B4 the "Internets." BBS's, Compuserve and text based games.

[Shardik]

A thread on Babylon 5 made me remember this because back in the 80's I was in the writers forum on Compuserve along with such writers as J. Michael Strazynski and David (Trouble with Tribbles) Gerrold, Orson Scott Card and several other notable authors of many genres

There were thousands of BBS's hosted by individuals that hosted tons of great text based games (You face a griffen. Do you A, B or C?) in which all monsters were ascii characters. Great interest forums. And a lot of fun.

At that time, you were uptown if you had a CGA monitor and HD's were in MB's rather than GBs. Windows didn't exist and you had to learn your DOS to run your computer. My first laptop didn't even have a HD and used an 8088c processor.

We were the original nerds and felt pretty damned smug at the time as we were doiing things that most folks couldn't or were at least unaware of.

Fun times!

[leeroysphitz]

1. Ah BBS's: the birth place of digital porn.

Good times.

[Shardik]

2. They were that as well. Stills.

No vids because the computing power just wasn't there yet.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

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[ChoralScholar]

3. I remember it well. Compuserve on my 300 baud modem

which was using an acoustic handset coupler.

If we had to go back to, even circa 1990, telecomputing technology, 99.3 percent of users would have no clue what to do.

The melancholy days of GOPHER, TELNET, WAIS, archie, veronica, jughead

those were the days.

[XemaSab]

4. Telnet

(sigh)

[ChoralScholar]

10. Seems like I remember

telnetting to some server at umich.edu to get the weather.

[XemaSab]

14. That was our email interface at school for about 10 years

As far as I know, it's still the webpage interface.

[rcrush]

5. MajorMudd

On those Major BBS systems. Spent hours and hours and hours typing n s w e

[Inchworm]

6. If I coulda had 2-3 turns...

I'd have took over teh bbs's :D

:hi:

[JCMach1]

7. Had a FIDONET BBS back in the day

Was also a hacker in those days... some of my friends (clears throat) never payed for Compuserve, GEnie, etc. during those halcyon days.

[JVS]

8. Legend of the red dragon 4 ever!

[JVS]

9. Remember when a flamewar took days to develop instead of minutes?

[MrSlayer]

11. I was on Q-Link.

Way back in the day. It eventually became AOL. But I was the best flamethrower on there, I was unbanable.

[Deja Q]

13. I recall each and every aspect you mentioned.

:D

[Jamastiene]

15. I still miss Swords of Chaos.

I play Runescape now and cannot get anyone to come play with me to save me.

[Crabby Appleton]

16. "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike"

[Writer]

17. DU is a BBS.

With a few extra features added.