[kwlug-disc] a present for the older guys here...

[Charles M]

I also ran a couple of BBS's, one in Toronto, and one in Barrie. Initially,
I ran Renegade BBS software. I liked Renegade BBS software for its more
tree branch approach (PCBoard put almost everything on one screen). At one
point I had 183 working door games on the Toronto BBS along with Fidonet
file/ news feeds. I changed to Synchronet BBS software. It was great
software until the day after I installed it and discovered the 20 user
limit. Back then Synchronet was paid software. It cost $100USD. I bought
the software and was back running the board normally. I was initially a
little worried that I'd written a cheque to a scammer. Rob Swindell
developed Synchronet. But my registration reached me about a week after. I
had a lot more issues with Microsoft and my MS-DOS 6.22 registration than I
ever did with Synchronet.

The BBS was initially started on my 10MHz NEC V20 CPU, with 1MB of RAM and
a 300 baud modem. I had a 386 motherboard, but couldn't afford RAM. I think
it was the sysop of The Cat's Meow BBS in Toronto that met me in the subway
and gave me 2MB of RAM. The RAM was all wrapped up and I kept thinking we
looked like we were doing another kind of deal on the subway.

With 2MB of RAM and a 386 I thought about running 2 lines/nodes. I bought a
copy of DesqView for task switching. DesqView could run on 2MB of RAM, but
when one person called in on one line, it would kick the person on the
other line off. I discovered that while 2MB was enough to run DesqView, it
wasn't enough for both nodes to run. I needed 4MB, so the BBS went back to
1 node.

The BBS I ran in Barrie was run under OS/2 warp. It was getting pretty late
in the BBS days back then. The BBS was being run for a computer club, back
then known as the Barrie User's Group (BUG). The group had started as a
Commodore computer club in 1983, and I'd previously been a member when I
lived in Barrie before. It ran the same Synchronet BBS software. By then
the world wide web was really starting to take hold (95-96) so fewer people
called the BBS. This coupled with the fact that an electrical storm fried
the modem meant the death of the BBS. The club eventually approved funds
for a new modem, but by then it was pretty much dead to the web.

Ironically, it was really looking at all the BBS software on the Slackware
'96 CD that convinced me to give Linux a try. It looked like there was a
lot of interesting BBS-related software on the CD-ROM. I even ended up
writing a few Linux articles for the club's newsletter on Linux (without
really knowing anything about Linux back then).

Good times,

Charles

On Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 9:52 PM Ron Singh, <ronsingh149 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Back in 1980-81, I ran a CP/M BBS originally on an Apple ][ Plus clone
> with clone Z80 MS Softcard. In time, between '81-83, I graduated to a Xerox
> 820-II Z80 motherboard that a Xerox employee was magically able to get for
> me.
> Lovely board, just 2 flywires on the bottom on my rev. Check it, ain't it
> a real beaut?
> https://oldcomputers.net/pics/xerox-820-ii-motherboard.jpg
>
> I do wish I had kelp it along with all the various system board from back
> in the day, Ferguson Bigboard II, Ampro Littleboard/Z80, my large Apple ][
> Plus hardware collection, my Steve Ciarcia's Z180 SBC(actually I think I
> still have that).
>
> Mostly I wish I kept the Ampro SBC which was attached to a Soroc IQ-120
> terminal.
>
> Nice find Cranky!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ron S.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2022 at 9:20 PM CrankyOldBugger <crankyoldbugger at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> https://bytecellar.com/bbsing/
>>
>>
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