OT: Do people still use DOS based BBS's, What about ALT.newsgroup or whatever Options

[Mueller]

Never really understood what the heck these things are compared to the internet I know with webpages and all that fancy graphics

where the BBSs and alt.newsgroups or alt.whatever the only way to communicate before html or windoz or ???

tried to look it up, but just got confused (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/wacko.gif)

[bondo]

I used to call in to BBSs with my Amiga. 2400 Bps modem. You'd dial in, and it'd all be ansi or ascii based text. You'd naviugate the menus, and read and reply to whatever. If you wanted to download something you'd go to the download section, and initiate a transfer. The nice BBSs had multiple lines to dial in to, and you could do a live chat. Otherwise you'd have to log off and wait for replies, log in and reply to the replies, etc.

Newsgroups are still around. You can get a modern newsreader, and download the indexes to the groups you want. Then as you read individual posts it downloads them. You can also get encoded binaries (software, music, images) from newsgroup posts. Usenet is probably the safest way to download music nowadays, but you have to wait fro someone to post what you want.

Towards the end of the BBS era they had this thing called bluewave that made discussion BBSs more like usenet. You'd dial in and download all new posts to your computer, then read and make your replies offline. Then you'd dial in again and upload your replies. It made them require less phone lines, but it's no comparison to web BBSs that can have hundreds of people logged in at once. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/smile.gif)