The BBS was my first introduction to the online world. I have been calling and using BBSs since May of 2005 when I ended up spending 4-5 hours calling Santa Monica chatting with people on a BBS called Earth Spirit, but fortunately a classmate from high school gave me a local BBS number where I was met with the BBS community.
Wab E App had like over 30 door games and message forums about Magic The Gathering, while the Screaming Electron had a UUCP link to the internet with email and newsgroups up the wazoo for people to post to.
The 909 Area code had its own little sub-cultures, bbs’s that used WWIV, which was the dominant bbs software in the western part of the area, or bbs’s that were using Renegade or Wildcat that were connected to Fidonet were also part of the mix.
I tried running my own bbs, but when I was able to have access to an income and more resources the bbs world went down due to the accession of the Internet. This post by semi-regular commentator the Ontario Emperor made me decide to make a post my retrospective of the 909 scene. continue reading…