New to the Sub-Reddit, Former Sysop in the early 90s. Sharing 2 Sites reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eastcoastweb · 2021-02-22 19:24 I ran The Eleventh Hour BBS in Virginia Beach, Virginia in the 1990s. It started as a 1-line BBS and only from 11 pm through 9 am as I was using my house phone line. I eventually got my own line and it went full time but I kept the name. It ran on TBBS first, then PCBoard, then WildCat, then a major advancement for me was MajorBBS. The BBS grew to 110 phone lines and before that, I had to move into an office since there were no more lines available at the trunk in the neighborhood. I eventually became an ISP offering internet access, we also had an adult file section. The adult section and/or the internet were not free, the rest of the board was. Many people played TradeWars 2002, MajorMud, and TeleArena on the BBS. I eventually closed it down in 1998 as I could not compete with the telephone companies offering internet access. I learned HTML back then and eventually, Web Design and Web Development became my career. Without the BBS and computers, I don't know what I would be doing today. All I had was dead-end jobs back then. Not sure if you know about these sites, but sharing none-the-less: [http://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/bbs](http://www.ipingthereforeiam.co m/bbs/) [https://www.telnetbbsguide.com](https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wndrbr3d · 2021-02-22 19:28 Great memories! Thanks for sharing! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CutmasterAlpha · 2021-02-22 19:43 Very nice! Do you have any pictures from back then of your hardware/office setup? I'd love to see them! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eastcoastweb · 2021-02-22 19:50 I have polaroids, but no clue where they are in the attic... We have 2 attics too :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- baubaloo · 2021-02-22 20:36 I spent most of the 80's and 90's on BBS's... Miss those days.. :/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- octave-syndicate · 2021-02-22 21:06 How cool. I grew up in VB and have very fond memories of logging into STATUS, Northend, and Mycroft’s Mansion among many others during my late-teens / early twenties in the mid-to-late 80s. The name of your BBS sounds familiar so I undoubtedly logged in at some point. I remember After Hours and Night Owl in VB were other systems that ran, well, after hours. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eastcoastweb · 2021-02-22 23:53 Cupid's Playpen and Forbidden Playground were our 2 top competitors at the time. I was a reg visitor to Cupid's and also went to their get together for many years at Pocket's Billiards.get-together ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ScalarWeapon · 2021-02-23 00:24 110 lines! You blew up huge, that must have been a trip. Anything you still have from back then, please share! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PotentialDeadbeat · 2021-02-23 01:22 Thanks OP, could have been my story. My first BBS was 1991 and moved to web design in 1997 as everyone wanted the new shiny world wide web and BBSes couldn't compete. 110 lines is impressive for the time, sounds like you were running a major enterprise, good memories for sure. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kennycaustic · 2021-02-23 01:35 If you haven't already, I bet you'd enjoy watching Halt and Catch Fire tv series. I ran a BBS in Richmond, VA in the 90's WWIV style. Loves Trade Wars 2002. I wish someone would make an updated version of it for people to get into again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eastcoastweb · 2021-02-23 14:43 I don't have anything from back then except memories and some polaroid photos (somewhere). Great memories. When something is less popular and going through a revolution of changes it is something special. Computers now are advanced more but nothing special anymore. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- istarian · 2021-02-23 15:20 To be far there also appears to have been a more open, free spiritedness back then and sharing was viewed positively. Now it's largely consumerist.Sharing things is viewed negatively (piracy!) and most things are monetized... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eastcoastweb · 2021-02-23 21:22 Shareware was very popular and isn't a thing anymore really. OpenSource is everywhere. Some for the sake of a paid product upstream that benefits from the open-source sibling. There is still a free open-source movement out there. Both free as in monetary and free as in libre... no spying, total freedom to redistribute and/or modify as you see fit. One of the reasons I am not on Windows or Mac and instead, running a Linux distro. Another reason I don't use Google or any of their products. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eastcoastweb · 2021-02-23 22:27 I do remember being one of those Sysops that changed every menu, every screen that I could. Nobody could ever figure out what software I was running without asking or finding some game that was only available for that particular BBS software. Once I moved to MajorBBS and WorldGroup people knew, but before that whether on TRBBS, WildCat!, Renegade, SearchLight (forgot about that time) or PCBoard everything was changed. I love ANSI, not that I was some super great artist, but I put a lot of time into the menu systems etc., ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eastcoastweb · 2021-02-23 22:28 Wish I could run one now maybe via telnet... something to think about I guess. Wouldn't be the same thing as back then, but there are about 2000 BBS online still. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eastcoastweb · 2021-02-23 22:35 >Hmmm > >[https://www.synchro.net](https://www.synchro.net/) > >[http://mysticbbs.com](http://mysticbbs.com/) > >[https://www.powerbbs.com](https://www.powerbbs.com/) > >[https://www.themajorbbs.com](https://www.themajorbbs.com/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- codefenix · 2021-02-23 22:49 All fine softwares. Hope you get one going again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dmine45 · 2021-02-23 23:29 Thanks from the Telnet BBS Guide guy. :) My first BBS experience was in Virginia in 1991. My first real job was working for the power company, and we got our software from a developer whom we had hired. He ran a BBS just for software distribution, but the guy who had the computer before me had loaded it with Telix and a list of BBSes throughout the state, as most of it was a local call with our Tie-Line system. Richmond, Northern VA, Fredericksburg, Charlottesville, VA Beach, etc. were all local to us. So I called a ton of BBSes in 1991-1992 timeframe. Then I eventually ran one when I graduated from college in 1993. And here we are nearly 28 years later. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2021-02-23 23:30 [removed] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Far_Zombie8115 · 2021-02-24 16:44 I remember the 11 hour. Wow. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- IcyWillow1193 · 2021-02-28 18:36 The name sounds familiar, but I don't think I called in as it would've been a long distance call from DC. Nonetheless the description reminds me of other MajorBBSes I spent many countless hours on in the late 80s early 90s... when I wasn't driving to random board get- togethers in the middle of the night. I miss those days! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- No-Listen7639 · 2022-10-17 00:59 I was a member of Cupid’s and also went to Pocket’s several times. I was stationed at Fort Story at the time and a lot of us went there every weekend. There was a MUD that I was playing on Cupid’s…I can’t remember the name though. It was a fantasy game…I used to spend most of my hours playing that game (and the adult chat too). All I remember from the game was you could be a beast lord and charm Apollyon dragons. If anyone can remember the name, please share. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eastcoastweb · 2022-10-19 12:01 Tele-Arena? Legends of the Red Dragon (LORD)? I don't think it was MajorMUD.