Who here remembers old school BBSs?

Remember dialing up directly to access a BBS? The time before the web took off? Spitfire, PCBoard? Upload/download ratios? FILEID.DIZ? FIDONet?

Ahh, those were good times. These days are way better I suppose but one can't help but feel a bit nostalgic.

 

[warcleric]

Of course, I used to run a 14 node BBS out of Savannah, GA called "1969". I was a member of Night Owl, Rusty and Edie's, Launch Pad, and a plethora of others....it isnt any better today, just faster and more broad reaching. The advantages of the old days were numerous but a couple of the major ones are, the users were real computer geeks, and not just every 9 year old with an internet connection, and people were a close-knit group and lived close to each other for the most part.

 

[Modeps]

yup, used to go on the "vampire connection" and "captain's cove" here in CT.

 

[Czar]

I remember

I even printed out the complete manual for Remote Access 2, that was big.

 

[Thorn]

I used to run a WWIV board long ago... Ahhh, those were the days.

Remember when it took 1-2 days to get email from the other side of the country?

 

[warcleric]

BTW, www.textfiles.com has some really cool stuff hanging around from the days of the BBS and early pirate groups. It is worth a look.

 

[Eug]

I paid $189 for a Hayes internal 300 baud modem. :Q

Right now, my cable access has a max speed of 3000000 bps, or roughly 10000 times the speed of my first modem.

 

[SpongeBob]

OMG, the memories you just brought back of hours spent "teleconferencing"...

 

[warcleric]

Eug: when I upgraded to 19.2 Couriers they were $700/ea sysops got them for $499/ea, I had to buy 15 of them. Dont feel too bad

 

[Daniel]

*raises hand* I didn't run anything like I'm sure many of you did but dialed in nevertheless.

 

[Zapster]

I remember purchasing a 300 baud modem for my Radio Shack model II computer. The modem required you to set your telephone headset on the modem. It cost about $300. I remember how excited I was when I connected to a BBS. (I was only 16). The letters and words came across so slow. About a year or two later, I splurged and got a 1200 baud modem. WOW! I could honestly read as fast as the words came across the screen. I remember thinking, why would anyone need anything faster than you can read. Who cares if files take all night. You can just leave the computer on all night. I then got a 2400 baud modem, and didn't see much improvement. When I went to a 9600 baud modem, I could only say WOW again at the speed increase.

 

[cipher00]

Ah, memories. It wasn't a bbs, but when I was in grad school we linked up with the campus computing center using a 110 baud teletype machine. Complete with paper tape memory. Great system. (Sigh.)

BBSes were great for teleconferencing. And file swapping...

BTW, in my old, dim memory, it strikes me that 'baud' doesn't apply past 600. The first Hayes 1200 bps modems used 600 baud interphased by 2, hence 1200 bps. Our modems today are rated in bps, not baud, no? Or did that technology, which I thought was limited by copper twisted pair, change...?

 

[anton]

yeah ... I got to the last era of BBS's but it was very cool ; ) ... I remember trying to reach them and always get a busy signal ... even tried to set-up my own BBS using Maximus , but my parents didn't allow me to use phone so much even at night ; ( ... so I was just an user ... sitting up to 4 a.m. ... those were times ... ; )

 

Heh, remember having to set your com software to redial because of busy signals? Well, I suppose AOL users still feel that pain. Most good boards had two lines.

 

[Mistah Magik]

Oh man do I remember Fidonet, I met some fine ladies on there. I use to sit on the boards all day and night with the Fidonet messages.... **memories**

 

[dANt3R]

I remember using my terminal program on my TRS-80 to write reports for school because I was too poor to buy a word proc proggy! I think those days were more fun because there weren't as many lamers looking for dates, spamming, and just annoying the #@$% out of everyone.

 

[ArkAoss]

Hmm yup bbs's. My bro bought a 2400 modem and used it to connect to a BBS his buddy in school ran.
Then when he got his own pc, we tried setting up a BBS... but because we didn't have a spare line, we didn't run it too much.
I made some ASCII animations for our BBS...
Then RIP term (gui) came out... but we never really ran ours...
Mainly I'd go to different one's my bro showed me, and I'd try to Play L.O.R.D.

But I know a guy in the Hartford area now, that used to run one that was really popular, he still runs it from his cable modem now, you can Tel-net into it.

 

[mrCide]

I had a killer 2400

the good old days.. those pirate.. i mean porn.. i mean forum BBSs were great..

 

Oh my God, RIP. I remember that!!! It could have been the WWW if it only took off!

 

[Harrald]

The days of using "pkzip" and "Telex". I remember buying my state of the art 2400 baud modem and thinking I was slick.


My first connection was to the bopooba BBS in NYC. I can't even remember the games I used to play. Then Off to MUSHing and MUDing.

I miss the days when you had to learn about the tool before you could use it. That was when your teacher would give you a lesson on "netiquette" too. Annoy to many people and you were gone. Now you just get a new free e-mail address and start being annoying all over again.

 

[StageLeft]

pkzip LOL

286 + 2400 baud + BRE = fun times. Those BBS's were pretty good

 

[BoberFett]

The days of using pkzip? What's so funny about that? I still use it. I have yet to find a GUI compression program that can match the power and ease of command line pkzip.

 

[Windogg]

I still have my 1200 baud Hayes Smartmodem from the BBS days. Believe it or not it still works.

 

[luv2chill]

WWIV !!!

That BBS system rocked!!!

Anyone who was into Macs remember Red Ryder/White Knight?

Geez I haven't thought about BBSing in years. The only BBS I ever administered (we were called "SysOp"s) was for the Stanford Macintosh Users Group when I was 12 years old!

LOL... I was a huge nerd, I know. Glad I snapped out of it before I started Jr. High.

l2c

 

[warcleric]

luv2chill: us nerds are having the last laugh now. I am making 3x what any of the popular kids in high school make now.