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A look at my BBS Software from '93

mmccaff.github.io

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Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#161

Post by zorked »

whatever_dude wrote: post #143

One thing that always fascinated me is that although BBSs connected people, they were necessarily constrained by distance given the difficult (and price) of long-distance calls. That reflected on the shape of the community around it. There were some things that would be common between them but overall different area codes had very different scenes. This is somewhat diluted today, since you can connect with whatever c…

BBS software was very regionalized. Being from a different part of Brazil Remote Access reigned supreme, while PC Board is something I saw once that one day when I dared dial long distance to some BBS in a different state.

The same goes for all the other software. In some areas LORD was _the_ BBS game, in others it was unknown. In my region BlueWave was the standard offline mail reader, in others only QWK or even weirder formats were the standard.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#162

Post by nkozyra »

Most of my BBS talk/nostalgia is embarrassing but by far my most embarrassing anecdote was that I set up a BBS exclusively to chat with my high school girlfriend late into the night.

This is only noteworthy because, in 2017, this would be entirely normal behavior for a 14 year-old. But the amount of effort and expense it took to get the equipment, extra line, BBS and then _teaching my girlfriend how to use a modem_ put me squarely in the superdork category.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#163

Post by myth_drannon »

hertzdog wrote: post #73

Thank you for your post and thanks for all the comments... it takes me years back. Maybe a dumb question: why we all miss those days? I don't think it is only related to being young. I am convinced it is something related to a "less noise/new tools" and probably I agree about "the more constraints more creativity". Is there anybody who can better articulate or have a different vision?

You miss your childhood days, not BBS. Today's teenagers in 20 years will be talking about Snapchat days.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#164

Post by sathackr »

I've been trying to find a "door" game I played that was themed around a nuclear wasteland. There was an ansi-graphical map with tiles you moved between.

IIRC you potentially would run into various wild/mutant animals or other players that you could battle. I don't remember much else about it but I remember enjoying it profusely and have been unsuccessful in finding even the name of it now.

Also played a ton of Trade wars.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#165

Post by chrissnell »

oaktowner wrote: post #55
chrissnell wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, but there was also a certain amount of vanity to it. If you had the cash, you were the dude . You could watch as an entire region's (or even entire countries') mail flowed through your system. You probably walked down into your office and watched your busy Fido server (or servers) and a sweet stack of USR Courier external modems blinking away (you never wasted time on cheap gear) and when you participated in g…

Even the talk of "long distance phone calls" makes me nostalgic. I remember when, as a kid, if you answered the phone and it was a long distance call for mom or dad, we would run to get them yelling "Long distance! Long distance!" Every second was precious.

Oh my, do I ever remember that. I'm sure you remember the days before digital long distance, when you would make a call from, say, San Antonio to L.A. and the line would be crackly and staticky. When I would call my grandma in Hawaii, you would talk and she would hear it about a second later. Made conversations tough and expensive!

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#166

Post by niix »

nickpoulos wrote: post #135
niix wrote: post #54

This looks awesome. I was a little later to the game, spent most of my childhood time on AOL 2.5-4.0, writing "progz" in Visual Basic.

ahhh dude that was my scene too! private room theselectfew a bunch of others...jeez...some of my stuff is still up on lenshell.com. Cmon know you remember that site, it exists still. my handle was filter back then and a few others haha

Haha yeah I was looking at lenshell not too long ago, amazing that it's still there.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#167

Post by bungie4 »

mmccaff wrote: post #119
bungie4 wrote: post #114

Old sysops get shit done! I ran BBS's from the late 80's through the 90's. All the local sysops are still friends and we still wax nostalgic over the old days. To a person, we all are still in IT and hold senior positions. When I remember those days and compare them to today, by and large, nothing is 'easy' anymore. It's what happens when you get to far away from the metal.

Yes we did. It's amazing what teenagers were accomplishing at the time. Full product release life cycles, done after school and homework. A few memories: 1) I had a 2400 baud modem, and then upgraded to an external 14.4K US Robotics Courier. They were $1000 at the time but USR offered it at $500 in return for advertising their brand. Someone on my BBS paid that fee in exchange for higher access. 2) I'd trade snippets…

Okay, gather round chillen', the old guys are swapping stories.

Right after Caller ID was introduced, I thought it would be a great idea to use it to log somebody into my BBS directly. So I wrote up the software that would extract it, dip the db, and log the user in if found, otherwise, it'd go to normal login (in case of calling from another DID).

I was a STAR

Then a user figured out how to spoof caller id and as I sat there, and watched the user log in as ME. LOL! Took me all of 5s to rip that out :D

My first modem was a 300 baud that we tweaked up to 450 baud. When I shut down my BBS years later, I was running 3 lines on TBBS and I had no files or doors. It was strictly a message board with no networking (been there, done that). I specifically limited it to the top 150 participating users. Doesn't sound like much, but all 3 lines were busy constantly.

Around 150 users seems to the magic number. More than that and ppl who lose track of whose who and stop participating. You have to go for big userbases to recover. At least that has been my experience.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#168

Post by chrissnell »

Angostura wrote: post #87
chrissnell wrote: post #40

The late 80s/early 90s BBS scene was an amazing time for me. I was in high school and I've never been as interested in computers and communications as I was then. I never ventured into the "dark" side like OP--I was too scared of my parents--so I ran a legit FidoNET BBS using the RemoteAccess BBS software and the Frontdoor mailer (and later, Maximus and BinkleyTerm). The most amazing thing about it all was that it wa…

Thank you for the happy nostalgic reminiscence of my youth. I also remember the computer mags that had several pages devoted to BBS phone number listings (just before the program listings you could type in)

Do you remember Computer Shopper? I remember when it was an inch thick. I would ride my bike to the grocery store and buy it and spend days reading though every ad, marveling at the 2 GB SCSI hard drives (like 4" thick!!!) and wishing I had the $4000 or whatever to buy one for my BBS.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#169

Post by glorytoad »

sathackr wrote: post #164

I've been trying to find a "door" game I played that was themed around a nuclear wasteland. There was an ansi-graphical map with tiles you moved between. IIRC you potentially would run into various wild/mutant animals or other players that you could battle. I don't remember much else about it but I remember enjoying it profusely and have been unsuccessful in finding even the name of it now. Also played a ton of Trade…

Sounds like Operation Overkill ][. Here is a writeup about it that includes the little 3x3 tile map for movement: http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2015/04/game-187-operation-ov...

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#170

Post by mancerayder »

sathackr wrote: post #164

I've been trying to find a "door" game I played that was themed around a nuclear wasteland. There was an ansi-graphical map with tiles you moved between. IIRC you potentially would run into various wild/mutant animals or other players that you could battle. I don't remember much else about it but I remember enjoying it profusely and have been unsuccessful in finding even the name of it now. Also played a ton of Trade…

I've been trying to find a "door" game I played that was themed around a nuclear wasteland. There was an ansi-graphical map with tiles you moved between.

Land of Devastation?

ANSI first, then an EGA and I think VGA client later?

If it's that, I loved that one. A multi-user Wasteland rip.

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