>0 rdlmda @ 2025/07/31 19:56
I was reading a thread by ~say @ 13:18 2025/07/27 discussing email clients when the topic suddenly shifts to BBS's over telnet / SSH. That brought back some OLD memories, my first online presence before even hearing about the internet was on a couple dial up BBS, more than 25 years ago. I remember using a DOS software called BANANACOM to connect by modem to some local dial up numbers, browse their forums, download shareware, play games like Legend of The Red dragon and Usurper.
Those memories have been lost to time and thinking about it gave me a huge sense of nostalgia. I know there are some BBS'es still out there that you can access thru telnet or SSH, but I only tried a couple times more tha 10 years ago.
Any of you have old BBS memories too? Or use them currently?
>1 ant @ 2025/08/02 22:08
I have only /recent/ memories about BBSes, having come to them looong after their decline. My progres with communication media (to avoid saying /social/, which has bad connotation now) was in reverse chronological order (is regress a better word?):
1. Web forums,
2. Usenet, whereof I learned from a defunct Usenet bridge
in a forum,
3. FidoNet. I don't remember how I discovered it, but was
while seeking help with LaTeX, which I was using for my
diploma at the university. I was accessing FidoNet via
a Usenet gateway, not long gone. But there is Tommi's:
.
BBSe feels very different from Usenet and FidoNet, because the user interface is determine by the server-side software, rather than by your client, making each BBS unique.
>2 vela025 @ 2025/09/28 19:12
I used to run a BBS on my Acorn BBC Micro, after modding Synchronet to support Acorn BBC Mode 7 (teletext graphics) I eventually just wrote by own bbs in python. You can find more about it here:
http://beebs.ddns.net
Or if you wanted to dive right in then you can use syncterm just point to beebs.ddns.net:6502 (which now supports BBC Mode 7 Graphics) or use a web client like http://bang.ccl4.org/js-beebs/
You can even create and host your own mode 7 teletext pages, blogs and files using x modem to upload your frames (I would recommend zxnet.co.uk as a great editor.
When it was running on the BBC Micro it was using OBBS (1984) which needed quite a bit of modding to get working without the modem it was supposed to have been supplied with back in the day. It had its moments and would lock up for seemingly no reason but over time I ironed out some of the kinks. Running synchronet was much easier but there was just too many features, and it needed a lot of work to support BBC Mode 7...which sort of took the fun out of it for me. So my python host is a happy medium, no risk of a house fire with a BBC Micro running 24/7 but still something I've coded myself.
>3 anonymous @ 2025/09/30 17:34
>>OP
It was the summer of 1986, I had a Commodore 64, and I had just purchased a used 300 baud modem. A friend printed out a list of twenty area BBS systems. The first three were busy, but the fourth picked up and I watched the login screen text slowly scroll across the screen. I was enamored!
Every night for months I would come home from school and work through every BBS I could find. Eventually I ran my own "Late Night BBS" since my parents didn't want me using the phone line during the day. I made several friends on BBS systems and met a few in person. A little embarrassed to say, but I also downloaded a lot of pirated software from BBS's. Fond memories.
>4 vela025 @ 2025/10/02 13:54
Fond memories indeed! All this passed me by, I didn't get dialup until around '97!
What was your BBS called? Any plans to re-ignite it?>>3
>5 phigan @ 2025/10/09 09:18
>>3
My start was pretty much the same. 1986, 300 baud modem (but from Radio
Shack) and an IBM PC (what I now know to be a 5150 in an XT case). A friend
gave me a few BBS numbers, and it was all downhill (uphill?) from there.
Oh yeah, and I ran a night time BBS on my parents' line, too ;).
Here we are almost 40 years later. I've got a WWIV BBS, a Synchronet BBS,
and an Atari BBS Express! BBS running, and still loving it.
I could probably go on and on about BBS days. Getting my modems taken
away... GTs... meeting lots of people...
Still have several friends to this day that I met through BBSes.