3 ms·

BBSes was such a huge part of being into computers in the 80s and 90s. I really wish this culture could be understood by future generations. Yes, we have the B

BBSes was such a huge part of being into computers in the 80s and 90s. I really wish this culture could be understood by future generations. Yes, we have the BBS Documentary movie but we need so much more. Everything non-US is underdocumented, and all the subcultures such as the eLiTe scene, the demo scene, the vision impaired stuff, all of that risks being forgotten with time.

jlundberg 2y ago
This is a relevant reflection and I have contemplated collecting BBS memories from my network and strangers. Will be doable once my kids are a bit older and work is a bit leds intense. Let us stay in touch! 2:206/149 or about in my profile and you’ll find me :)
axpvms 2y ago
I found myself reading through textfiles.com just recently,a really good archive of BBS-era text files.
INTPenis 2y ago
It's the standard antithesis of instant gratification culture. We had to actually wait for things to happen, to download, to render, to dial. Finding something online was a journey and it's often the journey that teaches you more than the destination.
- flyinghamster 2y ago
  Even when you had a networked forum like FidoNet's Echomail (or Usenet, for that matter), it would take time for messages to propagate through the network - and they could sometimes fail to be delivered.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- asjo 2y ago
  Paging sysop... paging sysop... paging sysop... :-)
avg_dev 2y ago
here is one nice site http://bbslist.textfiles.com/ http://bbslist.textfiles.com/
- jart 2y ago
  Isn't that just a list of phone numbers? What are some websites that host the text files, ansi art, and computer programs from old school BBS systems? I would really love to be able to mirror that with wget and explore it in emacs. Edit: http://www.textfiles.com/directory.html http://www.textfiles.com/directory.html looks good.
  - kmoser 2y ago
    I saved a whole bunch of files from my BBS days, including screen captures of the BBSes themselves: https://www.kmoser.com/bbs/ https://www.kmoser.com/bbs/
  - avg_dev 2y ago
    for my area code, some of the sysops have left commentary on the directory page that lists the numbers. also, i used to log in to many of them.
squigz 2y ago
Could you elaborate on 'the vision impaired stuff'? I'm visually impaired myself so I'm intrigued. The demo scene is still alive and kicking, by the by :)
- toxic 2y ago
  One of the more popular DOS-based BBS software platforms of the early 90s was VBBS. It was interoperable with WWIVnet, which is part of why it was popular. Its author/developer/maintainer was blind. You can imagine how well it worked with screen readers and other accessible technology (which was primitive at the time, and yet somehow better than it is today). Text on a terminal is much better suited to accessibility technologies, whether readers or braille terminals. BBSes were all about text on terminals, and it was a place where folks who used accessibility tools could choose whether to identify themselves as someone who needed it... and most of the time if they chose not to make it known, none of the other users had any idea. "You are your own words" is a BBS-ism. For people who are in the deaf community or who used tools because of their sight, being able to be known primarily by their words and not by the way that they used them was absolutely incredible. (edit: typo)
  - beaugunderson 2y ago
    interesting, I always heard this as "you own your own words": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YOYOW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YOYOW
  - gausswho 2y ago
    This is increasingly fascinating. I want to see a documentary of this in the style of alternating scenes of a) narration over still photos and b) contemporary music alongside silent video of the people behind this community.
    - textfiles 2y ago
      Someone should get right on that.

jlundberg 2y ago

This is a relevant reflection and I have contemplated collecting BBS memories from my network and strangers. Will be doable once my kids are a bit older and work is a bit leds intense. Let us stay in touch! 2:206/149 or about in my profile and you’ll find me :)

axpvms 2y ago

I found myself reading through textfiles.com just recently,a really good archive of BBS-era text files.

INTPenis 2y ago

It's the standard antithesis of instant gratification culture. We had to actually wait for things to happen, to download, to render, to dial. Finding something online was a journey and it's often the journey that teaches you more than the destination.

flyinghamster 2y ago
Even when you had a networked forum like FidoNet's Echomail (or Usenet, for that matter), it would take time for messages to propagate through the network - and they could sometimes fail to be delivered.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
asjo 2y ago
Paging sysop... paging sysop... paging sysop... :-)

avg_dev 2y ago

here is one nice site http://bbslist.textfiles.com/ http://bbslist.textfiles.com/

jart 2y ago
Isn't that just a list of phone numbers? What are some websites that host the text files, ansi art, and computer programs from old school BBS systems? I would really love to be able to mirror that with wget and explore it in emacs. Edit: http://www.textfiles.com/directory.html http://www.textfiles.com/directory.html looks good.
- kmoser 2y ago
  I saved a whole bunch of files from my BBS days, including screen captures of the BBSes themselves: https://www.kmoser.com/bbs/ https://www.kmoser.com/bbs/
- avg_dev 2y ago
  for my area code, some of the sysops have left commentary on the directory page that lists the numbers. also, i used to log in to many of them.

squigz 2y ago

Could you elaborate on 'the vision impaired stuff'? I'm visually impaired myself so I'm intrigued. The demo scene is still alive and kicking, by the by :)

toxic 2y ago
One of the more popular DOS-based BBS software platforms of the early 90s was VBBS. It was interoperable with WWIVnet, which is part of why it was popular. Its author/developer/maintainer was blind. You can imagine how well it worked with screen readers and other accessible technology (which was primitive at the time, and yet somehow better than it is today). Text on a terminal is much better suited to accessibility technologies, whether readers or braille terminals. BBSes were all about text on terminals, and it was a place where folks who used accessibility tools could choose whether to identify themselves as someone who needed it... and most of the time if they chose not to make it known, none of the other users had any idea. "You are your own words" is a BBS-ism. For people who are in the deaf community or who used tools because of their sight, being able to be known primarily by their words and not by the way that they used them was absolutely incredible. (edit: typo)
- beaugunderson 2y ago
  interesting, I always heard this as "you own your own words": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YOYOW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YOYOW
- gausswho 2y ago
  This is increasingly fascinating. I want to see a documentary of this in the style of alternating scenes of a) narration over still photos and b) contemporary music alongside silent video of the people behind this community.
  - textfiles 2y ago
    Someone should get right on that.