The 25th Anniversary of the BBS 260
Jason Scott writes "25 years ago today, Ward Christensen and Randy Suess officially announced the creation of a little project they threw together with a 300 baud Hayes modem, a Z-80 based S-100 computer, and a phone line. They called it "Chicago Bulletin Board System" (CBBS) and it was the first dial-up BBS. From this beginning, BBSes grew into the many thousands and became an entire industry, and when the Internet started to mature with the World Wide Web, the users who had cut their teeth on BBSes moved over to it. So raise a toast to these two fellows for a quarter century of great online times."
Fossil driver? (Score:2)
Re:Fossil driver? (Score:2)
Re:Fossil driver? (Score:5, Informative)
As I recall, x00 went on to support a few rather esoteric hardware configurations, including the Hayes ESP accelerator boards. (These were serial cards with a 16550 UART emulation mode, but also a native mode that allowed extremely high baud rates.) Basically, you could do x2, x4 and even x8 multipliers of the usual 115,000 BPS serial port limit. Those types of speeds weren't too useful for dial-up modems, but people using the first external ISDN modems appreciated them. Otherwise, your 128K ISDN circuit bottlenecked at the 115K max. of the serial port.
Re:Fossil driver? (Score:4, Informative)
Many of us began the battle against microsoft because we ran a BBS but only had one or two computers. If it wasn't for Ray, running a BBS on OS/2 would have been near impossible.
SIO/VSIO... rest in peace.
One word. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One more word. (Score:3, Informative)
Doesnt that computer look in a sorry state now (Score:2)
Happy Birthday to the CBBS, and a toast to the first major communications devopment of the 21st century.
Re:Doesnt that computer look in a sorry state now (Score:4, Funny)
I dunno - the very same hardware has served Kuro5hin pretty well over the last 5 years! It if ain't broke, don't fix it!
That Computer should be in the Smithsonian (Score:5, Informative)
Like was common for hobbiests in those days, Randy built it from chips they salvaged from old mainframe boards. They would heat the back of the boards with a blowtorch to melt the solder and then slam it against a table to pop out the chips.
It didn't even have an OS in the beginning. There was not even CP/M in those days. The first versions of CBBS talked directly to the hardware. Later Ward rewote CBBS to run over CP/M.
Re:That Computer should be in the Smithsonian (Score:2)
I was on Chinet when I first moved to Chicago, and attended a few RL get-togethers - possibly the single geekiest bunch of people I've ever known (and I mean that in the best way possible).
The story I got was that Randy had tossed it into the dumpster, and whoever has it now fished it out. It was at the second get-together at some pizza place on Touhy. Ward said that the Smithsonian wanted something that was impossible to give them - the "original" system. Roughly comparable to trying to drink from the same river twice. They had a whole pile of 1k memory cards - who could say which one was "original".
My old e-mail address was katefans@chinet.chi.il.us and before that, katefans@world.std.com - two contenders for the title "First ISP".
If you want to go back: (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If you want to go back: (Score:4, Funny)
Help my modem's on fire!
Re:If you want to go back: (Score:3, Funny)
click me [google.com]
Sad to see them fading away. (Score:3, Interesting)
I enjoyed the local community created through the BBS's, nowdays thats no longer the case, with almost any bbs that is still running has internet access and users from all over..
The good ol' times (Score:5, Informative)
BBS: A Documentary (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.bbsdocumentary.com [bbsdocumentary.com]
In short, Jason Scott is making a film about the BBS and the important aspects it played in the world. It's an ambitious project, and I had a lot of fun doing my interview, and anyone who has something to say about the BBS experience is encouraged to help him out.
Jason is one heck of a cool dude...can't wait to see how this turns out.
RemoteAccess (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the kind of skill that comes in handy when real shit happens.. and it was fun to look at the post-dotcom admins' faces
Re:RemoteAccess (Score:2)
The pentium at work sadly doesn't have Tradewars
Don't Forget Message Networks (Score:5, Informative)
Fidonet [fidonet.org] was obe of my favorites as it forced the sysop to prove they could configure everything properly. It was open on systems run on all sorts of OS could join.
Later message networks used the QWK [216.239.53.100] format which was much simpler.
Others like the RIME [checksix.net] network used proprietary software, but allowed more control and file attachments.
Ah, those were the days.
Re:Don't Forget Message Networks (Score:4, Informative)
QWK was BBS userBBS messaging allowing someone to build a packet of messages to download and read and reply offline, reading both fidonet echos and BBS-local message areas (and other "Fidonet Technology Networks" which used the same software as, but were not, Fidonet.)
QWK was for BBS users; FidoNet was inter-BBS communications. (Although it was possible to be a point on Fido - basically, a complete leaf node that had no dial in users.) Different applications; it would be very common to use QWK to download Fidonet echos that their BBS carried.
Shannon, formerlly 3:772/1175.2 (as I recall; it's been a loooong time.)
Not exactly... (Score:5, Informative)
There were several networks that were QWK based, mostly in North America (Zone 1), and mostly based on commercial BBS software like PCBoard. Since you were in Zone 3, this might explain why you never saw this used. As far as I know, the mechanism more or less relied on the fact that all PCBoard systems were effectively identical, perhaps with just different text for the prompts. PCBoard was pretty popular in North America. It was basically the software to run if you wanted to have a "professional" looking BBS, and many of the large commercial BBS's ran it (some others like Wildcat and MajorBBS were also popular among commercial boards).
Anyway, to get other BBS software to work as a hub on a QWK network wouldn't really be feasible since you'd basically have to emulate PCBoard. But it was possible with some hacking to join a QWK network even if you ran other software. I ran Telegard as my BBS software and ended up hacking up some terminal scripts that allowed me to join a QWK network as a node. The QWK technology was technically inferior to FidoNet technology in just about every way. It probably originated as a kludge when the developers of certain BBS packages wanted built-in echomail but were too lazy to bother implementing all of FidoNet's technical specs. This then became the most convenient option for sysops who were too lazy or stupid to figure out how to set-up a 3rd party echomail front end and "tossing" software.
Eventually some of the QWK networks began distributing their mail using FidoNet technology via gateways.
Re:Not exactly... (Score:2)
Re:Don't Forget Message Networks and STACKER! (Score:2)
I remember trying to fit all that FIDO mail on a 20MB Seagate RLL Harddrive. Remember when harddrive used to cost $800? Imagine the BBS you could run if could magically transport a modern system back in time. The storage and speed would be insane!
I used to run the T.A.G. [filelibrary.com] BBS, and I even wrote some door programs in Borland Turbo Pascal. Remember the automagic file detecting ZMODEM upload door? That was mine
Endless fun (Score:4, Informative)
I especially love the anarchy files. "Wahahhahah!" There's also great commentary about the whole BBS scene.
Pointless Nostalga (Score:3, Interesting)
damn, this brings back memories (Score:4, Insightful)
I rememberm dialing into the Local High School BBS and just chilling, and playing games with other. who would have thought back then, those BBS'es would turn into this, what we know now.
it is kind of cool to think about
Cheers to the invention of the BBS!
The REAL fun.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The REAL fun.. (Score:2)
Re:The REAL fun.. (Score:2, Funny)
An age not lost ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Another interesting fact I remember back in the day was being able to type faster than the 300 baud modems could send. Imagine that your fingers can transfer information from your brain to the computer, but the computer to computer connection can't keep up, granted this was before windows even. The idea of a personal computer has been around for ages and the computer to be used as a communication device is not a new idea.
The internet did not kill BBS's, BBS's simply became antiquated. Centralized file sharing was replaced by FTP and GOPHER (yes ... gopher ... I guess HTTP could be thrown in here too), message boards by Instant messengers (who remembers the beta versions of Mirabilis??) and the online community expanded to include every corner of the world not just the distance a spont was away to be too far because that would be "long distance" and cost an arm and a leg to get on.
Most BBS's, unless they had some money, had no more than 2 nodes, now it's not uncommon to see a website that gets hit with more than a million hits a day (putting their link on slashdot doesn't hurt).
The BBS was a prelude to the dial-up isp, and any BBS's that wanted to stay in business learned the wonderful ways of SLIP CSLIP and PPP ...
Am I really that old, geeze.
BBS's did not become antiquated, per se (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet is like an planet sized mall. A BBS is like your neighborhood bar.
Yes, you and your friends can meet at a bar in the mall, but it *isn't* really the same thing.
I guess we just have to redefine "neighborhood" now.
There are certainly benifits to the "mall" model, I admit. I "know" people all over the world, whom I've never actually met, who I could call on to put me up on their couch for a couple of days if I needed it.
The flip side is that I, perhaps, know fewer in my own meat space neighborhood of whom I could ask this favor.
The world is different for "interneters" than it is for BBSers.
KFG
Must be smallest bar ever... (Score:2)
I don't know about you, but the BBSs that I used to frequent had one, or at most two phone lines... so the closest you'd get to actually meeting was
1) Reading whatever messages other people left for you
2) >>>> Sysop is coming online
Getting on the Internet and talking to several friends at the same time was a huge upgrade...
Kjella
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:2)
They're all beta versions...
Even the latest [com.com] .
I'm not positive but I believe the reason they're all betas is so they don't have to provide support. I could be wrong though.
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:4, Funny)
300bps full duplex, let's say that 9 bits per byte with parity, and I forget if the modem signal had an extra stop bit... but let's say it did, so that's 10 bits per character.
That would be 30 characters per second, meaning 1800 characters per minute. If I recall correctly from my typing days, 5 characters were considered to be a "word", but I don't think they counted spaces, but we will to be generous.
So, at 6 characters per word, that would mean that you were a 300wpm typist.
You kicked ass!
Ah, how nostalgia changes our perspective.
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:3, Informative)
for one you vastly undercounted (9 bits/char not 10, remember 8N1 (normal) or 7E2 (compuserve)? 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit or 7 data, even parity, 2 stop bit.
4 chars is a word, spaces are considered characters, so 'a a ' is just as much one word as 'four'.
but when I was outtyping 2400baud, it was on an ansi-enabled vt220 emulator, i could usually get a full line or two ahead of certain mail composers, and very easily get about 5 or 6 screen refreshes ahead of BRE. (I used to play 300 turns in about 7 minutes).
It's not too hard to outtype low-speed modems after you factor in control characters, remote echo, and line latency.
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:2)
4 characters per word? Not in my typing classes. Once again, though, less characters per word skews things even more in my (ridiculously fast typist) side of the argument. 4 characters per word at 1800 characters per minute is 450wpm.
Finally, out-typing a SYSTEM is completely different from out-typing a modem, which is really what the original post was claiming to have done. The system you were using was obviously bogged down. Hell, using your logic, I can claim to out-type my T1 line at work, since I often encounter situations where I'm typing ahead blindly on a command line of some distant system.
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:2)
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:2)
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:2)
Also, it is possible (and I'm mostly talking out my rear at this point) that latency had something to do with it. It is reasonable to assume that devices of that day had a higher latency than those you see today, which could certainly contribute to at least the feeling of out-typing your modem.
Alan
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:2)
cd ~/Documents/Projects/Agent/Current/lib/docs/kawa
or whatever, a line that I type probably every ten minutes, I'd be absolutely stunned if I didn't hit 250+ wpm (that is, 1200-1500 characters per minute). Presumably, a better typist than me, or one who uses muscle memory for long phrases more, could easily hit 300wpm for a single line.
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:2)
1. Way more than 50% of the people on the road think that they're "above average" drivers (85% last I heard)
2. Avid computer users always think they're faster typists than they are.
Every time I hear one of my co-workers drop how fast they type (100wpm, etc.), I always break out the typing tutor software. They're always at least 50% off.
Scaling typing boasts by 50% is a statistically safe bet.
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:2)
i think you're getting reading and writing mixed up.
you probably meant to say that you remember reading faster than 300 baud
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:2)
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:3, Interesting)
There were some BBSs and serial drivers that would allow "overclocking" a 300 bps modem up to 450 or so. Whoo, what a rush of power! :^) In a way, it's a shame that I'll never again experience the same WOW factor as when I went to 1200 and then 14400+. (ADSL was nice, but I'd already been spoiled by connections at work.)
When BBSs started dying, I did try converting it to a web based system in 1996, but got caught in the squeeze that either (a) PPP was too hard to configure for some users, (b) They already has Internet access, so why call some single line BBS? (At the time, being on the Internet was not an option.) Heh, from the Linux BBS across the LAN to the Windows WebSite server, that was a goofy setup!
Re:An age not lost ... (Score:2)
It really was a special time and a special place and basically, when you think about it, you were basically invited into your SysOp's living room for a while. People like Phil Hansford and Joseph Sheppard paid for the multiple lines and keeping computers going 24/7 with their own money and time. There was camaraderie then that doesn't exist now.
It had to die...when the Internet became more and more accessable, it simply offered a lot more than any single BBS could. But I miss it, man. I really do.
SD2 Alums, represent! (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:SD2 Alums, represent! (Score:5, Funny)
Jesus Christ, that was so long ago...
Yes, around 2003 years I think. Not sure about your BBS though.
Thanks, I'll be here all week...
Re:SD2 Alums, represent! (Score:2)
I was just wondering if one of you guys would show up in this thread.
Madison WI had at least two multi-line BBSs for about 5 years, SD][ and Beeline with multi-room chat, message boards and a ascii games such as snake, tank war, and a beta of an Ultima type game. Of course, since almost every-one was a local call away, there were lots of real-world gatherings as well. Lots of fun.
BBSmates.com (Score:2, Informative)
It looks pretty complete, I even found a bunch of old boards that I used to call in the Wichita, KS. area code.
It's funny, some of the people I met on those BBSs I still keep in touch with, while friends I had in high school I never hear from.
BBS - The early communities of the Net (Score:5, Interesting)
I found a list of BBS systems in some computer magazine and I thought, 'Huh? What's this about?' So I dialed one, probably in the midwest, and the world of the BBS opened up to me. Wow, files! For free? Cool!
I later discovered a BBS in Petaluma, California run by Vern Buerg (His current web site, not the original BBS [buerg.com]) and his wife Julie. That was the first time I began to use message boards, play football contests, make friends online. I hung around there most every day and understood the ability to create an online community.
The Web came along later and opened this concept up to the world. But in my mind it all began with the BBS and watching those text lines crawling across my screen at 300 baud. Oh yeah, and seeing FIDO show up in ASCII art. Cute doggie! :)
-----
Memories... (Score:4, Interesting)
I like to think of myself as an "old timer" (most computer geeks I deal with weren't into BBS's/too young), but this really puts things in perspective for me - because I recently just turned 25, myself!
If you had told me, back when I was 15, that BBS's would be all but gone, yet everyone would own a computer - and be connected to one another - I'd have thought you were crazy. I can't wait to see what it's like 25 years from now!
CBBS, Igloo and Piucospan (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a real sense of community back then. Most people knew each other, and hung out together, even having picnics and other get-togethers. The net has grown a lot since Ward came up with XMODEM, and oft-times I miss the friendly (and not-so-friendly) rivalries of the early days. I now live in Seattle, and though I use a small local ISP, I don't know a single person who uses it. It's grown so impersonal
I really hope that the early days can be documented, and hope that they can capture a sense of how alive it felt back then, how people would go out of their way to be helpful to total strangers (and believe me, we had quite a few who were totally strange, myself among them).
Re:CBBS, Igloo and Piucospan (Score:2)
I still see a lot of the same comraderie, especially on regional mailing lists. For example, the dc-raves mailing list was a hotbed of strangers going out of their way to help out others get to parties, etc.
So community is out there, just in a different format.
P.S.- Nice sig!
BBS for peace in former Yugoslavia (Score:5, Interesting)
ATH! (Score:5, Funny)
Whiner: blah blah blah
Guru 1: This xyz BBS has a cute bug to gain system privileges...
Guru 2: Agree and talk about it but no details until the whiner starts reallllly begging to know the details. Then:
Guru 1: Ok type +++ (originally typed as ++ space bkspace +) followed by ATH and hit enter
Whiner: NO CARRIER
And of course being a busy BBS he would be kicked out for a jolly good time. The fun at the inept continued when we created variations on the ATH theme on the same victim :-)
Re:ATH! (Score:2)
Elite A2 board: call ASGARD (313) 540-8579! (Score:3, Insightful)
I credit early days BBSing with my typing skills, helping my writing skills, and even my socialization skills (uh, you know, on the war boards...). If you missed those days you missed out; it was so much more "underground" than the Internet ever was, and consequently, a lot more enjoyable, especially for geeks. You could come home from your boring school filled with stupid jocks and just enter a totally different world.
I'm definitely still nostalgic for the 80 column greenscreen and carrier tone.
-iocat -uif -immortal
Still in use (Score:5, Informative)
BBS's are still in use. For a start, radio amateurs using packet radio still use BBS systems like F6BBS. See http://www.f6fbb.org/ [f6fbb.org].
1200 baud, ascii art, horrendous setup: it's all still there and in use today. I run a system and so do many other radio hams. Slow, primitive, but free, and I do not rely on the phone or cable company!
Cheers,
Michael VA3MVW
More BBS info (Score:2)
http://bbsmates.com/ [bbsmates.com]
I've found a bunch of people on the systems I used to be an administrator for - even ones that I had forgotten about. It's a nice resource for seeing exactly who is out there still, and what they're up to.
-Matt
ah, the bbs (Score:2)
I ran a 2 line BBS for several years, and used several software packeages, from sbbs, rbbs, tbbs, and finally settled into ezycom, an aussie package. We offered Fidonet, and I had made HOMEMADE scsi cables (i was really broke back then) to daisy chain old 1x cd rom drives for files (3 of them) on a ibm 386/20 with 4mb of ram, 80mb hard drive, a 14.4k (when they were $275) and a 2400. (thank god for a 'borrowed' copy of Desqview
That is what amazes me, we could tweak out the last few bytes of low ram, and used ram disks for overlay files, with just 4mb. I guess I miss that level of tweaking. While I get some of that with Linux, I certainly don't with Windows.
Running a BBS taught me to actually do something with a computer, and was the foundation for learning networking. I have thought about setting up a telnet bbs, and even installed and tested software, but I haven't had the heart to actually go online.
I guess you can't go back.
FidoNet (Score:4, Interesting)
Looking through a recent nodelist, I noticed quite a few familiar names from 1991. My BBS ran RA with BinkleyTerm as a front-end, and DesqView as the multitasker (on a 386 with 2.5MB RAM). I later put Linux on that machine (I started using Linux when distros didn't exist, it was just a boot/root disk, format the hard disk and cp -r from the root disk).
Aaah, the memories
Damar's Haven in 714 (Score:2)
Ahh those were the days
dead? (Score:2)
Then come by my BBS... telnet://www.gargoyleslanding.com
Re:dead? (Score:2, Informative)
A great idea, but badly implemented.
The C in CCBS is for Computerized, not Chicago (Score:5, Informative)
Ward Christensen [slashdot.org] posted more history here on
There's some more history in an interview here [portcommodore.com].
Ward's a terrifically nice guy who also invented freeware when he gave away all of the useful utilities he wrote. Teh reason for that was more that he didn't want mess with accusations of competing with his employer than an early movement for Free Software.
Re:The C in CCBS is for Computerized, not Chicago (Score:5, Interesting)
Jason Scott is doing a great job of documenting the history..including some of the "bad guesses" at what CBBS stood for. I had forgotten it became "community" once in a while, too ;-)
Little known is that Randy Suess actually copyrignted the phrase CBBS, and drives around - or drove around - in a car with "CBBS" license plates (My licence plate is Xmodem, haha).
I think it would be sort of fun to put up some sort of CBBS emulator on the web, seed it with all the files I can scrounge up from - alas - happens to be 10 years ago that it died - and let it rip.
Many would say "this is dumb". But then I guess you could call a 3 year old dumb if compared to an adult. It was the infancy of the "microcomputer industry".
P.S. I would like to say one thing about "me" and the stuff I did you have commented on - lots of give-away-stuff (disk editor, including looping 1-line macros (search for blah blah at offset xyz and replace it with something and loop 12 times, etc), disk cataloging program, Xmodem, etc).
The thing I'd like to say is that I was not a genius, or even very smart - because back THEN I was programming in a VACUUM. There were not millions of people doing more than I was at the time. Anything I could think of, would not exist, so just writing it became quite easy. I didn't have to write very GOOD code, I didn't have to compete with brighter people - I just "lucked out" to have thought of some of the stuff before others did, have a good enough job to not want to try to make money off of it, etc.
Regrets? I regret that when the IBM PC came out, with its 160K floppies (My CP/M system had 1.2M floppies and an 8M hard disk), 16K of Ram (or whatever - compared to the 256K I had on my CP/M system), and a few hundred character per second screen scroll rate (I believe my CP/M system scrolled text at about 50,000 characters/sec - it used hardware to change the starting display line not a block move instruction)...I repeat, I regret NOT scrapping my investment in CP/M and porting my programs (Oh, forgot the famous "disassembler, with its - ahem - clever name: Resource) ... to the PC environment. As a result by the time I got a PC (after XT's came out, and I wanted to be "better" so got an external 15M drive (whooie!), all the bright aggressive programmers had started to saturate the market with their software. My disk utility? languished, as Peter Norton took over the helm of that ship; Commercial file transfer software became common, but some things like disk cataloging or disassembling never quite reached the stage they should... this "segment register stuff" made disassembly QUITE difficult compared to the simple linear 64K memory model of the 8080...
But I ramble...
I AM amused your comment got a "5", mine seem to get a "1". Working for IBM, a "1" is best, I'll just think of it that way ;-)
P.S. Just to ramble some more:
1. In 1974 I learned that "TTL" electronics, and an "8008" microchip could make a home computer, and wrote to Heathkit to suggest they "invent" the home computer. Their response "We already have an analog computer kit, why would we want a digital computer kit?".
2. In approx '78, I wrote to IBM saying that I'd had a "microcomputer" for 3 years by then, and thought IBM should commercialize the microcomputer by coming out with one. Got back an answer "we don't see a market for such a device".
Wish I'd pushed a bit!
Ward Christensen
Randy Still Around (Score:3, Informative)
Randy is still around. He runs a CBBS successor called Chinet www.chinet.com [chinet.com].
BTW: Ward is also the fellow who invented XMODEM
Re:Randy Still Around (Score:2)
siri
BBS Simulator (Score:4, Interesting)
Quote from their site
BBS Simulator (Sim-BBS) is a BBS simulator game, your users get their own BBS, which they have to take care of, and upgrade as it gets bigger. They start with an 286 with 1 meg of ram, a 10 meg hard drive, and 10 non-subscribers. The have to Read their mail, and work on the board to increase their number of users. The goal is to be the biggest board, and to keep the users happy.
I'm not affiliated with groutySoft and I don't know how much bandwidth they have, so please be kind.
Re:BBS Simulator (Score:2)
http://grouty.org/bbs/bbssim.php [grouty.org]
Re:BBS Simulator (Score:2)
Tradewars MMORPG? (Score:5, Interesting)
Meeeeeemoriess..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Before that it was college message board systems, participating in multi-school projects back in the early '80s where each team would represent a nation in the Middle East, and attempt to negotiate a resolution to the conflicts over there.
And who can forget the Source?
BBS's in Montreal (Score:2)
ISCABBS (Score:2)
Prestel (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Prestel (Score:2)
BBS-ing (Score:2)
Logging on here and there with my Osborne 1 and a 300 baud modem. Hacking the Modem7 (and subsequent versions) "overlays" to get everything working. Finally running a Fidonet "point" system - couldn't wait to see the mail come in during the middle of the night, and "toss" it to the right groups.
What a rich world we had, with nothing but text! It's all so taken for granted now. I guess that's a good thing.
Clockwork Orange BBS (Score:3, Informative)
For doorgames (lord, tradewars, bre etc.)
telnet://clockworkorangebbs.org
For messages
http://www.clockworkorangebbs.org
What a True BBS has (Score:2)
The Dungeon (Score:2, Interesting)
Those were the days. I was in school and in the early days didn't have an auto-answer modem. I had a system written in BASIC on my TRS 80 with a manual 300-baud modem and I'd flip the switch when the phone rang. When I finally upgraded to a more automated system, I had the BBS set to call me in the morning to wake me up.
Re:The Dungeon (Score:2, Interesting)
In later years when the system was running on IBM, I also wrote a few Door programs, including one called "City Guides" which was a configurable database with restaurant and other listings. One of the major telephone companies eventually bought the software and used it as a prototype for their electronic yellow pages. The United Nations also adapted this software to serve as a database for monitoring environmental scenarios around the world and sharing information online.
I have very fond memories of the old BBS days. Fidonet and BBSes and their ability to distribute software gave many early Shareware authors the opportunity to get their products out to people and build businesses. As a result of this and the Shareware that my BBS and others helped distribute, I quit the corporate world more than 15 years ago and have never looked back. People like myself, Katz, McAffee, Button and many, many others owe their livelihood to the BBS phenomenon.
Also, a big shout out to the system of Hell in NYC (I don't know nuttin'), Alan Jennings of CompuChurch (first of its kind), Wes Mier in Walnut Creek (best download section on the planet for almost a decade), and Penn and Teller -- all pioneers in the history of BBSes.
Ah, the good ol' days (Score:5, Interesting)
We were also members of a software club (if I recall, there were no laws against software piracy back then. I know we didn't try to hide what we were doing.) that had a BBS. We would pitch in some $$, vote on what to buy, crack the protection and distribute it to the members.
Later on I got a Commodore 64. By then modems were 2400 baud and had modular jacks. I got heavily involved in the commodore BBS scene in Washington state. Most of the BBSs I used had one or at most two phone lines, so you would have to redial again and again. Getting the settings right to connect was a pain in a lot of cases. Connections would drop all the time, so dowloading large files was a crapshoot, as none of the BBSs I remember supported transfer resume.
I remember when AOL started up, I thought "Free? these guys will never last."
I saw home computers go from a weird/fringe hobbiest thing through full commercialization. I saw the online scene go the same route, then the Internet, and later, open source. By the time I got involved in open source in '94, I could see the handwriting on the wall, and I felt lucky to have found out about it before money drove the spirit out of it.
Ahh, the good ol' days, when only enthusiasts were online. S'why I read slashdot, as dumb as it can be at times, at least people here are passionate about computers.
Re:Ah, the good ol' days (Score:2)
anyways, my point here is there was an amazing peice of BBS software then. i believe it was called C-NET (i had version 10.x or so). this software was written in BASIC and it was very easy to modify and add entire sections to.
there was also another piece of software for the C-64 called HAL or something. sheesh, does anyone remember?
it was amazing to think about all the phreakers back then, calling BBS's with stolen Sprint/MCI codes for avoiding long distance charges. i remember the phone company calling me because a number of phone phreaks used these codes for calling my BBS.
i told her i didn't know who made these calls. the operator then told me that as a system operator, i should have a log of all incoming calls and user accounts.
i was like, 'look lady, i'm 14 years old. what should i have again?' the phone company never called me again. heh.
Multi-Line BBS (Score:2)
The main difference between this board and most of the others around at the time was that the community of people were largely NOT computer geek types (like me) but more-or-less normal folks who just happened to have computers. It was designed following the model of the CDC "Plato" system to be extremely easy to use.
At the time I was trying to use it to convince investors to put money into making a large scale national E-Mail/bulletin board service but was (of course) told I was crazy, the average person would NEVER buy their own computer or use E-Mail.
Still got the computer laying around here somewhere, but would have to figure out the right way to wire up a serial cable to make it talk to my PC if I want to use it
Blogs becoming the new BBS? (Score:3, Interesting)
Searchlight BBS (Score:2)
How time flies! (Score:2)
It is unfortunate that the web took over BBSs. (Score:2)
BBSs also had the advantage of beeing a more of a one stop shop with a file download area, message boards, and Games all in one spot with the simular group of people in your area using them. While the internet seems more geared to giving people some usefull or at least your point of view on information it has become very buisness like and has lost a lot of charm of the old BBSs. I tried some of the new Telnet BBSs but they as well dont have the same charm because they are to widly accessed. It was fun to dial into 20 BBSs and see usually the same people. It made it feel more like a comunity and not a place to watch comericals.
Slashdot *is* a BBS. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like a BBS to me.
BBSing never came to an end. (Score:5, Informative)
I've been running UNCENSORED! BBS [citadel.org] since 1988 and it's still a hip, hot, totally-whats-happening hobby. The community is still there. The fun is still there. The comraderie is still there.
The only thing that isn't still there is the modem.
Slashdot likes to position itself as "what came after the BBS" but with the amount of volume a zillion users generate, you just can't replace the "folksy" feel of your favorite BBS. Get out there and BBS, folks!
If you liked door games... (Score:2)
Agents [2y.net]
C(omputerized)BBS - Thanks for remembering 25th. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Legand Of the Red Dragon (Score:2)
Re:I can't say I was aware of the BBS 25 yrs ago.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I can't say I was aware of the BBS 25 yrs ago.. (Score:3, Funny)
'You give the old man -10000000'
Gee, that old man funded many a campaign to slay the dragon and lay Violet.
Re:Setting up a telnet BBS (Score:2)
-Andy
--------------
http://andy.greyledge.net [greyledge.net]
Free PHP software and Clawhammer Banjo OGGs
Re:and.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Nope. (Score:2)
Re:Nope. (Score:2)
That,and Fred Clark was a dick. =)