Any way to sort this list by activity in some way? Seems kinda hard to figure out where to check out first.
However the Diamond Mine Online (bbs.dmine.net) is a great place to start.
Telnet BBS Guide
31–40 of 60 posts
Re: Telnet BBS Guide
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
The late 80's/early 90's when BBS's were probably at their peak were such a different time - politics were different and more civil, but also there was nothing like Facebook, no mass usage of cell phones, no streaming, you still made/received calls on your landline phone, you still went shopping at the mall, etc. A BBS isn't going to turn the whole clock back. What's amazing honestly is that 4chan started in '02 or '…
Back then people just didn’t take the kind of edgelording the OP is talking about seriously. When you saw a Nazi white supremacist following the left hand path and quoting Michael Acquino you rolled your eyes for the most part. Same goes for wacky conspiracy stuff in the 90s. It felt (and mostly was) harmless and full of in jokes going back to discordianism and such fnord. It was before absolutely every popular senti…
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Re: Telnet BBS Guide
#33"BBS: The Documentary" is worth a watch.
Re: Telnet BBS Guide
#34Looks like it was temporarily slowed to a crawl by HNers. Will try again later.
Re: Telnet BBS Guide
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's practical. The lossy compression that GSM uses is incompatible with the protocol used with modems, which assume the analog characteristics of real phone lines. If you want to reach a BBS on your phone, you could use a telnet app like Termius or Termux over 4G.
The lossy compression that GSM uses is incompatible with the protocol used with modems, which assume the analog characteristics of real phone lines. People say this all the time on the internet, but in the 90's, I had a Nokia phone that could send faxes over GSM.
Just to augment what the other poster said:
The way this would work is that your cellphone would send the fax data over the digital cellular network connection; in turn, the actual cellular network itself would speak the V.29 fax protocol.
Re: Telnet BBS Guide
#36I really dislike the www bloat so I was excited to browse the list, unfortunately so far I mostly see ancap/libertarian/declinist posts (or just people who seem very sad and/or angry) as well as many far-right dogwhistles I recognize from 4chan. Can somebody recommend more, uh, uplifting BBS communities?
I spent a lot of time on BBSs back in the day. There were some moderated tech support communities that were extremely tame, but most of it was like 4chan if 4chan was restricted to just your local calling area. In person BBS Parties and later IRC Channel Parties were full of the greatest and most bizarre mix of people I have ever come across with a common interest. That's probably because with just the screen name an…
Quite different from the BBS Circles I was part of. They required you to use your real name on the forums ("conferences"). If a BBS was discovered not to enforce that rule, they would be kicked out of the network.
It was very civil.
Re: Telnet BBS Guide
#37I suppose we'll never see an iOS "terminal/modem" that calls out from the phone to dial-up BBS's. Anything like that for Android?
Take a look at the Quiet Modem [1] project, which has bindings for Android and iOS if you're looking for a softmodem. I'll bet there's telnet apps on iOS though if you just want to do some IP based BBSing.
Re: Telnet BBS Guide
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The late 80's/early 90's when BBS's were probably at their peak were such a different time - politics were different and more civil, but also there was nothing like Facebook, no mass usage of cell phones, no streaming, you still made/received calls on your landline phone, you still went shopping at the mall, etc. A BBS isn't going to turn the whole clock back. What's amazing honestly is that 4chan started in '02 or '…
Well, when 4chan started it was basically just a porn board. The idea of actually hanging around was akin to being someone who’s really dedicated to their pornhub comments. It took a few years of those few dedicated weirdos bouncing off each other (and their Japanese equivalent boards) to fully metastasise into the face of modern neofascism.
Hm? From when 4chan was just a board with no other boards, it was a _lot_ of stuff. The original board distinction (/a/ and /b/) was made because eventually anime content and "other"/meme content collided in the interests of the board users, so they were separated. It's hard to see the viewpoint in our politically charged time, but the origins of 4chan were just about people interested in anime saying whatever. The frequency of the content often meant that it was mostly just kids with too much free time (as I suspect a lot of *net Fora tend to be). The board changed a lot over the years, but initially it was just a place for anime-oriented talk.
Re: Telnet BBS Guide
#39I suppose we'll never see an iOS "terminal/modem" that calls out from the phone to dial-up BBS's. Anything like that for Android?
I don't think it's practical. The lossy compression that GSM uses is incompatible with the protocol used with modems, which assume the analog characteristics of real phone lines. If you want to reach a BBS on your phone, you could use a telnet app like Termius or Termux over 4G.
There's certainly practical issues, but not every call is stuck with the GSM codec anymore. G.722.2 (aka HD Voice) may be better than GSM at carrying modem noises (or it may not be).
Of course, way back when, when mobile carriers had modem banks for outgoing calls, that worked a whole lot better.
Re: Telnet BBS Guide
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
The late 80's/early 90's when BBS's were probably at their peak were such a different time - politics were different and more civil, but also there was nothing like Facebook, no mass usage of cell phones, no streaming, you still made/received calls on your landline phone, you still went shopping at the mall, etc. A BBS isn't going to turn the whole clock back. What's amazing honestly is that 4chan started in '02 or '…
Back then people just didn’t take the kind of edgelording the OP is talking about seriously. When you saw a Nazi white supremacist following the left hand path and quoting Michael Acquino you rolled your eyes for the most part. Same goes for wacky conspiracy stuff in the 90s. It felt (and mostly was) harmless and full of in jokes going back to discordianism and such fnord. It was before absolutely every popular senti…
> I really think the future is private enclaves, closed forums, etc. with strict rules to try to keep out not just trolls and idiots but more importantly bots. We are living in the twilight of the open Internet, at least as a medium of any kind of meaningful communication. All that will be left on the “clearnet” is a social media influencer hustle culture driven hellscape where half the participants are bots anyway.
I think we're already starting to see this. Mastodon, Gemini, Discourse, forums, resurging interests in NNTP, FidoNet, etc. Even the public generally prefers group chats, Discords, TikTok, Snapchat, or to some extent IG because they're more private than FB or Twitter. I think creating a "global village" was interesting and empowering for most of humanity as a new thing that humans were capable of doing, but we all quickly realized that you can put a million people in a room together, but they won't have much to talk about together.
I have no doubt that private communities are going to be the future.