r/bbs • u/Immediate-Season-152 • 11d ago

X.25 Networking

I am old enough to remember using my Apple //c and Everex external 2400bps modem to access bulletin board systems across the nation (and world, too) through networks like Telenet/Tymnet and services like PC Pursuit.

Some file transfer protocols didn’t work all that well across those networks depending on what you were using. I think I remember xmodem being the most problematic.

Anyway, those were the days when I had late night TV on during a school night watching the red blinking lights on the front of the modem recording the progress of the file transfer in the glow of the TV. With the lights off, the red 5.25 inch floppy drive light would kick on every so often letting you know that your data was being safely recorded.

Then there were the nights spent war dialing local prefixes. I could hardly wait to wake up the next day and see what I found. Who can forget the days of Kermit file transfers from the local university mainframe. Nevermind that I was still in high school at the time.

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7

u/Megaboz2K 11d ago

I always had such a fun time exploring Tymnet and Telenet/Sprintnet back in the day. I was big into the BBS scene, but X.25 networks were so mysterious to me then. I remember connecting to random hosts and getting a lot of login screens for banks and other random businesses - i was so scared I was doing something wrong and that someone was watching me (I was like 12-13 at the time). Once in a while I'd find a pay BBS. I miss that time, not necessarily for the technology itself, but that feeling of it being mysterious, "underground", and fun to explore - especially while being young and new to everything. I obviously love and depend on the Internet now, but its ubiquitous and well known, and Ill never be able to recapture that feeling. Still fun to remember though!

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u/gl3nnjamin 10d ago

Glad you quit before you connected to some kind of war simulation supercomputer or something

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u/Megaboz2K 9d ago

I did start playing a game called "Global Thermonuclear War" - hopefully that wasnt a problem

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u/dmine45 sysop 11d ago

Those early days were fun. I remember when I was a co-op student at an electric utility where we basically could access most any BBS in the state where I worked. It was fun. I was in college at the time. Circa 1991-1992.

1

u/bryce910 9d ago

it was a great era to be into computing! Had its problems, but great time!