Connect an Atari 800XL to a dial-up BBS in 2014! XM301 300 baud modem XE TERM LORD
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- Опубликовано: 6 май 2014
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So, I decided to see if I could call a BBS with my Atari 800XL using an XM301 modem over dial-up. And, you can!
In the video we'll poke around some BBSes and also play Legend of the Red Dragon (LORD) which is a text adventure. Pretty neat stuff
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Игры
Plot twist... your dad sold the modem on ebay to you!
novamaster0 hahahaha
I just got an XM-301 for my Atari 800XL with a copy of BBCS II and, when searching for information, found this old video. Now, not only are you my go-to for arcade questions, you're fueling my 800XL experiments as well. Thanks!
The XM-301 was my introduction to BBSes and the on-line world as it was at the time. No graphics, no video, no multimedia, just straightforward text (with the occasional ATASCII art work).
Those were the glory days, when e-mail and board messages scrolled across one character at a time, with the proverbial cursor moving along like the computers on the old TV shows and movies of the time. I remember having to wait 10 minutes to download a 16K program, and since BBSes had a time limitation per day, you'd have to budget where to use the time -- posting on the message boards, downloading, chatting with the SysOp, etc. :) And of course, because 300 baud so slow, there were a lot of programs I could never download because the time it needed exceeded what was available. Sometimes a SysOp would be sympathetic and gave me the extra time. And some boards gave you time for each approved upload and based on file size.
I remember finding XE Term clumsy, non-intuitive, and a bit buggy, causing the occasional crash while I was on-line. And of course, back then if you didn't do the proper sign-off procedure and have the BBS disconnect you, it would sometimes crash their end and require them to reboot. (I had a few angry emails from the SysOps back then about this!) I later changed to 1030 Express! Later on, I upgraded to various Hayes-compatible modems with "blazing speeds" of 1200, then 2400, then 9600, then 14.4K baud using BobTerm and the ICD P:R: Connection device. It was fun programming those AT codes for speed dialing and re-dialing when it detected a busy signal. With some popular boards, I'd be sitting by computer maybe 30-90 minutes at a time waiting to get logged on. You couldn't multi-task back then, so there was no way to pass the time except watch the TV or read something. :)
The electronic frontier back then was a more sane place.
heh heh... ATASCII... good times
it is so cool with the arcade cabinets playing in the background
Awesome video! I was laughing the whole time as you were navigating through the menu's and playing the games. It is amazing that thing still works and how much gaming/computing has evolved since then.
This brings back so many memories, my buddy wrote a simple program that dialed and searched for long distance phone card codes and when it found one it would print it out. it would discover about 20 a night. we used those codes to call BBS all over the country. I am pretty sure they used to list BBS's in compute magazine back in the day.
I ran the Graveyard BBS from 1986 to about 1992. It was one of the best in the world.
was that 818?
I loved those days. I used to run a 10 line dial up BBS system from a fully decked out commodore Amiga 2000. I ran CNet Amiga BBS software. In the early days I started out with 1200 baud modems. At one point I upgraded all the modems to Supra 14.4K baud modems, and eventually I had all 10 lines running US Robotics HST Dual Standard 56K modems. I used to love those days. I used to love all the games "WAREZ" as it was called :)
OMG!! This brings back so many memories from junior high and high school!
What an awesome time I had getting to watch this! it brought memories back to me that I thought were dormant. you have exactly the equipment that i had back in the 80's. FYI, the xmodem is as what you said...it's for sending and receiving files hens the " X" was a short way of saying " transfer". Thank you so much for posting this...the younger generation needs to see how we communicated to each other pre-hi speed internet.
I ran a BBS from 1994-2001 using wildcat 4.11SL. It was fun and i enjoyed it
I used to play LORD a lot on a BBS I visited back in the early 1990s! Glad to see you stumbled upon it for the first time!
This brings back so many memories for me. I had an Atari 1030 modem in 1983 for my Atari 800. I lived in Napa, California, and we a had a local RBBS/RCPM which was fun for a message borad, but of course the Atari BBS systems were mostly out of town. You are right, they did some great text art using ATASCII, which also allowed for cursor movement, so they could create the illusion of animation. I soon discovered that the best place to get games was to call BBS in the Silicon Valley area... I particularly remember one called Iron Works. It is where I got an unreleased version of the games "The Last Startfighter" and :Pac Man Jr." My dad was also not very happy when a $200 phone bill arrived one day. Luckily I did not get my modem taken away, just had to make payments out of my allowance for a long time. The power supply blew on the 1030 modem and it was difficult to replace so later I go the XM301 modem. Thanks for posting this. I am shocked an amazed that there are any dial-up BBS in operation as of 2014!
Over at Atariage.com, there are some listed Atari based BBSes in operation but they mainly are connected via telnet.
Actually, that website is the unofficial home of all retro Atari computing and gaming. There's also Atarimania.com, Atari.org, atari-forum.com, and others. B&C Computervisions, Best Electronics, and Video61 Sales are online Atari stores/dealers still in business.
you are bringing back memories. I was Sysop of a Roboboard. It was a graphical interface BBS. I had a lot of fun. I remember there was a list published for Upstate NY and there were about 200 BBSes on it which I could dial as a local call. Those were great times. We were all a community and it was all local. We used to have weekly get togethers of all us geeks :)
Hilarious and so recognisable. Thanx for this trip down memory lane :)
(also kinda interesting how confusing it is to repeat after all those years, even though we had it all figured it out back then.)
Long-established computer standards from ANSI include the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) and the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI).
An organization in the US which sets the standards used for testing the quality and safety of electronic equipment, scientific equipment etc. It has also established a standard set of letters and numbers called the ANSI character set, which is used in computers.
the fact you have a TV hooked up is just great. ran that way for 2 years till I got a monitor.
This brings back memories from around 1st and 2nd grade. EPIC
man this takes me back, i remember connecting to BBS back when i had a 486 computer.
wow man, this is really cool! im 23 so my oldest memories are of the super nintendo, so this is bascally invalubable information for me. ive always wondered what the internet looked like before we all had an os to guide us through. you are the man, i really really enjoyed this, thanks.
Ah yes, the old days of $300 phone bills for local-ish calls. You know you're part of the vanguard if you have a behind the woodshed story from the modem days.
Yeah, the phone calls back then were uber expensive if you weren't careful. And, well.. I wasn't. :)
Man so much nostalgia for this video! When I was a kid I had an original Atari 800 and later my parents bought an XM301 modem for it. I mainly used it to download public domain games- good times! I started with XE Term but later moved to a public domain program called Express! Term (or something like that) by a programmer named Keith Ledbetter - it was awesome! Thanks for the video!
Wow...does this bring back memories. I had an Atari 800XL and an Atari XEGS both with 300 baud modems. SysOps used to hate when I dialed in since it had to go through each line of the ANSI graphic.
"1030 Express!" was the dial-up software I believe I used.
This is awesome. Haven't seen this stuff since 7th grade or so. Crazy.
Fun video John!
300bps=300 bits per second. 8 bits = one byte. One byte is one character. So 300/8 = 37.5 characters per second. By the way, almost all BBS's nowadays will presume an 80 column screen but all the 8bits had 40 columns so that's why the text wrapped around the screen and the intro graphics looked broken. ANSI was for PC's and 16 bit machines for color and text positioning, etc.. The Atari 8bit had ATASCII but for non Atari BBS' we used ASCII which was primitive but worked. xmodem is for downloading and uploading files but we also used ymodem and a few other file transfer protocols.
Actually, most modems were asyncronous serial, so it was 1 start bit and 1 stop bit as well as the regular 8 bits, so 10 bits total per character... SO a 300 baud/bps modem was exactly 30 characters per second. 1200 = 120 CPS, 9600 = 960 CPS etc :)
ansi actually is for everything. and would also be able to communicate that the terminal is just 40x25 to the bbs (not that it would probably give a crap and still send 80 long lines anyway). pc terminal programs usually use different colors than actual vt100 terminals tho, and bbs'es were usually only tested with pcs. not proper vt100s or their clones. most bbs'es for 8 bit micros have a rather long signup procedure asking all kinds of things about the terminals capabilities. aint no reason not to at least implement the most common ansi sequences in an atari program and i highly doubt there would not be any already that provide a full implementation. else just copy one from the c64 and adopt it for the atari.
Not every manufacturer based their machine character set on the standard ANSI, but I understand your point and don't understand their's that ANSI is "primitive". Perhaps primative compared to UNICODE/UTF-8? Not sure. Anyways, Commodore had their own "ANSI" ... PETSII, I think. So it's not surprising that Atari would make their own character set.
Good stuff John, I used to run a PCBoard BBS back in the day. This brought back some fun memories.
Oh, that excitement from calling BBSes back in the day! My first modem was also 300 baud, but it was on my Color Computer 2. It was not an acoustic coupler, but it was not as advanced as your Atari modem. In order to use this modem, I had to pick up the phone, dial the number myself, listen for the carrier tone, and then push a button on the modem which engaged it. There was a switch for answer or originate depending upon, well, that's self explanatory LOL. I was in the fourth grade, so this was probably late 1990 or early 1991. The good old days! I eventually ran a BBS when I was in junior high, and I'm thinking about opening another one on an old 486 or Pentium I have sitting around the house ;)
SysOp wants to chat:
Wow, 300. I started with a 2400, and remember being blown away when I got a 14.4k. I used Qmodem for software. I would get on every local BBS I could to play LORD. It was the best door game.
*This is the coolest thing that I have ever seen*
good old days. i feel honored, that I've been part of this great times!
Man you are living my dream, no way i get that on my 100 squarefoot apartment, i love your life btw i also had an atari 800 xl, fav game M.U.L.E., gotta smile when i hear pole position cabinet in background, much love from Berlin
I love that you put the phone number for Empire Carpe and Flooring! Well done!
:)
588-2300-Empiiiiiire
+Marissa Cohen Today!
Very cool. The Atari port the modem is plugged into is called the SIO Port [Serial Input Output]. It is the direct ancestor to USB because the same engineer [Joe Decuir] created both.
An Atari SX212 - from the same era as your XM301 - 1200 baud modem would've also worked. It was compatible with both the 8-bit Ataris [400/800/XL/XE] and the 16-bit Atari STs. If I recall, it was about $100 then whereas the XM301 was dirt cheap.
I BBS'd first on the Colecovision Adam computer using a 300 Baud modem. Then went on to my Apple 2 with a Hayes smart modem 1200. Then went on to my Commodore Amiga computer using a Supra 2400 baud modem. I loved BBSing and always wished I was a hacker. I was always a generation behind on the modem speeds cause the current ones were really expensive. I always wished I could be a SysOp but I had to share a phone line with my family.
GREAT VIDEO!!
Thanks! Coleco Adam! Whoa. So you bought the one they sold? Lol
Yeah, John, I can imagine this being pretty addictive back in the day. It was the internet before the internet! Cool stuff.
That's great, John!
Awesome vid Johnboy, reminds me of the days using my Commodore 64 online, RIP Tremiel
Here is all the BBS software I can remember just by memory I swear. CNet Amiga,Paragon,DLG Professional,AmiExpress, those were for the commodore Amiga only. I never ran a PC BBS, but I still remember a lot of software just from my head again I swear I'm not reading from and sort of list. PCBoard,Telegard,TAG,Wildcat,TBBS,EBBS, And I'm sure there were a LOT more. Sorry for the rant, but this brings back so many memories, I'm 39 years old and still remember those days like yesterday.
That brings back memories. Going to try telnet (no modem) and get some nostalgia!
Loving the videos!
I love how much personality this guy has, automatic sub lol
Thanks. :)
Heh, that Positronium BBS probably didn't expect a visitor using an Atari 800XL. :P
lol
this is my first video that i watched on you channel and all i got to say is bruh that is a NICE basement
+Vorlitra thanks! Glad you found my channel. :)
another great video Johnny B Bad! I ran a bbs on my c-64 running c-net software from 85-90 and then upgraded to PC running Renegade from 1990 to 1996 called Pain ßarrier My handle is Threshold and I still use it on IRC, wish I would have kept all my old stuff like you did, but I do actually have some video tapes of me calling boards in like 1985 when I hooked my c-64 up to my vcr...gonna have to dig those tapes out and convert them to upload to my youtube
thanks for the trip down memory lane. I had the same setup & also had the wrath of my parents rain down upon me for the same reason. Phone company was ridiculous back then.
I used to be the SysOp of the XE-BBS for nine years between the 80s-90s, I started out on an XM301 (300 baud) before moving up through modems up to the K56Flex and v.90 (56K) modems. I remember running Oasis BBS on my Atari 130XE forever before I eventually went to an Atari ST running SBBS and eventually ended the whole project on a 286 running SBBS toward the end. I remember writing my own doors (module programs for BBSs, like games and story boards, etc.) It was a little frustrating to watch you. It seems as if you weren't at all familiar with how a Wildcat BBS works and didn't seem to recognize some of the terminology for terminals (ie. ASCII vs ANSI vs RIP protocol, etc.). You're right, though--it would have been far, far more interesting to see you connect to an actual Atari BBS. It might be interesting to set one up just to show both sides. I preferred using BobTerm as my terminal client of choice for years on the 8-bit. XE-TERM wasn't very good and didn't support all the common download protocols like Zmodem, Punter, etc. CORRECTION TO YOUR VIDEO: No, this is NOT the Internet. The Internet is a specific interconnect of systems into a large body called the Internet (formerly ARPANET). Please stop repeatedly calling it the Internet. It's not. Every connection to a BBS is a direct end-point connection to end-point connection to a BBS.
Check out the AtariAge forums (not BBS!) for Atari XL browsable BBSes.
Awesome John, thanks for this series. This brings back great memories from my childhood (300baud, Commodore 64). Now, I think I'll keep the modems I got along with my Commodore stuff, when I set everything up. And yes, please set up a bbs, I'd be down for meeting up on there.:)
I'd love to have a bbs. How cool would that be? Lol.
Indeed, that would be extremely awesome:-). I need to get my computers set up!
My XM301 was my life, right up until I could save enough for an SX212 (featuring a dual SIO/RS232 interface at a blistering 1200 baud).
Thanks for capturing the disk access tones that the Atari plays through the TV. It also emits a faint tone the whole time you are connected that is modulated whenever there is IO. I should look up the details of that tone so I can synthesize it. That would probably help me chill the fuck out once in a while.
Come on man! Let's get that Johns Arcade BBS going!
Oh man. Hearing Pole Position's attract mode in the background brought back memories.
Haha awesome man. I have my Atari 130XE still hooked up and use it from time to time. I agree Donkey Kong on the Atari 8-bit was awesome. I didn't get into BBSes until the PC days (early 90's) but I still run a telnet BBS.
Used to run a BBS back around 1997. Used TriBBS software. Most people around here used that "WildCat" software the bbs you got on was running. I used to do netmail and had several games like LORD and Planets TEOS (The Exploration Of Space). Had about 250 callers in my database at one point. Then I had to move into my new house when I got married and lost all but about 3 callers due to the number I changed to being long distance for most of them. Eventually closed it down. What a BUMMER! BBS's ruled back in the day! I STILL have one of those backup tapes from 1997 with a complete backup of the BBS as it was at that moment including all the games and everything. I should break out the drive it was made with and restore it if it is still good just for giggles. I remember editing my own ANSI screens with a program called "The Draw". I did custom ones every holiday and had a door you could use to watch tons of those ANSI animations like the one you showed us in your previous video. Bringing back lots of memories!!! THANKS!!!
***** You know if I find some spare time this year I might just restore it onto an old PC for giggles. Talk about nostalgia.
Your my new hero! Thanks for posting this! Totally cool.
OMG!! The Memories!!!
OMG LORD! I haven't played that in ages! LORD and B.R.E loved those old BBS games
Loved this update, brought back so many memories. ANSI was a IBM graphics file. All that fancy txt should look like this on an IBM. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_art This was an amazing update, I was calling many places in Michigan from 91-95.
and I didn't call from Detroit today :) I haven't done BBS's in 20 years
dude, what a great video.. ! what a find !!!.. Also, you know you sound like Pattan Oswald ! Man, you have a great voice ! clearly you like this stuff... me too. :)
+Cris Blyth Thanks, Chris! I have heard that before. :)
My earliest BBS was running just a message board with a single 1200 baud modem, the storage was 3, 3.5-inch floppy drives, the main built in drive on my first Amiga, the Amiga 500 ran the BBS software, and the 2nd and 3rd floppy drive was the storage for the message board, each disk was 1.44mb, LOL. That software was called PetraBBS man I could go on and on about those days. I remember when US Robotics had the SysOP discount program, that's how I was able to afford all the modems.
Lol - Thanks dude! This was my experience as a kid! I actually built a ring detector from a schematic I downloaded from a BBS and hosted my own BBS at 10. My all time favorite video game on the Atari 8 bit was alternate reality the dungeon. The first 3d dungeon crawl.
my god I hadn't been doing this when I was in my college years. I still think I have some software that is free that you can still do in this day and age over the web still. great retro John!!! lol
called the first number you dialed.. i think I'm deaf.. Pretty cool to see this kind of tech on an ancient piece of hardware :)
oh the days of 300 cords tangled... Thinking on it now I can't say I miss it.
I'm too young to have experienced this (Born in '91), but as a retro nerd I enjoy seeing what things were like way back when.
Also, that game is in some sense the great grandfather of today's MMOs (though perhaps that honor should really go to MUDs, which I believe were possibly around even earlier(?)), with primitive (by today's standards, high-tech at the time I would imagine) multiplayer functionality like the ability to fight other players, write messages for people to see etc.
I ran a pretty active bbs from 1984 till about 1991 and ofcourse the internet killed the bbs:) Min ran on a Commmodore 64 and eventually Amiga PC.
Great times :)
That took me way back. I had a a atari and the modem was the type you put the receiver on it. We still had pulse dialing at the time. Slow to dial but thinking about it it was fast at the time. My dad used it for online banking also the local newspaper was online text only. I miss them days a little.
Usually, people used N81 settings with modems (No parity, 8-bits, 1 Stop bit). So, every character was sent as 10 bits (1 Start, 8-bits, 1 Stop). This makes 300 baud = 30 CPS. If you used parity it became 11 bits (27 CPS).
+bryede "8N1", to be exact ;)
I apologize if it was my Central Illinois BBS that you called to get your modem taken away. I mean, one in a thousand chance, but it was pretty popular amongst the teenager crowd in the early 1990s ;)
BBS,.. almost forgot about it, funny its still in use.
nice memories.
your basement is awesome
I used to have the modem where you had to use an actual phone to first dial, and then place the phone in the modem "cup-holder" to connect to the BBS. You had to be careful not to make any noise when downloading anything, otherwise you would get CRC errors in your downloads! Though to counter this, I made some contraption where it covered up the modem, and cut down the noise. That helped a lot... LOL
"Do you remember those rotary phones"? Yes, I used a 1968 rotary phone as my actual house phone from 2015-2016!
I used to do quite a bit of this back in the day. This was very nostaligic and interesting.
Thanks! Yeah, I really miss doing the BBS stuff, it was kinda magical! :D
Nice stuff as always John. You should make a special intro for the atari stuff with a Johnny Be Bad logo. :)
That would be pretty funny. :) I'm not sure where this is going just yet with all this 800XL stuff. We'll see...
You are the Empire Carpet Man ;-)
Those BBS'es were probably in the IBM standards as well as the ansi/ascii code to use for the menus and such. I ran a BBS atari service with 8 disc drives loaded with software. Late at night, I'd go on with a 9600 baud and download more for our club. Later, I moved to rig up a fantastic 20 meg hard drive as we has LOTS of users, limit 15 min per call. The largest file was usually 10K, and that was a great game. To those of that generation, and all the clubs and the sneering at each other who's system was better whether it be a Sinclair, Commodore, Coleco, Atari, Apple and so on was a great time to the newbies into computers of which the elders were deathy scared of. I remember when the gov't, yes, gov't used Vic 20's in their offices as a database using the dreaded cassette unit, but hey, it worked. I still know a guy who runs his whole apartment block with an Atari 800 XE and a 1050 disc drive and an IBM compatible printer using an interface and Atari spreadsheet. As of today, he still uses it. He has no other use for a PC. He says his mind is clogged up enough (with dollar signs in his eyes)
1: Xmodem is a binary transfer protocol.. It would be what you'd use to download a file from (or upload to) the BBS
2: ANSI is kind of like your "ATASCII" - It let the BBS draw simple color graphics, and have full control of the cursor instead of just being simple character by character ascii..
3: BAUD is Bits per second. So, 300 baud is 300 BITs.. there's 8 bits in a byte, plus a start and stop bit, so really 10 bits per character, which means about 30 characters per second. Technically, there's a little delay between characters, so it probably did 28-29 characters per second.
4: The menu didn't fit on the screen, and the initial character graphics looked strange because it expects you to have an 80 character display, but you have only 40 characters, so each BBS line is potentially split between 2 lines on your screen.
This brought back great memories - I ran a BBS in about 86-90.. First on a Radio Shack CoCo, then on an IBM PC/XT, then on a 286...
Thanks!!
ATASCII was Atari's [extended/enhanced/proprietary] version of ASCII which was the standard. Commodore had Petscii. Both were used exclusively on their 8-bit computers whereas the 16-bit Atari ST and Commodore Amiga were using VT-52 and VT-100 terminal graphics emulation modes which were more industry standard by that time. ANSI graphics took over DOS/Windows based BBSes in the late 80s/early 90s.
There's a really good [long] documentary on BBSes that has been posted to RUclips… BBS - The Documentary. The hacker culture, demos, platform wars are covered. There was quite a bitter rivalry between Atari and Commodore owners back then [yet both hated Apple and IBM too]…the rivalry between Mac and PC or iOS and Android of today pale in comparison.
Please set up a BBS like you said. It wound be awesome and exclusive for guys like us who grew up in the 80s.
I ran a small BBS called "ninjas lair" circa 1989 right before I started HS. Ran a C128D with ext, 1541 drive on a 1200baud modem. DMBBS software.
Back in those days we used an online service called QLINK which became AOL years later. Awesome way to meet people all over the USA and play online games like "club carribee" (first online avatar game).
SysOP was like being Neo in the Matrix back then :)
Since you are running on 300baud, a lot of BBS were rejecting them because they were getting way too slow compared with the technology back in the days. I used to run a BBS on WildCat! (Mustang software) between 1988 and 1994 called QWERTY BBS in Montreal area, I was basically sharing shareware for MS-DOS with message board and some games online. I used 1200, 2400 v32bis 14.4k and 28.8k modems from I got over 50000 calls over the years. In 1995, I pulled the plug when I discovered the potential of the internet using Netscape Navigator and Yahoo! I miss the BBS years. ANSI is a graphic standard used mostly in DOS. XModem ZModem are download protocols, they were compressing data for faster transfer. Never choose ASCII to download, it has not compression.
Hi john, i think your 300 baud modem is a bit slower than you might have thought :-) Sorry about that. 300 baud means 300 system changes per second i.e "bits". There are 8 bits in a byte (By Eight as it is). A typical character on your Atari screen consist of 8 bits. So knowing this we can conclude that 300 baud is 300/8 =37,5 byte. So in theory your modem transfers 37,5 characters per second. Hope you found this interesting :-)
awesome!
I had a Renegade BBS called Closed Casket in MI, 14.4k modem. Good times
The XM301 and XE-Term was my introduction to telecommunications when I was 9.
And it had a bug that you can see if you play from 3:50. It starts to draw the text "-=:{ 1:396/48@whatever }:=-" but when it gets to the right brace character, it clears the screen. This is because the right brace is ASCII 125, which is also the ATASCII command to clear the screen, and XE-Term doesn't escape that character. That's too bad because it does define a new font that displays a left brace for ASCII 123.
That Pole Position sound totally triggered me.
300 baud is 300bps (BITS per second), one character is 8 bits, so it is about 37.5 characters per second, but asynchronous so speed would vary
Patreon goes to this guy's coffee budget.
SysOps were kinda BBS Gods. We could kick users pretty easily, but paying users had a lot of rights, and you wouldn't go kicking them over anything trivial, as they were your income. We used things like Maximus BBS / RemoteAccess (RA) and DESQview. RA was excellent, had very few bugs, did everything pretty much out of the box with minimal config requirement and had it's own really well made databases etc.
you better have an antivirus on that 800XL Johnny Be Bad!
That made me laugh. :)
Only micocrap can get a virus
Cool video. Really takes me back. You should go to a good will store and get a new old TV that doesn't have all that crappy static.
Wow. RUclips was on the mark sending me notice of this video :-)
I was part of the Index in Atlanta, a 64 node BBS.
I want to hook my xegs up to the internet I guess all I need is that software, a telephone line, diskette reader and my atari. Thanks for sharing!
I really like the fact that the internet is actually worldwide phone lines. I would really like to try dial up internet, even though very few people use it
There are a lot of completely free dial-up internet services, now-a-days.
I remember this as a kid my cousin had this. We would chat with people mainly and I think some malls had channels you could buy things from them. ANSI, is American National Standard(s) Institute.
I still love this video! Does using a BBS still show up on your phone bill?
LORD was hugely popular in the 90s. I discovered it pretty late. I actually preferred LORD 2, but apparently I was the only one. I thought the quest in LORD 2 was too solitary, and started modding that game to make more interaction between players. I stopped though when I realized the game was basically dead.
LORD is kind of simple but addicting.
Tradewars ticked me off. It seemed like every time I was starting to get somewhere, another team of players would wipe me out. It started to feel futile and I gave up. Sometimes I think I had a bad attitude about it, but really, it was just pointless to play that game if you weren't the dominant team.
The local SysOp was a friend of my sister's, he used to get annoyed because apparently *his* computer would glitch out when ours disconnected. It had something to do with lack of error correction on our modem. He ended up loaning us a modem lol.
Addictive.
Ahh Such Memories :) QC
XMODEM is a file transfer protocol. It's since been followed up by YMODEM (faster than X but forgoes error-correction, should thus only be used on TCP/IP or another sort of connection that has its own error-correction) and ZMODEM (always use this one if available, combines best of X and Y).
ANSI is an extension of ASCII. I don't know much about Atari computers, but I guess a decent comparison could be that it's basically the PC equivalent to ATASCII.
The positronium can also be accessed via telnet://cmech.dynip.com
Computers today don’t work this fast today.,i remember using a BBS for a short time!!