BBSing...The internet before the internet

[usoilworker]

Remember when you used to dial up your loacal bulitin board through your phone line.
attd 360 555 5555

loud modem schreeches and then

Login?:


oh the good old days.. setting your re-dial and calling up one single computer to post messages to your buddies. Mabye waiting like 2 hours to get on the board.

how many of you actually ran a board.

Dark Lands here 206 area code Running on C-net 12.0 on a Commie 64

[Reynolds]

Ansi graphics, RPGs, and trying to oustmart some stupid bot that "answered" questions? Those were great. I remember being a kid and trying to collect as many bbs's with local numbers that I could. "Wow did you hear the next modems will be 56k?"

[underdog]

I ran two up here in New England. I remember when I got my first 14.4, I was sooooo excited.

[PapaBear]

I don't know what most of this means. But I do remember being on something that was (I guess) the precursor to a chat room on my Commodore 64, sometime around 1987 or '88. Some local guy ran it. It was supposed to cost money to be on for guys, and girls could be on for free. Most guys just pretended to be girls, so they could get on for free. I have no idea if there were ever actually any real girls.

[usoilworker]

In ints infancy 75 baud.. then i got a 300 baud modem and found out how to pump it up to close to 600 with some noise on the line. 1200 was next then 14.4.. toss some compresion in there and it was almost tolerable. Who has the world expanded. I think back in like 94 95 i came back from oversease with my amiga 2000 and found the internet. Whoot to the internet. Now Look at us 3 to 10 meg conections running my pc my nintendo a few ds's and a ps3 all over one conection. Tecnology has come a long way... I've managed to find some old style bbs's running over the internet using telnet and a good terminal program. long live the days of 8bit computing

[Furtherman]

I'm glad you brought this up usoilworker!

I did indeed BBS. Started with a 300 baud modem on my Commodore 64. Saved my pennies for a 1200 baud. Mostly for downloading games. A little bit of chat - although it was really just a message board... literally. One line messages after the other... no topics. I still remember some of the boards' names: Gearjammers II, Enchanted Forrest and even Bob's BBS.

[oldladyfacepuncher]

I ran one too. I completely forgot about that until now. I ran it on my dad's home office line so you'd have to wait till the old man was out of town or done working to get on. Trade Wars ruled.

This is right when 286s and multitasking were just breaking in. "Imagine being able to type a paper and balance your checkbook at the same time"

Now I've got 6 virtual desktops all cluttered up, the wife is logged in on another virtual console with her 4 virtual desktops, and I'm folding proteins in the background.

[Badinia]

I'm folding proteins in the background.

Umm, is that a euphemism?

[jonyrotn]

Most guys just pretended to be girls, so they could get off for free. I have no idea if there were ever actually any real girls.
More then 99.5% of what will appear in this thread won't mean a thing to me, except for "cyberspace Trannies"..It's not something I'm really proud of but, I've been had not once, but twice..Right here on this board...
Laugh all you want douggrasso, Mister funny man..But you were alot more believable then instance # 2 was..And instance number two has been a "real" female ever since she had the A C surgically removed from the end of her name....

There..Fixed it for ya..

In ints infancy 75 baud.. then i got a 300 baud modem and found out how to pump it up to close to 600 with some noise on the line. 1200 was next then 14.4.. toss some compresion in there and it was almost tolerable. Who has the world expanded. I think back in like 94 95 i came back from oversease with my amiga 2000 and found the internet. Whoot to the internet. Now Look at us 3 to 10 meg conections running my pc my nintendo a few ds's and a ps3 all over one conection. Tecnology has come a long way... I've managed to find some old style bbs's running over the internet using telnet and a good terminal program. long live the days of 8bit computing

Wait..Are you asking or telling? Cause if you're asking I'm gonna say...That "Eat the children" pig, Sally Struthers..

[underdog]

Trade Wars ruled.

God, I forgot about that game. That was the best.

[ADF]

I started BBS'ing with a Mac Plus and a 300 baud modem. I had the Trade Wars and some RPG's going. When I moved to NoCal I ran up $500 phone bills keeping up with my friends. Good times, good times.

[angrymissy]

I always played LORD OF THE RED DRAGON!

My phone bills were huge, 1200 bps !

I got the lists of #'s off of my sweet ass Prodigy account. Those were the days.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dc/Prodigy_Sign_In_Screen.png

[underdog]

I always played LORD OF THE RED DRAGON!

I was trying to remember the other game I played with Trade Wars. And there it is.

[Friday]

in 1989 I took a creative writing course online through a program called QLink on my Commodore 64 which was a kind of internet where people from all over the country linked up.

I also met my first boyfriend through one of the social chats... how ironical!

[usoilworker]

qulink is alive and well.. check out qlink on wiki should lead you to qlink revisited. You can dl the qlink disk and run it on the c64 emu or use a c64 hooked to the internet :).. im working on getting mine online it's a work in progress its an electronics project in my garage. I have a c64 and two 1541s with some flopies.. Also have it linked to my pc for storage is preaty sweet what you can do with only 64k

[Reynolds]

Downloading porn without thumbnails

[usoilworker]

yeah that was always one of my favorites.. expecting a nice pair of boobies and getting a big ol dink in your face when you wernt expecting it. Damn liars. Not exactly hi res back then either and the colors boobies loo realistic in 8bit don't they :)

[styckx]

I know how to use the search tool! :clap:

Anyway, I LOVED the BBS era, qmodem, procomm plus, desqview, WWIV, Renegade, Vision/2, war dialers, LORD, Tradewars, Pimpwars, ANSI art and the over all genuine community feel of it all.

[underdog]

I know how to use the search tool! :clap:

Anyway, I LOVED the BBS era, qmodem, procomm plus, desqview, WWIV, Renegade, Vision/2, war dialers, LORD, Tradewars, Pimpwars, ANSI art and the over all genuine community feel of it all.

I remember my board hosted the local area's tradewars and lord, and then my modem shit the bed. People were pissed.

[Bob Impact]

http://www.maximumpc.com/files/u17625/modem_use.jpg

Now that's old school.

[Tenbatsuzen]

I ran a heavily modded WWIV board that I hired a friend of mine to code. He was a few years younger than me, but smart as hell. He was very socially quirky, he was your typical immature jewish kid from Central Jersey.

(In fact, he reminds me a little bit of David from O&A, but less socially awkward than David.)

On a whim, I decided to google him. Turns out he now works for a top echelon federal political figure. I was fucking floored.