Old fogeys take notice

[mmcirvin]

If you're like me, you can drill down in this historical list of North American BBS numbers to the region where you spent your adolescence, search for dates in the 1980s, and get instant nostalgia vibes. They even list the one that my friend Alan set up for his church, and the one that was run by the creepy counter guy at the Radio Shack and went from a warez board with draconian upload/download ratio limits to all Christian chat one day without warning.

Comments

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

The one my girlfriend was using when she met my friend David, who introduced her to me:

401-353-3359
PROVIDENCE, RI E-NEST Prov #, Eagles Nest Network, The Eagle's Nest BBS
(1990-1994)

[jecook]

Heh.

They didnt list The one BBS out here that you could never dialup one, because it was busy almost all the time:

The abbatior Flats.

Run by this crazy, long hair freak. Oh wait, I'm describing my old boss at global.

Rumor has it that he's still got the hardware and software. it was a commodore 64 board, hardly any downloads, but a lot of messages.

[hemlock-martini.livejournal.com]

Holy crap...the flashbacks! I just found the name of a guy on this list--sysop of a BBS I hung out at--to whom I sold all my Magic: The Gathering cards after I got a girlfriend.

Thanks for this.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I can't seem to find Spiffy's Spiffdom, which ran in 206 as late as 1996 or 7 on an Apple ][. It was run by a geek friend of a guy in my dorm. It was a real club of friends from Kent/Auburn, WA, and while I was an honorary member because I knew one of them and my geek cred was in order (though many of them were fantasy RPG nerds and Rush fans, which I didn't go for), but I pity the occasional fool who found Spiffdom listed in a free weekly paper or something and signed up. (Notably, the 13-year-old DETHSTRYK, whose password, I learned, was DETHMAN.)

Spiffdom was especially pleasing to the eye, because it was ALL IN CAPS, if I recall correctly.

(I also checked 253, which didn't quite exist at that time, but Spiffdom might have continued to run after that point-- I had heard years lated that it suffered a failure in some irreplaceable hardware, but I don't know when.)

Spiffy's Spiffdom

[(Anonymous)]

Spiffy's Spiffdom is now alive and well at Spiffdom.com. (Woah, didn't see that coming). I'm one of the original members from the Apple IIgs days.

Spiffy didn't have a hardware failure, just decided to shut it down.

Not everyone on there is a rush fan.

-Emmett The Crab