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Looking through the things I wrote when I was 14, I didn't remember how I
spent my teenage years. I remembered why - why I spent them the way I did.

In the past few hours I've tried to explain to a few people here (at the
University of Virginia, of all places) what a BBS was. They've been
returning a "smile-and-nod" reaction.

They just don't get it.

This was bad-assed "Matrix" stuff back then, kids. This was amazing. This
was the future. The kids in my Web Page Design class are 13-15 years old -
the same age I was when I started BBSing. They take the internet for
granted. Those of us who were around when BBSing hit its peak, well. We're
still in awe of this internet thing.

I mean, a chat that has more than 2-3 people? Wow. Transmitting a 5 meg
file in 30 seconds? Wow. Radio over the internet? Amazing. Christ, I'm
blown away by the Yahoo! Sports Baseball GameCast, which allows me to
experience the Tigers losing all the way down here.

So as I wander the new neighborhood full of streaming video and javascript
chatrooms on demand, I remember my old 'hood. It seems pretty ghetto -
ANSI, for the love of god, ANSI - but it was home and I miss it. Why?
Because I loved it.

And I can't tell you exactly why.

Maybe it was the feeling you got finally connecting to that popular board
at 3am after attack dialing, on your 3rd Mountain Dew of the evening with
Dinosaur Jr. on the stereo and the rest of the house in bed.

Maybe it was being able to have a serious discussion with someone much
older than you without the "just a kid" reaction. Handles were the great
equalizer. We all because ageless and faceless.

I think I miss that, too.

Maybe its being able to download the latest software before it came out*
it was so damned small back then, wasn't it? I remember being pissed that
Wing Commander 2 was 13 megabytes. Took me two days to download. I have
MP3s that are bigger than this. Took me 5 minutes to get those.

Maybe it's meeting people in a bowling alley that you already know but
have never met and will continue to know for a long, long time.

It's all of that, I guess. More than anything, it was fun and it was
interesting. Who knew that it would grow into the internet, which
threatens to overhaul society into something altogether new and different?

Think of it this way, people. This stuff we're talking about like it was
ancient history? Five fucking years ago. That's all.

Five years from now, what do you think we'll say about today?

Listen: the last MP3 I downloaded was from a FTP site that had, of all
things, an upload download ratio. It also had a copy of Front Page 2000,
which takes about two damn days - (wing commander anyone?) - to download
even at ludicrous speeds. And I am the king of Multiplayer Jeopardy, the
best online game since SHL hockey.

We'll leave that to the future, and this to the past.

Goodbye, BBS World.

Auf Wiedersehen?
(until later?)
 

Sir Robin

/es