BBS: The Documentary (2005) • Hacker News Board

Re: BBS: The Documentary (2005)

#21

Post by leptons » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 8:53 PM UTC

guiambros wrote: post #2

Love the documentary; fond memories from those days of 2400bps. It has been posted here many times before; this is the one with most comments [1], 9 years ago. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9521867

I got a 2400bps modem to hook up to my C64 and was a bit unhappy that I would get all kinds of errors when receiving data from BBSs, and I figured out that the C64's native serial port code was too slow, it was dropping bits. I was using CCGMS terminal program at the time so I figured out how to hack CCGMS and wrote my own bit-banged serial I/O code in assembly language and that fixed the problem up nicely.

Re: BBS: The Documentary (2005)

#22

Post by DonHopkins » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 8:57 PM UTC

themew wrote: post #6

The day I was able to upgrade my 'shoebox' 110 baud modem to a 300 baud modem was the day I thought "I'll never need this kind of speed, but it's nice to have." Thanks for posting about this documentary. I ran a BBS from 1983-1986 on a Commodore 64, a 1200 baud modem and 5 1541 floppy drives. An amazing time for this technology.

Modems used to cost about a dollar per baud.

Re: BBS: The Documentary (2005)

#23

Post by myth_drannon » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:07 PM UTC

divbzero wrote: post #8

Are there places where BBS is still in active use?

You can telnet to many BBSs. If you want something a bit similar to the original modem experience, you can buy device that emulates modem but actually uses WiFi and connects to telnet instead of a phone number.

Re: BBS: The Documentary (2005)

#24

Post by tibbydudeza » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:10 PM UTC

Fidonet - 2400K baud modems - it was awesome for this sheltered loner.

Re: BBS: The Documentary (2005)

#25

Post by Bayaz » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:26 PM UTC

It’s surprising how much of this era has just disappeared. I recently searched around to see if I could find a few of the door games from my youth (Legends and Virtual SysOp) and there really isn’t much out there. Some games like Tradewars live on, but software for TBBS/TDBS is basically forgotten.

Re: BBS: The Documentary (2005)

#26

Post by slowhadoken » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:32 PM UTC

Bayaz wrote: post #25

It’s surprising how much of this era has just disappeared. I recently searched around to see if I could find a few of the door games from my youth (Legends and Virtual SysOp) and there really isn’t much out there. Some games like Tradewars live on, but software for TBBS/TDBS is basically forgotten.

I believe Usurper and Legend of the Red Dragon are still running somewhere. They’re basically just old DOS games running on someone’s computer you dialed into.

Re: BBS: The Documentary (2005)

#27

Post by bilegeek » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:34 PM UTC

Bayaz wrote: post #25

It’s surprising how much of this era has just disappeared. I recently searched around to see if I could find a few of the door games from my youth (Legends and Virtual SysOp) and there really isn’t much out there. Some games like Tradewars live on, but software for TBBS/TDBS is basically forgotten.

If you haven't come across this already: the most comprehensive archive I could find is http://archives.thebbs.org/

It's dial-up slow when downloading files, but maybe you'll find what you're looking for.

Re: BBS: The Documentary (2005)

#28

Post by loloquwowndueo » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:47 PM UTC

Bayaz wrote: post #25

It’s surprising how much of this era has just disappeared. I recently searched around to see if I could find a few of the door games from my youth (Legends and Virtual SysOp) and there really isn’t much out there. Some games like Tradewars live on, but software for TBBS/TDBS is basically forgotten.

There’s a service to play vga planets over the Internet as well. Googling will find it.

Re: BBS: The Documentary (2005)

#29

Post by dang » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 10:41 PM UTC

The videos are at https://archive.org/details/bbs_documentary (via the first link below).

Related. Others?

The Full BBS Documentary Interviews Are Going Online - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16221915 - Jan 2018 (1 comment)

BBS the Documentary (2013) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9521867 - May 2015 (23 comments)

Re: BBS: The Documentary (2005)

#30

Post by sdenike » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 11:08 PM UTC

slowhadoken wrote: post #26

Bayaz wrote: post #25

It’s surprising how much of this era has just disappeared. I recently searched around to see if I could find a few of the door games from my youth (Legends and Virtual SysOp) and there really isn’t much out there. Some games like Tradewars live on, but software for TBBS/TDBS is basically forgotten.

I believe Usurper and Legend of the Red Dragon are still running somewhere. They’re basically just old DOS games running on someone’s computer you dialed into.

I remember years ago someone made a PHP version of Legend of the Red Dragon, I think it was Legend of the Green Dragon if not mistaken. I wish I still had my original registration code that was mailed to me and signed by Seth Robinson.