Hi,

I've been on my grand tour of BBSspace this past month, hitting a couple hundred addresses, many of them not working. But it's been a fun ride so far. As you know I've been playing some old door games.

I've tried to get Syncterm, icyterm, photonterm, terminator, and netrunner working with no success. I think they are better supported on Windows than Linux. I may try them again later. Qodem worked, which meant I could download files from a BBS for the first time. I think I tested that here, actually.

I visited 20forbeers and BlackFlag for the first time after putting them off thinking I'd need a specialized client. But it turns out telnet is fine, as far as I can tell. Not everything is perfect, but the ANSI of BlackFlag was fine.

Anyway, I noticed that Hawk of BlackFlag had died a couple years back, and that the messages before 2024 were gone, and the doors weren't working anymore. And it's kind of a ghost ship, I guess, being run by unknown people.

20ForBeers is very active, but most BBS's aren't, as you are well aware. Even some of the bigger names might only get a few calls a month. There's a lot of love, but not a lot of activity.

SO MY QUESTION...

You've been active in the space for quite a while now. Are things in decline, or are they steady? Is this how it is, with boards popping up and disappearing, and almost nobody getting more than a handful of calls a day if they're lucky?

-Hx

Re: What's the state of BBSing in 2026?
By: Hebrix to Kirkman on Mon Jul 06 2026 02:22 am

20ForBeers is very active, but most BBS's aren't, as you are well aware. Even some of the bigger names might only get a few calls a month. There's a lot of love, but not a lot of activity.

You've been active in the space for quite a while now. Are things in decline, or are they steady? Is this how it is, with boards popping up and disappearing, and almost nobody getting more than a handful of calls a day if they're lucky?

This is (and has been) the state of BBSing for a while. There are some *really* cool boards, and there are a few places that are very active. But, yes, most BBSes are pretty quiet.

In the 1980s and 1990s, there were significant technical and resource barriers to running your own BBS, so there were always far more users than there were systems/sysops.

That has never been true in this "revival" of BBSing in the 21st century. There are far more sysops than pure "callers". The people who are interested in BBSing want to run their own boards, and thanks to open source software and ubiquitous internet connections, it's easier than ever to set one up.

That's certainly true for me -- I was never a sysop in the 1990s, and so running my own board is fun. I imagine it's akin to the folks who buy old sports cars they couldn't afford when they were young.

This BBS gives me a place to put together my own experiments marrying old tech with new tech. But I came into this with my eyes wide open. I knew there wouldn't be many callers. Anything I do here, I do for my own pleasure or interest. I have no expectations that I'll attract some big crowd like the old days.

It's just the way it is. And honestly I think it's amazing there's any interest at all in BBSes today with so many competing forms of telecommunication. In a world where you can watch any movie you want instantly, or hold a video chat with someone on the other side of the world, it's crazy to think a few people are still interested in BBSes!

--Josh

////--------------------------------------------------
BiC -=- http://breakintochat.com -=- bbs wiki and blog

Re: What's the state of BBSing in 2026?
By: Kirkman to Hebrix on Sat Jul 11 2026 08:07 am

Thanks for your POV. I think the main thing is you feel that this plateau is permanent, not a decline. Do you think BBSing will continue, given that many picking it back up from the good old days are 60+? I visited a forum at cqbbs.ddns.net 6800 called... Tinkerer's Forum, or something. It's on the main menu <C>. Anyway, the admin of that says he's 34 years old. I was surprised, given the focus on the forum is retrocomputing. So there's still youngish blood in there. You feel it's the same for BBS's in general?

-Hx

Re: What's the state of BBSing in 2026?
By: Hebrix to Kirkman on Tue Jul 14 2026 01:23 pm

Thanks for your POV. I think the main thing is you feel that this plateau is permanent, not a decline. Do you think BBSing will continue, given that many picking it back up from the good old days are 60+? I visited a forum at cqbbs.ddns.net 6800 called... Tinkerer's Forum, or something. It's on the main menu <C>. Anyway, the admin of that says he's 34 years old. I was surprised, given the focus on the forum is retrocomputing. So there's still youngish blood in there. You feel it's the same for BBS's in general?

I would need to do some research, but I think it's possible there are more BBSes online right now than there were 5-10 years ago. Of course, I may be mistaken about that.

Sure, I think there will continue to be BBSes. I'm sure there will come a time when the number shrinks as the main group gets older and older, but I don't think they'll ever disappear completely.

There remain telegraph enthusiasts! About 10-15 years ago, a local telegraph club met monthly at a former train depot in my town. Most of the members were very old. But there was a "young" (40s-50s) guy in the group holding the torch and keeping it going. The club still exists, but they no longer meet at the depot in my town (the restaurant there closed).

In the same way, I see that there *are* young people interested in retrocomputing. At my office one of the summer interns is into it. I invited him to come out to our local retrocomputing club, and he came decked out in a themed T-shirt, and was very interested in talking and looking at stuff.

Granted, this is a small group of young blood. But it only takes a handful of people to keep BBSes alive after the originals BBSers are long gone.

--Josh

////--------------------------------------------------
BiC -=- http://breakintochat.com -=- bbs wiki and blog