Pre-internet BBS folks

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

Kadarin

Lifer
Nov 23, 2001
44,296
16
81
My brother and I used to run The Darque Side of the Moon BBS in the Bay Area back in the '80s, which was both a BBS and an Ascii Express line (remember those?). We used to collect all those stupid textfiles on hacking, phone phreaking, and other random crap.
 

FP

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2005
4,568
0
0
Originally posted by: Astaroth33
My brother and I used to run The Darque Side of the Moon BBS in the Bay Area back in the '80s, which was both a BBS and an Ascii Express line (remember those?). We used to collect all those stupid textfiles on hacking, phone phreaking, and other random crap.

Nice! I remember those files. I printed out the "How to make bombs" text file and gave it to a friend. He accidentally left it on his other friend porch and the kid's parents found it and thought it was a death threat.

I totally forgot about the "proving yourself" part of BBSs. You would sign in and check in each day to see if the sysop had ok'd your account. Then you could only download if you had enough credits from uploading.

Man I miss those days. 2400 baud was the bomb. AT strings FTW
 

kt

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2000
6,032
1,348
136
Food fight! God, I love that game along with Global War, Red Dragon, and Tradewars.
 

Fullmetal Chocobo

Moderator<br>Distributed Computing
Moderator
May 13, 2003
13,704
7
81
Remember Telix? Damn that program was awesome. Nothing like resuming on a Z-modem transfer. LOL
 

tjaisv

Banned
Oct 7, 2002
1,934
2
81
I remember going to the public library and logging onto some BBS and wondering how the f*ck to use it. Then i'd get kicked off by some BBS admin for violating their rules or whatever.

I really have no idea wtf that was. Thank god those times are long gone.
 

Eli

Super Moderator | Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
50,419
8
81
Too many to share...

I still logon to BBSes, mostly to play a MUD that I've been playing for the last 11 years.
 

Fingolfin269

Lifer
Feb 28, 2003
17,948
34
91
Can any of you remember the name of some of the more popular mid-late 80s BBS software? I used to run one with a friend of mine and cannot remember what the software was called.
 

flot

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2000
3,197
0
0
Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
Can any of you remember the name of some of the more popular mid-late 80s BBS software? I used to run one with a friend of mine and cannot remember what the software was called.

There were dozens. I think I changed software 5-6 times, I want to say that the last 2 I used were Remote Access and QuickBBS.

I still have a few copies of computer shopper (when it was phone book sized) with my BBS listed in them.
 

VTrider

Golden Member
Nov 21, 1999
1,358
0
0
Originally posted by: Iron Woode
the last time I dialed into a BBS was back in 1985 on my C64 with a 300 baud modem that was overclocked to 450 baud. I was bad ass even back then.


I hear ya brotha! ;)
 

DaShen

Lifer
Dec 1, 2000
10,710
1
0
Playing MUDs (Legends of the Red Dragon...) and learning cool hacks.

Also, being the "in" crowd for the newest releases of software. That was a long time ago.
 

rudder

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
19,441
86
91
I ran a BBS way back during the Amiga days. I remember I got a call from At&T saying I owed them $30,000 for fraudulent calls made to my BBS. I do not know how it happened but apparently some cracking group in Europe was using my BBS to distribute Amiga warez.
 

SuperSix

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
9,872
2
0
I ran a 3 line TriBBS board here in Tampa. Had all of those door games (lemonade Stand!), a LOT of shareware, and a lot of pr0n too. I axctually paid my phone line charges with pr0n subs. I had a pretty intesive adult sign up, I'm sure that slowed me down.

I had a full tower w/6 Mitsumi 2x CDROMs, and 2 6-disc Nakamichi SCSI disk changers, a lot back then.

USR Courier External FTW! :D

 

aircooled

Lifer
Oct 10, 2000
15,965
1
0
I ran a Commodore 64 BBS from my bedroom back in the 80's.

Got in alot of trouble for credit card, telephone and computer fraud. Turns out I was responsible for what other people posted on my BBS. Fortunately I was under 18 at the time.
 

sinucus

Senior member
Feb 3, 2004
266
0
0
I still play some games on BBS's. From one of the earlier post someone mentioned Syncronet for telnetable BBS software. Got all my favorite door games like, Baron/Solar Realms Elite (BRE and SRE), Kannons and Katapults, Usurper, L.O.R.D, Food Fight and of course Tradewars. You can find a list of BBS's still to this day by googling "BBS telnet". Good times...

The only board that I can still remember the name of that I was on was Westphalia, a small 2 line BBS in central VA. There were about 5 that I regularly signed onto from 2400 to 56K. My V.Everything kicked @ss!
 

NuclearNed

Raconteur
May 18, 2001
7,882
380
126
I played The Pit religiously every day. I found a cheat that would allow a beginning player to kill virtually any other player, no matter what their level was or how good their weapons and armor were. I think I made a lot of people in my region really mad. Good times.
 

KMFJD

Lifer
Aug 11, 2005
32,655
52,097
136
C-Net bbs's on the old c64 , moving from 300bps to 1200bps was heaven, many huge phone bills...ah the memories
 

TheAdvocate

Platinum Member
Mar 7, 2005
2,561
7
81
Cant remember the BBS's my friend and I logged into in the late 80's, but one in Chicago always had the latest Eagle Soft cracked games for the Commodore.

The day we got Phantasie II & III in a single session. I slept maybe 2 hours that weekend. Ahh the memories of an RPG nerd.
 

jadinolf

Lifer
Oct 12, 1999
20,952
3
81
I remember when I had to update McAfee VirusScan using a BBS. That was quite a feat for a noob.
 

KK

Lifer
Jan 2, 2001
15,903
4
81
Originally posted by: kt
Food fight! God, I love that game along with Global War, Red Dragon, and Tradewars.

Food fight is one I remember, there were others but food fight sticks out in my head.

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
Can any of you remember the name of some of the more popular mid-late 80s BBS software? I used to run one with a friend of mine and cannot remember what the software was called.

the only one I recall right now was called wildcat I believe.
 

Whisper

Diamond Member
Feb 25, 2000
5,394
2
81
Yeah, LORD was like the BBS equivalent of WoW...I would join multiple BBS's to be able to play more than the standard X actions per day. That and the Pit...killing other people online was just great.