ttyl

I can’t recall how it happened, but I ended up being part of a conversation regarding BBSs. As far as computer dorks go, I’m a late-bloomer; I didn’t even learn how to use a computer until I was seventeen years-old. But I did get in on the BBS scene in Timmins before the Internet boom hit in 1995.

That conversation caused me to remember the good times of that scene, even though much of it seems hard to recall. First I tried to remember the places I frequented. The Timmins Area BBS (aka: T.A.B.) was operated by Gary Lapierre and its free access accounts were a tad restrictive. Stephen Zielinksi operated CyberSpace I; one of the nicer-looking BBSs, although I can’t remember which BBS software he used. I remember having a good upload/download ratio at Michael Ottoson’s Mulberry Street. There was a great game on Mount Olympus (running on an Amiga computer) that I used to play and try to keep high score on but I forgot what it was called; Kurt Christ was the Sysop. I bought my second computer (a vanilla Pentium 100) from Mike and Joe Robertson who ran the PorcupinePC BBS on the Wildcat software. And then there was an elite BBS (shhh…don’t tell Johnny Law) running Spitfire but I forgot the nervous Sysop’s name. I even briefly ran a BBS using Spitfire, setup a bunch of door apps and everything.

At the Hollinger Golf Course after work, Sean Claire and I also hacked a credit card verifier to get access to Delphi Internet in Boston (no Web browsers yet, folks) in the hunt for more Doom and RotT WADs.

I did all of this on my 486SX 25MHz computer on a 2400 baud modem. I later upgraded to a 14.4 baud modem that I bought in Sudbury. It was the first PC component that I ever installed and I recall being scared shitless, fearing that I’d break something. Good times 🙂