Atari Smeghead

Gateway, on Thu Feb 2, 2012 6:13 AM, said:

That is extremely helpful! Thanks for that. I did wonder about it, since it seemed like a lot of the ones mentioned were rare yet weren't. Boggling.

I have to say, this thread turned out to be really informative! Not only do I now know what the most expensive 2600 game to own is, but I see that the definition of Holy Grail varies among people.

Thanks so much, everyone!

Cheers,
Smeg

Well, I found a couple of my BBS's main menus. Not sure how these will look, as I had to "translate" them from AtASCII graphics.

The Fletcher Memorial Home's
main lobby
----------------------------------
-=>E<=- Entertainment Wing
-=>G<=- PLEASE, Let me out!
-=>H<=- Go to the Rubber room . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Humourous stories, etc.)
-=>M<=- Go to the Message Hall
-=>N<=- Secret Note to or FROM Me . . . . . . . . . (GIVE US A DONATION!)
-=>S<=- Head towards the Survey room
-=>T<=- Go to the Lobotomy room . . . . . . . . . . . (HELP & other text files)
-=>U<=- Shock Therapy Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . other BBSs, last 10 visitors
-=>W<=- The Writer's Block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Short Stories & a Novel by Me
-=>Z<=- High on the HoG!

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. For some reason, this board is not recognizing multiple spaces (or at least is not showing in the preview). So I added dots. I used to have it (cleverly, if you ask me ) so that my menus would look good with a 40-column screen or an 80-column screen.

I don't remember what Z was for anymore... probably some sort of menu-driven adventure game. I did a lot of those. With the mental hospital theme, I had a "game" in the Attic, the Bathroom, and the Basement. Basically just menus opening up other menus or text, but I had fun with it.

I had another one to show you, but it's really space-intensive/graphical, but since this place won't show more than one space in a row, it looks horrible in preview. For some reason. (I just spaced this out, to see if I'm wrong.)

I sure did spend a lot of time on this type of stuff. Between writing, monitoring the message base, and scouring the rest of the country for more humor and/or short stories to post, this kept me busy.

Cheers,
Smeg

I just did a quick search for Compuserve, and found out a couple of things. AOL bought them out in 1997, so they must've already owned them when "Compuserve 2000" came out. I also see they kept it alive until 2009. Did anyone see this article?

According to Wikipedia...
The original CompuServe Information Service, later rebranded as CompuServe Classic, was shut down July 1, 2009. The newer version of the service, CompuServe 2000, continues to operate.

Interesting. So where are you, Compuserve 2000... Well, I found a Netscape Compuserve. Hitting "Mail" goes to AOL's mail service.

PS - there were others I had forgotten about... GEnie, The Source... Thanks, Wiki!

Smeg

jaybird3rd, on Fri Feb 3, 2012 10:06 AM, said:

They were fun times, no doubt about it. It's funny to think back and realize we used to stream text (and some ASCII/AtASCII graphics) at the blistering rate of 300 bits per second. What are the fastest modems doing nowadays - 56000 bps? Imagine it - 300 bps was about the speed I could read, so I'd sit there, watching each word draw on the screen one at a time, until it filled the page. When 1200 bps came out, BOOM, a page of text quick enough that I'd have to pause the screen (if the BBS had a pause function - some would pause at the end of each page of text). The fastest I ever used for my BBS was 2400. At the time, I couldn't afford anything faster.

I have not seen the BBS Documentary, but I certainly knew about it. I was supposed to be interviewed for it, in fact. When I found out it was a work-in-progress, I emailed Jason and told him the stuff I wrote here about the community. I figured we had a unique story, with a surprisingly large number of BBSs, a strong, tightly knit community, and verifiable proof. I still have many of the BBS lists we did, plus info on the picnics and awards show ballots/tickets/prototype statuettes. We even made a 20+ page New Users Guide that we gave away free through local computer stores and directly to the public. The Lansing State Journal did a nice article on us. I got my name and several quotes in the paper. I still have a couple of those, made with PrintShop, probably.

But anyway, I was supposed to meet up with the guy at some sort of computer show in Detroit, which is 1 1/2 hours or so from me. I drove down there, but was never able to get him to answer his cell phone or his hotel room phone. I wasted a day, with lots of phone calls and messages, but never got my interview. So I'm a tad bit bummed/bitter over it. It might be why I never got around to seeing it. I'd like to, though.

jtoubeaux, on Fri Feb 3, 2012 2:32 PM, said:

I never bought a new Commodore (I was always an Atari guy) but I suspect all new computers from that era had the same starter pack - CIS, Dow Jones Information Service, maybe a couple months of BYTE magazine or something, warranty card...

Good times!
Smeg

jtoubeaux, on Fri Feb 3, 2012 1:54 AM, said:

Yes, I get the same feel from AtariAge. The biggest difference is that most of the BBSs I called (or ran) had a lot more messages in one big line. This, with the messages split into sections and topics, is a lot easier to navigate. My BBS could, in its heyday, garner hundreds of messages a day. That's a lot to paw through in one big pile, but we all did it and loved doing it!

I could never afford the monthly fees for those sites, but I still found ways to call them. I used to get a lot of those free trial subscriptions, from new computers and modems. "I got 5 free hours; let's make this count!" In fact, I used so many free CIS offers that when Compuserve unveiled it's "new" Compuserve 2000 system, they sent me a huge free deal - I think it was for 6 months! It was funny... they sent a letter to my parents' house with this offer. I hadn't lived there for a few years at that point, so I was on a really old database. This was in AOL's heyday, so CIS 2000 never amounted to much... and come to think of it, AOL bought out Compuserve after that.

And if we were to continue talking about Broderbund... some of my favorite A8 games came from them, like Choplifter!, Kareteka, and Apple Panic.

Cheers,
Smeg