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0 pointsgiantrobot4y ago0 comments

With BBSes you were literally dialing in to the machine via a modem. Local calls were free but long distance charges were expensive. There were even local toll calls, a number might be in your area code by far enough away you were charged to call. You wouldn't pay long distance rates but it wasn't free. Charges were also billed to the caller rather than callee.

So just by nature of tolls you wouldn't call many out of area BBSes. If you did it was brief calls for a post or to check mail but not sit around playing a door game or downloading some big file.

That all meant BBSes were very local for most people. This is in addition to the fact only a small fraction of homes had computers, a fraction of those had modems, and a fraction of those actually called BBSes. That aspect also meant the populations were relatively small. A small web forum might have a hundred users spread over a large area while a BBS would have a dozen in the same town.

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6 comments · 3 top-level

ipaddr4y ago· 3 in thread

The phreaking scene opened up access to any bbs bypassing long distance/toll charges.

What some use to do is put a 1-800 on a 1-900 number. By calling a 1-800 number you could connect to a sexline for free. We had so much as kids calling and making fun of the operators.

A few years back I got a tv for Christmas. Christmas night I setup it up and it scans the cable channels available. Next day I notice some channels with fractions like 88.2 were programmed but the screen was blank. I rescanned and discovered new channels at different freq and they were playing really new movies. I watched a movie and when it finished there wasn't any content. I rescanned often and new movies would popup during the night. Then sex movies started to show up. I realized whatever anyone ordered via ondemand in my building was being broadcast and my tv could pick it up. If someone paused the movie I would have to wait. Mornings were a mix of cartoons and fast-forwarded porns. Day was mostly cartoon. Evenings were when people would order the hit movies.

Interesting things are constantly happening no matter what era you are in.

300bps4y ago

I noticed the same thing probably 15 years ago when I bought a TV with a digital tuner. You mirrored my experience exactly with one thing to add - another thing that cracked me up was when they would order it in Spanish!

That pausing thing was annoying - on Friday or Saturday nights though you could usually change to another channel and find someone else watching the same movie at almost the same spot that didn’t have it paused.

Oh and around 1985 and 1986 I wrote my own software to guess calling card numbers between midnight and 6 am. I would either use Sprint or MCI access numbers and get about 20 working codes per night.

ipaddr4y ago

That's awesome. Nothing better than finding a code (turning on the screen the next morning). I got into it a little later and by that time a lot of software existed at least for the c64. I use to wardial in my sparetime and I published fun findings for a local zine for my areacode. Finding endpoints connected to a modem was a treat. Nothing better than figuring out you have to connect at 7,2 baud/parity instead of standard 8,1 then you are promped with a menu.. Fun times..

zxcvbn40384y ago

Lost to time apparently, there was a service called “PC Pursuit” that allowed you to dial into a local access number and then dial out again through a remote modem to BBSs in other area codes. The traffic in between was carried over an X.25 network. I used this service for a number of years before trading it for a Unix shell account w/ Usenet access. It was a little choppy sometimes but opened the door to a larger world.

I still use the phreaking files from that era today - the phone number I use has rung busy for at least forty years. You can still use those automated callback numbers as a convenient exit for long meetings “oops, I’ve got to take this…”

danachow4y ago

> There were even local toll calls, a number might be in your area code by far enough away you were charged to call. You wouldn't pay long distance rates but it wasn't free.

And in the late 80s long distance rates meant something like $4/minute inflation adjusted. Even "local" toll calls were up to $1/minute. Of course the billing scheme was far more complex. The paper phone book would usually have a page or two to determine the rate between various exchanges.

rbanffy4y ago

> Charges were also billed to the caller rather than callee

This is one of the craziest things I ever saw. It’s mind boggling.

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