4 ms·

While I did later briefly live in Waco, those were after my BBS days. I was running the board in Beaumont (called Pilot's Hanger). I was aware of TENET in tho

by wheels 5y ago

While I did later briefly live in Waco, those were after my BBS days. I was running the board in Beaumont (called Pilot's Hanger). I was aware of TENET in those days, but the Unix shell was still a couple years away from my radar. A lot of the boards were run on OS/2 (since it could run Windows apps, and had much better multitasking than Windows 3.11) or Amiga back then.

ruslan 5y ago
I used to run an 8-line BBS (Fidonet mail hub) on a single 486DX2-66 machine with 8MB of RAM under OS/2 2.11 back in 1993-97. I often played games or used C compiler at same time. This same machine also was a local LAN server (running IBM LAN Manager), serving files to tens of other machines on 10Base2 coax ethernet in the office. Somewhere about 1996 we got a leased line internet connected directly to this same box over a serial line, the machine became an IP router and a remote access server allowing premium BBS users to run PPP/SLIP connections. That's how I got involved into ISP business. :-)
MandieD 5y ago
Huh. Didn’t know that about OS/2’s popularity among sysops. One of Temple’s BBSes (Waverley Park) presented what I now think was a Unix shell, or at least supposed to look like one, but I can’t imagine they were actually running Linux (ca. 1993) TENet was the beginning of the end of my BBS days, with its real email and fancy WWW browser - lynx. Full circle: being the old lady on the team talking about the digital American wild west of the 90s with BBSes (the saloons) and town ISPs (the general stores) to young German colleagues who have known nothing other than gradually increasing Telekom DSL speeds. (Texpats in Germany, represent!)
- ruslan 5y ago
  OS/2 was sort of a must those days for PC geeks. Like Linux today, or even like FreeBSD.
- wheels 5y ago
  Fun Texas fact: Beto O'Rourke was also part of the BBS scene (Cult of the Dead Cow). For me, I've been in Germany longer than Texas, so I'm not sure I could still call myself a "Texpat", though points for introducing me to said term. ;-)

by wheels 5y ago

ruslan 5y ago

I used to run an 8-line BBS (Fidonet mail hub) on a single 486DX2-66 machine with 8MB of RAM under OS/2 2.11 back in 1993-97. I often played games or used C compiler at same time. This same machine also was a local LAN server (running IBM LAN Manager), serving files to tens of other machines on 10Base2 coax ethernet in the office. Somewhere about 1996 we got a leased line internet connected directly to this same box over a serial line, the machine became an IP router and a remote access server allowing premium BBS users to run PPP/SLIP connections. That's how I got involved into ISP business. :-)

MandieD 5y ago

Huh. Didn’t know that about OS/2’s popularity among sysops. One of Temple’s BBSes (Waverley Park) presented what I now think was a Unix shell, or at least supposed to look like one, but I can’t imagine they were actually running Linux (ca. 1993) TENet was the beginning of the end of my BBS days, with its real email and fancy WWW browser - lynx. Full circle: being the old lady on the team talking about the digital American wild west of the 90s with BBSes (the saloons) and town ISPs (the general stores) to young German colleagues who have known nothing other than gradually increasing Telekom DSL speeds. (Texpats in Germany, represent!)

ruslan 5y ago
OS/2 was sort of a must those days for PC geeks. Like Linux today, or even like FreeBSD.
wheels 5y ago
Fun Texas fact: Beto O'Rourke was also part of the BBS scene (Cult of the Dead Cow). For me, I've been in Germany longer than Texas, so I'm not sure I could still call myself a "Texpat", though points for introducing me to said term. ;-)