Draco1962 Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 A very nostalgic read from the era of the BBS. My BBS ran a few years before the author began as a tween. It was "The Wall BBS" running BBS Express Professional on an Atari 800XL (self-modded from 64K to 256K RAM) with a then blistering fast 2400BPS Sparta Modem, external 20MB HDD, 4 Astra Quad Density 5.25" floppy drives and 2 Atari 1050 5.25" floppy drives. I still have my "notcher" for cutting out a security tab to allow me to write to the back side of the retail 5.25" floppies. Retail floppies of the time were sold as single-sided, but many of us learned quickly that they were actually double-sided and could be formatted and store data just as well as the "certified" side of the floppy.Ahh, the good ol' days! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hansolo77 Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Heh my dad was a pirate back in those days, when I was just a youngin and unable to walk. He had 2 Atari 800's (no XL or anything) and had also self-modded the RAM upgrade. He used a hand held hole punch to put a notch in the 5.25 floppies. He had a (wow) 300BPS modem and would spend hours downloading a single game on his friend's pirate BBS. I remember when they started to emulate ANSI and you could get somewhat decent graphics on the door games. My favorite was Trade Wars 2002 (http://www.tradewars.com/default.html). For me, growing up in the house meant early exposure to computers, to which I'm happy to say makes me appear a lot smarter than most. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClassicGMR Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 I ran "The Arena BBS" in Rhode Island on my 386/sx-33. It was primarily a gaming center and I ran it on WildCat! BBS software for about 2 years.It was no Eagle's Nest BBS but I never had net feeds so I wasn't overly popular to the general public. I had quite a few users log in daily to play the doors I had set up. I remember LORD being one of the most popular games at the time on almost every BBS system I visited. Ah the nostalgia... and those graphics! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draco1962 Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 We had a few local Wildcat BBSs here in Jacksonville, and one was called the Arena BBS. If I recall correctly, it had 4 dedicated lines and was one of the busiest BBSs in the area. Good times! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hansolo77 Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 I remember LORD too. Ahh I miss those days. The internet really took off once it got popular, now EVERYBODY knows about it, instead of just the few local nerds who knew something about BBS's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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