Re: On The Twit List
  By: KK4QBN to Nightfox on Sun Sep 17 2017 04:36 am

 Ni>> Ah, the inter-BBS message list? I thought that was a pretty cool
 Ni>> feature when I started using Synchronet. I've been wondering why
 Ni>> there are so few BBSes on that list and how that list is generated.

 KK> I believe all system who are running the instant messenger are still
 KK> polled on udp ports nightly by Robs system, a list is distrubuted and sent
 KK> around to all the BBS systems. then when you use it it parses the list and
 KK> probes the UDP ports for available system.. most of the time there is no
 KK> one on there.. 

What instant messenger do you have to run?  I don't recall reading about that.
I thought the Synchronet instant messenger ran over SMTP or something..  And I
know a lot of ISPs block port 25 (the incoming SMTP port), and that can be an
issue.  Unless I'm thinking of something else..

 KK> I had a cool setup in the 90s when I was in my teens, was the local
 KK> fidonet hub, we had planet connect satellite downling for fidonet and had
 KK> to call chattanooga nightly for the uplink. ended up getting ISDN, so it
 KK> did make the mail calls a bit cheaper. but before that I ended up having 3
 KK> lines running into the house :) This was all before the internet was
 KK> available around here.. don't think it became available until 96 or so,
 KK> and that was a deathblow to all the BBS systems.. I actually had a great
 KK> many paying subscribers too.. 

That sounds pretty cool.  I never had a big BBS setup, just one line, and my
BBS was free (I got plenty of callers but never really felt like I could
justify charging a subscription for it).  I eventually did set up DESQView so I
could try running a separate local node so I could log in locally while someone
was on my BBS though, and it was cool to at least learn how a multi-node BBS
setup worked in DOS, even though I only had one BBS phone line.

The internet did seem like a death blow to BBSes, which was the main reason I
took my original BBS down in 2000.  It wasn't getting many callers anymore, and
at the time I figured probably nobody would want to call a BBS anymore now that
the internet was widely available.  I had heard of telnet BBSes, but for a
while I didn't think anyone would want to use a telnet BBS when they have
internet access.  But later (2007) I found that telnet BBSes still existed and
people do call them, so I decided to start running a BBS again.  It might not
be quite the same as it used to be, but my BBS still gets callers and I enjoy
running it.

Nightfox

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