Episode: 356
Title: HPR0356: BBS
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0356/hpr0356.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 17:09:25

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So we've got Downer and Randy Knows on this trade
wreck today and they are chipping over BBSs.
This all started off because I mentioned Jason Scott to
Randy here and he met, you know, I had to explain who he was and as
soon as they did he remembered and like, yeah, he had, you know,
information of mine up there, but it was wrong and it kicked
off the discussion about Edison star and the history of it.
You want to run down the quick history of Edison star?
Sure, Edison star. Well, early on, shoot back in the,
what, late 80s, you know, I ran a Bolton board.
One of my first computers was a cop or not would not a cop,
but it was a candy and I ran search light and I had a Bolton board
called Edison's workshop running search light BBS.
And I'm a big fan of Edison.
And the Bolton board meant a more precise running search light into
running PC board from another system who didn't want to keep
running the system and I changed the name to Edison star because
his Bolton board was called Cal star.
And so just kind of signify the merging of the two.
But we, I pretty much, you know, you used to run different
doors. That was part of the challenge of running the Bolton board for
because the way the BBS is ran.
Let me ask a question before you get too much in there.
How did you usually get into running a BBS?
Oh, good lord.
I found out you could do it and I found out that there was,
I guess basically because I had a computer that had a 1.44 floppy
and that was enough room to run search light on it.
And I just started running the Bolton board off the 1.44 floppy
or it was 720.
And because there's people that had Coco or Coco's or
Commodores that were, you know, one of the smaller disks.
So that was enough room to start the BBS and the message spaces.
It's all got a hard drive later on.
But I don't know.
It was just something curious to do.
Something I figured out found out that I could do.
And I started doing it and I enjoyed it.
So I did it for almost five to six years from start to finish.
Now, what software did you, you said you ran search light.
That was the core of your BBS.
Right, search SLBBS.
Search light BBS was what I started off with and what was unique
about search light at the time was that it allowed full anti-editing
for anyone that had an IDM or IVM simulator in the terminal.
So you could actually cursor back up to the top of the paragraph
that you had three or four lines in there and fix your spelling.
They weren't so, the BBS didn't have spell checkers built in them.
The user there and could check the screen if they had something,
some of those utilities.
But there weren't, there wasn't a whole lot out there at that point in time.
You know, not like today.
As far as the, it was all plain, you know, 80 column test and screen.
Was it 80 columns by...
80 by 23, everything?
Was it 40?
No, it was 80 by 40, I think it was a standard screen.
If I remember, I know which...
There's 40 columns wide, but that was for like Commodore.
Those are the old Atari, those were 40 columns,
or IVM, the standard 80 columns.
And so yeah, there's also going in the 80 column load or 40 column load
when you're reading or writing the DBS way of format of effect.
So if I'm understanding part of what you're saying there,
back in that time, you know, search life was kind of unique
and that you could, you know, scroll back and edit things.
Whereas other ones, you might have to go back, you know,
just delete everything, the word you wanted to fix it and start over.
Sure, sure, yeah, that control, you had to use control characters.
Once you got done with it, your 80 columns or 40 columns,
once you enter on that line, that line was there.
And so if you want to go back and edit,
it was really hard to do that on IVM, say,
if you're using IVM on a Commodore BBS,
you just go back and edit it the old way.
And the Commodores were stuck to text mode on the IVM
unless they had an anti-immulator or the Atari emulators.
And early on, it was pretty much a straight text,
a hit return, a turd return, that was there,
unless you deleted the message and started over.
And all of this was a 300 bond or 1,200 bond,
which weight for the screen to re-scroll and re-fresh
was a very painful thought.
Now, group, downer, you also ran a BBS at one point, didn't you?
Yes, I did.
I had run a modified, renegade and stuff.
I got into it kind of late, actually.
Hold on one second.
Hello.
Is that a convoy, is it?
Okay, the community.
Yes, when I got into it,
and I wasn't really a message for a BBS either,
I was a file BBS.
So, it was a little bit different,
but cool at the same time, I guess.
All right.
The team was completely different to my time I got there.
When I first got into it, I was just a random user for a long time,
and then I was just like, you know what,
I'm going to play with this,
and I decided to put a couple of my own out there.
Over time, I did like two or three different ones,
as you kind of get involved in different scenes,
because at that time, you know,
there was an art scene,
and then there was like a literature scene
where you're sharing more like easy,
and then there was always, you know,
your words, your pirate cords.
I got into that too.
I mean, you know,
Randy, now we've lost over this.
He said you ran a two-note BBS, is that correct?
But when I was there, I was two notes.
I was mainly, I was a few shareware,
three-wire files,
but it was mainly for messaging.
I was involved with two different message networks,
and you know, users are fairly more verified also.
I wanted to point out that,
you know, the anonymity of the internet wasn't quite as much,
because you knew who your users were or you verified them,
so you had a little bit better information.
You know, if you got an email with an attachment,
you knew where it came from.
But, yeah, I had two notes.
You could actually go into chat mode,
if two people were on there,
if I was there with three of us could get in there
and chat at the same time.
Now, do you remember, like, the most unique location
you ever got a call into your BBS from?
In most unique rotation?
Where, like, the most unique phone number
you ever saw pop up, like Australia or something like that?
Oh, um...
No, I wasn't...
Now, because I wasn't really a large port,
the network was as far as the sub-node.
And so, I was a sub-node.
I was a node off the network.
You know, because the main network...
For most of our message spaces,
I was running this on the West Coast in California,
and we changed my computer in the middle of the night
would call up a friend of mine's computer.
He lived a 200 miles away or an hour away.
The exchange messages in the middle of the night
was the rates were cheaper then.
And his computer would call up the main system
and...
I'm just going to use Intellicus for a reference
because I don't recall the other one.
But his would call the main system
that had about 300 other computers calling it
a total group.
And usually it was a tier of about four or five computers
off of that.
And the main one had 10 died calling in there.
And there was, say, 10 off of that
and maybe five little sub-nodes.
But if you exchange messages twice a night or twice a day,
you could get your email delivered
usually within 48 hours, 24 depending on what someone
set with you for email.
And people bitch now that it takes an hour
to get an email sometimes.
Well, you know, it was so fast in the US
calls for service.
But no one...
There weren't that many people that were doing it.
You know, doing email.
We're talking...
I was doing email.
How other people that did email thought about it
as AOL or CompuServe?
Because those were the big main systems that existed in that era.
All right. And, Downer, how many node did you run?
I was only ever one.
Now, did you...
Is there, like, a most unique phone number that sticks out?
Because from my understanding, the file share stuff
was a lot different than just your messaging ones.
Yeah. Well, you have to think generally in a...
in a warehouse board.
You don't really want to share it too much
unless you're comfortable with people.
So, unique numbers weren't really common, you know?
I mean, that's at that point where, you know,
just in order to get on the board, you needed a password often.
You know, I had a new user password.
So, if you wanted to go in and you just randomly happened upon the VBS name
and phone number, you would still have to know someone on the board
in order to get in.
You would need that new user password just to accept the application process.
And then, on top of that, a lot of the time, you know,
because all the people are also, like, you know, aware of the community
that was also a new user voting, where if you apply, you know,
you still have three or four days before you can be approved
because the users have to approve you.
Now, did you also have a...
I guess the best way I could describe it at this point
is using the TORN analogy of a seed rate.
A lot?
Where you had to upload so much before you could download it so much?
I didn't take part in that, but a lot of boards did.
Yeah, they say forced sharing.
Now, I would just let it go for free.
Now, how did most boards work that in the time?
I did.
From your experiences, will you?
It depends.
I mean, you can configure it however you want.
You can have it file for file, where, you know,
especially at the time, it was okay because if you do it by like K,
by how much K you're uploading,
you're going to get screwed at some point.
Because then, especially on a single node board,
you want to dull it down by file for file.
If you upload an easy, you know, you can download one file of anything else.
You see that happen often just because that one node is going to be tied up for a long time
if you're downloading a good program.
You know,
instead of...
Are you using the normal dial-up phones to do this downer and modem?
Oh, yes. This is at the time.
I would have started a PDFs with a bit 14 TORP
and eventually graduated in 2008.
And then, by the time 56 K rolled around,
that was actually all over.
That was by the time, you know,
everybody used the Linux and, you know,
maybe a couple of telegraph boards popped up over here and there,
but everybody was pretty much done feeling with anything.
Because PDFs started to die out.
Oh, yeah. Well, my users wanted to get online and do e-mail.
And, you know, the internet got big.
And I was doing mine for free and I'd had a computer tied up for five years.
I was getting burnout.
And, you know, I was a free board,
but I accepted donations.
I got maybe $14 a year in donations average.
It was a hobby.
And it was a learning experience for me.
And I was kind of happy to be able to turn it off at once at the time.
Everyone was, you know, the internet was out there and people wanted back with stuff
that I didn't have access to anymore or easy access to a paid board.
Yeah.
And, yeah, it's having a hybrid board or a foreign board,
which we had plenty of those back in the 80s and 92s.
Those were the ones that we're paying for.
People would, basically, you have systems that would scan foreign pages or foreign magazines
and put up 50 new images a day.
So people were spending money on the horn.
Horn was still big on the computer.
And it's just as strong then as it is today.
So, even before the internet, the telephones were purported.
Oh, absolutely.
My ex-life and I had a lengthy discussion that I lost,
which probably was a good thing.
Because I knew it was just off.
I was pulling down $600 a day.
I'm up running the VBS.
He was making a profit running his VBS because he had port on it.
Well, I could do this if I just put this port on here.
We don't want that.
You know, you're not going to do that.
And so, it was made clear to me that I didn't want to do that.
So, I didn't.
You know, I had a big deal of probably what I have.
But, my ex-life.
So, in some respects, the stuff that I was involved with,
there's two different styles of VBS.
My mind was more of the squeaky cleaner one,
which even us were hypocrites.
But that's how it looked and felt when you got there.
But I didn't have prior to software.
I didn't ever have a porn file.
But the VBS was squeaky clean for the church, folks, I guess.
You kept it as clean as you could at least.
Yeah, well, you know, if there's messengers, you know,
profanity wasn't around in most of those, the best of cases.
Because for me, our verification was my computer would call someone's phone number right back.
I use a utility that would verify a phone number,
and that would go with that username.
And if someone wanted more than one account, say there was a family,
they would have sent me a message and I'd have to upgrade the other user.
But that's how we verify who people were.
And the message area that I used was,
would you explain the verification process that you used?
Because you said you had a utility that would call the user right back.
But what would happen from there?
Doctors, well, they called up to register their name.
They'd have to put in a phone number.
And my computer would hang up on them and call them right back.
And say the terminal would come up and type in, you know,
hello, or some sort of message right there,
or just, you know, make sure they've got a connection with another modem immediately.
And then it would upgrade them to a minimal level.
And I could upgrade it to a little bit higher level for time,
basically it was just time, and certain message areas.
Because this, being a message PDF,
they tried to keep everything clean and everything verified.
So the information we got for online was a little bit better.
The way people treat each other was a little bit more respect,
because if you wanted to be sick around,
you had to adhere to some, you know, common rules of D.C.
I guess.
And what you call, you know,
we've been in chat mode now,
and some of them could just start going nuts,
and you know, I'll let R.C.
And you can't boot them all the time.
Yeah. Call back verification was cool.
The only problem is you run into that problem
where if they live in Australia,
and you're going to get charged for that call,
especially at that time.
You know, you know.
Well, call at that point, you know.
Well, you wouldn't allow it to call outside of the US.
We have a list of, you know,
area codes that were allowed,
and there's a list.
And if it was area code wasn't there or out of country,
you'd have believed that this is often a message.
And, you know, if you've been talking via the message boards,
you knew who they were,
because you could still say,
I could still say to private message from my computer
and through the network,
end up as a private message on someone's computer in Australia.
Yeah.
Now, if someone became a problem user,
how the hell would you get rid of them?
Did you just have a deny list that would deny calls
from a certain number or...
Yeah, you could do that.
You would deny them.
If someone really wanted to be a pain-the-butt,
first, you should probably leave them via the message.
That'd be the first way of dealing with it.
And if they continue to misbehave,
you just cut them off,
and say there's four or five other message areas,
or multiple boards saying you're in local area,
they could still call on to one of those
and get on and try to pass problems that way,
but eventually they'd wear out the welcome
and just they would be not denied
until they had a different phone number to use.
Now, did you ever collaborate with other SISOPS
that they'd call you up and say,
well, we've got this one user who's a real problem?
He should probably just cut them out now
and save yourself the grief,
or would you...
No, you had to wait.
Basically, you couldn't block...
We didn't do any kind of black listing like that.
You might get a call,
but if you're careful,
this person has the problem for me,
and I'll kick them off.
But, Dean, one of my messages,
you could also set up access levels,
where if somebody was a problem
in the message boards, you know,
harassment, for instance,
then, you know,
you just go and deny the message,
just to the message boards,
and if there's still a problem,
you can feel it appropriately as it goes.
Right, right.
So there's...
Yeah, there's some handle it.
Now, do you remember the name of the application you used
for verification if anyone was interested in it?
No, I don't.
Some of you had this problem start building some of that in there.
It was one of the different call store utilities,
because the store did.
I was wearing a PC.
So it was a door that was compatible with PC board,
and that's off-stop in my head.
That's all I could come up with.
I mean, we're talking...
What?
15 years ago?
Almost 20 years ago?
For me?
Yeah, for some of our listeners,
that'll be a time before they even were, you know, existed.
Well, I realize that.
Yeah.
Well, hey, my...
Oh, you got to be kidding.
Hey, Downer, how did you verify users,
or did you even mess with that password?
On the password.
Well, you'd have the password,
and you know, generally,
I never really had any problems.
I mean, you generally know everybody who's going to be on the board,
at some point.
And I mean, by the time I got into it,
it was like a popular thing.
You know, that was when the internet was like just budding,
and like, there was a local board in the area that started out.
I remember when I was on board,
no, this was the late 90s, early 90s,
even, you know, 89, 90, 91.
At that point, there was a BDS.
That was one or two nodes at first.
It later jumped up into four,
and this was a pirate board.
This had a lot of, you know,
you go on there, you get your porn,
you get your pirated software,
all that kind of good stuff.
And then, all of a sudden, later on,
this board turned into 10 nodes, 15 nodes,
25 nodes, 40 nodes, 50 nodes,
and all of a sudden, they had 250 lines,
and we're providing internet for the whole community.
Turned into all bits.
So what started out as a pirate BDS board
became a local ISP.
Yeah, yeah, basically.
Well, that's right.
Like we were living in PXS,
and it became a big thing.
And I believe they're still in business.
Well, and that's how one of my friends,
who was a CIS officer,
did the porn back where I lived in Reading in California,
it started off with a porn.
And we had to pay $300 to $600 to $600 a month off the BDS.
So he had the money to read VF into the hardware,
and he did, and he started ISP.
All right, guys, we've added obvious to the call.
Who's here?
Hello.
Ready?
What's going on?
We've been talking about BDSs
to do for an episode of HDR.
Great left.
All right.
All right.
That's a 223.
I'm an F241.
I got another 10 miles.
Do you have any last thoughts you want to say on BDSs, men?
I don't have anything.
Well, I've got one last question for both of you.
Have either of you run into the ghost town BDSs?
So what?
It's what I heard it called where people will track down these old numbers
for BDSs and call them up and find out these things are still running even today.
But no one's access to them in like five years plus.
Oh, yeah.
I think if you watched the BDS documentary from Jason Scott,
there was a guy that talked about running a BDS,
and it was still running in someone's basement a couple of years later.
Has everybody forgotten about it?
What is this BDS?
Excuse me.
Hey.
Either one of you gentlemen want to explain the BDS for, obviously.
I'll let Randy do it because I'm thinking of deliver.
Oh.
A BDS is basically back in the day you used your computer with a modem
and your computer dialed up instead of using the modem at the phone line,
dialed into another computer and you can be communicated basically with text
as the old way of communicating with a computer.
It was a precursor to DARPA's network that later became the internet.
Right.
Well, they didn't have it.
It existed a lot of the time before I ran my boss board,
but yeah, it was accessible by the general public.
Mine was a free BDS that connected other computers.
Let's see.
Rhyme had about 500 or 600 computers hooked up to its network
and until I had about 300 for a message.
In base, those were just message areas.
And you can talk about, well, you can talk about batch files,
reprogramming, basic, bicycling.
There was a bunch of different topics and message boards.
For me, a lot of it was just learning how to use the computer in different programs.
And also the part of it was having shareware or freeware online to download
for the non-pire boards and the pire boards,
anything was available there.
All right.
That's interesting to look back at.
I knew someone who had a porn board and they turned into an ISP
because they had the money invested into it.
And downer was talking about that.
I wanted to start up an ISP back then,
but I didn't have the money.
Yeah.
I wanted to invest the money in it,
and again, you know, my spouse thought it was crazy
because I already spent $10,000 or so over five years on a computer.
And this is just another crazy idea that Randy had
that wasn't going to go anywhere.
Now, I said, no, this is the one.
So, anyway.
All right, guys.
Well, I think this will make a pretty good episode as it is.
So, I'm going to jump off of here and I'll talk to you both soon again.
Hi.
Hi, Lord.
You have a good one.
I got to hop off here and do the real thing
or do the work thing.
All right.
I'll catch you later, too, downer.
All right, man.
Thank you.
Later.
All right.
Bye.
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