Back in March 2025, I did a 90s-style BBS splash screen for https://protoweb.org! Today, it made its public debut at @why2025camp's Demoscene Village hosted by @FieldFX, winning 1st at the Graphics Compo! All aboard!

Michael Nordmeyer reminisces on how he has been accessing online services and the Internet since the early 1990s, from BBSes and CompuServe to ISDN, DSL, and fiber. Over this online journey his setup was typical of those years.

https://michaelnordmeyer.com/in-1993-i-went-on-the-internet-for-the-first-time

Since the story line and social aspects are central to Cloudburst Connection (BBS themed adventure RPG), there are many ways of conversing with callers and other sysops. One way is through real-time chat! One BBS in the game offers the player tutorials, hints, and elements to advance the story. Players can select their desired response out of a list of possibilities, allowing them to shape the personality of their sysop. Conversational choices will affect the story line. And in true dial-up BBS fashion, you get to see each letter NPCs type, each having their own typing skills. (Don't worry, there's a fast forward button if you get impatient!)

This is one of my favorite episodes of Computer Chronicles, it centers around software piracy/cracking. This clip shows an interaction between a pirate demonstrating the use of a cracking-oriented BBS, and an attorney talking about the legal issues. Not only is it a fascinating historical snapshot (1985) of something that is still obviously relevant, but I absolutely love how respectful Stewart and Gary always were, even if they didn't condone the subject matter. I really like this style and quality of technology journalism, I wish we had more of it today.

https://youtu.be/n-M7FJKfR7k?si=Bw2HP7GWrw-H5HyM&t=1067

Danse Macabre

I did the original graphic design for a skateboard and, thanks to P1NKY, I decided to ANSIfy it with slight modifications

thank you again @alda for modem bleeper - it is such an excellent code reference for writing a tool to generate bell 103 modem sounds!

https://aldavigdis.is/modem-bleeper/

Crafting in Cloudburst Connection (BBS themed adventure RPG) is a little different than the average RPG! In CC, you collect libraries and source code (resources) and use the compiler to build features to add to your BBS, including things like email, voting booths, downloads, the graffiti wall, etc. I've been enjoying making little ANSI icons for each feature!

now nearly 20 years after it was first published, rob o’hara’s Commodork remains to be the most faithful recollection of the bbs era. i’ve re-read it almost every year since it was printed, and i’m always struck by how accurate his memory for the warez and modeming scene is.

i’m amazed that we still do not have a comprehensive written history of BBSes to this day.

Finalmente adattatore modem Wi-Fi per il #commodore64 ed il lettore tape sono arrivati e quindi si naviga sulla #bbs di #retrocampus @computer @computer@diggita.com @diggita sembra fantascienza ? Invece è realtà

it's kind of nuts that we'd pay a commercial voip service for a DID number and per-minute voice call charges just to run a BBS or dial-up service with modems

has anyone created a public (voip) PBX for modem-based retrocomputing? to be clear: i'm talking about something like a SIP Proxy which would allow for direct IP-to-IP connections between client/server.

I was once at graphics.social but it had its limits related to default config and it was supposed to be a place that binds me toward my interests in graphics (software development) and demo scene as common denominator. But it's not that important any more. So I'm giving myself a fresh start at place connected to #BBS scene where my heart continually belongs to! thanks @meatlotion for hosting me here! :)

My first #modem. 2400bps, so what, about 255 bytes per second, plenty fast. My favourite #BBS was Underground ubbs in #Nakkila
And I did some early browsing, that was quite painful already.
I was lucky once with lighting, only trace was cut, easy enough to fix.
#vintagecomputing #hardware #vintagetech #vintagehardware

Old friends from a 90s #BBS #malebeauty

ANSI-head

ASCII-head

some shitheel over at wikipedia deleted a very obscure and super interesting article about the LeechModem series of bbs protocols, that i learned about buried deep in a bbs documentary interview

what was (X/Y/Z)-Modem?

a thumbnail sketch of the original protocols: bbs file transfers using the X/Y/Z-modem file transfer protocols relied upon a similar structure. the entire file would be sent from modem to modem, one packet at a time. each packet was successfully sent (and the checksum verified), the receiver would sent an ACK (acknowledgement) that the packet was received. if the packet wasn't received, or failed the checksum, the receiver sent a NAK (negative-acknowledge) response. after 10 NAKs, the sender aborted the file transfer.

why did this matter for bbs's?
back in the day, (mostly pirate) BBSes relied on "credit" systems which limited the amount you could download before you had to do work like upload new files, or participate on the message boards. this was done to discourage "leechers" from tying up the board's phone line downloading dozens of files for hours at a time.

the BBS software only withdrew a download credit from your account when a file transfer *was successful*.....
... try to imagine how this could be exploited.

how did LeechModem work?
the creators of leechmodem realized that if the file transfer protocol sent 10 NAK responses on the very last byte of a file, the BBS would think it was a failed file transfer and abort the download. since aborted downloads didn't count against your download credits, it was like you had never downloaded the file. in reality, you already had the entire downloaded file on your computer.

it took a long time for sysops and BBS software authors to figure out how to defeat leechmodem in its many variants. one of my favourites was the second the BBS detected a user running a leechmodem protocol, it would immediately cancel the file transfer, and then withdraw *twice as much credit* from their account and send a LEECHER! message to their terminal

the (now deleted) wikipedia article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220626210439/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeechModem

Moved by BBS from the LCIII to the G4 Mac Mini running OS 9.2. Shockingly (sarcasm) it runs much faster now. Unfortunately, I think I'm the only person running this BBS software anymore and the author has stopped maintaining it. Not sure if I should fork it or do my own thing. I'm also considering setting up a BBS on the A/UX machine instead, maybe something that uses the native UNIX account management and utilities. Thoughts? #retrocomputing #bbs #mac bbs.m68k.club m68k.club