Dialup BBS Memories...

[bmurray]

This age topic reminded me of the old dialup BBS days...how many of you out there remember spending hours and hours on end as your brand new high speed 2400 baud modem ripped through them ANSI graphics?

I used to run a BBS in high school, running a hacked up version of the WWIV software. I was never good at ANSI graphics, but doing code hacks on the software is how I learned to program in C. (I'm not that good, but managed to get a few custom mods to work) My favorite memory of those days is that throughout all the BBSes in the area, you got to know the people that participated pretty well.

I finally gave all that up in 1993 when I had my first internet account and couldn't afford the cost of running a BBS and paying for internet access. (At the time an internet dialup account was expensive because the demand was low since it was all text based, and hadn't been commercialized yet)

So who here remembers the old BBS days, and what are your favorite memories? Oh, and what was your handle? I used to go by "The Caped Avenger" (from Garfield)...cheesy I know, but I was young =)

[Freddie Bingham]

I remember using my speedy 300 baud modem on my C64 (1987), then my speedy 1200 baud modem on my c128. I ran several BBS's off of my c128 @ 1200 and 2400 baud. I didn't have a non commodore until 1993 and boy did I despise ALL IBM bbs's as they were so stodgy and boring. At that point I was in college and left bbs's behind for the internet and my free dialup account.

[Shaman]

I ran a 10 line BBS out of my bedroom on DLG-BBS (on an Amiga 2000 with GVP 68030 processor card and 8MB of memory). I have a lot of memories, some good and some bad.

[Chris Schreiber]

I had a few freinds that ran BBSes.... I remember WildCat being a popular one to run among others. And yes, I remember downloading (what seemed like) huge programs over my 2400 baud modem. I remember the chat BBSes had all 300 baud modems. Yikes!

[GraphicW]

I still use my Commodore PC's to this day. Can you actually believe that a Commodore 64 can cruise the web at 56K showing web graphics? It's all indeed possible. You would be surprised to find a company still dealing in Commodore Upgrades up to this very day. www.cmdweb.com

[FWC]

My first BBS was on an Atari ST with a 2400 baud Supra modem. Then I upgraded to a US Robotics Courier HST at a whopping 14.4 Kb. HST's were the modem kings for a while. I remember dialing in to 300 baud boards. It was like watching a fast human type as the screen loaded.

[FWC]

Originally posted by Shaman
I ran a 10 line BBS out of my bedroom on DLG-BBS (on an Amiga 2000 with GVP 68030 processor card and 8MB of memory). I have a lot of memories, some good and some bad.

Nice setup! Amigas were the best. Windows XP is the first operating system I've had since Amigados 3.x that is really decent. Of course, you have to have hundreds of megs of RAM and a monster CPU.

[Mark Hewitt]

I remember the old ANSI BBS's. I used to use a local two line one. Was never any good though, but it was fun.

Trouble was at 4p a minute as it was I couldn't afford more than a few minutes online

[Wayne Luke]

What do you mean remember?

They are still around. I am a member of one and login daily (on usually 24/7 actually). They don't allow dial-up anymore but you telnet in now. Still has the same ANSI graphics and chatrooms, text-based games, and old mail systems. Actually have 3 accounts on this one mainly for playing games and chatting. MY accounts are usually in MajorMud right now but I am not always at the keys.

The address is www.coffeebbs.com. For telnet it is coffeebbs.com:21.

Just tell them that PsychoKnight sent you.

[Nupraptor]

BBSes? When I first started using the net, I (quite literally) thought that "the internet" was comprised of mIRC and free pr0n. I never visited any sites or newsgroups.... just idled in IRC channels and accepted the random zip of jpeg's that was sent to me. Surprisingly, I've never gotten a virus.

[Kaizen]

Originally posted by Nupraptor
Surprisingly, I've never gotten a virus.

How do you know ?

[Joe Gronlund]

Originally posted by Kaizen


How do you know ?

hehe

[Nupraptor]

I've seen no visible signs of such, and I reformat at least twice a year to keep Win98 happy.

[chrispadfield]

on the old nostalgia, not quite as long ago but did anyone here use Acorns? That was a great operating system, i remember upgrading mine from 2MB ram to 4MB ram as a christmas present I also remember considering paying some horrible amount of money for a cd-rom drive, so glad I didn't!

[JamesUS]

Originally posted by chrispadfield
on the old nostalgia, not quite as long ago but did anyone here use Acorns? That was a great operating system, i remember upgrading mine from 2MB ram to 4MB ram as a christmas present I also remember considering paying some horrible amount of money for a cd-rom drive, so glad I didn't!

I used Acorns for a while I also remember in school - all we had in terms of computers was a load of crappy Acorns, with NT servers. We all thought it was wonderful when they finally found the money to get some decent Windows machines