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An old photo of a large BBS (2022)

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Re: An old photo of a large BBS (2022)

#181

Post by joezydeco »

icedchai wrote: post #178
gzread wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BBS software itself would have likely ran on the PCs, one instance per simultaneous user, and because it's a single-tasking OS, that means one simultaneous user per PC. They aren't just bridging packets to a single central multi-user server that serves everyone.

Not necessarily. DOS multi-taskers like DESQview and TopView existed. You didn't even need a 386.

Okay, but what did you use for a multiuser backend database back then? One that could handle multiple threads reading and writing to it? A lot of these old BBS systems were just slapping together endless directories of flat text files.

Re: An old photo of a large BBS (2022)

#183

Post by icedchai »

joezydeco wrote: post #181
icedchai wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. DOS multi-taskers like DESQview and TopView existed. You didn't even need a 386.

Okay, but what did you use for a multiuser backend database back then? One that could handle multiple threads reading and writing to it? A lot of these old BBS systems were just slapping together endless directories of flat text files.

DOS / Desqview support filesystem locking with "share.exe." Honestly I am not sure how well this worked, but I knew guys who ran multi-line BBSes under DOS and Desqview (and later OS/2) without issue.

Even with multiple PCs you would also have similar "shared filesystem" issues. You'd need some sort of fileserver and a shared, network drive. Novell was popular at the time.

Re: An old photo of a large BBS (2022)

#184

Post by cvwright »

jprd wrote: post #53
SneakyMission wrote: post #10

Higher resolution photo https://web.archive.org/web/20230531042903im_/https://static...

Glorious. This must be what is like when old people long for the hot car they lusted for in their youth.

Or maybe this is like fondly remembering the busted economy car that you drove around with your friends? I have my first 386DX sitting on my desk right now and it looks exactly like the top left of that photo.

The hot car that we all lusted after was maybe something like a SGI Indy or an O2.

Re: An old photo of a large BBS (2022)

#185

Post by officeplant »

shagie wrote: post #162

From my days... this is what an old photo of a "proper" BBS looked like https://beeline.org/beeline/?view=a29ed68f4f4d53 (note the wire wrapped custom modem controller) - the description is "Original Apple IIe with 11 modems and two 4-port homemade serial cards" And to keep better time, https://beeline.org/beeline/?view=c0a8000daa11ca It was later upgraded to a 486 https://beeline.org/beeline/?view=188870d0bbc894

Yeah this is a lot closer to the home BBS I grew up around. We had 20+ phone lines coming into our house all in a bundle going through the attic and dropping down into my dads "office" within the house. That led to a shelf full of modems, where I had to go find an inactive one and shut it off to free up a line. All so I could go turn on the modem in my room, because it was time to play a game with a friend across town.

Over time the BBS grew into us being a local dialup ISP as my Dad dug deeper into self employeement in the computer age.

Re: An old photo of a large BBS (2022)

#186

Post by anyfoo »

pavlov wrote: post #144
anyfoo wrote: post #117

Awesome. Side note: virtual 8086 mode was protected mode, or rather, implied protected mode. A task could run in virtual 8086 mode where to the task it was (mostly) looking like it was running in real mode, when in actuality the kernel was running in full protected mode. Note that the "kernel" was never DOS. It could often actually be a so called "memory manager", like EMM386, and the actual DOS OS (the entire thing,…

Is it so bizarre from today's perspective? Virtualization and hypervisors are commonplace.

The virtualization itself is not the bizarre part. The bizarre part is where the actual OS is 16 bit and runs as the singular "task" of a thin 32 bit layer that merely calls itself a "memory manager". The details of that machinery (segmentation, DPMI, ...) are quite a sight to behold. And it's all because of how PCs evolved at that time, and because we needed to keep running DOS and still wanted to make use of all the extra memory that wouldn't fit into its address space.

Re: An old photo of a large BBS (2022)

#187

Post by ASUfool »

mansilladev wrote: post #145

Anyone else still remember old BBS phone numbers? I’ve got several stuck in my head from 40 odd years ago, but I can barely remember my kids’ cell numbers.

I still remember the number for Bob's Answering Machine in Phoenix, one of the local Fidonet-connected BBS's.

But oddly, at the same time, I was running a WBBS (wave to Mr. W. Conrad, the author) as a local dual 360K floppy PC-XT BBS, I don't recall my OWN phone number for it.

Re: An old photo of a large BBS (2022)

#188

Post by flopsamjetsam »

timthorn wrote: post #171
shagie wrote: post #162

From my days... this is what an old photo of a "proper" BBS looked like https://beeline.org/beeline/?view=a29ed68f4f4d53 (note the wire wrapped custom modem controller) - the description is "Original Apple IIe with 11 modems and two 4-port homemade serial cards" And to keep better time, https://beeline.org/beeline/?view=c0a8000daa11ca It was later upgraded to a 486 https://beeline.org/beeline/?view=188870d0bbc894

And a Televideo 910. Keyboard with added reverb :)

Ah, I was wondering what that was. My knowledge of terminals is not good (I just guess VT100 for everything :)

Re: An old photo of a large BBS (2022)

#189

Post by flopsamjetsam »

shagie wrote: post #162

From my days... this is what an old photo of a "proper" BBS looked like https://beeline.org/beeline/?view=a29ed68f4f4d53 (note the wire wrapped custom modem controller) - the description is "Original Apple IIe with 11 modems and two 4-port homemade serial cards" And to keep better time, https://beeline.org/beeline/?view=c0a8000daa11ca It was later upgraded to a 486 https://beeline.org/beeline/?view=188870d0bbc894

I fully appreciate the horizontal "stack" of modems underneath the desk in the second photo :)

Re: An old photo of a large BBS (2022)

#190

Post by shagie »

flopsamjetsam wrote: post #189
shagie wrote: post #162

From my days... this is what an old photo of a "proper" BBS looked like https://beeline.org/beeline/?view=a29ed68f4f4d53 (note the wire wrapped custom modem controller) - the description is "Original Apple IIe with 11 modems and two 4-port homemade serial cards" And to keep better time, https://beeline.org/beeline/?view=c0a8000daa11ca It was later upgraded to a 486 https://beeline.org/beeline/?view=188870d0bbc894

I fully appreciate the horizontal "stack" of modems underneath the desk in the second photo :)

Power strips next to them in that photo are fun too.
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