BBSing In the Modern Era
------------------------
Post by Syrinx
Before we get into the hella awesome retro tech and all that jazz, I
should probably explain what a BBS is. Back in ye olde days of computing
(the 80s) you would connect your computer to another using a modem
(glorified handset that makes demonic noises when needed.) Before the
world wide web really took off, there were other, arguably better, forms
of communication. One of these was the BBS, or Bulletin Board System. You
would “dial into” one of these systems, log in and exchange messages
or play games. What you could do varied from BBS to BBS. Some had door
games, others focused on downloads (not always legal) and other were just
for communication. There were also networks, such as FidoNet, which
allowed inter-BBS communication.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any memories of BBSs from their heyday.
By the time I was old enough to comprehend the concept of a mouse, we had
AOL. Who needs boring old text based bulletin board systems when you can
send email and browse the World Wide Web? Hell, I barely knew that they
ever existed until several years ago when I started getting into retro
technology. I was unaware that they still existed until some research
inspired by a visual novel that I played. So much for nostalgia.
Historically, Bulletin Board Systems were accessed using a phone line.
This is not particularly useful today, as fewer and fewer people still
have a landline and very few computers have a modem by default. Obviously,
this is a bit of a problem. Fortunately, humans smarter than I am figured
out how to run a BBS over other protocols. The simplest of these being
Telnet, but there are others. SSH is popular, as well as some browser
clients. You can connect to your preferred system using one or several of
these options. Most BBSs use Telnet, you can connect to one by using the
following command:
~$ telnet <DOMAIN OR IP OF BBS>
Assuming you know of a bulletin board system to connect to, you should
be able access it using this method. Personally, I use the Archaic Binary
BBS (bbs.archaicbinary.net) If you join it, message me. My username is
microlost. There are many others, one of particular interest is the
Monochrome BBS <
https://mo.org> which has been running since the early 90s.
I recommend shopping around for a bit. I went through several systems before
I found a few that I like.
While using telnet from the command line (depending on your terminal
emulator) you may have noticed that all of the pictures look really ugly
and didn’t work properly. There is a super simple fix for this. All you
need is some different software to access the BBS with. Personally, I use
Netrunner, it is developed by the same people as MysticBBS, a piece of BBS
server software.
At this point, you may be thinking, “ol, I just did a thing, why is
this significant?”
Hopefully you have as much fun as I have, messing around with old
software
