The Lost Civilization of Dial-Up Bulletin Board Systems

November 7th, 2016 by Benj Edwards

The Cave BBS Logoff ANSI by Nukemaster

Last Friday, The Atlantic published an article I wrote in which I explore modern-day dial-up BBSes.

Some of you may remember that I’ve visited this topic before — on this very blog — way back in 2006. In my recent virtual travels, I found it very interesting to see how things in the dial-up BBS space had changed over ten years, and I allude to that in my Atlantic article.

I’ve mentioned this many times before, but for those of you who are unfamiliar, I ran a dial-up BBS called “The Cave BBS” between 1992 and 1998. Since 2005, I have also run a telnet version of The Cave.

To read more about my BBS adventures, check out the “BBS History” category on VC&G.



3 Responses to “The Lost Civilization of Dial-Up Bulletin Board Systems”

  1. Jarson Says:

    Love your articles, so well researched, thought out, and written.
    Almost want to try and find a good RPG made of ANSI somewhere on Telnet

  2. Benj Edwards Says:

    Thanks, Jarson. I appreciate it. The best BBS RPG in my opinion is Operation: Overkill II. You can play it on my BBS if you telnet to cavebbs.homeip.net port 23.

  3. V Says:

    I came in at the very tail end of BBS’s, used my first one in 1995 (Navigator BBS in Weymouth, MA which was shut down in 97). I started with a 1.2 kbps modem and shortly after moved to a 2.4. I used it until I discovered dial-up remote internet offered for free through my town the same year (you could dial into a Unix shell and use things like Lynx and Pine, but you couldn’t use any internet software on your own PC), which I used until I got a newer Windows 95 PC and real, PPP dial-up access, sometime in 97.

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