It's 1990 Again! BBS'es Ruled

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09-26-2005, 01:16 PM
desslock

It's 1990 Again! BBS'es Ruled

A friend of mine forwarded me this entertaining archive of BBS'es (Bulletin Board Systems) from over the years. I'm impressed at the research someone had to do to put this all together.

http://bbslist.textfiles.com/

I'm sure all you Online Old-Timers will remember them fondly. Before the Internet, and even before AOL people used their computers, along with a fancy and usually expensive peripheral called a modem, to talk online. There were also "gay" BBSes and cruisey ones, along with boards devoted to every possible subject..

I looked up several that I used to call in the archive, and they were all there.

That era, and the culture around it would make for a good book someday.

Steve
09-26-2005, 02:37 PM
Slade

Quote:

Originally Posted by desslock

A friend of mine forwarded me this entertaining archive of BBS'es (Bulletin Board Systems) from over the years. I'm impressed at the research someone had to do to put this all together.

http://bbslist.textfiles.com/

I'm sure all you Online Old-Timers will remember them fondly. Before the Internet, and even before AOL people used their computers, along with a fancy and usually expensive peripheral called a modem, to talk online. There were also "gay" BBSes and cruisey ones, along with boards devoted to every possible subject..

I looked up several that I used to call in the archive, and they were all there.

That era, and the culture around it would make for a good book someday.

Steve

It actually was a very interesting and fun era..(while frustrating also since the technology was pretty new and the boards crashed a lot).

I started a gay bbs in Seattle in 1985 called "28 Barbary Lane". Believe it or not..it was on an ATARI 800 with ONE..*1* single sided single density floppy drive that could hold about..oh 20-25 messages before the first ones scrolled off! lol

Then..expanded it to a system using "DLX", one of the first multi-line softwares that came out (on the pc of course) and, WHAM, the bbs'ers were like kids in a candy store. Not only could there be more than one user online at a time..but they could CHAT with each other! Not only one on one, but in a group chat! You would have thought we had invented penicillin or something. The membership was in awe, and from there..grew leaps and bounds until the late 90s when the internet finally made the bbs system obsolete.
09-26-2005, 06:03 PM
CJ-KJCash

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slade

It actually was a very interesting and fun era..(while frustrating also since the technology was pretty new and the boards crashed a lot).

I started a gay bbs in Seattle in 1985 called "28 Barbary Lane". Believe it or not..it was on an ATARI 800 with ONE..*1* single sided single density floppy drive that could hold about..oh 20-25 messages before the first ones scrolled off! lol

Then..expanded it to a system using "DLX", one of the first multi-line softwares that came out (on the pc of course) and, WHAM, the bbs'ers were like kids in a candy store. Not only could there be more than one user online at a time..but they could CHAT with each other! Not only one on one, but in a group chat! You would have thought we had invented penicillin or something. The membership was in awe, and from there..grew leaps and bounds until the late 90s when the internet finally made the bbs system obsolete.

You are the one that ran 28??? I was looking for that on the list. It is the first BBS I was ever on. Prior to that, my only online experience was with Quantum Link on the Commodore 64. That was a fun era. I remember how excited I was the first time I ever saw text in multi colors. And just now remembered the pic of the house on 28 that was drawn from the keyboard........wow, now I am feeling old and nostalgic.
09-27-2005, 12:40 AM
Slade

Quote:

Originally Posted by sukime69

You are the one that ran 28??? I was looking for that on the list. It is the first BBS I was ever on. Prior to that, my only online experience was with Quantum Link on the Commodore 64. That was a fun era. I remember how excited I was the first time I ever saw text in multi colors. And just now remembered the pic of the house on 28 that was drawn from the keyboard........wow, now I am feeling old and nostalgic.

Small world ain't it! grin
Yep..that was me.."Mrs Madrigal"..the sysop of 28 Barbary Lane.
Funny thing was that people who did not know me thought I was
1)A dyke
2)A drag queen

I got some of the FUNNIEST email from straight dudes who left messages to me telling me (thinking I'm a lez) that they could give me a night that I would never FORGET! Of course, THEY would have been the ones that would never forget that night! haha

http://www.28bbl.com/house.jpg

Is this the pic you referred to?
09-27-2005, 02:43 AM
desslock

Oh ... ASCII ... how cute! And I remember DLX. A gay bar in Austin named Sally's Apartment ran that on a multiline setup.

Oh well you had an ATARI so you could have had ATASCII. My first computer was a souped up version of the Atari 800 called the Atari 1200XL. One thing I recall is that those Atari people all hung together.

Around 1990 a friend of mine wanted to start an active BBS, which would include in the community a gay message board. Unfortunately he let me name it. So it was called the Weeping Bladder BBS. Some people thought it was a reference to incontinence. I just liked the thought of making people have to say or of think the phrase, "I'm now going to call The Weeping Bladder"

I've always enjoyed the anti-establishmentarian aspects of computers and the online world.

Some people would also mix up the name and call it the Bleeding Bladder in their messages. And It became a nice, active 2 line board that ran 2400 baud, and then 14.4kBPS.

Texas's popular bar rag at the time, called TWiT gave free listings to Gay BBSes in the back pages. When it got listed in there, we got calls.

Later we upgraded to my big idea, of running a pay BBS. My friend Tombob was doing quite well with his 32 line BBS in Austin called After Hours... and I envyed the idea of not having a "real job" but being online all day.

As a paysite, we had to change the name to something more "normal" so the BBS was renamed The Apollo Zone. I bought a CD Rom of cruddy porn and served it to paying members. Boy that technology sure changed so fast. But for me it served as the seed for my later ideas.

Steve
09-27-2005, 04:44 AM
Slade

Quote:

Originally Posted by desslock

Oh ... ASCII ... how cute! And I remember DLX. A gay bar in Austin named Sally's Apartment ran that on a multiline setup.

Oh well you had an ATARI so you could have had ATASCII. My first computer was a souped up version of the Atari 800 called the Atari 1200XL. One thing I recall is that those Atari people all hung together.

I think the bbs called Delphi (or something similar..it's late..so I'm a bit tired and it could have something else like Delphos..or something along that line).

ANYWAYS..the bbs in LA was the last dlx one I knew in the country that hung on till..oh I would say 2000 or maybe even into 2001 before they shut down.

Yeah..the "Atari people" hung together..against the big meanies called the "Commies!" (Commodore 64). So many people had the commie it was amazing..especially since it was the SLOWEST loading machine I'd EVER seen. We'd joke about like how we were half way through a game before the Commie would even load the same game. I STILL have my all time fav game from those days that I play on the atari emulator I have for the pc.

Ever hear of M.U.L.E.? THAT game ROCKED..ESPECIALLY for the 80s! On the old 800, you could hook up 4 joysticks and MULE could handle up to 4 players in one game. Had some marathon game times then. Oh..to be that young again! lol