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I love the “ancient tech” topics :) as time marches on I tend to think “...wow...I used that!” BBS, Gopher, and other tools which are still (maybe not commonly)

I love the “ancient tech” topics :) as time marches on I tend to think “...wow...I used that!” BBS, Gopher, and other tools which are still (maybe not commonly) used like Pine and Lynx are a few items that come up in conversation that prompt a sense of wonder in me. Things have come a long way since I first started to dabble...and I’m not even “that old”!

andyidsinga 8y ago
RIGHT!? I remember the late 80s and early 90s as an absolutely wondrous time; using the computer as a means of connecting to someone else somewhere else was a little bit mind blowing. I just spent a few minutes going down memory lane looking at the BBB's on this site: http://bbslist.textfiles.com/503/ http://bbslist.textfiles.com/503/ remembering some of the door games I used to play.
tyfon 8y ago
Then you realise that this happened 30 year ago and then you feel old. At least I do. I used to use a bbs offline "mail" client called blue wave, and it would import .qwk files from the bbs, then you spent your time replying offline and in the end would upload a .rep package containing said replies. In some ways I miss it but in other ways I have a 500/500 internet fiber connection now and do not miss the days when donloading a 10 mb file took the rest of the day.
- robin_reala 8y ago
  Yep, same on CiX in the UK. We had to pay for phone access by the minute, so an offline reader was absolutely necessary.
  - tyfon 8y ago
    Same here in Norway. I remember being jealous of people in the US with a flat local rate. We paid by the minute for everything, even more for "long" distance. My father got rather upset when we got a phone bill of 5000 NOK back in the day because I had downloaded something from a BBS in Bergen from Oslo. Funny how things have reversed, now we are the ones with unmetered fast internet and the US has datacaps and whatnot.
  - isostatic 8y ago
    Did CiX also charge per-minute access on top of that? Compuserve did. In the late 90s, pre DSL, there was a pressure group to allow unmetered phone calls. The site is still online: http://www.unmetered.org.uk/ http://www.unmetered.org.uk/
- guiambros 8y ago
  Blue Wave was amazing. I vividly remember many of the discussions I had with folks at the time - particularly on assembly, demoscene, and electronics. Learned a ton, and it helped shape my entire career.
- ksherlock 8y ago
  Mid 90s, summer break. I had dialup to a BBS/ISP hybrid from which I could telnet to my university account. I randomly found the source code for uqwk on the server. It compiled. It worked. uqwk built a file of new mail and usenet posts. Then I zmodemed them back to my computer where I wrote some software to split them up and read them at my leisure. Not sure if I ever get posting working or not.
- bwann 8y ago
  I had to pay hourly for CRIS BBS Direct's 1-800 dialup because everything was long distance to me, and keep detailed usage records so I didn't exceed my teenage income. 25 hours of Internet usage in a month was "a lot" then, now I think I use it 18 hours a day. Dialing up every morning, exchanging QWK/REP files, getting off as soon as possible was my first forte into scripting things.
- isostatic 8y ago
  I saw a review of Incredibles 2 which opened with "you may remember the original from when you were a kid" Sigh.

andyidsinga 8y ago

RIGHT!? I remember the late 80s and early 90s as an absolutely wondrous time; using the computer as a means of connecting to someone else somewhere else was a little bit mind blowing. I just spent a few minutes going down memory lane looking at the BBB's on this site: http://bbslist.textfiles.com/503/ http://bbslist.textfiles.com/503/ remembering some of the door games I used to play.

tyfon 8y ago

Then you realise that this happened 30 year ago and then you feel old. At least I do. I used to use a bbs offline "mail" client called blue wave, and it would import .qwk files from the bbs, then you spent your time replying offline and in the end would upload a .rep package containing said replies. In some ways I miss it but in other ways I have a 500/500 internet fiber connection now and do not miss the days when donloading a 10 mb file took the rest of the day.

robin_reala 8y ago
Yep, same on CiX in the UK. We had to pay for phone access by the minute, so an offline reader was absolutely necessary.
- tyfon 8y ago
  Same here in Norway. I remember being jealous of people in the US with a flat local rate. We paid by the minute for everything, even more for "long" distance. My father got rather upset when we got a phone bill of 5000 NOK back in the day because I had downloaded something from a BBS in Bergen from Oslo. Funny how things have reversed, now we are the ones with unmetered fast internet and the US has datacaps and whatnot.
- isostatic 8y ago
  Did CiX also charge per-minute access on top of that? Compuserve did. In the late 90s, pre DSL, there was a pressure group to allow unmetered phone calls. The site is still online: http://www.unmetered.org.uk/ http://www.unmetered.org.uk/
guiambros 8y ago
Blue Wave was amazing. I vividly remember many of the discussions I had with folks at the time - particularly on assembly, demoscene, and electronics. Learned a ton, and it helped shape my entire career.
ksherlock 8y ago
Mid 90s, summer break. I had dialup to a BBS/ISP hybrid from which I could telnet to my university account. I randomly found the source code for uqwk on the server. It compiled. It worked. uqwk built a file of new mail and usenet posts. Then I zmodemed them back to my computer where I wrote some software to split them up and read them at my leisure. Not sure if I ever get posting working or not.
bwann 8y ago
I had to pay hourly for CRIS BBS Direct's 1-800 dialup because everything was long distance to me, and keep detailed usage records so I didn't exceed my teenage income. 25 hours of Internet usage in a month was "a lot" then, now I think I use it 18 hours a day. Dialing up every morning, exchanging QWK/REP files, getting off as soon as possible was my first forte into scripting things.
isostatic 8y ago
I saw a review of Incredibles 2 which opened with "you may remember the original from when you were a kid" Sigh.