I was wondering if you guys had any stories with doing BBS in the 80s and 90s before the world wide web was public. My family didn't have internet until '96 and we used WebTV for most of our surfing before using a computer so BBS were out of the question .

I didn't even know what a BBS was until after high school. I'm wondering what it was like and if you guys did anything like warez or trading other such files back and forth over baud modems. I'm fascinated by this stuff.

---
■ Synchronet ■ Decker's Heaven -//- bbs.deckersheaven.com

I was wondering if you guys had any stories with doing BBS in the 80s and 90s before the world wide web was public.

BBS stories aren't really internet stories, as your subject suggests. ;)

My family didn't have internet
until '96 and we used WebTV for most of our surfing before using a

computer

so BBS were out of the question .

I didn't even know what a BBS was until after high school. I'm wondering what it was like and if you guys did anything like warez or trading other such files back and forth over baud modems. I'm fascinated by this stuff.

I grew up around computers (my dad always had at least 1). I eventually got
my own computer, along with a modem, as a gift in 1992 (I was 12 years old), and that's when I got into BBSing. I stayed up late many nights that summer calling local BBSes and exploring what they had to offer. I mostly enjoyed finding new games & other software to download, multi-node chat on BBSes that had more than 1 node, and occasionally liked reading & posting messages.

I started my own BBS in 1994 using a second phone line that we had, and I really enjoyed running it. I ran that until 2000, when BBS use had declined severely, and I thought nobody would really want to use a BBS again.

I started using the internet in late 1995. I thought the internet was pretty awesome when I started using it - Lots of information and files were
available very easily. As opposed to BBSes, which might not always have the latest version of a particular program, the internet made it much easier to find and download the latest version of something.

I eventually decided to get back into BBSing in 2007, and I started my
current BBS at that time. I discovered the documentary "BBS: The
Documentary" around that time, which is what inspired me to get back into BBSing (now on the internet though, of course).

Nightfox

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: physalis17 to All on Thu Sep 10 2015 03:55 pm

I didn't even know what a BBS was until after high school. I'm wondering what it was like and if you guys did anything like warez or trading other such files back and forth over baud modems. I'm fascinated by this stuff.

Nope, not here. :)

Warez and pr0n drove the BBS scene in a lot of ways. There was an undergound aspect to it, I remember a couple of BBSes in 415, that if you were a new user, got a standard G-rated board. Once you were validated, you'd have access to the elite filez.

---
■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: physalis17 to All on Thu Sep 10 2015 03:55 pm

I was wondering if you guys had any stories with doing BBS in the 80s and 90s before the world wide web was public. My family didn't have internet until '96 and we used WebTV for most of our surfing before using a computer so BBS were out of the question .

Yea I have a few stories. Do you want to hear the happy ones or how BBSing cost me my marriage? Not that it's any big deal, it's now 30 years later and I still hate the "Bitch"! Anyway yea.. the only way computers talked to one another was with a modem and a phone line. I first connected with my Commodore 64 and a 300 baud modem. It didn't take me long to find "Warez" for the C64 and man there was a ton of em! New software was released every week. Sometimes every day. Most new stuff would need a "dongle" to work. Others used the manual for protection. "Type the fourth word in the second sentence on page 3" kind of thing. Most of warez released were games but I really got a kick out of checking them out. The groups that "Cracked" the software would compete to be the first to "release" a "Title". I wasn't into games much but had a ball trying to play them. I spent most of my time modding "Image BBS" for the commodore. My next move up was an Amiga 500 with a 1200 baud modem. The rest is history.

HusTler

---
■ Synchronet ■ Decker's Heaven -//- bbs.deckersheaven.com

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: physalis17 to All on Thu Sep 10 2015 03:55 pm

I was wondering if you guys had any stories with doing BBS in the 80s and 90s before the world wide web was public. My family didn't have internet until '96 and we used WebTV for most of our surfing before using a computer so BBS were out of the question .

One thing that came to mind is that while we had user communities, feuds, arguments, crushes and the like, just like the internet, we were so much more local.

BBSes were connected via the same networks in place today, but because of toll costs, most of the othernets were close by. We used to have user meets every couple of weeks to get together face-to-face. Quite a few online feuds simmered down when the people got together and had drinks.

Technology was different -- no one knew about computers and technology, so when we got together, people had no idea what we were talking about. This was before AOL and email became popular.

---
■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Technology was different -- no one knew about computers and technology, so when we got together, people had no idea what we were talking about. This was before AOL and email became popular.

I'd probably argue somewhat the opposite - Fewer people had computers back then,
and those who did were usually fairly technically savvy because you had to be, in
order to use a computer, set up a modem, configure your terminal software, etc.. I
found it was easier to talk to people back then about computers because more people
using computers knew about them in better detail than today. These days, a lot more people use computers & technology, and much of it is designed to be plug & play - so there are many people these days using technology who don't know all the
ins & outs of how to configure it or fully use it.

Nightfox

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: HusTler to physalis17 on Fri Sep 11 2015 12:55 pm

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: physalis17 to All on Thu Sep 10 2015 03:55 pm

I was wondering if you guys had any stories with doing BBS in the 80s and 90s before the world wide web was public. My family didn't have internet until '96 and we used WebTV for most of our surfing before using a computer so BBS were out of the question .

Yea I have a few stories. Do you want to hear the happy ones or how BBSing cost me my marriage? Not that it's any big deal, it's now 30 years later and I still hate the "Bitch"!

I want to hear *that* story! :-)

digital man

Synchronet "Real Fact" #23:
1584 Synchronet BBS Software registrations were sold between 1992 and 1996. Norco, CA WX: 92.5°F, 40.0% humidity, 10 mph SE wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs

---
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ telnet://vert.synchro.net

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: physalis17 to All on Thu Sep 10 2015 16:55:00

I was wondering if you guys had any stories with doing BBS in the 80s and 90 before the world wide web was public. My family didn't have internet until '

I had my own BBS called Hot Gossip. It was running on my family phone line and was only open during the evening and the nighttime.

One of the best things for a SysOp was to chat with callers. Some of them were your friends, others total strangers.

Calling out was expensive and it showed on my family phone bill, so some restrictions were put on me. I belonged to a computer club that hosted its files on a BBS, and there were many others. ASCII art was big thing.

On the warez side, distribution was by snail mail typically, early on there were not too many BBS's capable of delivering anything else than text files.

Currently, I'm wondering why there isn't any BBS software for smartphones. One could easily host a BBS on a cell phone and have people call it to connect.

---
■ Synchronet ■ Nostromo - 192.168.0.2

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Gumbro to physalis17 on Fri Sep 11 2015 07:00 pm

Currently, I'm wondering why there isn't any BBS software for smartphones. One could easily host a BBS on a cell phone and have people call it to connect.

Smartphones (and tablets, for that matter) are very power conscience (battery life and all). To conserve power, radios are turned off when not needed, memory "islands" are shutdown and they're simply not designed for constant operation of any kind (they periodically wake up to perform tasks like checking your email or other notifications).

A BBS is basically a server and smartphones are not intended to be used as servers. If you could disable all the power-saving features in the device, it would still need a persistant Internet connection (so no driving/walking around with it) and a stable IP address for clients to connect to. If you're using the cellular (e.g. LTE) network (i.e. rather than WiFi), your provider would have to allow inbound TCP/IP connections as well, which seems unlikely.

Perhaps not impossible, but very impractical.

digital man

Synchronet "Real Fact" #39:
Synchronet has been ported to FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, QNX, and MacOS.
Norco, CA WX: 91.7°F, 40.0% humidity, 12 mph ESE wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs

---
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ telnet://vert.synchro.net

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: Nightfox to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Sep 11 2015 02:16 pm

I'd probably argue somewhat the opposite - Fewer people had computers back then,
and those who did were usually fairly technically savvy because you had to be, in order to use a computer, set up a modem, configure your terminal

That was my point, perhaps I misstated it. Yeah, back then computer hardware was limited to hobbyists; there was a lot less help, hardware wasn't plug and play, and there was no google.

I remember trying to configure an AST all-in-one card - it had 2 megs of EMS memory, a parallel port, and the holy grail for me -- a serial port with a socketed UART, so I could put a 16550 UART in it for high speed computing.

In order to get the instructions for a field of unmarked DIP switches, I needed to search for a fax-back system, call a voice number, enter the number of a document I wanted, and get it faxed to work, since I didn't have a fax machine at the time.

Now, with plug and play hardware and the internets, that would be a non-issue.

---
■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: Poindexter Fortran to Nightfox on Fri Sep 11 2015 16:10:17

I'd probably argue somewhat the opposite - Fewer people had
computers back then,
and those who did were usually fairly technically savvy because you
had to be, in order to use a computer, set up a modem, configure
your terminal

That was my point, perhaps I misstated it. Yeah, back then computer hardware was limited to hobbyists; there was a lot less help, hardware wasn't plug and play, and there was no google.

Ah, I see what you mean.

Nightfox

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Poindexter Fortran to physalis17 on Fri Sep 11 2015 11:20 am

I'm a fairly old timer when it comes to BBSes. Not so much to the current BBS scene, to it I'm fairly new, my BBS experience is all from pre 1980 or so. I really can't give exact dates, not because I don't want to, but because I
just don't remember them! Perhaps somebody reading this will remember some of what I'm saying, and can fill in some details.

I started calling BBSes using a Commodore CBM which was the same machine as
the newer model PET, the only difference was the PET powered up in a mode
that was uppercase or graphics characters & the CBM powered up in a more standard upper/lower case mode. either one could be changed into the other by means of using a BASIC command to poke into a particular memory location. Anyway I started calling local BBSes on Long Island NY in the late 1970's,
and then I traded in my CBM for a NorthStar Horizon. It was a totally
different type of a machine. It was a box. I had to connect a serial terminal to it to use it, so it was text only. It was an S-100 based machine, the
S-100 buss was popular back then, the machine had everything on S-100 cards, memory on one card (well 3 actually) CPU on a different card, etc. I
installed a DC Hayes MicroModem 100 into the machine, it was an S-100 card
that was a 300 baud modem that could be pushed to 450 baud sometimes! I
became friendly with some of the local SYSOPs, and eventually managed to get
my hands on a genuine Bell 212A 1200 baud modem! With this modem I setup the third high speed BBS on Long Island. I wish I could remember it's name, but alas I don't remember it. I do remember that it was areacode 516-791-XXXX and
I *think* the last 4 were 1767 but I could be totally wrong about that.
Anyway, that phoneline wasn't dedicated to just the BBS, so like many BBSes back in those days the program that handled the phoneline (the BBS was
actually broken up into a few different programs) called the 'bye.com'
program was programmed to watch the RI line of the RS232 serial port coming into the computer from the modem, and a BBS user was supposed to dial the BBS once, let the phone ring one time, hang up, call back with their computer and the modem would answer the phone. This was possible because both the computer
& modem made full use of the RS-232 flow control specs, and back then when
the telco switches were all analog, the ring you heard in the earpeice of the handset WAS the same ring that was ringing the ringer of the telephone. I
doubt it would be possible to do that today. Once the user got into the
system, and either logged in as a current user, or as a new user, they were then given the choice of going to the message area, or the file area
(assuming a current user, a new user didn't get to the file area or the
message area without being approved). So far all of this was being done by
the bye.com program, if they wanted to go the message area then the program
ran the rbbs.com program for them. If they wanted to go to the file area they basically were dumped out of the bye.com program to a CP/M prompt. My system only had dual 5.25" quad density floppies on it, and I kept BBS access
limited to my B drive, but if there was a file a user wanted (that I had)
that wasn't currently on-line there was a way they could page me to request that I put the floppy with the program they were looking for into the B
drive. when done in the file area, a user could either sign off by typing
"bye" which would load the bye.com program which would hangup the phone, and then await the next caller, or if they wanted to return to the BBS they would type "rbbs" which would run rbbs.com to reload the BBS system. From the BBS system if they wanted to logout there was an option which would basically
just call the bye.com program for them. Back in those days BBSes didn't exchange messages (or if they did I don't remember it), it was a matter of pride the number of both members, and messages that a SYSOP had on his
system. One of the other SYSOPs that had a high speed BBS on LI (did I
mention there were only 3?) was playing around with making a special half duplex version of the modem program, as Bell had just gotten rid of a bunch
of Bell202C & 202D modems that were 1200 baud hdx. The Bell 202C & 202D's
had a single carrier tone that almost sounded like the tone of the BELL103
(300 baud) modem, except that it only sent that tone when it was
transmitting, when it went into receive mode it went silent. So Tim had
gotten ahold of a few of these modems, and had given me a 202D version (the 202C had a rotary dial, the 202D had a DTMF pad) and his modified version of the modem program. It actually worked fairly well for file transfers, the program used the <Ctrl>-D character to inform the receiving modem that it was time to stop listening, and start transmitting. It never got much further
than some beta testing, and it's probably a good thing, as Tim had been planning on trying to get a group purchase together to buy like 100 or so of those modems, and they would have cost something like $125.00 back then!
I used to subscribe to a magazine called S-100 Microcomputing, and up until just a few years ago I had been keeping an issue that had a writeup in it
about the original IBMPC and about how it would never make it as a serious computer, because it had it's CPU mounted on it's motherboard rather than on
a card (preferably an S-100 buss card). Back then you could get 8080 CPU
cards, Z80 CPU cards, 8085 cards, 6800 CPU cards, and there might have even been a 68000 CPU card available in the S-100 form factor! My NorthStar was actually slightly unconventional as it had 2 serial ports, and a parrallel
port all on the motherboard! But the important cards, the CPU card, and
memory, those were S-100 cards. While I didn't have it, Northstar even had a memory mapped video card available that would give you 64x16 video. A while later I also managed to get ahold of an IMSAI S-100 machine, it had as it's front faceplate a full set of LEDS and matching keyswitches which you could
use to load in a bootstrap loader! But my favorite was connecting an ASR-33
to my Northstar! I had learned BASIC programming on a PDP-11/70 in HS using ASR-33's to communicate with the computer, so when I got one of my own I was
in hog heaven! It can't get much more ancient computerwise than that!

-MikeS




---
■ Synchronet ■ CARRIER SYNC II BBS - carriersync2.thruhere.net PORT:6912

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Digital Man to Gumbro on Fri Sep 11 2015 04:04 pm

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Gumbro to physalis17 on Fri Sep 11 2015 07:00 pm

Currently, I'm wondering why there isn't any BBS software for smartphones One could easily host a BBS on a cell phone and have people call it to connect.

Smartphones (and tablets, for that matter) are very power conscience (batter life and all). To conserve power, radios are turned off when not needed, mem "islands" are shutdown and they're simply not designed for constant operatio of any kind (they periodically wake up to perform tasks like checking your email or other notifications).

A BBS is basically a server and smartphones are not intended to be used as servers. If you could disable all the power-saving features in the device, i would still need a persistant Internet connection (so no driving/walking aro with it) and a stable IP address for clients to connect to. If you're using cellular (e.g. LTE) network (i.e. rather than WiFi), your provider would hav to allow inbound TCP/IP connections as well, which seems unlikely.

Perhaps not impossible, but very impractical.

digital man

Synchronet "Real Fact" #39:
Synchronet has been ported to FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, QNX, and Ma Norco, CA WX: 91.7°F, 40.0% humidity, 12 mph ESE wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hr

Actually, you're thinking internetwise. Think more along the lines of what
the device is, it's a telephone. what do all telephones have? a phone number. If (and I'm not saying I know how to do this, I'm not a programmer by any means) there were some way to use the phone's number to call into it's
onboard bbs sort of the same way folks send txt messages to a phone number, that would be a way of doing it? Perhaps having software that specifically looks for a text message with the text "BBS Access requested" the act of receiving a text would awaken the phone, and the BBS software once it sees
the text that somebody wants access, perhaps the BBS software could even use the sender of the text as a form of authentication (a form, but not the sole form), then once the text is received the phone could wait for a BBS
connection for a set period of time before allowing it's normal power saving features to take over?

As I said before, I don't know if this is possible, but if it is, it's one
way around the problems you mentioned in your post about a phone not being a good device to run a BBS on. Actually it seems to me that in some ways with
as much smarts as these new smartphones have that they would be great hosts
for a BBS. Heck, my BBS ran on a Z80 CP/M based machine with 56k of memory!

-MikeS

---
■ Synchronet ■ CARRIER SYNC II BBS - carriersync2.thruhere.net PORT:6912

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Poindexter Fortran to Nightfox on Fri Sep 11 2015 04:10 pm

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: Nightfox to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Sep 11 2015 02:16 pm

I'd probably argue somewhat the opposite - Fewer people had computers b then,
and those who did were usually fairly technically savvy because you had be, in order to use a computer, set up a modem, configure your terminal

That was my point, perhaps I misstated it. Yeah, back then computer hardware was limited to hobbyists; there was a lot less help, hardware wasn't plug an play, and there was no google.

I remember trying to configure an AST all-in-one card - it had 2 megs of EMS memory, a parallel port, and the holy grail for me -- a serial port with a socketed UART, so I could put a 16550 UART in it for high speed computing.

In order to get the instructions for a field of unmarked DIP switches, I nee to search for a fax-back system, call a voice number, enter the number of a document I wanted, and get it faxed to work, since I didn't have a fax machi at the time.

Now, with plug and play hardware and the internets, that would be a non-issu

But there are times when I wish I could go back to those old times. I have
ATT Uverse for internet/phone/TV in my mother's home here. Well, 2 of the
TV's are on their wireless system, and it's a configureless just push the button to configure system. Well, the other day neither of the remote TVs
would connect. I tried resetting both remotes, plus the transmitter at the wired end, did it like 5 different times, finally on the 5th time they
decided to grace us with their connecting. Nothing changed between all 5
times, so I'm clueless why 4 times they wouldn't connect, and why they did connect the 5th time! Oh Well, so it goes.

-MikeS

---
■ Synchronet ■ CARRIER SYNC II BBS - carriersync2.thruhere.net PORT:6912

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Gumbro to physalis17 on Fri Sep 11 2015 07:00 pm

Currently, I'm wondering why there isn't any BBS software for smartphones. One could easily host a BBS on a cell phone and have people call it to connect.

I don't think carriers allow many inbound ports.

---
■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Digital Man on Sat Sep 12 2015 05:46 am

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Digital Man to Gumbro on Fri Sep 11 2015 04:04 pm

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Gumbro to physalis17 on Fri Sep 11 2015 07:00 pm

Currently, I'm wondering why there isn't any BBS software for smartpho One could easily host a BBS on a cell phone and have people call it to connect.

Smartphones (and tablets, for that matter) are very power conscience (bat life and all). To conserve power, radios are turned off when not needed, "islands" are shutdown and they're simply not designed for constant opera of any kind (they periodically wake up to perform tasks like checking you email or other notifications).

A BBS is basically a server and smartphones are not intended to be used a servers. If you could disable all the power-saving features in the device would still need a persistant Internet connection (so no driving/walking with it) and a stable IP address for clients to connect to. If you're usi cellular (e.g. LTE) network (i.e. rather than WiFi), your provider would to allow inbound TCP/IP connections as well, which seems unlikely.

Perhaps not impossible, but very impractical.

digital man

Synchronet "Real Fact" #39:
Synchronet has been ported to FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, QNX, and Norco, CA WX: 91.7°F, 40.0% humidity, 12 mph ESE wind, 0.00 inches rain/2

Actually, you're thinking internetwise. Think more along the lines of what the device is, it's a telephone. what do all telephones have? a phone number If (and I'm not saying I know how to do this, I'm not a programmer by any means) there were some way to use the phone's number to call into it's onboard bbs sort of the same way folks send txt messages to a phone number, that would be a way of doing it? Perhaps having software that specifically looks for a text message with the text "BBS Access requested" the act of receiving a text would awaken the phone, and the BBS software once it sees the text that somebody wants access, perhaps the BBS software could even use the sender of the text as a form of authentication (a form, but not the sole form), then once the text is received the phone could wait for a BBS connection for a set period of time before allowing it's normal power saving features to take over?

As I said before, I don't know if this is possible, but if it is, it's one way around the problems you mentioned in your post about a phone not being a good device to run a BBS on. Actually it seems to me that in some ways with as much smarts as these new smartphones have that they would be great hosts for a BBS. Heck, my BBS ran on a Z80 CP/M based machine with 56k of memory!

-MikeS

I know it's tacky to reply to my own reply, but I just reread your original message as well, and it got me re thinking, and along the lines of using the text messageing as a means of waking the phone, if it really needed an
internet connection to actually connect, perhaps the text messageing could be used in a 2 way function, first to wake up the phone, and then perhaps the phone could send an autoreply with it's current internet address sort of
like how tzo does it? Just another thought.

I'm sorry about throwing out thoughts without any programming knowledge. I've always been an idea man, and actually have a couple of patents, as well as several others that are in various company names, but were my ideas. If you would prefer not to hear my ideas, just let me know, and I will shut up.

-MikeS

---
■ Synchronet ■ CARRIER SYNC II BBS - carriersync2.thruhere.net PORT:6912

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Poindexter Fortran on Sat Sep 12 2015 05:30 am


you need to format your text.
you posted 4 pages that was pretty much one long line of text. http://i.imgur.com/hL0xEzV.png
---
■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Poindexter Fortran to Gumbro on Sat Sep 12 2015 05:42 am

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Gumbro to physalis17 on Fri Sep 11 2015 07:00 pm

Currently, I'm wondering why there isn't any BBS software for smartphones. One could easily host a BBS on a cell phone and have people call it to connect.

I don't think carriers allow many inbound ports.

i dont think anybody would like to run a bbs off of their cellphone connection or hardware.

well people that can't keep a stable bbs up have wanted to do it
in the past.

i'd rather run it in a vm at home than use a cellphone.
---
■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Digital Man on Sat Sep 12 2015 06:08 am

the text messageing as a means of waking the phone, if it really needed an internet connection to actually connect, perhaps the text messageing could be used in a 2 way function, first to wake up the phone, and then perhaps the phone could send an autoreply with it's current internet address sort
of
like how tzo does it? Just another thought.

I'm sorry about throwing out thoughts without any programming knowledge. I've always been an idea man, and actually have a couple of patents, as

all that seems like a lot of work+workarounds with very little payoff.
---
■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Digital Man on Sat Sep 12 2015 05:46 am

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Digital Man to Gumbro on Fri Sep 11 2015 04:04 pm

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Gumbro to physalis17 on Fri Sep 11 2015 07:00 pm

Currently, I'm wondering why there isn't any BBS software for smartphones One could easily host a BBS on a cell phone and have people call it to connect.

Smartphones (and tablets, for that matter) are very power conscience (batter life and all). To conserve power, radios are turned off when not needed, mem "islands" are shutdown and they're simply not designed for constant operatio of any kind (they periodically wake up to perform tasks like checking your email or other notifications).

A BBS is basically a server and smartphones are not intended to be used as servers. If you could disable all the power-saving features in the device, i would still need a persistant Internet connection (so no driving/walking aro with it) and a stable IP address for clients to connect to. If you're using cellular (e.g. LTE) network (i.e. rather than WiFi), your provider would hav to allow inbound TCP/IP connections as well, which seems unlikely.

Perhaps not impossible, but very impractical.

Actually, you're thinking internetwise. Think more along the lines of what the device is, it's a telephone. what do all telephones have? a phone number. If (and I'm not saying I know how to do this, I'm not a programmer by any means) there were some way to use the phone's number to call into it's
onboard bbs sort of the same way folks send txt messages to a phone number, that would be a way of doing it?

Yes, the phone could be woken up, but like I said, if you didn't have cellular data or WiFi, no TCP/IP communication is going to take place even if you could receive a traditional phone call.

Perhaps having software that specifically
looks for a text message with the text "BBS Access requested" the act of receiving a text would awaken the phone, and the BBS software once it sees the text that somebody wants access, perhaps the BBS software could even use the sender of the text as a form of authentication (a form, but not the sole form), then once the text is received the phone could wait for a BBS connection for a set period of time before allowing it's normal power saving features to take over?

There's so much power-savings built into the device, I wouldn't bet that it's a practical sever of any kind.

As I said before, I don't know if this is possible, but if it is, it's one way around the problems you mentioned in your post about a phone not being a good device to run a BBS on. Actually it seems to me that in some ways with as much smarts as these new smartphones have that they would be great hosts for a BBS. Heck, my BBS ran on a Z80 CP/M based machine with 56k of memory!

Your Z80 system likely wasn't battery powered. Your Z80 didn't have a GPS, BlueTooth, WiFi, and cellular radios. You Z80 didn't have gigabytes of memory to keep powered up and multiple CPU and GPU cores to power and manage. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's certainly not something I would try to persue.

digital man

Synchronet "Real Fact" #56:
Synchronet introduced Telnet, FTP, SMTP and POP3 support w/v3.00a-Win32 in 2000.
Norco, CA WX: 76.9°F, 57.0% humidity, 0 mph SSE wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs

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■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ telnet://vert.synchro.net

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mro to Mike S on Sat Sep 12 2015 09:22 pm

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Digital Man on Sat Sep 12 2015 06:08 am

the text messageing as a means of waking the phone, if it really needed a internet connection to actually connect, perhaps the text messageing coul be used in a 2 way function, first to wake up the phone, and then perhaps the phone could send an autoreply with it's current internet address sort of
like how tzo does it? Just another thought.

I'm sorry about throwing out thoughts without any programming knowledge. I've always been an idea man, and actually have a couple of patents, as

all that seems like a lot of work+workarounds with very little payoff.

You're absolutely right, but if somebody really wanted to have a BBS in their phone, that might be one way to do it. :)
-MikeS

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■ Synchronet ■ CARRIER SYNC II BBS - carriersync2.thruhere.net PORT:6912

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: Digital Man to HusTler on Fri Sep 11 2015 03:17 pm

Yea I have a few stories. Do you want to hear the happy ones or how
BBSing cost me my marriage? Not that it's any big deal, it's now 30
years later and I still hate the "Bitch"!

I want to hear *that* story! :-)

digital man

That BITCH! Nobody want to hear about that BITCH! ;-)

HusTler

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■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Poindexter Fortran on Sat Sep 12 2015 05:30 am

I'm a fairly old timer when it comes to BBSes. Not so much to the current BB scene, to it I'm fairly new, my BBS experience is all from pre 1980 or so. I installed a DC Hayes MicroModem 100 into the machine, it was an S-100 card that was a 300 baud modem that could be pushed to 450 baud sometimes! I became friendly with some of the local SYSOPs, and eventually managed to get third high speed BBS on Long Island. I wish I could remember it's name, but alas I don't remember it. I do remember that it was areacode 516-791-XXXX an & modem made full use of the RS-232 flow control specs, and back then when

Oh Yea? Well I powered my BBS with a key connected to a Kite with a string! ;-)

Who are you? I was also in 516 for most of my life. Now it's 631. Who are you?

HusTler
(The man, The Myth, The Legend)

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■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Digital Man to Gumbro on Fri Sep 11 2015 17:04:00

Perhaps not impossible, but very impractical.

Absolutely.

However, I believe GSM standard has a data over voice protocol, but it hasn't been used much for anything. Some kind of data transfer is definitely taking place when you buy stuff with your credit card and the card is read by those handheld devices. I've seen those working over a GSM connection, no 3G.

The most used data transfer with GSM is by SMS, I suppose.


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■ Synchronet ■ Nostromo - 192.168.0.2

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: Nightfox to physalis17 on Thu Sep 10 2015 02:31 pm

That's pretty awesome man. I also watched a documentary of Youtube at BBS. They talked about sysops and showed all the neat machines that they ran the BBS on. It got me thinking about joining one. This is my first BBS I've ever joined and I have enjoyed it very much. You guys have been awesome.

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■ Synchronet ■ Decker's Heaven -//- bbs.deckersheaven.com

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: HusTler to physalis17 on Fri Sep 11 2015 12:55 pm

Wow baud modems. Man that is some cool stuff. I heard about warez and always thought it was pronounced whar-ez instead of wares. Weren't baud modems box type things? Our first internet computer used a PCI card and was 56k v92. So it was alot more fancy than the old bauds. The numbers represented how fast the words appeared on the screen right? Like 300 baud was 300 letters or words per length of time?

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■ Synchronet ■ Decker's Heaven -//- bbs.deckersheaven.com

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: Poindexter Fortran to physalis17 on Fri Sep 11 2015 11:20 am

So you guys actually had to meet up? That is actually quite foreign to me seeing as I grew up with IM programs and yahoo mail. Can't imagine what those were like. I have heard of Homebrew computer clubs. Was it like that?

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■ Synchronet ■ Decker's Heaven -//- bbs.deckersheaven.com

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Gumbro to physalis17 on Fri Sep 11 2015 07:00 pm

I was wondering that too actually. I use BBS on my phone sometimes when I am waiting in a doctor's office. I found Mocha telnet works best for my phone. That would be awesome if we suddenly had a surge of BBS popping up again.

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■ Synchronet ■ Decker's Heaven -//- bbs.deckersheaven.com

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Poindexter Fortran on Sat Sep 12 2015 05:30 am

That is an amazing story. I had no idea that CPUs were actually on cards. I always assumed that they were on the system board itself. I can't get enough of these stories. That was an absolutely incredible read.

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■ Synchronet ■ Decker's Heaven -//- bbs.deckersheaven.com

That's pretty awesome man. I also watched a documentary of Youtube at BBS. They talked about sysops and showed all the neat machines that they ran the BBS on. It got me thinking about joining one. This is my first BBS I've ever joined and I have enjoyed it very much. You guys have been awesome.

It helps if you quote the message you're replying to. Although this thread isn't
very old, my message which you replied to was written some time ago and I don't know off-hand what you are referring to when you say "that's pretty awesome".

Also, do you know this is a networked message board? In this message board, when
you say "this is my first BBS", that doesn't make much sense, since these messages are visible on many different BBSes.

Nightfox

So you guys actually had to meet up? That is actually quite foreign to me seeing as I grew up with IM programs and yahoo mail. Can't imagine what those were like. I have heard of Homebrew computer clubs. Was it like that?

BBS users didn't HAVE to meet up in person. BBS meetups were events just for fun
that some BBS sysops organized back then.

Nightfox

I was wondering that too actually. I use BBS on my phone sometimes when I am

This is another case where it helps to quote the message you're replying to. Readers won't necessarily know immediately what "that" is that you're referring to.

Nightfox

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: physalis17 to HusTler on Fri Sep 25 2015 05:24 pm

Wow baud modems. Man that is some cool stuff. I heard about warez and always thought it was pronounced whar-ez instead of wares.

Oh, yeah - we jokingly called them Whar-ez and it stuck around here (415)

Another reference -- area codes were used as location, as everyone lived and died by telephone numbers and rate tables back then. There were less numbers, too. No cell phones, and no need to open up new area codes like they did in the 90s.

Back then the area codes had a 1 or 0 in the middle column, and larger metro areas had lower numbers, since more people would dial those numbers with rotary phones. Hence, NY - 212, LA - 213, Alaska - 909.

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■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: physalis17 to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Sep 25 2015 05:26 pm

So you guys actually had to meet up? That is actually quite foreign to me seeing as I grew up with IM programs and yahoo mail. Can't imagine what those were like. I have heard of Homebrew computer clubs. Was it like that?

Lots of people didn't show up, but a core group did. It was great being able to put a face to a handle, and it civilized things when you realized there was a person behind the green letters.

A couple of users with an angry rivalry met at one of our get-togethers, stared each other down for a few seconds, then one extended his hand. They shook, and started buying rounds of drinks. It actually deepened the rivalry, but it became much less angry. :)

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■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: physalis17 to Mike S on Fri Sep 25 2015 05:37 pm

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Poindexter Fortran on Sat Sep 12 2015 05:30 am

That is an amazing story. I had no idea that CPUs were actually on cards. I always assumed that they were on the system board itself. I can't get enough these stories. That was an absolutely incredible read.

Thanks! Back in 'the old days' things were much different than they are today. Along with there being basically 2 styles of hardware, one with everything on one main board, the other with a motherboard that had barely anything on it other than connectors for cards, there was also 2 different schools of
thought about how the computer should boot up. Many / most of the early consumer computers such as the AppleIIc or the Commodore PET, or the TRS-80
all powered up into a ROM based BASIC programming language. Some of the more 'computer hobbiest' or 'serious' computers, the ones that had the S-100 buss motherboards didn't always powerup into a BASIC. If they had either an 8080
or a Z80 CPU card installed in them, then they could have a ROM based loader that would load the CP/M disk operating system from the first A> floppy, or later on, and much $$$ later if they had a hard drive CP/M could be loaded
from it, the C> drive. This is the origins of the C: prompt in MSDOS, in CP/M
A & B were reserved for floppies, then from C onward was for hard drives.

At the time there was actually a sort of snobbery by the folks that had S-100 CP/M based machines (and those that worked with big computers too) as to not considering a machine that powers up into BASIC and has no disk drives as a real computer. When I had my first Commodore PET which had a really mini keyboard, and had a cassette deck mounted next to the keyboard, and my
brother came home from college (he was going to MIT at the time) and he just laughed at my PET and for the first couple of days he refused to even sit in front of it! But now things are better I think.

-MikeS

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■ Synchronet ■ CARRIER SYNC II BBS - carriersync2.thruhere.net PORT:6912

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: physalis17 to HusTler on Fri Sep 25 2015 05:24 pm

Wow baud modems. Man that is some cool stuff. I heard about warez and
always thought it was pronounced whar-ez instead of wares. Weren't baud modems box type things? Our first internet computer used a PCI card and
was 56k v92. So it was alot more fancy than the old bauds. The numbers represented how fast the words appeared on the screen right? Like 300 baud was 300 letters or words per length of time?

It's WAREZ and for the price modems went for they had to look important for someone to buy one. I had a US robotics that stood up right and lit up like a Christmas Tree. Today a external modem goes for 5 bucks and is small board wrapped in a plastic box. Every device that was added had to be configured. It was an challenge to get some the stuff to work. I really miss that part of PC Computing.

HusTler

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■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: physalis17 to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Sep 25 2015 05:26 pm

So you guys actually had to meet up? That is actually quite foreign to me seeing as I grew up with IM programs and yahoo mail. Can't imagine what those were like. I have heard of Homebrew computer clubs. Was it like

It was just a bunch of computer guys/gals getting together and copying each others software. Talking about the latest and greatest. I'm sure a lot of the meets today are the same. The technolgy is better that's all. People don't change. Technology changes. Not people. ;-)

HusTler

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■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: Poindexter Fortran to physalis17 on Mon Sep 28 2015 06:40 am

Lots of people didn't show up, but a core group did. It was great being able put a face to a handle, and it civilized things when you realized there was person behind the green letters.

A couple of users with an angry rivalry met at one of our get-togethers, stared each other down for a few seconds, then one extended his hand. They shook, and started buying rounds of drinks. It actually deepened the rivalry, but it became much less angry. :)

and them came FLAMING! ;-)

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■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: Hustler to physalis17 on Tue Sep 29 2015 08:11 am

small board wrapped in a plastic box. Every device that was added had to be configured. It was an challenge to get some the stuff to work. I really miss that part of PC Computing.

Plug and Play made life a lot easier. I remember an old XT I had; to someone's earlier point there was no i/o on the motherboard. I had a "super I/O card, with a parallel port, 2 serials and a game port. Another card had the MFM controller for the hard drive, and I think the floppy went to the motherboard.

Each card needed a port and IRQ, you had to configure the card and you could only overlap them rarely. I used to tape a piece of paper to the inside of the case with the assignments.

Then, trying to add a network card to the mix. :(

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■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

small board wrapped in a plastic box. Every device that was added had to be configured. It was an challenge to get some the stuff to work. I really miss that part of PC Computing.

Plug and Play made life a lot easier. I remember an old XT I had; to someone's earlier point there was no i/o on the motherboard. I had a "super I/O card, with a parallel port, 2 serials and a game port. Another card had the MFM controller for the hard drive, and I think the floppy went to the motherboard.

Each card needed a port and IRQ, you had to configure the card and you could only overlap them rarely. I used to tape a piece of paper to the inside of the case with the assignments.

Then, trying to add a network card to the mix. :(

I remember doing that with my 286 and 386. It was almost like a puzzle, where each card supported a certain set of IRQs, etc. and you had to configure them to use different settings from each other, and then tell the device drivers which IRQs and other (if any) settings they were configured for. I felt relieved and accomplished when I got everything working. Plug & play definitely made things easier though. There's a lot going on under the hood that most people don't realize now.

Nightfox

Poindexter Fortran wrote to physalis17 <=-

Another reference -- area codes were used as location, as everyone
lived and died by telephone numbers and rate tables back then. There
were less numbers, too. No cell phones, and no need to open up new area codes like they did in the 90s.

I remember pouring over the front of the phone book to make sure the BBS area code and office code are local calls. Back then, there was no guarantee the call
was local even if it's in the same area code. The cost depends on the distance from the originating central office.


... The number you have dailed...Nine-one-one...has been changed.
--- MultiMail/Darwin v0.50
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ telnet://vert.synchro.net

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Poindexter Fortran to Hustler on Tue Sep 29 2015 10:05 am

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: Hustler to physalis17 on Tue Sep 29 2015 08:11 am

small board wrapped in a plastic box. Every device that was added had t be configured. It was an challenge to get some the stuff to work. I rea miss that part of PC Computing.

Plug and Play made life a lot easier. I remember an old XT I had; to someone earlier point there was no i/o on the motherboard. I had a "super I/O card, with a parallel port, 2 serials and a game port. Another card had the MFM controller for the hard drive, and I think the floppy went to the motherboar

Each card needed a port and IRQ, you had to configure the card and you could only overlap them rarely. I used to tape a piece of paper to the inside of t case with the assignments.

Then, trying to add a network card to the mix. :(

and once you finally got the network card going, then you had to figure out
how you were going to get the f#$king SCSI card working that you need for the new scanner that you just got!


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■ Synchronet ■ CARRIER SYNC II BBS - carriersync2.thruhere.net PORT:6912

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Poindexter Fortran on Thu Oct 01 2015 01:13:00

and once you finally got the network card going, then you had to figure out how you were going to get the f#$king SCSI card working that you need for the new scanner that you just got!

I always thought it was funny that there were scanners and cameras that connected via SCSI. It seemed like storage devices (such as hard drives and tape drives) were the main things that used SCSI, but I suppose SCSI was more of a general PC interface.

Nightfox

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: Nightfox to Poindexter Fortran on Tue Sep 29 2015 11:20 am

I remember doing that with my 286 and 386. It was almost like a puzzle, where each card supported a certain set of IRQs, etc. and you had to configure them to use different settings from each other, and then tell the device drivers which IRQs and other (if any) settings they were configured for. I felt relieved and accomplished when I got everything working. Plug & play definitely made things easier though. There's a lot going on under the hood that most people don't realize now.

Nightfox

That's the draw back today. At least you knew what was going on under the hood. I was always broke so if it didn't work I either had to fix it or get another machine. With a bitch for a wife and 2 kids a personal computer was hard to justify. Today all the electronics are treated like disposable lighters I used. ;-)

HusTler

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■ Synchronet ■ Decker's Heaven -//- bbs.deckersheaven.com

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Poindexter Fortran on Thu Oct 01 2015 01:13 am

and once you finally got the network card going, then you had to figure out how you were going to get the f#$king SCSI card working that you need for the new scanner that you just got!

About that time I was supporting a company with mostly Macs, back in the 68K Mac days, running OS 7. Daisy chaining an external hard drive, DDS DAT drive, Syquest drive, and the scanner was a Dark Art. Sometimes for no reason the system wouldn't work if you had the scanner on the end, or maybe with an active terminator, or you'd need to switch the order of the drives...

Don't miss those days.

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■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Nightfox wrote to Mike S <=-

I always thought it was funny that there were scanners and cameras that connected via SCSI. It seemed like storage devices (such as hard
drives and tape drives) were the main things that used SCSI, but I
suppose SCSI was more of a general PC interface.

Nightfox

There were also SCSI-to-Ethernet transceivers, too. I had one on an old Mac, but it never saw much use. I ditched it in favour of a real ethernet card.


--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Nightfox to Mike S on Thu Oct 01 2015 07:32 am

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Poindexter Fortran on Thu Oct 01 2015 01:13:00

and once you finally got the network card going, then you had to
figure out how you were going to get the f#$king SCSI card working
that you need for the new scanner that you just got!

I always thought it was funny that there were scanners and cameras that connected via SCSI. It seemed like storage devices (such as hard drives
and tape drives) were the main things that used SCSI, but I suppose SCSI
was more of a general PC interface.

scsi was better than the alternatives back then.
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Poindexter Fortran to Mike S on Thu Oct 01 2015 08:56 am

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Poindexter Fortran on Thu Oct 01 2015 01:13 am

and once you finally got the network card going, then you had to figure out how you were going to get the f#$king SCSI card working that you ne for the new scanner that you just got!

About that time I was supporting a company with mostly Macs, back in the 68K Mac days, running OS 7. Daisy chaining an external hard drive, DDS DAT drive Syquest drive, and the scanner was a Dark Art. Sometimes for no reason the system wouldn't work if you had the scanner on the end, or maybe with an act terminator, or you'd need to switch the order of the drives...

Don't miss those days.

Syquest drives! I had a 44mb one in my Amiga2000 & then Amiga 3000UX. I have
a buddy that lives in Knoxville TN that has a couple dozen or so of the 44m & 88m cartridges as his Amiga had 2 drives, one of each. Didn't they even make another drive that used a 3.5" cartridge?

-MikeS

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■ Synchronet ■ CARRIER SYNC II BBS - carriersync2.thruhere.net PORT:6912

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Oct 02 2015 01:38 am

the 44m & 88m cartridges as his Amiga had 2 drives, one of each. Didn't they even make another drive that used a 3.5" cartridge?

The ZIP drive. 100 megabytes, I think.

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■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Poindexter Fortran wrote to Mike S <=-

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mike S to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Oct 02 2015 01:38 am

the 44m & 88m cartridges as his Amiga had 2 drives, one of each. Didn't they even make another drive that used a 3.5" cartridge?

The ZIP drive. 100 megabytes, I think.

I still use a SCSI ZIP 100 to boot my CDTV. Both the drive and disk have lasted nearly 20 years.

--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Hustler to physalis17 on Tue Sep 29 2015 08:16 am

Re: Old School Internet Stories
By: physalis17 to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Sep 25 2015 05:26 pm

So you guys actually had to meet up? That is actually quite foreign to me seeing as I grew up with IM programs and yahoo mail. Can't imagine what those were like. I have heard of Homebrew computer clubs. Was it like

It was just a bunch of computer guys/gals getting together and copying each others software. Talking about the latest and greatest. I'm sure a lot of th meets today are the same. The technolgy is better that's all. People don't change. Technology changes. Not people. ;-)

HusTler

This is true. I am still friends with, and often meet up with, old BBS users of mine from the heyday of BBS'ing. Now, of course our kids, or spouses, do not understand, but we gather and talk about BBS'es, the past, and work on our current BBS boards together. Most of the youth today will not understand or fully appreciate what it meant to gather in a "public" meeting place, with actual people, and talk, discuss, and hang out. This is why I am still a big fan of BBS gatherings and LAN parties, and I am in my 40's. However, I am seeing younger people calling into my BBS, which is truly refreshing. Now, when I came back into bbs'ing, about a year or so ago, I thought the bbs scene had died, but was very suprised to find to have evolved onto the internet.

Arcade Master
thearcade.darktech.org


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■ Synchronet ■ The Outer Limit's (Alpha Site) limits.darktech.org

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: vaclav to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Oct 02 2015 09:58 am

The ZIP drive. 100 megabytes, I think.

I still use a SCSI ZIP 100 to boot my CDTV. Both the drive and disk have lasted nearly 20 years.

you must be the one guy that got a good one
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Arcade Master to Hustler on Fri Oct 02 2015 10:47:00

users of mine from the heyday of BBS'ing. Now, of course our kids, or spouses, do not understand, but we gather and talk about BBS'es, the past, and work on our current BBS boards together. Most of the youth today will not understand or fully appreciate what it meant to gather in a "public" meeting place, with actual people, and talk, discuss, and hang out. This

Even back in 1998, I was talking to one of my friends about computer stuff and when I said I run a BBS, I was surprised that his response was "What's a BBS?".

is why I am still a big fan of BBS gatherings and LAN parties, and I am in

I've never been to a LAN party, but I enjoy gaming and have always thought it would be fun to go to one. I think LAN parties have lost a bit of their appeal because these days, many people have broadband internet and can easily set up a network at home, whereas back in the 90s, home networking was fairly rare. People had to go to a place that had a good reason to have a network, such as an office, so organizing a LAN party was a bigger thing back then.

truly refreshing. Now, when I came back into bbs'ing, about a year or so ago, I thought the bbs scene had died, but was very suprised to find to have evolved onto the internet.

I was the same way. I thought the BBS scene had basically died in 2000 when I took my BBS down, but in 2007, I discovered that the BBS scene was still around on the internet, and I decided to create my current BBS.

Nightfox

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Nightfox to Arcade Master on Fri Oct 02 2015 04:55 pm

it would be fun to go to one. I think LAN parties have lost a bit of their appeal because these days, many people have broadband internet and can easily set up a network at home, whereas back in the 90s, home networking was fairly rare. People had to go to a place that had a good reason to have

At a LAN party, everyone has the same ping time. For a lot of games, that still makes a big difference.

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Mro is an idiot. Please ignore him, we keep hoping he'll go away.
■ Synchronet ■ My Brand-New BBS (All the cool SysOps run STOCK!)

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Nightfox to Arcade Master on Fri Oct 02 2015 04:55 pm

I've never been to a LAN party, but I enjoy gaming and have always thought it would be fun to go to one. I think LAN parties have lost a bit of their appeal because these days, many people have broadband internet and can easily set up a network at home, whereas back in the 90s, home networking was fairly rare. People had to go to a place that had a good reason to have a network, such as an office, so organizing a LAN party was a bigger thing back then.

i think you're missing the point.... IT WAS A PARTY

people brought their computers and played games, but not to use the hardware. it was just another kind of party.
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Deuce to Nightfox on Sat Oct 03 2015 00:02:44

it would be fun to go to one. I think LAN parties have lost a bit of
their appeal because these days, many people have broadband internet
and can easily set up a network at home, whereas back in the 90s, home
networking was fairly rare. People had to go to a place that had a
good reason to have

At a LAN party, everyone has the same ping time. For a lot of games, that still makes a big difference.

True.. That makes sense.

Nightfox

Mro wrote to vaclav <=-

I still use a SCSI ZIP 100 to boot my CDTV. Both the drive and disk have lasted nearly 20 years.

you must be the one guy that got a good one

Yeah, it was one of the earlier ones from when they first came out. I've had later iterations that have lasted a year, maybe two, before the click of death.


--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mro to Nightfox on Sat Oct 03 2015 05:37 am

i think you're missing the point.... IT WAS A PARTY

people brought their computers and played games, but not to use the hardware it was just another kind of party.

I've really been enjoying reading these threads. I can relate to almost everything mentioned including getting each modem configured. In the early days there wasn't much standardization. The workarounds for getting additional COM ports and IRQ's assigned, additional hardware, socketed CPU's that you bought separately from the motherboard. Worst, there was no Synchronet. I went through two other software packages before buying Synchronet. The one directly before Synch was called rOverBoard. It was extremely clever creating what worked like true multitasking on the 286. Synch was a huge improvement but I remember running the coax cable under doorways so that I could get the four nodes running. DoubleDOS or Topview allowed me to use only three computers.

Anyway, the BBS "gatherings" were fun. We had quite a few of them over the years. I found a photo of one of them. I put it in Dropbox so you can see the high end graphics our computers and printers were capable of. I couldn't tell you the names of these individuals, but one of them still calls my board. Are you reading this Crystal?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hcdlq669uadfhtq/Crystal%20Aerie%20Gathering%20c%20198


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■ Synchronet ■ << Crystal Aerie >> Va, USA Telnet://crystal-aerie.com

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mro to Nightfox on Sat Oct 03 2015 05:37 am

One other thing I forgot to mention that paying for four dedicated lines for the BBS got things kind of expensive. Crystal Aerie was supported by donations and was probably about break even although there were a number of checks I just chose not to cash.

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■ Synchronet ■ << Crystal Aerie >> Va, USA Telnet://crystal-aerie.com

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: vaclav to Mro on Mon Oct 05 2015 08:22 am

I still use a SCSI ZIP 100 to boot my CDTV. Both the drive and disk have lasted nearly 20 years.

you must be the one guy that got a good one

Yeah, it was one of the earlier ones from when they first came out. I've had later iterations that have lasted a year, maybe two, before the click
of death.

i had 3 of them and then i had some disks that went bad as well.
they were good when they worked.
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■ Synchronet ■ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Tempo Rubato to Mro on Mon Oct 05 2015 01:34 pm

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Mro to Nightfox on Sat Oct 03 2015 05:37 am

i think you're missing the point.... IT WAS A PARTY

people brought their computers and played games, but not to use the hardw it was just another kind of party.

I've really been enjoying reading these threads. I can relate to almost everything mentioned including getting each modem configured. In the early days there wasn't much standardization. The workarounds for getting additio COM ports and IRQ's assigned, additional hardware, socketed CPU's that you bought separately from the motherboard. Worst, there was no Synchronet. I went through two other software packages before buying Synchronet. The one directly before Synch was called rOverBoard. It was extremely clever creati what worked like true multitasking on the 286. Synch was a huge improvement but I remember running the coax cable under doorways so that I could get the four nodes running. DoubleDOS or Topview allowed me to use only three computers.

Anyway, the BBS "gatherings" were fun. We had quite a few of them over the years. I found a photo of one of them. I put it in Dropbox so you can see high end graphics our computers and printers were capable of. I couldn't te you the names of these individuals, but one of them still calls my board. A you reading this Crystal?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hcdlq669uadfhtq/Crystal%20Aerie%20Gathering%20c%20

The link doesn't work.


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■ Synchronet ■ << Crystal Aerie >> Va, USA Telnet://crystal-aerie.com

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Crystal Chandelier to Tempo Rubato on Tue Oct 06 2015 10:39 am

The link doesn't work.

Here's a shorter version. The line got truncated. Crystal Aerie Gathering c. 1990.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fhgr1mfz058fwwr/Crystal%20Aerie%20c%201990.jpg?dl=0


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■ Synchronet ■ << Crystal Aerie >> Va, USA Telnet://crystal-aerie.com

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Tempo Rubato to Crystal Chandelier on Tue Oct 06 2015 10:57 am

Re: Old School Internet Stori
By: Crystal Chandelier to Tempo Rubato on Tue Oct 06 2015 10:39 am

The link doesn't work.

Here's a shorter version. The line got truncated. Crystal Aerie Gathering 1990.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fhgr1mfz058fwwr/Crystal%20Aerie%20c%201990.jpg?dl=

My we look young. A quarter of a century takes its toll. I don't recognize any of the people either.

Crystal


"3 million years in space, nothing! Then 5 suddenly show up!" * Holly "...death awaits you all with big and nasty pointy teeth."
"A Tagline? What's that, and are we taxing it?" -- Bill Clinton
"All constants are variables." -- Murphy's Law of Mathematics
"All men are ignorant, just in different fields." -- Einstein
"Amanda Hugginkiss? Why can't I find Amanda Hugginkiss?" -- Moe
"And we'll have fun, fun, fun..." What? A moderator? Never mind.
"Aw, mom, you act like I'm not even wearing a bungee cord!"
"Bad things go away faster if you whine about them." -- Jon-Eric Chamness

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■ Synchronet ■ << Crystal Aerie >> Va, USA Telnet://crystal-aerie.com