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Telnet BBS Guide

by threePointFive on 11/3/23, 11:29 PM with 39 comments

• by cheschire on 11/4/23, 12:55 AM

  https://web.archive.org/web/20231103232924/https://www.telne...

  Apparently there are binary files to download, which is probably why this thing immediately folded when HN found it.

  Previous versions have older versions of the zips, so search the history.

  https://web.archive.org/web/20230606002640/https://www.telne...

• by tashian on 11/4/23, 1:43 AM

  I ran one in the 90s for a couple years. I was 15. I had two lines at 16.8kbps. 100 megabyte HD, which was enough to hold a giant archive of Amiga downloads. It was fun, lots of local folks on there and we'd meet up in person sometimes too. Felt like I knew everyone in town who was into computers as much as I was. Especially the Amiga people.

• by virgulino on 11/4/23, 2:23 AM

  I'm holding a USRobotics Courier V.Everything V.34 in my hands right now. It was from the biggest BBS in my country. I got it when that BBS replaced the Couriers with access servers with E1/T1 digital interfaces. I keep it on my bookshelf, within reach from my computer chair. I was Co-SysOp on a PCBoard BBS, in the 90s. 8-)

• by GoofballJones on 11/4/23, 1:29 AM

  I started using BBSs in the 80s. Starting on 300 baud modem connections and then upwards. It was such a cool feeling like you were living in the future...all with that extremely slow 300 baud.

  I guess I tried chasing that feeling for a while, but when the Internet came to consumers (I was on it about a year before it hit mainstream, and even before the World Wide Web), that feeling was there a little. But as it became an everyday tool to use by the world, it became mundane somehow. Hard to describe.

  And of course, back then I thought it would be a tool to unite the world, but it's just torn it apart.

• by bwann on 11/4/23, 1:01 AM

  There's still a decent community of people running them either for nostalgia and/or bringing them into the Internet area. Some are telnet/ssh only, some have actual dial-up modems too.

  I set up Wildcat! 4 (a DOS based BBS software) earlier this year and have had a blast with reliving the past. It was interesting to figure out how true to period vintage to run it vs letting some newness leak in, with 30 years of hardware and connectivity options to select from.

  I wound up doing both dial-up and telnet access, and just last week got an UUCP gateway setup so it can dial out to a Raspberry Pi and send/receive internet email.

• by fma on 11/4/23, 1:46 AM

  I follow a Trade Wars 2002 group. A fairly large group still play from the original Family Entertainment BBS.

  I still recognize many of the alias...almost 25 years.

• by cdchn on 11/4/23, 1:56 AM

  This has a web telnet client which is pretty cool, it even shows a little capture of logging into the site -- pretty neat!

  I've been trying to find info/screenshots/video of the old style 'lightbar' menus that were popular right at the apex of the BBS scene, when software like Renegade was all the rage. Been very hard to find, so if you have some info (don't send me to the BBS documentary I've seen it) I'd be happy if you reached out.

• by tlrobinson on 11/4/23, 4:02 AM

  There’s even packet radio BBSs aroun. I connected to KE6JJJ’s in SF a few years ago https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/s/wNUaNbGH6S

  I think you can also still find pockets of similar communities among esoteric social/distributed networks.

• by nacs on 11/4/23, 12:45 AM

  9 upvotes and already hugged to death.

• by colesantiago on 11/4/23, 12:46 AM

  Looks like it is down, is this site running on a potato?

• by larntz on 11/4/23, 1:02 AM

  Not exactly the same but if you miss bbs you might enjoy tilde/pubnix communities.

  https://tildeverse.org/

• by dade_ on 11/4/23, 12:49 AM

  The Internet ruined everything. If I have any regrets in my life, it was not fully appreciating the magic that was the 1990s in the moments I experienced them.