TZUTC: -0500   
   MSGID: 1485.fido_bbscarni@1:123/115 28997fb7   
   REPLY: 1:229/426 C7EA1456   
   PID: Synchronet 3.20a-Linux master/ab0a99959 Apr  8 2023 GCC 11.2.0   
   TID: SBBSecho 3.20-Linux master/ab0a99959 Apr  8 2023 GCC 11.2.0   
   BBSID: PALANTIR   
   CHRS: ASCII 1   
   -=> Nick Andre wrote to Dan Clough <=-   
      
    NA> On 10 Apr 23  07:31:00, Dan Clough said the following to Nick   
    NA> Andre:   
      
    DC>  NA> This is true.. If you bought either MBBS or TBBS it was an   
    DC>  NA> investment that you wanted recouped. I never once saw a totally   
    DC>  NA> "free" one of those systems until much later, when the novelty   
    DC>  NA> wore off.   
      
    DC> Do you recall how much it was back then?  I ran a purchased/registered   
    DC> copy of PCBoard back in the 90's, and I think it was either $125 or   
    DC> $150, which was a significant cost for me back then.  Also registered   
      
    NA> I can't remember exactly. I keep thinking MajorBBS was at least a   
    NA> few hundred and they upsold you on the "Galaticboard" serial card   
    NA> which was another couple hundred bucks.   
      
    NA> Same with TBBS... You bought the license but needed the serial   
    NA> board for anything beyond 2 nodes. Then Fidonet was an add-on.   
    NA> Remote access was an add-on... I mean, any BBS that came with a   
    NA> freaking VHS installation video you just knew was going to be a   
    NA> bit out of your league.   
      
    NA> https://archive.org/details/1993-bbs-tbbstape   
      
   Wow.  How cool is that.  I watched the whole video...  Hahaha, the    
   professionalism of the presentation is awesome.  What a different time!   
      
    NA> To be fair TBBS was absolutely fascinating. You could get your   
    NA> hands on a pirate copy but it was absolutely useless without the   
    NA> printed manual. It was "the mother" of all Rube Goldberg   
    NA> lets-make-it-freaking-complicated contraptions. But when you   
    NA> really began to understand why it did things the way it did... it   
    NA> actually made sense. The manuals were very professional.   
      
   I just downloaded it from an "abandonware" site, two 1.44 floppy images,    
   probably no manual in there.  Might give it a look sometime... :-)   
      
    NA> I was a huge fan and wrote some crude textfile-utils for John   
    NA> Souvestre's hub system in the 90's. It seemed like him and many   
    NA> TBBS Sysops jumped ship and started their own ISP businesses when   
    NA> the author invented a router appliance and began pitching the   
    NA> Internet as the future.   
      
   Yep, the entire BBS world (dialup, anyway) took a nosedive around 1996    
   or so, going from memory.  I ran mine then from 93-96 (Fido 1:115/321),    
   and had to move away (active duty Navy at the time).  Didn't get things    
   re-started until 2018...  ;-)   
      
   Thanks for the flashback!   
      
      
   ... As a matter of fact, it IS a banana in my pocket.   
   === MultiMail/Linux v0.52   
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