In the 80s, my nerdy friends were already having LAN parties and some of them set up BBS’s over spare land lines, which were sort of like an early social media just for your immediate friend group but not connected globally or anything.
Fast forward to the present day, and one of said friends invited me to a discord that was modelled after his old BBS. It’s actually active and fun to catch up with everyone who’s found their way back.
I was one of those nerds. And BBS actually were the 2ND greatest time I had, tech-wise. It was a fascinating new world, beyond imagination. I had one demoscene-board which also was the NC (net-coordinator) of a well-known message-net á la Fido-net.
And one for warez. At the height of it, one CD with a handful zerodays went for like 400 moneyz. Wasn’t about the money though.
Actually, when I moved to a new town, I found a BBS that was a bigger deal than those hobby ones my friends were running. It had lots of people on it at a time and hosted a popular MUD, for example.
Then one day I was logging in and saw 2 options: bbs and ppp. What the heck is ppp? Well I got on the bbs and everyone was going nuts. It’s the Internet man! They became the first isp in town and they’re actually still around.
Funny thing is though, when I first got on I didn’t think much of it? The web was still in its infancy and you kind of had to know your way around. Eventually, I found my way to some ftp server (umich?) with a giant amount of warez and then I was in heaven!
Haha, yeah, the privilege of being on one of the big name’s ftps was gold. Sadly I lost all those contacts. Fairlight, razor and what they all were name…
And the time where you had to search search-engines was also cool. Then google came and changed it all. They rocked!..then they removed “don’t be evil!” As slogan and shit went downhill into hell 😒
Well…TFC (team fortress classic). Played leagues, had tons of fun. Camradery and fairness trumped the scene. Even in a league against one another, we helped the enemy when they were one (wo)man short. Or vice versa. And they gave their best. Because it was about fun.
The more tech advanced, the worse the community of competitive games became.
Though I actually would put BBS #1 as fondest tech-times. I’m really privileged to be born just in time to see the world get interconnected and the internet die 🫣
Social media in general.
Watching a lot of stuff from the era, it seemed to completely miss the mark on how social media as a concept would work.
In the 80s, my nerdy friends were already having LAN parties and some of them set up BBS’s over spare land lines, which were sort of like an early social media just for your immediate friend group but not connected globally or anything.
Fast forward to the present day, and one of said friends invited me to a discord that was modelled after his old BBS. It’s actually active and fun to catch up with everyone who’s found their way back.
I was one of those nerds. And BBS actually were the 2ND greatest time I had, tech-wise. It was a fascinating new world, beyond imagination. I had one demoscene-board which also was the NC (net-coordinator) of a well-known message-net á la Fido-net.
And one for warez. At the height of it, one CD with a handful zerodays went for like 400 moneyz. Wasn’t about the money though.
Nice!
Actually, when I moved to a new town, I found a BBS that was a bigger deal than those hobby ones my friends were running. It had lots of people on it at a time and hosted a popular MUD, for example.
Then one day I was logging in and saw 2 options: bbs and ppp. What the heck is ppp? Well I got on the bbs and everyone was going nuts. It’s the Internet man! They became the first isp in town and they’re actually still around.
Funny thing is though, when I first got on I didn’t think much of it? The web was still in its infancy and you kind of had to know your way around. Eventually, I found my way to some ftp server (umich?) with a giant amount of warez and then I was in heaven!
Haha, yeah, the privilege of being on one of the big name’s ftps was gold. Sadly I lost all those contacts. Fairlight, razor and what they all were name…
And the time where you had to search search-engines was also cool. Then google came and changed it all. They rocked!..then they removed “don’t be evil!” As slogan and shit went downhill into hell 😒
What about your greatest time tech-wise? I am curious
Well…TFC (team fortress classic). Played leagues, had tons of fun. Camradery and fairness trumped the scene. Even in a league against one another, we helped the enemy when they were one (wo)man short. Or vice versa. And they gave their best. Because it was about fun. The more tech advanced, the worse the community of competitive games became.
Though I actually would put BBS #1 as fondest tech-times. I’m really privileged to be born just in time to see the world get interconnected and the internet die 🫣
Curiosity sated? 😁