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mmm.txt
Tue Sep  6 15:03:58 CDT 2011

It all seems so long ago. But the excitement of it in my gut is a memory
whose recall exceeds anything I ever encounter on the internet anymore,
or even in the last decade.

It began with a "work from home" PC XT running God knows what level of DOS,
a monochrome monitor with obvious cursor burn marks, and a 1200 baud modem (or
was it bits per second? I'm not sure I ever knew the difference), in a bedroom
of a rented duplex on Mackey Road in Highland, New York, in roughly 1987.

I'm not even sure how I came to know of the first local BBS phone number. After
all, it wasn't like you could just jump online and search. Probably from some
"zine" about BBS's obtained from the surprisingly decent magazine rack at
Barnes and Noble on Route 9 in the Town of Poughkeepsie (then located just
between South Hills Mall and the new Galleria Mall - I think a pet supply
store opened there after Barnes and Noble relocated north a few miles).

As I recall, most of the BBS's of the Mid Hudson Valley were single phone
line, running Genesis Deluxe (I had to search to help me remember that
name). The only sysop name coming to mind is John Simon, based in Wappingers
Falls. He was a wonderfully crazy guy who smoked cigars and whom I recall
hosting a BBS get-together at a VFW in Wappingers Falls. I attended that,
and one other such gathering, which took place at the Ground Round that was
located on Route 9 about half a mile north of Spackenkill Road.

Somewhere along the line I met "The Reverend F-Squared", with whom I chummed a
little, and who insisted that I participate on a board called "TINY", which
I believe lived on "the other side of the river", probably in Newburgh or
Beacon, New York.

TINY had at least two phone lines, and I *think* ran Phoenix. Whatever it
was, I never really cared for the software relative to Genesis Deluxe. But
of course to each their own.

The Reverend F-Squared introduced me to several others. I'm only remembering
the handles "Honey" and "Squire", though.

(I don't remember anything about "Squire". But "Honey" was incredibly gifted
in what might be called "sex chat". And of course when I finally met her she
was utterly unattractive to me. But she was definitely a master of the genre.)

I managed to scarf up a color monitor from work at some point, which of
course made a huge difference (although in many ways I preferred the green
monochrome... I'm remembering it being "sharper", for one thing).

Somewhere along the line I learned of GE's "GEnie" online system, and I recall
how disappointed other BBSers were when I started saying that I'd probably
be heading more that direction, just because the audience was so much greater.

I purchased an "Amstrad PC". It had a popout LCD screen, and two floppy
drives. Probably 640 Meg of memory.

I did GEnie while continuing the local BBS scene to some degree. And then
someone started "mhv.net" (internet), which of course wound up being the
beginning of the end of my local involvement.

I don't think there was any way to connect to mhv.net via DOS, so I somehow
wound up with floppies containing the Slackware linux distro, and installed
it on a computer of my own (I'm remembering a 486 tower system).

I say all that just to give temporal perspective on my online journey.

As I said earlier, there was something intensely exciting about connecting to
a local BBS and using a handle. I distinctly remember it coming down to being
either "The Fool on the Hill" or "Mean Mister Mustard". I wound up favoring
the latter, with its implication that I might become ornery in replies.
Others quickly began calling me "M Cubed" or "M^3". I wound up carrying the
"Mean Mister Mustard" handle into what became years of posting in USENET.

There was the excitement of waiting for a line to be available, the excitement
of whether or not the connect would be successful. It often wasn't, and of
course that was quickly followed by the excitement of whether someone else
had snuck in and gotten hold of the line while you were redialing. Then the
excitement of whether there were any messages (or was mail?), of looking at
new forums, of whether or not to chat with the sysop.

I then lived in a place far from where I grew up, and of course couldn't afford
long-distance to more remote BBSes. But none of my friends were anywhere
near doing such things anyway. What I'm looking back at with amazement,
now, is that to even discuss such things meant a long-distance phone call,
or snail mail. That's all there was.

So between neither old friends nor my (then) wife (also non-techie) having
anything to do with said online world(s), there was also the excitement of
being someone entirely new, in worlds where entirely new ways of interacting -
and terminology to go with them - were still being invented.

I wish I could remember more details. Wish I had those several DOS disks and
backup disks and "data disks" (i.e. containing my own writing, or downloaded
files) from that era. But although I probably transferred some of that
to my 486 linux environment, I left that machine behind when I divorced,
already running linux on a somewhat early laptop. So it's all gone.

<sniff>

But here's to those intensely exciting days. For me, online has become
predictable, and thus uninteresting. I want to say that back in BBS-only
times only people with a brain could figure out how to play. Technology has
(unfortunately, in my opinion) made it possible for any and every idiot to
participate. Too bad. And never mind the obscene commercialization, so that
my every move leads to gobs of advertising.


- Mean Mister Mustard