Hey all,

Long time BBSer from St. Louis (started in 1988 with a 300bps modem!) who has recently rediscovered that, yes indeed, the BBS community is still alive in hobbyist form. It's been great to find boards to connect up to again. Though they are not as active as before, it is still good to "connect".

Back in the day I was on a ton of WWIV boards, mostly, and was known as Mr. Microchip. The stories and memories of those days, especially the early 90s, I will never forget. Seems like only yesterday in so many ways.

Perhaps in this era of "fake news" and "hatred around every corner" on the Internet, local, community oriented BBSes are what we really need again.


■dmxrob■ BBSing from St. Louis, MO since 1988

Re: Back in the groove, once again...
By: Dmxrob to All on Thu Apr 12 2018 03:18 pm

Long time BBSer from St. Louis (started in 1988 with a 300bps modem!) who has recently rediscovered that, yes indeed, the BBS community is still alive in hobbyist form. It's been great to find boards to connect up to again. Though they are not as active as before, it is still good to "connect".

Back in the day I was on a ton of WWIV boards, mostly, and was known as Mr. Microchip. The stories and memories of those days, especially the early 90s, I will never forget. Seems like only yesterday in so many ways.

Welcome back to the scene! It's great to have you.

Back in the day I frequented boards like Fire Escape's, Something in the Attic, the Junk Drawer, Stratosphere, Knight's Armor, and SLACC Stack.

As a fellow 314 BBSer, you might be enjoy reading this series of 3 blog posts I wrote extracting data from Fire Escape's old BBS directories:

http://breakintochat.com/blog/tag/visualizing-314-2/?order=asc

--Josh

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

Re: Back in the groove, once again...
By: Kirkman to Dmxrob on Thu Apr 12 2018 09:24 pm

As a fellow 314 BBSer, you might be enjoy reading this series of 3 blog posts I wrote extracting data from Fire Escape's old BBS directories:

http://breakintochat.com/blog/tag/visualizing-314-2/?order=asc

I did a quick read of these, and will go back and read in more detail later today. Loved the charts, btw and I am going to pull that dataset down and run it through R and see if we can find anything "hidden" in the data -- don't know what that might be, but we will see!

I definitely remember Fire Escape's HQ and her list. She was well known in the area, and I often wonder what she is up to nowadays. Faithfully, every month, that list was the "Yellow Pages" of the St. Louis BBS scene!

It was interesting seeing the peak in the data from 1993-1995; those years I remember all too well! Busy signals galore, and so many boards were going multi-line. Then 1996 came and the crash started. :-(

Great work and looking forward to seeing more snippets of history like this!

Who knows.. maybe someone the Missouri History Museum could do a small exhibit on stuff like this. That would be an awesome way to have one, final "BBS meet up".


■dmxrob■ BBSing from St. Louis, MO since 1988

Re: Back in the groove, once again...
By: Dmxrob to Kirkman on Fri Apr 13 2018 08:11 am

I did a quick read of these, and will go back and read in more detail later today. Loved the charts, btw and I am going to pull that dataset down and run it through R and see if we can find anything "hidden" in the data -- don't know what that might be, but we will see!

Yes, I've been meaning to take second look at this stuff: convert my goofy PHP/JS parser to Python, and see about improving the final dataset with extra information.

The main problem with the data is that FE didn't keep consistent track of board features (like RIP support, etc) until relatively late.

I'd also dearly love to find the missing early lists from ~1990-92.

Finally, I also remember a local monthly computer-themed newspaper that I used to pick up occasionally. I have forgotten the name, but I remember they ran a BBS list. I believe they compiled it themselves, though it's possible it was distilled from Fire Escape's. Wish I could remember the name.

--Josh

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

Re: Back in the groove, once again...
By: Kirkman to Dmxrob on Fri Apr 13 2018 10:53 am

Finally, I also remember a local monthly computer-themed newspaper that I used to pick up occasionally. I have forgotten the name, but I remember

Aha, I finally remembered: The PC Journal.

I doubt any archives exist of it, but I put out some inquiries just in case. You never know.

There was some cooperation between PCJ and FE for a while. In looking through the lists very briefly, I can see that in 1992 and part of 1993 she thanks "Chris Byrd (The Gathering BBS) and The PC Journal staff (PCJ Information Exchange BBS) for their cooperation in compiling this directory."

In 1994, she thanks "The PC Journal staff for printing an "abridged" version of my BBS Directory in their monthly magazine. [Fire Escape is not employed by or affiliated with the PC Journal. Ommisions from the PC Journal abridged BBS Listing MUST be taken up with the PC Journal - NOT WITH FIRE ESCAPE!!!!!!!!)"

So PCJ (for a while at least) helped in distribution and compilation of the list.

--Josh

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

Re: Back in the groove, once again...
By: Kirkman to Dmxrob on Fri Apr 13 2018 10:53 am

Finally, I also remember a local monthly computer-themed newspaper that I used to pick up occasionally. I have forgotten the name, but I remember they ran a BBS list. I believe they compiled it themselves, though it's possible

I vaguely remember the paper you are talking about. I worked at National Supermarkets as a bag boy/stock by back in the early 90s and I remember we carried some local newspaper that always has a BBS list in it. I wonder if it was the same? I will dig through my old stuff from National, who knows I might have saved a copy!

■dmxrob■ BBSing from St. Louis, MO since 1988

Re: Back in the groove, once again...
By: Dmxrob to Kirkman on Fri Apr 13 2018 04:28 pm

I vaguely remember the paper you are talking about. I worked at National Supermarkets as a bag boy/stock by back in the early 90s and I remember we carried some local newspaper that always has a BBS list in it. I wonder if it was the same? I will dig through my old stuff from National, who knows I might have saved a copy!

National! I remember them. There is a store in downtown Ferguson which began as a National, later became a Shop n' Save, and is now a Schnucks.

--Josh

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

Re: Back in the groove, once again...
By: Kirkman to Dmxrob on Sat Apr 14 2018 01:38 pm

National! I remember them. There is a store in downtown Ferguson which began as a National, later became a Shop n' Save, and is now a Schnucks.

Lot of ghosts of National still around. Johnny's Crazy Deals in St. Peters still has the "You Are Important to Us!" graphics up inside the store which was a former National.


■dmxrob■ BBSing from St. Louis, MO since 1988