Funny)
Thank God Zmodem came along...
Earliest BBS memory: piracy! (Score:2)
That was the "first one's free!" experience that set me on the long road to internet addiction. And that was also the day I began to dislike the woefully un-modemed Tandy 1000 my parents had gotten me.
~Philly
RyBBS representin' (Score:2)
Circa 1990, while in college at Lawrence University [lawrence.edu] I ran RyBBS, written by Greg Ryan [ecommandos.com], from my dorm room (in Plantz Hall [lawrence.edu], the jock dorm) at night, from 7pm to 7am. The hardware was a Tandy IBM 8088 and a 2400 baud modem. Memories:
Re:RyBBS representin' (Score:2)
Damn, I can't spell. I should have used mozex [mozdev.org] to edit the textbox with emacs and ran a spell checker.
Blast from the Past (Score:2)
Oh, and if all this BBS talk has stirred up the sysop
Several (Score:2)
Downloading SLS Linux at 2400 baud (With thanks to a kindly sysop who agreed to waive the u/d ratio for the 30 floppies worth). It had kernel 0.96 or so. Certainly a huge step up from Windows 3.1 and DOS.
The elation of getting MNP 5 and not having to backspace over line noise any more (but there was still the sysop's cat walking on the keyboard).
Trying to guess how many days it would take for a message to propigate through fidonet.
Playing 24 games of chess one move per night per game through the chess
WWIV mods... (Score:2)
WWIV was the most popular BBS system in my area, and of course it had it's WWIVnet that had message boards networked across the country.
On WWIVnet people would post mods to the source code for WWIV (which was available if you registered for $50). I got $50 from my Mom so I could get the source code (being around 14 at the time). I started downloading the mods from the local BBSes and the messa
Re:WWIV mods... (Score:2)
Re:WWIV mods... (Score:2)
I could've swore it was supposed to be 5.0 that was done in C, but never happened.. oh well. Memories get less accurate when not accessed in years and years.
When i got my USRobotics 16.8k Dual Standard (Score:2)
Synchronet (Score:2)
Synchronet is still a very popular piece of BBS software that's used by a great number of BBS's worldwide even today. It's still being actively developed, and is 100% open source, running on Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and a handful of others (including Win32.) Its features are beginning to rival even those of WorldGroup, with all its built-in services. It can even run old-school DOS doors under Linux by using DOSEMU. When you compare this to other BBS packages out there (such as Falken BBS, which
TW2K2 (Score:2)
Multi-line chatboards (Score:2)
Coining 'x-philes' (Score:2)
PCjr + 2 modems = multiuser BBS (Score:2)
POPnet.... (Score:2)
And of course, who could forget spending hours buried in the text files of the Temple of the [totse.com]
PC Pursuit and Flash Attack (Score:2)
Flash Attack was one of the more interesting of the ANSI-Graphics games that ran over the Major BBS system. I'd love to see a modern update running over TCP/IP.
The barrier to entry kept the riff-raff out... (Score:2)
"Wtf? Do they expect their listeners to know what that sound means?"
"Hmm, maybe this is getting big enough that they do."
"Oh well. There goes the neighborhood."
BBS parties were great! All my friends' parents thought I was the "good kid", so they wouldn't get to go to parties unl