BBS (Do you remember what this means?)

[richkoi]

BBS: Bulletin Board System: A computerized meeting and announcement system that allows people to carry on discussions, upload and download files, and make announcements without the people being connected to the computer at the same time. In the early 1990's there were many thousands (millions?) of BBS?s around the world, most are very small, running on a single IBM clone PC with 1 or 2 phone lines. Some are very large and the line between a BBS and a system like AOL gets crossed at some point, but it is not clearly drawn. (Google define:bbs)

I was only 12 or 13 when I logged onto my first BBS. I got my first e-mail address through their dial up system (they had three phone lines, so it was busy quite often). I believe my e-mail was richkay@pdsig.com.

Anyway, has anyone been on message boards since the days before the WWW? Share your experiences! I'd like to hear!

Rich

P.S. What was the name of the popular BBS systems back then? TomCat, WildCat?? Can't remember.

[richkoi]

Wow, I just did some research to find out what happened to the BBS I used to frequent in the early 90's...it ends up they were shut down because the owner of the BBS created a book called "SPAMMING FOR DOLLARS" and was sued. I wondered what happened to him and the entire BBS...

Anyone ever a member of PDSIG bbs?

Rich

[pedstersplanet]

I used to run a BBS many moons ago..... See my About Peter link..... Assuming your definition of BBS means my meaning.
Oh, and used to be on FidoNet too..... ahhhhh, those were the days......

[pedstersplanet]

Originally Posted by richkoi

P.S. What was the name of the popular BBS systems back then? TomCat, WildCat?? Can't remember.

Remote Access (BBS), GEcho (Mail Packets), and erm, ......damn, forgot which handles the incoming calls for mail/bbs... The Amiga equivilant was Trapdoor.

[KDCinfo]

I remember something about a wildcat :)

Honestly, BBSs were very cool, especially in their day. I was DOS'ing away with batch files myself, and Norton had some batch enhancer where I could add color (via ANSI codes, I believe) to make my batches colorful.

My favorite BBS story is, back in the early 90's (when I was single), my neighbor setup a BBS on his and his wife's home computer. Then they installed a dating module. It let you answer 50 questions about yourself, and matched up (providing percentages) potential 'mates'. Well, they only had a handful of registered users on at that time, so I created a fictitious (girl) account and proceeded to fill out the dating questionnaire. What do you know, I matched up more than 90% with myself :)

My neighbors called within 5 minutes to let me know about this 'girl'. I had them going for at least a week, but I think it was 2. And at that point, I didn't know how to break the news to them. They were initially "shocked" to say the least, but ended up with a really good laugh over it.

Talk about successful practical jokes :)

[xoltaric]

Originally Posted by KDCinfo

Honestly, BBSs were very cool, especially in their day. I was DOS'ing away with batch files myself, and Norton had some batch enhancer where I could add color (via ANSI codes, I believe) to make my batches colorful.

I remember that... it was quite cool.. I used a bunch of batch files and effectively made a GUI for my mom to pick out which solitare game she wanted to play.

Lets not forget TAG, or Roboboard (or was it RoboBBS?.. arg...) the first graphical BBS system.

Warez sites which only allowed 14.4 connections...

I personally loved the games...

Solar Realms Elite (SRE) but especially its cousin Barren Realms Elite (BRE)... actually the guy who wrote those games ended up making a mmp version on the net on Swirve.com called Earth: 2025. I used to play a few years ago and it was quite popular at the time.

Lord... Trade Wars..

In my hometown we got kinda crazy on the interbbs front... I remember some very active recruiting campaigns by bbs's trying to get the best BRE players.

For those needing a blast from the past:

telnet://bitbucket.homedns.org/

[vwlpaige]

Oh yes, in the mid 80s there were loads of BBSs. My favorite was Lynzie's MotherBoard in Van Nuys, CA. Lynzie really developed a community, and we met for lunch or dinner occasionally. BBSs were wonderful for women who wanted to interact with intelligent people.

In April 1985 I met John, the love of my life, on Lynzie's Motherboard. We've been married since December 1986.

I remember bulletin boards fondly. And I remember that everyone who ran one said: "If only I could make a little money doing this." I wonder how many found a way to build a Web community.

[lightning]

I dialed up to my first BBS in 1983. 300 baud modem dial-up using a Texas Instruments Silent 700 portable terminal that had thermal fax paper and an acoustic coupler that I'd stick the phone handset into.

I was in Atlanta at the time, and the Atlanta Computer Users Group ran the board. Then I bought one of the first IBM PC systems available and helped charter the IBM PC Users Group Club.

I could go on and on about the local scene, but am not much for nostalgia. It was fun, but the Internet is better (and much faster)!

[pedstersplanet]

Originally Posted by vwlpaige

I remember bulletin boards fondly. And I remember that everyone who ran one said: "If only I could make a little money doing this." I wonder how many found a way to build a Web community.

Hey, 01-For-Amiga (in UK) ran 4 lines and had 2 0898 numbers.... I guess he made a packet (haha, excuse pun).....

EDIT: BTW 0898 phone numbers in UK are £1 ($1.60) per minute

[sburns]

I used to run a small BBS call Skylark Den

I ran it on a Apple 2E with ASCII Express.

My singon name was Skylark and I used to visit many of the BBS systems around such as Sherwood Forest. I had a 300 baud modem and a 1200 baud modem. This was back in 1983 / 1984 time frame.

They began shutting down when the FBI came in for hacking games and alowing them for download. I remember one of my friends got busted in the Rockland County NY area by the FBI... huge fines!

Anyway thoses were great times..

[voiceone]

Hi, yep.. I remember the good old days of BBS. I call it the "local" internet. You actually were able to meet with people in your area, either members of your board, or other BBS owners. I ran a board in tampa bay area called Taxi BBS. Had 5 phone lines, that were always engaged, 24/7... I ran Wildcat then changed over to Excalibur.. now that was a nice program to use.. If I may say... I know .. lets blow up the internet, and go back to Bulletin Boards... sigh... if only..........................

[edhan]

Yea. I am one of the Sysop running PEACE BBS in 1982 till 1990 before giving up for www. I ran my BBS using PCBoard with 300bps using 4 lines before going to 1200bps & then 2400bps, 9600bps and lastly 14400bps. Had lots of fun with members around 10,000. Make lots of friends as we arranged for gathering to discuss about things relating to conferences.

Those were the days I had the most memorable experience! Till now, I still meet up with my members for a cup of tea!

Cheers!

Edward

[dunste]

I used to run a 22 line BBS on an Amiga no less. Started with 2400 baud modems, ended with a high of 28.8 (and one tempermental 32(?give or take?)). Ran for 7 years, and eventually died as the internet really took off (and support for the Amiga was failing, as Commodore went under not to long after it went online... Not that it ever had a lot of support. :) ).

Had lots of gatherings with local users. Halloween parties, christmas parties, my birthday parties. Lots of fun. Gave me my only real social life, before or since. :)

Don't really get that all that much with the internet.

[margec]

Talk about bringing back memories. Started The Homestead on a commodore 64...running C-net?? back in maybe 1983. I remember when we invested in a second floppy drive and doubled the room space. Later on, a friend duplicated the software to run on a pc and we moved up to maybe 9600...and then 14400. Later changed the software to I don't remember what... became a fidonet hub, running two simultaneous boards for different topics.

I was never into the online games or software...it was all about the people on the other end.

(When I finally took it down, in, I think '89 or '90, The Homestead was the second longest running BBS in middle tennessee.)

Thanks for the tour down memory lane!

[sjohns]

Everyone seems to be talking in past tense about the BBS here... There are still thousands of these systems running today: They have all gone to telnet, and most still accept modem calls. I run a BBS at telnet://tek1systems.com, and it is a Synchronet system (http://www.synchro.net - Free, by the way). Many BBS' are also small ISP's.

Since the 'Web killed the popularity of the BBS, the BBS world is still alive and kicking with echomail, games, IRC, FTP, gopher, Freenet links (remember Freenet?) and more. The internet is still free if you know where to look, and the BBS is the door to it.

Cheers,

[pedstersplanet]

Any information on how you set up telnet for this? As I'd love to start my bbs up again...... well, try lol... Its been years, bet I forgot lol

[dunste]

I'd be interested in how to set up the telnet too.

Back in the final year or so of my system, we had 5 or so "lines" of telnet access too (22 "real" lines, and the 5 telnet), but it never really seemed to take off.

I no longer remember how to do the telnet hookup (and I'm sure it's somewhat different for each system, and certainly would be different then how the Amiga did it), but I would be curious to set one up again thru telnet and see what happens. So any info you could give would be great.

Thanks.

[john_75915]

I remember the first BBS I logged into - The Nuclear Fireworks Factory, or as we referred to it - "NUKE"! I had an IBM PS-1 386 with a 2400 baud modem, and it was a long distance call! I also remember getting a ZOOM 14,400 modem, and it was like lightning compared to that 2400!

I also remember playing "Legend Of The Red Dragon". It was all text, and you could only make something like 5 moves a day. So you would go out in the forest and try and kill as many things as possible to rack up experience and gold. Then you could go back to the Inn, and get a room, and be relatively safe until the next day. I still have a copy of it, but it was more fun online!

Thanks for helping me relive some great times, before the Internet!

[dgy]

I wrote an assembler program for my TRS-80 model I (z-80) and ran a small BBS with a single 300 baud modem which I built for about a year.... a long time ago. Just my friends basically used it. I had to build my own auto-answering circuit... that was fun.

Later on I ran a "galacticomm" BBS for a while, I wonder if they still make those things.

Now I just program applications and websites. Much more effective than a dialup BBS system.

:)

-Dave
www.GalleryDir.com

[CLBridges]

Originally Posted by dgy

Later on I ran a "galacticomm" BBS for a while, I wonder if they still make those things.

Ahh yes.. Galacticomm's "MajorBBS" Certainly the ultimate BBS experience. Before all the internet communities, you had your BBS community. Wildcat couldn't support interaction between users who were "dialed in" at the same time. Galacticomm with all it's 3rd party developers IS still around. There are large adult communities everywhere. I haven't seen one yet that didn't charge a monthly fee of some sort.

Thinking of BBS's reminds me of other things..

Do you remember?.....

Ansi Art?
(really amazing what you can draw with blocks of color!)

20 meg hard drives?
(my Email Folders wouldn't even fit on one now!)

Dos Batch Files?
(Mega Macros! Interactive even!)

Norton's XTree Gold?
(That's where Microsoft got their "Windows Explorer" idea)

Working from the C: prompt?
(no clicking on cutesy pictures for us peeples that no how to spel and tipe, LOL!)

Oh yes!

Carrie**