What kind of memories do you want?  I mean not all of mine are positive.  I remember discovering that the guy who ran a board I was Co-Sys on (Castle: Suspitions) was in the Orange Jumpsuit for child molestation.  *shudder* 

I have a pretty funny modern anecdote.  Every time I talk to Vamp or Morgana  (Kati and Casey), they insist that they don't really remember any other  females on the boards while they were online.  Of course, being men, I think we remember -all- the females, even if they only spoke to us once on the (Newbie) message base and disappeared, but it just shows what Queens Of The Realm they were. ;-)~

*bows deeply before them* Scott

Ah, the days of 1 girl in 10...

<Sgt. Pepper> wrote:
| 
|I want a long Scott-like rambling "post" about the 
|first time you logged on, who got you into it, who you 
|remember and why, what BBS names you loved the most, 
|anything that crosses your mind. 
| 
|dan

<Xavier> wrote:

<ramble> There I was, bound and determined to do exactly what I wasn't  supposed to by using this "modem" thing.  Our little 386 with a whopping-huge 4 megs of ram happened to come with a 2400 baud modem, also the latest and greatest.  I mulled this over for all of one day when, on the bus ride home, I heard a guy talk about modems and bulletin boards.  I begged him in my most pitiful fashion to tell me how to contact such holy places of knowledge, and he promised to return the next day with said artifact.

Yes, my brethren, the next day he handed over a printout of the venerable Horst Mann 313 list.  *bows deeply*  This kind soul even hilighted the (semi)-local numbers.

After an hour of fussing with PCAnywhere, I connected to my first BBS, "The College Board."  Soon I was directed to a new program (capable of ANSI graphics), and I called around a half-dozen BBSs. 

I still remember the first girl I talked to. *winks*  Princess.  *beams*  Years later, I met her at a birthday party of mine, we played euchre. What a fine moment.  Anywhoo.

Within a year I was the Online-Op at The College Board, being completely and 
hopelessly addicted to Tradwars 2002, Global War, and a few other pointless 
games.  I liked this. *eg*  I had Power!  Access!  Control!

This immediately went to my head, and by the "height" of my BBSing days, I 
was honor-bound to call the 6-8 bulletin boards I was "Op" on. 

During this time, I started to know the strangest, coolest MoFo's in the 
damn world.  Kids that started a few years before me who went to Rocky 
Horror and Ram's Horn and did Really Cool Shit.  Needless to say, they 
instantly corrupted me ;-)  (thanks guys!)

There was a board I used to call, 1200 baud only (C64), adult only.  I simply said I was 10 years older than I was, and started posting funny jokes from the half-dozen dirty joke books I had.  I was soon made a Message-Op. This did me just fine until I was asked to meet the sysop... when I had to reveal I was only 13.  *grins* I believe the response was: "You're shitting me.  No, you _are_ kidding.  Right?"  I continued to be "op" until I stopped calling.

I had a list of 20 boards I called.  Some were for the messages, some were for the files (Leech!  Back then I could upload original things, sort of copy from BBS to BBS.  Now I'm hard-pressed to find anything that isn't  already out there.), and one or two were purely for gaming.  I remember when Tradewars became Inter-BBS, like Barren Realms Elite.  Add that to the "nets" like "Fidonet" and "augienet", and you had our version of the internet, before the internet.

I went so far as to call my favorite (the coolest, slickest, darkest board in the area) 3 or 4 times a days.  This was, of course, English Acid.  Ah,  EA.  They ("they" being vamp, shadow, and whoever else) gave me an Op position because, I presume, I called religiously and she was going off to college, leaving the board behind.

I briefly ran a board called "The Restaurant At The End of the Universe", or TRATEOTU for short. ;-)~  Ceased when I realized that an hour a day just wasn't enough time to leave a board up.

I've met nearly everyone I became friends with online, and I dragged a few non-BBSers onto the boards, like Cougar.  I met a few girls ("Tanda, Beauty, Witch, Pandora"), and this was the beginning of the end.

I met my first girlfriend while Validating people for a board ran by my friend Brent.  She had the user number 69, and her first post was a major flirt, and that was enough for me.  I called her up, and it was nearly two hours before she told me that my (asshole ;) friend called first. Damn.  Her father ran a BBS of his own, sort of based on the series "The Well of Souls".  I did my best to keep his board afloat in new messages, it being a transplant from western MI.  I tried to ignore her father's brandishing of semi-legal weaponry.

I had a life, soon (dating, even) outside of the boards, and by the time I was 17, I had a tech support job, an internet connection, and they all started to fade away.  The last board I ever called, which existed far longer than the others, was "Imajica", run by JFZ.  JFZ did a lot for me in my own life, paying me for putzing around on his lawn, helping me set up my first bank account, helping me buy (and sell) my first car. *nods* </ramble>

<thanks to Shadow, St Francis, Vamp, "Jim Kennedy" (my first SysOp), Sgt. Pepper ;), One-Eyed Jack (who regretted the handle "lexis"), the girls and guys mentioned above, High Voltage, Lurch, Sir Robin, Lankhmar, Nick Strine, Dryv Error, Morgana, Mel, and the various BBSers I've met throughout my life AFTER the last board went down>
 
 

..... how that for rambling?

Scott AKA Xavier
atdt1991@hotmail.com
http://spork.ofdoom.com

/s