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A while back I was Googling myself and came across a few entries with my old address and telephone number of the BBS I used to run up until about 11 years ago. (I shut down when I was 19, when I moved out of my parents home into my own place, and couldn't afford a second phone line.) Turns out I had stumbled across a really neat project that someone created, a preservation archive of sorts, which was a huge list of old BBSes (mostly defunct) compiled from a number of sources. I also ran across another site operated by the same guy, which was an impressively extensive directory of BBS software . That was a really cool find for me, having been involved in using and operating various BBSes during the period of their peak popularity. I was very surprised to see a whole ton of BBS programs listed that I'd never even heard of at that time, and I thought I'd seen them all. It was also neat to see the history behind some of the ones I did use back then. I probably spent a good hour or two browsing through and reading the BBS list and software directory, and boy did it ever bring back some memories, and make me feel just a little nostalgic. Anyways, it got me to thinking about the good old days, and how great some of the communities that evolved on some of the BBSes I used to frequent, and run, used to be, back before the Internet was widely available and used by the masses. I realized that the whole online world has come full circle again, since the latest craze on the Internet is building communities, whether it be a forum community for whatever topic the site is about, communities of bloggers, or whatever. It's like forming an online community is the latest and greatest idea, but it's not. 18 years ago when I started BBSing (good god, it's been THAT long!) there were a few really super online communities on a few of the BBSes I started out on, that are just as good, if not better than anything you'd find on the 'net today. I really miss some of them, and I tell you, I sure miss running my own board. I connected with a lot of great people back then, and I really miss that. Looking through that old BBS list, I went searching for a few of the old ones that I started out on, and amazingly enough, quite a few of them were NOT on the list. I remember one of the first systems I started out on was a BBS called "Line Tap", which was probably one of the all around strangest successes I can think of back then. First off, it was a multi-line system, I think it had about 7 lines in total, which was VERY rare back then. To make it even stranger, it was located out in the boonies, basically in rural farmland where there weren't a lot of computer users to begin with (or population, period). Which of course, also means that all but one of the phone lines for that BBS were long-distance to the major city I lived in (Hamilton, Ontario). Sounds crazy, right? But those lines were kept busy, that I can tell you. Oh, and even more rare for those days, outside of the major online networks like Compuserve and Quantum Link, it was a *pay* BBS. I think it was like a buck an hour or something like that. But there was a real kick-ass game on that BBS that people loved, so it was worth it. I don't remember exactly, but it was run on a BBS program I never, ever encountered anywhere else but that system, it was a commercial package and fairly expensive if I remember correctly. I think it ran on one of the Radio Shack computers, or something. I ended up buying my second modem about 2 weeks after I bought the first one (a used Commodore VICModem 1650, 300 baud, manual dial) from the Sysop of that BBS. (Which was a shiny new VICmodem 1670, 1200 baud with autodial and a speaker. LOL!) Super nice people all around, and there were even a couple of girls/women on there too, which was hard to find back then, too. Another one of the first systems that I used that really stands out, was one that didn't last too long. It was called "The Zoo", and it ran during the school year at St. Mary's High School in Hamilton. That one ran on a Commodore 64, and was run by a few of the students there. Can't remember what BBS program it used, but it was something fairly crappy and naturally crashed more than a few times on a Friday night and was down until Monday morning. It was neat though, because at the time, most schools barely had computer teachers that knew anything beyond how to plug the thing in and turn it on; much less know what a modem was and support something to the extent of running a BBS out of the school. The Sysop (The Zookeeper) was a pretty friendly guy from what I remember, as were most of the users (quite a few were students from the school itself). That made for a great community, one that I felt pretty comfortable in, being in the 6th or 7th grade myself at the time, and none of them treated me any differently as is usually the case among high school students towards younger ones. Some of the online cliques on some BBSes in those days were pretty harsh on the newcomer, especially the younger users my age, regardless of ability or intelligence, and I can say that never happened on The Zoo. I can probably think of a few more great examples of communities and users that I miss; particularly a few of the various incarnations of my own BBS. Had some great times with some of those, that's for sure. I'm tempted to pull out the Amiga off the shelf and boot 'er up and have a nostalgic look back at the last version of my BBS, which still exists on the hard drive, exactly as it was the day I shut down, almost 12 years ago. I'm even more tempted to try and find an Ethernet card for the thing and put it online again for fun. I'd have to switch BBS software for that though, I guess. And I always hated the BBS software on the Amiga (DLG was the only one at the time) that supported Telnet connection. Oh well :) But who knows, I just might... I bet I'm not the only one out there that pines for a good old fashioned community BBS. |
