My Secret Life as an 11-year-old BBS Sysop

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/12/my-secret-life-as-an-11-year-old-bbs-sysop/

Oh my, did this article take me back. I was at Murdoch Uni from 1992-94, and I remember sitting at a friend’s house watching TV while in the background was the continual dial/attempt to handshake sound of the modem, and as soon as the handshake was accepted and the two modems started screaming we all leapt to the computer.

Murdoch had six modems at the time to cover the requirements of all staff and students, and the fourth modem would accept a handshake and then die, so the system wouldn’t pass any calls on to the fifth or six modem. So we only had three modems across all of uni!

I remember when we first got email addresses and how fucking annoying and frustrating it was. If you couldn’t do command line, you weren’t able to access or check your email.

I ended up working in an Internet Service Provider in 94, initially with a skill set of “I was blocked from the internet for ten hours because I didn’t know what a modem looked like or how to turn it on after an electrical storm” to memorizing modem strings and knowing how to lock down a 56K modem to 48K so the connection was more stable, and doing it all over the phone with people who knew even less about the internet than I did.

Yah, get off my lawn kiddos! 😀

The internet today is a lot more fun!

Liked this article? Share it!
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Email
About Sarah Lee Parker
I write a little or I write a lot – and these days there’s just so much to write about! Most of my days are spent writing captions for social media, copy for websites, strategy documents for business and digital marketing, and very long emails to my friends. I come to Marketing Jumpstart with a plethora of experience in private, public, non profit and volunteer organisations, and have also rounded out the list with freelancer and business owner too. I have also subcontracted. Is there any type of work type I have missed? 😅
Linkedin

You might also like

The Marketing Jumpstart team acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to them and their cultures, and to elders both past and present.

LET'S WORK TOGETHER

You want to grow your business, but don’t have time or resources to do it yourself?

We take care of everything from design, development, SEO and more so you can focus on what matters most – running your company!

LOCATED IN AUSTRALIA

We’ve worked remote across Australia since before the pandemic made it cool.

We operate across Perth, Western Australia and Grafton, New South Wales working with clients based all over the world from Madison, Wisconsin to Melbourne, Victoria.

© 2023 Marketing Jumpstart.
Powered by caffeine.