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The reason I first bought a computer was to get on-line and call BBS's.
You would start up a dos based terminal program like Qmodem or Telix and dial up a local BBS and listen to the sound of your modem attempting to negotiate a connection. Once you connected you logged in and watched the ANSI graphics draw across the screen. From there you could choose where to go from the menu, perhaps you went straight to the games to play Tradewars 2002 or LORD, maybe you went to the files section to download the game Doom over the next hour or 2, or you went to post messages in the forums or to the QWK door to download the messages to read and reply to offline. Some people loved chatting and if the BBS had 2 or more lines they could type to each other live texting! Amazing!
In my town we usually had at least a dozen operating BBS's ran by local geeks. The more advanced geeks, and wealthier ones could afford to have their BBS dial up connect to other BBS's around the country and share message databases. Fidonet, Dovenet were the names of some of these worldwide networks of messages. To run one of these BBS's you had to master Dos and became known as a sysop. I loved dialing up posting to the boards and spent hours on local BBS's. After sampling the local fare I decided I could do as well or better and set out to create my own BBS using Mustang softwares Wildcat BBS. Times were already changing and technology was advancing, so I purchased a satellite receiver and had USENET newsgroups imported into the BBS and by connecting to a Berkley Hub was able to offer real Internet e-mail access to anyone who called up. My BBS became quite popular because of this email feature I offered and it became swamped with calls around the clock. Sadly a new Technology called the World Wide Web was being developed and in time it even became available to our corner of Northern California. The days of the BBS were fading. Callers begin migrating to ISP's and one day I shut the BBS down and that was the end to that.
Some of these BBS still exist and the good old ANSI/text games are still played on-line via Telnet. I recently started visiting a few and renewing my skills at playing a few of the old door games.
Actually the Sundren community is no different then those days. Same thing, has a super-duper door game, forums and even chat. It is just bigger 10 to the 10th power and better and much, much more complex then the 486dx 100 with 20 megs of ram and a 1 gig drive I had running my powerhouse of a BBS.
Does this sound familiar to any of you out there?
Any others out there with similar fond memories of the good old days of computers?
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