Subj : Re: Anyone new to BBS?
To : Josh Bailey
From : Weatherman
Date : Sat Jun 07 2025 02:42 am
-=> Josh Bailey wrote to All <=-
JB> I'm very new, infact ive only been online for a few hours. Ecept for
JB> the Web and EMAIL and stuff.
JB> ---
Hey Josh... We were all new at one time. For me it as 1984. 300 baud
Westridge style (TotalTelecommunications brand) direct connect modem. Some
short months later the Commodore 1670 1200 bps modem was released and I jumped
at it.
A lot of the BBS scene has changed since those days. Used to be every computer
store had their own dial-up BBS to showcase their services and goods. Hobbyist
BBS systems existed in most large towns and small cities. Each area code had
LOADS of BBS systems. One might have to sit on redial for an hour or more to
connect to their favorite BBS.
BBS users were a fairly large community as well. Online chats, debates,
arguments, even feuds were all over the place. You could literally meet
someone at a bar, club, or at church and find out later you've known them for
years on the local BBS under an assumed name.
Today the scene is a lot smaller and insular but in a lot of ways much the
same. Still a community of friends and "not friends" what spans the globe. We
are unified by our interests in the BBS style of communication which is slower
paced but more direct than social media. The BBS is still a one-stop shop, so
to speak, where on can debate, converse, transact, upload/download software,
and play some damned fun games all in on place. Now with some boards even by
using a web browser instead of a terminal emulator.
There's also another subset of users. The Commodore BBS sect (and I'm assuming
Apple and Tandy computers might also have their own representation) where the
connections are a bit closer and more tight knit than the general scene as
represented by ANSI systems. Some of these guys have taken the 8-bit platform
to some interesting new levels of performance. My C128 setup, for example is
capable of using USB storage instead of relying on 5 1/4 or 3 1/2 inch floppies
and WLAN connections to telnet only BBS systems. I literally connect to a
telnet server on a cartridge connected to the 128 to upload or download
software to/from my PC and then can save that to either a USB device or a
physical disk. Not bad for a platform that came out in the mid 80s and was
considered obsolete by the mid-early 90s!
Anyway, I ramble, as I often do when I've had a few. Guess the lesson here
Josh, is that the BBS situation has been around a long time and with thanks to
God, those of us who are truly a part of it have ensured that the touch and
feel of it remains very much as it was "back in the day."
... Wherever you go, there you are!
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
� Synchronet � The Lost Chord BBS - Cheyenne, WY
