[plug] ISPs in WA

[simon]

Tomasz Grzegurzko (tomasz_g at arach.net.au) wrote:
>
> Quoting Gregory Orange <gregory.orange at metoceanengineers.com>:

> > Mmmm a bit of TradeWars action on WAOL would go down well (: What ever
> > happened to BBSs anyway - did they all completely fade away as the WWW
> > waded in?
> >
> > Greg.
>
> More or less; people realised that the net was cheaper (or the same price per
> month) and connected you to a far larger world. The chats etc were just a
> prelude to IRC where you could talk to even more people, and online gaming was
> growing over the 'net rather than the sturdy IPX lans we'd built =)
>
> Shame; if anyone has mud lying around, give me a yell =) I'd like to consider
> reverse engineering the sucker, maybe even give it a GUI and bring it to the
> modern age..
>
> Tomasz
>

There are still plenty of BBSes around - however they now mostly run via
telnet.

I frequently log in to a commodore 64 based BBS run by the legendary group
Triad (yes, they still exist) via a c64 PETSCII emulator terminal for linux.
First releases are a bit thin on the ground these days though ;)

For those interested in ancient BBS history, I have the SFD-1001 drives
(Commodore 1M quad-density beasts) that used to run the BBS called 'Treasure
Island', which was run by Graham and Gloria Platt who went on to create
Multiline BBS..... I bought them in about 1992, and theyve been sitting idle
ever since waiting for me to find an IEEE interface :D

Another interesting tidbit is that Jim Brain recently reverse engineered the
Qlink protocol and is creating a replacement server. Qlink was an early
network in the US, and the company went on to become AOL. You can connect to
Qlink Reloaded via a c64 emulator (with a bit of configuration) or a real c64
by using a null modem cable and a PC running TCPServ or equivalent (it
basically does the modem emulation and transfers the data to a telnet
session), and bask in its 1200 baud goodness.

All fun and games :)

--
=================
Simon Scott
simon at chrome64.org
mob: 0409113359
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