31–40 of 114 posts
BBSs are still alive; mostly accessed over amateur radio.
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The everyday consumer did not have access to the Internet until the 90's when it was commercialized. True, it "existed" before that, it was primarily education / academia and defense-related orgs that had access. BBSes were primarily text based... early Internet providers opened up access to Usenet newsgroups, email, IRC, etc. which made traditional BBSes look like a toy in comparison. The web put the nail in the cof…
> The everyday consumer did not have access to the Internet until the 90's I remember a day in the very early 90s when another node in our UUCP email system told the rest of us that he'd heard that there were now a million computers on the Net. We were gobsmacked. A whole million! Now an extra million or two computers is mere noise-levels.
One day you were considered a massive nerd for having your own computer, spending a lot of time on it, playing games on it, and socializing with others on it.
Seemingly the next day everyone was online and had their own email addresses. I remember being amazed the first time I saw website advertised on the side of a bus. It seemed like the world had massively changed overnight.
Now so many people have lived their entire lives with the net all around them and only hearsay about what it was like before.
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Good news, there's nothing stopping you: https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/
Dumb question — what would be involved in writing a mobile app that called BBS's? Handled the modem protocols, displayed ANSI graphics, etc....
300 baud modems were super slow. You could literally watch a line of text be typed across the screen in front of you, one letter at a time. I upgraded to 2400 baud after that, and 9600 after that. Even at 9600 baud, I seem to recall that downloading one single mp3 (once those fancy high tech music files were invented) would take something like half an hour. 56k modems came after that, and finally ISDN and cable modems.
In the late 80's I discovered the Internet and UNIX at the local university's computer lab, and there was no going back to BBS's after that. I remember trying to convince a Fidonet sysop to try the Internet, and he adamantly refused, saying that Fidonet is all he'd ever need. I wonder if he's still on Fidonet now, keeping to his vow never to set foot on the Internet.
The movie War Games inspired me to get a 300 baud modem, and one of my first memories of using one was to play Adventure (one of the first text adventure games) on a BBS. I war dialed like there was no tomorrow, and racked up huge phone bills downloading wares from across the country. 300 baud modems were super slow. You could literally watch a line of text be typed across the screen in front of you, one letter at a…
The movie War Games inspired me to get a 300 baud modem, and one of my first memories of using one was to play Adventure (one of the first text adventure games) on a BBS. I war dialed like there was no tomorrow, and racked up huge phone bills downloading wares from across the country. 300 baud modems were super slow. You could literally watch a line of text be typed across the screen in front of you, one letter at a…
I played MUDs on a 1200 baud modem, and I was at a distinct disadvantage. Going to 9600 was incredible.
I went on a MUD binge recently, and got a good dose of nostalgia. Check out The MUD Connector, if you're interested.
The movie War Games inspired me to get a 300 baud modem, and one of my first memories of using one was to play Adventure (one of the first text adventure games) on a BBS. I war dialed like there was no tomorrow, and racked up huge phone bills downloading wares from across the country. 300 baud modems were super slow. You could literally watch a line of text be typed across the screen in front of you, one letter at a…
I downloaded the original Command & Conquer demo over a 2400 baud connection. I had a 33.6 kbps modem, but the modem pool for the VM/CMS system I could connect to only allowed for 2400 baud connections. IIRC, it took most of a weekend to download that 10 MB file.
BBSs are still alive; mostly accessed over amateur radio.
I ran a Utah BBS in the late 80's on a phone line I "found" in my childhood bedroom. I've thought, a bit, about setting up a "BBS" hosted on any computer connected to any WiFi access point. Here are my initial ramblings about the idea. https://blog.joeldare.com/wireless-bbs/
The first thing that came to mind was a wireless BBS running on a solar-powered Pi Zero, left in some remote location.