Hello! I'm a volunteer at the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in Oakland, California. I've been hard at work over the past few months restoring a few old PCs, including a 486 and a Pentium III. As the final piece of the puzzle, I've been adding dialup functionality to both machines using a VoIP ATA. (We don't have a real phone line sadly) I've lurked on BBSes on my own time before as a retro enthusiast but haven't actually posted to one until now.These were a hair before my time as a 90's baby so do you all have any
ettiqutte, reccomendations or tips? If you do that would be very much appreciated.

Regards,
VHSFuture

Re: Hello! New user
By: VHSFuture to All on Thu Mar 19 2026 06:59 pm

Hello! I'm a volunteer at the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in Oakland, California. I've been hard at work over the past few months restoring a few old PCs, including a 486 and a Pentium III. As the final piece of the puzzle, I've been adding dialup functionality to both machines using a VoIP ATA. (We don't have a real phone line sadly) I've lurked on BBSes on my own time before as a retro enthusiast but haven't actually posted to one until now.These were a hair before my time as a 90's baby so do you all have any ettiqutte, reccomendations or tips? If you do that would be very much appreciated.

That's cool. :)

You've posted in a local message board on my BBS, which is cool (and something I like to see), although these days, it would probably be better to also post in one of the various networked message boards. The networked message boards are shared across other bulletin boards, so people on other bulletin boards would see your message too (not just uers on this one). This BBS doesn't really get a whole lot of traffic, and honestly I'm not sure if many of the users here read the local message boards here very often.

A couple of the most popular networked message boards I have here are Dove-Net and FSXNet. Those are fairly active, with people reading and responding to messages there fairly often. If you post there, you're bound to get some responses within a day or so, I imagine. Dove-Net and FSXNet are also accessible on many other bulletin boards, which is what makes them popular for poeple to read & post on.

As far as etiquette, when you're replying to other messages, it's good to quote part of the message before you write a reply. That makes it easier for other people reading it (including the person you're writing to) to follow the conversation. I've quoted most of your message at the top, which is an example of quoting. Also, it's generally accepted to write your respone below the quoted lines (not above). That's also called bottom-posting (as opposed to top-posting, which is writing your reply above what you've quoted). Top-posting is generally frowned upon on bulletin boards because it's not the common practice; bottom-posting is the generally accepted practice when quoting messages and writing a reply.

Different message editors have different mechanisms to quote. I see you used the "Synchronet msgeditor" editor - Honestly I've never actually used that, so I'm not sure how it does quoting. I typically like to use SlyEdit to write messages (mainly because I wrote SlyEdit) - With SlyEdit, you can press Ctrl-Q to open the quote window and select lines to quote, then press Ctrl-Q again (or ESC) to close the quote window. If you want to change your message editor, you can go into the user preferences on this bulletin board (^ on any of the menus here) and select to ues an external editor, and choose one. I have many set up here.

It's cool that you're setting up some retro hardware. :) I was born in 1980, so BBSes were a thing when I was growing up, though I was a little young, I think. I started using BBSes in 1992 when I got my own computer, and I ran my own BBS back in the day, from 1994 to 2000. I started running my current BBS in 2007. I just added the dialup line with a modem a couple years ago (and I think I saw you were using the dialup line?) I'm also using VOIP. I think even land lines today use VOIP anyway.. One thing that kinda sucks is that the quality of VOIP lines isn't as good as classic land lines, and that can make it more difficult to get a higher-speed modem connection.

I always thought it was so cool to use a modem with a computer back in the day. Back then, computers were often used offline, so most of the stuff you did on a computer was local and on that computer. I thought it was really cool that there were modems that could connect computers over phone lines, so I could then be using someone else's computer, in their house (or another building somewhere). Also, connecting to other systems to be able to communicate with other people on the computer just seemed so cool - and that was because back then, it was more of a novel concept. These days, basically everyone's computer is on the internet all the time, and most people also have smartphones that are also on the internet all the time, so it's not such a novel concept. But back then, it was pretty cool to be able to connect with other people so easily.


But yeah - I'd definitly checkout Dove-Net and FSXNet, read some messages there, and post there too. There are a couple other message networks that are somewhat active too, such as AgoraNet, HealthNet, and HobbyNet.

Also, if you're interested, check out the online games that bulletin boards have. And many bulletin boards also tend to host a lot of files - Many sysops running bulletin boards also have a lot of retro files for download, including a lot of games & other software from the 90s and even 80s in some cases. There are some fun PC games from the 90s that were made for 486 and Pentium systems.

Nightfox

Re: Hello! New user
By: Nightfox to VHSFuture on Thu Mar 19 2026 10:23 pm

Hi Nightfox,

I appreciate the tips on quoting, I don't have access to an external editor at the moment but I'll definitely have to check SlyEdit out. I did see the other message boards but wasn't sure exactly how they worked so I figured I would post locally first :). It's cool to
see a BBS on the West Coast, interestingly most of them seem to be in the Midwest or further east. I'm from the Bay Area and oddly there doesn't seem to be a big active retro computing scene here; the nearest one I know of is in Sacramento which is about an hour and a
d a half north of here. How is the scene up there in Oregon?

It's good that you added that modem connection because I actually dialed into this BBS using the modem on the 486 I've been restoring. I was born in 1996 and was introduced to computers at a very young age so I got to see the tail-end of the dial-up era, though most ofmy childhood was spent on broadband and LCD monitors. Because of that the CRTs and modems of the 90's and before always felt a bit exotic to me. BBSes and the demoscene in particular are super neat in a Neuromancer kind of way. I agree that there is a certain novelty
to being online that came with the pre-smartphone era that isn't really there nowadays for the reasons you mentioned. Ironically it seems a bit more human--especially given all the AI/Dead Internet Theory stuff floating around now. I'm glad this corner of the online
world still exists :)

VHSFuture

Re: Hello! New user
By: VHSFuture to Nightfox on Fri Mar 20 2026 12:41 am

I appreciate the tips on quoting, I don't have access to an external editor at the moment but I'll definitely have to check SlyEdit out.

That's odd; Everyone should have access to the external editors on my BBS. I'm curious why you don't? Does your terminal software not support ANSI, perhaps? That would be fairly rare though.. When you go to the user preferences here and say you want to use an external editor, what editors (if any) does it list?

I did
see the other message boards but wasn't sure exactly how they worked so I figured I would post locally first :).

They all work the same as far as reading and posting messages. :)

It's cool to
see a BBS on the West Coast, interestingly most of them seem to be in the Midwest or further east. I'm from the Bay Area and oddly there doesn't seem to be a big active retro computing scene here; the nearest one I know of is in Sacramento which is about an hour and a
d a half north of here. How is the scene up there in Oregon?

I only know of maybe one or two other BBSes in the area here. I don't think there's much of a local BBS scene anywhere anymore, unfortunately - and that's the opposite of how it used to be. In the 90s, BBSes would tend to have primarily local users, because people didn't want to pay long-distance phone charges, and that created a local user community for each BBS, which was kinda cool. These days, though, anyone can access any BBS anywhere, so it's sort of like people accessing web sites in that regard these days.

into this BBS using the modem on the 486 I've been restoring. I was born in 1996 and was introduced to computers at a very young age so I got to see the tail-end of the dial-up era, though most ofmy childhood was spent on broadband and LCD monitors. Because of that the CRTs and modems of the 90's and before always felt a bit exotic to me. BBSes and the demoscene in particular are super neat in a Neuromancer kind of way. I agree that there is a certain novelty to being online that came with the pre-smartphone era that isn't really there nowadays for the reasons you mentioned. Ironically it seems a bit more human--especially given all the AI/Dead Internet Theory stuff floating around now. I'm glad this corner of the online
world still exists :)

Computers in the 80s and 90s, and BBSes, were definitely a different scene. I think it is more human, because BBSes haven't been infiltrated with a bunch of ads, aside from mainly BBS ads that are only posted by sysops in message forums meant specifically for BBS ads. :) And there aren't really any automated bots on BBSes, though that's certainly possible.

Nightfox

Re: Hello! New user
By: Nightfox to VHSFuture on Fri Mar 20 2026 01:48 pm

That's odd; Everyone should have access to the external editors on my BBS. I'm curious why you don't? Does your terminal software not support ANSI, perhaps? That would be fairly rare though.. When you go to the user preferences here and say you want to use an external editor, what editors (if any) does it list?

That was my fault, I misunderstood how external editors worked and thought they were something that had to be installed on my end. All good now :)

I only know of maybe one or two other BBSes in the area here. I don't think there's much of a local BBS scene anywhere anymore, unfortunately - and that's the opposite of how it used to be. In the 90s, BBSes would tend to have primarily local users, because people didn't want to pay long-distance phone charges, and that created a local user community for each BBS, which was kinda cool. These days, though, anyone can access any BBS anywhere, so it's sort of like people accessing web sites in that regard these days.

That's unfortunate, though understandable. Interesting to think about how the use of phone lines influenced early online communities outside of just data rates. How about the retro computing scene in general up there?

Computers in the 80s and 90s, and BBSes, were definitely a different scene. I think it is more human, because BBSes haven't been infiltrated with a bunch of ads, aside from mainly BBS ads that are only posted by sysops in message forums meant specifically for BBS ads. :) And there aren't really any automated bots on BBSes, though that's certainly possible.

I think the user interface also helps to a degree. Modern social media is algorithmic but also passive in design, the interfaces don't do much to encourage creation or healthy discussion. I also think the fact that the BBS community is relatively small helps.

--VHSFuture

Re: Hello! New user
By: VHSFuture to Nightfox on Mon Mar 23 2026 04:49 pm

I only know of maybe one or two other BBSes in the area here. I don't
think there's much of a local BBS scene anywhere anymore, unfortunately -
and that's the opposite of how it used to be. In the 90s, BBSes would
tend to have primarily local users, because people didn't want to pay
long-distance phone charges, and that created a local user community for
each BBS, which was kinda cool. These days, though, anyone can access
any BBS anywhere, so it's sort of like people accessing web sites in that
regard these days.

That's unfortunate, though understandable. Interesting to think about how the use of phone lines influenced early online communities outside of just data rates. How about the retro computing scene in general up there?

I don't know how it compares to other places, but it seems like there's a decent retro computing scene here. It at least seems there's a scene for retro gaming. I'm in the Portland, Oregon area, and I've noticed there is a retro gaming expo that seems to be an annual thing. I'm not sure about other retro computing events, but there may be. I can't really think of anything about general retro computing though, but there may be a scene here for that.

I think the user interface also helps to a degree. Modern social media is algorithmic but also passive in design, the interfaces don't do much to encourage creation or healthy discussion. I also think the fact that the BBS community is relatively small helps.

I think some people might say that BBSes could seem difficult to use, but I feel like they aren't really difficult, just different. In some ways, I think they may be simpler. They're certainly faster, since they tend to be text-based, so you don't have to wait for sites to load with a bunch of data. Also there are no ads on BBSes like there are on social media & such. :)

Nightfox

Re: Hello! New user
By: Nightfox to VHSFuture on Mon Mar 23 2026 05:21 pm

I don't know how it compares to other places, but it seems like there's a decent retro computing scene here. It at least seems there's a scene for retro gaming. I'm in the Portland, Oregon area, and I've noticed there is a retro gaming expo that seems to be an annual thing. I'm not sure about other retro computing events, but there may be. I can't really think of anything about general retro computing though, but there may be a scene here for that.

That's cool. I've heard of the expo you were mentioning, thought the name eludes me at the moment. We do have California Extreme and MAGWest each year in San Jose down here which is cool, and I think there is a bit of a retro gaming scene here though it definitely seems to be more console-focused.

I think some people might say that BBSes could seem difficult to use, but I feel like they aren't really difficult, just different. In some ways, I think they may be simpler. They're certainly faster, since they tend to be text-based, so you don't have to wait for sites to load with a bunch of data. Also there are no ads on BBSes like there are on social media & such. :)

I think the initial setup might be a bit obtuse for the less technically-minded, though I would agree that once you're actually logged on it's not that hard to use.

--VHSFuture

Re: Hello! New user
By: VHSFuture to Nightfox on Tue Mar 24 2026 01:14 pm

I think some people might say that BBSes could seem difficult to use, but
I feel like they aren't really difficult, just different. In some ways,
I think they may be simpler. They're certainly faster, since they tend
to be text-based, so you don't have to wait for sites to load with a
bunch of data. Also there are no ads on BBSes like there are on social
media & such. :)

I think the initial setup might be a bit obtuse for the less technically-minded, though I would agree that once you're actually logged on it's not that hard to use.

I was thinking more for end-users; it is definitely more complicated for sysops. Or were you thinking for end users too?

Nightfox

Re: Hello! New user
By: Nightfox to VHSFuture on Tue Mar 24 2026 01:28 pm

I was thinking more for end-users; it is definitely more complicated for sysops. Or were you thinking for end users too?

For end-users as well, it's a few more steps than just going to a website or downloading an app.

Re: Hello! New user
By: VHSFuture to Nightfox on Tue Mar 24 2026 04:21 pm

For end-users as well, it's a few more steps than just going to a website or downloading an app.

Is it? For users, I feel like you mainly just need to download an app, the BBS telnet client app, and then go ahead and start adding BBS entries to it and connect. I don't think it's much different than downloading an app for anything, is it?

Nightfox

Re: Hello! New user
By: Nightfox to VHSFuture on Tue Mar 24 2026 05:19 pm

Is it? For users, I feel like you mainly just need to download an app, the BBS telnet client app, and then go ahead and start adding BBS entries to it and connect. I don't think it's much different than downloading an app for anything, is it?

I suppose not...I guess in my mind it just goes back to any kind of terminal/non-GUI interface being scary to the average person. I know for sure that I couldn't convince most of my family or peers to use one.

--VHSFuture