Hmmm... Before the Internet messages were exchanged through Bulliten Board Systems (BBS). A BBS was usually setup and run by someone that had a spare computer that they could dedicate to the task. It would be connected to the world by a number of phone lines. You would call in from your computer and you could then read the messages left by others and then leave your messages. BBS's usually had sections for programs that you could download and use. While most BBS's were free a few would require you to join them for a small fee or at least make a donation for thier continued operation.
Di's Cafe was a very popular BBS. At one time there were at least 15 BBS's operating in Mobile and several others operated in outlying areas. One of the engineers at WKRG operated a BBS on a Apple II computer for many years. As I sit here typing I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it, but it was popular as well.
You might think that the BBS's were isolated but you would be mistaken. Fido-net was a network set up so that BBS's could exchange thier messages with each other. 3 or 4 times a day a BBS would call a hub computer, upload it's messages, download the messages from other BBS's and exchange programs. Thus your message would spread across the US and the world in a matter of hours. And all this was done vie landline connections. Then it became possible to use satelites and the speed of the exchange increased. Then came the internet and the local BBS's slowly died out.
Di sold her BBS and provider service many years ago. I was just wondering if any of the user's of her system were currently using this forum, so thought I would pose the question. Apparently not since I haven't seen a response to my question.
That's interesting, and something I didn't even know existed. This must have been...what? Ten years ago?
I would guess my first excursion into the world of message boards was at a forum that used to be called "Survivor Sucks". Yes, I am a huge Survivor fan and have followed the entire cast of media whores from it's inception. Though part of Suvivor Sucks was in fact dedicated to freakishly and embarrasingly in-depth analysis of the show, there were other off-shoot forums where folks could discuss anything they desired which ran from pithy and biting to intellectual.
I guess it was a few years after that when I discovered the first local WKRG Forum and though there weren't a large number of posters back then, checking in there daily always brought a great deal of enjoyment to me. And then one day as ShinKen mentioned the forum simply disappeared, without warning, without notice, poof into but a memory.
Perhaps that was in a way a life reminder to us all: savor what we have each day because tomorrow it could be gone.
Wayne225: I use to visit Di's Cafe ever so often! But I can not remember much about it, because that was way back when....when I was on MAFN...looooong time ago, but I did enjoy it. I just wish there were a lot more. I use to have a BBS but teenagers would hack it and give everyone the master password, so I closed it I have been thinking about starting it up again, is there anymore BBS's still out there?
Hello Fox.
What was the name of your BBS? I don't recognize your name; but that's hardly surprising considering how long ago it was.
nab... 10 years ago? <laugh> Try 20 years ago... It was a hoot. Lots of laughs, grins, frowns and thought provoking ideas were floated about. I think the best thing about the forums was the fact that we were all for the most part locals. And being local to each other brought out a feeling of family amongst us.
I know that the internet has opened up our horizons to include the world and thats a good thing. But one of the reasons I pretty much stopped writing was the hugeness of the thing. There are so many places that you can go now without leaving your desk. So much information out there that can be accessed at the press of a few keys. It's breathtaking. Time is a fleeting and precious commodity when you have a family, job and the hundred other things that you have to do in your life. And since there wasn't a place local that supported the flow of thoughts among local people, I had pretty much stopped using the keyboard to express myself.
One of the first things I learned on the forums of old was that to be read, you had to be able to clearly express yourself. It took time but I like to think that I became pretty good at it. Developing my own style of writing that was easy to read and presented my thoughts in a logical order. Then I learned the second lesson: Ignore the fools. They do nothing but distract you at a time when you need to be calm in order to organize your thoughts. I think that was the hardest lesson to learn. It's so easy to lash out in this media because you are, to a large extent, annonomous. No one knows you, no one sees you and thus you are protected.
Last night I visited the forums on CH 10 and CH 15's sites and found they were fairly dead. I have no idea why, but it would seem that we have a fairly active group here and I think this is what has attracted me to this site. In the time since I registered here I added a signature and tag line and then a week or so later added an avatar. Perhaps I'll stick around a while? <Laugh>
You are right, it has been a long time. I think my BBS was called The X-Files, but i'm not really sure...senior moment ya know? Is anyone on here remember or was on MAFN?
Hmmm.. Im dissapointed that there aren't any old BBS users out there. Would have been fun to get back up with them.
Pepper Myers HA!
Knew the name would eventually come back... Been trying for days to remember the name. Pep's was the very first BBS that I had signed onto, at a whopping 300 baud. Had a Tandy Color computer with 32K of ram and ran at the amazing speed of 1.5 Mhz. Oh.. Had a cassett drive for storage for the first year then managed to get two floppy drives. Couldn't type a lick but didn't let that stop me from typing in program after program. By the end of the first year I could almost touch type without ever looking at the keyboard.
I went on Di's a few times, and I seem to remember Pep's site as well, ahhhhh! those were the good olddays wasn't it? I remember the 14400 blazing speed. I have satillite broadband now, but was just recently getting on at a blazing, I mean blazing speed of 19200! so I dropped the dialup and went to broadband. There use to be plenty of BBS's back then. I'm trying to get my old BBS back up, but I seem to have lost the knowledge to do it?...:-(
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