Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A look at my BBS Software from '93

mmccaff.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 215 posts

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#181

Post by rasjani »

henrikschroder wrote: post #86
henrikschroder wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doing Fido over TCP/IP just doesn't feel the same. It's way too easy. Do you remember ZMH? Zone Mail Hour? If you had a public BBS, you had to disallow logins during ZMH, so that your phone line was reserved for netmail and echomail delivery. I was just a lowly point, so I didn't have to bother with that crap. 2:201/274.9 representin', yo. The funniest part about the star-shaped network was that it was more of a fe…

Finishing my original thought in the comment, since I got sidetracked by the nostalgia: The reason for ZMH was that a node making a connection to another node required the use of a physical phone line where one node would dial the other, which would stop anyone else from connecting to those two nodes. So if you had a lowly user logged on to your BBS, noone else could log on to it, and you couldn't send or receive Fid…

Pirated version of qemu was a thing for us non-amiga operators :)

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#182

Post by rasjani »

henrikschroder wrote: post #86
henrikschroder wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doing Fido over TCP/IP just doesn't feel the same. It's way too easy. Do you remember ZMH? Zone Mail Hour? If you had a public BBS, you had to disallow logins during ZMH, so that your phone line was reserved for netmail and echomail delivery. I was just a lowly point, so I didn't have to bother with that crap. 2:201/274.9 representin', yo. The funniest part about the star-shaped network was that it was more of a fe…

Finishing my original thought in the comment, since I got sidetracked by the nostalgia: The reason for ZMH was that a node making a connection to another node required the use of a physical phone line where one node would dial the other, which would stop anyone else from connecting to those two nodes. So if you had a lowly user logged on to your BBS, noone else could log on to it, and you couldn't send or receive Fid…

Effin client, can't edit nor reply: s/qemu/desqview/

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#183

Post by chrissnell »

henrikschroder wrote: post #63
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…

> Doing Fido over TCP/IP just doesn't feel the same. It's way too easy. Do you remember ZMH? Zone Mail Hour? If you had a public BBS, you had to disallow logins during ZMH, so that your phone line was reserved for netmail and echomail delivery. I was just a lowly point, so I didn't have to bother with that crap. 2:201/274.9 representin', yo. The funniest part about the star-shaped network was that it was more of a fe…

For people wondering what we're talking about, FidoNet was organized into continents (Zones) and then into cities or small regions (Nets). Zone 1 was North America. A city like San Antonio typically existed as a Net. In San Antonio's case, it was 387, so all San Antonio Fido BBSes had an address like 1:387/somenumber.

Fido's hub-and-star system existed to more efficiently move mail. Many of the Net- and Zone-level coordinators didn't run huge BBSes with lots of phone lines that could move the large (for this era of slow modems) amount of mail that could be generated. Volunteers with more money and expertise formed a mail routing system outside of the Fido leadership hierarchy to get the job done. Some better-funded local person in your Net would step up and become a "hub". All of the local BBSes would send their mail to the hub, which would make a long-distance call a few times a day to send mail upstream to a "star", which was basically the same thing, just moving much more mail at a higher level in the hierarchy. Stars would call other stars and move the mail over long distances, including across continents. The stars were the real power-holders in Fido.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#184

Post by chrissnell »

nkozyra wrote: post #162

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_ p…

It was really fun way to communicate as a nerdy high schooler. One of my best friends was varsity football player, a jock who was a closeted nerd. We would both go home to our own houses at lunch time and dial up the local BBS and chat with each other about (what else?) BBSes.

My parents were very anti-computer at the time because I spent so much time on it and they would never let me spend any of the money I earned at my busboy job on computer parts so I had to be sneaky about it. I eventually pilfered the $150 to get a Zoom 14.4Kbps modem and me and my buddy took his car to CompUSA and bought modems on the sly. I had to pull mine out of the packaging and ditch the box and sneak it home in my backpack so my folks wouldn't see, then be sure to mute the modem speaker so they wouldn't notice the changed negotiation tones.

It seems so ridiculous now: computers became my meal ticket in a very big way and I'm eternally grateful that I had the balls to secretly buy that modem.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#185

Post by mmccaff »

myth_drannon wrote: post #163
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.

I agree about childhood days, but I don't know if that's entirely it.

I think we now take technology for granted and apps/sites are less special of a thing than BBSs were. Users are fickle, so much is fad-based, and we move on to the next thing without a strong feeling towards the last. Using Snapchat isn't a primary hobby or thing that you devote time to, more of a thing you do while doing some other primary thing. If that makes sense. :)

I doubt that memories of Snapchat will be as strong to a user as memories of BBSs. But who knows.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#186

Post by Muuuchem »

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…

I visited the sonic the hedgehog video game BBS nearly daily when I first got a computer and dialup at my home in the late 90/early 2000s. I don't remember any distance constraints, but I was between 9 and 11 years old during this time period.

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#187

Post by frandroid »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #156

Being involved in the late 80's / early 90's BBS "scene" was formative for me. I wrote and "sold" some unimaginative "Door" programs (even going to far as to register my copyright on one of them). I wracked-up a lot of long-distance bills! I always wanted to run a board, but never got my act together enough to do it. Since the audience here is very diverse I'll selfishly throw out a couple nostalgia requests: A frien…

You mean that guy? https://www.facebook.com/patrick.hunlock

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#188

Post by nkozyra »

macarthy12 wrote: post #171
nkozyra wrote: post #162

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_ p…

and having a girlfriend excludes you completely

Everyone needs love

[1] http://www.digitalia.be/images/2013/nerd-couple.jpg

Re: A look at my BBS Software from '93

#190

Post by amitp »

Jemaclus wrote: post #14
hoodwink wrote: post #10

Anyone play TradeWars 2002? That's what I was doing in '93 on my BBS.

Yes! I've tried over the years to create a TW2002 clone, but I always stall out at the economic system. I've also tried to recreate Barren Realms Elite / Solar Realms Elite, but Amit lost the source code to that, too. Reverse engineering BBS games is hard! Maybe Legend of the Red Dragon would be easier... [Edit: I'm aware that there are TW2002 games out there right now, but those tend to be web-based, and I wanna do…

I agree, reverse engineering some of this stuff is hard. I had been studying economics & systems design and put lots of interacting feedback loops into SRE so it's sometimes hard to tease out the individual effects. I've put some notes up here for anyone who wants to clone it http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/Articles/SRE-Desi...

For a quick “where are they now”:

- Barren Realms Elite --> Mehul (my brother) moved from BBS games to web games, with Earth 2025 and then Utopia, and then a web portal Swirve.com, and then he got out of the games business and ran a coffee shop, Dominican Joe in downtown Austin (but it was just sold) - Legend of the Red Dragon --> Seth Robinson (who I finally met this year) moved on to PC games, then mobile games, and now runs a successful MMO called Growtopia (but it was just sold) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Technologies - Solar Realms Elite --> I got out of the BBS door world and went to grad school, interested in teaching. I now write interactive tutorials at redblobgames.com, starting with game development but I want to expand into math and computer science. SRE's wikipedia page got wiped by the deletionists http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/922 but was preserved by http://breakintochat.com/

Post reply on HN