| Bekki Doll |
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A cynical yet secular shiny retrogamer, thread ressurector and fan of the word "gay".
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Reged: 01/28/12
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Posts: 771
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Loc: Freeport, PA
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What if you had to use dialup BBSes today.
#277270 - 02/26/12 02:45 AM
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After booting up my ol' 486SX I got all misty-eyed for those good ol' 16-color ANSI days of BBSing. Back when Courier HST meant something with a 2GB hard drive and a few modems.
How many of us were huge into BBSing back in the late '80's and early '90s?
--Bekki
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Combating functional illiteracy with latex-clad drama since the '80s, because old video games rule!
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Re: What if you had to use dialup BBSes today.
[Re: Bekki Doll]
#277277 - 02/26/12 04:46 AM
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I ran a BBS in the 612 area code back in the early 90s, for about three years.
By the end, I was a hub to FidoNet and a smaller network between other local friend's systems.
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| DMala |
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Sleep is overrated
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Reged: 05/09/05
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Posts: 3989
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Loc: Waltham, MA
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Re: What if you had to use dialup BBSes today.
[Re: Bekki Doll]
#277280 - 02/26/12 05:25 AM
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> After booting up my ol' 486SX I got all misty-eyed for those good ol' 16-color ANSI
> days of BBSing. Back when Courier HST meant something with a 2GB hard drive and a few
> modems.
>
> How many of us were huge into BBSing back in the late '80's and early '90s?
I was way into BBSes in high school, in the early '90s. There were probably half a dozen or so in my area that I frequented. I got to use a bleeding edge (at the time) 9600 baud modem, because my dad brought one home from the Navy base where he worked so he could dial into the VAX systems and work from home.
The first one I ever connected to was the Software Creations BBS, in central MA, to download Wolfenstein 3D when it was first released. I remember having to get special permission from my dad because it was a long distance call.
Now that we can communicate with literally anyone on the planet in two clicks of a mouse, the whole thing seems kind of quaint and antiquated. It was very cool stuff at the time, though.
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| Andrew |
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Girl Watcher
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Reged: 09/21/03
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Posts: 5082
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Loc: Boston, Mass.
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Re: What if you had to use dialup BBSes today.
[Re: Bekki Doll]
#277296 - 02/26/12 08:28 AM
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> How many of us were huge into BBSing back in the late '80's
Oh man I miss the days of using Crosstalk, ProComm, and Qmodem to get on all the BBSs and Compuserve. Can't remember the modem brand I used at work though. Some of the GIFs I still have from those days have the BBS phone number watermarked on them, only evidence I got.
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A story of one man and his obsession with the female anatomy.
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Re: What if you had to use dialup BBSes today.
[Re: Bekki Doll]
#277298 - 02/26/12 08:30 AM
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I started BBSing with a lovely 1200 bps modem back in the day... those speeds were fun. :P
Finally upgraded to a (then) state of the art 28800 bps modem when I purchased my brand new 486SX/33MHz. That bad boy also had a 130MB hard drive and a 1X CD-ROM drive. Bought several CD-ROM based games with the system (including The 7th Guest), so I was in gaming heaven AND I had fast access to Legend of the Red Dragon.
Wasn't long before I bought a copy of Wildcat and started my own BBS. I started pulling FidoNet feeds, but it didn't really catch on like I thought it would. Most people in my area just wanted to play Trade Wars, LORD, and Usurper. Ran the BBS for about 3 years and then a hard drive crash took it down for good.
Kind of hated to see it go, but some of the drama between the local users had gotten to be a little much. Was like watching a soap opera unfold right there on my system. (I know for a fact that a user met his mistress on my BBS and ended up in a divorce over it)
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| Bekki Doll |
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A cynical yet secular shiny retrogamer, thread ressurector and fan of the word "gay".
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Reged: 01/28/12
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Posts: 771
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Loc: Freeport, PA
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Re: What if you had to use dialup BBSes today.
[Re: lordflux]
#277364 - 02/26/12 09:57 PM
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Quote:
Wasn't long before I bought a copy of Wildcat and started my own BBS. I started pulling FidoNet feeds, but it didn't really catch on like I thought it would. Most people in my area just wanted to play Trade Wars, LORD, and Usurper. Ran the BBS for about 3 years and then a hard drive crash took it down for good.
One of my favorite boards was in Columbus, OH known as the "Dead Leeeeeeeech Society BBS & Mortuary" (where a good leeeeeeeech is a Dead Leeeeeeeech). It was a very warped board running WildCat! and was the home for various utilities for that specific BBS software (the sysop/author really hated how the existing WC! utils for WCDISP to ANSI weren't very good so he rolled his own).
The running joke was that there were no ratios so anyone was free to download anything and everything, hence the leech reference. As for the "dead" part he kept a small archive of login screens from dead BBSes. The sysop was also a Howard Stern fan, RHPS and horror movie buff and was really into candelabras. Another of his gripes was that not all term software could handle ASCII 127 to display the candles' flames properly so he had to change to another character. He even made a fabric flag with the candelabra logo with the proper flames.
As serious as it ass appear to sound it had some serious humor that pokes fun at a lot of BBS standards. On his local forums the occasional "Five Word Message Thread" would break out without warning and those would last for weeks until they died out or started elsewhere. It got to the point that top posters would rank past 100,000 in total messages sent due to those threads. So it wasn't unusual for hacks to be done to the ranking software to allow for the extra sixth digit. Earlier the reporting software had to be hacked just to overcome the 16-bit integer limitation. ;-)
Fro networked forums the sysop really didn't like FidoNet. But he did have feeds to WildNet! and other small networked conferences. With a decent QWK reader I was able to browse my favorite conferences offline and it would only take me a few seconds to exchange QWK/REP packets (the sysop prebundled my QWK's for no-wait downloads).
It was one of my favorite BBS. Geeky, not very serious and fun! The sysop had a LOT of doorgames set up but the only one I played now and then was "Netrunner" (I was into cyberpunk stuff back then). It was that place that got me into ANSI and coding. And sometimes I wonder if the sysop is still alive.
I may have to do a bit of research and give him a call. :-)
I was also on a bunch of WWIV BBSes which were quite fun as well. I was even a part of the underground before the Internet got commercialized and was opened up to the public. It reached that point that I even had my favorite file transmission protocol (Ymodem/G at 33.6kbaud) and term client (Telemate). I wasn't much of a leech but was more of a contributor, uploading more than I leeched.
Fun times. Then I moved back from Columbus, Ohio to Western Pennsylvania and realized that the Pittsburgh BBS scene didn't match up with the midwest. So I kept in touch with my faraway friends. As least until the Internet caught my attention.
There's more but I'll leave it at that. :-)
--Bekki
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Combating functional illiteracy with latex-clad drama since the '80s, because old video games rule!
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Re: What if you had to use dialup BBSes today.
[Re: Bekki Doll]
#277366 - 02/26/12 10:05 PM
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Ran a QuickBBS/Remote Access (dropped QBBS around the time they started having development issues after the original author sold it) BBS with my father in the 480 area code for about ten years and called BBSes for about fifteen years.
I believe my board was one of the first in the area to have a 1GB HD full of downloads. That drive was truly expensive at the time, though, let me tell you!
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Try checking the MAME manual at http://docs.mamedev.org
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| Bekki Doll |
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A cynical yet secular shiny retrogamer, thread ressurector and fan of the word "gay".
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Reged: 01/28/12
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Posts: 771
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Loc: Freeport, PA
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Re: What if you had to use dialup BBSes today.
[Re: Firehawke]
#277367 - 02/26/12 10:25 PM
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Quote:
I believe my board was one of the first in the area to have a 1GB HD full of downloads. That drive was truly expensive at the time, though, let me tell you!
Oh yeah! One WaReZ BBS I was on where I knew the sysops IRL ran a 2GB HD that cost two grand circa 1992. Today you can find 2GB SD cards for around $5 USD.
Because of the expense of hard drives some boards went for CD-ROM jukeboxes. With how inexpensive raw storage is today one can't help but be reminded of PC-SIG and Nightowl CD-ROM shareware distros. Back then 650MB of stuff on CD-ROM was seen as awesome. :-)
Back then the main reason I gravitated towards the Internet was the access to worldwide FTP servers.
--Bekki
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Combating functional illiteracy with latex-clad drama since the '80s, because old video games rule!
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Re: What if you had to use dialup BBSes today.
[Re: Bekki Doll]
#277404 - 02/27/12 01:27 AM
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Having used a 1200 bps modem in the past, I stayed away from the heavy ANSI images, doors, mods, etc. Don't get me wrong, I thought the heavy graphic boards were cool and unique (both ANSI and RIP style), but they weren't for my board.
One of the primary things I tried to do was keep the latest and greatest shareware software available on my site. Would frequent the Software Creations BBS and pull the latest versions of the popular Apogee/3D Realms and ID Software games. Guess I mostly shaped the board into something that *I* would personally enjoy and it seemed to please users in the area. Would receive about 150-160 calls per day which was pretty good for my area (central Georgia).
Ran it from mid '93 to early '96 if I remember correctly... almost 3 full years.
I often think about the people I met through BBSing and hope they are doing well. Tried to stay in touch with a few of them over the years, but people move, phone numbers get changed... and... that's how it goes.
We didn't get Internet in our area until '97. My jaw hit the floor when I obtained access... so much information.
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| DMala |
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Sleep is overrated
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Reged: 05/09/05
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Posts: 3989
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Loc: Waltham, MA
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Re: What if you had to use dialup BBSes today.
[Re: Andrew]
#277417 - 02/27/12 02:53 AM
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> > How many of us were huge into BBSing back in the late '80's
>
> Oh man I miss the days of using Crosstalk, ProComm, and Qmodem to get on all the BBSs
> and Compuserve. Can't remember the modem brand I used at work though. Some of the
> GIFs I still have from those days have the BBS phone number watermarked on them, only
> evidence I got.
Ha, very nearly got myself in some hot water downloading GIFs back then.
Most BBSes had a scheme where you would fax the sysop a copy of your license to prove you were 18 and get access to the adult areas, but I found one that was on the honor system. It had a scary warning page, but then anyone could just go in. You of course know what the honor system is worth when it comes between a horny 14- or 15-year-old and boobies. I was stupid, though, and didn't make an account that said I was 18, I would just go right in using my regular account with my real birth date.
My mom worked a part-time job at the time, so I had about three hours to myself after school most days. When the mood struck me, I would log in, download a couple of images, and stash them away on an unmarked floppy buried among a bunch of them on my shelf. I got away with it for months, then one day in the middle of a transfer I got knocked offline. While I was trying to figure out what happened, the phone rang. I nervously picked it up and an extremely irritated sounding man asked for my dad by name. I said he wasn't home and offered to take a message, and the person said they would just call back later. I spent the rest of the evening on eggshells, just waiting for the phone to ring. At one point it did, and I very nearly jumped out of my skin, but it turned out to be just my aunt calling.
Whoever it was never called back, as far as I know. From the timing and sequence of events, I assume it was the sysop who spotted me downloading porn, kicked me off, got my dad's name from the phone book based on my profile info, and called up to bust me, but I never actually found out 100% for sure. All I know is I walked the straight and narrow for a good long time after that.
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