Question For 90s SysOps about user base size. reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- moistpup · 2019-05-06 08:11 For me BBSing was one of the most amazing and fun times for me as a computer user. Just out of curiosity, what were the most users registered users a BBS would probably have? How many of those users were active in a month? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bwave1 · 2019-05-06 12:29 Due to long distance calling, even most better BBSs would have a only few hundred to a copule thousand registered. And with many BBSs only having 1 or 2 lines, you'e talking probably about 100 active users at best. Small town BBSs, i'd say more like 200-300 registered, and about 50 active. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kodiak01 · 2019-05-06 13:31 With the advent of automated applications such as Robocomm combined with services like Telenet, some users were able to branch out into a a much larger range of systems to dial into. Even without Telenet, Robocomm allowing for off-peak call scheduling and minimizing actual connection time was a boon to the entire BBS ecosystem. As for how the messages were packaged, there was the QWK packet. Original designed for PC-Board based systems but later adapted to others, it was a Door program designed to send and receive Zip'd packets of messages which could then be read and responded to at one's leisure. You can find a trove of old applications related to this [here](http://www.dcee.net/Files/Comm/). Now where did I put my SLMR tagline file... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dcpanthersfan · 2019-05-06 16:00 In my tiny town I had about 150 with 30-40 active callers. Bigger BBSes such as those that supported the software (Color 64) had user bases in the hundreds. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Namoric · 2019-05-06 16:24 Loved Color 64. Had such a blast with it ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Namoric · 2019-05-06 16:30 In the hey-day, I ran Underground Atlanta (that was neither underground nor in Atlanta) I was just over 700 users. We implemented a time limit with posting / response credits added to their time. VIP users got more time, uploads and downloads were handled on a secondary warez BBS and phone line. Like /u/Kodiak01 mentioned, we had packets downloadable of unread content to reply and post. It didn't work well, but we tried. Active? There was never a time the phone wasn't tied up, with 3 logins a day allowed per user. I'd guess 3 to 400 unique users a month, but never really tracked it. This was in the days of wardialing and phreaking as well, so we had folks calling in from all over the country and even a few outside the US. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kodiak01 · 2019-05-06 16:48 For us, QWK seemed to work very well. Between that (and a bit of SOUP for Fidos) combined with some other networking (I ran WWIVNet @4352 back under the old numbering system in the early 90's) the content seemed to move around very will. As the various messaging networks ramped up, it actually made for an increase in call traffic (but with much shorter duration) as a lot of people that used to dial off-peak LD could go local instead. Would I be dating myself if I admitted to finding a copy of Better Homes & Blue Boxing I printed out back in high school? :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dcpanthersfan · 2019-05-06 16:54 I put mine back up! tfcbbs.com:6464 for the Color 64 version. tfcbbs.com:6400 for the Supra 128 version. I highly recommend using a Commodore terminal via VICE or emulator (CGTerm). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RolandMT32 · 2019-05-06 20:36 I ran a BBS from 1994-2000. I don't remember offhand, but I may have had at least 20-30 registered users, and maybe at least 5-10 active in a month. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ShooterJennings · 2019-05-06 21:57 User name checks out. I got one of these a few years ago for all my old favorite games. So nice to grow up and buy all the old shit you couldn’t afford. MT32 for life. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A_Downboat_Is_A_Sub · 2019-05-06 22:06 I never got a lot because I was constantly on the line already logged into BBS's, so I didn't have a lot of uptime. There were a couple 16/32/48/64 line boards in my area, and even before they started offering internet access they had paying customers with active membership up to the low hundreds. One of the local boards in my area actually sold third party Major BBS applications that allowed for user access to be paid via credit card and 1-900 number, which was way ahead of it's time, pre '93. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RolandMT32 · 2019-05-06 22:11 My dad had one when I was growing up. I bought one of my own around 2004, which I used with a USB controller keyboard (more for music than for games). I ended up selling the MT32 a while later though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- YserviusPalacost · 2019-05-06 22:47 I ran a BBS through high school until about '94 or so. Being very remote and very sparsely populated area, there were maybe 15 people who actually used BBS'es. Sure, the numbers are small, but back then that was huge! Being able to host a service where others could dial in to... What a concept. And there was something magical about the lack of idiots that the internet is plagued with. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wekalek · 2019-05-07 01:36 Hahaha... I used to own [tfcbbs.com](https://tfcbbs.com) , which I used for my own BBS in the early '00s when I put my board back up and connected it to the Internet. Work let me use their modem banks, so I theoretically had a hundred or so lines at my disposal, all supporting 56k V.90, and 128k ISDN. ​ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 21:04:14 -0500 (EST) From: "DomainMonger.Com" To: Subject: Automated 60 day renewal reminder 2002-06-12 Lines: 17 ...snip... Domain Name, Expiry Date tfcbbs.com, 2002-08-11 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wekalek · 2019-05-07 01:50 I ran a BBS from around 1992 - 1997. With no-login user delete enabled, auto-deleting users after six or ten months, I had a userbase of about 400. Perhaps 50 of those were regular monthly callers, half or more of those called regularly every week, and 10-15 regular daily callers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2019-05-07 01:50 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dcpanthersfan · 2019-05-07 02:51 Wow. Worlds colliding! Yeah, I snapped it up in NameCheap a couple of years ago. I also have color64.com and supra128.com. So, have you called either of my BBSes? I put up a small site at tfcbbs.com which is really just a glorified terminal to the BBS. That was fun getting sorted out on the same machine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- temotodochi · 2019-05-07 07:13 Largest BBS in finland - MBNet - had tens of thousands of users and 250 lines in. It probably was the largest BBS in the world at that time (excluding compuserve, aol and prodigy) and was the only PCBoard customer ever with a 1000 node license. MBNet was financed by a publishing corporation, for it was an online component for one of their computer magazines. It was shut down sometime in 2002 i believe, but most users had switched to internet already by 1998. It's still a shame that nobody saved the massive file archives as they contained games, demos and other productions not available anywhere else. Nobody spent a moment to think about it until their backup robot had shredded all the remains. ​ It helped a lot that local phone operator had a flat rate during nights. So you could do a 6 hour call for next to nothing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- moistpup · 2019-05-07 09:57 Yeah that's something I really miss. There were very few randos. You knew most of the people by their handle and for the most part you all were on the same 10 or so boards that were on your daily call rotation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- moistpup · 2019-05-07 10:01 There was a BBS in Los Angeles called BaudTown that had some huge number of lines. I tried to do a search for BaudTown but there is only an LA Times article that I can't read from Europe. It's crazy to me how quickly the BBS scene collapsed. It seemed like once ISP internet access became common it was practically overnight that everything slowed down to a halt and eventually disappeared. ​ (And a couple of gay ones like Delos and NoName). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wekalek · 2019-05-08 03:02 No, I haven't. Are you using something like a Lantronix serial-to- ethernet device with AT command emulation, or something else entirely? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- temotodochi · 2019-05-08 03:43 Some of finnish BBS's did continue as ISPs for a while. Since then they merged up a bunch of times and are now part of the big 3 operators. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dcpanthersfan · 2019-05-08 03:43 I'm using a simple null modem cable connected to a VIC-1011A on the 64 and another null modem cable to a GGLabs GTLink in VIC-1011A mode on the 128. Running tcpser on the box which runs Linux Mint. nginx powrts the web site. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- samalex01 · 2019-05-16 21:57 Probably varies by city, but I'd venture to say here in Waco, Tx during the 90's where the population of local callers was probably around 90K back then most BBSes probably had 100-200 users. I helped run a couple of boards and still have printouts of the users, and the most was probably 100 give or take, though these were by no means the most popular ones. I could see larger cities having many more. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- samalex01 · 2019-05-16 22:01 I was active on MetroBBS running Worldgroup during the mid to late 90's, it was based out of Kansas I think but had a local dial-up number here in Texas. It offered some Internet capabilities like email, telnet, ftp, and IRC, but eventually offered dial-up internet which became their biggest money maker. By 2000 the message forums were dead and they eventually pulled the BBS sometime around 2010 I think, it was Telnet only by then. I miss it, met some great folks on it, but they boasted thousands of pay users at one point which I can see given they had dial-up numbers all over the US. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- goingsouthhiker · 2019-08-16 01:26 We ran Nightline BBS out of Philadelphia Area 1992 -1997, 20 lines, roughly 800 users at peak.