Anyone from the early 90s Rochester NY 716 scene? reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- surrakdragonclaw · 2021-08-04 16:16 I was an avid BBS user in the early 90s, starting as a hapless nerd who didn't know how to properly pronounce "warez" and eventually producing ANSI graphics for a tiny ass local release group called JA which only had 1-2 releases ever, but managed to get us a courier and we at least temporarily had our own quasi elite multiline BBs. Conventional BBSes I remember using: The Crystal Palace ChatCity (this was late stage, AOL era) The White Lightning Warez or Warez-Adjacent boards I remember using: The Atrophied Limb Brokedown Palace Necropolis Acid & Flowers I am sure there's a lot I have forgotten but one thing I remember vividly is that Crusader: No Remorse was released as something like 25x1.44mb zip files, the only place that had it that I was on was Brokedown Palace, it was a ratio and timelimit board but you could increase your timeout with uploads. So, every day for something like 2 weeks, before I left for 9th grade, I would connect to the BBS, queue up the upload of the next disk zip of whatever I was uploading, and then queue up downloads of 2-3 Crusader disks, before yelling "HEY DAD! DO. NOT. PICK. UP. THE. PHONE. UNTIL. NOON!!!!!!" before running out the door to the bus. You had to work harder to get games in those days, and I spent longer running crack intros than I did playing the games they were unlocking. I remember going to a meet that Crystal City put on where they had 4 computers set up in a pavilion running networked Doom. It was the first time I played a multiplayer FPS. I also remember going to numerous ChatCity meetups where we generally got looks of disdain from the Denny's / Perkins workers, and I distinctly remember one night when I realized there was an apparently unaccompanied 10 year old girl at one of these events who was literally snorting sugar off the table in lines and no one was doing anything about it. I lost my virginity at 16, a thing that I think would have lagged for a couple years if not for the in-person socialization around BBSes; these social circles had a surprising number of girls in them, looking back. I have ChatCity specifically to thank for that one. I remember one night a group of people that ran one of the warez boards encountered an unlocked, unattended Telco truck and just decided to put on all the gear and start directing traffic for a while. No one got in trouble. I remember numerous times the local 2600 crew got kicked out of the mall, too, or warned very sternly to "stay the hell away from the payphones", a month after someone had decided to see what redbox and bluebox tones would do in ~1995. Anyone else from this scene with stories? I was, uh... TheAnarchyKing, SCRiPTER, various other aliases over the years. Krewl Blade, if you're reading this, stay sexy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SymphonicResonance · 2021-08-04 19:51 How early? I think i figured out how to dial into a bbs around 1993. I think it was Logan's Run bbs that I dialed into. They then had a list of bbs (Logan's list i think). From there i learned how to use qmodem and various other clients. Later in the 90's, I was using one of the BB's as my internet connection, but one week it had dialup issues, so I dialed into another bbs, used a telenet connection to connect my bbs of choice, and then started my SLIP connection. The sysop actually contacted me wondering how i pulled that off. Teenage me thought I was amazing for doing that. haha ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dragotha · 2021-08-05 03:35 I was 716 during those times, but not that far east. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iss_nighthawk · 2021-08-05 14:20 Oh man I love hearing this! 716!!! I was dialing up with my 2400baud Zoom modem. I mostly hung out on Aardvark and Avalon, they used First Class client for a graphical interface. The guy who ran Avalon worked at Computer City and was a pretty nice guy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iss_nighthawk · 2021-08-05 14:22 Oh man I love hearing this! 716!!! I was dialing up with my 2400baud Zoom modem. I mostly hung out on Aardvark and Avalon, they used First Class client for a graphical interface. The guy who ran Avalon worked at Computer City and was a pretty nice guy. I forgot about the meetups at Dennys. Some pretty strange characters at them. Good times ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HerpieMcDerpie · 2021-08-05 19:47 Omg....I was there. ChatCity was my favorite place. Went to several meet ups. Hosted one at my house I think. It was for one of the boards at least. Hat's Place PCPlace Heartbeat BBS Knight Moves ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SymphonicResonance · 2021-08-06 05:52 >Heartbeat BBS > >Knight Moves It has been ages since I have heard these names. Brings back some memories. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HerpieMcDerpie · 2021-08-06 10:07 Did you go to any of the Heartbeat meetups at the coffee shop? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iss_nighthawk · 2021-08-07 19:48 I hung out on Avalon for many years. They used FirstClass Client for a GUI. Fun times, not so fast at 2400 baud. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- chinabox · 2022-04-15 01:11 Fellow Aardvark user here. Really crazy how huge FirstClass Client was in Rochester and yet it all somehow turned to dust. Mac's Last Stand, Tyrell, The Fence Post, Phoenix Rising. Really fond memories of those place, and still remember some of the phone numbers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mrsdee1 · 2023-02-07 11:39 Was just googling heartbeat bbs from the 90’s - I was username sunshine - good times!