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113 lines
5.3 KiB
HTML
113 lines
5.3 KiB
HTML
<HTML>
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<TITLE>T E X T F I L E S</TITLE>
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<BODY BGCOLOR="#000000">
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<FONT FACE="Courier New" COLOR="#00FF00">
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<B>A PRAYER FOR THE PART-TIME BBS</B><P>
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Sometimes, there are aspects of history that are so obscure, so unusual,
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that they are forgotten even by people who were a part of that history.
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In the sphere of technology, you will often have the case of people being
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faced with a problem so easily overcome in later years that the fact that
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the problem ever existed will be buried in distant memory. An easy example
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is modem speed; in a world where the entire contents of an Apple Floppy
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Disk can be downloaded in one second, more and more people will forget
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how truly slow and time-consuming the process of downloading text at 300
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baud was. And, sadly, many people will not have learned the art of
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compressing thoughts and communication to make that 300 baud relate the
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most information in the shortest amount of time.
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<P>
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But as the world barrels forward and we move to hazy memory the times
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of dedicated telephone lines running dial-up Bulletin Board Systems,
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with their single-user capability and their local, town or county-based
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reach, let us not forget the most weak, the most easily-missed and
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perhaps bravest of all of them.
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<P>
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I speak of the part-time BBS.
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<P>
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Consider
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<A HREF="http://www.textfiles.com/bbs/BBSLISTS/201bbs1.txt">this list</A>
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of Bulletin Board Systems scattered throughout the country. Lacking a
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proper date stamp, it's hard to discern when this list was created.
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BBSes running at 2400 baud co-mingle with a "38.4k" BBS, which is very
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likely a misprint or an unbackable brag. More likely, there are 19.2k
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BBSes, which puts the date somewhere in the range of 1989-1990. In this
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list, you see a nice cross-section of the types of BBSes from that
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period. I could spend an entire day describing all the small social
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quirks being shown in this list, from the illiterate youth of the
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"Blak Sabbath BBS!" to the staid, no doubt for-pay online service-wannabe
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of "John's House" with its 300-meg drive and "PC relayed" "Adult"
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aspects. But look closer at three of these listed systems: The
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"Spider's Web", the "Master Powers", and the "Fantasy Zone".
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<P>
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These three systems have a datum that does not even warrant its own
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column: Their hours of operation.
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<P>
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Buying a home computer was an extremely expensive proposition by most
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standards in the 1980's. While for some folks the choice to buy a
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computer could be done with the same cavalier attitude of buying,
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say, a <A HREF="http://www.textfiles.com/anarchy/CARDING/advcard3.txt">
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cross-country plane ticket</A>, the fact remained that it was
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often a long-fought battle by a young member of the family convincing
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his or her parents that this large amount of money was worth it
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for the piece of plastic and wire it got them. Having won that battle
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and perhaps having earned the purchase of an inexpensive modem sometime
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afterwards, it was that more unlikely parents would shell out the
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extra money for a second phone line. This would mean that the young
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BBSer would have to use the family phone line starting late into the
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night, after everyone else had gone to sleep, staying up and typing
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as quietly as possible so as not to wake anyone. In many ways, this
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was a good situation: the BBSes weren't so busy that late, and the
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BBSer was free to write and interact on the boards with a gusto and
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profanity-laden robustness they wouldn't otherwise achieve with parents
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or siblings nosing in.
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<P>
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But as anyone who spent a lot of time cruising the BBSes knows, the
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real power didn't belong to those who just dialed in and posted messages,
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or even those who uploaded many files and earned higher user levels
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or greater respect. The true power lay with the SysOps, the System
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Operators who ran the BBSes themselves off dedicated phone lines and
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who could grant access to whatever sections they wished, not to mention
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take it away on a whim. If you were a SysOp, the world came to you,
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not the other way around, and you could lie back and take it easy
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while the messages, files, and respect came pouring in. Of course, if
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you didn't put any work into your BBS, were unusually cruel, or
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simply lacked the
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<A HREF="http://www.textfiles.com/bbs/who-me.txt">fundamental</A>
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<A HREF="http://www.textfiles.com/bbs/be-sysop.txt">temperament</A>
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to run a BBS properly, then no one would call you. But that's a
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fact you would have plenty of time to learn about after you became
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a SysOp.
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<P>
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Unlike today, where competition and innovation towards the use of
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the telephone system means that getting a second phone line is neither
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a major difficulty or a social aberration (and, in fact, might even
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be considered a necessity), it was an unusual thing to have multiple
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telephone lines in a house, and seemingly expensive. Again, the
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same parents who didn't think twice about dropping $1200 for a home
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computer wouldn't blink at the additional expense of a second
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telephone line, but for some kids it was a battle they simply
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could not win.
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<P>
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So what was left to you if you wanted the power of being a BBS
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SysOp, wanted so badly to run a board and be the master of your
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own user list, but didn't have the required dedicated telephone
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line to run it? Well, you could wait until everyone was asleep,
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turn on the BBS program on your computer, and then wake up before
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everyone else did to turn off the computer. Thus, the era of
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the part-time BBS began.
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<P>
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