Re: Re: BBSes
  By: Sean Dennis to Sam Alexander on Wed May 24 2006 11:46 pm

 > Sam,
 > 
 >  SA> I think there needs to be a movement to write some of the tech industry
 >  SA> icons like Leo Laport and similar to mention BBSing and get more folks 
 >  SA> check'em out.  Leo and most of the former TEchTV folks
 >  SA> who now do TWiT and
 > 
 > I dunno.  I've seen some of the crowd that Leo preaches too and I sure would
 > want to have to explain to them how a text-based interface works let alone
 > Fidonet.  Most of them are just for instant gratification, point and click
 > simplicity, no thinking needed.
 > 
 > I actually had a user once who by the grace of God figured out telnet and wh
 > they got into my board, all they could do is leave me a message about how
 > confusing my menuing system was and dropped carrier.  It was kinda funny yet
 > kinda sad at the same time.
 > 
 > Later,
 > Sean
 > 
 > 

Hi Sean,

Leo has a very mixed crowd from the techie folks (like me) who followed The 
Screen Savers to the n00bs who watch Call for Help.  I think the tech folks 
who mess with Linux or anything command line would live BBSing, but for 
those who live in a GUI world, you're right, VERY confusing.  It's changing 
the very basic way they use their computer by not using the mouse, and many 
just won't go for it.

In the days of the BBS most folks didn't use mice, even for word 
processing, spreadsheets, etc. Visicalc didn't use a mouse from what I 
remember, neither did Lotus 123 for DOS.  Or I guess they could, but many 
used the menus with keyboard IIRC.  For folks like this using keyboard 
commands was a way of life, so BBSes were old hat.

NOwdays, as you said, folks are used to mouse and having stuff working 
instantly.  BBSing takes abit of patience to learn the menus of each BBS 
and to get used to the interface, and you're right, many if not most won't 
go for it -- but ya know, if we can get even 1000 people to start hitting 
BBSes as users that'd be a huge influx with hte few BBSes that exist today.

Anywhoo, geting the word out that BBSing is still around and thriving is 
critical.  At the peak my area had anywhere from 60-80 active public BBSes, 
so in a world now with even 400 or so (which is the count I keep seeing), 
that's still 5 times more then I used to have... 

Sam

---Sam Alexander - sam.alexander(at)sidebandbbs(dot)com icq: 5386757 []
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