Re: computer bulletin boards

[ewbragg]

Heya Mel,

Any chance of transferring the messages over from hawaiiradiotv.com?

Anyhow, I just wanted to reply to the message about Hawaii Bulletin Boards.

I was good friends with a few of the other local BBS operators. I remember making many a late-nite calls to Bob Kaneko (The operator of the Ham Radio Landline BBS).

From 1988-1991 I ran a bulletin board. The original name was "The Mouse Cage", then "The Excellent Adventure", and finally "The Programmers Exchange". The first two were mostly experimental. My particular interest was computer programming, and there just didn't seem like there were a whole lot out there. I started writing utilities for my BBS (GT-Power) and sharing them to other GT-Power operators around the country. At that point, I settled on the last name, for my love of programming.

I had a ton of fun, and credit most of my current computer knowledge to the fact of running a Bulletin Board. Back in those days, you had to figure it out, or you were out of luck. I spent most of my free time running the BBS, and calling other BBS's around the world. One Summer, I ended up with $1000+/month phone bills for 3 straight months. I thought it was the end of me.

After 1991, I left Hawaii and moved to Odenton, Maryland and put "The Programmers Exchange" back online for a few more years. By the time the Internet started becoming popular in the early/mid 90's, BBS's were quickly dying out. I finally called it quits in 1995, and started exploring the world of the Internet ... and began a Family.

Here is a list of Hawaii BBS's from the days of old I found out on the net.
http://bbslist.textfiles.com/808/808.txt

Enjoy,
Ed Bragg, Sysop
The Programmers Exchange

[Albert]

Re: computer bulletin boards

Muskrat's Den, Country Cupboard and ... of course ... Flex.

Sweet memories.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: computer bulletin boards

I had a ton of fun, and credit most of my current computer knowledge to the fact of running a Bulletin Board. Back in those days, you had to figure it out, or you were out of luck. I spent most of my free time running the BBS, and calling other BBS's around the world. One Summer, I ended up with $1000+/month phone bills for 3 straight months. I thought it was the end of me.

After 1991, I left Hawaii and moved to Odenton, Maryland and put "The Programmers Exchange" back online for a few more years. By the time the Internet started becoming popular in the early/mid 90's, BBS's were quickly dying out. I finally called it quits in 1995, and started exploring the world of the Internet ... and began a Family.

Families...yup that's what put my college education on hold for a long time, that's what corrupted my credit report, and that's when I had to give up my 1984 Scirocco for a four door sedan. But I'm on the rebound with a BMW 635csi and a Chevy Astrovan to haul the crumb crunchers.

My bbs heydays go back to the 70's with Digital Equipment (DEC) VT-100 terminals and HP-3000 mainframes. We leased computer time from Pacific Area Computer Services (PACS) in the Kentron Building (Goldbond Bulding) on Ala Moana BLVD. At the UH Manoa we'd go into the computer room and log on to the early internet using LSI dumb terminals and talk to guys in the computer rooms up East. DOS wasn't even in use back then.

[mel]

Re: computer bulletin boards

Any chance of transferring the messages over from hawaiiradiotv.com?

I think this new topic will kindle some of the same conversations we had. Already Craig has responded with almost the same answer he posted several months ago, so heaving all of the old text here probably makes no sense. That said I'll provide a link back to the old site so that you guys can reference to it. Here it is:

Old BBS Topic on the Old Message Board

A few months ago we had an extensive thread going at HawaiiPeople.net about old Honolulu BBSs... unfortunately that board crashed earlier this month and I don't know if the old messages were saved.

As for BBS's myself, as I stated not so long ago on the places mentioned above I used to be a regular on several including Prophet's Place/Dolphin Safe (run by the guy who runs this place and his brother), Mac BBS, Kailua HS BBS, Hawaii H4 BBS, most of the Network 1 GT Power systems including Listening Post, Ham Radio Landline (I know the last sysop and she tells me the BBS is still sitting in her ancient 386), Aloha BBS, Blackhole (Starlord's Babylon 5 place), Country Cupboard, DBED BBS, and several others whose names escape me at the moment.

From the DOS based BBS's I always found the GT Power ones the best because they had echo mail and conferences that pretty much spanned the world. Yes, I know there were Fido boards and others, but I never totally got into them.

[Linkmeister]

Re: computer bulletin boards

. . .Kentron Building

Hey! My former employer! They had the tech contract on Kwajalein back in the mid-1970s, and I worked for 'em out there for just under three years.

[pzarquon]

Hawaii BBS Memories

Yes, Mel and I traded electrons many moons ago when I ran a Mac-based BBS, Prophet's Place. My handle was Prophet Zarquon (hence my web forum username), based on the character from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's series. My brother inherited it when I moved to Hilo, and it became the Dolphin Safe BBS. Why "Dolphin Safe"? Well, by then, those newfangled "Internets" were all the rage, and BBSes were in decline. My brother picked the name to declare, "no nets here!" It was one of the few Mac-based systems, even though the platform was pretty much irrelevant.

I remember Saimin, Interact, Flex, Hawaii FYI, The Reflecting Pool, The Black Hole, Country Cupboard, Musubi, I don't know how many Amiga boards... battling busy signals was almost tolerable since, back then, there were so many new places to try anyway.

I'm still in touch with dozens of folks I knew in those days. It's especially funny when we fall back into referring to each other as our handles.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: computer bulletin boards

Trading electrons...hmmmm...sounds kinky to me. Mel I didn't know you had a dark side after all!

One thing about those BBS were the exclusiveness of them where only the select few could post, now anyone with access to the internet can log on. That's why I gave up getting my Ham radio license back in the 70's because of this new-fangled invention called cellular phones that was going to revolutionize the way we communicated wirelessly. Yep I stopped studying for my Technicians license and going to the ham meetings at Kaimuki library because 2-meter phone patches were going to be a thing of the past when cellular came out.

My ham friends tell me that if a natural disaster comes and all hell breaks loose wouldn't it be nice to be able to communicate on a free-based system such as a 2-meter handheld when the cell sites go down? I tell them if our governmental infrastructure is gone to hell I don't think the FCC is going to care whether an unlicensed radio operator is keying the mike from a 2-meter rig pried from the hands of a dead licensed operator killed from a fallen tree.

"Good point" he said.

[mel]

Your Old BBS Handle or Alias Name

Reviving this old thread here...

Since the issue of using real names vs. alias (or handles as they were called in the old days), I was just wondering. From the old time BBSers who are now on HawaiiThreads, are you still using your old BBS handle here or elsewhere on the internet?

On the several BBS's that we were allowed to use handles, mine was mostly either "macpro" or "macstar" or some variation of. Here I just use a shortened version of my real name, "mel".

Is there any significance as to why you use or continue to use your handle or alias as your online nickname?

[craigwatanabe]

Re: computer bulletin boards

Hey Mel...I'm having to dig really far to remember my handle back then but if I recall it was my high school's initials plus the last three of it's 2-meter call sign. KHS for Kalani followed by 344 for the school's ham license KUA-344, so my handle was KHS344 and we used to discuss early internet programs and other software used by UH/Manoa called PLATO back in the mid 70's.

[scrivener]

Re: computer bulletin boards

...and other software used by UH/Manoa called PLATO back in the mid 70's.

I remember PLATO. It used touch-sensitive screens and was still going in the last eighties. I think it was finally gotten rid of in the very early nineties.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: computer bulletin boards

I remember PLATO. It used touch-sensitive screens and was still going in the last eighties. I think it was finally gotten rid of in the very early nineties.

What ever happened to those cool orange plasma monitors they used? PLATO was an acronym for something like Program Language something or other. We used to chat with college students with a direct WAN (now called the Internet) in Boston College at a sizzling 1200 or 1.2kbps not even close to today's dismal dial up speeds.

[helen]

Re: computer bulletin boards

Nope, the acronym came after the system was developed. I think it followed some other system that the University of Illinois had at that time.

It started with the UH leasing time from the UI for PLATO access using the PLATO IV and PLATO V terminals that used the orange plasma screen with infrared sensors to handle the touch screen functions. The UH also had from CDC something called the IST terminal, which used a white CRT screen and an actual pressure senstive plastic layer for the touch screen.

When the UH purchased their own PLATO system in the 1984/1985 time period it couldn't handle the PLATO IV, V and IST terminals and they had to buy the Viking terminal which had a green CRT screen and the pressure senstive plastic layer. A few months later they managed to offer a PLATO emulation package that could be used on a PC and then a Macintosh version.

[mel]

Re: computer bulletin boards

The Wikipedia has an article on the PLATO system.

PLATO = Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operation

I never used it myself but have heard about it in the past.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: computer bulletin boards

thanks and Helen you're right I remember chatting with those in Illinois. Didn't the UH eventually go with dumb terminals? The Lear Seigler or LSI monitors?

[helen]

Re: computer bulletin boards

Between 1979 and 1981, the UH Computing Center used Teleray terminals running at 300 or 1200 baud to access either the IBM 370, the HP-2000, the Harris 135 and later on the HP-3000. After those years I don't know since I wasn't working there (as a student help).

I know when I was a student at UH Hilo between 1975 to 1979 we had a couple of Lear Seigler terminals that came in 1978 and had to be built by soldering the actual IC chips into the main board or soldering IC sockets into the main board and then inserting the chips into the sockets.