Back in the early days of computing, __________________.

[Omega-TI]

Back before the day's of the internet, people used to gather monthly to see all the new stuff

people were doing, get free software and show off what they did...

... now it's mostly words over a keyboard to people you will never meet.

[atarian1]

Back before the day's of the internet, people used to gather monthly to see all the new stuff

people were doing, get free software and show off what they did...

... now it's mostly words over a keyboard to people you will never meet.

 

Oh man. I miss those meetings too. This picture reminds me of how painful it was to present things on a tiny 20" screen in front of a large room of people. Those 20" CRT TVs were a bear to carry to the car every month too! My local Atari user group had 300+ members at one point and meetings attendance was around 50-80 people. I wish projectors were cheaper back then!

[Seob]

Yeah, i mis those computer meetings too. Together cramped inside a tiny room, seting up you're computer and swap out the latest stuff.

[Omega-TI]

Yeah, i mis those computer meetings too. Together cramped inside a tiny room, seting up you're computer and swap out the latest stuff.

 

It was fun. I remember being an "isolated TI-99/4A user", so I'd pack up my entire system and drive the 40 miles to Vancouver, WA for the user group meetings. I'd spend HOURS there, then break everything back down, haul it home and hook it up again to play with my new goodies. Yeah, those were the days.

[Seob]

It was fun. I remember being an "isolated TI-99/4A user", so I'd pack up my entire system and drive the 40 miles to Vancouver, WA for the user group meetings. I'd spend HOURS there, then break everything back down, haul it home and hook it up again to play with my new goodies. Yeah, those were the days.

we went with our pc to meeting where you had generally amiga people. The big advantage was that they could use xcopy to make backups of original pc disks that had copy protection.

still remember when we took our pc in, followed with a amplifier and speakers. Hooking the pc to the amplifier with a covox cable and then rip sample from amiga games using a action replay mark iii.

those amiga guy looked like they saw water burn.

[BillyHW]

Wish I could have been part of that. But I was still in diapers.

[Keatah]

My parents were still wiping my ass and I was reading newsgroup letters. Or at least looking at pictures as I might not have learned to read the grown-up words yet..!

[Keatah]

It was great spending an hour "dis-assembling" my Apple II system to haul it across town in my RadioFlyer. For longer trips I hitched rides with the dad or mom or neighbors. And upon arriving, I'd spend an hour hooking everything backup.

[Nebulon]

Of course, all the prices quoted from the late 1970s and early 1980s would be tripled to account for inflation.

[Omega-TI]

People would spend good money on K-Rap games. For instance, I hear this is one of the K-Rappiest games known to exist!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WiqzS55iAI

[Ed in SoDak]

My answer to the TS-1000 RAM pack was to solder all the pins. Later I hacked a TI99/4A keyboard onto it and put it in a crude plywood case. Beefed up the heatsinking and in the larger case it would run for hours without crashing or losing all my work. I'd put the Timex into Fast mode and I could really bang out the code on the $5 TI keyboard.

 

One time I had a pristine hardwired memory card for some ancient system that used tiny ferrite cores. I stripped it all for the heavy-duty case, which I doubt I ever used. Duh moment!

 

-Ed

[bennybingo]

 

...now that is what I call data storage at it's finest!

[Osgeld]

I never had to used a punch card or paper tape, but I have out of sheer interest with some homebrew imagination for the readers ... never made an automated card reader though

[Ed in SoDak]

When I started work at the fossil museum/preparation lab in the mid-80's, they were all grads from the SD School of Mines & Technology and all were trained in Fortran and punched cards, HP calculators with reverse-Polish notation. They had a clunky Vector Graphic CP/M machine they beat their collective heads on to just print some labels. My brother, meanwhile, was using a Mac Plus to do high-quality laser-printed grapics and desktop publishing. Within a year I had them all converted and they still use Macs exclusively both at home and at work. And their kids. Wish I'd been a Mac dealer and not just a low-wage employee!

 

Myself, I only ever afforded one new Mac system, bought way back in '94, which I still have it and use some of the periperhals. Now, just picking up their old discarded systems keeps me in more Mac gear than I can use!

 

-Ed

[bennybingo]

Back in the early (earlier) days of computing, this is what it meant to get trolled...

 

 

[Omega-TI]

Back in the early (earlier) days of computing, this is what it meant to get trolled...

 

sword_152.png

 

 

I miss those days BB!

[Nebulon]

Back in the early (earlier) days of computing, this is what it meant to get trolled...

 

sword_152.png

 

Oh man!

 

What game is that??

 

I must stop those nasty trolls from "kiill aall humann!"

[bennybingo]

Oh man!

 

What game is that??

 

I must stop those nasty trolls from "kiill aall humann!"

http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2013/07/sword-of-aragon-chronicle-of-deeds.html

[SoulBlazer]

I was going to say what game that is. Old SSI game. Lot of fun, I still play it once a year. I don't think GOG has it.

[Omega-TI]

I RIPPED THIS OFF FROM ANOTHER SITE....

 

Bulletin Boards are online world's good old days

Mark Stachiew,
October 29, 1997, The Gazette

Back in the Stone Age of computers, before Bill Gates had made his
first million and the Internet had yet to see its first "spam"
message, computer users talked with each other via Bulletin Board
Systems (BBSes).

While the World Wide Web has taken a bite out of the number of BBSes,
they never really went away and now the old-timers who still use them
are banding together to tell cyberspace newcomers what they're
missing.

A BBS is basically a computer sitting in someone's home running
software which allows it to answer incoming calls. Other computer
users call the BBS to exchange messages, play games and download
computer programs. It really is an electronic bulletin board.

They are usually free to call since the system is being run as a hobby
by someone who is donating time and computer. No fancy browsers or
hardware are required. The lowliest computer with a modem and terminal
program will be enough to connect to a BBS.

Longtime users of BBSes remain nostalgic about the early days of the
1980s when the first home computers gave birth to the first fledgling
bulletin boards. In those days BBS callers used glacially-slow 300
baud modems with acoustic couplers that had to be fit over telephone
handsets and looked like rubber earmuffs. They endured these hardships
because of the magic that BBSes created. It was a new form of
communication which allowed people to make contact with total
strangers which sometimes developed into lifelong friendships.

Lynda McCormick knows all about how BBSes bring people together. She
runs one of the oldest ones in Montreal. McBBS has been in continuous
operation since 1984 and people who called on the first day are still
calling 13 years later. "Some of the old-time users will still call in
long distance when they've moved away," she says. "Not on a regular
basis, but it's fantastic to hear from them and hear how life is
treating them now in Toronto, London, Ontario, Seattle, or L.A."

McCormick is still enthusiastic about BBSing and is creating an online
BBSing Museum with electronic ephemera from BBSes which have long
since vanished into the ether. "The BBS scene in Montreal has been a
very rich one with many characters, personalities and a few very
hilarious stories," she says. "I for one would like to see it
preserved and cherished as it should be, and not simply swept away and
forgotten."

One local BBS operator, Steve Monteith, has maintained a list of
Montreal bulletin boards (www.vir.com/~capt_xerox/bbslist.html) for
nearly 12 years. Looking over archives of the list demonstrate how
much damage the Web has done to BBSing in this city. In 1989, Montreal
boasted 175 computer bulletin boards. That number grew steadily,
peaking at 482 in 1995 which is about the time that the Web began to
blossom. Since then the number of BBSes has plummeted to 221. At that
rate of decline they could be extinct in two years.

So do BBSes have a future? The people who still use them think so.
They persist because they create a sense of community among their
users and because callers usually live in the same town, so they are
able to get together offline where friendships are formed. That can be
difficult on the Internet where you could be exchanging E-mail with
someone in Zimbabwe or Kuala Lumpur.

Monteith notes a few other advantages of the local BBS over the
Internet. You won't get unwanted E-mail (spam) and BBSes are rarely
commercial. "You can read through whole message bases, and not see an
advertisement and you can be quite sure that your name on a BBS isn't
going to be sold to some mailing list."

An international grass-roots organization has sprung up to spread the
word about BBSes. The Council for Online Community Alternatives
(http://coca.home.ml.org) aims to promote (NO LONGER AVAILABLE)

BBSes as an alternative to the Internet and to build awareness among
computer users that BBSes are available in their communities. They
maintain that in recent years millions of people have rushed out to
buy computers thinking their only online alternative was the Internet,
oblivious to the existence of local BBSs.

COCA likes to point out some of the advantages of BBSes. For example,
at peak times the busy Internet can slow to a crawl. That isn't a
problem on a BBS since there is usually only one user connected at a
time so your new fast modem will actually work at full speed. Unlike
most discussion groups on the Internet, the ones on BBSes are usually
moderated and ill-tempered "flame" wars are less common. And
pornography is much rarer on BBSes.

BBSes are becoming more sophisticated. Many local BBSes now offer
Internet E-mail and access to select Usenet newsgroups. Some have lots
of downloadable files while others use flashy terminal programs which
give them a graphical interface which is almost as easy to use as a
Web browser. Some bulletin boards are even directly accessible over
the Web, usually via telnet.