home.social

#bbses — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #bbses, aggregated by home.social.

  1. Way back in the 1970s/1980s, before the Fediverse, before the web, there was an even older open network: "bulletin board systems" or BBSes.

    You can watch a multi-part documentary about the history of the BBS network at:

    ➡️ fedi.video/w/p/h6CMyFnbdPZXpaR

    The episodes are themed rather than chronological, so you can watch any episodes you want in any order.

    #BBS #BulletinBoards #BBSes #CreativeCommons #ComputingHistory #RetroComputing

  2. This reminds me of the "MCI" tricks we'd do on #Citadel #BBSes, where some control code would print out the name of the currently-logged in user (`^An`, I think it was).
    void.rehab/notes/a2w70590l19fw

  3. When I describe #IGS as being a "niche community," you might wonder "how niche?"

    Only 15% of U.S. households owned a #computer in 1990, when IGS hit its stride, according to the Census Bureau.

    And even among those, calling #BBSes wasn't common. Just 23% of adults' computer systems in 1989 included modems.

    Few owned an #AtariST. At its peak in 1987, #Atari sold 400,000 ... Compared with 6 million PCs sold the same year.

    breakintochat.com/blog/categor

    #retrocomputing #nostalgia #vintagecomputing

  4. "Today, many folks look back with fondness on the early days of computer-based messaging. Depending on age, they may wax nostalgic for #bbses #Usenet, or #webforums. All these technologies still exist, although either barely used or are full of spam. It’s hard not to think that something may have been lost.
    Perhaps the future isn’t one of endless growth for all-powerful corporations but a return to smaller, more personal “third spaces” where we can feel comfortable."
    arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/0

  5. @scott Here you go!

    Love the pull quote — "We don't have to eat at Taco Bell anymore. We can eat at Jack in the Box."

    #doom #apcidoom #gaming #retrogaming #newspapers #localnews #bbsing #bbses

  6. From the story:

    > As committed as these Forest Park residents are to computer games, even they are sometimes stunned by the intensity of their clients.

    > They recall two men who teamed up to play Trade Wars 2002 continuously in five-hour shifts for two weeks. They recall partners who fell out over games and now won't talk to one another. They note that some players log on for six-hour stretches. Computer games? Heck, these are more like addictive substances."

    #bbses #bbsing #retrocomputing

  7. Though I have plenty more "photos of dudes posing with computers", I decided to share just one more — my favorite.

    I love how the Cincinnati Post forced these three "major players" to squeeze together into a corner beside the PC running their gaming BBS.

    Their board allowed users to play Doom II, Heretic, Descent, and other games head-to-head.

    #bbsing #bbses #bbs #retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #history #newspapers #localnews #photos #oldphotos #the90s #gaming #retrogaming #vintagegaming

  8. 👨 🖥️

    I give you ... MORE "photos of dudes posing with computers, for newspaper profiles of their bulletin board systems in the 1990s."

    #bbsing #bbses #bbs #retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #history #newspapers #localnews #photos #oldphotos #the90s

  9. I give you ... "Photos of dudes (and one lady) posing with computers, for newspaper profiles of their bulletin board systems."

    #bbsing #bbses #bbs #retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #history #newspapers #localnews

  10. If you were born on or after 1970, it's interesting to see what major #tech events happened in the year you were born: techcentral.co.za/what-happene

    My year is 1980. It's a pity that they don't mention #BBSes or #FidoNet, because both of those were, IMO, pretty important precursors to the modern #Internet and social networks (I ran a #BBS in the early 1990s, and it was connected to a FidoNet network).

    #Computers #History

  11. @DBailey635 @ldodds And the funkiest one-operator #BBSes were occasionally unavailable because their owner was using the phone line themselves. I know because I ran one on a #Amiga 500 with two floppy disk drives out of my bedroom.

  12. Just added a section on Bahá'í #BBSes yoooo

  13. @stublad @SpindleyQ I’m often saddened that I missed out on #Habitat, but it was limited to #QuantumLink and as a teenager I couldn’t abide the per-minute charges when I could dial into local #BBSes for free.

  14. BBSes were slightly before my time, but it seems they were very much in the spirit of the Fediverse.

    There's a really good documentary series about them called "BBS: The Documentary", it was made in 2005.

    You can watch the series on PeerTube at:

    Episode 1 - fedi.video/w/tg9fLgWc3xfFEwuPL
    Ep 2 - fedi.video/w/fKKGi7DMESVgG4BRv
    Ep 3 - fedi.video/w/kUdTQTeLyAdbwM5Tc
    Ep 4 - fedi.video/w/4b6j4HXJuKFpQbF92
    Ep 5 - fedi.video/w/7jNrzMA2ktfVh1Xoz
    Ep 6 - fedi.video/w/k75mXqRdBoVeVcgxS
    Ep 7 - fedi.video/w/k8L1kco3pFW3JMLfz
    Ep 8 - fedi.video/w/mWPZj3m2Kz9UethNx

    Posting as a lot of the issues they had to deal with sound very familiar to anyone who uses the Fediverse today.

    #Fediverse #BBS #BBSes

  15. Random idea... using #ppp (maybe with #pap or #chap (afaik both aren't encrypted)) or #uucp with (open) modems like #psk-r #thor or similar for layer 1, for #bbses and #44net 🤔

  16. Random idea... using #ppp (maybe with #pap or #chap (afaik both aren't encrypted)) or #uucp with (open) modems like #psk-r #thor or similar for layer 1, for #bbses and #44net 🤔

  17. CW: Long thread/2

    As #JohnHodgman is fond of reminding us, "#nostalgia is a toxic impulse." It is easy for an old net.hand like me to fall into the trap of shaking his fist at the #cloud. Having been on the other side of that dynamic, I can tell you it's no fun.

    When I got on #BBSes in the early 1980s, there was an omnipresent chorus of grumps insisting that the move from honest acoustic couplers to decadent #modems was the end of the Golden Age of telecommunications:

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic

    2/

  18. @bigzaphod When I started #BBSing in the early #1980s on my #Commodore64 the file transfer protocol choices were #XMODEM and #Punter, the latter largely exclusive to #Commodore #BBSes.

    Trivia: XMODEM was invented by Ward Christensen, co-creator of the first #BBS

  19. Fun historical note. Ten years ago, when I put together this blog series on 314 BBSes, I wrote:

    "Don't call me a hacker; a hack might be more like it."

    If only I had known. 🕵️

    breakintochat.com/blog/2013/06

    #stl #StLouis #314Day #bbses #bbsing #bbs #retrocomputing #vintagecomputing

  20. @SWOnews Research #BulletinBoardSystems (#BBSes) of the 1980s, before the bigger ones started to metastasize into interconnected #FidoNet nodes paralleling the nascent #Internet. They often did exactly this kind of neighborhood social networking because the economics of using the wired telephone system meant any given #BBS was 99-100% used by people for whom it was a local phone call.

  21. So what are people using these days to connect to telnet #BBSes? Back in the day I used to use #Telix. And I recall using Telix in OS/2 with Ray Gwinn's SIO driver to connect to #telnet BBSes during the early 2Ks. Anything that can handle ANSI color?
    #BBS