Anyone else run a BBS back in the day?

TPerry

TPerry

Well-known member
Was goofing off and found a list of the DFW BBS's from "back then".

Screen Shot 2016-06-03 at 2.01.08 AM.webp


Hard to believe it's been 25 years ago that I got started playing with computers and setting stuff up for others to use. It was WAY more expensive back then. Even at SysOP prices, I spent about $3000 just on modems (and around $75 a month on the rollover lines), and then another $4000 for the computer and OS/2 (originally did DESQview with QuickBBS/FrontDoor but went to OS/2 with Maximus/Binkley). Sure wish I had some screenshots of the site from back then. Nothing like ASCII artwork to show off some "skillz".
 
Oh yes ... the hours of redialing ... desperately waiting to get a modem connection to download the smallest of files. Kids today eh?! ... with their 4G and fibre broadband ... they don't know they're born. :LOL:
 
That's one of the reasons I ended up with 3 lines. Had a lot of users and delivered a LOT of mail. In fact, at night I had it set so that it would also use our house land line to send the mail with. The 4th line was only a 14.4K HST modem, not a USR DS like the other 3.
 
Tracy Perry said:
Was goofing off and found a list of the DFW BBS's from "back then".

View attachment 135351

Hard to believe it's been 25 years ago that I got started playing with computers and setting stuff up for others to use. It was WAY more expensive back then. Even at SysOP prices, I spent about $3000 just on modems (and around $75 a month on the rollover lines), and then another $4000 for the computer and OS/2 (originally did DESQview with QuickBBS/FrontDoor but went to OS/2 with Maximus/Binkley). Sure wish I had some screenshots of the site from back then. Nothing like ASCII artwork to show off some "skillz".
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Yep. I had a 4 line BBS using Galacticomm's MajorBBS. The system was located in an apartment above our garage, sick was separate from our house, and I ran a serial connection from the house to the BBS so I could connect in without having to dial in if the lines were busy.

MajorBBS was updated to a platform called WorldGroup by Galacticomm.

I ran the BBS for about 15 years.
 
I never owned a BBS myself, I was quite young back then. But, I remember betting my first 1200bps modem for Tandy computer (IBM/AT clone) which was basically a 286. I got some terminal application on a 3.5 floppy disk (low density, haha) and I remember spending countless hours tying up my parents phone line. The biggest BBS I was on was the Blue Ridge Express and Firechat. (I was on some smaller WWIV boards as well)

The days when I got a 2400bps modem and eventually a 14.4 & a 28.8 modem were exciting times. ;)

My best friend had two phone lines and that was 'cool' among our group of friends.
 
Joe. said:
I used to post on those old generic forums back in the day. Not as much fun as what we have now. :)
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Well, the software now is definitely more feature rich.

What make a forum or BBS fun, is the activity and camaraderie among the participants in my opinion...

we had contentious topics being discussed many years ago, but it seems lately very few people have tolerance of anyone else's opinion and have the attitude "if you don't agree with me, then I won't participate".
I think people were more respectful of the other person's opinions or beliefs in the past.
 
Tracy Perry said:
Oh, BBS's had their flame wars... FidoNet was good for that!
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We had a few people that didn't play nice with the others in the sandbox and had to terminate their accounts.

Our BBS was also linked to a linked group of World Group BBSs and there were several BBSs that were blocked from participation because their BBSs were causing discord in the linked group.
 

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