Subj : Re: BBS Software Timeout Values
To   : Nick Andre
From : Dan Clough
Date : Mon Apr 10 2023 12:12 pm

-=> Nick Andre wrote to Dan Clough <=-

 NA> On 10 Apr 23  07:31:00, Dan Clough said the following to Nick
 NA> Andre:

 DC>  NA> This is true.. If you bought either MBBS or TBBS it was an
 DC>  NA> investment that you wanted recouped. I never once saw a totally
 DC>  NA> "free" one of those systems until much later, when the novelty
 DC>  NA> wore off.

 DC> Do you recall how much it was back then?  I ran a purchased/registered
 DC> copy of PCBoard back in the 90's, and I think it was either $125 or
 DC> $150, which was a significant cost for me back then.  Also registered

 NA> I can't remember exactly. I keep thinking MajorBBS was at least a
 NA> few hundred and they upsold you on the "Galaticboard" serial card
 NA> which was another couple hundred bucks.

 NA> Same with TBBS... You bought the license but needed the serial
 NA> board for anything beyond 2 nodes. Then Fidonet was an add-on.
 NA> Remote access was an add-on... I mean, any BBS that came with a
 NA> freaking VHS installation video you just knew was going to be a
 NA> bit out of your league.

 NA> https://archive.org/details/1993-bbs-tbbstape

Wow.  How cool is that.  I watched the whole video...  Hahaha, the 
professionalism of the presentation is awesome.  What a different time!

 NA> To be fair TBBS was absolutely fascinating. You could get your
 NA> hands on a pirate copy but it was absolutely useless without the
 NA> printed manual. It was "the mother" of all Rube Goldberg
 NA> lets-make-it-freaking-complicated contraptions. But when you
 NA> really began to understand why it did things the way it did... it
 NA> actually made sense. The manuals were very professional.

I just downloaded it from an "abandonware" site, two 1.44 floppy images, 
probably no manual in there.  Might give it a look sometime... :-)

 NA> I was a huge fan and wrote some crude textfile-utils for John
 NA> Souvestre's hub system in the 90's. It seemed like him and many
 NA> TBBS Sysops jumped ship and started their own ISP businesses when
 NA> the author invented a router appliance and began pitching the
 NA> Internet as the future.

Yep, the entire BBS world (dialup, anyway) took a nosedive around 1996 
or so, going from memory.  I ran mine then from 93-96 (Fido 1:115/321), 
and had to move away (active duty Navy at the time).  Didn't get things 
re-started until 2018...  ;-)

Thanks for the flashback!


.... As a matter of fact, it IS a banana in my pocket.
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