Random Thoughts Thread

[RCBH928]

Any one here old enough to have used BBS?
Not sure if I talked about this here before, I write in multiple forums so I get confused.

I never understood what it was, but my understanding it was basically just exactly like a website with links and stored files. I think there was chat rooms and forums too. It was just instead of having a URL you dialed a phone number that connected directly to a computer. BBS Admins must have been really nice rich guys to pay for ailarll those phone bills.

Given how its similar to a website, I never understood why its users tend to have nostalgia for it given that websites do the exact same thing... except you type in a URL. Well, websites today are very different beast but back in 1994 I don't imagine there was much of difference.

[marurun]

BBSs were quite different beasts, and at the time the only thing like them. Might explain more later. They were entire multi-faceted services.

[BogusMeatFactory]

BBSs were quite different beasts, and at the time the only thing like them. Might explain more later. They were entire multi-faceted services.

They were truly magical. Large scale multiplayer games, forums, file sharing, pirate hubs, all types of sub cultures. It was the underground to a world that didn't exist. There will never ever be anything like that ever again.

[RCBH928]

BBSs were quite different beasts, and at the time the only thing like them. Might explain more later. They were entire multi-faceted services.

They were truly magical. Large scale multiplayer games, forums, file sharing, pirate hubs, all types of sub cultures. .

I did watch that BBS documentary on YouTube, what I don't get is that it just sound to me like a website it just didn't have a mouse-and-pointer GUI. I hear they still exist.

[marurun]

BBSs were quite different beasts, and at the time the only thing like them. Might explain more later. They were entire multi-faceted services.

They were truly magical. Large scale multiplayer games, forums, file sharing, pirate hubs, all types of sub cultures. .

I did watch that BBS documentary on YouTube, what I don't get is that it just sound to me like a website it just didn't have a mouse-and-pointer GUI. I hear they still exist.

Because they had email, and message boards, and games, and because most BBSs were local, they were small communities. I made friends with a girl in another state and we stayed friends for years and years, all because for the first years of our friendship we exchanged messages via Fishnet, which had to be delivered by BBSs calling in to each other to get messages to pass along (almost like a water brigade). I got to meet a lot of the people using the BBS by going to in-person meetings. Since it was a small, local BBS we could actually do this.

In order for a web site to have recreated all this it would need to have forums, community file storage, the ability to exchange messages with other forums in other areas, have games that supported multi-player, even multi-board interactions, and also support the interests of a local community. BBSs had more in common with services like AOL or CompuServe than a random website.

[Ack]

My mom had to put down her golden retriever today. Max was a good dog, but he had been suffering from cancer for a while, and there wasn't much the vets could do about him except give him something for the pain. Mom had him treated a couple of weeks ago, but the meds stopped working, so she took him today. He went quickly and quietly.

Poor Max, he lived to be pretty old for a golden retriever, around 12. He was a rescue dog and had been traumatized when he was a puppy; his previous master had apparently died while Max was there, and the experience made him needy. Whenever you sat down, Max would come up and put his head on your thigh and slobber all over you. He needed to know that you weren't gonna die on him, so you'd scratch him, and the instant you stopped, he'd go right back to resting his head on your thigh and staring up at you as if to tell you not to leave him. Mom got him when he was about 2 and gave him a good life for the last decade. He stank, he drooled, and he never left your side, but he was a good dog.

[RCBH928]

Because they had email, and message boards, and games, and because most BBSs were local, they were small communities. I made friends with a girl in another state and we stayed friends for years and years, all because for the first years of our friendship we exchanged messages via Fishnet, which had to be delivered by BBSs calling in to each other to get messages to pass along (almost like a water brigade). I got to meet a lot of the people using the BBS by going to in-person meetings. Since it was a small, local BBS we could actually do this.

In order for a web site to have recreated all this it would need to have forums, community file storage, the ability to exchange messages with other forums in other areas, have games that supported multi-player, even multi-board interactions, and also support the interests of a local community. BBSs had more in common with services like AOL or CompuServe than a random website.

I didn't think of the local aspect, maybe this was what made them special. It probably felt like your local "club" of some sort.. Maybe it felt more personal. I kind had the idea that you dialed any BBS around the world, just like you write a URL and it can be hosted anywhere in the world.

I didn't know they had online multiplayer since then.That was before the WWW! Was it like "live" gameplay or more like turn-based gameplay?

[marurun]

I didn't know they had online multiplayer since then.That was before the WWW! Was it like "live" gameplay or more like turn-based gameplay?

It depended on the game and the BBS. Many small BBSs only had one line, so only one user could be on concurrently. In those cases it was turn-based. But the larger BBSs had multiple lines and could support several simultaneous users, so in those cases you could play PvP. Now, because BBSs used text-based interfaces, all games used ASCII or ANSI character sets, so any graphics used text or ANSI character graphics. There were a few games that allowed you to compete against other BBSs. Everyone would take their turn locally, playing co-operatively, and periodically you could do things to attack other BBSs. Every night the BBSs would call each other up to exchange messages and game data and the various attacks would resolve.

https://www.pcmag.com/feature/340587/th ... door-games

[RCBH928]

Any one was into Apple/Macs by mid-late 90s when the internet was young?
I remember everyone was siding with his team with websites mocking intel chips with "Evil Inside" gifs and "Made On Mac" buttons. It was kind of like Sega vs Nintendo. Today that kind of passion is dead and nobody cares.

Good Times.

[isiolia]

First family computer I used much of was an Apple IIe we were given by my aunt and uncle when they bought a Mac. However, when my dad went to get something new, we got a 386, where I had friends with Macs as well. So, I definitely remember that early 90s Nintendo/Sega kid type stuff between the platforms (can't say I didn't do my share of it, fed with info from my dad). I wound up getting interested enough in the platform that I bought a Mac (Performa 6320CD) to sit alongside my Pentium computer (guess around '96?) and have owned at least one of each platform since.
I think you don't see as many people who are really into their computing platform now I guess, but there's still some rivalry there. I do have more users that are just honest about not being familiar with the other platform though, instead of claiming it's terrible.