telnet bbs.retrochallenge.net
lizardb0y
*******************
S
Hello
R
136
Posted By: lizardb0y (lizardb0y) on 'Hello'
Title: WTF am I doing on a BBS?
Date: Fri Jun 10 06:25:35 2011
Back in 1990 or thereabouts I ran a BBS in Dunedin, New Zealand called
"Milliways - The BBS At The End Of The Universe. I'd been a BBS user for
a few years, having first dialled up to the local university with a ZX81
and 300 baud acoustic modem connected via a home-made serial interface,
sometime around 84 or 85. By the late 80s all of the local BBSs had
stopped allowing handles - real names were required everywhere. This was
wrong. And somebody had to do something about it.
I set up Milliway's at my parent's place with a 2400 bps modem and a 286
running DR Concurrent DOS and Searchlight BBS shareware edition (who didn't?)
I made a whole bunch of crappy ANSI art ans set forth. There really wasn't
much of a plan other than "build it, allow handles, write a Purity Test door
in Turbo Pascal and they will come" and come they did. A bunch of loonies,
misfits and sociopaths. My kind of people.
It didn't last that long - maybe until 93 when I decided I couldn't afford the
phone line anymore. By that time teh Intertubes had started to happen,
despite my best attempts to hold it back. My beloved Gopher was giving way
to this newfangled bandwidth wasting World Wide Wombat and everyone was
spitting typed inanities at each other over IRC. Disgusting. Vile. And
sucking up the valuable bandwidth I was trying to download SLS Linux over.
This is the first time I've logged into a BBS of any kind since the demise
of Milliway's. It looks nothing like Searchlight, which is just as well
really. It brings back fond memories of 20 minutes a day quotas and
redialling constantaly from midnight until I could get a line. It
reminds me how much I enjoyed the smaller, closer communities that BBSs
developed. Yep.
Oh, Hai. Yeah. I'm lizardb0y. Nice to meet y'all.
--
lizardb0y
I like old computers. And vi. Gimme vi dammit.
tezza wrote:Software, games, messaging, meeting people, chatting with the Sysop and redialing countless times in the hope of getting a free line. Anyone else have fond memories of those times?
Murray wrote:Said some stuff
tezza wrote:I don’t intend to run a TRS-80 BBS, but I found it rather cool that it could be done…and quite easily.
gavo wrote:What do you mean those times? I still frequent a (telnetable) BBS daily! I'm starting to wonder just how hard core you guys are
gavo wrote:It is quite fun, but you really have to be hard core to run a vintage BBS these days and not be too disappointed when no one calls.
gavo wrote:as I remember it KC (Kappa Crucis) BBS was the place to be with access to news groups etc - actually a quick google throws up this - http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/info.html - havent had a good read of it yet tho.
tezza wrote:That chapter looks like a great read. I'll make my way through it in the next day or so. Although not mentioned, there was a bit of a "BBS scene" in Palmerston North too. It's so long ago I've forgotten most of it though!
Radar wrote:The Palmy BBS scene is one of the best NZ one documented online as Alan Brown (Dawghaus / Planet) updated and reguarly posted to Usenet a Manawatu / P.North / Levin etc. BBS List.
1992 List:
https://groups.google.com/group/nz.comp ... 08ba?hl=en
1995 List:
https://groups.google.com/group/nz.comp ... 370b?hl=en
Lots of memories looking at those lists!
Somewhere in the shed I know I have a 20MB HDD from a PC with lots of TELEMATE logs from calling boards back in the day - will add retreiving these to the "big list" of things to do one day.
Murray wrote:Ah yes, I remember Telemate well! Great program....
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests