Depth Perception BBS ==================== "From the start, the Depth Perception BBS was a "serious" operation (keeping in mind that I was only 16 at the time). The BBS was operated on a 486 DX2/66 system with 8MB RAM, 420MB hard drive, 4x CD-ROM and US Robotics 14.4K Sportster modem. It was founded in August, 1995, around the time of my 16th birthday, at my parents' house in Rochester, NH. I had been an active user of local BBS' for some time and had always had a "dream" of sorts of being a sysop. After turning 16 and getting my first part-time job at a local grocery store, I was able to make my dream come true after having my own dedicated phone line installed in my parents' house. Having set up several "model" bulletin boards in the past using shareware copies of Spitfire, Wildcat and other software packages of the time, I embarked on my journey of being the next local sysop. Upon completing basic ANSI welcome screens and menus and setting up the basic features of my BBS, I advertised it on all of the local bulletin boards and waited for the calls to start coming in. Upon waking up the next morning, I discovered that my board had already taken in a small handful of calls! Undoubtedly, it was enough to maintain my interest! Over the following months, I poured hours upon hours each and every day into the BBS, adding a collection of CD-ROM shareware archives, registering my copy of Spitfire and several of the more popular interactive "door" games, creating a "comprehensive" collection of downloadable shareware files (within the limits of my 420MB hard drive, which, at the time, was a fairly worry-free limit) and automating many of the BBS' processes with several programs I authored and compiled using Microsoft's QuickBasic v4.5. Next came the addition of Frontdoor and my BBS' subscription to several of the more popular net-mail networks of the time, including FidoNet. From this point on, it was not abnormal for my board to some days answer up to 50 calls (depending on the amount of time individual callers were remaining connected)! Seldom was there a moment when it was not in use, even very late at night. I was very active with my users, breaking-in frequently to chat with whomever was "online" at the moment, "shooting the breeze", getting more ideas on how to improve my operation, even starting a small drive for cash contributions to put toward software upgrades and registrations (my thanks go out to those who helped!). The board became well known in the area. At a time when other BBS's were declining, Depth Perception was on the rise and only getting better!" "The demise of the Depth Perception BBS came unexpectedly in late 1996, when I migrated its files to a new NEC 1.6GB hard drive, which had accidentally incurred magnetic damage after being exposed to unshielded computer speakers built into the case of my computer (my thanks go out to Western Digital, maker of the previous hard drive, whose quality outer shell resisted the effects of the strong magnetic field). Any data written onto damaged portions of the hard drive was permanently lost, and though, in fact, less than a megabyte of the drive's storage capacity had been affected overall, the small amount of damage was widespread over the drive and caused the loss of a great many files -- too many, especially in an age of increasing Internet popularity, to warrant the long hours of work it would have taken to restore the BBS to its original form. It was at this time that the BBS was nobly retired, after answering some 8,000+ calls and entertaining hundreds of dedicated, local subscribers." - Ryan Apac Phone : 603-335-8586 Place : Rochester, NH Years : 1995 - 1997 Sysop : Ryan Apac Software: Spitfire Listed by telephone number, as they all were. A few of these boards did reach the web: see recoveries-002.txt. Source : bbslist.textfiles.com, compiled by Jason Scott ------------------------------------------------------------------ gopher://hp84.com/ | https://ge97.com/ .