Re: BBS nostalgia
  By: Sean Dennis to Eric Oulashin on Sat Jan 08 2011 08:52:06

 > still do have POTS users, both for my BBS and my mail network, and it costs 
 > all of $5 a month to have a "distinctive ring" line on my
phone line (my USR
 > Courier can be easily programmed to recognize distinctive ring patterns).

$5/month is pretty good deal.  I'd be curious how many people in my area still
have POTS modems..

 > (On a side note, I've noticed that there seems to be a few more POTS-based 
 > boards popping up.  There's evidently been a bit of a backlash with the 
 > Internet and how crowded it's become.  I keep the POTS side open as part 

Yeah, there are lots of users on the internet, but what exactly do you mean by
crowded?  It feels like there is endless space on the internet, and if there
are too many people using one area, it seems like another could be created. 
One thing I did like, though, about BBSs back in the day is that they had a lot
more of a local feel to them - Most of the users were in the same geographic
area.

 > My main beef, I guess, is trying to fully integrate a BBS into the Web.  I k
 > it can and has been done, but to me, there just isn't the same feel to it, y

I know what you mean.  But even if a BBS has a web site, POP/SMTP, FTP, etc.,
users aren't forced to use them.  Users can still use only the telnet/dialup,
and there, I think BBSs have the same feel they used to.  On the flipside, I
remember a couple BBSs in my area back in the day that started to offer the
ability for its users to log into FTP sites, download files to a temporary area
on the BBS, and then download those files from the BBS.  I thought that was
cool, particularly since I didn't have internet access yet.  That was also
before I fully understood what a BBS was, and I remember that some people on
one particular BBS were talking about the FTP access as a way to get porn. :P

Eric
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