On 06/04/2010 09:53 PM, Richard Webb -> Ed Hulett wrote:
 RW> HI Ed,

 RW> On Fri 2038-Jun-04 19:16, Ed Hulett (1:123/789) wrote to mark lewis:

 EH>> You're a dinosaur...

 RW> Been accused of bein' one o' them myself, with my straight
 RW> key opn the bench over here on the keyboard tray, and my old Hamarlund
 RW> receiver behind me.

Heh heh heh... I have an old Nye straight key somewhere around here. I also
have a Bencher Iambic. I haven't touched either for a long time.

No old receivers, though. :-)

 RW> 

 EH>> Ah ah ah... you participate, so you aren't just an enabler.

 RW> AS do most, we enable so that we can participate, helps us
 RW> justify it ya know .

The anonymity of sitting in front of a keyboard and slinging insults long
distance is an intoxicating concept that few have been able to resist.

 RW> 

 EH>> Not all sysops have or do think that way. Some (have) just set up
 EH>> their BBS and let it go. I remember when there were hundreds of
 EH>> BBSes in the local BBS list kept by one of the locals here. Now,
 EH>> there are maybe a dozen. I have no idea how many still carry FIDO. A
 EH>> guy I worked with back in the late 70s and early 80s was the local
 EH>> FIDO hub (Mark Blakely). I have no idea if he's still involved.

 RW> YEp, he's still in the nodelist, still has dial up too.
 RW> Crashed him netmail a few months ago.

Wow! I'm amazed he's still at it. I wonder if he still has the 2400 baud
modem on his system. :-)

 RW> BAck in my fairly busy hub days we had those who did that
 RW> too, just got the board configured, plugged in fidonet or
 RW> their favorite qwk network and let it run. But, usually
 RW> their disinterest meant they didn't share the costs of
 RW> bringing in fidonet echoes reliably, so they had to seek
 RW> their feed elsewhere paying their own long distance charges. THeir users
 RW> soon went elsewhere too, because when things
 RW> didn't work that the users expected then they got
 RW> disappointed. Yah yah I know, only a hobby and all that,
 RW> but the busy boards I always found were those whose sysops
 RW> paid attention, made sure that user options worked, cleaned
 RW> things up and even took the time to coach the newbies and
 RW> show 'em around a bit. But then, that was 1992-97 when
 RW> there were still a lot of newbies getting their first
 RW> computer, and their first modeming experience. Kinda like
 RW> ham radio used to be, the good ham radio clubs were those
 RW> with the ELmers that helped show the new guys the ropes, and in doing so
 RW> recruited new active club members. THese days
 RW> too many folks just go to an instant ham class or two, or
 RW> even worse, just memorize by rote the correct answers to the multiple
 RW> guess questions thanks to qrz.coom. THey learn
 RW> nothing about the culture of ham radio, or public service
 RW> operating or ...

I know what you mean. Back in my days of dialing up to local BBSes, there
were only a few that I used regularly. One of those was a guy in Tacoma
(Amocat BBS) who compiled a BBS list on a monthly basis and was apparently
one of the major nodes locally for FIDO. Oh, the halcyon days of dialup
BBSes and offline readers.

 RW> THese days you can't get folks interested in something like
 RW> that. NO instant gratification available.

Yep.

Ed

-- 
"The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the
ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty." --Fisher Ames,
speech in the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788

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