--------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Raines While my experience with BBSes is somewhat limited, having dialled into about 7 different ones, my experience with Jason is much greater. Hell, I've even met Bob. I'm glad to be a part of the group that helps show Jason his work is appreciated. He's been a great friend throughout the years. He's also a good kisser. Mad props, Sketch. -Jost --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nick Purvis D/WMIL/3 03110 4140 0020 D/WMIL/12 03110 4140 0021 D/WMIL/24 03110 4140 0120 Stuck in DVD factory! Send help! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kevin Keyser For nine years (1987 - 1996) I had the pleasure of running The Round Table BBS in Chicago. I miss those days and all the friends I made through the system. It was a great time. Until our paths once again cross....... - Kevin --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Erik Kremsreiter A big hello from Seagull/Dark Lord to anyone from the Lansing, MI area that remembers Doug Berg's BBS, Odin's Den. I remember having a wonderful time on there with others who were local. Especially in that one message-based RP message base where the characters were far larger than life but hell of a lot of fun to read. I had my own character in there but I forget his name (been so long) I do remember playing a character I called "Minestrone Minstrel" and it was I and another who came up with a few songs that dealt with the current situation in that bar (where the RP was set, it was kinda viking-ish) but to the tune of songs that were big in the day (this was early 90s). It was on Voyager way back before they became an ISP that I met my first girlfriend. A woman who was instrumental in cracking the shell that my childhood had forced me into. She also helped me start on the process of finding myself and my sexuality. I was painfully shy back then but it was through the BBS community and the interesting folk one finds there that helped me break through. Not only that but I found that folk who were BBSers were able to get to know someone first rather than being put off by appearances. Technology sure can be a wonderful thing sometimes. :) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amitab Mukerjee Where to start? While other kids were playing baseball, I sought refuge in this little device (along with its modem) that was ostensibility to be used for, what my parents labeled, a "productive hobby." And although they didn't know it, they were more correct than they ever knew. Of course, it was never productive in the way they imagined - I never did a lick of homework on it, and at one point stopped doing homework altogether - BBSing was this young, middle-class, suburban-trapped, teenager's exposure to the WORLD. Granted, my prime BBSing years were in the late 80's and early 90's, during the tail end of that precious era. But there were still a few wondeful places in the then-large 908 area code. Franklin's Tower, Hostile Takeover, the Eagle's Nest, Mom's Place, Dad's Place, and other staples of Central Jersey's underworld. I had my share of internet acquaintances, elite memberships, and even a few .txt filez under my name. I was a small time member of the Hellfire BBS, home of SANctuary, run by Red. I made a blue box, but never got it to work. I made a red box and annoyed the hell out of operators. I tried the paper-clip phone hack without much success. I guess you could call me a loser, even among the legions of "losers" that made up the BBS world. But I had so, so much being one. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Champagne Hello, my name is Marc Champagne of Boisbriand, QC, Canada. Back in the good old days of BBS's a good friend of mine (Martin Bélair also of Boisbriand, QC, Canada) and myself had both run BBS's for a short while, respectively "M&M Software BBS" and "LiteBytes BBS", his was run with WildCat and mine with QuickBBS, his had 2 modems (sometimes) and mine had 1 modem. They probably ran for less than a year but we were part of the BBS era and damned proud of it. I believe we spent more time calling BBS’s than running our own and have spent countless sleepless nights doing so. Now-a-days we have the internet and “everything and anything” is within anyone’s grasp all without file ratio’s or limitations of any kind, email (message boards back then) were actually practical and fun, now email has become the enormous black-hole of spamming with no easy solution to fix it, is poisoned with well know email clients and many people use it without the slightest tid-bit of knowledge as to what is happening behind it or what it was intended for. We are both glad to have been part of this wonderful era, as it has molded us largely into what we are today and what we do ( we are both professionals in the field of computers ). I think we would both go back-in-time without a hesitating 7 bits. Jason Scott, the effort you put in this project is beyond our comprehension and yet it is greatly admired and appreciated! Thank you kindly Jason! Marc Champagne (marc D/O/T champagne A/T gmail D/O/T com ) Martin Bélair (mbelair A/T gmail D/O/T com ) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Patrick Benny Bonjour à tous les SysOps, usagers, et aussi aux CoCoistes de Joliette et les environs! (514)75x-xxxx bbs@chipple.net --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Claudio Marinangeli Hi, this is Taym, and I used to be the Sysop of The Millennium Empire (Italy, +39+862 Area Code - L'Aquila. - 2:335/633). My real name is Claudio Marinangeli, but is it really important? Still today, some friends call me Taym, my "alias" back when the BBSs used to be more popular than the Internet (how many times have you heard this, so far? :) ). Those are friends who got to know me through the colored DOS text characters of GoldED, after handshaking their copy of BinkleyTerm with mine, after unpacking all the mail with Squish. Those were beautiful, pioneeristic times. And they ended reapdly, with almost no agony, leaving our good memories untouched. I don't know, at present, if other Italian SysOps (don't we all still feel such?) reached this web site. In case they didn't, I believe I can speak on behalf of most, if not all, of them - and I'm honored to do so - and thank the whole Fidonet comunity, as well as all Fidotech communities that used to exist. Grazie Fidonet! E grazie a tutti voi, Sysops, points ed utenti Italiani! :) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- robbie robinson I miss that timex sinclair computer! Robbie aka rifraf from the land of Hale Park. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phil Alloca Hi, this is Phil Alloca former sysop of The Campus BBS on Long Island. Back in the late 80's I had to shut down my BBS pretty quickly and I never got a chance thank all those that called. So thank you to all my callers. We had a great time, too bad it had to end. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lee Hobart First, I want to thank Jason Scott for putting this all together. Here is toast to all the fond memories we have of the old BBS days. I also want to say hi to all the old Anchorage, AK(907) BBS people. Thank you for putting up with me(aka TERRORIST) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zach Simmen Hey there. I started using BBS's with my old Packard Bell back in 1994. I was 12 years old, and I had talked my parents into getting a computer. We started out with Prodigy, but then I racked up a hundred dollar bill, so that was enough of that. Then I started to research BBS's in the area. For the most part I connected to a BBS known as Aardvark's Aquarium. I thought it was the neatest thing in the world. When I subscribed, me and a friend of mine went to the Sysop's house to register, and he gave us a tour of his setup and so forth. Very interesting stuff I might add. I even learned how to setup the Maximus BBS system. And I even had a Fidonet email address!! Unfortunetly this site has since shut down, but I miss the simplicity of the BBS and the large store of files. Also, I thought RIP graphics were the neatest thing since sliced bread. Well, those are a few of my memories. Hello to my friends, and an I love you to my g/f Jen. Thanks for the documentary! Zach S. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaboom Over the years I have met and never met some of the most brillant minds in computers, from some of my orginal friends that where deaf. Stumbling around, in online communities we created and games we played. During the boom of the Internet we all lost touch, we lost communities and friendships built over years of being online. In a realm all of it's own, with rules where spyware, adware, malware, viruses and firewalls didn't have a place. Where it was a community about computers and people that had common interests and a local community yet built in the orginal cyberspace. - In memory of BigBoys BBS - "You're connected to the best chili and oysterettes modem joint in the world. Pop a lid, loosen your tie and have sun fun. Body noises OK". - Denver, CO - Press to test... ... release to detonate... Dynamite BBS - Denver, CO Special thanks to Jason Scott! - For telling the story, and finding the story! ---Kaboom--- (BBSing.com) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- B. van Hamersveld Hi, this is XtreeMan. I ran a BBS in the Netherlands (Europe) called 'Edge of Honor' a.k.a. EOH from 1991 till 1998. I started out with a 2400baud modem on a single phoneline using Remote Access v1.something and stopped having four lines (2xISDN/V34) running on a Novell network over three computers using Desqview to run multiple nodes on a single computer with a total of 4 gigabytes of files. Together with Synopsis, EOH spawned numerous, widely used, RA doors like WarezTag!, Logon!Matrix, HexaChat (aka PhotoChat). The board has been a base for countless groups over the years, ranging from ANSI art to H/P/A/V/C/T groups. I consider that time periode as one of my best! Met loads of interesting people, went to great parties. Greetings go out to Synopsis, The Manta, Quicks, Zymotic, COWS, ACME, Slackjaw, Roelf, Fatal Error, Blue Sky, KipBrigade, Logica, SCAM!, PSP, UCF, Sir Listerique, Dork Lemming, Industrial, Stonehedge, Foxivision, Berry Lam and all who I forgot now.. Big thanks to Jason for his effort on the documentary. Signing off into the boredom of internet... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aron Hoekstra Hello, this is Aron Hoekstra aka "nullvalue" hailing from the 708! BBSes were such an influential part of my life, they got me hooked on computers and most importantly programming, which is what I do for a living now. I know so many of you, as I do, miss the "good old days" of BBSing and would like to reunite yourself with some of the friends you made on BBSes. That's why I created my popular website, BBSmates.com in 2002. It's a meeting place for anyone who's ever been a members of the BBS community, past and present. At the time of writing this, the site has almost 9,000 registered members and it continues to grow. Check it out and get in contact with all your old BBS buddies! While you're at it, telnet to bbsmates.com to check out the BBS. It's currently one of the most active door gaming BBSes in the world with well over 200 calls per day. Hope to see you there! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dick Fochler Congratulations Jason on a terrific idea that has now come to fruition. As a Sysop of the Olde Guarde BBS for many years in the 512 (San Antonio, Texas, now 210) area code in the 80's, I can appreciate all the hard work that has gone in to this project. Thank You - Dick Fochler --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Quick Growing up I recall the summers of Atari and Intellivison over at my friends houses. That soon became boring when I recieved my first computer a Vic 20 in 1981. I got the computer and "datasette" for Christmas then the diskdrive for my birthday. I heard about these things called bulletin board systems from my friends though I really didn't know what this meant until they showed me. I soon fouond myself slaving away behind a mower for a few weeks till I earned enough to buy a 300 Baud Vicmodem for $50.00. I got home and soon I was online reading membership rules and downloading textfiles this was 1983. I used the handle Phreak of Nature, but never really did any phreaking. I still own the modem to this day. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- David "Greeny" Greenberg Wow! It's been a few years since Jason schlepped to my house with the camera, lights, and his other stuff. I'd dug out my old friend "The Underworld" BBS and like all good things - it fired right up (even the shoebox-sized hard drive). Such a flood of memories of all things good (shouts to: Sherwood Forest II and III, OSUNY, The Greek Inn, ChiNet, and others I've probably lost to the cobwebs in the brain...). I'd never thought that letting my dad win the argument in the Niles ComputerLand over Commodore Pet v. Apple ][ would turn into such a wonderful set of experiences, friends, and career... I've made some wonderful friends along the way (shouts to: Sorceress, Apprentice, and Ford Prefect) and I'm blessed to still know them all. I can't wait to watch the entire set of episodes, and *FINALLY* after all these years, put faces with the people I confered and chatted and emailed and notesgrouped and usenetted with! I wish I could make the preview and Festival, but alas, I just started a new job and can't get the time off... But know that I'll be there in spirit. Bye for now but not for long, Greeny aka The Pyro P.S. To Jason's Dad: Yeah, he's a hacker, which means he's driven and a little kooky at times - but here's the secret: We're all the same... which is why we let him in our lives to create this masterpiece! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Otto J. Makela Greetings to the world BBS community from the Sysops of the late JyBox BBS (used to be at +358 14 211562), in Jyvaskyla, Finland -- Otto J. Makela & Saku Setala --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris Orcutt Chris Orcutt here (a.k.a. "Data Blitz"--a horrible, horrible pseudonym). For 25 years, I have been proud to call Jason a best friend. In the late summer of 1979, I saw him flip the Space Invaders at our local deli, and at that moment realized I was in the presence of greatness (the game, not him). Seriously, Jay was the first person I knew that had a personal computer. First, the Commodore PET. Next, an Atari 800. And then--holy megabits, Batman!--the IBM PC XT--with a 10MB hard drive and a 1200 baud modem! (Yeah, you know what I'm talkin' about.) Jay introduced me to computers and BBSes, and he probably stunted my growth with all of the 20-hour sessions we spent downloading textfiles. Invariably, I would crash and burn around 2am, only to awake the next day and find Jason still at the keyboard....Now, jump ahead five years, when he (barely) got into film school. At the time, I thought, "What the hell does film have to do with computers? Computers is where he should go..." After film school, there was a long spell of troubling, "finding himself" behavior (rent-controlled apartments, doing caricatures in a cow suit, and making cheesy music on an Amiga) during which I was sure he'd never pick up a camera again. Okay, so I was a little wrong....This documentary is sure to be the perfect marriage of two worlds--computers and film--both of which he knows and cares about deeply. Jay will never cease to amaze me with his creativity and his ability to finish projects. I've always admired him and always will. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Higgins (aka tomwhore) I was lucky enough to be in my teens when Ward C spun out his amazing work. I had always been into tech but the advent and rise of BBS's simply and forever shattered the limits of my world. Over the last decades BBS's have somehow been apart of things from the early days of Apple ][ filez with the Wallyworld Taskforce (Mukesh and EddyK) to messaging round the world on Fido to the crazy days on NJIT's EIES system which got me hooked onto the Internet which bounced me back to BBS's and right into the lap of Mindvox, blessed Mindvox guided by the forces Lord Digital, Dead Lord and the cast of thousands whose remains can be found on #mindvox, which sent me sprawling out of orbit to the west cost lands of stumptown with ready dsl and the free wireless community netowrking loving of the Personal Telco Project. Over those years I have been known as HarryMuddJr, SimonMoon, Tomwhore and now simply as Tom..or daddydaddydaddy. With a path such as that is it any wonder I have been looking forward to this documentary? Not only will I be able to chart my lifes trajectory in the tales and talks I will be able to show my wife and kids some of what made Dad the nutburger he is. Much Love and thanks to Jason for taking on the herculian task of not only hosting the text of our shared histories but documenting them on these dvds. He is truly the Library of Alexandria meets Shelby Foot meets Mr Atos of the BBS world. -tomhiggins --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Philip Leigh This story is a small thank you to Steven Libis (who I have never met) but in whom the spirit of the BBS community still lives. The dim mists of time in Wellington, New Zealand (circa. 1991), I entered the strange world of bulletin boards. In time I became co-sysop of one of the then some 70 full-time local boards, (thank you Aimée - Board Shitless), and eventually ran my own much quiter board (Microtropolis). When Aimeé travelled I would tend Board Shitless, where I got hooked on the doorgame Buccaneer. (Ha! What a surprise! Well, it was a surprise; I participated in the forums more than anything else.) Fast forward to mid-2004. I've suddenly gotten the urge to play that game again... but where? Many google searches later up come two real references to it - one at the BBS Documentary web site, (what an eye opener! I gotta get this!) and also on Steve's website. Thank you Steve, for sending the zip'd file to a complete stranger who emails out of the blue. Small acts of generosity are what I remember most from my BBS days. Regards, Witch Won. In memory of Board Shitless, The Monastery, Silicon Fantasies, Cyberia, Trackers Plane, Microtropolis and many others I can no longer remember the numbers for. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Janke Hi, Mike Janke here. SysOp of "The Kendall Switchboard", "The Kendall BBS" (1984-1992) and until its final days around 1994, "The Digital Cafe." The Internet spelled the doom of most bbs's as we know them and mine was no exception. I could share my stories about running a BBS on a TRS-80 with only floppy drives, a 300 baud modem and 64k of memory, but you've all been there, done that, and I am not unique in this. I have many great memories of those days and I know that this documentary will help me to relive it all! Thank you for making it!!! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ken Spence Hi, I'm Ken Spence aka Buzz. I applaud Jason's enormous effort to document this era in time. For me, it remains one of my most treasured memories. I'm sure anyone that immersed them self into this world knows exactly where I'm coming from. Thanks for capturing the moment! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vaxbuster Hi all. Most people know me as VaxBuster. I'm the tall redhead from 412, aka Pittsburgh. I started off doing the compuserve and BBS thing in the early 80's. By 1985, I was calling probably about 80 BBS's a day including Harvester, Chat Thing (later Telerama ISP), Piratesburgh, etc from my TRS-80 CoCo II. At first it was 300 baud with a radio shack "direct connect" modem. I discovered codelines("get ready to scribe...."), VMBs, voice bridges(was the BIG one in Maryland? 301 NPA?) , 950's, etc. I arrived in the phreaking scene somewhat late(late 80's?) but nevertheless had a lot of fun. I did the IRC +hack/#hack thing for a long time, probably the most active from 1990-1995. I was active in the con scene, namely Summercon(since 91ish), Pumpcon's(which I ran a couple times), HOPEs(in NYC), DefCon, amongst others. At some point, I've been involved in H,P, and C(amiga software.) For me, my childhood years were defined by computers. Things like BBS's, movies like WarGames, TV shows like Whiz Kids (CBS 82/83), etc fueled my interest and passion. A friend (michael s) and I wrote some BBS software called "Falcon's Nest BBS" in 1984-1990 in AmigaBasic, later C, which ran off-hours out of his parents home. BBS's for me were the beginning foundations of community life in computers. The passion that I had for computers could now be shared with people who I normally wouldn't have met, wouldn't have talked to, without the help of BBS's. The environment of which BBS's created are unlike any other I've seen on the Internet today. The communities are smaller(although fidonet expanded them), more personal, and local. I have to admit I'm a sucker for nostalgia, and this BBS documentary project helped remind me of times, places, and people from long ago. I still IRC occassionally (#315 on efnet), still have my Amiga running, and I'm still attending cons. Not enuf room but: #hack,RA,ntstriker,okinawa,dynastar,#315 etrigan/sw/sm,telmnstr,icom,redpantz. vaxb@adelphia.net --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gene Buckle My name is Gene Buckle and I'd like to take a second to thank Jason for creating this documentary. As a former user and sysop, this documentary means more to me and people like me than you can imagine. I'd like to send greetz to: Ken Siegel, Rob Barker, Steve Butler, Steve Barnes, Tom Jennings (FidoNet _still_ kicks ass), Jeff "Rockbottom" Marrison, Lee Thompson, the guys that built and ran Pirates of Puget Sound, Dasturdly Gonzuela - the sysop of Dark Lair - the first board I ever called, Scott "Scooter" Janssen, Ninja Squirrel, Logan 5, Crazy Horse and the rest of The Cartel users. To Jason Ward & Mike Loewen: Thanks for running Micro Magic - it was the first tight online community I ever participated in. It was of course a Citadel. To all those that had the patience to put up with me while I tried to find my place in the world. Finally, to Topkit; *sigh* He's not so young any more. :P --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Noble Greetings from the Refuge of the Dammed (ROTD). BBSing was a huge part of my life for many years. At one point I was unable to sleep without the sound of modems training through the night (my girlfriend disagreed). BBSing brought me into the industry I am in now (First working for an ISP, then a Network Hardware Vendor). I would like to thank all of you who supported ROTD in the 916 and the 408 for the 6+ years I had my system. Special thanks go out to Ray Gwinn for VSIO, which helped me and others to bring their BBS's onto the net. Also to Charles Bowman who worked with me on tweaking OS/2 and contributed his settings to the 2nd installment of my e-mag "DSIOW" (Dos Sysops In an OS/2 World). I will always look back at my BBSing years and smile. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josh Brandt I'm Josh Brandt. I was founder of the GweepNet BBS in Worcester, MA, in the early 90's. Although I only showed up toward the end of the Worcester BBS scene, it made a huge difference in my life. Thanks to the Worcester BBS crew, I made lasting friendships and built skills that have served me well over the years. Inevitable greetings to Gweeps everywhere, the Crystal Dagger crowd, denizens of Mithril Hall, 401 telecom and TMoK and the rest, and a raised glass to Derek Bacon, AKA Lightnin, AKA Sublieutenant Toozday. You are still missed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sean Heber Howdy folks! My name is Sean and I once ran (but did not own) a BBS for a short while called the Galaxy BBS in the 319 area code. It didn't last too long as it was a stepping stone to what eventually turned into a standard ISP. That was quite a few years ago and I was still in high school at the time. Ahh.. memories... I still think BBS were more fun than the Internet/Web. Maybe it was just that local sense of community or something like that. Or perhaps it was the newness of it all (well, ok, when I was doing BBSes they were hardly new, but they were new to me). At least the graphics are spiffier these days and the bandwidth greater. :-) Hey, if you're bored, check out my web site: http://www.bigzaphod.org/ where I put random things that may or may not represent my actual personality at the time. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- l.m.orchard My name is Les Orchard (http://www.decafbad.com), variously known as Yoda, Schweppes, Deus ex Machina, Dionnus, and deusx. I have to laugh at all the Social Software hype, because it all just seems like they're all trying to get back to where I was 15 or so years ago, when I was calling BBSes before and after school and having big meetups at coffee shops. I was in the 248, 313, and 810 area codes in Michigan, in and around Algonac, Fair Haven, New Baltimore, Chesterfield, Mount Clemens, and elsewhere. I'd like to give a tip of the hat to (I)ndustry BBS, Excelsior, Baccaruda's Reef, Starbase One, Algonia, Outland, No Carrier, and a ton of others I just can't remember anymore. Also want to say hello to Weebus, Macross, Dirt, Tony, The Fluorescent H. I know I'm leaving out tons and tons of good places and good people, and I've lost touch with a lot of you, but you were all that kept me from being a complete hermit of a nerd for a good chunk of my life. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tim McCormick Tim McCormick, Sysop and John Everman, Sysop of the Unique & Nifty BBS. Winner of Boardwatch Magazine's Nifty Fifty Contest for the State of Indiana. I believe we were touted as being the 14th most popular BBS in the country at one time. Unique & Nifty went online on November 4th, 1988 and ended its service on December 31st, 1998. The U&N BBS had a world class collection of computer generated animations, or Eye Candy. Our board was very popular with commercial computer game programers/artists and received daily logins from every corner of the world. Photos and description of the Unique & Nifty may be found at www.TheMcCormicks.com Thanks for the memories! - Tim --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bojan Landekic (Death Stalker, King Hippo) BBS: The BeetleJuicer / Canada Cyberspace Systems / Venon (416-510-2290) Immigrating to Canada was perhaps the most isolating of experiences, the only thing making it less so was the BBS world, where even if you didn't speak perfect english, you were still accepted. In fact, as long as you weren't a file sponge, you were good. Between Barren Realms Elite, Blue Steel, and Trade Wars 2002 with it's Universe Expander, I met people as far away as Finland, and as close as my neighbor. Running a donation supported BBS, argued on the aspects of why Wesley Crusher must die, and participated in the "open source" nature of the WWIV source code, all were pivotal learning experiences. The BBS scene truly infused me with a passion for telecommunications, without it, I probably wouldn't be where I am today. And to think, I owe it all to a 2400 baud modem. To Wayne Bell for making WWIV, and to Jason for reminding me of it all, many thanks! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- James Augustus S.G. van Wynen The Tracer, sysop of The Eastern Alliance 1982-1988 @ (202) 327-7808 runnin - 202/212 Apple-Cat modem + US Robotics HST 9600, 300/202/212/HST-9600. Rigged out custom Cat-Term, taught me my first molecular programming in assembly language on the 65c02 to determine if you were on a HST or just 300/1200. First Class Presents... yes that was the tag line, The Tracer, Gadget Master, The Andrex, Unknown Hacker, Sorceror's Apprentice (312), Eastern Alliance (201), 20 meg Sider, volumes 001-300. Then the pimpin Corvus 40 meg. Apple II+ (of course with the shift key mod) AE Express, Mother Board Elite (516. Much respect to Western Union, (6 digit access codes doh!) and of course the old VAX's from BOCES, and good old Alliance TeleConfrencing (700) 456 1000. I definately owe those 3. james@vanwynen.com Regards to all, Don't hesitate to drop me a line. James --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Space Rogue Wow, 2000 character limit and nothing to say. Thats a first. Many thanks to Dave for spending a good chunk of his life doing this and preserveing a very fragile and easily forgotten piece of history. I can't believe it is actually finished, what an an amazing project. - Space Rogue --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- George Phillips Hello, this is George Phillips, a.k.a. Cookie, Area Code 814. I had good times on the old RATS Haven BBS, $ecurity, TBAWL and a few others. I guess I'm looking for Monolith, Dietrich Riotmonger, Hasni Mubarak, Technomancer, Rylar, pearl green, Smurfette, Alien, or any of the other regulars from the Haven. We had good times, didn't we? Sure, we couldn't field a decent Tradewars group, but those days when all the lines were full and everyone was on teleconference, they're still some of the most memoriable days of my life. Thanks for giving me meaning and direction, the drive to run my own (short-lived) BBS, and the inspiration to keep me involved in computers for quite a long time. :) In the event that any of you actually read this, you can reach me at bbsdoc@animeonld.com -- I intend for that to be a valid e-mail address until at least 2007. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Doug Rhea Howdy, this is Doug Rhea of "GameMaster's Realm". I want to say thanx to all the folks that ever called into anyone of my BBSes. I ran "The Olde West", "GameMaster's Realm" and "Mists of Oblivian". I believe it was 1992 when One BBS Con had their first vote where users could login to the their BBS and vote for a favorite BBS. I was #3 in North Texas that year and I think 17th out the top 100.. I know I have that text file sved somewhere. Anyway, I started my first BBS on 02/15/1980 and still run a BBS today via telnet. Stop by some time at: telnet://gamemastersrealm.com. All my BBSes were hosted in the 817 area code. I ran Phoneix RCS, and Dream BBS by Larry Houbre out of MA. I also played around a bit with Remote Access. Currently I host my BBS with Synchronet. Now days I host: http://BBSFiles.com and collect the source code for many old BBS doors and work with programmers to get them updated to run via telnet. If you still host a BBS or just want to cruise memory lane, then come on by. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kym Taborn The era of dial-up BBSes was short but incredibly rich and heroic. I operated a small BBS called "Resistance is Futile" from Oxnard CA (805) which later migrated to Bakersfield CA (805 before the area code change) from 1991-1996. I discovered a whole new culture, a whole new way to communicate, and a whole new way to share my unique perspective and love of life. Dial-up BBS sysops were like the barnstormers of old. We had to fix our own problems and deal with whatever happened, but we also daily experienced the glory of being a part of something exciting, potent, and worldchanging. To call it a rush would belittle the experience. It created a breed of people who cross-fertilized with others to create the web culture we know today. Resistance is Futile BBS even had a small network called RIFnet with a few modest nodes across the US. In the early 1990s, I travelled often for my job. I would take my laptop with me because I could go to any large town or city and always find at least a couple of local BBSes. I met people across the US and Canada that I would have never met otherwise. I would resume visits to the boards long after I had left the city or town, and still others, whom I met on the cyber-road, would start calling up my BBS. I see this time as the closest I will probably ever be to a golden age of anything. My handle was Oxnardus of Borg. Resistance is Futile BBS was originally created to distribute the Star Trek parody newsletter of the same name, but it soon developed into its own community. I still have the old computer that was the BBS's last home and it still has the old BBS software and every few years I log on for old time's sake. My experiences from being a BBS pioneer led directly to my setting up http://whoosh.org and that then led to me becoming a media contributor and also fun experience of being a producer of DVD extras for a genre TV show. It's been a long and wild ride and it all started when I decided to be a sysop of a dial-up BBS. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Wyrick Greetings, from Tom Wyrick (AKA. King TJ). For well over 10 years, I was proud to be the sysop of the Tandy Terminal BBS, and later, 3 incarnations of the File Cabinet BBS in St. Louis, Missouri (314 area code). During that time, I met a number of folks who went on to become my best friends, and got countless hours of enjoyment reading humorous or informative messages posted by hundreds of other members of the BBS community. Running the BBS took an incredible amount of effort (everything from helping people troubleshoot modem connection problems to cleaning up file descriptions to upgrading software packages), but it will probably remain the most valuable and rewarding thing I've ever done with my spare time. The "BBS era" may have been eclipsed by the advent of the Internet, but I'm reminded that some of it "rubbed off" every time I read about the popularity and influence of blogs, web-based message forums, and even web-based games. In closing, I give a shout out to my Tandy CoCo buds; Brian Stretch, Chester Simpson, Mr. CoCoKola, Austin James and Sir Hayes. More misc. greets go to The Renegade, Droog, Pinball Wizard, Rambone, Animal, Mike Livorsi and Marlin Sipe (MTABBS ruled!), Fire Escape (best 314 area BBS list, bar none!), and the rest of the 314 BBS scene! L8r! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ken Kaplan Hello, this is Ken Kaplan the original FidoNet International Administrator. Jason thank you so much for the incredible effort. This is the Mt. Everest of History for BBS'es!!!! Included among a whole lot more this documentary includes most if not all of the unbelivable complete roller coaster story of Fido and FidoNet. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- R'nice of Telgar Weyr The wind swept down from the mountains. Through some thinner patches of clouds, a few stars twinkled cheerlessly. The old road stretched forlornly to the horizon, untravelled these many years. Tufts of stubborn grass poked through dusty cracks in the pavement, defiant. Overhead, a bird soared into the distance, a black silhouette against the gray clouds, one more creature in the litany of the hopeless who had abandonned this place. But soon, very soon, all this was to change. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jesse Mundis Thank you Jason for documenting a unique part of my personal history. Like you, I hailed from the 914 area code, calling BBS's at all hours of the night. My 300 baud Hayes modem and the green phospher letters of my old Apple ][e brought a wonderful world of magic into an introverted geek's world. Being all grown up (and now an extroverted geek with more bandwidth to my home than the east coast backbone had back in the day), I remember fondly the games, the G-philes, the message boards, and the sense of exploring new technology the grown-ups never really understood. I recall Telenet (not "telnet"), Tymnet, Fido, ASCII-porn, and painfully slow war-dialers. I look forward to your documentary as a way to revive a number of additional memories of that golden time I've since lost. I wonder if anyone else reading this will recall the Apple User's Group where a few of us would lug our ][e's, monitors, and disk drives to a common room once a week to swap tips about using school hole-punches to "double-side" our single-sided 5.25" disks, or the latest BBS numbers. Thanks for the memories. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LaDawna Howard A special hello to my dad Jim Howard - and to the old Kansas City BBS crowd from the 1980's! My dad brought home a TRS-80 Model 1 when I was about 10 (1978). He started running a BBS on it not too long after. He ran one of the first BBS's in the country - about 1980 to 1982 and stayed involved for many years. As of today, he is still going strong on the internet. HOWARD'S NOTEBOOK ran on the TRS-80 with a cassette drive, and later a stringy floppy drive, and a 150 baud modem (later we upgraded to 300 baud!), and about 48K of memory. I'm not kidding! Later, when I was in high school, dad handed down to me a C64 running some kind of BBS software (he was always experimenting), and I ran "The South Pole" BBS for a couple of years (about 1984 to 1986 I think). My dad told me that one day nearly everyone would have access to this kind of technology, that you could use it to communicate the world over, and that we would be able to transmit "the contents of a whole book in a matter of seconds" At the time it sounded fantastic and wonderful. My dad and the early BBS crowd taught me that technology is only as good as the people using it - that it is a means and not an end. I also learned about the importance of open, uncensored communication and how it is an important foundation and pillar of democracy - and we need to continue to protect it. Thank you to Jason Scott for doing this documentary. Oh - I guess this might also be a good time to confess - for those of you Kansas City BBS fiends from the early 1980's - I WAS THE SYSOP NEXT DOOR. LaDawna Howard --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Time Warrior Hi. I'm Time Warrior (Dave Kelso) Sysop of Malkavia BBS Http://www.malkaviabbs.com or telnet://malkaviabbs.com) and NC of Xpresit Net (http://www.xpresit.net). I started into BBS'ing and computers at the exact same time in March of 1994 around my 16th Birthday. On October 31st, 1994 -- Malkavia BBS (known then as StarGate BBS) and Xpresit Net (known then as StarNet) were Born in Chicago where the whole ball got rolling in the first place. Now, I could go on and on about myself for 2000 chrs, but i'm not going to do that. Instead, I am going to thank everyone who helped me in the Scene to learn about computers, which is the career i'm in today. This is going to be a very long and detailed list of thanks. I'd like to thank -- Nex (Tom Deluca, former Sysop of Cheerful Symptoms of Insanity) for starting me up in all this, and all of the stuff you've told me about it on the phone since I was 12 (but at the time didn't really understand it all). The Third Rail (former Sysop of The Electric Fence / CHICAGOnline) for teaching me how to be a Network Coordinator of an Echomail Network. Kay (Former Sysop of Engine One) for all of those extensive Intermail and FrontDoor setups you helped me with. Jokester (Malkavia User, Xpresit Poster) for an indefinate lesson in patience and understanding. Renegade (Former Sysop of Renegade's Rendezvous) for all that you taught me, and the leech access on your BBS, not to mention Co-Sysop! :-) ... Fusion (Sysop of the former Criminology BBS) for peaking my interest in Music Tracking in the Demoscene. The former Sysops of EngineShop BBS, for my first REAL tcp/ip connection to the Internet via the BBS. Kay (Former Sysop of Engine One BBS) for all of the Intermail and FrontDoor help. Xpresit and Malkavia Users (Prophet, Kay Cee, Drulithian, Dr Strange, Grey Wolf, Road Dogg, Rastlin Majere, Archfiend, Darkhalf, Goth Queen, Darken Rahl, Chris Fanning and the rest of a rather large list of users) for all of the good times over the years! Trooper (Former Sysop, FirstOnline in Glendale, AZ) for all of the generosity with both hardware and software that you were nice enough to give me that is very much appreciated, as well as all of your help. Little Country Girl (Former Sysop, Country Cottage BBS in Phoenix, AZ) for all of the funny jokes you posted in Xpresit and alot more... Joel "Thumper" Meuller (Who is directly responcible for the name of my BBS as it stands). Girlfriend (Jennifer, Former Malkavia User) who taught me that sometimes things need to get worse before they get better, and showed me my true potential, and what kind of person I truly am. Mansonite / Ghost (Malkavia User) who has been there for me when it counts, even though his methods may be a bit unorthodox :-) Tracker 1 (Sysop, The Roughnecks BBS) who has helped me with ALOT. Nullvalue (BBSmates.com) for such an awesome BBS Awareness site, and in Chicagoland to boot! Celestial Nighthawk (Sysop of the Former Shannarra Oddesy BBS, which I probably spelled wrong lol) for my first "BBS Gathering" experience -- which inspired the yearly Xpresit Net Gatherings from 1997 forward). Ward Christensen (The man who MADE the Scene and the Internet as we know it!) Vinton Cerf (The father of the TCP/IP protocol). Jason Scott (For this AWESOME documentary!). And many many many others who's names won't all fit here! For everyone who's new to all this -- open your mind. Give it a try. A BBS may contain textual information. A BBS may require intelligence to use. DO NOT BE AFRAID! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Tomilson Greetings from Scott Tomilson (aka Totty), sysop of Genfab BBS from the early 90's. I ran what was possibly the greatest little BBS in Fredericton, New Brunswick with my good buddy Brian Cassidy Jr. (aka Mighty Mouse) in the early 1990's. For a one line BBS, we got a staggering amount of calls (sometimes 40-50 per day!), likely due to the charm we put into our BBS. We wrote tons of little custom scripts for Virtual BBS, which I got registered as a Christmas present one year. I can remember having a "Pie the Sysop" game, as well as a fake AI sysop you could chat with, should your pages go unheard. I miss those days of feeling a sense of pride in that we created our own little elite group. Here's hoping the Internet will someday bring that feeling back once again. Cheers, Totty / Genfab BBS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ashley Irons This is a greeting from Phantasm (Ex SysOp of Unauthorised Access BBS UK) or UABBS as it was known during its lifetime between 1990 and 1995. UABBS became the largest h/p/a BBS in the UK during its time online and I will never forget the users and fun I had operating the system all those years ago. Somehow using the internet today just doesnt feel as personal as the old BBS scene did, but thanks to people like Scott (creator of this DVD set) we can re-visit those days through watching this series and remember all the fun we had trying to connect to long distance boards with crappy 300 baud modems ;-) Anyway, here is an old logon screen for UABBS for those who remember it; I actually designed this ascii logon screen myself and remember being quite proud of it at the time. __|\ |\ ___ __|\ _____ |\ / / ___ |\ ___ ___ ___ / /| |/\ | |/ _ \ / /| /_ \/| | |/ //\ / _ \| |/ _ \ / _ \ / _ \ / / | | \| | |_\ / / |:| | |\/ |_| / / \ \ | \ \ < |_\/| |_\/|:| \ \ \ \ ||| | _ \ \ | | | | | |_ \ \ / / |_/ /||\__ \| _\ ||| / / \ \|:| |\ | | | |\ \| | | | | | | |\ \\/| /|:|/\_| > |_/\|| / / \__/| | \/| | |/ \__/ |/ |_| |/ \/ |_|\_\|/ \___/ \___/ \__/ \| | | : ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ : \| / _ \ / _ \ / _ \ / _ \ / _ \ / _ \ : | |_\ | | \/| | \/|:|_\/< |_\/< |_\/ [Node 0] || _ | | | | || _\ \__ \ \__ \ Est 1990 |:| | | |_/\| |_/\| |_/\ /\_| >/\_| > | | |/ \___/ \___/ \___/ \___/ \___/ | | : \| KP2+440636700000+ST : Online 10.00pm-7.00am GMT Operating at 3oo/12oo/24oo bps transmission rates BrItAiNs LaRgEsT cOmPuTeR uNdErGrOuNd ReSeArCh BoArD Newark, Nottinghamshire, England SysOp: Phantasm I'd like to send special greets out to these users; G'day, my name is Nick Andrew and you can email me at nick at nick-andrew.net. I wrote the Zeta BBS starting in 1985 while I was at university, and went on from there to write the first TRS-80 based Fidonet node and joined the first Fidonet network in Australia (the net co-ordinator was Brian Gatenby) with my TRS-80 Zeta BBS in late 1986. Around 1986 the ACSNet was in use in many Australian universities. ACSNet was a store-and-forward network which used a gateway to share email and USENET News with the baby Internet. I wrote the ACSGate software which was the first (and perhaps only) general gateway between ACSNet and Fidonet, which therefore permitted my BBS to send and receive email and USENET News. Not bad for a TRS-80 :-) As the Internet became available in Australia I modified my software accordingly and in 1990 I obtained a Sun 3/50 workstation which allowed me to provide shell accounts to my end-users. As soon as the internet connectivity rules were modified to allow commercial users, I obtained full IP connectivity with connect.com.au, and thus became one of the first ISPs in Australia. Zeta Internet, or Kralizec as it was also known, grew like crazy until 2000 when I sold it to Pacific Internet at the height of the dot.com boom. I'd just like to thank some of the people who were a big influence on me in those early years: my uncle Peter Caldwell, Mark McDougall, Ted Romer (Sysop Omen BBS), Peter McGrath (Author of Omen), David Alwan, Tony McGrath (Sysadmin and Unix pioneer - no relation to Peter), Larry Lewis (Sysop Prophet BBS), Frank from T$, and the fine members of Zeta Internet (including, but not limited to) Aldis Ozols, Geoff Niland, Peter Somlo, George Janczuk, Russell Hoore, Axle, Dave Pemberton, Graeme Pattingale, Bill Kewley, Errol Rosser, Darrell Hegarty, Moses Lim, Rodney Creer, John Hepworth, Holger Brockmann, and many others. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Barth Weishoff To Silly Rabbit @ The Beeline. I love you, I miss you. -BEW --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Tan Here's a shout out and support for Jason's baby. The Wacko Board ][, running Maximus out of a basement in the 203 area code (for those Fido's, 1:141/440), was a great ride. From late night chat rooms, to installing and playing doors (TradeWars and Legend of the Red Dragon), much of my youth was for better or for worse spent on BBS's. $43/meg of RAM, 486 DX machines, whinny tape drives, Fujitsu SCSI hard drives, loads of file transfer protocols, first impressions of the web with Lynx, reviewing and archiving system logs, true multi-tasking with DESQview, login stat charts, man.... that was crazy! :) Having done my small part in creating The Knights of the Dodecahedron, and loving the USR SysOp deals, I know that this documentary will be a much beloved and much needed stroll down memory lane. Long live the 110 baud Hayes modem. ATF1 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- John A. Quinn Hi, my name is John A. Quinn. I was the SysOp of The Gods’ Playland which could be reached at 516-579-9738. My BBS was located at 34 Chase Lane, Levittown, NY. I operated it from 1984 thru 1993. It started with an Atari 800 computer (48k) at 300 baud and one 5 1/4" floppy drive. When I shutdown the BBS I was running a modified Atari 130XE along with a 256K MIO (a hard disk interface and ram-disk), a 40mb hard drive using an RLL card to get 60mb out of it, along with a 2400 baud modem. My dad and I modified the 130XE to run with 512k, 64k was used as computer memory, and the rest was used as a second ram-disk. My BBS was run as a hobby, for hobbyists so there was never a fee! I provided message boards with a wide range of topics, and in the latter years I networked my BBS with message boards throughout the country along with some countries in Europe. My BBS also had many files which were available for download. BBS’s were in a sense an underground society as the internet today in 2004 is a public society. I was glad I was a part of it and that I was able to make a difference and contribute something to the community. My BBS is in the past, yet in a way it is still with me. Back then I was a hobbyist, working with other people as well as by myself to customize BBS software. Today I run my own company and customize software for clients. I just released my SysOp Accounting Enterprise software package. Perhaps I’m no longer SysOp Zeus, but part of the name is still with me, and so are the memories of a great community. Please visit www.weavingtech.com if you’d like to talk about old times. I’d like to thank Jason Scott for preserving a piece of forgotten and often unknown history. He has brought back many fond memories. Last but not least, I’d like to thank my parents. I paid for the equipment and phone line (using Newsday/paper route money), but they put up with my craziness of running a 24x7 computer operation out of my bedroom. What a great time! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Micael Ebbmar My name is Micael Ebbmar, greets to anyone who used one of the best boards in southern Sweden, Rosa Pantern (The Pink Panther), during the 80's. It was a great community with great users, which was run on a A500 with only 1 MB of RAM if I recall correctly. Those were the days.. then came Internet and spoiled everything :). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ian "Agent Green" Underwood From Agent Green: The BBS was one of the most important range of experiences in the early part of my life. Through it, I met some of my best friends and the woman who would eventually become my wife. There were definitely some good times and some bad times, but when it's all said and done, I don't know how I would have ended up without you! Shouts out and mad props to: Aphrodite, Ash, Amon Blaspheron, Avon der Rhuenmiester, Black Velvet, Bones, Buckwheat, Cam, Captain Chaos, Colt, Dot, Drospohilia, Eccentrica Gallumbits, Elmo, Ford, Grumpy, Gurl, Hades, Harvester of Sorrow, Hector Bungle, Ice Fox, Immortal, Jedra, Jingle Bells, Jobe, Keif, Khrys, Korat, Krystal, LARaiders, Lestat, Mad Hamster, Madman, Mahareshi, Metal Militia, Modred the Mystic, Moonlight, Mr. X, Myxsomatosis, Nairobian Ranger, Ninja, Posideon, Q-Ball, Questor Thews, Racer-X, Rocket, Safari Hood, Sandman, Serendipity, Sex Wax, Scorpion, Sleepy, Spoonman, Stardriver, Steph, Stumpy, Tarn, Thanatos, Tigger, Tika "Tess" Majere, Wench of Darkness, Wheelman, White Knight, Wynslow, Ursan...and anyone else who I can't remember almost 10 years out. Super mad props to The Slipped Disk for letting me tell a part of history. DOTU I and DOTU II (892-DOTU/dotu.com) will all be fond memories and all the boards I modded and remoted on before that. Mithril Hallics and Postaholics...food fight and TradeWars...WWIVLink and ChatLink...WCSA...the halloween party (glare icefox)...drinking binges in Oakham and drinking binges in Spencer. Then the Internet came and ruined it all! In Memoriam: Joe "Zarconian Master" Fuentes & Owen "Talisien" Jones...you were taken too soon. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- James Foster Salem, Ore (503) circa '93-95 19.2 was way better than 14.4; door games; telefragging and home-made WADs in Doom; Heretic chicken gun; 12:01 am logins to Tradewars; Selah put up with my BBS habit, she is a saint and the love of my life. -Baeldrick/GoatBeard Props to LOD - Hacking for Jesus! The Continuum BBS - 313-383-7044 I LMM I pre-ordered this DVD and all I got was my name in this damn file. Oh, and the knowledge that my name is forever pressed in DVDs in the houses of hundreds (thousands?) of geeks. Oh, and the opportunity to carve JF + CSZ in a very obscure way. -James Foster --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matthew Hagerty Greetings, Matthew Hagerty here. I dialed into my first BBS in 1985 at age 15, and I remember spending hours looking through the file archives, queuing up several files to download, then going to a movie or something while the whole 500K worth downloaded at 300 baud! It was simply amazing to me and I loved every minute of it! I'd like to thank my parents for introducing me to computers and funding my obsession through high school. I'd also like to say "hello" to my children Drue, Sophia, and Myles (future computer geeks for sure), and my wife Karen (I love you all very much), and to my geek friends (who are probably the only ones who will see this ;-) ) Mitch V, Nate W, Alan E, Matt R (to whom I owe knowledge of this DVD set), Brantley H, Mike W, Shannon R, Kurt H, and Eric S (StarLight BBS.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- JESS A DOHERTY My name is Jess Doherty. My first experience with a BBS was back around 1989 when I was about fifteen years old. A friend had told me that he could get The Anarchist Cookbook, bomb making instructions, etc. from a BBS. I didn't know what a BBS was but I went along with him anyways up into his bedroom where his computer was. I don't remember the BBS we called but I do remember that we downloaded the Jolly Rogers Anarchist Cookbook and printed it out on that green and white striped fan fold accordion paper with the little holes on the edges. To this day I still remember the big ASCII skull and crossbones that was on the first page of the cookbook. I still remember the outlaw feeling of downloading stuff from a BBS, the feeling that any minute the FBI and Secret Service were going to bust through the door with guns drawn. That was the beginning of my life as a computer geek. Probably as a direct result of that I sit here working as a sysadmin, over a decade later. If it was not for that one first experience with that BBS I would probably be a different person than I am today. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- vxla Greetings to sarlo, yeza, strange, *@msg.net, lvx and others on the chiscene. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sarah Katherine Hayes Greetings, this is Sarah Hayes, just another denizen of the `net. Many moons ago I was the SysOp of The Dark Hero BBS running in Tamworth, Staffs in the UK. I’d like to send a shout at to my old friends who’ve hopefully found this documentary: Toonz and Alan who ran my two mail feeds. David who arranged for all of the meet and greet sessions of the local BBS’s. It was the best of times. Well, thanks for the memories folks, this is the ‘lost point’ signing off one final time. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Boroditsky Hi, I had my first computer course in grade 10 in 1981 and by early 1982 had my own Apple II+ system and 300 baud acoustic modem. I remember thinking at the time that 300 baud was the fastest modem I'd ever need since it was roughly the same as my reading speed, and all someone like me could do back then with a modem was read stuff posted on BBSes. Growing up in Edmonton Alberta Canada there weren't that many BBSes around locally (and long distance was frightfully expensive), but I recall my sense of wonder at the connectedness I felt with people I've never met. Finally, I'd like to congratulate and thank Jason for undertaking this worthwhile project. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rick Heming Hi, I'm Rick Heming. Jim Harrer and I were the founders of Mustang Software, the home of Wildcat! BBS. I understand that in the documentary there are several interviews with some of our tech support guys, and that they made a point of telling how much of a team/family atmosphere we had at Mustang. I want to emphasize their sentiments. Jim Harrer and I were fortunate to have worked with such a wonderful group of folks. We were truly a team that worked, played and created together. The BBS industry was good to us all, and touched our lives and that of our staff in so many ways. My thanks go out to Jim, Scott Hunter, Greg Hewgill, Lynn Wright, Steve & Gwen, Herb, Dan, Eric, Larry and so many others from the old days at Mustang. We had the best group of guys possible, and everyone who ever was a part of our team contributed to our success. I also want to wish the best to the other members of the BBS community that we worked with over the years, including Dave Terry, Phil Becker, and the other BBS and support program authors. Finally, my thanks go out to the Sysops who invested in the industry and made the connections. You are a unique bunch of individuals. Jason, I look forward to receiving my copy of the BBS Documentary and thank you for investing the time and effort to contact everyone and put it on disk. See you online! Rick --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matt Clauson My name is Matt Clauson. I normally went by my own name, oddly enough, on the local BBSes in Northern Colorado. I even operated, or co-SysOped, several, including the Estes Park High School BBS (SysOp), Lone Pine Express (SysOp), AudioVisual Resources (coSysop), and several others. I can remember getting my first BBS box (bought from another SysOp who upgraded), my first Colorado-Front Range Net (CFRnet) node, my first FidoNet node (and later on, flaming and getting flamed in the Snooze), and spending hours upon days on other people's boards, leeching the file systems and just hanging out. But the BBS I remember most fondly was a role-playing, story-spinning board, kinda Trek-like, called the Starship Artifact... Where I went by the nom-de-plume of Wesley Crusher, so help me god. I swear, I'll never live that down. Those were good times, and I miss the boards, the people, and the sense of community that you so rarely find on this gigantic thing called the Internet. Shoutouts and best wishes to my fellow SysOps, including Norm Bastian, Mike Coppock, Greg Luse, Scott Richardson, Gary Allen, Neal Moody, Jay Ashmen, and scores of others who I've doubtlessly missed. But most importantly, a warm rememberance to Jim Aites, who built one of the best community-oriented boards I've ever been on. Email me, Foxmore -- let's catch up on old times! -- Matt Clauson, mec@dotorg.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andrew Sitzer Sitz Man (516) at the wheel! :) So I started bbs'ing back on my Atari 800XL with a 300 baud modem handed down to me by my brother. First BBS' I ever called were Gods Playland and The Arena; both Atari Warez/chat bbs'. I remember Zeus and M.M.! and all the other folks who accepted me into their group, even though I was only 8 years old at the time. I remember Chit-Chat, a Synergy STS-01 chat bbs where I was a co-sysop. I spent hours making friends in black and white text chat while responsibly wielding my power to 'Click' any abusive user :) By 1993 (4/3/1993 to be exact) I had discovered Point Blank bbs. Run by Zmmy, Pae, and Snowdog. For the next 7 years, this was my home. I spent hours online, chatting, brawling, writing scripts, making friends. Diner Runs at the Hicksville diner, Fuddruckers usermeets, Nathans meets, Bellmore Donuts w/ beavis & butthead & the Brian's, Magic the Gathering, lasertag, and adventureland all were part of my youth, and all as a direct result of Point Blank bbs. (Kesco Too, but we won't talk about that rivalry :) I remember all my old friends with fond memories - Quadrun II, Ben, SgtPepper, Hero, The Shadow, Vixen, The X-Gang, Kdd Khelie.. Even Hannibal, with whom I might never have stood out in the cold when CompUSA opened in NJ for a free dot matrix printer. And I am happy for the friends that I have stayed in touch with as a result of bbs': the brothers Q (Jon, Alan, and Brad), Zuckerboy, and Jobu. BBS' were a huge part of my life; I am glad this documentary has reminded me about that. Thank you again. Ps. I am now 25, living in Los Angeles, finishing up my third year of lawschool, and have accepted a job as an associate at a lawfirm specializing in Intellectual Property. Andrew Sitzer Sitzman AIM: sitzman4 Email: bbsd@sitzman.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Zimmerman +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ | this is m.w.z., aka sabok, aka laertes, aka many other things ... | | hello to the 206, and especially to all of you former SFHQers ... | | i bbs'd from the days of 300baud on up, and loved every minute of it, | | and am proud to have been a member of such a fascinating world ... | | -(*)- here's to the nearly forgotten realm of B.B.S. -(*)- | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | +++ | | ATH | | | | !## !# !###### !###### !###### !###### !###### !##### !###### !###### | | !### !# !## !# !## !## !# !## !# !## !# !## !## !## !# | | !##!#!# !## !# !## !###### !###### !###### !## !#### !###### | | !## !## !## !# !## !## !# !## !# !## !# !## !## !## !# | | !## !# !###### !###### !## !# !## !# !## !# !##### !###### !## !# | +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stacy Olivas Hello, this is Stacy Olivas. In a past life I was known as either a variation of my name (s_olivas, olivassq) or Uncle Slam on a handful of Washington state BBS's (Amocat, Midiland, etc.). I was also a point off of what was FidoNet node 1:132/138 and co-sysop of the BBS that was run by Brendan Keyport (N7UIE) out of Tacoma, WA. Those were good old days, talking in forums, being able to download the files you wanted by FREQ'ing them from other FidoNet systems, etc. I can remember cooking up various programming projects and staying up all hours of the night working on them (one of them was a module for syncing up the time on systems written in MS Quick Basic using the time protocol that NIST (I think) used on it's dial-up time server. A sysop could schedule an event to fire that would make their front end mailer drop out and run the module, which would dial the time server and synch up the system time. I wonder what happened to that code?) I also remember trying to write a program that played with packets from some echo tosser in MS Quick C (and learning how to program in C while doing it!!). I also remember embarking on a project once to re-write a BBS written in Basic (I must have had source code printouts everwhere with notes written on them, heh). Or the time I ran up the phone bill (I was a teenager) calling Texas so I could check out the SpiceNet BBS -- a cool little BBS that, when using SpiceTerm, would let you hear music on your Commodore. I would like to give a shout out to anyone who remembers me from days gone by. People like Tony Burdett (Beyonder), Rich Langsford, sysop of the C-Net BBS called The Pilgrim's Progress (sorry I can't remeber your name, it's been a LONG time), Brendan Keyport, etc. I wish you all the best and would like to thank you for putting up with me all those years ago. Maybe I will run into some of you on-line someday (or in person). Anyways, all are welcome to drop me an e-mail and say hi: olivas_bbsdoc@eurisko.ws. Peace. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aryeh Goretsky Hello, I was the sysop of McAfee Associates' Homebase BBS from 1989-1995, wizop of the McAfee Associates' Computer Virus Help Forum (GO VIRUSFORUM) on CompuServe as well as a frequent contributor to the comp.virus newsgroup on USENET. If any acquaintances, customers or friends wish to get in touch with me and share stories of the early days of BBSes, computer viruses or whatnot I can be reached via email to goretsky@hotmail.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Maslow Hey, this is maslow aka Ace Deth aka many other names. I just wanted to say that I miss the good old days of running and being a member of the many BBS' in the 516 (and other *smile*)area code. Specifically I want to mention the Wizard's Vale BBS which I had spent a large amount of my time as a youth. I believe Mike is now (or was) a cyberlaw lawyer for ACLU for awhile, but my information is hazy. I've been still active in the world and have been a performance poet (among other things) for the past ten years. Look for my work on www.stayvocal.com and at www.freespeechart.com. I'll never forget the days and all the things I wasn't meant to learn on BBS' and more importantly, I hope to be able to share them with future versions of myself. 9501986 +5 +# forever /sigh --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matt Billings Dear Mom, I'm sorry for running up that astronomical phone bill for Q-Link back in 6th grade. I didn't know that it was going to cost that much. The free trial got me hooked and I didn’t know it ran out after a month. I wrote a program to write out I'm sorry a bunch of times and told you that I typed it all. That was a lie. I'm sorry about that as well. However, if it wasn't for all that I probably wouldn't be where I am today. Thank you for the understanding. Oh yeah, thank you for taking me to the arcade all those times. I don't know many kid's moms who liked games much less could hold their own at Tempest. I'm still practicing and we will have a rematch one day. Love, M@ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Francis Gastellu Hi everbody, Lone Runner from Aegis Corp here, I used to be the sysop and/or cosysop of a few french BBSes over the years: ACE, Underground Café, Deadline, Planet of Dreams, Furtif BBS (ooch). Some of you may remember a few of the things I made for the PCBoard scene (PPLX, PowerPPL anyone?), and the steady flow of PPEs that Aegis Corp managed to put out for a while. Anyway this is probably the last time I'll be able to do this in any sort of meaningful way, so I'd like to extent my greets to all the fine BBS sysops that I ever knew, and especially to Number Six/Aegis, Ron/Psychosquad, Gandalf/all_the_groups_he_ever_was_in, Chicken/Tools4Fools and all the others sysops and users I have known through the years (you know who you are). Greets to the late Clark Development Company as well, whom I used to love to hate for the unreasonable prices they charged for their software. I've had my revenge :-) but I'd like to thank you guys for a change, your software was pretty good (okay, not as good as Frontier would have been if this damned internet had not taken over us so fast ;-) ). To all my lost friends from those extraordinary years, please feel free to renew contact with me (lone@bluemars.org), it will make me very happy. See you all in the next revolution! - lone. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Richardson My name is Steve Richardson (aka Ford Prefect, Hotblack) from the Worcester area BBS scene ('86-'93). I'd like to recognize the people and systems that changed my life: My uncles Bruce and Derek, over whose shoulders I caught my first glimpse into the BBS world. My parents, who spent what little they had to get me a computer and a modem. Dragon's Lair, the first BBS through which I made a "real-life" friend, with whom I would later spend countless hours hacking the Nitelite BBS software. The Broom Closet, where I had an epiphany about multi-user systems and online culture. I met countless friends through Broom Closet, some of whom I am still close with. Minority BBS, where I learned to never get involved in religious arguments in an online forum, but otherwise where I had a lot of great online discussions. Mithril Hall, which was my introduction to the more political and business aspects of running a BBS, as well as where I talked with most of my online friends after The Broom Closet faded away. Lastly, GweepNet IV BBS, which bridged the gap from the old-school BBS world and what would become its surrogate - public access unix systems. When I first logged on to GweepNet IV in high school, I had little idea that I would later become friends with the people that ran it when I went to college, and even less of an idea that I'd end up running a part of it that's still online today over ten years later (http://www.gweep.net/). Greetz go out to John Smith (RA), Rock (o), Stix, Wipeout, Wheelman, Tefler, Master Dragon, Jingle Bells, Threnody, Delay, Jer, Mute, Crimson, Android. +++ATH~~!#$NO CARRIER --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Ramos What can I say? 804/757 AC C=64 BBS' is teh pwnz. Greetz go out to the elite 0-day importer/demo/intro/cracking/hacking/phreaking groups: DoS, Disciples, War Inc., ToP, Eagle Soft Incorporated, FBR, CNP, Diegos, USA, Gandalf of Germany's Chaos Computer Club, Fairlight, Ikari, Virginia Cracking Rejects, Brotherhood of the Underground.. BBS Greetz: Slaughter House BBS, The Oasis, PhiberOptic Hell(Cananda). DeadZone, Citadel. Personal greetz to: The Shroud, Mixer Mix, Barkada, Fosgate, Irie, Uzi, Phalanx, Elroy, The Wanderer, Cutthroat, Blade, ][avok, Desert Fox, The Warden, ED 209, whoever got busted for hacking out 950's, Jungle Boy, Jack of Spades, Powerful Pat. Developers of CCGMS term, Ivory BBS(Modded), Color 64 BBS(Modded), AABBS(Modded), Punter/Multi-Punter Protocol, Blue Box, Red Box, Black Box, 20cc SID Music, 6510 microprocessor, Epyx Fast Load cartridge w/ hacked reset button and debugger, Voice Mail Boxes w/ codez, firestone diverter, CNP Phone Cranker and War Dialer. Peace out.. www.plutosound.com 10.18.2004. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel J Nagy i still carry a torch for the cleveland freenet girls. especially you, cl762. hope you haven't forgotten, bw854. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carlin Wiegner I had a bunch of great experiences in high school using and running BBSs (Monstrous Mac BBS in Cleveland Ohio). I'll never forget all those nights sitting in the spare bedroom looking at the modem lights of my USR 14.4k HST waiting for a line to open up. Many thanks to USR, Hermes, White Knight, Red Ryder and all the people that made the BBS experience unforgettable. cw --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shawn Smith Hi, my name is Shawn Smith, or a.k.a Techno Rave. Growing up around the Florida Panhandle (9o4) at the time, know (85o) it was the Summer of '85, when I was 8 years old, a friend of mine turned me on to a Commodore 64. I thought it was the coolest thing since Atari ;) Well let's just say my life as a Computer Nerd/Junkie/Career started. 300 Baud Modem, dialin-around local BBS's and actually riding my Bike to meet the Sysop's and User's of the Town. It was cool, and then after learning a bit more, then running my own BBS using "Color 64". That was fun to be able to break into chat with a user, and have a live converstation. I continued my search, and got into the PC's, and ran a Renegade Board, V/2, V/X and PCBoard. Boy when PCBoard hit the Scene, those PPE's were totally awsome for modding the board how you like it. And can't forget good ole "TRADE WARS" or TW2002 :), and how about Fido-Net ;) being able to write a message, and with a day or half a day, get a response from someone out of town :) Cool stuff guys, and look how we are today, wow. what a change. Well Im 28 know, and it's the Year 2004, so 19 Year's Ive been with Computers and Modems, and Communication, and the hand's on Experience that I learned, has helped me in my Career as a Computer Network Tech/Engineer. Im glad someone took the time to document, the life history of what is today and how it got started way back. I'll leave with this, as I'm a old schooler for the time I was put on this earth. Thanks Jason for the time you took to do this. Techno Rave PC/C-64/9o4/85o --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Seace Anyone from Quartz or Prism BBS, or NAILS MUCK, might remember me as Agrajag... These days, I can be found at "http://www.magrathea.com/~ras/"... Greetings and best wishes to everyone I met there and on various other BBS's and similar systems over the years... And, to all the sysops who ran these systems and kept some semblence of order... And, to all BBSers everywhere... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Pardini From daisy-chained 1541’s and 1571’s, for long nights of microwave hot dogs and cola, and along the long hours of coding, to the many meetings of PICS – “People Interested in Commodore Systems,” I want to thank one of the oldest friends I have – JoJodancer – the sysop of “The RamPage” circa 1986-89, proud home for the GCHS Rams. Since the Vic20/C64/128 days we have moved on to bigger and better things but that old BBS and its users live on in the echoes of the new websites we’ve coded, the many IT projects we’ve successfully closed, and the simple, yet elegant, solutions which have overcome the many IT challenges we have faced since those days. BBS’s are what started me down my career path, and to all of you computer pioneers, ham radio operators, and BBSers, I am greatly indebted. Jason Scott is right – BBS’s were more than the sum of the technical parts – the people behind the parts made it real. Thanks, Jason, for all your hard work. –John J. Pardini Jr., ak a /journeyman\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greg Miller This is Greg Miller, also known as BBSCrasher, a 300 Bauder from Jeffersonville, IN. During the early and mid 80's I called probably every BBS in the Louisville, KY area on a daily basis. Of course, when I was calling about 30 boards a day, it's tough for any one to stand out, but some I recall are The Microdot run by Mr. Natural, The Danger Zone, The Fifth Precinct, The Louisville Free Public Library, The Waterfall BBS, Hacker's Heaven, Pirate's Paradise, The Christian Community BBS (run on a pirated copy of C-NET), The Madhouse. Since I was a Commodore user, I preferred the C-NET BBSs as they were more C64 centric, but a lot of boards later changed to the WWIV software which was a little better once I got used to it. I was mostly absent from the BBS scene from the late 80's and very early 90's, but still checked in from time to time. I picked back up again around 1992 calling about 20 different BBSs on a weekly basis, the only one I called on a daily basis was the Dance of Shiva BBS. Since most of the BBSs in the Louisville area were pay only sites at the time I pretty much just picked on and stuck with it. They all pretty much had the same software, and all used UUCP to give access to the Usenet, and pretty much all had the same shareware CDs for download. There were a few free pirate BBSs I frequented at the time, but none of them stand out. Not long after that, The Dance of Shiva BBS began offering dial up Internet access, and the concept of a BBS began fading away. I miss the local general chatter, I miss the line noise, but most of all I miss being able to read the text faster than it could display on the screen. I still have my list of numbers, usernames and passwords just to reminisce on from time to time. Greg Miller (gmiller@gregmiller.net) http://www.gregmiller.net +++ NO CARRIER. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- John (Alexis) Riley Hi everyone, my name is John (aka: Alexis) Riley sysop of the legacy Gatehouse BBS from Hamilton, Ontario (Canada eh?). My most fond memory wasn't the new Hayes 1200 baud modem, or the Mega-Blaster-Holy-Crap 14,400 USR modem, or the new PC's that could handle multiple desqview nodes - it was the people! You cannot put a price on the life-long friends that were created during these times. And most of us will remember the weekly parties (aka: drunk fests) that created bonds that literally lasted decades. I want to say a very big "CHEERS!" to so many people such as Rizzel, Cat Killer, MOP, Ciara, L'il Angel, Magic, Tigress, Necromancer, Belial, War Goddess, JJ, and SO MANY more that I would run out of space to type. I hope each and every one of you have used your experience and friendships in a way that have made each and every one of you successful in life! Don't forget the most important rule: Party till you drop.... and then some. Cheers! (MOCE&S) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bryan Petty This is Tierra. I had the unfortunate luck of being introduced to the BBS near the end of it's glory when I was finally old enough to know what Hyperterminal was and how it worked. My time on BBSs was short but sweet. For those that put up with my antics on Lower Lights, Third Rock From The Sun, ShadowLand, Dusk to Dawn, Lightning, and others in the 801 area, thanks. I know a lot of my inspiration to be where I am now came from growing up on those systems while still in my childhood. With my early start in computers, I've come a long way. I'm now 20, and already have a career in computer programming, and admin a number of sites with my hobby of web design. Shoutouts to first off Sketch, obviously my words wouldn't be here without you, my other LLC partners in probably the first company to be started by 4 18 year olds and is still growing, harm, eco, V0rtex, the DC801/2600SLC crew, specifically Grifter, Dedhed, A, Adrenaline, ManicV, Kampf, com4, and Muti. Another shout to my high school computer programming teacher, not only was he the best at what he did, but how many of your high school teachers know how to hack satellite and spawn students that can understand the process? While we all move on to the Internet and new technologies, I hope to bring the spirit of the BBS with us. Communication and collaboration. I hope to help spawn new ideas and technologies that allow for further improvement of our society. I hope to help bring the knowledge and acceptance of Open Source to those that are willing. Congratulations one more time to you, Sketch. You've done everything I hope to do in my own way eventually. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Pham Gosh, really miss those old PC BBS days. Logon screens, animated sign-off macros, NUPs, and File Points! Summer of '89 was when it all started for me with my kick-ass 2400 baud modem. I have fond memories of The Circuits Edge BBS and the Soul Asylum BBS. Nice to see a little bit of nostalgia caught on DVD to be repeated digitally forever and ever ... oh wait, that may be a little too much nostalgia there. Thanks for the memories, Jason Scott! Greets to RaD Man, Tracer, Grimm, Icy, Sonic, Warhammer, and Slash. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sean Whalen Greets to the 402 for providing a sense of electronic community I haven't felt since. Thanks to the callers of The Feathered Dragon BBS for their years of support and loyalty. Respect to Zegers for giving me my start. -- Sean Whalen aka Avatar, Sysop of TFD, node99.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matthew Kuhn HI! Matthew Kuhn here from San Ramon, California - the 415, 510, and ultimately 925 area code! I ran several BBSs back in 1988-1994: Subdivisions, Total Recall, The Knowledge Board, etc! My SysOp names were: Zildjian, Quaid, Lion Cub..! The BBS software was: WWIV and Telegard (PC) and GBBS (Apple IIc!). My Co-SysOps were Chris Berry (Infrared) and Jim Rand (Iceman). My favorite BBSs to call at the time were The Great Pyramind BBS (run from California High School in San Ramon) and The Circle of Wizards BBS (run and authored by Steven Derby of Livermore California on a C64). Inspired by Steven Derby, my friend Chris Berry and I created an Apple Basic version of Circle of Wizards. In August of 1993, my friend John Mulvey and I started writing our own multi-line BBS in C. We called it "Miranda Multi-Line" and were using PC-MOS (Multi session DOS) with Digiboards. We got the name Miranda from the movie SpellBinder. The very first BBS I ever called was Amber BBS in Livermore California in 1986. All this is thanks to Chad Shayotovich who told me about BBSs in 1985-86 when we were in the seventh grade. Thanks Chad! Today I am coding web software with PHP/MySql and it feels just like coding BBSs back in the day! Thanks! Matthew Kuhn - mmkrockstar@yahoo.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ed Toton I was first exposed to the concept of a BBS via a Commodore-64 based board that was running somewhere in MD. I didn't fully appreciate what it had to offer at the time. Years later, in 1990, I found that there were quite a few WWIV BBSes local to me, and I was instantly hooked. I set out to run my own board, which went online on Feb 10, 1991. It was my senior year of high school, and the system ran on a 286 with a 2400 baud modem (at first). The Sorcerer's Quarters ran for exactly 4 years; it was shut down for the last time on Feb 10, 1995. By then I had made many new friends, and had hundreds of users come and go. I had attended BBS parties and movie outings, and socialized in a medium that was unlike any other. I also learned quite a bit about modifying existing software and customizing online systems, as well as remote administration. It was a wonderful learning experience. And although it was a sad day when I finally decided to lay it to rest, that same year I d iscovered this WWW thing, and was never completely out of touch with a digital world. I just want to say thank-you to everyone logged in during those years, and the entire BBS community at large for allowing me to partake of this experience. -Ed, formerly "Necromancer" of The Sorcerer's Quarters BBS in Columbia, MD. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andrew Mudd As the lone purchaser of the aborted Textfiles.com t-shirt, Jason kindly provided me with a free copy of the documentary as recompense for having to go shirtless. That does not mean, however, that I wouldn't have bought a copy. I think the now-unfortunately-deceased world of BBSes was about the happiest of my life, in terms of enjoyment of computers. Whether it was debating about religion with the born-agains on A.J.'s, chatting in the teleconference on Northern Lights (whose storefront is now an adult bookstore), or downloading all sorts of 31337 warez from Brad's Pad, the time on my Tandy 1000 was always well spent. My date for my first high school Homecoming dance was met on a BBS. Her name was Dawn and she, of course, cancelled at the last minute on me. (No worries; my brother took me to see Pulp Fiction instead. This was probably a far better use of my time). With the Internet, we've gained much, but we've also lost something. We've lost the sense of being a close-knit community that came with logging on to a BBS. In those days, you knew that there was a group of 25, maybe 50, people that would be posting all the time. You knew that you had at least geography in common. You could complain about Mr. Bekins because he was making you read Brave New World instead of 1984, or the one waitress at Denny's that takes too long to get the coffee and always kicked you out for smoking cloves, and people could directly relate. The BBS was like your local pizza joint: loud, cheerful, smelly-in-a-good-way, and you could scope on the cute Goth girl from English. The Internet largely homogenized and gentrified the world of electronic communications: you can get the same pizza, for better or worse, at any of a thousand restaurants in the chain and that cute Goth girl has to wear a uniform and a dorky visor. I think it's good that someone is finally telling the story of a bunch of friendless losers that spent way too much time making pictures in ANSI. It was a good time. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Price Hey, my name is Mark Price and I used to be a BBSer. I first got involved with BBSs here in the 919 area code after logging onto Nando Net, a big MajorBBS system that also offered Unix shell and PPP access. For some reason or another, TAG BBS software was very popular locally. I setup several BBSes, one of the early ones being TAG. It wasn't until I talked with some Renegade sysops such as Jedi James or Oxymoron that I found out about Renegade. Hex editing Renegade was fun, and even led me and a few others to make a BBS modding group, but we can't even find any of our old mods or packs now. So, my shoutout goes to everyone in the 919 area code, and all of those people that are helping to keep BBS's alive or at least remembered today. - Mark, mark@tqhosting.com, www.tqhosting.com, aliases Sloop and X, former sysop of The Dead End (formerly 919-782-9551) former member of BLiNK, WHiRL, MiT, demonic, sinister, fsw, CCi --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- George Million I was rather young at this time. But i recall getting my first computer form my mother. It was an IBM XT. My local power company had a BBS system running on a vax machine. This was my first time dialing up to any. It impacted me in more ways that i could tell. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Larimore Today's Internet is a crucial component of your daily routine and mine. Yet Joni Mitchell's lament "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've lost 'til it's gone", aptly describes the "paradise" of the Bulletin Board - a personal and emotionally involving communications technology to which Internet "parking lots" can never hope to aspire. BBSes as we knew them seemed to connect directly into the hopes, dreams, fears, rage, fantasies, and souls of those who logged into them. Undistracted by graphics, words mattered. Here we learned (and ignored at our peril) the nuances of written speech. As radio is to television, we could imagine the faces and frames of those at the "other end of the modem", and even sometimes found that after an extended on-line friendship (or more), it didn't really matter what our BBS friend actually looked like. My own personal memories as a Sysop are pure gold. From the days when GLIB - The Gay & Lesbian Information Bureau - was a dial-up BBS through it's present incarnation as a web site, I've met people magnificent and forgettable, marvelously normal and horribly broken, fun and frightening, angry and ecstatic, parasitic and supportive. But mostly, I've been allowed to peek into the thoughts and opinions of wonderfully warm and enjoyable friends. They've added a unique richness to my own life. I can't thank them enough. Jon Larimore, Sysop, GLIB - The Gay & Lesbian Information Bureau - http://www.glib.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- dmw Cyclone here writing this message in October 2004. Well, I was known as the Cyclone way back in my early BBS dayz between 1986 until early 90's. I would have been found in the 305 area code--Fort Lauderdale--before they changed to 954. Mainly on the Commodore BBS's. Chatting it up in what I would consider my world...being the shy person I was it was easier for me to meet people and we could relate. Or maybe it was the BBS that led me to withdrawl from the real world and not be as social during my high school days. No matter, that time is gone and there is no going back even though I'm not sure I would want to. Though I do miss some of the chacters I knew back then: DJ, Badd Boy, The Whizard, and others. My BBS days led me to games. The games and interesting crack intros led me into demos. Those amazingly coded programs that show off the power of the computer in a music video fashion. Even to this day demos amaze me. With the help of several others (Andy, Jeremy, Jim, and Pim) we been able to do a DVD on demos with hopefully more coming down the road. And for those who found a world in the wired world outside their own reality I'm glad I was able to be there with you as the BBS and later internet gave me hope and helped me carry on. (Pallbearer formerly known as the Cyclone) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Bradley My name is Dave Bradley, I could be found using the handle of 'Fletch'. I have been BBSing since I was a whopping 8 years old. Mom and Dad thought it would be funny to hand me a computer and watch me stumble. Well, that was probably the best thing that they could have done for me. Ever since then I have been in the online world, and have watched it grow. The Commodore 64 modem you had to switch on when you connected till now. I ran several Bulletin Board Systems including a WWIV system that I purchased from Wayne Bell. Watching multi-line systems has to be my favorite. Fred Maywald, whom I have been both friends with, and also bitter enemies ran a system he called Star Trek BBS on a TRS-80. This was my first system to ever dial into. Fred them purchased Bill Basham's Diversi Dial, which he named 'Fantasia' and ran that until Bill announced he was no longer supporting the software. Fred, Along with Jon Lucky, Kevin and Nora Paramore sat down and programmed STS! (Synergy Teleconferencing Systems) This became almost as popular as DDIAL. I was a faithful user of this system until IRC (Internet Relay Chat) started top rule the roost, as many newcomers to chatting could easily access IRC through the internet. It has been a great trip to watch chatting, and Bulletin Board Systems evolve. I am glad to say that I was a part of that era of time, and would not change it for anything. I can be contacted at any time, and would love to hear from any of those from my day. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Martien Korenblom This is Martien Korenblom, a.k.a. Biite a.k.a. The Cream Of The Earth on many BBS-es. In the younger years I was a fanatic user of Fidonet and later was into the telnet BBS-es (BrintaBBS for the most part). Greetings go out to all my (former) friends in BBS-land, maybe we'll meet sometimes, somewhere, out there. Signing off . . . --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel O'Leary Hi/thanks to those I met while on boards in Covington/New Orleans Louisiana, Champagne-Urbanna IL, and D/FW TX. My original handle was KloneMeister, but I changed it to kloneman. It dates back to a TANO (Technical Associates of New Orleans - thanks Dave, for my 1st computer!!!) Apple ][+ clone which had upper/lower case, one of the best kbds I've ever used (even had function keys for all the "PR#x", "Save" "Load" etc), 64K RAM, (later increased to 192K), a pair of 5.25 full-height drive holes (I stuck 4 half-height drives in there!) in a rackmount metal chassis. I hacked that hardware severely, giving it a homebrew joystick and keyboard extension (on 25 foot long lines), a 7th slot from a crimp-on edge connector & ribbon cable soldered the ends to various points on the board, a blinking text/cursor by installing a 555 timer chip in an empty socket and cutting the jumpers that bypassed it, and hacked ROMS so that all Apple II software would run, including Proterm. Shortly after moving to TX, (with 7 pages of DFW BBS numbers I grabbed while in IL!!!!) I met a lot of new friends (including Steve, Marshall, Brad, Giles, Doug, Dale & Kyle) managed to score an old apollo at "the Sidewalk sale" and wrote my first BBS program to join in the fun. I later moved to Macs and TeleFinder, finding both through BBS ads. Thanks to Chris, Rusty, Craig for giving it life on Fido (1:130/1015) and the internet (formerly at kz.eaze.net, now awaiting fulltime connections on charter.net) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Todd Machowiak A great thing that the BBS contributed to society was its ability to bring people together in cyberspace -– after all, it wasn’t the web that first accomplished this. An even better contribution was its ability to bring people together outside of cyberspace because of who they were in cyber-land. As the SysOp of TDS BBS (an area code 219 BBS before I closed it and much of northern central Indiana changed to 574), I was always amazed at the number of friends I never knew I had. I can remember more than a handful of parties I attended in high school that started out with me only knowing a few of people there and leaving knowing half the party. When word got around that “Squeegee: SysOp of TDS BBS” was at the party, many people were eager to find out who the man behind the machine was. Of course, it all depended on the crowd -– more parties that I went to were clueless about what a BBS was than not -– but it was always interesting to observe the enthusiasm people had for their favorite BBS. So, here’s to Q Modem Pro, war dialing, TriBBS, Seth Able, and Jenny Garth. And, especially, here’s to this documentary. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?), this documentary and our memories are all that we have of this truly unique time in computing history. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Kozubik Thank you, sketch, for entertaining us for years with anecdotes, photos, audio clips, and of course, text files. It has been great fun watching this project evolve over the last few years and witnessing the progress through the bits and pieces you shared with us periodically. Greets to #303, my fellow DefCon goons, the cDc, everyone who has ever attended a CuervoCon, the _real_ PLA, and especially anyone who logged on to Nickelodeon BBS, my little ten-liner WorldGroup in 303 circa 1995-1997. Special thanks to Galacticomm (stop pretending WG isn't dead and release source) and #bbswarez over the years, especially Dink who did so much good and received so little for it. NWGEEGD9J ! John Kozubik - john@kozubik.com - http://www.kozubik.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bob Hodges BBS: Highwinder's Haven Sysop: Highwinder (Bob Hodges) Location: Oceanside, California, USA BBS Software: WWIV 4.24, PowerBBS 5.5 Multitaskers: IBM OS/2 Warp 3.0, Windows 95 Dial-Up Nodes: 2 (WWIV, PowerBBS) Telnet/GUI Nodes: 16 (PowerBBS) Comments: From 1992 to 1997, I ran Highwinder's Haven BBS in Oceanside, California, USA. Getting my first PC in 1992, I logged onto my first BBS with my Zoltrix 14.4 modem and was immediately hooked - I would not sleep normally again until I had my own BBS up and running. By 1993, I had one of the most complex and feature-packed WWIV-based BBS's around. I absolutely lived for that BBS, and many users logged on and had lots of fun. I was connected to WWIVnet, and carried many of the most popular subs. I had multiple phone lines, multiple instances, and multitasked under IBM OS/2. We only had one user meet at an Oceanside Pizza Hut, but it was very successful, and long-lasting friendships were made with a few of the users who I still regularly communicate with today. Many of these users also attended the wedding when Rebecca and I got married in 1996. The BBS itself went through some changes, eventually migrating to an internet-enabled, Multimedia-GUI/Telnet 16-node version of PowerBBS 5.5 (32-Bit Windows), which is what it remains today on an archive CD I burned in 2000 when the BBS was shut down (I'm glad I backed it up - keep reading). My shift from WWIV to PowerBBS 5.x for Windows in 1996 (in an effort to dazzle the socks off of my users) took place too late, however - the internet had already killed BBSing by the time I got it all set up. Even though the internet basically killed off BBSing in a 6 month period in 1995 (even the entire computer industry utterly forgot about BBSing overnight - amazing), I'm really glad to be able to contribute what I can to the BBS world with my own BBS history. What a wonderful project Jason has put together in this documentary! Because of his efforts in producing this DVD set, it has inspired me to put my BBS back online. Highwinder's Haven BBS will be accessible over the internet via telnet and Windows GUI client. Look for "Highwinder's Haven BBS" it on the web! Much thanks to Highwinder's Haven members Pandora (now my wife), and two of the members who attended our wedding who are good buddies to this day, Dancer (Lance Reeter), and Ghostryder (Bill Anderson). Long live BBSing - may it never die. - Highwinder --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Grand Hello everyone! This is Joe Grand. I was once (and sometimes still am) known as Kingpin. In my various stages of growing up and for short periods of time, I called myself Black Ninja, Autovon, Astro Zombie, The Youth, and The Agent. I am a former member of Renegade Legion, LoST, and of the "famed" hacker collective known as L0pht Heavy Industries in Boston, Massachusetts. I have wonderful memories of growing up in the age of BBSes and it was a great time before mainstream commercialization of everything we know and love. Thanks to Jason Scott, we can relive some of those moments, if only temporarily. From 1982 to 1996, I frequented New England-area BBSes like North Shore AMIS, The Launch Pad, Davy Jones' Locker, The Boston Bullet, Neponset Nitelite, The Cookie House, The Tropical Rain Forest, The Works, Argus, ATDT, Black Crawling Systems, and Knight Elite. Some names that come to mind, though there are dozens more, include Nasa Nut, The Cookie Chef, William Kidd, Dr. Howland, Dr. Death, Garfield, The Knight, Lawbreaker (RIP), Deth Veggie, Peter the Great, Count Zero, Brian Oblivion, White Knight, Iskra, Magic Man, Darby Crash, Tan, and Space Rogue. Until next time, Joe (kingpin@securitytribe.com). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ian Barber Hi, this is Ian Barber aka Dr_Gonzo. While I was never part of the BBS scene I have benefited from the culture that was born there, the textfiles that were written, and the people that have influenced so many of the good parts of what makes up the internet. Thanks to everyone that blazed the trails, and shouts to all the 404 crew: shogz, shades, bif, jr, docy, guini, cru, the_stranger, won, finn, iggy, conan, kentai, athena, zyphr, grom, spike and lef. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andriy Makarevych Hi, this is Andriy Makarevych. Thank You Jason for this great opportunity that You gave me - to be a little part of something really important to many of us. I live in Cologne, Germany, use Internet and manage 2 of commercial online projects, but to my childhood times in Ukraine the only real windows to the virtual worlds of computing was BBS and FidoNet. Many greetings to all of ex-Fido mates and to all of You who know or remember me. I'm starting now a new project to recreate this BBS/FidoNet spirit with a new online technologies and methods, so if anybody interested, want to be a part of it or just want to know the actual state of the project - You can see me on ICQ: 266363. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Romerstein Hey, folks. Back in the day (has it really been 20 years?) I was Lord Mhoram in the DC area. I still remember that fateful day in the summer of '83, when Rusty was showing me his Apple][ and how, if he wanted to, he could use it to call into all kinds of "Bulletin Boards". Oh, man, was I hooked. I remember my first modem (an MPP 300 bauder that plugged into the joystick port of my Atari 800 - $150). I remember the first time I saw Focke's List and thought "how can there be so many BBSes in this area?", and I remember calling most of them. Places that stick in my mind - Dick Brinkley's Flagship BBS, Nameless BBS, and Crunchland (still incarnated, now on the web at http://www.crunchland.com). I can't wait to see what kind of things Jason's managed to dig up from those long ago, fondly remembered days. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Hansen (Intratech) Shouts out to bl0ndi3, spymac, kajer, strokov, shrum, kevin, maddash, david, and the rest of t34m1337, all the members of sf2600, Col. Phoenix, uzzo, timmy, nkiller, aikman75, CutThroAt, optima, and everyone else who I forgot. My buddy Col. Phoenix always talked about the bbs era and how cool it was so when I saw Jason Scot at Defcon 12 give a talk about the bbs era and his documentary, I thought this would be a cool gift. Hope you enjoy it. - Drifter www.t34m1337.com www.sf2600.org www.2600.net --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eric Barton I discovered the online community back in 93 when I managed to successfully configure a poorly documented dos based dialer on my brand new 486sx-33 Packard Bell. The next month I discovered the dubious joys of ISP supplied software to connect to the internet. Good thing too, as I had managed to ring up a $700 phone bill browsing various BBS’s, Oops. Things have come a long way from those first early days (2400 baud was smokin fast). And, not always for the better (SPAM). Still the spirit of the BBS lives on in IRC, Telnet Talkers and various fora, such as my main hangout at ArsTechnica. Greets from Baudelier to my best friend Joe, my mom (who didn't kill me when presented with that bill :), my sister Shamiah and her family, and all those who I've bumped into at ArsTechnica. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bagnall I always think of the BBS scene as the Proto-Internet. We were sending e-mail, reading message boards, downloading files and playing primitive online games before the Internet really caught fire going in 1992. My BBS experience started around 1985 when I ordered a cheap 300 baud modem. I was amazed when it arrived in the mail, along with some crappy terminal software. But it worked! Did I ever feel special the day my modem connected to another site! It was like exploring new worlds mere 'civilians' didn't know existed. I felt like I was leading a double life. By day, I was Brian Bagnall but after school (and when I skipped) I was Goldfinger. Soon, a friend of mine purchased his own modem and we hung out at each other’s house exploring the BBS scene in Winnipeg. A local site named Generic BBS had a dedicated sysop who became the unofficial directory keeper of all the BBS' in Winnipeg. Soon, there were hundreds of BBS' from which to choose. Most of the BBS' used EBBS, which seemed like a big name at the time. I always wanted to know more about EBBS and the author, Ed Parry. (I hope that this DVD set will have something to say about him.) Then one day someone made EBBS available for download. It was like finding the keys to the universe! I downloaded it and soon made my very own (lame) BBS, along with my friend as co-Sysop. The funny thing is, we tried running it *without* a dedicated phone line because I couldn't afford the monthly fee. The BBS was open 9:00am to 9:00pm, and I did not even bother asking my parents permission. Despite being a big hassle for the whole family, they let me do it. Soon I tired of having my precious C64 tied up for long hours and gave up trying to be a Sysop. Despite the hassle, it was a whole lot of fun. I can't wait to watch these DVD's and hear what was really going on back then. If you want to hear the story of Commodore, look for my book due in early 2005. It's a history of Commodore from Jack Tramiels earliest days to the demise in 1994. I interviewed over a dozen Commodore employees for the story, and the word "Outrageous" really applies to this company. New Commodore greetings go to Lasse Oorni, Lloyd Rosen, Robert Bernardo and Leif Bloomquist. Old Commodore greets go to Lord Foul and Squeege. - Brian Bagnall www.mts.net/~kbagnall --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ryan Underwood I grew up in the 314 BBS scene. I bought a 14.4K modem at the end of my 8th grade year, and was calling boards regularly until I went away to university. Some of the boards I called regularly were After Thought, Andromeda II, Dark Forest/Dragon's Den (run by my school friend Andy Nickel), Dragon's Lair, Earthen Levee (run by a future university classmate Conor Watkins), File Cabinet II, File Cabinet III (a very popular and later busted warez board), Fire Escape HQ (the maintainer of the 314 BBS list), Inner Sanctum, Insane Asylum (run by my school friend Scott Koeneman), New Order, Pirates Nest, Sky Net, Shady's Place, Wasteland, and a few other warez/art boards that I can't remember. Initially I got into the BBS scene because of the availability of door games and pirated software for me to play around with, but I stayed because of the acquaintances I made and the beautiful productions that the demo and art scenes were responsible for. The friends and enemies I made on the BBSes that I frequented were a comforting solace in the midst of an often devastating family life. I ran my own Telegard board (Division By Zero) for a short while, but this was eventually futile because I was not allowed to buy a dedicated phone line. When I was setting up the board, I called the Forbidden Knights BBS in Canada to download utilities. While I was there, Tim Strike dropped into a chat with me, seeing that I was a LD caller. It was like speaking with God himself! Today I use Linux and contribute code to the Synchronet BBS server project. My BBS (now running Synchronet) is occasionally accessible from http://www.icequake.net/bbs/ and serves up classic files, art, and door games. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joshua Levitsky Hi this is Joshua Levitsky. I was always Joshie or JLevitsk on boards. For a few years I ran Haz-Mat and then Haz-Mat II which were Apple ][GS based BBSs in New York City. I used to visit The Magic Apple... hey Reuben... and The Hellfire Club (THC). I used to help friends fix code that ran their boards. Fixed bugs in SuperTAC, FutureVision, OggNet, Blastervision, and others. So hey to anyone that remembers me. Search for my name on Google and you will find me if you want to reach me. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul "Spike" Dedrick The Personal Touch BBS was originally set up as a single line in early 1989 using the Telegard BBS software. With the help of a BBS member's MAC {YUK!} I was able to parse out the data of the user list to allow the site to evolve to WildCat! in 1991. Telegard had no export means, and WildCat! needed a certain format, which HyperCard could create. With WildCat!, the system was also expanded to 3 lines (3 USR SysOp program 19,200 Courier Dual Standard modems) and a local SysOp login window. It ran on a 286, and later 386SX25 under DOS 6.22 and DesqView for the virtual 'DOS window' nodes. I operated the BBS as a hobby and means of relaxation after my weeks on the road as a field engineer. Eventually I was laid off by my company in January of 1992 and experienced a year of continued unemployment. The only offers I had at the end of 1992 were one from a little company called Microsoft locally in Charlotte, and a company in the Caribbean who shall go un-named. Let's see, Microsoft Windows 95 development team - $17,500 and US taxes, or ?????? - $46,750 and NO TAXES!?!? Well, what would YOU have done? I moved to the Caribbean in Feb. 1993, which is when I transferred the BBS software and data backups to John Pierce. He ran the board supposedly until 1997, or thereabouts. I have lost touch with him in the intervening years. I still have the 386SX25 system that ran the personal touch and all the data thereon from the last day of operation. I miss those days, meeting weekly at The Mill on Woodlawn Road and seeing all the users and SysOps and enjoying the amateur talent show. I am still in contact with Eric Hasson (Snidely Whiplash of The Mounties BBS) and many of the former users of The Personal Touch BBS. Did I say I miss those days? Oh yeah, last paragraph! Well, I do miss them, and the comeraderie we shared in that fledgling technological period. Thanks for the memories! Paul "Spike" Dedrick - SysOp of The Personal Touch BBS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- scott lopez I just wanted to say "HI!" to everyone out there who ever knew me on the many, many bbs's, d-dials, and other systems I was on over the years. And, if anyone's looking for me after all this time, they can reach me at scottjl@gmail.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kyle Ross Hello all, this Todd V. Miller, also known as The Visible Man in some circles. First of all I would just like to give props to Jason Scott for putting so much time and effort into the BBS documentary, and in all of his work for that matter. From my impressions of the man I believe that I may be much like him. I am obsessive and exacting when it comes to my own projects. I must oversee every aspect of every project I undertake. My compulsion for perfection is a curse really. Every aspect of technology intrigues me, compelling my to undertake vast quantities of work with an obsession for micromanagement prevalent throughout. But damn, enough about my character, I was going to use this space to say how great I think the “online community” is for the most part. While I was barely into middle school when the Bulletin Board System was in its death throes, I still remember dialing up to the few BBSs we had here in Montana in the mid 80s. Yes, I said Montana. While we have just recently relinquished the telegraph as our main mode of communication, there are a few technological enthusiasts (hackers) in these here parts, haha. The online community today still shares the ideals of yesteryear, if one knows where to look. My first introduction to the scene was the print magazine 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. I must say that I am impressed with the continuity and dedication of this magazine’s staff. They have put out a solid source of “alternative” information for an impressive amount of time. Though recently I must admit that I am becoming disenfranchised with their political leanings. Enough with the politics already, focus on the technology! And that rant segues into my shout out to a group that I believe has really taken up the slack left by an off course 2600 crew. The group I am speaking of is the DDP and their “movement” to take back the world of hacking, “Binary Revolution”. Binrev.com and its forums provide the contemporary equivalent of the BBSs of ages past, where information wants to be free and people are judged by their contribution to the community and not their race, color or creed. With that I would like to give shout outs to all those technological enthusiasts in Montana whom I have collaborated with and to all those people in the digital world of past upon whose shoulders we all stand now. Late, TVM. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- James Chen Hello all! This is James Chen and spent the formative years of my life on BBSes in the 212/718 area code (as "Scoops" or "Two Scoop"). I would like to send out a greeting to members of the community on Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Greenwood Enterprise, and Excalibur BBS! I would especially like to express my thanks to Elise Kantor, Tom Salato, and Julio Davila. Your friendship was a great encouragement, and I am especially amazed at how you were all willing to put up with a bratty, pretentious junior high kid like me! May God's blessings be with all of you in abundance. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gary M. Horn I am extremely happy that Jason Scott took on this tremendous burden of bringing the world of BBS to the general public. My formative years were spent on local boards and opened a whole new world to me. It focused my interests and shaped my future. My blossoming career in enterprise and Internet application development, B2B and E-Commerce was planted by the BBS seed. I look forward to seeing this DVD and reliving those long lost days of my youth where 1200 baud was considered lightning fast! Thanks! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alberto Mazzetto Hello, this is Alberto M., I sure miss the days of the BBS, when there was a sense of community. I'm sure there are still good people out there, just scattered around the Internet. Here's hoping that we'll relearn what got lost. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Owen Mehegan This is me throwing cooked spaghetti at the kitchen wall of immortality. I doubt it will stick. ->Bungalow Bill<-->Owen Mehegan<-->Automatic Jack<- ->Massachusetts<- ->617<- ->The Works<-->Myrons Manor<-->The Imposium<- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Coddington Hello from 802! BBSes meant a lot to me growing up. The first BBS that I started using was Sting BBS, which was run by my high school's computer club. I frequented a few local BBSes, including Boris' BBS, Wintermute, Fire & Ice, and Not From Concentrate. This was around 1993. I think I also logged onto CVU high school's BBS occasionally. I remember staying after school and screwing around with the BBS for hours. Then going home and logging on again. One thing I miss about the BBS scene is that the sysops and the users were all local. You could actually meet people online and then go hang out with them later on. The global nature of the Internet doesn't really lend itself to fostering much of a sense of community. Maybe this is just me looking back fondly, but it seems that things were a little more civil, since you knew there was a guy across town who'd be reading your posts. Anyway, thanks to all the folks that programmed the BBSes and contributed to the coolest thing that computers could do in those days. It was a blast while it lasted and taught me a whole lot about computers and telecom. And you ANSI artists and demo coders still knock me on my ass! Mike Coddington, Essex, VT --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ryan Bro Cactus cactus cactus. Courtesy of the Phone Losers of America and Adam Yauch. 701/218 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michelle Gallo Hi, My name is Michelle Gallo and I am ordering this DVD set for my wonderful boyfriend David for his 29th birthday. He just recently brought his old BBS "INSOMNIA" back to life and he hasn't slept since! ..haha He has also gotten me into it.. and I love it, the games are pretty cool!! (I am the CHAMP at Mille Bornes!!) Even though I beat him at most games I must say "TheJoKer" is by far the cutest SYSOP in the entire world!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID MATERA!! I hope you enjoy the BBS DVD set. I LOVE YOU. XOXOXOXOX --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Kuhnast Hi I'm Spoony of FTS, the sysop of 1st Fatality then Morbid Incite I,II and ]I[. I ran the BBS as it evolved from 1994 till about 1999. We concentrated on the PC Demo/Ansi/Music Scene with a large active HP scene (hidden of course), eventually becoming a text-file only BBS, one of the largest collections in Australia. I am still good friends with some of the people I met during those years including my wife! I would like to shout out to Pheon, MZ, Budweiser, Resistance, Mofeed, Shock, Raster, way too many to name and remember! All of FTS from back then, all the PoP guys, FoRCE artists, and all the Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Perth etc guys that managed to come down to our Coven Demo Parties in Adelaide (Coven 95, 96, 97, 98, 2000, 2001.. I had a blast thanks!). A big hello to my beautiful wife Georgina (CZ as she went by back then) who is carrying my beautiful baby!. I started with BBS’s back in about 1989/90 (I was about 12 at the time) with a C-64 and a eventually saved for a 1200/75 baud modem. Most of my pocket money paid for STD phone calls (I was living in country NSW). The Talisman and Club 64 were two BBS’s I remember calling a lot. STD Calls really sucked, when I came across a DEC Brouter hooked up to a dialout on a toll free 1800 number owned by Smith’s Snackfoods (wardialling finally paid off!) the world of O/S BBS’s opened up.. thanks Guys!). Eventually I saw an ad in Australian Commodore and Amiga Review) about the C-64 demoscene, this started my off mail swapping C-64 Demo’s. A few years later (1993) we moved back to Adelaide and I bought an Amiga 600hd (finally had a HD!). I mucked around with C-Net and some other BBS software for a while, running an Amiga BBS overnight called X-Factor (I really only treated this as a learning exercise and never took it serious). Mid 1994 my parents put a 486slc2/50 on a rent-to-buy plan for me and this started my venture into PC BBS’s, I owe them everything!. The current generations have missed out on so much! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Campbell I'll keep this short because you can read my observations about online communication at my web site (www.tc123.com), including a personal retrospective about BBS design and operation prior to 1995, an article on trolls, plus a paper explaining why nobody ever seems to change their mind. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stuart Whitmore From atop Wisdom Mountain, the arcanely wise guru slowly opens his eyes. He stares forward a moment, then his lips part, and he speaks: "Yo! This is Arcane Wisdom from Weisheitberg, that ever-so-popular (but long-gone) Wildcat! BBS in Ellensburg, WA (US)! For being a little cow/university town in the middle of the Central Washington Desert, we sure had an active BBS community! Greets to Saxman Parker (one of his many handles), Bob Peters, all users of Satan's Domain, Ben Roth, Rich, Jack, users around the world who signed up for the QWK-based EnviroNet message network that was based on Weisheitberg, and everyone else who stopped by the board from time to time. It's been a long time, this "arcanely wise" SysOp (who mis-named his board, so much for wisdom, it should've been Weisheitsberg with an 's') is getting old and forgetful. It was a sad time when Weisheitberg shut down, and the UniNova BBS that went up in its place a year or so later never quite lived up to the Weisheitberg community. (Remember getting together one late evening to spend way too much money on long distance to call a BBS in Talinn, Estonia, before the collapse of the Soviet Union?!) Going back further in time, greets also go to the SysOps and users of the Seattle-area Minibin BBS's that I called in the early 80s, using my 300-baud modem on a Vic-20! Those were interesting days indeed, and I still miss the Minibin systems, even if they only ran on TRS-80s. When it came time to run my own system, the choice of Wildcat! was pretty clear to me, and even though I experimented with many other software packages, the Wildcat! software kept bringing me back. I maintained the Official Unofficial Wildcat! Web Page for that reason. I'm still hoping to set up a telnet-accessible Wildcat!/WIN Server BBS eventually, if I can ever move somewhere that has good Internet access! For now, I must be satisfied with Web-based message boards, and other Web projects like: http://www.just-stuart.com/ ...Peace!" --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett Hager This is Brett Hager, aka Captain Jack from Captain Jack's BBS in 516. We had alot of good times back then. I had no idea how evolved the online world would be when I was connecting to other boards with a lousy 300 baud modem attached my Atari 800xl. I'd like to say hello to everyone I met over the years but I can't remember all of your names so don't be offended if I left you out. Thor who showed me how much we could do with the old Atari computer and who was also nice enough to haul my ass over to the Ol' Hackers meetings a couple of time. JT my faithful co-sysop - where did you go? Harlan for letting me leech off him all those times. Jack for being a good friend, I lost your email address again. Paul, remember that great ANSI animation for the board? Brian, James - I'm sure you guys are doing well. All the old TSAN guys especially Junkman Jim, we had some killer parties at your place. Vic from Bandit's Hideout - you probably don't remember me but I spent alot of time on your board. Mikel - AAF:TPOM.A forever! Thanks for introducing me to FidoNet and being a good friend. Jay aka The Snake - Where did you go? Kenny, hope you made it out of Brentwood. Francis, you were one crazy dude. I know I am forgetting alot of other people, we had some good turnouts at the BBS meets. If you want to get in touch with me, go to www.bretthager.com. Brett --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ray Borrill My name is Ray Borrill. Back in the good old days I owned from one to several computer stores, but this will only talk about one. The original Data Domain was located in Bloomington, Indiana. It opened for business on Feb. 12, 1976, one of the first stores anywhere. When it opened we sold anything computer related we could get our hands on. At day one we were authorized dealers for IMSAI, CROMEMCO, Processor Tech. and several others. Later that summer we became one of the first two or three Apple Computer dealers, and when it was announced, one of the first 8 dealers for Alpha MicroSystems. Naturally, when the Hayes S-100 bus modem was announced we got some and began experimenting to see what was out there. We were friendly with CACHE in Chicage and became one of the first to "talk" with Randy Suess and Ward Christensen's system and to communicate with our close friends at Ted Nelson's "itty bitty machine co." in Evanston, IL. Over the next few years, my incredably loyal and hard working employees like Roy Robinson, John Prather, Thom Hogan, Mike Swaine spend what seemed like several hours nightly talking to one BBS or another. Later on John Parather started his own BBS, using an Apple II at first and later switching to one using my personal IMSAI 8080, loaded to the "gunnels" That BBS lasted for many years. If anyone is interesed, email me and I'll get the name of that board. Yes, I still talk to most of those fellows now and then. Mike and Thom are now famous author and commentators, Roy lives in the Bay Area and I have his email address. About the only ones I am not in contact with are Thom Hogan and the one important guy I didn't mention above, Roger Chapman, who became the first "Wizard of Osborne". Alas. like virtually all of the earliest computer retailers, I had to sell The Data Domain and it closed in late 1983. I'm working on a website by the same name and hope to have it finished by the time I receive these DVD's, about New Years Eve. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lionel Lumbroso In 1981, I was one of the 3 cofounders of the first major online service in France, "Service Calvados", which we renamed "CalvaCom" in 1986. Howard Rheingold told a little of that story in his book "The Virtual Communities" (http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/8.html).

Busy as I was with our own endeavour, I didn't explore extensively the realm of French BBSes, but on the other hand, their number here was nowhere near as high as in the US.

I do, however, remember clearly one BBS that had an influence on us while we were extending our services.

Called Futura, it was managed by a 15 year old kid named Jean-Marc Royer who happened to be one of a gang of 2 hackers who were the first ones to "hi-jack" a regular user account on Service Calvados (Howard mentions this at one point in his book).

This must have been 1983 or 1984. Jean-Marc had structured his Futura BBS using an analogy with a city, with its post office, its café, its town hall, etc. I had a user account opened and participated a little in his forums (sorry, "café talks").

We liked his metaphor and were partly inspired by him when we designed our new service, CalvaCom, based on that "city" segmentation.

Lionel Lumbroso - 8 Nov. 2004 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Todd MacDermid Doctor Z , sysop of the Cutting Edge (203 at the time, but now 860) says "Hola" to Spiko, Squid, Falcore, Zaphod, and the whole ESLF gang. G.H.O.S.T. cleaned up 2041, 2042. Also praise to Evil Stevie and the Illuminati BBS folks. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Lilienthal Citadel here, of MN2600.com Express your feelings and don't be put down. Having a plan. Starting the plan. Finishing the plan. Waking up and remembering the plan. Sick of life and continuing with the plan. Planing the plan, planing life, living the plan, whatever the loop is however you do it, however it is done to you don't forget to stop for a second and see yourself inside the loop. Ferris Bueller: "Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." But like some people, maybe me, you can also get stuck in the stop, looking at all the other loops and Einstein universal type loops, great try to see the entire picture, look out side the box, but its time to come back, remember everything is about time. Now is the time, get back into your loop. Get back to your plan. Live your life. Terminator 2, Sarah Connor: "Don't stop!" I said now is the time, and a time where things are changing with the world, War. Lots of geeks smart computer hackers, network gurus many people into the same things yet there are still differences about this 'war on terror' and it seems to confuse many Why we need this or why we should have it, or why the country apparently agrees with it. I haven't figured it out yet, debating this with people that agree with it. I'm against it. People talk about polarization, but if thats a description of what I'm trying to address, its soo lacking. My only point I want to give is if you feel the truth is this war isn't right, or if you feel it is right, either way, keep communications open, if you have friends, stay friends, but you can't just ignore it, don't be afraid to bring it up. But the one thing I do know is, that its true. The truth has power for the very reason that it is the truth. And because it's the truth, it's certain that it has to be just. It's persuasive isn't it. Wouldn't you prefer your truth like that. Do not allow fear to consume you. Citadel@nerp.net --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Doug Hickok Greetings to all! I know that many of you have lived through the time when BBS's were popular. I was living also, but was a little too young to actually understand what BBS's were. I was born in 1983. My parents got our first computer in 1987. We were online all through the 90's. It was only recently (2000) that I discovered what BBS's were, and that they were lurking in the background all through the 90's when I could've been exploring them. Darn it! It was a world that I completely missed, and now with this new DVD I can finally learn about it. It's an era that I wish I could've experienced. I envy all of you who were lucky enough to live it! Thanks to all who got me here: My parents (for the computers and support), family (for supporting me), Shannon & the Comtek Club (the early hacking days), DuWayne (for kicking me in the right direction), Daine & the crew here in Platteville (for all the cool projects and education), and Amanda (the sweetest girl I've ever known). Thanks! - Doug --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jessee Dooling Concept BLazer BBS, operated by Jesse Dooling from in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from Feb 1993 on 2400 to Jan 29th 2002 on 33.6k. Reached 430 active users over a single phone line in 1996, sometime had 9 active message networks and served as FidoNET167 NC for a couple of years. Carried a lot of software in ARJ, to the dismay of many :). Thank you to all the people who hacked up the technology and some of the ideas that the internet still could use today. Closing Concept Blazer BBS was one of the saddest thing I have had to do and still gives me tears thinking about it while writing this. Thank you everybody for a world where pure brotherhood and altruism reigned between real world strangers. I am honored and touched to have been part of the BBS world for 9 years. Shout outs to Pete Rocca, Roland Larocque, the Montreal gang, FidoNET and the eternal Steve Monteith for his Juxtalist. Praise to the makers behind Allfix, Gecho, RemoteAccess and Front Door. Thank you Jason for this historical documentary. Shout out to Ummite from The World of Ummo, who remains a friend to this day. Props to Jean-Marie wherever you are today my friend. I love you ANSI, I miss you, come back to me someday my love. -------------------------------- HI, I'm horribly sad to announce that I'm closing whatever I have as far as BBS stuff. If you received this mail and are not part of the BBS world anymore, it's quite possible I had your mail for some reason because you have probably been part of the BBS world some time or another. I didn't want to miss anybody still involved that might need information for node transfers. It fucking breaks my heart to close everything. I closed my phone line in July for lack of users but continued to serve files and messages for STN and Fidonet. Somehow though, I didn't think I'd cry my eyeballs out over it all like I'm doing right now as I'm writing this to you. I'm realizing how much BBSing really meant to me and how miserable it makes me to leave it all. Last year I would have never dreamt of closing it all down. It was unthinkable then. I had a desire to do good stuff for the BBS world and had a conviction that I would outlast you all in the BBS world after seeing everybody go! My lifestyle has changed a bit since July 2000 as I have started working as Quality Assurance Specialist for a software company. I now put aside less time for the BBS, actually none now, as I'm preoccupied with other things, notably spending some of that good money I earn now and trying to start a network gaming center. For months now I haven't given the BBS any time, not even reading mail. If I persist in continuing I will only be doing a disservice to STN and Fidonet. For 9 years as a BBS System Operator I tried to offer something good, both for the users and the BBS networks. Although things have never been perfect as I would have liked them to be, a Sysop's job is never done as many say, I'd like to believe that I have offered something memorable for alot of you, and had a good influence on the BBS scene in general. I'd like to think that I offered good service for the Montreal area as a mail and file feed. I believe I worked quite hard some long hours over these 9 years for this passion we all share, working because we had fun doing it. We worked at it as everyone contributed to it's evolution by their ideas to help the technology develop. I like to believe that I was one of the good ones to have survived among the styles, methods and ideals that many have shared over this hobby of ours, a hobby we all participated in out of our love for it. I feel honored to have been part of a priviledged few among our world to have understood and shared with immense joy in this underground hobby. I'd like to believe that I was part of group of electronic pioneers that saw something in BBSing that many had not. The sense of friendship, gratuitous mutual help, self-sacrifice and free exchange involved in BBSing is something rare and much desired today in many domains and I will cherish this kind of camaraderie for a long time. I will miss it deeply. A part of me has died, leaving BBSes behing. Sadly though, our BBS hobby will not have a legacy that will be carried on as it has been laid waste by newer technology and changing technological habits among computer users. Sometimes I feel I was raped by the evolution of our society, having had our BBS prime stolen so fast by technological evolution and social desire for a more glamorous global village. I believe that I will be a long time without seeing something that will have the same quality of social exchange as I have seen in BBSes. This makes me sad and empty. I thank you all my good friends who have contributed to the BBS world. You have made it worthwhile for me and all. It was great fun!! ----------------------------------------------- If you wish to forward this mail to anybody or echomail areas for some reason, especially Admin areas for STN and FidoNET, feel free to do so. As for NET167 Fidonet I will be leaving everything up to Steven Monteith, one of the few remaining long time BBS veteran I was hoping to outlast!!! :) Brief history of Concept Blazer: I started Concept Blazer in Feb 1993 in Maple Grove (Montreal South Shore) and have been on the Montreal island since that summer, reached 430 active users over a single phone line in 1996, sometime had 9 active message networks, have been serving FIdoNET167 as NC for a couple of years I guess... forget since when. I took the job when everybody left and nobody else would do it, it seemed. I carried alot of software, all in ARJ format, to the dismay of much. I was good friends with The World of Ummo BBS, Max Hell BBS and remember Juxtaposition BBS to have been there since forever! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- jeff leyda To all the Lamers in 612, we have just two words to say: NUG -big eddie -sudden discharge --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kevin Greene I still remember the wonder I felt when I got my first 300 baud modem and called my first BBS. I still have the clipping from the local newspaper listing a dozen or so numbers. It was such a giddy feeling, almost an adrenaline rush knowing I was connecting to a computer somewhere ELSE, like I was exploring a new world. I'd stay up all night manually dialing lists of numbers I got from other boards using my Apple II+. Most boards had a single line and finally hearing the phone ring after dozens of automatic calls getting a busy signal was such an uplifting moment. I remember the fun of message boards and the thrill of finding a new text file to add to my collection. There was something about the small communities that just worked unlike many larger online ones now. I used the same piece of paper for years, covering it with board names and numbers, usernames and passwords. It eventually became so worn it was as flexible as cloth. I went by many handles early on, one was The Executioner (used by others elsewhere) as well as Lord Rassilon later. Some of boards I remember calling: The Tavern, Dark Side of the Moon (245-SPAM!), The Greenhouse, Crumal's Dimension, Digikron, The Inferno, Omni's, Goldmine A.E. Kevin Greene 408 Area In the spirit of the BBS, here's an old style ascii ad for my website: (%>----------------:+:---------------<%) (%>/*/*/*/ WWW.APPLEVAULT.COM \*\*\*\<%) (%>----------------:+:---------------<%) / /\ VISIT \ / \ \ / \ THE \ / / / /----\ APPLE VAULT \ / \ \ / \ \ / / / / \ HOME OF THE \/ \ \ APPLE II / / DOCUMENT PRESERVATION PROJECT \ \-------:+:------------------:+:-------/ / [MAGAZINES][HARDWARE MANUAL ARCHIVE] \ \ [MOCKINGBOARD SAMPLES][SCANS] / (%>=-=-=-=-=-APPLE ][ FOREVER-=-=-=-=<%) | EMAIL: BBSDOC@APPLEVAULT.COM | (%>----------------:+:---------------<%) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josh Thomson My kid brother knows nothing about BBSes. When I tried to explain them to him a few months ago, he didn't get what the big deal was. How do you convey to someone for whom the WWW has always existed exactly how exciting it was when you were first able to connect your computer to another computer using a phone line? How can you describe what it was like to enter your first chat session--how cool it was that you were on the board at the same time as another live human being--to someone who has always been able to pop open an IM client and talk to dozens of friends at once? How do you explain the lucky feeling of finding a newly-uploaded file to someone for whom "google" is a verb? Perhaps most importantly, how do you explain the appeal of ASCII art to someone who grew up with photo-quality images on his computer? I feel like some science-fiction storyteller asking him to imagine an age before Netscape and Internet Explorer. It is my hope that I can sit him down with this documentary and show him what my adolescence was like, when computers weren't all connected, when each dialup felt like a visit to some strange new island. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hanna Foster Merry Christmas to Flips from Richmond, VA. I know you could never forget any of it! 300 baud.…1200 baud… 2400 baud. Commodore 64 to IBM PC toIBM386. Free calls and nine, and one, and one calls. Wow! And the Michilinda pay phone! And look where you are now! Do you remember Apple’s vline, xline? Those pixels were as large as my finger tip!! US to Pascal to C. WWIV to Precision – Eric – world’s long awaited replacement. Fast… Efficient Corker & Sean Kedy. Remember when the Internet was text and the way you knew it was thinking was that it would print the following on top of each other so it looked like it was spinning: | / - \ | / - \ You helped make computers what they are today and you are now making the computers of tomorrow. Merry Christmas! Love, Ava Louise --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alfredo Rodriguez Although active in the 310/213 scene from '88 to '95, I never rose in the ranks of infamy like so many I knew in the underground scene. None the less, I always have fond memories of the people I met and the friends I made. Few people knew envy like an 10th grader who wanted a Courier HST just to get on the BBS that only connected HST 16.8k. While the internet has surpassed all of our expectations of what was possible with computers, one is still left the feeling of being a much smaller fish in a much bigger pond (with an astounding number of immature tadpoles everywhere). BBSes will always be for me what the speak-easy frontier saloon must have been like for the old wild west frontiersmen -- a familiar place with old friends full of stories of when they last ventured out, whether it be to the big city or uncharted and ominous horizon. Thanks for all the Art Packs & 0-day warez, Fossil drivers & competing BBS softwares, crackers & couriers, demos & trojans, those who were elite & those dubbed lamers, friends & foes... But most of all thanks for the memories. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kevin Powers I remember my first computer, a Coleco ADAM. An Apple IIe and ProFILE hard disks that took forever to warm up before being usable and stored only 10 meg apiece but seemed huge. Floppy disks with strange programs on them, some in BASIC. Fried a copy of Pac-Man by hitting control-open apple-reset too many times in a row, to see what would happen. ~ And that's what it was all about. Seeing what would happen. I typed in BASIC programs from copies of ENTER magazine to see what they would do. At first, I had no idea what an AppleSoft BASIC instruction would do. Eventually they became predictable. But it was all about seeing what would happen. ~ I remember a kid down the street had dozens of programs on his IBM-Compatible PC that he or his dad had gotten from a BBS somewhere. So we would sit in his basement playing Captain Comic or Commander Keen or Aldo's Adventure as the little PC speaker made weird noises. ~ You had to be more creative when you were using a single speaker. Maybe that's why folks got such incredible sounds out of a tinny little computer speaker. Who would have thought that an Apple II could be made to sound like someone's voice ("Chrono Warrior")? And the sounds on an IBM-Compatible, even though they sucked (Apple II Forever!), were still much more sophisticated and creative than anything that anyone has come up with recently. ~ You had to use your imagination more with the games back then. A text adventure was so much more creative and deep than anything since. When you had to be careful what you did with each item you picked up--because if you tossed the most important item away, it was gone forever. And the best-written text adventures made sure that you weren't allowed to drop the most important items in the game, or at least left them in the room where you dropped them so that you could retrieve them later. ~ I remember WarGames and how cool it seemed to be able to mess with people halfway around the world from your computer. Not long after seeing WarGames, I met someone who reminded me of Ally Sheedy's character from the movie. Never forgot that. ~ I remember playing cartridge games on my Coleco ADAM--Time Pilot, Victory by Exidy, and Carnival. I had one Cassette SuperGame--the pack-in Buck Rogers: Planet Of Zoom. Years later, in 1996, I found an actual Buck Rogers: Planet Of Zoom arcade machine and spent every quarter I had on me playing it. And the ADAM had a SmartBASIC programming language that was actually a rip-off of AppleSoft BASIC--but SmartBASIC had a much cooler manual, because it was typed in a font that looked like they had churned it out of a typewriter. Which is probably appropriate, because the ADAM used a daisy wheel printer. ~ I remember the Russian brothers down the street had an Atari 2600. We almost broke my Coleco ADAM one afternoon trying to get the 2600 cartridges to fit in the Coleco ADAM cartridge slot (made for Colecovision cartridges). 2600 was cool, but not as cool as my friend's Mattel Intellivision or my Coleco ADAM. Even though I used a black & white monitor for the ADAM for years before I ever saw those games in color. ~ I remember a kid down the street had a Commodore 64, and he and I and another kid spent hours one night playing WIZARD on the C64. Years later I realized that WIZARD was a JumpMan clone. But it's still a really cool game. ~ I remember taking apart BASIC files on my Apple //e. Being able to see how other people wrote their programs made it a completely different experience. You could learn things from other peoples' work. Even just typing in words to see whether they would produce a strange error message--like "BYE" in ProDOS. You had to be creative. Hunting down lists of PEEK, POKE, and CALL commands. There was nothing that you couldn't do, if you just spent enough time digging around for a way to do it. ~ I remember I showed a kid at school the INIT command in AppleSoft, and the next day he initialized my DOS 3.3 System Master. ~ I had a green screen for my Apple //e and a black & white TV for my Coleco ADAM. I remember before I had an Apple //e I used them all the time at school and at this house down the street where they had two big loud DISK II drives with the huge drive-door handles. I remember there was no Apple II printer that I couldn't break. ~ I once set my Apple II on fire accidentally. I still have absolutely no idea how it happened, but smoke was pouring from the back of it. ~ I remember it was fun. It was creative. And it was an open world. ~ I had the sense that there was this huge world and everyone was on top of it. Everyone with a computer was anonymous, and you could be as much of an ass as you wanted and their was no one to be accountable to. It was like the wild west, except that if someone wanted to gun you down you need only have cut the line or turned off the machine. ~ I was loyal to Macintoshes for a few months, and then I realized that the last Apple computer that didn't suck was the IIgs. But I still say the Apple II was an incredible machine. Second only to the Coleco ADAM. ~ It was the endless frontier, and I was an explorer. The only limits were the dreams and imaginations of me and the people out there. Dream & imagine. ** Kevin Powers ** --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kevin Hunt I was the sysop of a BBS called "The Gizmonic Institute" in Denver in 1993-94 under the alias "Joel Robinson." Joel Robinson actually was the main character in the show "Mystery Science Theater 3000," which was pretty hip at the time. As a big fan of the Minnesotan TV show, I talked my parents into a chipping in for second phone line and set up the BBS on Renegade. Eventually I hooked up to a small California-based messaging network called FXNet, and I still wonder if I have met those guys unknowingly since I moved to California in 2000. I even whipped up a big ANSI animation opening screen of the MST3k guys in the theater. Years later, I still attribute many of my professional skills to the time I spent cutting my teeth at 2400 baud. My BBS was never huge, and wasn't available all hours of the day because much of the time I was using the line to dial up Joe's Garage, Wulf's Den (Hi Timberwulf), Abe's Hideaway (Hi Abe), Eagle's Nest, Dragon's Lair, CMOS, Cloak and Dagger, Universe Next Door, Bigg Time, Refrigerator Door, Kick and Klaw, and many others. Occasionally I still Google for games as engaging as Trade Wars or Barren Realms Elite were, but I have a feeling there will be nothing like them again. All these years later, I'm very proud of my small part in the phenomenon that lead to the Internet. Kevin Hunt, The Gizmonic Institute, Denver, Colorado --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Edward N. Sorensen III Hello, This is Ed Sorensen (TheBozz) I ran a BBS called the "The Dragons Tooth" in West Palm Beach, FL during the 80's on a Commodore-64 (I won't even mention the VIC!) with a whopping four 1541 drives attached! One of the of the reasons I got a second line in the house was my parents were sick of the phone ringing ALL night with people waiting to post a message, or play my "Dungeons and Dragons" via e-mail complete with maps (drawn on a Koala Pad!) and a dice program that would log their rolls... I had over 60 people playing and it had a big impact on me! Sadly, computers were my hobby and I had many negative attitudes towards my liking them in the early years.. If only I had exploited the technology before the IT bubble burst! (I am am sure many of us feel the same way!) I am just glad to have been a part of it long before the "Big Guys" took over the online action! :-) Anyone remember "Quantum Link"? ;-) Well now here I am rambling on like the ThirtySomething I have become! I miss those days, and I thank anyone who ever dialed in and created an account! Funny, The MPAA and RIAA never busted us for all those "MIDI" files that changed hands! ;-) Imagine that! Well enjoy the DVD set and remember the good times! Keep on Loggin' On! Thanks for the Memory (all 64k!) TheBozz You really took me back and I will have something to pass on to those that NEVER new what a BBS even was! ;-) Take Care, Ed Sorensen (Sorensen@Bellsouth.net) Sorry, No FIDONet address! ;-) LOL! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jason Boudreau I started pretty late in the BBS lifeline – something like 1992 or thereabouts. Sadly, I don't remember what name I was using most of that time, but I eventually came up with the nick “Hadean” and I'm sure that's what people remember me as. I fondly remember being part of a small, but supportive community in Timmins – playing games like LORD, Tradewars, and (my personal favourite) Land of Devastation (I hope that these DVDs mention it somewhere!). But it wasn't just fun and games – BBSes were a great way to keep in contact with my friends, make new friends, reach out to the world from my isolated city through FidoNET and download por^n^n^ngreat ANSI animation! To keep their names alive, I should mention the various BBSes I hung out at: Timmins Area BBS (T.A.B.) by Gary Lapierre, CyberSpace I by Stephen Zielinski (a.k.a. Dimentox, although I think it was just Buddy then), Mulberry Street by Michael Ottoson, and the venerable Mount Olympus by Kurt Christ (a.k.a. Zeus) where I spent way too many hours redialing at 12:01am to get my shot in those damned games (I still think he cheated)! Then there was always the long distance calls to the USA to download that new shareware version of Commander Keen, or some various Doom clone. That was my first example of a $300+ phone bill, too. Of course, I ran my own BBS with 5 or so callers a day - CyberSpace II, I think I called it. It was a lot more fun to design the ASCII/ANSI animation for the menus then it was to actually run it on a daily basis... One last thing: Did anyone, anywhere ever use the T.A.G. BBS system? It was a freeware BBS server that had polls and whatnot all built in... It sucked (since it wasn't really that configurable), but it shouldn't be so completely lost in time like it is. In the end, I have no idea what my life would be like if I hadn't jumped into BBSes. Thanks Jason Scott for taking the time and energy to make these DVDs and shouts out to all the old time BBS users from Timmins! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Connolly I got into BBS's just as they pretty much were declared dead. I learned about them from a school friend. He wanted to connect to my machine using a BBS software (cooee) program so he could share his games with me. After a few calls to dead Bulletin Board Systems that turned out to be places like videos stores and pizza places where I would hear a hello at the other end, I finnally found a couple that were not dead and found files on how I could get free coke cans from the old coke machines in Melbourne. Downloading many of these types of files took a long time and when the phone bill came in, I then relized that these BBS's were only still running because they were charging me by the minute to use them!. But I'm pretty sure that the large phone bill made up the cost me getting many free cans of coke. So I guess it wasnt too bad. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sean Farquharson Hello, back in the day when I was just in 10th grade on my Apple ][ + with my 300 Baud Apple Cat modem I was known as "The one, The only, THE AVATAR!" on BBS like Sherwood Forest II and III as well as "Smurf's Turf" and Tomobiki-net. I still remember watching the green text flow across the screen at a rate much slower than I could read! I collected all on Bioc Agent 009's Telecom series, "The poor man's James Bond" and lots of CODEZ.... I still have many of these files printed out somewhere! It was great fun, and very informative, I had all of these secret friends that I never really met but who I "talked" to every night. The only big downsides were since I lived in area code 718 and SF2 was in 914 my parents would get these insane phone bills :) I got in a lot of trouble over that (darn slow modem), and lost a lot of sleep waiting up late at night trying to download a 50K file! :) I really can't believe that "The Slipped Disk" from SF2 has put together this film; finally one of these Sherwood Forest guys is real again! Shout out to Papa Smurf, The Emerald Gladiator and the guys at Tomobiki-net! Oh, and for the last time, Captain Avatar may signature is not directed at you! -Sean Farquharson --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pedro Carabeo-Nieva This is Pedro A. Carabeo-Nieva. Having been born in 1982, I was too young to experience the rise and peak of the "BBS era". However, I am very fortunate to have experienced the very end of this great era as well as the birth of the World Wide Web. I cherish and appreciate the work of many individuals who developed BBS technologies. I recall connecting to about 10 or so local BBSes in Miami (305 area code) during the early 90s. I would play door games (especially Legend of the Red Dragon), trade programming code, and discuss lots of technical issues with people who shared my tech interests. It's incredible how simple text-based games allowed my imagination to soar, making those simplistic games as enjoyable as a high-tech 3D graphics game. Also, I remember the strong sense of community and purpose that BBSes shared. BBSes pushed the technological envelope of the time and created a sort of makeshift internet. However, the "BBS era" seems to have been greatly overshadowed by the more widespread "internet revolution". If not for the efforts of people like Jason Scott and all the BBS pioneers, this special era in tech history would be completely underrated. I hope that many others will get to learn about and enjoy this wonderful era as I once did. Cheers to the nostalgic past, wonderful present, and optomistic future of tech :-) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bert Happel Bert Happel - SysOp, The I.O. Board, 8/16/86 to 2/1/2001. The timeline of my BBS was documented in my farewell to FidoNet article (FidoNews v18 #1). Some additional info: My BBS ran Fido software as it was the only BBS compiled to run on the Victor 9000 (a 1981 non-PC MS-DOS system which Tom Jennings used - until it died and he reportedly nailed the motherboard to the warehouse wall). FidoNet Net 231 expanded outside local dialing through a SysOp in Terre Haute who was running a BBS for Indiana State University. Part of his arrangement was that he was given access to the SUVON (State University VOice Network) phone system. Using SUVON he could transfer echomail to many BBSs around the state with no phone charges. Most of that echomail was routed from the Twin Towers BBS and its now infamous SysOp Robert Hoquim (aka John Aleshe). Net 231 was also home to Linda Thompson (of militia infamy). PC Pursuit played a big part of BBSing for me personally. Using PC Pursuit I visited several BBSs around the country nearly daily. I'd check Tom Jenning's BBS looking for updates and giving him user feedback. I'd call to other Victor support BBSs in Boston, San Francisco, and Washington. The most fun I had in using BBSs was with local or special interest boards. On one local BBS we generated online stories with different users adding a chapter at a time. Nationally I got to know other Victor users well enough that I wrote an electronic eulogy for a Victor user based solely on her online postings (published in a Victor user group NewsDisk). Operating a BBS was an act of creativity in getting and keeping it running. It was also empowering with the SysOp acting as a facilitator of communication and user interaction. I began The I.O. Board with the name as a pun on the input/output card needed to supply a serial port on early PCs. But near the end I realized that the I.O. stood for the main (oxymoronic) user function of a BBS - Interactive Observation. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matthew Beason The BBS has had a profound impact on my life. I don't think I fully realized it when I first logged in during my freshman year in high school. Of course, it was the grand ole days of the Commodore 64 and the 300baud modem. The sqawks and squeels of that first connection may seem foreign to many people today but they were music to my ears back then. I started out as "><-Rated" as suggested by one of my friends at the time. I toyed with many other handles over the years.. Nightingale, Magister, to name a few.Ultimately, it was Helfax that seemed to stick and that is what I've used ever since. I also frequented several BBSes in AZ such as Knight's Guilde, Den of Sin, Sho-Tron aka Rock Garden, CHHS, Flatlands, and many others. I even had the pleasure of running my own system dubbed “The Lost Underground” for a short while. One would be surprised what can be accomplished with a C64, a ram disk, and number of daisy chained 1541 disk drives!! The endless nights of hacking game code, playing LORD, Usurper, or what have you pales in comparison to the life long friends and memories I gained. There are so many people to name.. Trillian, Peregrin, Longshot, Deunan, Akira, Amergin, Greymalkin, Newborn.. are just a few of the people I've met who've had and still have an impact on my life. There are so many others that I know I'm forgetting but rest assured their significance is by no means diminished. The most significant person I met online, I actually started out disliking! Shorty (aka Wembalina) and I met on CHHS and were also on several other systems together. We often tell those we meet about how we met online and find it interesting to see their reaction. I think if you asked most people today about us, they say that they couldn't think of a more perfectly matched couple. I couldn't agree more. Looking back.. BBSing was as much about community as it was about the technology that we grew up with that attracted so many of us. The “modern” Internet could learn from that. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arnaud de Bonald Sorry to write in french, but since my BBSing experience was in France, I feel more confortable to express it in french. J'ai découvert les BBS en 1992 quand un ami revenant du Canada m'a prêté son modem. Je ne connaissais pas du tout le monde des BBS, ni quasiment ce qu'était un modem. J'ai découvert les BBS à travers ceux qui existaient à l'époque en région parisienne (40-50 BBS au total sur Paris). Je dois dire que ce fut la plus grande découverte que j'ai pu faire de toute mon expérience micro-informatique. Tellement bien que j'ai démaré mon propre board trois mois plus tard: The Man Machine BBS, qui deviendra The Bookshop BBS en 1995. Mon BBS a fonctionné d'Avril 1993 à Novembre 1997. Ce fut plus de 4 ans d'activité intence, une bonne partie de mes loisirs étaient de m'ocuper du BBS et le PC qui le faisait tourner était dans ma chambre à 3 mètres de mon lit, c'est dire que je vivais vraiment avec le BBS! Mais au delà du challenge technique que fut le BBS (configuration initiale, tests de nombreux softs BBS, config Fido, UUCP, etc.) Je retiens avant tout l'expérience humaine car elle fut aussi forte. Les nombreux échanges (parfois enflamés) sur les conférences les Chats avec les utilisateurs pendant des heures.... Difficile de résumer tout ça en quelques lignes ! Pris par la nostalgie, j'ai remonté un BBS depuis Janvier 2001 disponible à l'adresse http://netcava.net. Mais bon gré malgré, ça n'est plus la même chose. L'esprit BBS (échange et proximité) est bien loin de ce que cherche l'internaute moyen de nos jours, en tous cas en France. et la culture BBS ici était trop marginale pour continuer à suciter un intérêt. Cependant, netcava.net est ouvert. Je voudrais, pour finir remercier tous ceux qui m'ont aidés à monter le BBS et ceux aussi qui l'ont fait vivre ou qui m'ont aidé ou encouragé d'une manière ou d'une autre. et en particulier : Vincent Négrier, Stéphane Gigandet, Olivier Langlois, Emmanuel Raymond, Stéphane Boulet, Jean-Baptiste Eyer, Jean-Philippe Luiggi, Francis Gastellu, Laurent Hicza, Bertrand le Guen, Pascal Pigot, Bertrand Salors, Bertrand Schmitt, Evaldas Aurila, Christophe Yvon, Christophe Thibault, Frédéric Grillo (auras tu trouvé paix et sérainité au ciel au moins?), et pour finir, mon Cosysop principal et ami de toujours : Olivier Péricat. Et une mension spéciale aussi à la comunauté des utilisateurs OS/2 des BBS français et aux membres du Team OS/2 France. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Christopher Hizny Chris Hizny here. Shout-outs to my co-sysops and users of StormWatch BBS (Peter DeVito, Keith MacCardle); the Marlboro High School group (Jason Dessel, Joseph Johnson - where are you now?); Mike Pepe (Thanks for installing the CB in my jalopy!); Todd Mirkin (RHPS BBS); Mike "The Spike" Dresnak (The Other Side); Pieter Broerson (aka Astral Traveller, sysop of the Gates of Delirium BBS - RIP, buddy); Glenn Layendecker (The Chop Shop); Mike and Joe Conklin (The Rogues Gallery - wish I could have met you IRL); Mike Fornino; Apollo DeLucia (for being contrarian, I needed it!); the users of my first board, Radio KAOS (1987-1990); Caffeine (Raw Data BBS - the purest expression of the online experience); Mr. Sandman (TEKAT); the users of Generic BBS in Eatontown, NJ (one of the best online communities ever); Slayer (Iron Cross / ICI); Oahawhool of FBR for being cool to a kid who wasn't in the warez game; Eddie The Head (The Dark Cartel); vets of Flashtalk, Weenie Chat, and Beyond Reality ddial, and the sysops of these systems who kept the links up, often at their own expense, making the world smaller for all of us; Tom Lawrence for getting my system connected to Fidonet, and scoring me my first computer job with Dave Lin (and I hadn't even met you in person!); Fidonet 2605 in New Jersey; the 80s and early 90s Central New Jersey and Jersey Shore BBS scene; alt.music.pink-floyd, #ampf, #jiggyweek, #quisp, and its regulars past and present, and my wife April, who I never would have met otherwise; Hal and Marc Levy (Apple Pirates Hideaway - my first BBS)...Special thanks to all of the developers, especially Roland DeGraaf (VirtualBBS) and Ken Pletzer/Don Gladden/Ray Kelm/Fred Dart (C-Net and Image BBS software - the best BBS packages, ever!); and lastly Jason Scott for getting what's important down in this documentary, making these fading memories real and new, once again. Any old ghosts mentioned here can mail me at chrishizny@frostwarning.com - I'd love to hear from you! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Pasternak I have been here trying to write something meaningful for 2 hours now and have come to the conclusion that I simply want to thank all of the people I met in the 216 area code using BBS's and later running The Bridge/Time Zone BBS with Mike Batt. Indeed the friendships formed then were durable - so much so that they still exist in varying degrees today. To Mike Batt (The Bounty Hunter), Eric Doubler (Klousher), Chris Zunic (Swank), Mike Richner (Sysop of Mystic Mountain), Steve Hiner, Rob Coulter (The Bard), Doug Norenberg, Ed Stange(Eightball,Sysop of Firehouse BBS), Dan Greathouse (Sysop of City Limits), Dave Drzewiecki, Andrew Metzler (Nightcrawler), Kirk Lesiacsek (Notcher): Thank you all for helping me grow up and become the person I am today... Especially to Mike Batt: thank you for being yourself - honest, humble, and friendly to everyone - you are a genuinely good person and I feel blessed to know you (and indeed, others must have seen this in you as well - the most beautiful girl in the school, Melissa McFarland married you!). To Eric Doubler: over years, across thousands of miles, we have remained friends - a tribute to the durable nature of friendships formed in the BBS community. You have always been there... Whether to talk or copy software, you have never changed... To all: I appreciate each and every one of you because you are the people that mattered most to the success of the BBS's in the area and in some way helped me grow up and become the person I am today. ...Scott Pasternak, a.k.a. The Tank. (Email: svp@case.edu). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jay Miller 'Sierra' was kind of a dumb choice, in retrospect. Too simple, far too common and, let's be honest, intending to combine computer games with a Top Gun-like call sign is bound to fail. Still, against all odds, I made some friends and The Couch Potato BBS had its own band of loyal users. Three of you in particular continue to mean as much to me as anyone ever has. Malis Avibus, my first love, you deserve the world and I hope you've found it (phblt!). David the Grey, be sure to keep your eyes open – you're doing what you love (despite the shit pay) and reality can be easy to overlook. Lady Di, my backup mother and good friend, thank you for the caring and goodness. I owe each of you more than you know, and certainly more than I can ever repay. There are, of course, a few others who still spark a memory. Dark Angel and The Gargoyle, I can scarcely imagine where you are today, but I hope it's some place awesome. I also hope, DA, that you've moved beyond Nietzsche and that you've finally forgiven me for that mistimed phone call! Darkman, I miss the adventuring, both with and without the dice – I've so far managed to keep myself from the fate of our twin wizards, and I hope you have too. C-Thru, I trust CU treated you well and please let me know if you find anything as rewarding as those nights of Might & Magic. I should also send a nod to Blackbeard, my persistent competitor in every door I could get my hands on: gg, man! @3303 was only a small piece of the local WWIVnet community, of course, and I wish nothing but the best for Don, Aldur, The Godfather, Kingslayer and the rest of the sysops who held my hand so that we could together provide the foundations of a great community. All of you, including those who I've missed, deserve a massive salute as far as I'm concerned. To that end, if any of you are still local to 303, find me immediately at jnmiller@cryptofreak.org and I'll buy you a nice, big vegetarian lunch! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Cockrum J0 j0 j0 m1n0cycl1n3 in d4 h0uz3!!!!!1! Seriously though, thanks to all you crazy kids who made the north 206 (later 425) BBS scene possible. Big thanks to Mescalito Ted for running Altered Consciousness all those years. It was clearly one of the best BBSs of that region, and I was proud to have it local. And thanks to the Sysops of my regular boards, including Firehouse, Firehouse II, Tin Pan Alley, Brad’s Pad, AJ’s BBS, Rose Garden, Arcana, Technician’s Corner, F1 Computing and the many others that I have long forgotten. And of course, thanks to DraKKon for continuing to run Hitachi Biotech, if only occasionally. And to settle a score: we all new that the WWIV BBSs in 425 were, like, way more 1337 than the VBBS boards. Especially when Starnet was up. And congratulations to King X hitching up with Dawn! Good luck you guys! ~Minocycline, a.k.a Roach --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Schappell Hi. My name is David Schappell and I was the SYSOP of the Magical Tavern BBS (215-926-3007) which I ran from approximately 1984-1986 (~age 15-17). My alias was ‘The Spaniard’ and I ran the BBS from my bedroom. My system ran on an Apple II+, two floppy drives, GBBS software, and originally a Hayes 300 baud modem, which was later upgraded to a blazing fast Novation AppleCat II 300/1200 baud modem. I remember my BBS days very fondly – I spent a ton of time glued to my computer, waiting for callers, responding to pages, trading software/textfiles, and chatting with folks from around the country. Over the years, I received thousands of callers (maybe 10,000?), and honestly don’t really remember why I finally shut down. I see that someone else ran a BBS called the Magical Tavern in PA after I shut down – maybe I gave my software to them? I just can’t remember. My only regrest is that I didn't hold onto that Apple II+ and some of the textfile printouts as nostalgia items. Two names that I remember from back then. First, Fred Shiner - he introduced me to BBS’s – he ran the Eagle’s Nest for a very short period of time. Second, Mike Huck - he ran The Harbor BBS in Reading, PA for a long time (> 10 years, I think). I hope they are both doing well. Some terms that still make me smile… Phreaking/Phreak Codes, Pirating/Cracking, the movie War Games, and the sound of a screaming modem :) If any of you visited the Magical Tavern, I’d love to hear from you. My personal website/blog is at http://www.nosnivelling.com, and you can email me at greenparrotbar (at) yahoo.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ronny Strong Hello ALL…his is Ronny Strong or MECHANIC, as most would know me. I ran the board called THE PANIC BUTTON. It was a PC board system operating in area codes 404 and 770. I started the board 08-23-93 and ran it for about 6 years. I started with a C=64, four 5in floppy drives and a 2400 baud modem. I remember up grading to a 14400 supra modem that cost 330.00. I also remember when Cregan sysop of Codex BBS, got a new 20 Meg hard drive, (that he paid like 2500.00 for) I said what the heck are you going to do with all that space!! I want to say hello to Stime sysop of Southern PC board, as he was a big help in getting my board running. Some of my other board friends, Mr. Magoo, FoxHunter, Little Smoky, Focus, Bambi, Southern Comfort, and KSyster. I know I have left a lot of folks out and want to say hello to all my old BBS friends. I also want to say thanks to my wife Nancy who has to put up with my computers and me!If anyone wants to find me you can catch me on AOL as immechanic.(Someone stole my orignal handle.) Later Ronny --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Morrissey I entered the BBS world when 2400 baud modems were the big thing. I started the Hard Rock BBS on an old XT machine and a second phone line. Learning to run Remote Access along with all of the complimentary programs gave me the experience and knowledge I needed to bust out of a dead end job into technology. Something I still enjoy to this day. I walked into a job at a software company that required that I follow batch file processes to diagnose issues. Batch files you say? Yah, I knew just a bit about those. Didn’t we all? I met many great people and have many fond memories because of the local and national BBS community. I am proud to say Hard Rock was up 24/7 for 7 years. I still meet people who recognize my name, mention that they were a regular visitor to my BBS, and some who confess I had to remove them from a FidoNet board or two. A badge of honor as far as I am concerned! I feel like an old fart trying to explain to the young ones out there about what a BBS is, and that there was actually a way to use an online service with people in your immediate area. The internet is great, but it will never have the community like we did. A tip of that hat to all the other Sysops out there… Jeff Morrissey Sysop – Hard Rock BBS Nixa Missouri --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kevin Fredde I’m Kevin Fredde, sysop of Graffiti BBS in Hays & Great Bend, Ks from 90 – 96. I ran VBBS software, a cutting-edge BBS software offering scripting and BBS networking. I ran door games like TradeWars, Barren Realms Elite, LORD, etc. I ran several GB of file downloads on rotating shareware CDs. I ran networked message boards on VNet, etc. Through these I was able to offer internet e-mail and usenet newsgroups for free starting in 1993, 3 years before any ISP came to my town. I grew up in a small Midwestern town where nobody I knew even had a computer at home, let alone had heard of “online” or “BBS”. I had a used Apple II+ and first used a BBS in 1983 in high school, having friends over to dial BBSs long distance. It’s hard to explain the feeling of excitement of doing something that most people had probably not even heard of or would know what is. I believe the internet wouldn’t have gotten off to its early popularity if it hadn’t been for BBSs leading the way. Modems and online usage wouldn’t have been as popular as they were if it were not for BBSs. Chatting, e-mail, file downloads, zip, message boards, online games, etc. all came from the BBS era and had been around for years before the WWW came along and made them popular. Using BBSs you felt like you were part of an elite club that knew something the general population didn’t. With the WWW, you are just one of the millions of users and don’t really notice that what you are viewing is coming from another computer. On a BBS it felt like you were going some place you shouldn’t because you were logging onto a system on someone else’s personal computer. Using a BBS always seemed very “active”, you were participating in something as you were navigating the menus, while using the web seems very “passive”, clicking from page to page reading the text then moving on to the next link. BBSs had a community feeling to them. I made a lot of great friendships through my BBS and want to thank all my users. k_fredde@yahoo.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Lee Lo. This is Mike Lee, AKA Modem Master. First, I would like to thank Jason Scott for dedicating himself to this worthwhile project so this part of history will not be lost. I am very happy to have made the trip to the Vintage Computer Festival 7.0, to be able to see the “Beta” showing, and meet Jason and others in person. I felt quite nostalgic after watching this documentary. The aspects of BBS life were all too familiar. BBS life was actually very social. There was a definitely a sense of community, localization allowed for “gatherings.” There were BBSes for everything and everyone. I would redial over and over; I couldn’t wait to get on the BBSes, see the newest uploaded files, read the latest messages, play my door game turns, and chat with the other people online. I remember all the BBSes in the Chicagoland area I would frequent, too many to list them all here. My favorites included Nuclear Greenhouse, Point Zer0, Jokertown, Ripco, and The Dragon’s Hoard. The Dragon’s Hoard still operates as of today (telnet tdh.com), and I am one of the sysops. TDH started as a one node Renegade BBS, converted to a Galacticomm Major BBS system with Major Mud running eight nodes, and eventually finding itself on the Internet. We used to joke, “TDH, made from the best junk on earth.” Which wasn’t too far from the truth sometimes. We did whatever we could to keep it running, and make it better. BBSes made differences in people’s lives, and TDH was no different. Many friends exist because of BBSes, and TDH. TDH was very social, originally located in Glenview, IL, frequented by people from all over, and locals, many from Glenbrook South HS. There would be an almost permanent network (LAN party) in the basement where the BBS was. We frequented Denny’s so much, most of us never want to see a Meat Lover Skillet again. It has been many years, but we gather every year at our usual spot at the Taste of Chicago, and many old users still come by, and say hello. Finally, on behalf of everyone I need to thank my good friend Lone Wolf (Greg), who over the years has always been there for a friend to all. To sum up, below is a capture of the login screen as of Nov. 09, 2004, 16:24GMT. WELCOME TO THE DRAGON'S HOARD Node: 23 Baud: 38400 Total Calls: 1707394 Users Currently on: 37 Total Accounts: 3625 _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ Online _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ Services _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ (Keeping people addicted since 1992) Welcome to The Dragon's Hoard Type "NEW" for an account. UserID: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian J. Bernstein Greetings to everyone, and especially the users of my BBS "Dronefone" back in the day. I have very fond memories of 1984-1992 when I used to be active in the BBS community of northern New Jersey (201 area code); one of my best friends to this day was a user who picked up the phone when I answered to say "The BBS will be back up in half an hour." Greetings to the BBS Triumverate, Iron Knight, The Armenian Terrorist, Shortround, What Sibley, Gandalf, Sauron, The Axe, Morbid the Cow, Mountain Man, Boris Schmecker, and everyone else I ever met or had conversations with. My BBS may be long shut off and the old Apple II and Sider may be quietly losing their bits in storage, but I've kept a lot of what was there and hope to pull it out one day for old times' sake. There is one thing to be said about the BBS days: it was a terrific thing to go home at the end of the day, grab a cup of coffee (or a pop-tart), kick your feet up and see what transpired on your BBS that day. Small communities of people who may have disagreed with each other at times, but still came back on a regular basis to meet up again. The Internet just doesn't have the same feel. Thanks to Jason Scott for putting together this DVD set, and I had a blast contributing to it. Thanks for the memories! Brian Bernstein, aka "Drone" from Dronefone BBS. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Allen Barriere What’s up 603! The fish would have been nothing without the help of many boards and people around the area. The Frozen Desert was the first board for me to see, and the model of excellence the Thirsty Fish became. Thanks to Pharcyde and the Upper Deck for hosting a brother board, the Extremist for the Ansi Art, and Kellar for actually posting to my message boards. A huge thanks to Pipkin for taking over the board for its last two years and closing out a very memorable 5 year run. From the upgrade from TriBBS to Renegade, we took this board to the next level, and everyone that called in rocked! What would I have done with my free time in the late 90's without this awesome board to run or you great people calling in to chat! As one of the first boards to crest the 1 gig mark in New Hampshire, we shared some great times. Hope you all are doing well, and have an opportunity to see this. Best of luck in whatever you all are doing, and rock on! -The Psycho Membrane --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- David "Greeny" Greenberg Wow! It's been a few years since Jason schlepped to my house with the camera, lights, and his other stuff. I'd dug out my old friend "The Underworld" BBS and like all good things - it fired right up (even the shoebox-sized hard drive). Such a flood of memories of all things good (shouts to: Sherwood Forest II and III, OSUNY, The Greek Inn, ChiNet, and others I've probably lost to the cobwebs in the brain...). I'd never thought that letting my dad win the argument in the Niles ComputerLand over Commodore Pet v. Apple ][ would turn into such a wonderful set of experiences, friends, and career... I've made some wonderful friends along the way (shouts to: Sorceress, Apprentice, and Ford Prefect) and I'm blessed to still know them all. I can't wait to watch the entire set of episodes, and *FINALLY* after all these years, put faces with the people I confered and chatted and emailed and notesgrouped and usenetted with! I wish I could make the preview and Festival, but alas, I just started a new job and can't get the time off... But know that I'll be there in spirit. Bye for now but not for long, Greeny aka The Pyro P.S. To Jason's Dad: Yeah, he's a hacker, which means he's driven and a little kooky at times - but here's the secret: We're all the same... which is why we let him in our lives to create this masterpiece! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Todd MacDermid Doctor Z, sysop of the Cutting Edge (203 at the time, but now 860) says "Hola" to Spiko, Squid, Falcore, Zaphod, and the whole ESLF gang. G.H.O.S.T. cleaned up 2041, 2042. Also praise to Evil Stevie and the Illuminati BBS folks. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shaun Root Greets to the entire artscene, especially: Sketchcow, Slothy, Farmy, Darkmage, Mass Delusion, Raganaga, Quantum-X, Mynx, Mr. Mister, Syntax Error, Geckzilla, Lord Scarlette, Sinned Soul, Hitman, Corpulent Cow, Rainmaker, Red Dwarf, Heinzon, DJ Monkeyboy, Empyrean, Epoch of Entropy, Leonardo, Davinci, MagneticM, Radman, JamieM, Mongi, Maxetormer, Mr. De Graaf, Razghul, Rogue Leader, Roland, Sakamies, sPaz, Silicon Ghost, Tetanus, Toon Goon, Trip, Aphid Twix, Catbones, Danger Mouse, Dr. Detroit, the rest of iCE, ACiD, Breed, Noir, Raster, all the artscene groups that have come and gone over the years, The Speed Shop BBS, Frog Pond BBS, Thunderstorm BBS, of course the great Odium BBS rocking 3o2 from '89 to '96. - My real name is Root! m3 n07 1337 hax0r! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lauri Rauhanen Hello! Im Lauri Rauhanen, known as Reanimator in the ANSI artscene. Firstly i'd like to thank Jason Scott for making the BBS Documentary, great work man! I personally started going to the BBS systems early 90's, and not long after that i started drawing ANSI graphics. I was lucky enough to join ACiD productions pretty soon after my first releases in flavOr, small artgroup found by a finnish ANSI artist called "Tarot". Back in the day ACiD was really the artgroup to be in, specially here in Finland. I can assure you, by writing "ACiD" as my location gave me noratios to almost every BBS :-D, very useful. It is hard to describe to people how great atmosphere BBS systems had, they were like huge families. You really had to live the time to know what it was like.. If you werent there then, check the documentary, i bet it'll give you some idea :). Nowadays im doing hirez art in iCE, the sworn enemy of ACiD :D Ok.. in the end i'd like to greet some of my friends: RadMan (for admitting me into ACiD), Tainted, Vill3, Ansichrist, Tarot (for admitting me into flavOr), Alvan, Spikey, Deeply Disturbed (for calling me in the middle of the night!), Maestro (your ansis were the bomb!), Milkmang (hah you weirdo) and all the ansiscene legends + the people i forgot. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chip Berlet (John F. Berlet) This is Chip Berlet, webmaster publiceye.org. The AMNET BBS went online in Chicago in July 1985. I was the Sysop. The group of people who helped set up AMNET were in part reacting to the growth of the racist and anti-Semitic Aryan Nation/Ku Klux Klan BBS networks. Others sought a way for civil rights and civil liberties activists to exchange computerized information. Some were worried about the attack on working people by union-busters, or the growth of the electoral New Right. All were concerned with civil liberties, and were worried about attempts to pass legislation restricting the rights of all BBS's. Among the first files posted were complete instructions (from FOIA, Inc.) on how to use the federal Freedom of Information Act to obtain files held by government agencies--perhaps the first fill-in-the-blank FOIA kit posted on a BBS. Funding came from the National Lawyers Guild Civil Liberties Committee with additional support from Midwest Research, which later became Political Research Associates. AMNET was the second progressive BBS to go online after Richard Gaikowski’s NEWSBASE in California. Gaikowski helped us modify the RBBS code. Cyber-pioneer Irv Hoff wrote AMNET special modem code. Local techie Al Fenske kept the AMNET hardware running. I picked up much help by lurking on the technical CBBS run by Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss. An early campaign launched by AMNET was to alert other BBS’s and their users to the Telecommunications and Privacy Act of 1986. AMNET worked with The Well and Paul Bernstein’s LAWMUG BBS to organize modem users to contact public officials whose staff was drafting the legislation. The funding AMNET received from the NLG Civil Liberties Committee was in part to explicitly operate as a public information forum and to serve as a test case if legislation was passed that restricted the First Amendment rights of BBS's. For more about AMNET visit: http://www.publiceye.org/aboutpra/pe_bbshist.html. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Myers You have been eaten by a grue. --Mark "The Dove" Myers --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jack Driscoll Hi, this is Jack Driscoll, no one in particular. Unfortunately, I came a little late for the BBS scene; I didn't get my first computer until '96 or so. Though I never got involved, it fueled much of my thirst for knowledge through it's continuing legacy online. I was always interested and intrigued by the files I'd come across from the BBS days. I remember getting to the bottom and seeing those numbers, wishing I had free long distance (or a laptop and some wire *eh-hem*), wondering if they were still running. I never managed to get on a BBS but their spirit still affected me. I'll never forget the Hacker's Manifesto, boxes, acronyms, ASCII art and the sense of community that prevailed. At a time when I felt out of place and alone, I found a source of other people that shared my values and interests. It gave me something to give a shit about. I was so stoked when I heard about the documentary, it sounds absolutely amazing; and the add-a-paragraph idea rocks! I can't wait to watch it. I'd like to thank Brian, Ross, Alex, Teresa, Jeff, Marc and others I'm not including; you made high school livable (perhaps even fun?). Mrs. Au, Mr. Pierson, and Mr Limmer, for showing me that I wasn't worthless and actually teaching me something. My parents, for my first computer...and their love and support or something like that...j/k, Mom. Of course, God, or whatever you want to call it; nothing would be here otherwise. The BBS scene, textfile writers, the cDc and PLA - always a source of entertainment, and the "hacking scene" in general. Also, thanks to SDF (http://www.freeshell.org/) for kicking major ass. Last, but not least, Jason Scott: as if textfiles.com wasn't cool enough, now this?! It's hard for me to describe what my early involvement in computers and electronics was all about or how it influenced and shaped me, but I can say that I am forever indebted to it. So, thanks to everyone. ~oE]:-| LOL -jackd@sdf.lonestar.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Schaudies <----------------------------------------------> <= ISENGARD BBS / 409 / PORT ARTHUR, TX / RIP => <----------------------------------------------> <= <-> ALLEN <-> MICHAEL <-> BONNER <-> => <----------------------------------------------> <= The Three Musketeers Shall Ride Again... => <----------------------------------------------> <= COMMODORE 64 / APPLE //e / TRS-80 => <----------------------------------------------> <= <<<-8->>> <<<- 8-BIT POWER! ->>> <<<-8->>> => <----------------------------------------------> <= Thanks: Alan Turing, Konrad Zuse, John von => <= Neumann, Grace Hopper, Bill Shockley, Ken => <= Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, => <= Charles Moore (Forth), Gary Kildall (CP/M),=> <= Steve Wozniak, Bjarne Stroustrup, Richard => <= Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Don Maslin and => <= all of the world's Hackers... => <= => <----------------------------------------------> <= ~*~*~* He Who Dares, Wins! *~*~*~ => <----------------------------------------------> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- David R. Chase Anyone who was around the 617 area code in the early 90’s might remember the name Dragonfire BBS (formerly World Wide Wedgie). Growing up around my cousin, Timewalker/DrSane/Ennui/Loophole (sysop of Pixel Rain, one of the best RPGBBS boards in the area, IMHO) I was exposed to the BBS culture and multitude of societies for many years. It became a part of me to such a degree that I felt like a little piece of me died when my board went down in 1997 and my cousin’s shortly after. The people that run their boards on the net (telnet/ssh-accessible), and even those that take it a step further and run dialup BBSes, should be commended for keeping this integral part of our heritage alive and kicking. The BBS era was a keystone time, a defining moment in a lot of our lives, and it should never be forgotten. Greetz to: VEGAVEX, Timewalker/Dr. Sane/Ennui/Loophole, Nonlinear/Mobyduck, Knowisdom, Tiny, Alterleo, Crazy Coota, Kriation, VolVEd, Myriad/Dr. Stupid, Tiny the Barkeep, Pinkrose, et al. Shout outs to the users of Pixel Rain, Dragonfire, Argus, The IMPosium, and anywhere else I may have forgotten about. I’m sure there are more than a few. Dragonfire BBS: (617)846-xxxx, 1x1200 baud line, 450+ MB files (more than you could ever dream of!), 30+ message boards, 20+ door games (including TW2002 and Murder Motel), open 24/7! END OF LINE --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Podsada (oblius, Corpse) Some of my most memorable times were in the BBS era. Xmas 1990, my parents brought home a Tandy 1000 RL with a 2,400bps modem (to replace my VIC-20). A good friend of mine got the same computer too! It wasn't long before we were dialing up BBS's all over the continent and raking up $400.00 phone bills for hundreds of calls totaling around $0.50-$1.00 each. But it was so cool to get "out there" and see things and meet people from all over. All from this box on a desk! The local boards were fairly lame, you know, Wildcat with the default screens, etc. Nothing remotely underground. We quickly got tired of the Wildcats in the area, and decided to start some of our own. My first was "Wasteland BBS" running Obv/2. My friend moved to a larger city around that time, which sucked, but he got connected up with some bigger boards and met more people in the 403 scene. He ran a few groups (PHOBiA, FiERCE, etc.), but his lasting legacy was Bethlehem BBS (I made a logo ANSi for it and some kids later on wrote a tribute to Bethlehem after it was shut down.) Around this same time, I revamped my board as "nokturnal dementia", all new ANSi (my ANSi was improving), new everything (except obv/2 v2.30 – I loved that boardware!) So now with my buddy gone, I had the only "underground" board in the area with HVAC files, among other things (ok, we were wankers, but it was fun).. I got a lot of stuff from my buddy and brought it to the local area. I was also trying to get an art group started at the time, Chalice Productions, but we only ever released one pack (and it was BAD..) That's when things started to decline. It was '95, and the first ISP opened up in my city. I got online, "they" got online, and because my phone line was tied up from IRC usage, nokturnal dementia slowly started fading away. In 1996 or early 1997, I burned the board to a CD, and put on a shelf something that was very dear to me. Man did I not know how much I would miss what I have on that CD! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shaun Rossi Generally speaking the most popular use of a computer today is to get on the web and to exchange email. It's amazing how quickly a computer becomes useless to some when an Internet connection fails or is unavailable. I recall the BBS era having an equally annoying problem at times - busy signals! There would be times I would anxiously be attempting to connect to several of my favorite local bulletin boards, only to find the telephone circuit would be tied up by another caller – for hours. With the Internet, this is something we no longer experience and have long forgotten about. Personally, I have always found a busy signal to be a greater annoyance than a long or slow download. My frustrations with busy signals were my inspiration for setting up my own BBS. I could log into my BBS any time I wanted while simultaneously accepting other users who dialed into the system. 'Secrets of the Universe' was up for several years in the Toronto area, until a hard drive crash. After the crash I spent days attempting to rebuild the BBS. With the Internet gaining in popularity at the time, the number of people calling the BBS rapidly diminished. Not long after the rebuild I finally decided to 'pull the plug'. I’d like to say ‘thank you’ to all of the Secrets of the Universe callers, and to the people who registered our ‘Good Deeds’ ANSI screen generator. Thank you Jason Scott for creating this documentary on one of the best things that happened to the world of computing. Greetings and best wishes to my friends and all who were a part of the BBS scene - what a great time we had! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Christer Mjellem Strand Hello everyone, this is Christer Mjellem Strand, to many better known as Yitzhaq/ex-Proxima. Several years ago, I was the SysOp of a Norwegian PC demoscene BBS called CountZero, which lasted from October 95 to August 98. CountZero appeared about the same time that Sidewalk Cafe, widely regarded as the best Norwegian PC demoscene board of it's time, was closing down. This would leave a void that needed to be filled, so I got together with Calvin/Proxima, who would be the CoSysOp, and got to work. The board grew to be a lot bigger than any of us had imagined, and even though it never passed that one node barrier, it was still very well received. What made it work was the concentrated focus on the demoscene, and the international efforts that others weren't making. It was on all the major demoscene networks, offered free email and Usenet to all users, and was affiliated with over 200 groups, which I to this day believe to be a world record. The focus was first and foremost files, most of which were grabbed hot off the net, and the professional but clean PCBoard setup was more inviting for traders than the MBBS hacks that most other demoscene boards in Norway were running. After years of massive advertising, the board was forced to move several times within a year. This, combined with the general decreasing interest in BBSes, eventually forced the board to close. But it certainly was a good run, and many still consider CountZero as The Norwegian Demoscene Board of the late BBS era. Unfortunately CountZero did not go out with a bang, like I had hoped, but just sadly faded away to one day disappear. I never really had a chance to thank its loyal users, but to anyone reading this who have the faintest idea of what I'm talking about, thank you for all your support! The CountZero brand is still alive, even if the board isn't, and now resides at countzero.no. One day I might have a brush of nostalgia, restore the few backup tapes that are still working, and put some kind of memorial up there. For now, CountZero is a hosting project, currently served by a trustworthy server named Betty, that offers free hosting of services to projects and people we deem fit. Thanks for reading! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Isbitski “Hello World,”...this is Michael Isbitski! When I hear the acronym, BBS, I get warm fuzzy feelings. I remember my brother, Dave, running one of his own in the early days on his Amiga. I believe it was a 500, which eclipsed my measly Commodore 64c. I think he had a 1200 baud modem at the time while I was limited to a measly 300. We would watch each individual character pop up as the screen slowly appeared before our eyes. It was slow as molasses, but we loved it anyway. We jumped in head first, excited over something so new to us. We were nerd pioneers. No one outside of the BBS world knew what our hobby was, nor could they have fathomed it. Those were the days when the internet was barely even reachable to the hardcore, let alone the masses. Web browsers weren’t even conceived of yet unless you were talking about LYNX. If we wanted graphics, we drew them using DOS-based ANSI editing programs. Our hobby, and those experiences, carried us through to our careers. I will always hold a special place in my heart for the BBS era. My own BBS, The Warrior’s Realm (NJ), was a great passion of mine. I spent most of my sophomore year of high school constantly tweaking it, focused on learning everything I could about computers and networking rather than school work. I even ended up forming an ANSI art group, HiP, during the height of their popularity, which really allowed me to explore my artistic side. In the long run, it was all worth it more than words can describe. Thanks go to Mom and Dad for supporting our passion for computing and loving us in spite of our sometimes extremely nerdy ways. Thanks go to God for granting me and my brother our computing skills and the gift of being able to transform our hobbies into a career to support our families while still keeping it all fun. And finally, thanks go to my wife, Nicole, for supporting me in my older nerd years and sharing in my continuing enthusiasm for all things techie. Long live the BBS users! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Russel Brooks Early in April 1981 with my Rev.0 Apple 2, a hand wired serial card, and a borrowed acoustic modem I called another computer for the first time. I was hooked, here was a use for all this hardware I was collecting! A 300 baud Hayes Smart Modem (Apple model) soon followed. Later with my IBM PC and another 300 baud Hayes I was online with PC Talk. (I still have that Hayes modem on the shelf.) I went thru multiple modems 1200 baud, 2400, eventually got my US Robotics v.Everything (which I still use). Qmodem became my software of choice though there were others after PC Talk. I remember hunting for the latest and greatest versions Zmodem to speed up those transfers. Most of my calling was to local boards but I did call Xevious in MA (from San Jose, CA) once a week I thought it so good. Suddenly it all stopped. First the busy signals got fewer and fewer and then the BBSes themselves started going away. This new thing called the Internet had stolen all the users and without callers a BBS has little reason to exist. What a sad time. I still miss the BBSes. There was an excitement that I've never replaced with the internet. Ring... Ring... Ring... Beep... Boop... Bong, Bong, Bong, Hssssssss... [Connect] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ryan Clifford This is Ryan Clifford (Who, Dr. Who etc) from Victoria British Columbia Canada. I started BBSing when i was about 12 years old back in the early 90's. Some BBS's i spent time on up here in Victoria were, VORTEX of PLANEZ, The "X", Aladdins Palace, Camelot, Mojave Desert, Tommy's Holiday Camp, The Temple, Information Overload. One of my fondest memories was running STS-14 for a little while with 9 phone lines. It was the only STS/Chat/CB Simulator type system in Victoria when it was online, taking the place of Information Overload and the "X" when they ceased to exist. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris J. Dear Viewer, while many of the people present in this documentary were in their own ways special, few had any one thing that we do not all have. Their desire to create, in this case some of the earliest electronic forums available to the average person, was what set them apart. There is nothing stopping you from adding your own mark in a similar fashion. Or at the very least, nothing stopping you from trying. So get out there and be an active creator, not just a passive viewer. Yours, Chris J. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Rosowski This is Krux, sysop of The Hotel California, a BBS based in out of Las Vegas Nevada, was established on July 14th, 1994 and continued to accept calls until December 11th, 1999. While it's focus was on ANSI, Music, VGA Demos, and related areas, the BBS really thrived as a message board, bringing together a community of people, and making several long lasting friendships in the process. Over it's lifetime, the system saw over 17,000 calls, and over 96,000 messages posted. Users came and went over the years, but there were a few who really made the board what it was. Today, many of them are still around on The Hotel California's reincarnated web form at http://thcnet.net. I'd like to give a shout out to the uses of The Hotel California, so here is the list, in order of user id, including their status on THC, and their affiliations: Krux, the man, the sysop, that's me, AOD; Voltaic, founder, sp0rk, sysop of The Red Light District; Stealth, founder, Soul; Delirium, founder, Goddess of Genocide; Stone the Crow, founder, MGD, sysop of Total Meltdown, ansi god; Dun Malg, founder, Rezog Softwerks, 373373; Katharsis (a.k.a. Quietus), founder; Crunch (a.k.a. Jerky), founder, AOD, sysop of Chicken Pot Pie; Lysene, founder; Format C:, founder sysop of Planet X; Sleazy Pancake, founder; Joanna Rand, founder; Doppleganger, member; Tele, founder; The Gland, member; Scully, member; Wolfbane, founder; Shadowbeast, member, Ph1zz4t; Ryan, founder; Birdy, member; Wozzeck (WozzAk), member, Center for Badassity Control; Caliber, member; Savant, member; Rub, founder, The Mantis Group, AOD; Nicodemis, member Delusion, member, sysop of The Bloody Spear; Madarab, member; Ricker, Seriously Elite, DORK, sysop of Free Beer; Unicron, member. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jason Fesler Dear Dad: *This* is what I was up to those years, when people asked you if you were related to this other Fesler guy. Greets to all the overclockers who got 450+ baud out of their 300 baud modems, and a mighty hearty head nod to Ward C. Art, JoHo, Arjen, Burt, David.. Yes, I know, the beer tab is yet to be settled. You too, Tom O. Final and most important thank you goes to Doug Langley, who had the best set of eyes I could hope for beta testing my gear. I owe my career today back to the captivation and imagination that the BBS world brought me into. Jason Fesler WME BBS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Allen My name is Mark Allen and my introduction to BBSes happened when I was just a kid. At first it was one friend and I chatting over our 300 baud modems. Eventually I got a USR 14.4 HST modem, which was an internal full length card. I felt so empowered. My adolescence was spent lusting after a USR dual standard modem. BBS "Doors" are where I got inspired to learn programming. I had been exposed to programming earlier in life thanks to my parents, but BBSes are where I got into the mentality of it all. Today my wife Marie and my daughters Sarah and Savannah all think I'm a nerd, and they're right, and BBSes are a large part of that. Oh and once I got to talk to one of the founders of FIDO Net, which really made my day. I was a leaf node. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Durham Hello there. I was sorry to see I missed the dead line for submitting a paragraph for the BBS Doc DVD. I did however want to let you know that I was an avid BBS user starting in 1986. A bit of a late comer compared to some of the users and Sysop's, I will never forget my 1st online experience and seeing the Fidonet dog draw up on my screen. The BBS changed my entertainment life forever. Those were some good old days that will live in my heart and mind forever. I almost feel sorry for those that never experienced BBS's before the internet came along. They sure missed out on an era that had a certain innocence and an astounding respect for fellow people on-line. Back in the days when it was a big hobby and everyone did it for fun (till those dreaded pay boards came along) I only happen to cross your Documentary site a year or so ago and I did want to say it's a great idea and certainly a just topic to document so other's may experience what has all but been lost to the rise of the internet. Also I just wanted to toss out a possible idea if you should do any future documentaries on this. Mail and mail programs were a big part of BBS's I thought it would be neat to talk about them and list them as well. (even the cute little ANSI games like global wars (lol). I remember one of my favorite mail programs as a user was Bluewave. I will be ordering the DVD set in the near future. THANKS AGAIN! for providing me a way to share a little of my online history with those I know. This is dedicated to my favorite BBS Sysop - Terry Hanson. Brian Durham BBS User since 1986 Lebanon, Va. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joey Standord The birth of a personal computing technology in the early 80s led to some fascinating times. I remember writing BBS software as well as astronomical long distance bills for using BBS systems around the world. More than once I had lost my telephone privileges. Despite this, it was worth it. I met many interesting people, including Jason Scott, during my early traveling. The culture that formed from the various BBS systems eventually led to the colonization of the Internet by the hardened pioneers of the BBS error. The BBS is dead. Long Live the BBS. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shannon Nelson Most people think that the Internet was born in the mid-90's when Netscape came out. They don't know that more than a decade before hand, the online community was already deeply established. As soon as the computer could send signals through the phone line, there was a community around it, talking about books, games, politics, relationships, and even the occasional recipe. I had the good fortune to fall in as a minor character with a group creating online fiction on the fly. I have fond memories of the adventures of the Innkeeper, Piper, Bard, Milchar, L'homme sans Parity, and the rest of those lucky enough to pass by the great Rowan tree at the Backwater Inn. Thanks, Mikey! .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.emu --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Benjamin Hauger This is RedEVIL, cosysop of Planet Zero BBS. I just wanna give a shout to everyone who was part of the microcosm that was the 814/Johnstown local calling area scene. In particular: Hawx, Slipstream, The Noid and all the good folks at the Slu Factory, and everyone else who rose above the drama and linenoise. Greetz to those of you who helped keep our Apple IIgs and 2400 baud modem humming past the witching hour before the Internet was en vogue. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ed Grether Hey there, this is Ed Grether, also once known as Mr.Chips. I'd like to thank everyone who wrote some code or paid for an extra phone line to make all of our lives a little better. Cheers. Ed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- peterb I'm heartened and warmed inside that somewhere in the world there is someone else who, inexplicably, has an irrational, nostalgic attachment to underengineered and obsolete software, and the communities it engendered. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Garfield Hello everybody! Steve Garfield here from stevegarfield.com These day's I'm working on helping people to easily get video on the net through the use of tools like video blogs. Back in 1984, I used to run a Macintosh BBS in Boston called Mac Boston. It was run out of the basement of a store I worked at called Northeast Computer Stores. Those were fun times. It was exciting back then when my message board started to fill up with regular users from all over the world. Everyone dialing in to that single phone line to share their experiences with the then brand new Macintosh computer. At first I ran the BBS on an IBM XT, but after I could add a modem and a hard drive to the Mac, I switched over. Thanks Jason for telling the story of BBS's and for including the Mac! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rob Patton I'm Rob Patton, aka Fred Flintstone, now RobPattonDotCom. My bbs calling days started in the early 80s with my first TI 99/4a, and while I did not have a modem, I met a guy by the name of Blaine Richard, who eventually ran TITS bbs, on the TI computer. Right away I knew that running a bbs was what *I* wanted to do. The power of being a SysOp would be almost as great as having my own car (I was 14) My bbs running days started in Fern Park, Fl in 1984 with the arrival of my first MPP 1000E modem. I my bbs started with OASIS, Then FoReM, FoReMXe, then a homebrew of IRD_BBS. IRD_BBS was a co-operative effort between me, James Tackett (The Ring Bearer, of the Realm of the Ring BBS) and Jon Taylor (The Stainless Steel Rat, of the DiskBank BBS). Working with those two guys was some of the best times of my life, and I'm glad to still know them. Later, I ran Bedrock64, on a C=64 for a short time, till I was convinced that commodore was sub-quality hardware. During this time, Bedrock ST, run by Frank H. Zahrt III was online, with Frank using the handle of Barney (Rubble). Later my own bbs moved to the PC, and in 1995 we finally pulled the plug. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred Owsley Hey this is Fred, I'd like to thank and congradulate Jason Scott on undertaking such a large, important project to preserve and explain some history. While only coming to know him recently and making new friends since moving to 617, I feel privledged to screen and provide input on pieces of the documentary. As far as BBS links, I'd like mention a few in 804 that helped shape my early computing experience. The V.I.N.E., C.O.M.A. - 13th Floor, ProjectDamocles, Freeware Hall of Fame. You helped me deal with middle school and growing up in Virginia. A big shout to Amnion of SITM, you opened the doors to me and I thank you. A big thanks to whoever setup UVa as a public dialup to WAIS/Gopher/Veronica/GWIS and a big you suck to whoever enabled logins. But we overcame that. I was never a Sysop, but always a curious user with sometimes large phone bills. A shout out to Rusty, thanks for overtaking my room to visit 804 and download nudie pics, I guess 703 just wasn't hot enough. Finnaly a thanks to all the people I've met in 617, too many to name, but long live Boston-2600/21, the Hasty Pastry and all the craziness that seems to happen whenever we are together. <=| phredo/raegor/are3cod3/biot |=> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The Arcade Room BBS, The Arcade Complex, The Seas of Cheese (410-877-7751) by Gamer forever! Greets to the Palace of the Gods BBS!" --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brandon Boyer It's hard to recall or even imagine the pre-commercial-internet digital landscape, but I wouldn't be here now without all of the people and organizations that I met and frequented during my teenage years. Back then, in the 214, I was most commonly known as Stuart What? My initial base of operation was Shattered Paradigms, which also served as gateway to my horrifyingly embarrassing first Usenet posts (forever preserved, thanks to Google). Aside from there, SlackLand (the original BBS of the SubGenius), LSD-25, Club Baby Seal and their sysops -- Rev. Vinnie, Ascender, and Zippy, respectively -- all were a very welcome respite from the teenage suburban wasteland, and all became good friends beyond the modem. Greets to all of them, and to Cilantro, Sybil, and the myriad others whose nick has since faded away. Brandon Boyer [Stuart, StuX, Stooie, Stuart What?] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jennifer Palumbo This is for my husband, a former BBSer. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- James Evans I do not remember the first time I used my computer to communicate with another computer, yet it changed my life forever. It was probably in the late 1980s, when I was less than 10 years old and my life centered around playing Sierra On-Line's adventure games. I was excited to dial into their new BBS and download hints, or, if I was lucky, demos for their upcoming games. Over time I became more curious about these faraway systems - "What exactly are these servers I am connecting to?" "How can a computer 'talk' over the phone lines?" I grew to be amazed by the idea of telecommunication, and the depth and breadth of knowledge that was contained within its world; from the physical layer of electrons flowing over copper wires, to the upper layer data-transfer protocols, to the even higher level of file compression. Thankfully, my parents never discouraged me from spending too much time on the computer - yet due to the poor public education system, and a lack of adults who were also *truly fascinated* with the digital world, I was forced to learn by myself. In some ways, this was good, as it taught me that ever so important skill - but in other ways, it limited my knowledge. That was true at least until I met many like-minded individuals in cyberspace itself, who were more than willing to share what they knew. Still, as computers have become commoditized over the years, they are viewed by most as 'just another tool', and everyone has one on their desk. The machine has been abstracted away, and most are content to treat them almost as a microwave oven, without much of a care as to their most inner workings. Of course nobody is to blame for this. It is normal human behaviour to trivialize technology. Indeed, technological advances can only happen when technology is simple to use, and our market economy furthers research by selling tech to the masses. We are still in a Golden Age. I was just lucky enough to be born during the early days of the revolution. -Keystroke --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Kervaski My first modem was 110 baud with an accoustic coupler that we dug out of a dumpster from my father's employer sometime around 1980. I was 10 years old. That and a couple AT&T UNIX boxes. We managed to get them connected and were typing back and forth on the terminals. Me at my house and my accomplice at his. That was all it took, we were addicted. It didn't take more than a few months to have our first BBS online with the new shiny C64 and the 110k disk drive that cost me my life savings at the time running RIBIT BBS. We switched it to CNET soon after when I bought a 2MB hard drive that took about 5 minutes to "spin up" before it could be used. From 1980 to 1992 I ran probably a dozen Boards. The most presigious was GoDS (the Guild of Demented Sysops) which ran comfortably at first on CNET BBS on an Amiga 1000, then on PCBoard and at it's peek was 10 lines. I wish I could show you all the setup. Three computers running OS/2 with a stack of USRobotics Modems in all their black HST glory (The HST as many will remember was the USR propriatary protocol that broke the 2400 baud barrier). There was over 200MB of hard drive space! (My current desktop at home has 500GB - it still amazes me how dense hard drives are now compared to then). The board catered to the "elite". I joined the military in 1990, leaving the bbs running to be maintained by the elected Sysops, many of them I'd never met in person. It ran for years without any intervention in a friends attic. They moved and it ran for 3 full months before the new residents discoverd a stack of dusty equipment hidden in the corner of their attic. We quickly cut them in on some of the donations and they were quite content never knowing the ridiculous quantity of people that were collaborating electronically in their attic, most of questionable character I'm sure. The donations that came it (which coicidentally gave download credits to users who's upload to download ratios were out of control) paid for the phone bills until the system finally started getting less and less traffic and eventually just died out. We knocked it down to 2 lines, installed a couple pioneer CDROM autochangers and put six CD's online, changed the name, took all the ansi art out, and setup a subscription service for user sto download pictures of people having sex. I made a small fortune, it grew very quickly back to 10 lines. I bought a car with the earnings and eventually sold it to that family that was kind enought to host the equipment. It was making about $750-$1000/month. I think it ran for about 2 years at which point it lost popularity to the impending Internet. I got out of the military in 1997 and started a technology company and have been going strong ever since. People are always asking me how I know so much about so many different aspects of telecommunications and microcomputers. I try to explain it was all because of my BBS days where we were forced to improvise using discarded equipment and no "Google" to get answers quick, we had to figure it out for ourselves. The response I get just about every time is "What is a BBS". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------