I have such strong nostalgia for that era, but man, every time I try to go back and experience a BBS like this is just feels so empty. There really isn't a way to experience the feelings back then. I admire them for keeping it alive, but the magic was long ago dispelled by ubiquitous internet connectivity.
I can go play a retro videogame and be taken back, but I've never felt that way with a BBS. Maybe it's just the intensity of what the BBS world was back then. It was a way into another world.. an exclusive world.. the first taste of digital life, long before it was taken over by the masses. An intimate community, but also a gateway to esoteric and faraway lands.
I was 12 when I got my first modem in '87. Suddenly I was no longer trapped in my town but connected to something secret yet global. Sure, long-distance charges kept things local for the most part, but it wasn't long before I found a way around that. Stolen calling cards, open PBXes, then Tymnet/Telenet and then in '90 an internet gateway of a local university. Wardialing, finding strange systems in the night... poking around until something gave way. Arrested. Reset. Probation. No computers. It all came to a halt. Then one day at Boeing Surplus I found an old green screen terminal and a 300 baud acoustic modem. Back online.. but the world began to change. MBBS, multi-line systems, and the world began to open. The world wide web began to take shape, Yahoo awoke, and the old steamship rolled into port for the last time.
I can go play a retro videogame and be taken back, but I've never felt that way with a BBS. Maybe it's just the intensity of what the BBS world was back then. It was a way into another world.. an exclusive world.. the first taste of digital life, long before it was taken over by the masses. An intimate community, but also a gateway to esoteric and faraway lands.
I was 12 when I got my first modem in '87. Suddenly I was no longer trapped in my town but connected to something secret yet global. Sure, long-distance charges kept things local for the most part, but it wasn't long before I found a way around that. Stolen calling cards, open PBXes, then Tymnet/Telenet and then in '90 an internet gateway of a local university. Wardialing, finding strange systems in the night... poking around until something gave way. Arrested. Reset. Probation. No computers. It all came to a halt. Then one day at Boeing Surplus I found an old green screen terminal and a 300 baud acoustic modem. Back online.. but the world began to change. MBBS, multi-line systems, and the world began to open. The world wide web began to take shape, Yahoo awoke, and the old steamship rolled into port for the last time.