Trip Back to the BBS Days! (queue modem noises)

Im dusting off the old 2400 baud modem and feeling all kinds of nostalgic for the days when the internet was just a glimmer in some egghead’s eye. I’m talkin’ about the BBS era! It was a different world back then – a world of text-based adventures, ANSI art explosions, and the sweet, sweet sound of a modem handshake. For me there was also my sister yelling “GET OFF THE PHONE”. Call waiting was your worst enemy, if you forgot to add *70, to your call out. When call waiting would “beep” it would often wreck your connection. This only happened when you were either calling at peak time (fighting for available modems) or worse, 98% through a giant 550Kb download. That’sover a 1/3 of an entire floppy!

Let’s revisit the glorious world of Bulletin Board Systems, specifically those runnin’ the gnarly Renegade software. Remember Renegade? It was like the cool kid on the block, fast, customizable, and packed with features that’d make your jaw drop (well, for the 80s, anyway). Think of it as a pre-internet social club, where you dialed in with your modem and entered a text-based universe of message boards, file areas, and door games.

For me, being a young kid, those “Wildcat BBS” folks seemed so stuffy. The local Wildcat Sysop (Peter) kicked me off his BBS when found out I was so young. Thankfully there were other adults that thought it was neat I was interested and my idea of toy store was RadioShack!

First off, let’s talk about those door games! Oh man, those were the bread and butter of any righteous BBS. Forget your fancy graphics, we had text-based RPGs like Legend of the Red Dragon (LORD), where you could spend hours building your character and dueling other players. Then there were epic strategic games like Trade Wars 2002, where you traded space goods and got into some serious intergalactic battles. It was a whole new level of interactive fun, all driven by the humble text! And let’s not forget the simple but addictive challenges, like trivia games, word puzzles, and those casino-style games. All these programs were separate .EXE files that the BBS would launch, feeding it user info from a dropfile and using text-based output (and ANSI art, of course) for visual feedback. It was low-tech magic!

But it wasn’t all games, my friends. A huge part of the BBS experience was the message boards. You could post messages, reply to others, and engage in totally bodacious discussions about anything and everything. It was like a forum, but you know, way cooler and on a dial-up! It’s where you found your people and built those online friendships. And, you know, traded the latest warez, cough cough… I mean, uh, awesome shareware programs.

Speaking of sharing, let’s not forget the file areas! This is where the real magic happened, where you could find all sorts of software, utilities, text files, and of course, ANSI art that would blow your mind. And let’s be real, a LOT of shareware games. If you were lucky, your local SysOp was really on top of things and kept the files organized in folders like GAMES, UTILS, GRAPHICS, and even TEXT files. You’d use file transfer protocols like XMODEM, YMODEM, and ZMODEM to download these treasures. And uploading files usually earned you upload credit to download more. Gotta love the barter system!

But what made the BBS world truly amazing was FIDONET. It took the local BBS experience global. FIDONET was a network of interconnected BBSes, where you could send messages and files to other BBSes all over the world! It was a store-and-forward system, so messages wouldn’t appear immediately, but it was a marvel of decentralized communication. FIDONET gave you an address that looked like 1:234/5 , and each number pointed to a specific network, BBS (called a node), and even a user on that BBS (called a point). Your local BBS would dial up its “uplink” and send or receive batches of messages. It was like an early form of email, all without the internet as we know it.

Finding Your Way Around the BBS Galaxy

So, how did you find these amazing BBSs? Well, back in the day, we didn’t have Google! We relied on old-school methods, like…wait for it…printed magazines! Yeah, you heard me right. Huge monthly magazines like Computer Shopper (those things were like phone books, 500+ pages thick!) had massive sections dedicated to BBS listings. These listings would often be several pages long. You’d find the BBS name, the SysOp’s handle (sometimes), phone numbers, and a quick description of what the system offered. Boardwatch Magazine was also a fantastic resource for serious BBS enthusiasts, and it was really focused on BBSs and the culture they created. The Computer Paper was another regional newspaper that focused on computing, including local BBS listings. I even remember some smaller regional magazines and even community newspapers that sometimes ran BBS listings.

Once you dialed into a BBS, you often had the opportunity to view or download BBS directories! These were text files that listed other BBS phone numbers. It was a fantastic way to explore and discover other BBSs in your area, or sometimes even nationally, or even globally. This community was all about sharing info, so these directories were gold!

Massive File Areas Powered by CD-ROMs

Now, some of the larger, more bodacious BBSes had HUGE file areas. How did they manage all that data? Well, often they used CD-ROM towers! These were basically stacks of CD-ROM drives connected to the BBS server. Sysops would collect massive libraries of files onto CD-ROMs, and these would then be accessible on their BBSes. This was a way to greatly expand the available software and files for users to download. This was cutting edge tech back then! A major supplier of such software collections were “Night Owl” CD-ROMs. These were legendary, packed with shareware games, utilities, and more. They were a goldmine for the serious BBS user!

The Legacy Lives On

Those days of dial-up modems and text-based worlds might be over for most folks, but the spirit of the BBS era lives on. It was a time of innovation, community, and exploration. The lessons we learned from the BBS world helped shape the internet we use today. And hey, there are still some BBSes out there, run by enthusiasts who keep the flame burning! So, if you’re feeling a bit retro, why not fire up an emulator and see what all the fuss was about? You might just discover a whole new appreciation for the good old days of dial-up!

Keep those bits and bytes flowing, my friends, and maybe I’ll see you on the message boards!

DISCONECT

• rsp2k