SysOp of Psychotronic BBS

Before the Web there were a few online services, particularly Compuserve at $12.50 an hour. And lots of people ran BBSs (bulletin board services). These were sort of small, one man, phone line online services. A very few had many lines and were able to charge for access (particularly the ones with dirty pics.)

A few multi-line boards offered chat. Then as now most people chatted looking for sex. Chat is probably AOL's biggest cash cow. Back then AOL was an obscure little company that catered to Macs. When Steve Case got aggressive we all thought it was a joke.

Psychotronic BBS was the name of mine. At its largest it had two phone lines, four PCs networked and a satellite feed pulling down FidoNet and other networks, usenet newsgroups and even email.

When I bought my first computer (an XT with 512k RAM, 20 Meg hard disc, Hercules compatible graphics for a mere $1,000), in my typically carried away fashion I became a computer hobbyist.

I logged on to the local boards, mostly looking for shareware. I was a utilities fiend for a time.

For a lark with barely defined reasons I decided to start my own. With a friend I setup one called RBBS (which would be replaced with QuickBBS, RemoteAccess, finally PCBoard).

A common complaint among SysOps (System Operator) as the folks who ran BBSs were called was that people logged on only to download files. Rarely would anyone post messages or participate in discussions.

The WWIV (World War IV) BBSs were an exception. But they were mostly populated by teens who had handles like Slave24 or CuteLilThing. Being stiff-necked, twasn't mind kind of hangout.

Even though I wanted to encourage conversation, via messages, not chat. I've never liked chat and only did it much latter when I was "lookin' for love". By then I had carpal tunnel but somethings make you fight the pain.

While I spent hours tracking down interesting share/freeware and loading Psychotronic up with it I established a rule. To have access to the BBS you had to leave a message.

I wouldn't carry games. I never played them. The big exception was Leisure Suit Larry I. The goal of the game was for Larry to have as much sex as he could without dying from AIDS or getting VD. I thought the bawdiness a hoot.

I didn't carry pictures. One of Psychotronic's mottos was "No games, GIFs or goofy junk." Of course another was "Phalloplasty at its finest." (Thank Whoever for Google, I couldn't remember hos to spell phalloplasty but Google did.)

I wrote long and whimsical introductory text that a new caller had to read. They bullied and cajoled him to post something. Almost anything. You couldn't ask for files. But you could write about about them in a more discursive way. Didn't have to be long. But it couldn't be a cheap attempt to bypass my requirements.

Most folks read this and hung up. They new what they wanted and it wasn't this. They wanted file compression utilities (this was when the big war was fought on BBSs that brought us Zip files, an epic struggle that would surely bore you to tears and is doubtlessly covered somewhere else). Or GIF viewers. GIFs were the most common types of pictures, dirty or of cute kittens staring at the sun rise. Or all manner of dull but useful programs you could evaluate and then pay the author if you liked it (or like the majority use them and never pay for them).

I'd be there watching them log on and quickly log off. Some would try to leave a message. But you could tell they'd been hitting [ENTER to continue] quickly as their fingers could go. Their message would be "I'm lookin' for WAREZ, d00ds!" (Warez is slang for pirated commercial software. Downloaded a few megs of it myself.)

Making Friends Online

But a few really fine folks did join. A real hodgepodge. Ken a clerk at Duke University Medical Center. His posts were amazingly funny. You always felt he should be in a magazine somewhere between National Lampoon and The New Yorker. Jim, equally funny but very cranky at times. An engineer of some sort also at Duke. Steve a very conservative techy guy from Milwaukee. Keith and Ed. Genuine programmer wizards. Keith's fingers were insured by Lloyd's of London. Ed was witty and urbane. Paul who logged on from an offshore drilling rig in the North Sea.

It was interesting how people from all over would log on and feel like the BBS was someplace they wanted to hangout.

Dial-up modems were the only way to connect. My first 14.4K modem cost me $750 and I got it for half price because I ran a BBS. Nowadays you can't buy an analog modem that isn't four times as fast.

To keep the phone lines free I got the folks to use 'offline readers' which would let them log on, download there messages and read and reply without being connected.

I got to know many of them in meat life to use an ancient internetism.

Most especially George. He was a grad student at UNC-Chapel Hill at the time. Specializing in 18th Century Satire. He'd write the very long, literate sometimes funny other times impassioned messages. George can talk to anybody from a hyper-educated academic to the guy who delivers bread to the quickie mart.

He drops by the shop every now and then. That is drawing to a closse. He's found a cushy job at a private school in Manhattan and will be moving there when finds an apartment.

Others drop by occasionally. One whose name will not be mentioned is deathly dull. His visits signal an hour or more of conversation I'd pay money to avoid. But I can't. He, like many, gave me money to help me keep the BBS online.

I didn't post much myself. I spent endless hours at the command line diddling with the software and tweaking oddball proprietary hardware. I always built my PCs from scratch. Ran IBM's failed OS/2 operating system. Tried a pre-1.0 linux kernel. Very much the computer junkie. There's enough of this left that I skim sights like Slashnot ("News for Nerds") and ZDNet. If I weren't broke I'd rush out to buy Windows & Office XP. I don't need them. I'd just have the urge. Actually I'd probably be running linux but I like to keep my home computer compatible with the shop's PCs.

As Books Do Furnish A Room becomes more and more an online bookseller what I learned back then has been a real blessing.

When Tim Berners-Lee wrote those first lines of HTML and the first graphical browser appeared I knew that the ages of BBSs would be drawing to its end. And I wanted to spend money on my teeth (I never have but that's another story).

I still see some of these guys. Sadly enough Jim was in the shop not long ago. I didn't recognize him. It wasn't until after he'd gone that I realized how (unintentionally) rude I'd been.

Psychotronic BBS lives on after a fashion. Several of the guys got together and established a mailing list so that they could continue their conversations even though the BBS was no more.

Psychotronic?

Psychotronic got its name from Michael Weldon's Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film. It is a guide to cheap exploitation, horror, science fiction, blacksploitation movies. Because of it I spend hundreds of hours tracking down all sorts of cheesy stuff. Russ Meyer, Christian propaganda, Jamaal Fanakaa, gore fests. Both volumes and his magazine are highly recommened. He has a great relaxed witty style.