Gateway 2000 and CompuServe tho
AIM was in the 90’s and before that IRC - you may need to go 80’s
I was on bbs’ back in 1981. Fido network popped up in early to mid 80s. I ran a 16 line bbs back in 1987 time range.
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My parents both worked in computers and were early adopters, so we had computers in our home very early, along with a modem (with rubber cups that the telephone handset fit into, I think 1200 baud) because my mother connected to the mainframe at her office. At some point early 80’s when I was 10-12 (1983 - 1985) I got a list of BBS phone numbers and connected to one. Literally my very first interaction with another human being online it was an adult man who asked me if I “liked” guys. I said no, and he asked how I could know if I had never tried it? I logged off.
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Same on my C64 with screaming 1200 baud modem. Trying to remember the name of the BBS software everyone ran.
I could dial long distance free. And at one point in time I was the hub for pirated C64 games in the greater Kansas City area. But then I spent a few months not staying up until 2am when the lines to west coast BBSs were actually open, and the game passed me by.
I didn’t have the rubber cups. But I had a Hayes modem from that time period that was 400 baud.
I had sort of the reverse experience. I got into semi-chat sex on a swingers BBS with a (supposedly) female sysadmin. When I told her I was 16 she freaked out and disconnected me.
phreaks and weird dudes itt
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Meta needs to hire Metaverae props to create content instead of devs.
I ran every bbs software ever made, RBBS was a big open source pc one. Fido had its own. I loved GBBS which was for apples. Taught me to learn to program in 6502/ml.
One weird thing that was popular back then, especially in pirating circles was called an AE line, which was just simply a way to host downloadable files that others could call in to download.
My first modem was an acoustic modem on my Trs-80coco. My first regular modem was a Hayes 300bps modem, but then when I got into pirating I had to get the Applekat 1200. (Not sure if it is c or k).
I also got into things like compuserv and prodigy. I remember racking up a $500 bill on Compuserv playing Islands of Kesmai. Me and my brother also got in huge trouble running up a long distance bill that was $700 calling bbses all over the country, mostly focused on pirating, hacking, and phreaking. We, allegedly, got decent at phreaking and had no more phone bills.
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There was a guy named Lexus in Omaha that ran a pretty big pirate games hub. One time I called to connect and he answered the phone for some reason. We talked a while and at the end he gave me a bunch of codes to dial long distance free over Sprint and MCI. I was off to the races after that.
Thinking more about the metaverse.
Gen Z on tiktok: flicks through 18 different genres and videos in 60 seconds.
Zuk: let’s make people walk slowly to their content.
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any thought on it whatsoever immediately revealed it to be a fraud. I’m still waiting for an answer as to what web 3.0 is supposed to be.
I was actually in a pirate group based in Salt Lake City. After our huge phone bill we started using a war dialer to get codes on sprint. We could usually find a couple each night while we slept.
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One of the long distances services had a non-random formula for generating the codes that someone cracked. He then created a program that would spit out a new code whenever you needed one. Everyone was on the honor system not to abuse it.
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I knew a guy who ran a porn BBS.
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Early bbs porn was ascii art. 
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From an article skydiver posted in the gun thread about why most of the queer slaves in Colorado Springs closed down:
“It’s a testament to the time that we’re in,” Grzecka says. “Just with social media, and the way people meet people is completely different. They don’t need a bar to meet people because they can be out. When I grew up, you weren’t out at work. You didn’t talk about that because you didn’t want it to be talked about by your co-workers.”
I’ve always speculated that one of the positive effects of social media, allowing marginalized communities such as LGBT to find and reinforce each other, sometimes in ways that can transcend geography.
The flip side is that conspiracy theorists have also been a marginalized community and have been made stronger by being more able to find like-minded individuals for support.
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some of the biggest online e-filing services—unbeknownst to millions of users—have been sharing sensitive user financial information with Meta. Some services linked user names and email addresses with detailed information like income, refund amounts, filing status, and even the amount of dependents’ college scholarships.
This week, the Markup reviewed data shared from tax services with Meta. Its reporting confirmed that TaxSlayer no longer has the pixel on its site, and TaxAct currently isn’t sending income and refund amounts to Meta but was still sharing data regarding names of dependents. As of Monday, The Markup said H&R Block was still sharing “information on health savings accounts and college tuition grants.”
