4 ms·

BBS and Usenet era Textfiles

38 points by xanthine 6y ago

jonathanoliver 6y ago
Oh this brings back memories. I was browsing around this site and came to a section that gives the complete, start-to-finish set of instructions to beat The Black Cauldron. I can't tell you how many hours I spent on that wonderful game. Looking back, I don't even remember if I completed it. Just reading through, I remember various screens being described: http://textfiles.com/games/blackc.txt http://textfiles.com/games/blackc.txt
enriquto 6y ago
A bit surprised that you cannot download the whole bunch of textfiles on a single tgz.
pmoriarty 6y ago
Also see: http://telehack.com/ http://telehack.com/ "Telehack is a simulation of a stylized arpanet/usenet, circa 1985-1990. It is a full multi-user simulation, including 25,000 hosts and BBS's from the early net, thousands of files from the era, a collection of adventure and IF games, a working BASIC interpreter with a library of programs to run, simulated historical users, and more. "You can telnet directly to Telehack on the regular telnet port of 23. "Open a command shell and type telnet telehack.com "See http://telehack.com/telehack.html http://telehack.com/telehack.html for more information."
- astronautjones 6y ago
  came to the thread to encourage everyone to experience them this way. it's so immersive and really makes you feel like you've time machine-d into dialup era (or older!)
dimator 6y ago
Ok, wtf. Clicking around randomly, I came across: http://textfiles.com/sf/bane_of_ http://textfiles.com/sf/bane_of_ Which I presume is some kind of speculation on "Episode 3" of star wars. I have no clue when this was written, but given the context, I'm assuming it's 80s-90s era, but it's shocking how much it resembles the prequels! Young Anakin being force sensitive, Yoda being apprehensive about teaching him, Kenobi deciding to teach him anyway, lava-side duel, corrupt senator taking advantage. If this is really a vintage text, it's really amazing how close they got!
- sedatk 6y ago
  There is no other Google hit for the text.
- MintelIE 6y ago
  Well "they" could in fact be George Lucas, who is an active ham and has been for decades, which makes us suspect he was also using the Internet too.
JKCalhoun 6y ago
Found many old lists of BBS's. Listed was a BBS I would dial up years ago..... Fond memories.
dang 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22995008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22995008 Please search before submitting. Reposts are ok after a year or so, but this was a huge thread just two months ago. You can use "comments>N" and "points>N" to narrow down: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=textfiles.com%20comments%3E0%20points%3E3&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- xanthine 6y ago
  Oh hey, extremely sorry, new user here. Also, thanks for the tip!

38 points by xanthine 6y ago

Oh this brings back memories. I was browsing around this site and came to a section that gives the complete, start-to-finish set of instructions to beat The Black Cauldron. I can't tell you how many hours I spent on that wonderful game. Looking back, I don't even remember if I completed it. Just reading through, I remember various screens being described: http://textfiles.com/games/blackc.txt http://textfiles.com/games/blackc.txt

enriquto 6y ago

A bit surprised that you cannot download the whole bunch of textfiles on a single tgz.

pmoriarty 6y ago

Also see: http://telehack.com/ http://telehack.com/ "Telehack is a simulation of a stylized arpanet/usenet, circa 1985-1990. It is a full multi-user simulation, including 25,000 hosts and BBS's from the early net, thousands of files from the era, a collection of adventure and IF games, a working BASIC interpreter with a library of programs to run, simulated historical users, and more. "You can telnet directly to Telehack on the regular telnet port of 23. "Open a command shell and type telnet telehack.com "See http://telehack.com/telehack.html http://telehack.com/telehack.html for more information."

astronautjones 6y ago
came to the thread to encourage everyone to experience them this way. it's so immersive and really makes you feel like you've time machine-d into dialup era (or older!)

dimator 6y ago

Ok, wtf. Clicking around randomly, I came across: http://textfiles.com/sf/bane_of_ http://textfiles.com/sf/bane_of_ Which I presume is some kind of speculation on "Episode 3" of star wars. I have no clue when this was written, but given the context, I'm assuming it's 80s-90s era, but it's shocking how much it resembles the prequels! Young Anakin being force sensitive, Yoda being apprehensive about teaching him, Kenobi deciding to teach him anyway, lava-side duel, corrupt senator taking advantage. If this is really a vintage text, it's really amazing how close they got!

sedatk 6y ago
There is no other Google hit for the text.
MintelIE 6y ago
Well "they" could in fact be George Lucas, who is an active ham and has been for decades, which makes us suspect he was also using the Internet too.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

Found many old lists of BBS's. Listed was a BBS I would dial up years ago..... Fond memories.

dang 6y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22995008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22995008 Please search before submitting. Reposts are ok after a year or so, but this was a huge thread just two months ago. You can use "comments>N" and "points>N" to narrow down: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=textfiles.com%20comments%3E0%20points%3E3&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

xanthine 6y ago
Oh hey, extremely sorry, new user here. Also, thanks for the tip!