4 ms·

Upload ratios for all the interesting stuff (demos, MOD music, software) were a real headache for me as a teenager. Typically the ratio was around 4:1 download

by pavlov 5y ago

Upload ratios for all the interesting stuff (demos, MOD music, software) were a real headache for me as a teenager. Typically the ratio was around 4:1 downloads vs. uploads. In other words, to download 4 megabytes, you were required to first upload a megabyte. Since disk space was expensive, sysops on high-quality boards kept a close eye on uploads and verified them. If you uploaded junk, you'd probably get banned. Where does a 13-year-old go find something to upload? There were a few older kids in my school who were connected to the "scene". I would sometimes try begging them with a floppy disk in hand. I don't recall it working often. Upload ratios motivated me to create something of my own that would be decent enough to upload and not get me banned. That strategy didn't pay immediate dividends either, but it set me on a career path that has been mostly fulfilling and interesting.

h2odragon 5y ago
Government BBS systems had Census data and other fun stuff... and no ratios. Good for a seed library.
pimlottc 5y ago
Another challenge was have enough time to download. Most BBSes had a limit on the number of minutes you could use per day, which could severely limit how much you were able to download. For example, on a 14.4k modem, it takes about 15 minutes to download a single 1.44mb floppy disk image. A typical game could be anywhere from 1 to 10 disks, so if your daily quota is 30 minutes, it would take multiple days to download a complete game. On very popular systems, you might not even have enough time to download a single disk. Keep in mind that many early modem transfer protocols didn't support resuming downloads, so if you ran out of minutes before finishing your file, you just had to start over again. So what to do? The solution was to use the "time bank". If you were done using the system for the day, you could "deposit" your unused minutes and store them in your account, up to some max limit. Then once you had enough time saved up, you could withdraw them and finally download that big file you've had your eye on. At least, as long your parents don't pick up the phone...
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > Keep in mind that many early modem transfer protocols didn't support resuming downloads, so if you ran out of minutes before finishing your file, you just had to start over again. So what to do? You're not wrong, but it's also worth defining "early", as Zmodem was out in 1986 and had restartable transfers: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMODEM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMODEM
  - pimlottc 5y ago
    There may have been some version of Zmodem available in 1986, but as Wikipedia itself says, it didn't become widely supported until at least the early 1990s. For example, it wasn't built into ProComm Plus, one of the leading terminal programs, until 1991 [0]. If you didn't have native support, you could add it to your terminal software as an external binary, but that was a bit trickier. [1] And, of course, the BBS you were calling had to support it too. But when it was available, it sure left Xmodem in the dust! 0: https://books.google.com/books?id=aAtUrtU87kQC&pg=PT180&lpg=PT180&dq=add+zmodem+to+procomm&source=bl&ots=jrq3ra4gIt&sig=ACfU3U2hqKYT2fjoHAhx-K5VCIHerklEhg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjLu9nFg4f0AhValmoFHW1dDKoQ6AF6BAgPEAM#v=onepage https://books.google.com/books?id=aAtUrtU87kQC&pg=PT180&lpg=... 1: https://github.com/fredrikhederstierna/fymodem/blob/98af4588e4d621c4cb88174369466b405b895c04/doc/DSZ.TXT#L358 https://github.com/fredrikhederstierna/fymodem/blob/98af4588... P.S. Old schoolers will recognize the infamous Rusty n Edie's BBS in the directory screenshot in the linked PC Magazine article...
    - jdforsythe420 5y ago
      Thanks for the link! Rusty n Edie was run out of Boardman, OH (suburb of Youngstown) in a plaza at the corner of California Ave and York Ave. In fact, the sign for the plaza is still there: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0212018,-80.6563805,3a,27.1y,139h,97.98t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sBchplSlKUaTwF9RjvkbXSg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DBchplSlKUaTwF9RjvkbXSg%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D165.98904%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0212018,-80.6563805,3a,27.1y... We had lots of BBSs around here in the 90s, including Viper's Den run by Bob McCoy and K's Korner run by Dennis Klaustermeyer. To answer the OP question, compared to now it would seem terrible, dialing up to a text interface on 2400 baud modems. But at the time it was AWESOME. For most of us this was the first time we'd ever used a network of any kind.

by pavlov 5y ago

h2odragon 5y ago

Government BBS systems had Census data and other fun stuff... and no ratios. Good for a seed library.

pimlottc 5y ago

Another challenge was have enough time to download. Most BBSes had a limit on the number of minutes you could use per day, which could severely limit how much you were able to download. For example, on a 14.4k modem, it takes about 15 minutes to download a single 1.44mb floppy disk image. A typical game could be anywhere from 1 to 10 disks, so if your daily quota is 30 minutes, it would take multiple days to download a complete game. On very popular systems, you might not even have enough time to download a single disk. Keep in mind that many early modem transfer protocols didn't support resuming downloads, so if you ran out of minutes before finishing your file, you just had to start over again. So what to do? The solution was to use the "time bank". If you were done using the system for the day, you could "deposit" your unused minutes and store them in your account, up to some max limit. Then once you had enough time saved up, you could withdraw them and finally download that big file you've had your eye on. At least, as long your parents don't pick up the phone...

throw0101a 5y ago
> Keep in mind that many early modem transfer protocols didn't support resuming downloads, so if you ran out of minutes before finishing your file, you just had to start over again. So what to do? You're not wrong, but it's also worth defining "early", as Zmodem was out in 1986 and had restartable transfers: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMODEM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMODEM
- pimlottc 5y ago
  There may have been some version of Zmodem available in 1986, but as Wikipedia itself says, it didn't become widely supported until at least the early 1990s. For example, it wasn't built into ProComm Plus, one of the leading terminal programs, until 1991 [0]. If you didn't have native support, you could add it to your terminal software as an external binary, but that was a bit trickier. [1] And, of course, the BBS you were calling had to support it too. But when it was available, it sure left Xmodem in the dust! 0: https://books.google.com/books?id=aAtUrtU87kQC&pg=PT180&lpg=PT180&dq=add+zmodem+to+procomm&source=bl&ots=jrq3ra4gIt&sig=ACfU3U2hqKYT2fjoHAhx-K5VCIHerklEhg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjLu9nFg4f0AhValmoFHW1dDKoQ6AF6BAgPEAM#v=onepage https://books.google.com/books?id=aAtUrtU87kQC&pg=PT180&lpg=... 1: https://github.com/fredrikhederstierna/fymodem/blob/98af4588e4d621c4cb88174369466b405b895c04/doc/DSZ.TXT#L358 https://github.com/fredrikhederstierna/fymodem/blob/98af4588... P.S. Old schoolers will recognize the infamous Rusty n Edie's BBS in the directory screenshot in the linked PC Magazine article...
  - jdforsythe420 5y ago
    Thanks for the link! Rusty n Edie was run out of Boardman, OH (suburb of Youngstown) in a plaza at the corner of California Ave and York Ave. In fact, the sign for the plaza is still there: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0212018,-80.6563805,3a,27.1y,139h,97.98t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sBchplSlKUaTwF9RjvkbXSg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DBchplSlKUaTwF9RjvkbXSg%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D165.98904%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0212018,-80.6563805,3a,27.1y... We had lots of BBSs around here in the 90s, including Viper's Den run by Bob McCoy and K's Korner run by Dennis Klaustermeyer. To answer the OP question, compared to now it would seem terrible, dialing up to a text interface on 2400 baud modems. But at the time it was AWESOME. For most of us this was the first time we'd ever used a network of any kind.