(long message follows...)

Hello, T.J..

11 Jan 07 20:14, you wrote to me:

 TM> AHAHAHAHAHHA ... I remember those days!  ....  Wow .. 1993 ... back
 TM> when the BBS first went up ... wow .. memories. ;)

Yep.  My very first BBS software I tinkered with was TriBBS.  Then I bought
"BBS Construction Kit" with GAP.  That book disappeared
mysteriously...I think one of my friends borrowed it permanently and didn't
bother to tell me.  I then tried Renegade.

Well, in 1994, my life changed a lot and in 1995, I joined the Army.  After
marrying (for the first time) and being stationed down at Fort Hood, Texas,
I had called a few local boards but didn't think about setting up one
myself.

I received a free month's service from Another World Internet (now it's
been digested into Earthlink), run by two tank drivers on their spare time.
 They were running a Red Hat machine on a T1.  I was one of about four
people who used shell access.  That is where I ran into Scott McNay (he is
no longer a sysop, but his mother still participates in the COOKING echo). 
We became very good friends and he introduced me to BinkleyTerm (which I
still run).

He ran a RBBS combo-it was very customized for his tastes.  I began
tinkering with software.  The next one I ran was ProBoard.  For some
reason, I didn't like it (still don't remember why) and started asking
around.

By that time, I was a point in Fidonet (1:395/11.86 - I'll never forget
it!) and a node in Sysops' Tech Net.  I began asking around in STN and
Vincent Danen, STN's founder, suggested I try Telegard.

By then, I'd discovered IRC and began hanging out there.  I quickly set up
Telegard but at that time, another sysop who was stationed at Fort Hood,
Art Stark (Topper), introduced me to OS/2.  That was in 1997, I do believe.
 I'm still running OS/2 to this day for the BBS and my personal machine.

I found out that there was going to be an OS/2-native version of Telegard,
so I began hanging out in the Telegard channel in SysopNet.  Tim listened
and even implimented one of my ideas (the ALT-1 or forced user download
feature was from my asking).  I'm listed in the documentation too (look for
"hausmaus from IRC").

In 1998, I purchased Internet Rex (from bbsdirect.com if any of you
remember that!) and thus began my changeover from dialup to full-time
internet. However, that was not to be for several more years.  After having
marital problems for quite some time, in 2000, I was divorced and moved to
Illinois with a girl I met online.  She turned out to be a psycopath
(really), so I moved out on my own into a private dormitory.

It was then I began tinkering with Maximus/2.  I really liked how it
integrated with everything I was using.  At that time, I met my current
wife online and she moved up to live with me.  Soon after that, we'd gotten
a bigger place and had cable internet installed.  I began running
Afterhours/2 full-time.  It became Outpost BBS briefly, then I changed it
to Midnight's Hour BBS (a personal tribute to my wife; the place we met
online was called Midnight's Hour).

I became RC11, the head of STN and started Micronet (really, Micronet was
officially started 1 September 2000, but never took off until I got
full-time internet).  I had a big board going, spending tons of time on
it...and then the bottom fell out financially.  I had to shut off the cable
internet and "give back" my RC11 and STN positions...which I
still regret to this day in the way I did it.

By that time, I had begun looking for something that several years later I
knew I wouldn't find.  I tinkered with a LOT of different BBS
software...more than 30 packages.  During this time, my then-girlfriend and
I got married and we moved to the Atlanta metro area to live with her
mother to try to start a better life.  I ran Shotgun Professional, then
ProBoard, then Maximus/2 and finally Telegard/2...which I've stuck with for
quite some time.

However, in retrospect, I've found that Maximus/2 was the best one for me
and for what I wanted in a BBS.  I was seriously pondering SPITFIRE
recently, however, its poor support and lack of a good Fidonet tosser
turned me away from it.

It was this last New Years' Eve...I was sick with one hell of a case of the
stomach flu when it came to me...I don't know why I just didn't stick with
Maximus/2 in the first place.  I'm still running all the same utilities I
had since I first started and everything "plugged" into Max...so
why not go back and use what I know the best?  (Telegard is actually still
poorly documented, but that is because it was killed before it was fully
mature.)

Amazingly enough, I found my years-old Max/2 setup still on my hard drive
(I don't tend to clean up the BBS machine much :).  I fired it up, it still
worked.  So I cleaned up the message areas, the file areas and am working
on moving the users over by hand (best way to make sure all is well).

Along the way, I've caught hell from a lot of people for my
"wishy-washyness". What they don't understand that BBSing is a
very personal hobby and if I wasn't happy, I wanted to find something to
make me happy.  I think I finally did.

To be honest, if I was going to go through all of it again, I'd just have
stuck with what I had the first time around.  I'm a perfectionist to a
fault and sometimes, I have to have it my way or no way at all.  But I
guess I've mellowed a bit over the years, making more than my share of
enemies in the BBS world , but the thing is that I'm still here
and they're not.  /THAT'S/ the important thing.

I don't see myself shutting down my BBS anytime in the near or far future.
BBSing and sysoping have just become part of my blood, so it's something
that I'll continue to do until it no longer holds its thrill for me.  I
still like watching people log on the BBS and enjoy themselves.

Anyhow, sorry for the long-winded message.  I get chatty when I take codeine. :)

Later,
Sean

//sean{at}outpostbbs.net | http://outpostbbs.net | ICQ: 19965647

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