Feeling Nostalgic
I have been thinking about my computer roots recently. Daily I participate in web based forums such as sysadmintalk.com. They are good systems and are the step child of Usenet and mailing lists. They are almost identical too discussion forums from bulletin board systems (BBSs). However they lack one of the big benefits of BBSs, no off-line reading capability.
Early BBSs required the sysop (System Operator) to have modems so her users could connect. Each modem required a phone line and software to support multiple dial in lines. This could get very expensive so very few BBS systems had more than 2 access lines.
BBSs were a community. People would dial in to see what was going on, get involved in discussions, and even start new discussions. With network systems, such as Fidonet the discussion could touch lots of people world wide. Successful systems would have 200 to 300 users, even in sparsely populated areas. So that would be a modem to user ratio of 100/1. To think people complain about busy signals when the ratio is 10/1.
There were two primary reasons for long user connect times: games (BBSs had some of the first online games) and reading/posting messages. Not much could be done about people playing games but messages time could be cut way down by allowing people to download messages and read/reply and their convenience while not connected. Offline message reading.
Now that we are on the Internet and owners of message boards don't have to worry about phone lines and everyone can connect simultaneously, offline message reading is dead. However, there were other benefits to reading messages offline. Now, if I start reading new posts and I run out of time, I have to remember the message I was on and also the other new posts. This is because my next visit will have an entirely different list of new posts. Offline readers didn't suffer this problem. I could always open the message packet and know what was new at that time.
New messages could be saved for writing over multiple settings. Try that now with vBulletin or phpBoard. Can't be done. You would have to write the message in another editor, save it then copy and paste it.
So I am feeling nostalgic, not so much for BBSs (while that would be great) but for offline message reading. I wonder if there are any ongoing projects for this?
Early BBSs required the sysop (System Operator) to have modems so her users could connect. Each modem required a phone line and software to support multiple dial in lines. This could get very expensive so very few BBS systems had more than 2 access lines.
BBSs were a community. People would dial in to see what was going on, get involved in discussions, and even start new discussions. With network systems, such as Fidonet the discussion could touch lots of people world wide. Successful systems would have 200 to 300 users, even in sparsely populated areas. So that would be a modem to user ratio of 100/1. To think people complain about busy signals when the ratio is 10/1.
There were two primary reasons for long user connect times: games (BBSs had some of the first online games) and reading/posting messages. Not much could be done about people playing games but messages time could be cut way down by allowing people to download messages and read/reply and their convenience while not connected. Offline message reading.
Now that we are on the Internet and owners of message boards don't have to worry about phone lines and everyone can connect simultaneously, offline message reading is dead. However, there were other benefits to reading messages offline. Now, if I start reading new posts and I run out of time, I have to remember the message I was on and also the other new posts. This is because my next visit will have an entirely different list of new posts. Offline readers didn't suffer this problem. I could always open the message packet and know what was new at that time.
New messages could be saved for writing over multiple settings. Try that now with vBulletin or phpBoard. Can't be done. You would have to write the message in another editor, save it then copy and paste it.
So I am feeling nostalgic, not so much for BBSs (while that would be great) but for offline message reading. I wonder if there are any ongoing projects for this?