Nah, not old, I’ve just been pathetic for a long, long time. 
That sounds familiar. I looked up Trade Wars at raizok’s suggestion, and I remember that name as well. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t it. Galaxy 5 sounds right, and it was pretty new at the time, at least in our area. Only one board had it.
I remember FIDO net, too. Used to talk to a bunch of people in Louisiana at a board called The Bayou, I think. I always thought it was the biggest deal, being on the west coast. Fun times. I still have a hard time not referring to a message board as plural. I called so many boards during my BBS days, it became a habit. So now if I talk to someone from the SDMB for example, I might say I recognize their handle from the boards. Doh!
Hey - I remember playing Arena on the Annex, too!
I hadta stop though, because it was 213(?) and I was 818…
Then there were the calls to nationally-known BBSes, like Steve Jackson Games’ Illuminati BBS in Austin TX. Man, was that a bad habit.
(OK. It was nothing compared to being addicted to MMORPGs on AOL during the $3/hour days.)
I also remember seeing ads for Baudtown, but at the time thought “why should I pay for a BBS when there’s all these free ones around?” This was before I broke down and subscribed to AOL.
Did you ever pick up a copy of the Recycler for the BBS ads?
Anyone remember the fun of wanting to be on a real 0-3 day warez bbs? I recall trying to get into this “legendary” bbs where it was rumored that they ran 6 cds of stuff, but no one I knew was successful in getting in. One day as I dialed it up, the sysop broke into chat and got all paranoid, all it took was a bit of charm on my part and I managed to get access. Needless to say, everyone envied me, though this was back when they had ratios so I couldnt download anything anyways (had to be zero day).
Blah.
I never heard of the 0-3 concept. Hey, but I was addicted to chat on AOL back when it was 5 hrs “free” and 5cents a min after that. ($3/hr)
These are the names of the two boards in my local calling area:
Koolvord BBS - Sysop = Willy Curry & spouce, Ladydeath
Delta Quadrant BBS - Sysop = Intruder & sis, Gumby188
Hezekiah’s Tunnel BBS - Sysop = Hezekiah (2 lines! wow!)
Vortex of Illusion BBS - Sysop = me, VoRTeX
Intruder married Imzadi eventually, and Gumby188 married and divorced Dreamer. Armadillo was a dumpster diver, and JapAnime freak towards Sailor Moon.
I miss the ole DOS screens for writing email.
Lumby, you get 5 stars in my book. *****
When I started calling BBSes (and AOhell) I had an external 2400 baud modem… and then I shelled out 50 bux for a 14.4 when the 28.8 came out. Even at 14.4, i had to put e(X)pert mode on so the ANSI wouldn’t slow down my game play. Anybody remember doing that? I’d actually print the screens so i could refer to them in expert mode, just to save time loading.
Downloading a game took all night long… i set it and went to bed, in the morning, i had a nice present waiting for me. PKzip was kewl too. PK was my friend.
-RMx
I think bughunter was describing my experiences, just the wrong area code. I used to run a WWIV BBS back in the early 90’s, but it fortunately never took off. As I recall, my mom was very accomodating in getting me my own phone line for it. I had my own TradeWars game running with about a dozen players at the peak. I had my own off-line WaReZ section that I’d let my friends access. There was this co-worker of my dad’s that knew all the pirate BBS’s and the big hacking groups, but they were all in faraway places and I could never figure out how to access them.
I’m having a brain fart… wasn’t there a huge one called “Rusty & Eddie’s BBS” or something?
Ah, yes. WWIV. Watch While I Vomit.
I was BBSing in the early 90s up until the growing tide of the World Wide Web and America Offline washed them away. I frequented a few in 510 and 925 area codes:
City of Night (lives on in Telnet, but I haven’t really been there lately)
BIF (met my wife sort of indirectly through there)
IO Net (run by defectors from BIF)
Emerald Forest (run by a friend of mine)
Knights of the Silicon Table (I was a sysop on that one, didn’t last too long though)
Starbase Valhalla (I think that’s what it was called, it had a Star Trek theme and several versions and mods of Tradewars running at once)