Old BBS sites pre-Internet

[Mambi]

Hya, I was curious about something, and this might stretch people's odds but this is the internet and furry predates things, so what the heck. You have to go back to the early 90's for this one, pre-internet...pre Windows 95, mostly text-based PC's...

Pre-Internet, chats like what we're doing now used to be be done though Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). People would call into a computer with a modem (literally, often it was just some guy's home computer attached to his home phone with the software running), download your "messages" at blinding speeds (sarcasm overload!), uploads your replies, etc. There were several "mailing list" groups...

...and by now younger users are confused while some older users are nodding and getting flooded with nostalgia. <giggle> It's to those ones I want to talk to right now:

I ask if you remember a group called PODSNET (Pagan Oriented Discussion) and one sub-group in particular called "Merry Meet". The reason is that group was one where people often took on animorphic roles like cats, snakes, foxes, just like we do now, I used to be a member of it, and was curious in the modern world of the internet if anyone else was a member long ago too and happened to stumble here? If so, it's be great to say "HI!" again to old friends, and if not, enjoy the history lesson. <laugh>

 

[Telnac]

Yup. Wasn't free tho since all the BBS's I knew of were long distance phone calls on my father's 1200 baud modem.

 

[Kinare]

I'm slightly too young to have known about or used such a thing. Windows 95 was our first home computer and I wasn't really allowed to poke it much, I was around 11 or 12 then. Oldest things I remember are floppy drives, DOS Golf, and dial-up internet (which, because rural, we had for ages).

 

[Slytherin Umbreon]

I'm too young to have used them, but I'm nerdy enough to know about them uwu

 

[Filter]

Yup. Wasn't free tho since all the BBS's I knew of were long distance phone calls on my father's 1200 baud modem.

I remember when my parents got the first phone bill after I discovered BBSes.

"Who are you calling in California?"

lol

Thankfully, they were understanding. It was all pretty innocent. BBSes that hosted lists of jokes and whatnot. Eventually, one of my friends ran a local BBS from his bedroom. I didn't have my own phone line, so I couldn't do that.

 

[Simo]

I remember when my parents got the first phone bill after I discovered BBSes.

"Who are you calling in California?"

lol

Thankfully, they were understanding. It was all pretty innocent. BBSes that hosted lists of jokes and whatnot. Eventually, one of my friends ran a local BBS from his bedroom. I didn't have my own phone line, so I couldn't do that.

This reminds me of a friend in highschool, who got a computer long before I did: He got into the early days of the internet, and called me one day in a panic:

Him: "I just got the phone bill..."

Me: "Oh?"

Him: "It came in a box...like checks."

Me: "Woah...you mean..."

Him: "$620. My mom is gonna be SO pissed...she'll kill me..."

He had to sell a lotta stuff, to pay it, as I recall...but he did live : P

 

[Filter]

This reminds me of a friend in highschool, who got a computer long before I did: He got into the early days of the internet, and called me one day in a panic:

Him: "I just got the phone bill..."

Me: "Oh?"

Him: "It came in a box...like checks."

Me: "Woah...you mean..."

Him: "$620. My mom is gonna be SO pissed...she'll kill me..."

He had to sell a lotta stuff, to pay it, as I recall...but he did live : P

Yikes. Our bill wasn't that high, but it was substantial. The exact figure escapes me.

Glad to hear your friend lived to tell the tale!

 

[AppleButt]

I'm slightly too young to have known about or used such a thing. Windows 95 was our first home computer and I wasn't really allowed to poke it much, I was around 11 or 12 then. Oldest things I remember are floppy drives, DOS Golf, and dial-up internet (which, because rural, we had for ages).

Same. I remember floppy discs, our windows 95 computer, and stuff.

I also understand the rural pain in the ass internet.

We finally had another option other than dial-up around 2007-08. We are on Satellite now cause the DSL we were on became trash.

There’s gonna be fiber optic internet strung out to my area in the next year or two. Quite excited

 

[MaelstromEyre]

I started on PRODIGY, I was in a group of fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000. . .this would have been early nineties, when I was in high school.

Then we moved to America Online, where we not only had BBS, but LIVE CHAT. I thought we were really in high gear because we had a 14.4 modem. . .THEN we got a 56k modem! That was when you got so many free hours a month, then once you were over, you started getting charged.

I wasn't involved in the furry fandom at all, but it was actually one of my friends from the MST3K group who happened to mention Omaha the Cat Dancer when a group of us went to DragonCon (Atlanta, 1995). I never heard of it before that. . .my eyes were opened. . .

 

[ManicTherapsid]

I started with AOL 2.5 I think. Might have tried Prodigy for like a week.
I kind of miss those old AOL chat rooms.

 

[Telnac]

I never liked Prodigy. It's one thing to be ahead of your time. It's another to do so well. Prodigy was like the Web only with a tiny handful of sites, most of which were broken and horribly slow.

...and when actual Internet access became a thing they refused to join in until it was too late and their customer base left.

 

[Kinare]

I also understand the rural pain in the ass internet.

We finally had another option other than dial-up around 2007-08. We are on Satellite now cause the DSL we were on became trash.

There’s gonna be fiber optic internet strung out to my area in the next year or two. Quite excited

We didn't get DSL until... jeeze, had to be 2010 at the earliest, cuz it was after I came back home from PA that I looked into it, which was early '10. It was only 762kbps and a 250gb data limit, but that was amazing then for us. Now they've gotten rid of it because demand hasn't been high enough since most people around here can get cable now.

Late '07 after I turned 18 I got satellite as my first high-speed internet experience... huge mistake. Not only did it not work a lot because Michigan weather, but jesus it was expensive ($90/mo), not very fast compared to what you can get nowadays, and the data cap was a mere 5GB and they automatically charged you $20 for another 5GB if you went over... Cancellation was another like $400. It's not much better now from what I've looked into, only difference is more speed to roughly match cable and you can buy bigger data packages up front, lul.

Luckily I no longer live there, I've got cable where I am because city, but my mom wanted to move her business to the house and is not going to be able to without somehow having access to better internet and the current options are pretty bad still, either very expensive or won't work for her needs.

 

[AppleButt]

We didn't get DSL until... jeeze, had to be 2010 at the earliest, cuz it was after I came back home from PA that I looked into it, which was early '10. It was only 762kbps and a 250gb data limit, but that was amazing then for us. Now they've gotten rid of it because demand hasn't been high enough since most people around here can get cable now.

Late '07 after I turned 18 I got satellite as my first high-speed internet experience... huge mistake. Not only did it not work a lot because Michigan weather, but jesus it was expensive ($90/mo), not very fast compared to what you can get nowadays, and the data cap was a mere 5GB and they automatically charged you $20 for another 5GB if you went over... Cancellation was another like $400. It's not much better now from what I've looked into, only difference is more speed to roughly match cable and you can buy bigger data packages up front, lul.

Luckily I no longer live there, I've got cable where I am because city, but my mom wanted to move her business to the house and is not going to be able to without somehow having access to better internet and the current options are pretty bad still, either very expensive or won't work for her needs.

Satellite (We use Viasat) has been a blessing compared to the DSL we switched from that’d barely reach 1 mbps on a good day. Viasat where I’m at can reach 50 Mbps sometimes and that’s faster than the speed we pay for lol. It’s gotten better with weather. It works rain or shine these days. It takes a severe thunderstorm for it to go out now.

But yeah satellite is expensive and the data cap sucks. We’re hoping the contract will be up by time the fiber gets to our area.