Those old BBS days...

[tezza]

Ah yes, I remember Telemate well! Great program....

mm.. TELIX was the one I remember... mostly because I was a too lazy to configure external modules for download protocols and it supported ZMODEM, plus the sideband chat feature directly.

Telix was my PC BBS client program of choice too.

[arjoll]

I'm late into this conversation as well

I only really got into BBS's in 1990 when I bought an internal 2400 modem from TL Systems for my 286! I was a regular on the Invercargill BBS's and used to hang out with some of the sysops (a group of us would spend all night talking about nothing over at the "home" of Baud of the City with sysops Kathy and Scott!).

Over the next year or so I started fiddling around with various BBS packages, and ran a point while I was at 'varsity in Dunedin, can't remember where my fido feed was from but I also got a Familynet feed from CCC in Auckland. Binkleyterm, Squish and msgedsq.

Right at the start of Jan 94 I started A Place to Stand BBS in Invercargill, on Invernet (a small local FTN), Fidonet and Familynet. Binkleyterm, Squish and Maximus.

Interesting sideline, 26/1/94 a young guy from Monowai logged in and asked for sysop chat, had nothing better to do, he found out I was into Christian rock music so passed me on to his sister... I phoned her on the 28/1 and we talked for hours... drove out to visit her 30/1 (90min drive into the middle of nowhere)... we were engaged 12/3 and married 6/5/95

Unfortunately the writing was on the wall, in Oct 95 we bought a house and the cost structure changed dramatically, me on a graduate salary and Taniamaree a student, the BBS went down for good at the end of December and we cancelled Sky UHF at the same time! Still being around BBS' at their peak and being a sysop for two years near the end of the era was an amazing experience.

[Antiphrasis]

Bernadette still works at the uni last I checked. I haven't been back there in at least 18 months though.

Yep, she's still emailing as of last week, not quite sure what she's doing at the moment. Last I knew it was email stuff, but I think she was or is on the service desk staff for a while. I suppose I could pull up an ITS org chart and find out when I'm back at work again.

Don.

[Antiphrasis]

I started out on the BBS scene as well, although perhaps a little later than most. I had a 486sx25 with a 2400bps external modem when I started out, but managed to buy a secondhand 9600bps one not long after. (I remember how much better that was than the 2400) I think I paid $200 for that and was still using it with the when I got my first internet connection in '95.

I was mostly on a part time board run by a guy I knew at school, "Nocturnal Activity" but I remember a at least one other... "Kings Palace" I think. As it happens I have the user list from Nocturnal Activity as I inherited the backups when it finally got shutdown... I wonder if there is anyone interesting on there...

Don.

[tezza]

Interesting sideline, 26/1/94 a young guy from Monowai logged in and asked for sysop chat, had nothing better to do, he found out I was into Christian rock music so passed me on to his sister... I phoned her on the 28/1 and we talked for hours... drove out to visit her 30/1 (90min drive into the middle of nowhere)... we were engaged 12/3 and married 6/5/95

Interesting story. A large part of the BBS scene was certainly about building relationships.

[tezza]

I have the user list from Nocturnal Activity as I inherited the backups when it finally got shutdown... I wonder if there is anyone interesting on there...

Inspired by this thread I dragged out my BBS archives out and had a peek at what I was up to those days. Looking at the user list I see a number of folk who went on to be prominent in IT and local ISPs here in the Manawatu.

[SpidersWeb]

Late on topic, but I thought this story might make you guys laugh. I was a bit too young in the BBS days, but before I had internet I got a BBS program given to me that I used for services like SimplyShareware. Anywho, it had all these rather dodgy connections preprogrammed, I selected New Zealand and dialed in.

After getting all of two miscellanous photographs I disconnected. Few minutes later Telecom rang up.

Turns out I'd rung Russia and they needed to know the nature of the call because calls to the country of that length were considered suspicious.
It cost $80 and I had to explain all this to my parents :/

[David]

I BBS everyday with my old Vintage Computer's it's great just think no spam mail no adds i wood like to see more Kiwi vintage computer user's out there trying to Telnet out with there your Vintage Computer gear.

David B

[Reliant73]

Ah yes, I remember Telemate well! Great program....

mm.. TELIX was the one I remember... mostly because I was a too lazy to configure external modules for download protocols and it supported ZMODEM, plus the sideband chat feature directly.

Ha ha I haven't heard the word TELIX for years...that brings back happy BBS memories

[David]

Ah yes, I remember Telemate well! Great program....

mm.. TELIX was the one I remember... mostly because I was a too lazy to configure external modules for download protocols and it supported ZMODEM, plus the sideband chat feature directly.

Ha ha I haven't heard the word TELIX for years...that brings back happy BBS memories

Yes Telix is a good for dialing into the bourds with so is ProComm I got a new vintage laptop it's a SPARK by DATAVUE it has the 8087 cpu two floppy's and 624k of ram and with that. I am gong to go onto the net and dialinto heateavebbs with it, procomm is on a floppy.

David B

[tezza]

Ha ha I haven't heard the word TELIX for years...that brings back happy BBS memories

Telix was also my BBS comm client of choice.

[Swivel]

Well it was the fun days for sure.

Mine was Swivel's BBS here in Hastings running Spitfire BBS. Use to do the Fidonet as well.

Still have the software as well as my rego'd games

BRE, SRE, FE, FH, etc

All fun

[acsi]

My BBS was ST Afterburner.

Started in Brisbane running on (you guessed it) and Atari ST using Michtron BBS.

Later moved to Auckland running part time and later it ran on a Supercharger connected to an STe. The supercharger ran a NEC V20 CPU and was basically a self contained XT but used the ST's monitor, ports and drives but you could use the ST while the supercharger chugged away on it's own.

[kevman3d]

I became a BBS addict in the 1990's as well - great way to waste every night away - I was one of those hated "File sponge" types

At the time, I was running an old ICL 286x12 (big cases on those machines), EGA screen and a whopping 1Mb of RAM .

Install an old 2400 internal modem and I was hooked. Telemate was also my tool of choice. I recall doing a little programming for someone who ran a local BBS to strip down log files from Maximus (was a nice BBS system), and even wrote my own client software which worked well at the time (great way to learn interrupts and I wrote my own ASCII pop-up "windows". Yup - Proud days, those were back then. Other then missing download protocols like X and ZModem, it did its job. )

If I find it, I'll slap it up on my Dropbox/Google/Copy drive (I can't believe I have 3 cloud systems installed here - Greedy old me!) for those running old PC's to see if they still work.

But nice to see a little reminiscing going on here... Good times...

[Gibsaw]

Bernadette still works at the uni last I checked. I haven't been back there in at least 18 months though.

Yep, she's still emailing as of last week, not quite sure what she's doing at the moment. Last I knew it was email stuff, but I think she was or is on the service desk staff for a while. I suppose I could pull up an ITS org chart and find out when I'm back at work again.

Don.

And a slightly sad end for those that hadn't heard. Bernadette officially retired just before I came back to the uni recently... She has just logged off for the last time though, I'm afraid. (link to herald)