Post #3800658

2026-07-14 04:10 UTC

After spending the past few weeks up to my eyeballs in old BBS code I'm reminded how magical the small internet was. The dial up days. Calling yourself a SYSOP. I don't miss the dial-up download speeds, but I do miss the small internet. #BBS #retrocomputing

Replies (3)

@pertho@mastodon.bsd.cafe 2026-07-14 05:03

@BastilleBSD@fosstodon.org I miss watching people log into my DOS BBS in OS/2 or seeing a node on FidoNet dial in to deliver a stack of messages (posts).

Open ##3800866
@arcaneoverflow@techhub.social 2026-07-14 06:56

@BastilleBSD@fosstodon.org CiX (Compulink Information Exchange) is still going in UK, but it's a shadow of itself from the 1990s. I wrote a Gemini/Gopher client and it's fun surfing the old stuff. Found some good history and ASCII art. Pages weighed in bytes or KB, not MB. Some gloriously retro WWW web pages, too, and a while ago I stumbled into a CEEFAX website. The thing is that there is a subtle art to making static HTML sites feel good, and I can't do it. I can only dump facts Gopher-style.

Open ##4243703
@hackbyte@joinfriendica.de 2026-07-14 11:15

@BastilleBSD@fosstodon.org It's primarily the local aspect i miss the most. Back then we hat "usertreffen" every 2nd week or every month or so .. all, or at least most of the users of a particular mailbox getting together to party.... Sadly, we had ever again to switch locations because the bar owners got a bit unhappy .... well ... Good old times. ;)

Open ##4243706