I ran a BBS and loved the BBS community. It was 1000x better than the internet as it is now. The best way to connect to a BBS these days is telnet, so BBSs will still be around for many years yet. The BBS I use to use had amazing ANSi artwork, plenty of underground boards still about.
The best part is, FIDONET still exists. Or maybe it's not the best part as it's still limited by what killed it before, the admins. You can still sign on to FIDONET and get a lecture about how your language is not appropriate...not exactly "progress." But FIDO is still there, for what it's worth.
It was only better because it wasnt mainstream, it was uncharted territory, communicating online. Now you really cant relive that, the only thing that could replace it woudl be a new communications system, so far ahead of its time only a small percentage of the population are using it. You can say TH-cam took that spot in its early days, allowing for video communications, vlogs for the first time. Thats what BBS's were at the time.
I also ran a BBS in Okinawa, in the early nineties. The community was so fantastic with almost none of the negativity that has become the Hallmark of the current Internet.
Cool! The one thing I miss the most about those days was that many people online were computer savvy and we didn't have as many stupid annoying people with all their false info and constant scammers. Great video. Thanks for sharing ❤
@@charlesurrea1451 Yep, it was like a secret little meeting place. What I liked most was that you could have a long distance conversation with someone and not pay for a long distance call. 😉
300 baud modem on my CoCo 2, calling a BBS for the first time sometime in 83 or 84-- a classmate's Dad ran the BBS. I didn't know anything about long distance bills at the time.. I found out the hard way when Mom and Dad got the phone bill :-P
I ran a local BBS in 87-89 was great times. Had a dedicated second line just for the BBS, ran it on a apple //c that was upgraded with an external 3.5 for the code and zip chip plus more memory.
Takes me back to the time when I bought my first (and actually only) analog modem back in 1992. I was doing an internship and when that was nearly done they decided that we should get paid for it, retroactively. So I unexpectedly got quite some money which I spend on a SCSI II Controller for my A500, a 240MB SCSI II harddisk and a 14.400 baud ZyXEL. This led to me getting into software development because my friend had taken over development of some BBS software that had been written in GFA Basic. So first I had to learn that and it also got me into C programming because I started work on a support library written in C. The BASIC compiler could no longer handle the amount of code needed for the BBS so I ported some of the low-level routines over to C to make room for new features added to the BBS in BASIC. Of course it also made stuff faster. Good times :)
56k? I used to connect to my local BBS on my C64 at a whopping 300 baud! We'd (me and a friend of mine) download some game to try (ahem!) that would take *AGES* to download and then half the time it wouldn't work. Still lots of fond memories, though. I was in heaven when my parents bought me a 1200 baud modem the following Christmas. I miss those PETSCII animated BBS pages. Some were very clever.
I remember a bank security guard tell me in the late 1990s he ran a BBS back in the day, lol. I was around during the BBS days. There were sheets on the counter at Radio Shack with lists of BBS, the phone number, and the subject of each.
I was a member of a great local BBS back in the 90s. We made lifelong friends who are still friends over 30 years later. The other fact that still amazes me. I know of seven couples that met and later married. The amazing part is they are all still married. Anyway, the BBS scene was a very different than modern social media even if it only lasted for a few years.
I ran a spitfire BBS Mike Woltz in 1988 until 1994 with Windows 98 multi-tasking a 5 pioneer 10 cd changer for cd from through doorways. I had 10 lines incoming and ran competitions. Really fund days
Thanks for bringing back a bunch of memories I wished to suppress. Been using modem since 1200 BBS. I still remember the day I got my DSL line working, I loved it. 640 KBPs, and I couldn't have been happier
I miss my BBS... lots of maintenance and friendly users... loved editing my script file for portal of power (front end for the bbs) VGA Planets was a favourite game played weekly with other users and BBS'es I started it all off on my C64 in 1985 as a user of compunet.. on my 1200/75 baud modem!
I had a friend who liked to run a BBS from his bedroom in the late 80's I had the privilege to play Diablo 1 on dialup battlenet. I wonder what will happen to all the classic and retro PC hardware when the cell phone Zombies of the younger generations greatly outnumber us.
@@RetroRecipes Actually I think there were over 500 phone lines. The BBS application was PCBoard (OS/2) and MBnet was the only one in the world to have a 1000 nodes license for it. One multitasking OS/2 PC could handle only four phone lines. The BBS (1994 - 2002) was run by a Finnish home computer magazine MikroBitti. MikroBitti has been published this year for 40 years.
Back in the 80's I used to check out BBS. It's kind of funny, but I had a map of Compuserve at the time, and it was a simple foldout. Ah, those were such good times.
@retrorecipes Hi, thank you muchly for bringing back fond memorys or when I ran a BBS I ran "Andy's BBS" in Melbourne Australia from 1981 to 1996 - Was one of the primary BBS/Fidonet echomail/netmail hubs for Australia with other BBS's from Melbourne Perth Sydney Adelaide and Tasmania connecting to my system for daily mail collections. It was a very sad day when I finally shutdown (was about to get married and could not afford to keep three line BBS running) p.s I half expected "Joshua" voice on your video after connecting : "Greetings RetroRecipes. Would you like to play a game?" Anyone out there ever log onto my BBS (had users from all over the world back then - maybe few still remember my system) was one of a handful of long running BBS's at the time I shutdown
I ran a TAG BBS system called Mad, Mad World back in the 90s. It was a pirate gaming site. I started with a C64 with a 300 baud modem and a 1MB hard drive...eventually moving to a 386 PC with a 1200 baud modem. Good times!
back in my day we started with 300 baud... cobbled together some programs to boost it to ~450 baud if your twisted pair was clean & quiet. 56k was a pipe dream circa 1984 Then we jumped to 1200 baud woo hoo !
Love the US Robotics modems in the 1980s. I still have my Courier HST dual standard modem with a special daugherboard that lets me via software upgrade to 56K. So it went from 14.4k dual standard to V.Everything / 56K via firmware upgrade. Awesome stuff. I've also ran BBS over the years from the Commodore 64 in 1983, Amiga late 1980s and finally OS/2 Warp on PC in 1990s. 300 baud weren't too bad till you started to download / upload programs. Then 1200, 2400, 14.4K, 16.8K, 28.8K and finally 56K. My first time connecting to a BBS on my Commodore 64 at 300 baud was magical. It really opened the doors for me in terms of communicating with other people and exchanging programs. Great times!
The nostalgia is palpable. I've had flashbacks of getting my 1200 baud then 2400 all the way up the 56k modems. What a time. I remember in the amiga being able to reboot and then reconnect to the line without the connection dropping. Then with windows the modem would reset forcing the cost of another call every time and I couldn't work out how to stop it, with the same modem. Was the beginning of the downfall of tech when making $$$$ became more important than providing quality fun products. That equation never rectified, to this day.
You should have seen my eyes light up when the modem became audible and the BBS answered. Wow... That brought back memories of my first BBS connection in 1987. I'd gotten a C64C for my 16th birthday. Keep up the great content. I can't wait to see what happens next.
I sold those USRs new. Creme de la Creme at the time. Expensive too. But being out in the country with old copper lines it could make the difference to your internet dial up connection.
Also miss CNet, Pro, ran BBS the last name was RimFire, (Old RPG game), and all the hacks through the year. 'i.e. Dan Lee'. Keep wanting to set up a new one on the mini mig.
Oh man, this is gonna be a good one! I connect to BBSes everyday. You're lucky you could still get a copper line installed. I can't find anyone to install one in Montgomery, AL (maybe I need to look again), and over Vonage all I can hit is 9600 bps... similar external USR you're using. I use a 300 baud modem on my CoCo, and I'm in the process of collecting more modems because I want to make some BBS videos as well. I usually use a WiModem232 on a Tandy 1000 TL/2 for my daily calls, but it will soon be having an internal modem installed for dialing ;) Note - the Tandy doesn't have a 16650 UART, so even on the WiModem232 the best I can really do is 9600 anyway. Okay, now on to the video!
A few years ago now I got my Amiga 600 and a dialup modem to work on a BBS. But as my telephone line is now connected to broadband, as it's gone digital I don't think it's worth it as I will need lots of extra things connected
I still remember buying that exact model (back in the day) at Best Buy. I thought I was hot stuff, with my 56K!! That was back when you had to know things to do things online. Loved the vid!
It awesome to see younger folks doing this. I'm 60 and I started my IT career in '92- Soooo different now. My son is 27 and he's really into retro tech. I figured it would all die and be gone forever. Very cool.
I’m sorry, but accessing a BBS any faster than 9600 isn’t an authentic retro BBS experience.😅 Use 300 baud for a while and you’ll love your lightning fast 2400 session. My first modem was a Sendata 1275, with 300/300 and 1200/75 speeds, manually switched. you dialled on the rotary phone manually, and switched to data once you heard 4 seconds of the tone. Saved up for 6 months to buy that old model from Rod Irving Electronics. When I got my 2400 baud fax modem with AT command support, I was blown away… (VCE graduation present)…
The best thing about BBS's back in the day was they were mostly local people. I started my dial up journey around 1990 when I was 15. I racked up some insane phone bills calling Prodigy and out of state BBS's so I quickly learned to stick to local boards. We had quite a healthy scene with multiple 20+ channel boards. We played MajorMuds and Trade Wars 2002 for hours on end. The sense of community was unmatched to anything online today because it was possible to actually meet and hangout on a regular basis. 2 boards had weekly gatherings, Friday night cosmic bowling, and a Wednesday night trivia. We did that for years until eventually the net killed traffic and everyone moved on in life but I still have life long friends from those days that have been my family for the last 30+ years. Its was an incredible time to grow up.
I remember having so much fun playing Trade Wars 2002 on a BBS near me that I ended up buying the game to run on my own computer. I would get so annoyed when someone would pick up the phone and interrupt my modem session!
A lot of memories there... The first PC compatible I ever owned was a BBS (Motel Florida) that was upgrading, I bought their hardware. A Z80 powerhouse with a 20MB MFM drive, which dates me, I think, and a 1200/300 BPS Racal Vadic modem. Good times. I was a member on many local BBS around the Space Coast in Florida, a great place for the technologically inclined.
I started onb BBS's here in Australia in the early 90's. Maybe 1993. I had a Netcom 2400kbps, then a Zoltrix internal 14.4kbps modem. Then I upgraded to a 33.6 and later a 56K... Cut my teeth on BBS's using Telemate before Internet took off.
2400 just like on my first modem, Zoom, actually borrowed from coed. And after a year of unsleepy nights ringing all around city, some generous guy gave me away generic 14400 winmodem. Such a huge leap! Warp 6, I believe. =)
I always say this as it's true, amazing video as always. Like you say it is kinda sad you get all this cool stuff up and running only to find out the phone lines will be a thing of the past soon. The X16 is such a lovely looking machine and i would like to say good luck to all who have a crack at the raffall. Oh i so loved the X16 tune as well. Have a great weekend and you all take care and i am looking forward to seeing the next amazing video you bring us.
This was cool. I spent so much time on BBSs in the 80s and 90s. A local guy ran one, and used to connect all the time. I'm surprised my 14400 modem didn't catch on fire lol. When I upgraded it to a 56k modem, I couldn't believe how fast it was lolol
Sometime about 1994 I had a BBS here is SoCal. It was called Excelsior BBS. Yes I'm a Star Trek fan. I had to have the phone company to come out to the house to add 2 more lines. This way I can have 4 lines in total. I loved doing the ascii graphics for the board and the various pages. I remember it ran on a 486DX66 computer. I am sure I was running PC Dos 6.0 at the time. I had 3 single speed CD Rom Drives and 1 Double speed where I had a bunch of Freeware that people could download. I really enjoyed it and I loved text chating with people. I used TriBBS software which wasn't the popular one at the time but I was good at it. I was fun for a year and a half but then had twin toddlers at the time and well LIfe Happens. Also this is when Dial up Internet was becoming more popular and I was seeing a decline in callers.
Still have an Atari 800 8bit with its original modem that can still connect to this day on copper dial up direct phones nationally and internationally to BBS’.
You are correct I suspect in your prediction Peri that this capability will very soon disappear and we will have to use Telnet over the internet as the VOIP telephony connections will not carry modem transmissions accurately nor reliably.
Bravo! I remember running All American BBS... C64 with 1200 baud modem and two 1541 drives! Was a flash back on this video for me! gawt damn. Even the hand shake audio! miss it...
You're right Peri, you're not supposed to need a null modem adapter for a modem, they were always straight through because the computer was the DTE and the modem was the DCE. So either the X16 is wired backwards, or that modem is.
I remember chatting live with my brother across town directly by dialing his number. He had his modem set to Auto Answer so the call went through without a hitch. Fast forward to the 90’s, I was running a paging service and to link up with the main terminal which was co located with the transmitter. This was done via a POTS line to the terminal while paging traffic came in over a DID line. This was a quick and cheap way of accessing the terminal for programming. As for speed of the modems, it was set in stone by Ma Bell and the FCC. The POTS lines were quite capable of handling th3 higher speeds but for the control freaks in the FCC and Ma Bell they said no to higher speeds.
haha, I still have a couple of my old modems. Also a french one that has a remote control and a SD card slot - cuz it's also an answering machine/voice mail thing.
I remember when the speed was measure in cps... The thrill of getting a new bbs list and searching for new door games connected to other boards. I miss getting hit with an ugly stick or sending armies in BRE or FE... *sniff*
I First Dialed into a BBS in 1988 also on a Commodore 64. However, I used a 50 Baud Modem. My older friend sold me this Modem for $150, so he could buy a 300 Baud. I told the 8 Bit Guy, & he said he's never even heard of a 50 Baud Modem ! I may still have it somewhere back at my Parents House. I'm going to try & find it, as so many people in the community want to see it ‼️
Several years ago I dialed up an actual BBS, Vertrauen (aka Rob Swindell's BBS) and it actually answered. I don't think he's running a modem answering service anymore, but Vertrauen is still alive and well (and so is Rob Swindell). Synchronet is great software.
For me, I started with a 600 BAUD Pocket Modem on my Atari XL 8 bit machine. I bought a couple of 360 KB disk drives and set myself up with the FoReM BBS system. Ran that for a couple years, then ran it on the Atari ST 1040 computer. Dial up was magical back in the day.
I remember using dial up in my dads office in India in 1995-6 i was 8-9 years old then. Owing a PC in India was a luxury back then we used VSNL ... the sound of dialup make me nostalgic of what days were those.
That takes me back to my days as a SysOp on Fidonet and my own BBS. Those were fun pioneering days of networking. All those door games. 😃All those echoes and shareware. Mail tossers...file tossers...call back verification system..file server and mail server calling in to exchange files and messages. Never mind the ASCII based graphics. It makes me wax nostalgic.
Wow. Certainly brought back some memories. Spent ages on bb boards. We used to be a hacking group. Well. I say hacking group lol. All we ever did was make raster demos and made trainers for games. Not thought about it until I saw this. Fantastic. The golden years.
Due to the possibly low quality of VoIP, you might want to use those dip switches on the modem to force something slower than 2400 baud, such as 1200 baud. This may increase reliability, but if not you can always go back to the default.
If your in amateur radio, there is packet bulletin boards accessible over the airways - the 9600bps if your lucky :) there are less of them since the internet came out, but they are out there !
I had a US Robotics 56k modem . They had a reputation for being very reliable, and able to log onto just about anything. My first modem was a Hays 2400/1200 baud modem that I used to log onto Prodigy back when Sears had a partnership with IBM. I also once logged onto a BBS running on a Vic 20.
Did I spy DIP switches? I love my clips with DIP ;) I suspect the 2400 baud was due to running the BBS on real Commodore hardware. I don't remember ever seeing a modem that did more than 2400 baud available for the C64 (and back then, even 14.4Kbps would have been unimaginable!) I still remember dial-up on my C64 with a 1200/75 baud modem... those were the days :D
Quite a few replacement PCBs now that drop directly into a old modem, Hayes 22.8k, Super Express etc. I think they use the plip box like wifi modem, but function the same using slip for 'real' dial up internet as well. Probably the closets we'll get going back, a bit like when we replace harddisks with CF cards or use a raspberry pi as a replacement CPU.
I remember Q-link. When I was a kid in '87 my parents got me a C64c and it came with Q-link disks. The C64 was pretty long in the tooth by then, but I didn't know that because I was only 7. I learned to program on my 64c and that's what I do professionlly today. I unfortunately didn't have a modem or even really understand what one was back then.
Yeah, I spent a lot of money dialing up BBS's on my Amiga to download DMS's until I could finally just spend $100 on a shipped CDR. I actually ended up owning many of the games I pirated. I had 280 boxed Amiga games at one time, all the greats. So I made amends. One of the reasons kids pirated Amiga games in the US is that, it was not easy to go to an Amiga store and buy games, and when you did find one of the small shops, they might have 10 - 12 games or fewer. It was a joke and the only way to get software in small towns was through your friends and even then, not many people had Amiga's. BTW, I have a brand new boxed Amiga 1200 part pack I bought off eBay maybe 15 years ago, a brand new sealed Amiga 4000 and a mint Amiga 500. They are all in storage, and yes, I know the battery might have destroyed the Amiga 4000s motherboard, but the value in the 4000 is that the box is sealed. The board can be replaced. I use the Amiga 500 mini for gaming these days and it's great.
I ran a BBS and loved the BBS community. It was 1000x better than the internet as it is now. The best way to connect to a BBS these days is telnet, so BBSs will still be around for many years yet. The BBS I use to use had amazing ANSi artwork, plenty of underground boards still about.
Yes, let's completely cancel the Internet and bring back only BBSs! They can show my TH-cam videos, right?...
The best part is, FIDONET still exists. Or maybe it's not the best part as it's still limited by what killed it before, the admins. You can still sign on to FIDONET and get a lecture about how your language is not appropriate...not exactly "progress." But FIDO is still there, for what it's worth.
Telemate was my choice for terminal software, for DOS.
It was only better because it wasnt mainstream, it was uncharted territory, communicating online. Now you really cant relive that, the only thing that could replace it woudl be a new communications system, so far ahead of its time only a small percentage of the population are using it. You can say TH-cam took that spot in its early days, allowing for video communications, vlogs for the first time. Thats what BBS's were at the time.
I also ran a BBS in Okinawa, in the early nineties. The community was so fantastic with almost none of the negativity that has become the Hallmark of the current Internet.
Cool! The one thing I miss the most about those days was that many people online were computer savvy and we didn't have as many stupid annoying people with all their false info and constant scammers. Great video. Thanks for sharing ❤
Remember in the early days of chat rooms people were using PCS like CB radios?
@@charlesurrea1451 Yep, it was like a secret little meeting place. What I liked most was that you could have a long distance conversation with someone and not pay for a long distance call. 😉
Yes now everyone is on the internet and so is all the misinformation and conspiracies ugh.
@@hermancm Yup... The misinformation highway
300 baud modem on my CoCo 2, calling a BBS for the first time sometime in 83 or 84-- a classmate's Dad ran the BBS. I didn't know anything about long distance bills at the time.. I found out the hard way when Mom and Dad got the phone bill :-P
Dissapointed I can't find the lawyer guy in the comments. 🤣
Sameeeee
I ran a local BBS in 87-89 was great times. Had a dedicated second line just for the BBS, ran it on a apple //c that was upgraded with an external 3.5 for the code and zip chip plus more memory.
Takes me back to the time when I bought my first (and actually only) analog modem back in 1992. I was doing an internship and when that was nearly done they decided that we should get paid for it, retroactively. So I unexpectedly got quite some money which I spend on a SCSI II Controller for my A500, a 240MB SCSI II harddisk and a 14.400 baud ZyXEL. This led to me getting into software development because my friend had taken over development of some BBS software that had been written in GFA Basic. So first I had to learn that and it also got me into C programming because I started work on a support library written in C. The BASIC compiler could no longer handle the amount of code needed for the BBS so I ported some of the low-level routines over to C to make room for new features added to the BBS in BASIC. Of course it also made stuff faster. Good times :)
56k? I used to connect to my local BBS on my C64 at a whopping 300 baud! We'd (me and a friend of mine) download some game to try (ahem!) that would take *AGES* to download and then half the time it wouldn't work. Still lots of fond memories, though. I was in heaven when my parents bought me a 1200 baud modem the following Christmas. I miss those PETSCII animated BBS pages. Some were very clever.
I remember a bank security guard tell me in the late 1990s he ran a BBS back in the day, lol. I was around during the BBS days. There were sheets on the counter at Radio Shack with lists of BBS, the phone number, and the subject of each.
Wow! This brings back memories!
My first modem was a 1200bps model. I hosted a Wildcat BBS on my parents home phone line 😂
Ah, the memories. I ran a Wildcat-based BBS on FidoNet in the late '80s/early '90s.
I was a member of a great local BBS back in the 90s. We made lifelong friends who are still friends over 30 years later. The other fact that still amazes me. I know of seven couples that met and later married. The amazing part is they are all still married. Anyway, the BBS scene was a very different than modern social media even if it only lasted for a few years.
I ran a spitfire BBS Mike Woltz in 1988 until 1994 with Windows 98 multi-tasking a 5 pioneer 10 cd changer for cd from through doorways. I had 10 lines incoming and ran competitions. Really fund days
Thanks for bringing back a bunch of memories I wished to suppress. Been using modem since 1200 BBS. I still remember the day I got my DSL line working, I loved it. 640 KBPs, and I couldn't have been happier
I remember a BBS called The Fire Scene out of Louisiana.
I miss my BBS... lots of maintenance and friendly users... loved editing my script file for portal of power (front end for the bbs) VGA Planets was a favourite game played weekly with other users and BBS'es I started it all off on my C64 in 1985 as a user of compunet.. on my 1200/75 baud modem!
Oh, man. As soon as you said "ATDT" that brought a whole flood of memories back. Great video!
Love these videos trying to get old tech working, very heartfelt, I could watch these all day, keep up the great work! 👏
I had a friend who liked to run a BBS from his bedroom in the late 80's I had the privilege to play Diablo 1 on dialup battlenet. I wonder what will happen to all the classic and retro PC hardware when the cell phone Zombies of the younger generations greatly outnumber us.
As my final year highschool Computer Science project in Canada, I wrote a fully functional BBS system in C++. Circa 1995/1996.
I think that MBnet BBS in Finland was the biggest BBS system in the world. It uses 250 nodes (phone lines).
Wow!
@@RetroRecipes Actually I think there were over 500 phone lines. The BBS application was PCBoard (OS/2) and MBnet was the only one in the world to have a 1000 nodes license for it. One multitasking OS/2 PC could handle only four phone lines. The BBS (1994 - 2002) was run by a Finnish home computer magazine MikroBitti. MikroBitti has been published this year for 40 years.
Back in the 80's I used to check out BBS. It's kind of funny, but I had a map of Compuserve at the time, and it was a simple foldout. Ah, those were such good times.
@retrorecipes Hi, thank you muchly for bringing back fond memorys or when I ran a BBS
I ran "Andy's BBS" in Melbourne Australia from 1981 to 1996 - Was one of the primary BBS/Fidonet echomail/netmail hubs for Australia with other BBS's from Melbourne Perth Sydney Adelaide and Tasmania connecting to my system for daily mail collections.
It was a very sad day when I finally shutdown (was about to get married and could not afford to keep three line BBS running)
p.s I half expected "Joshua" voice on your video after connecting :
"Greetings RetroRecipes. Would you like to play a game?"
Anyone out there ever log onto my BBS (had users from all over the world back then - maybe few still remember my system) was one of a handful of long running BBS's at the time I shutdown
I ran a TAG BBS system called Mad, Mad World back in the 90s. It was a pirate gaming site. I started with a C64 with a 300 baud modem and a 1MB hard drive...eventually moving to a 386 PC with a 1200 baud modem. Good times!
back in my day we started with 300 baud... cobbled together some programs to boost it to ~450 baud if your twisted pair was clean & quiet. 56k was a pipe dream circa 1984 Then we jumped to 1200 baud woo hoo !
I almost want to bring my 80s bbs back online now just to give it a retro workout. R.a.b.b.s. ][gs forever.
Nice!
WOW! This was great and nostalgic at the same time. Made me realize how much things have changed. I remember the days of 300 baud fondly :).
I ran a BBS on a US Robotics HST Dual Standard modem running at 16.8K back in the mid 90s. Those modems were badass.
Cool what's the number?
@@RetroRecipes Sadly, that phone number is long gone. I suspect that a lawyer may be using it now.
Love the US Robotics modems in the 1980s. I still have my Courier HST dual standard modem with a special daugherboard that lets me via software upgrade to 56K. So it went from 14.4k dual standard to V.Everything / 56K via firmware upgrade. Awesome stuff. I've also ran BBS over the years from the Commodore 64 in 1983, Amiga late 1980s and finally OS/2 Warp on PC in 1990s. 300 baud weren't too bad till you started to download / upload programs. Then 1200, 2400, 14.4K, 16.8K, 28.8K and finally 56K.
My first time connecting to a BBS on my Commodore 64 at 300 baud was magical. It really opened the doors for me in terms of communicating with other people and exchanging programs. Great times!
I still use one of those nice flat brown metal case USR modems... as a stand to level a shelf in my basement!
This is such a lovely video made so much nicer by the wonderful soundtrack
I have a C64 with 300 and 1200 baud modems. I'd just need get a land line again. Thanks for the video, this is very cool!
The nostalgia is palpable. I've had flashbacks of getting my 1200 baud then 2400 all the way up the 56k modems. What a time. I remember in the amiga being able to reboot and then reconnect to the line without the connection dropping. Then with windows the modem would reset forcing the cost of another call every time and I couldn't work out how to stop it, with the same modem. Was the beginning of the downfall of tech when making $$$$ became more important than providing quality fun products. That equation never rectified, to this day.
I ran a very popular BBS in Southern California back in the mid-80's. Being a SysOp was a GREAT way to meet women! :)
You should have seen my eyes light up when the modem became audible and the BBS answered. Wow... That brought back memories of my first BBS connection in 1987. I'd gotten a C64C for my 16th birthday. Keep up the great content. I can't wait to see what happens next.
I had that exact modem back in the late 90ties, bringes back memoties with IRC. Evne played the first betas of Counter Strike on that modem.
I sold those USRs new. Creme de la Creme at the time. Expensive too. But being out in the country with old copper lines it could make the difference to your internet dial up connection.
A! A! bring me good memories when I stay hours in 1982 with the C64c with a code book to program,
10:50 why is it playing the wii homebrew channel theme lol?
Also miss CNet, Pro, ran BBS the last name was RimFire, (Old RPG game), and all the hacks through the year. 'i.e. Dan Lee'. Keep wanting to set up a new one on the mini mig.
Oh man, this is gonna be a good one! I connect to BBSes everyday. You're lucky you could still get a copper line installed. I can't find anyone to install one in Montgomery, AL (maybe I need to look again), and over Vonage all I can hit is 9600 bps... similar external USR you're using. I use a 300 baud modem on my CoCo, and I'm in the process of collecting more modems because I want to make some BBS videos as well. I usually use a WiModem232 on a Tandy 1000 TL/2 for my daily calls, but it will soon be having an internal modem installed for dialing ;)
Note - the Tandy doesn't have a 16650 UART, so even on the WiModem232 the best I can really do is 9600 anyway. Okay, now on to the video!
A few years ago now I got my Amiga 600 and a dialup modem to work on a BBS. But as my telephone line is now connected to broadband, as it's gone digital I don't think it's worth it as I will need lots of extra things connected
I still remember buying that exact model (back in the day) at Best Buy. I thought I was hot stuff, with my 56K!! That was back when you had to know things to do things online. Loved the vid!
It awesome to see younger folks doing this. I'm 60 and I started my IT career in '92- Soooo different now. My son is 27 and he's really into retro tech. I figured it would all die and be gone forever. Very cool.
I’m sorry, but accessing a BBS any faster than 9600 isn’t an authentic retro BBS experience.😅
Use 300 baud for a while and you’ll love your lightning fast 2400 session.
My first modem was a Sendata 1275, with 300/300 and 1200/75 speeds, manually switched. you dialled on the rotary phone manually, and switched to data once you heard 4 seconds of the tone. Saved up for 6 months to buy that old model from Rod Irving Electronics.
When I got my 2400 baud fax modem with AT command support, I was blown away… (VCE graduation present)…
The moment of silence at 2400 baud might take a half hour.
The best thing about BBS's back in the day was they were mostly local people. I started my dial up journey around 1990 when I was 15. I racked up some insane phone bills calling Prodigy and out of state BBS's so I quickly learned to stick to local boards. We had quite a healthy scene with multiple 20+ channel boards. We played MajorMuds and Trade Wars 2002 for hours on end. The sense of community was unmatched to anything online today because it was possible to actually meet and hangout on a regular basis. 2 boards had weekly gatherings, Friday night cosmic bowling, and a Wednesday night trivia. We did that for years until eventually the net killed traffic and everyone moved on in life but I still have life long friends from those days that have been my family for the last 30+ years. Its was an incredible time to grow up.
I remember having so much fun playing Trade Wars 2002 on a BBS near me that I ended up buying the game to run on my own computer. I would get so annoyed when someone would pick up the phone and interrupt my modem session!
A lot of memories there... The first PC compatible I ever owned was a BBS (Motel Florida) that was upgrading, I bought their hardware. A Z80 powerhouse with a 20MB MFM drive, which dates me, I think, and a 1200/300 BPS Racal Vadic modem. Good times. I was a member on many local BBS around the Space Coast in Florida, a great place for the technologically inclined.
I started onb BBS's here in Australia in the early 90's. Maybe 1993. I had a Netcom 2400kbps, then a Zoltrix internal 14.4kbps modem. Then I upgraded to a 33.6 and later a 56K... Cut my teeth on BBS's using Telemate before Internet took off.
I find it amusing. You have new wifi on an old C64. And old dial up on your new x16. I absolutely love this.
2400 just like on my first modem, Zoom, actually borrowed from coed.
And after a year of unsleepy nights ringing all around city, some generous guy gave me away generic 14400 winmodem. Such a huge leap! Warp 6, I believe. =)
I had a 33.6 k modulator/Demodulator running with my Amiga 500+ . Even had a headset port !
Well holy moly, I still have it in my junk box !!
I worked at an ISP when 56K modems came out. The Flex vs v90 vs X2 vs ITU vs ITU2 issues still wake me up nights in a cold sweat.
I always say this as it's true, amazing video as always. Like you say it is kinda sad you get all this cool stuff up and running only to find out the phone lines will be a thing of the past soon. The X16 is such a lovely looking machine and i would like to say good luck to all who have a crack at the raffall. Oh i so loved the X16 tune as well. Have a great weekend and you all take care and i am looking forward to seeing the next amazing video you bring us.
Thank you so much for your kind words as always! 🙏
This was cool. I spent so much time on BBSs in the 80s and 90s. A local guy ran one, and used to connect all the time. I'm surprised my 14400 modem didn't catch on fire lol. When I upgraded it to a 56k modem, I couldn't believe how fast it was lolol
Sometime about 1994 I had a BBS here is SoCal. It was called Excelsior BBS. Yes I'm a Star Trek fan. I had to have the phone company to come out to the house to add 2 more lines. This way I can have 4 lines in total. I loved doing the ascii graphics for the board and the various pages. I remember it ran on a 486DX66 computer. I am sure I was running PC Dos 6.0 at the time. I had 3 single speed CD Rom Drives and 1 Double speed where I had a bunch of Freeware that people could download. I really enjoyed it and I loved text chating with people. I used TriBBS software which wasn't the popular one at the time but I was good at it. I was fun for a year and a half but then had twin toddlers at the time and well LIfe Happens. Also this is when Dial up Internet was becoming more popular and I was seeing a decline in callers.
We are a similar age, and I find myself more and more often overwhelmed by feelings of nostalgia. Nice episode 😊
Still have an Atari 800 8bit with its original modem that can still connect to this day on copper dial up direct phones nationally and internationally to BBS’.
You are correct I suspect in your prediction Peri that this capability will very soon disappear and we will have to use Telnet over the internet as the VOIP telephony connections will not carry modem transmissions accurately nor reliably.
Bravo! I remember running All American BBS... C64 with 1200 baud modem and two 1541 drives! Was a flash back on this video for me! gawt damn. Even the hand shake audio! miss it...
Loved All American. Used it right up till December 31, 1999.
Lucky you. I only had one 1541 drive and a 300 baud auto dial modem plugged into my C64.
LOVED the CommanderX song =D
So many memories.☺
You're right Peri, you're not supposed to need a null modem adapter for a modem, they were always straight through because the computer was the DTE and the modem was the DCE.
So either the X16 is wired backwards, or that modem is.
I think actually my cable was null modem though it looks like serial, so the null modem adapter un-nulled it.
@@RetroRecipes Welp, that would do it too! I recently had to deal with this since hardly anyone marked their cables as null modem.
I remember chatting live with my brother across town directly by dialing his number. He had his modem set to Auto Answer so the call went through without a hitch. Fast forward to the 90’s, I was running a paging service and to link up with the main terminal which was co located with the transmitter. This was done via a POTS line to the terminal while paging traffic came in over a DID line. This was a quick and cheap way of accessing the terminal for programming.
As for speed of the modems, it was set in stone by Ma Bell and the FCC. The POTS lines were quite capable of handling th3 higher speeds but for the control freaks in the FCC and Ma Bell they said no to higher speeds.
Man, a V.Everything!! You've got the full package there! :)
haha, I still have a couple of my old modems. Also a french one that has a remote control and a SD card slot - cuz it's also an answering machine/voice mail thing.
I remember when the speed was measure in cps... The thrill of getting a new bbs list and searching for new door games connected to other boards. I miss getting hit with an ugly stick or sending armies in BRE or FE... *sniff*
I First Dialed into a BBS in 1988 also on a Commodore 64. However, I used a 50 Baud Modem. My older friend sold me this Modem for $150, so he could buy a 300 Baud. I told the 8 Bit Guy, & he said he's never even heard of a 50 Baud Modem ! I may still have it somewhere back at my Parents House. I'm going to try & find it, as so many people in the community want to see it ‼️
That's amazing! I'd love to see it too. That's when they were measured in characters per second (CPS).
Several years ago I dialed up an actual BBS, Vertrauen (aka Rob Swindell's BBS) and it actually answered. I don't think he's running a modem answering service anymore, but Vertrauen is still alive and well (and so is Rob Swindell). Synchronet is great software.
Memories of Tandy Inc in 1984, everyday communications Best regards Andrew
For me, I started with a 600 BAUD Pocket Modem on my Atari XL 8 bit machine. I bought a couple of 360 KB disk drives and set myself up with the FoReM BBS system. Ran that for a couple years, then ran it on the Atari ST 1040 computer. Dial up was magical back in the day.
Love this channel
I remember using dial up in my dads office in India in 1995-6 i was 8-9 years old then. Owing a PC in India was a luxury back then we used VSNL ... the sound of dialup make me nostalgic of what days were those.
That takes me back to my days as a SysOp on Fidonet and my own BBS. Those were fun pioneering days of networking. All those door games. 😃All those echoes and shareware. Mail tossers...file tossers...call back verification system..file server and mail server calling in to exchange files and messages. Never mind the ASCII based graphics. It makes me wax nostalgic.
Really takes me back!
Wow. Certainly brought back some memories. Spent ages on bb boards. We used to be a hacking group. Well. I say hacking group lol. All we ever did was make raster demos and made trainers for games. Not thought about it until I saw this. Fantastic. The golden years.
I had the ISDN version of that U.S Robotics modem. It was a tank!
Spent a lot of hours on BBS’s with it, great memories :) ATDT!
Good video thanks
The only bulletin board I accessed was located in University of Hawaii Manoa, in 1988.
Due to the possibly low quality of VoIP, you might want to use those dip switches on the modem to force something slower than 2400 baud, such as 1200 baud. This may increase reliability, but if not you can always go back to the default.
BBSing won't die. While the dial up modem technology will die off, you can still TELENET to these BBSes over the internet.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that likes calling old phone numbers to see if they still work.
Awesome video once again. I really need to get my hands on an X16.
If your in amateur radio, there is packet bulletin boards accessible over the airways - the 9600bps if your lucky :) there are less of them since the internet came out, but they are out there !
I had a US Robotics 56k modem . They had a reputation for being very reliable, and able to log onto just about anything. My first modem was a Hays 2400/1200 baud modem that I used to log onto Prodigy back when Sears had a partnership with IBM. I also once logged onto a BBS running on a Vic 20.
Atari 800, with a 300 baud modem was my first.
I always like when u do X16 videos.
This was fun!
OMG - LOVE the Star Trek II Midis!!!
Did I spy DIP switches? I love my clips with DIP ;)
I suspect the 2400 baud was due to running the BBS on real Commodore hardware. I don't remember ever seeing a modem that did more than 2400 baud available for the C64 (and back then, even 14.4Kbps would have been unimaginable!)
I still remember dial-up on my C64 with a 1200/75 baud modem... those were the days :D
that sound :) takes me right back to the late 90s
I ran a small bbs in high school. Three phone lines and WWIV running on a 386DX. Good times.
Quite a few replacement PCBs now that drop directly into a old modem, Hayes 22.8k, Super Express etc. I think they use the plip box like wifi modem, but function the same using slip for 'real' dial up internet as well. Probably the closets we'll get going back, a bit like when we replace harddisks with CF cards or use a raspberry pi as a replacement CPU.
I used to be a support engineer at 3Com in Santa Clara for these modems 😄 building 5 back in the late 90’s
I'd like to sue The 9-pin Guy...
will you offer lifetime support for his modem?
I am shocked nobody ever talks about Quantum Link... It was huge...
I remember the disks used to come in shiny red mailers.
Probably because it wasn't as huge as you think it was....
It became AOL
I remember Q-link. When I was a kid in '87 my parents got me a C64c and it came with Q-link disks. The C64 was pretty long in the tooth by then, but I didn't know that because I was only 7. I learned to program on my 64c and that's what I do professionlly today. I unfortunately didn't have a modem or even really understand what one was back then.
I still have my old USR Courier Veverything in a box somewhere. Back when it was new, that was just about the BEST modem you could get.
Yeah, I spent a lot of money dialing up BBS's on my Amiga to download DMS's until I could finally just spend $100 on a shipped CDR. I actually ended up owning many of the games I pirated. I had 280 boxed Amiga games at one time, all the greats. So I made amends. One of the reasons kids pirated Amiga games in the US is that, it was not easy to go to an Amiga store and buy games, and when you did find one of the small shops, they might have 10 - 12 games or fewer. It was a joke and the only way to get software in small towns was through your friends and even then, not many people had Amiga's. BTW, I have a brand new boxed Amiga 1200 part pack I bought off eBay maybe 15 years ago, a brand new sealed Amiga 4000 and a mint Amiga 500. They are all in storage, and yes, I know the battery might have destroyed the Amiga 4000s motherboard, but the value in the 4000 is that the box is sealed. The board can be replaced. I use the Amiga 500 mini for gaming these days and it's great.
5.23: anything 'works' if you are brave enough.
Also get the fan lawyer on, he might be handy for finding out about your rights when buying retro kit
used to dial into Dry Dock and Doll House as a 16 year old in Northwest Ohio
Exactly how did my big case of random cables get into this video?
I only come into your house at night
Wow it’s been forever since I’ve heard dialup sounds. I remember listening to the negotiation and stopping it if it connected too slowly.
Thanks for the flashbacks!! ATDT!! lmfao!! That is awesome!! I used to dial up to DragonWorld. Cheers!!