98. Tale of two sysops

Time for flashback! Tracks from the past! With your host, DJ Daemon. Yep, it's me, DJ Daemon. We're usually all about the music, but this is a special episode and today we're meeting Rankle, an old time Swedish BBS sysop with a modern times BBS. Let's talk the demo scene, the bulletin board systems of the 90s here in Sweden and all that retro stuff.Welcome Hvrankel, how is Visby?Thank you DJ Demon. Hi, Visby is great this evening. It's not too hot, we're anticipating some really hot weather for the rest of the week, but this is perfect retro computer weather.Absolutely, you sound like you're reading a weather report here.yes, doesn't we all Swedes do that?speaker-0

Yeah, totally. We have this Bork Bork thing, know, Swinglish. Yep. Yeah. Okay. You started the old cabin or sorry, this old cabin in September 2017. Five years. Why would you want to run a BBS for the first time? I mean, today?Well, that's the million dollar question, it? Really? I've started the BBS basically because I wanted to be a Sysop and I never got around to starting a BBS in the 90s. So it was a feeling of something I've been wanting to do for more than 20 years and finally I had the resources and it was so much, at least cheaper doing it this in this age.And it's also a matter of, I mean, I like to do things with my old computers and BBSing was one of the absolute favorite things I did back in the days. So why not keep doing that today? There are so many layers of it and it's been a great ride. I'm really, really happy that I started it.You were not a BBS back in the day then.No, wasn't. Well, technically I was for, I think we ran for less than 24 hours. We had a BBS, me and a friend, and we had the brilliant idea to not get our own phone line, but rather run it on his parents' phone line. And we thought we could be open during the nighttime and pull out all phone cables every night and put them back in every morning.speaker-1

Of course, that was a stupid idea to start with from the very beginning and it didn't get better because he went away for a holiday the day after we started the BBS and like two hours after he left, the bulletin board system stopped answering and it was actually a burnt modem when he came back. So we were in a way happy that the house wasn't burned down, but the modem was totally destroyed.and we never get around to starting the BBS.Why did it burn out? Like a flash or something?I really don't know. We bought the cheapest modems available, so probably it was just bad technology that got overheated and the magic smoke had come out. It probably wasn't that dangerous, but it felt like an omen to not start that BBS anymore.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's trying to tell you something there. But look, it wasn't one of those S, what do you call it? XS A6 modems, what do call it? No.speaker-1

Yeah, we had A6 modems. They were totally crap and they got overheated all the time. So during the summer, when there was enough time, evenings and nights of modeming, I had to keep it. I actually took out the motherboard from the chassis and just kept it in the window.running it because to avoid it getting overheated so it was really a bad modem. But what the hell, we didn't have any money whatsoever so it was what we could afford.Who did? Yeah, I know. I can't actually scrounge whatever I had to buy this power bit thing. It was the first 28800 modem and it also had this kind of thing. You could stack them on top of each other, but they overheated for nothing. So yeah, this Windows sill thing. I know about that. I know it darned to well.Yeah, they were the Rolls Royce of modems, you will. Yeah, absolutely. We dreamed about them but never got them. Actually, I had to downgrade my modem. Couldn't run it in 28k8 because I got a lot of transfer errors. We downgraded it to 26k4, I believe.DEMONPOWERBEEspeaker-0

Does that mean you go down what you're reduced?Yeah, was using Amiga more or less exclusively up until the internet days.Yeah, the serial port was not made for that speed, but I remember there was something called the 42 dot serial dot device. You can drop in replacement and then it actually could go as far as 28800 or at least I thought so.Yeah, think that with a decent modem and one of those upgraded serial devices you could actually get it to work quite nice, but being out in the woods in northern Sweden and having a crappy modem, the transfer speeds were not top of the line to say the least.I know, I know, it's like a number of kilometers to the station there kinda designed the speed you actually got. I remember mine, 946 meters. I tell you, I kinda told it on the papers when I got the phone line.speaker-1

Exactlyspeaker-1

That's very specific. That's darn specific.speaker-1

okay. I can't remember mine, unfortunately, but probably quite a lot.Yeah, probably. That's why it was. And I remember you couldn't get when the 56k came. Like you could never get there. Never ever in a million years. I got to 50 and it totally died. yeah. All right. Let's talk about the typical bulletin board during the 90s. Who was on the board? What was the users like?Well, we had quite the divided scene up in the north. There was, of course, the usual problem with you could only call your local boards because as soon as you went out of your number zone, the prices went up. you had to go for local boards. we hadAt its peak, believe there was close to 15 boards around, and roughly I think five of them were elite boards, the worst boards, and the rest of them were more focused on messaging and PDF files and modules and such. So the typical user, I believe they were of course computer nerds of the time.I recall it being more the feeling of going down to your local pub and meeting quite a lot of, well, you know, the people, you get to know them quite well because they were hanging out there and there was always a phone. I mean, at the popular boards, the phone lines were almost always busy from like six o'clock when the rates take down to half and then until some.speaker-1

Place later in the night so you had to start with the more popular boards and didn't get in there so then continue down the line.kind of call list it was just revolving around that I was using anacom and say can I get in can I get it yeah I'm getting himWhat I liked about that was that you got quite a lot of uses on every board. I mean the most popular ones always had most activity, but there were always something happening at some of the boards and later on with Feed-Onet for example, there was suddenly like always an endless stream of activity that you could follow.So there was, it's hard to define the typical user apart from they were always male and they were always a bit nerdy.I think so, know about Agnetha Nord was the only female sysop I ever heard about. She had a BBS back in the day. there were more. was some lady with a hard rock driven BBS. heard she was kind of on one of those YouTube clips about the BBS scene. So yeah, there were a few. My girlfriend at the time, Pamela, was the co-sysop. But I kind of put her in front of the computer and say, hey, try this.speaker-1

That's awesome. can't remember, to be fair, can't even remember female users on one of the BBSs up in the North, but probably there were some I just didn't know about them. I remember reading about one BBS with actually with a sex theme, sex and BDSM theme, believe. No, no, no, it was actually an article about it in the Dota magazine.Or so you heard.speaker-1

I never called the BBS though, was obviously long distance calls, so too much money for investing in that.Yeah, I guess so. And text only. How fun is that? I guess.Exactly. I remember just following the few FIDAnet meetings and one of them was like Six Tales and it was always a lot of trolling in that. So probably like 10 % real content and 90 % trolling. And I think that's probably quite...Okay?speaker-1

symptomatic of the user seeing a lot of young males.I would guess that hasn't changed, at least the attitude. Maybe the ages have changed in the internet era. But never mind, we have selected a few songs, and you selected three, and I selected some as well. The first one, what do you want to say about that?Well, the first one is actually the first song I ever downloaded from a BBS. I was very much into fantasy literature, like Tolkien, especially Tolkien. And on Quadbass, the most popular BBS up in the north, there was this obviously file section with music, and then there was one module.It was called Aurora and the description was nice fantasy tune. that was my first ever download and I've been loving that tune ever since. So Aurora.Yes, it's called Him to Aurora, and it's Horace Wimp. I'm sorry, I don't make the names up, that's his real name.speaker-0

Yeah, that was beautiful. Really nice, if you ask me. You heard it on the station before. So let's go back into the retro. You said something about a light boards or elite boards, what do we call them, or free whatever the combination become. Did you have any numbers? Did you have any access to any such?Yes, I did. I was quite active actually in the local boards up in up in Norrbotten. I believe there were about five of them and since I got quite heavily into the demo scene, that was the place to keep track of what was happening. So I kept trading, doing the local trades. Since you had different number zones, you coulddial to one of the adjacent number zones and download stuff there from a local tax and then transfer it to another board that was one or two number zones away without being totally ruined. So there was actually transfer of files starting from probably the Stockholm Malmö area and then traveling further north.as you could track the files in the file ID basis, just following what had happened during the path.Like the trains going from one city to another I guess.speaker-1

Exactly, exactly. And sometimes I had a friend who went straight to Stockholm boards and downloaded stuff there and then uploaded them in Luleå. But while his phone bills were quite magnificent, so to speak.But you remember everybody hated Tellia, the Swedish telephone company here, and Microsoft. That was kind of what set off the nerd-rage in this day and age.Absolutely. I remember there were obviously a lot of articles about freaking going around, mean, doing phone calls for free, but I never got around to it. I probably was like too, I was a bit too young to actually understand the technique behind it and I never got around to actually doing the stuff that was described there. When CompuServe came around,as a means of doing free telnet access to boards. What you did basically was create a fake credit card and then create an account and call a free number that you were charged on your fake credit card. I did that for a while. That was in the late...just pre-internet stage.speaker-0

I really hope that has hit the prescription times now, right?Yeah, I hope it has. And I never really had a massive usage of that because for some reason, the numbers, first of all, just lasted like a day or two. so there was quite a lot of work to keep them on track all the time. of course, it was a nice thing. But the transfer ratesusing a modem and Telnet was really horrible, it wasn't really a great experience anyway. But it was a good thing to actually be able to reach a bulletin board system that you wouldn't be able to reach otherwise. I mean, it's good idea, but some people used it extensively.Well, I don't know about that, but I remember the speeds. You counted them in CPS or characters per second, and typical speed was like 3000 characters per second. Now today with 100 megabits and gigabit fiber, it sounds like crazy slow, and it was crazy slow.was crazy slow. I remember one of my friends saying when you downloaded the picture, you really looked at the picture. You had invested time in it.speaker-0

yes, and Amiga was kind of slow rendering, so if you have a JPEG it was like... and suddenly... okay, that was horrible quality. Thanks a lot!It was horrible quality, those were the days. What I liked about it was that you could be excited about a new picture being online on one of your BBSs. Compare that to internet today. There's endless amounts of content going around all the time. Back then, you really didn't know what was happening on every board because you called themonce or twice every day basically and you know, okay, there's some new files there. There's a new demo, there's new something and download that all the time and your hard drive was always full.No, it's probably today as well. You cannot get a hard drive that's kind of big enough. But I remember I was more into text and writing debates and stuff. downloaded stuff, of course, but I had no access to the elite boards. Didn't care about them. I didn't like the elite dudes. I respected the crackers, but the elite dudes, they were, I'm sorry to say it like this, they were kind of arses, all of them. Weren't they? Am I kind of rude?I think that there was definitely a very competitive and usually not very friendly atmosphere. You could really tell if you were in or out, and most people were out.speaker-0

It wouldn't be a light if it weren't, right?No, exactly. there was no opening to get into being in. You had to basically know someone or invest tens of thousands of kronas in doing trading. that were the two things you could do basically. But there was definitely a competitive atmosphere.really didn't have the demo scene up in the north. We just saw parts of it. what we met was really the piracy scene. that was more about getting the stuff early than having good stuff. So yeah, that was the way it was.I mean to the IT security business, zero day means something for us, but zero day back in the 90s, it meant it was released to the shops today and you can download it for money or if you're a light. geez, I don't like the light scene. Okay.No, but that's true. was this zero days business, to be fair, in Aalbotten, we didn't have a lot of zero day wares. We had a few, absolutely. We had a few quite big boards, zero days. I can't remember. I never supplied a zero day wares at least.speaker-0

No, 1994 I made one of my first radio shows here in Stockholm over 93, no, sorry, 95.3 megahertz. And it was a debate about BBSs. I talked to some citizens back then, pretty amateurish program by the way. And I asked them, what about all this illegal stuff? Not talking about piracy now. mean, you know, illegal drug recipes.illegal anarchist handbook, illegal pornography, all this bad crap. Have you ever seen anything of that?To be fair, there was this terrorist's handbook that circulated on almost every board. I don't know if that's really legal or if it's just childish. I suppose it's more of the latter. Apart from that, there was very little, apart from piracy software, wasn't hard to find.I think that problem was more in the media and I also believe that there were quite a lot of people who actually thought it was cool that it seemed dangerous.I would guess that's my experience as well. Yeah, I had some copy of the anarchist handbook or terrorist handbook was the same thing really stupid thing because it said somewhere that yeah put this on the boiler and if it starts boiling you see bubbles run for it. Yeah, like okay. There's a great way of making a bomb Anyway, we are on with some music here. Actually my turn to select a favoritespeaker-0

and it's one that I loved when I was young. It's called Overload and it's by the illustrious Mentronix and TIP. They're Swedish, both of them. So here we go.speaker-0

youspeaker-1

Brilliant tune there.Yeah, I know, I know, I know. But let's talk about the Amiga vs the Atari Wars. Do you remember that?I do remember the Amiga vs the Atari wars, I knew one person with an Atari and he was probably 30. We considered him to be ancient, but he was probably 30. We hated the Atari, but I don't think I ever used one.But it was definitely, I mean, it was a thing.It was obligatory, you had to hate the Atari. Actually today there is certainly nothing wrong with it. And Amiga is the better computer, no doubt about it, but the Atari, it was just something you had to do and they hated us back. But both of us were kinda run over by the steamroller, that was the PC, so that serves us right.speaker-1

Absolutely. And that was definitely a more active war, so to speak. I mean, we definitely had our computer wars and there was flame wars going on in every board, would say. There were actually even computer wars message areas that you could follow if you really didn't have much better things to do.When you look back on it, like 25 years later, it's a bit stupid, I would agree. But it's also... I sort of... I look upon it with a bit of joy. I still have some novels being written when Commodore has been turned into bankruptcy and the Amiga was dying. There were novels written about the...last warriors of the Amiga scene and everything and they were... I could still read them with a big smile on my face. The hope that the Amiga would jasper again.But that was crazy wasn't it? I remember that too. It's like it's coming back. Eskom is here or Commodore Britain actually survived a while so they tried to buy it Eskom went bankrupt you had this walker, you know this new Amiga 1200 that never ever saw the light of day And then it was oh in 99. It's like it's coming back and somebody said yeah, you might as well believe in BigfootThat's where my big foot jokes from the early days of the station comes from. That's, that's how it is. yeah.speaker-1

And the BBSs were, I mean, they were the pinnacles of the Amiga hope. There were so many enthusiasts, there were so many people that really lived and dreamed that the Amiga would take over again or at least survive. And I remember that atmosphere being...At first it was like a struggle or a pride and then suddenly everyone started fading away and most of the guys that went over to the PC also left the BBS scene. you could really follow the downfall of the Amiga by the downfall of the BBSes. So that was a bit sad for me.Then again, Internet came and there were other things coming up.Yeah, yeah, In 1996, I got my first PC, exactly like you were saying, and the BBS was just dwindling. My own kind of lost a lot of users. I actually made some statistics and it's kind of a heavy drop from like spring 96 and like autumn 96. Then it was dead, totally dead. And it got no better than that. Do you remember Eric W. Schwartz, by the way?Absolutely, do. Beautiful Amiga artists. I saw one of his pictures just like two days ago, I believe. I was reading the Ups and Marticles. Could have been about Aarhus, the operating system. And there were a few illustrations of him being in there. yeah, they were definitely something.speaker-1

Who doesn't remember that Amiga with the cow paint? Yeah, I gave to a both the Amiga and The Survivor I believe the title was and and an Amiga looking into the into the picture. So I Think that his illustrator his I mean his pictures probablyI'm going back to the room.speaker-1

summarized what we were all feeling. We were hoping, we were feeling cool, but we were realizing that we were getting fewer and fewer each day. They are beautiful still.Yeah, yeah, was just thinking about him. think that's such a cool thing here, really. Yeah. But let's talk a little bit about the demo scene here, right? It was connected to the boards. How?First of all, most of the scene groups, the demo scene groups were formed as cracker groups, at least the big ones in the early days. The demo scene evolved out of the crack-trow things when you said who cracked this game and released it.That's the first thing I believe because the BBSs were the means of spreading your releases. And also, since it was a very competitive scene, you had to realize who were releasing something first. And then the bulletin board system were really, really important because if you released it on your board, it was out.If you sent a disket, it could be lost by the post or it wasn't for real, but when it was uploaded to a BBS, you had a timestamp. Now we released it. So I think that's the first part of it. And then obviously it was the network that kept everything together as well.speaker-0

Yeah, I was thinking my favorite group just by name is the cream crackers cracked by the cream crackers. Then we had Eagle soft that was American and in on the C64 Amiga we had Fairlight they weren't 64 as well try it and they were kind of like feuding all the time. So it was like one hail the communist and the other one hated them. It was I think it was a game. was a game.Yep, it was. And I think that when we came to the Amiga, I was never into neither the crack scene. I mean, I had obviously cracked games from Mr. Sett or whatever, or Fairlight, etc. for the Commodore 64. But when I got into the demo scene, was on the Amiga years and it evolved into its own thing. I think...The first demo that really struck me as the gateway to the whole scene was Kefréns with the Desert Dream. Still one of my very favorite demos. when I first saw that, it was so cool to see something that truly... It was art, it was great music, it was cool effects, and it...all held together. seeing that, I really felt this is artwork. This is something that I really, it struck something deep within me. and seeing that and then realizing with the whole BBS theme that you could find those groups, they were out there, they were hosting their own boards, their stuff were spreading through that network.That was one of the things that made me really love computer communication. Because that was the first step. I had only been using local boards up till then. as we spoke of earlier, they were more like the local pub. Then suddenly the whole world was out there with the demo scene. So I think they're very much connected and it's also a beautifulspeaker-1

part of the entire pre-internet community.Yeah, I remember Enigma, State of the Art. That was really what it was called, State of the Art. Alright, so let's go into the music pile then. It's your turn. What's next?And my second tune is from one of my other favorite demos. To me, it's the peak of the Amiga 1200 030, 68 030 era. It's the end tune of the demo tint by the Black Lotus, and it's called Fracture.Yes, yes, yes. You actually sent a link to me yesterday, I think it was. And I looked at it again, it's like, oh, it's so beautiful. I'm tearing my hair. No, I'm just kidding. you know, it was nice. And it looks a bit, yeah, I mean, Eurotecno Deluxe. Here it is.speaker-1

One of the funny things with this tune is that it's made by a man called Assel from Boden up in the north of Sweden and this tune actually made it to the dance floors in the local nightclubs in Boden for a short period. I don't know if there are other scene tunes out there that made the dance floors in regular pubs but this one did.can't totally get that. mean if you crank Amiga music up, I'm sorry to say this, it's 8 bit so it sounds a little bit crackly sometimes. I guess that's one of the reasons why you didn't have it on the dance floor. Yeah, that's a thing. Look, I wanna ask something. This scene was perceived as very, very harsh and almost like a bullying attitude. Is this how you see it as well?The scene back then, I would definitely say, had bullying parts. Just look at some of the demo scene releases back in the days, there were greetings and there were insults being thrown. there was also a big part of, if you hung out on the...Where's boards or elite boards? They were definitely a harsh atmosphere. You could, if you did something stupid or if you uploaded old stuff or PD stuff or whatever, you definitely heard of it. You were maybe even thrown out of the board and refused to get in there again. yes, I would say it was a harsh atmosphere.Some people were definitely friendly though. I did meet some of them at the local hacks up there, copy parties. usually when you met them in real life, they were more friendly than on being online. nothing has changed.speaker-0

I guess so. mean, I think I had an episode where I spoke about how easy it was to have this cool guy mentality when you couldn't see people, but in reality you are not as tough. I don't know if you know about the My Vexelman affair here in Sweden. I spoke about it in earlier episode. My Vexelman was a very leftist...but you say movie creator with the documentaries and stuff and one guy actually accused her of being a Soviet KGB agent on a BBS. it was that big. It went into the courtrooms and everything. You haven't heard about that.There's some kind of calling, but I can't really remember any details now.No, it's not much to talk about. 10 years later, they created a law here in Sweden called BBS-Lagen, the BBS law. then BBSs, 98 BBSs weren't a thing, but it's still called that and it still applies to like Facebook groups and forums and stuff. Yes, you know.I remember that as a very active discussion in Dator magazine and the editor wrote quite lengthy about the need for cleaning up in the BBS. That was obviously something that happened too late for the BBS to benefit from it.speaker-0

I know what you mean. know what you mean. Yeah, I just Chris. What's his name? Krister Indeblad. Yeah, that's his name. Yeah. DMC. Datamagasin. was kind of the Bible for the lamers. I was a lamer back then.Kristerindespeaker-1

And that was part, I mean, one of the things why we considered the scene to be quite harsh and was probably, mean, I was 15 or 15, 16, maybe early 17 when I called the BBS boards and people were in their 20s. Usually I was considered a kid.and definitely considered a lamer. I was doing my part. I tried to trade as much as I could and find especially demo releases, but I sort of get the feeling that if you were into the scene and knew people, they were probably quite friendly, but it was definitely this, you're in or you're out and most people were out.Yeah, they didn't even get in. Lamers like me, as I said. Yeah, that's how it is. I'm just looking through my notes here. Let's talk a little bit about the modern day. Because somewhere in the early 2000s, the whole BBS scene pretty much packed down. The telnet BBSs, they lived a little bit longer, but most were kind of done for.But everything started re-emerging, somewhere in 2015, you remember?Yep, I certainly do. hadn't thought about BBSs for a lot of years. And I can't remember where I first saw an ad about BBSs, but I think it was probably just found my way into Telnet BBS guides and realized, okay, there are still boards out there. And then startedspeaker-1

following them and there were quite a lot of Swedish boards formed in that era, which was really, really interesting and made me, I really got a new interest and revived passion, not only for like BBSs, but for internet communication. Because the BBSs wereNow back to being those local pubs. They were not local, like geographically local anymore, but they were definitely local with, there were quite a few users, you got to know them quite well, and you could discuss anything. It wasn't this endless like forums out there with very specified, now we're talking about this, this or this, but rather it's okay if westarted talking about Amigas and ended up talking about how we hate our boss.Yeah absolutely. Threading wasn't a thing in BBS's. I mean I'm thinking about your DLG Pro BBS. It's a very good BBS. I love this whole cabin. But I don't love your messaging system. I'm sorry to say it's horrible really. I mean you can't just back thread.Yeah, there are challenges with following threads, especially if you get behind on topics. One of the good things though is that it's easy to quote the preview.speaker-0

Why is this happening? It's my yield suit. We can't fix it. You tried a number of times. It's not happening.Yeah, it's really weird. It's really weird.I can't get it to work. In term, nothing come and nothing put. It doesn't work.It's so strange. It's so strange. And that definitely makes life a lot harder for someone who likes to follow the threads. And most of the BBSs here in Sweden are NECOM boards, the COM boards where you type in your commands rather than menus. I think there was one...ComBBS up in northern Sweden back in the days. So I was really new to it. At first I hated it. It took a few tries and no, there was, I didn't get that. I felt like I was telneting into some kind of random system at first. I don't know. I didn't get the menus. didn't get the feeling. But then atspeaker-0

Why?speaker-1

Just, I mean, it took a few tries and then I realized this is a good system and I totally understand why people are using it and it has a great messaging system.We need to point something out here. Nikon and all comm systems are basically a Swedish speciality. It's not common outside Sweden. And Nikon is Swedish, pretty obviously. Niklas Vendholm was the guy who created it. And he still updates it, I might add. So it's time for another song. then I'll see. I'm gonna go with Nuke of Anarchy and Velo Matrix. Velo Matrix, think.I think that's an awesome tune, it's really something I listen to in Pro Tracker 2.3b.speaker-0

yes, you remember that one right?Absolutely very nice tune very nice tune good choiceGood choice actually, I have a lot of modern stuff I love, but I really want things that I can relate to back in the days. Internet has a very brutal tone in the comments and social media. We remember the scene and the boards, were they that different? I know we spoke a little bit about it, but to elaborate.I think that there was a huge difference between what... I think the Sysup mainly made a huge difference. at every board, the Sysup was usually the most active user. he, usually he, set the tone by choosing what words he were commenting in.See ya!speaker-1

But one thing I do remember is that there were definitely a few systems, a few boards out there that focused on having a very friendly atmosphere and it was very helpful. my remembrance is that mostboards were very friendly. The most sysops were definitely very friendly. You could always chat with a sysop. That was one of the highlights of calling BBS is to chat with someone. they were usually sort of back again to the local pub. You could talk about most things. wasn't thatYeahspeaker-1

focus on just now we're just talking about like I have this problem with my computer or whatever it was you could just call them up and say hey wanna chat yeah what are you doing today I've been doing this and this so that part when you with some with people you didn't know at all but got get to know because you saw them every day albeit online yeah you still you saw them every daymade it. I remember using bbss as a friendly thing.Yes, absolutely. Same here. I was thinking, I remember that if you wanted some help on a command-driven BBS, I guess this could be done in a manual-driven as well, because it was a command prompt. You just said, hey, Suss, can you help me here? And always somebody popped in, because everybody was looking what you were doing. It was a thing I did. It was as soon as you see three LEDs on the display of the modem, it's like, yeah, nothing is happening. When four or five, and they just lit up.and heard that click when the line went up. It's like, I got to turn the screen on. And you were looking, ho ho, what's happening here? Everybody was eavesdropping. It was a thing. I know this so well.And I believe that, okay, you were eavesdropping, that was also, I mean, when you called the board, you wanted to be seen, wanted to have a relationship with, or relation at least with someone. So I think that's part of the fun. Yeah, part of the experience.speaker-0

That was kinda cool, So, we have this scene and we have the BBSs here. We're all in the 30s or 40s. In 10 years, is this still gonna be a thing? Are we still around or have we kinda dropped this interest?I think definitely both the scene and the bulletin board systems will be around. But it will probably change in some way. mean, if we talk about the boards, there has been a change in these seven years since 2015 when boards in Sweden started to pop up again.There's still a few boards out there, but the activity has dropped on most of them. Maybe it will return, maybe it won't. But if you look upon the AmiExpress boards, the sort of elite boards out there, activity there is really prospering today. there's a lot of fights being transferred every day. And they are still being used to decide who...speaker-0

Is it?speaker-0

No, no, that's... Look, back in the day, could... can have a forgiving attitude to it. We all were kind of young, we didn't have any money, but this is not okay. I mean, if you take like Sam's Journey and this Wolfling game and all this kind of thing, do you really want them? Cracked! People have money to pay for them. Actually, this one I have to...Absolutely. I think that to be fair, believe that the cracking scene will probably sell more games than destroy them. don't think piracy is a problem today. I might be optimistic, but I think that in a way, think it's kind of fun that the old traditions are kept alive.As far as I know, most people who want the game will buy it anyway if they like it. don't think that... As you said, people have the money to buy the stuff. I think it's for the novelty and for the fun of it. So I wouldn't mind that much. I think it's fun, more or less, today.Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess so, but I'm just thinking if I mean if the industry could be harmed by cracking back in the day That's a debate it can certainly be now because I don't think there's that many of us enthusiasts still there I think we need to support that all the development going on But okay, honestly a lot of new Amiga games are made in Amos what you call it, you know, this basic stuff Yeah, they are generally no goodI mean, I think there's two types of games today. One is those games that could never have been developed earlier because people were on the deadline. mean, some of the games released today have been, for example, Sam's Journey. I can't see that actually being developed commercially because it's such a huge game.speaker-1

No company would have had the time or money to invest in creating such a great game. But then other games are crap. But they're fun. Someone loved doing it. And I think that's great. Back in the day when you bought a crap game and it cost you 600 crowns.$60Basically a month's wage. Yeah, $60. I think that that was almost ripping people off. Today it's it's it's more okay.Yeah, it was like $60, okay, it was expensive. And I remember doing that mistake. actually scrounged up money to buy Roger Rabbit for the C64. That was not a good game. Let's just leave it at that. And we are actually ready for the last song and that one is yours.I would like to play Slays' Neuroflute. That is a modern tune by a very talented Amiga musician. This tune participated in the Amiga Open Music Compo at Fondata 2021, which is the demo party that we have hosted for a few years now. So Slays, the scene is yours.speaker-0

Alright, I absolutely like this song because I absolutely love this song. That's a more correct thing. Because I like the idea. It's trying to sound medieval, isn't it? Isn't that the whole idea?Yeah, I think that's probably the whole idea and that might be why I truly love it as well. I still enjoy this fantasy themed stuff that has been part of the... I would say that has been part of the...computer scene since its very beginning. A lot of medieval style games, lot of fantasy style images have been drawn. mean, how many dragons and warriors have you seen? And also a few musical tunes that really has made an impact during the years. So fantasy literature has probably been a great inspiration to a lot of singers during the years.I guess so, it seems very legit so to speak. I was thinking, could you say that the BBS's were some sort of hobbyist thing? We didn't have like you know Raspberry Pi's and Linux servers back then.I say both yes and no. Since we were living a bit off, weren't very many commercial BBSs out there, but I do remember a few companies using BBSs for support for their software or hardware.speaker-1

And if I'm not mistaken, I believe Carl Bildt, the prime minister of Sweden opened a BBS back in the days. So there were definitely these professional part of it. But for the part that I participated in, it was 100 % a hobby. But most of the sysops, I believe, grew up.being professionally in some sort of development or network area or such. mean, you're quite a great example of that, I would say. I think that it was a great, would you say playground to deeds that would come later?I think you're totally right there. FidoNet, FidoNet, what you call it, is still around and that was the ultimate use-net for hobbyist nerds. Okay, today I guess it's just a like... what do you say? Shadow, it's former glory or something, but hey, I mean, it's still there. I think that kinda counts. We have a few minutes to go before we have to, well, go.Okay, I need to ask you one thing. Your channel on YouTube seems a bit like needs an update. What's going on?Well, life is going on. I really need to find more time to sit down and work with it. haven't had the time or the energy to create new videos for some time, but I'm hoping now that we get into the darker season of autumn.speaker-0

Did you lie? What are you talking about, Yeah, but worse...Soon getting into the Augusts, the nights are getting darker and it's more convenient to sit inside and spring is always a very hectic period for me, so that spring will turn away a bit. I really enjoy doing the videos, I hope to get back to that.I have a lot of ideas and it's more of finding the time and inspiration to set down and invest the hours into it. Thank you for your kind words.Absolutely. No problems, of course. Just one last thing before we lead you into that good night. What does the word rankle come from? It's bird, right?Yup, it's a Raven in ancient Icelandic. It's an old handle or alias that I used on some of the bulletin board systems, elite boards, but I started off as a necroman because death and everything is cool, right?speaker-1

I didn't realize that there was a scene in Stockholm that also used Necromancer. When I registered at my first Stockholm BBS, I sort of got to feel that harsh atmosphere, so to speak. So I changed it to Dark Holder, is also, I mean, Hail Satan and everything.I started moving my interest from hailing Satan to ancient northern gods. decided I had to find a new one and there were a lot of people calling themselves Rafn, which is the modern spelling of Raven in Icelandic. So I found an ancient one, Ravnkel, and it's been stuck since.is a good one. And the demon that I call myself, it's basically a service process under Linux or Unix. I did not know that a demon actually is a demigod, like a God's helper. If I knew that, I wouldn't have chosen it. It doesn't feel like me. But there's a lot of death and murder and stuff in your choice of words. I this old cabin, actually Googled for it. It's a song and it seems like, okay.Yeah, I mean, I grew up in the black metal community. That form, was an ASCII artist back in the days, making logos out of ASCII characters. And that was in the period when I found this Norwegian black metal thing where people murdered each other and burned down churches.so and worshiped in the process. So a lot of that sort of, that was when I found or at least explored who I was and that took its part into the creations that I did in the computer scene as well. So I still have a soft spot in my heart for Uncle Satan.speaker-0

Okay, like Santa, but the bad one, right? Or something else. Okay, I'm gonna sign off by saying that there is one thing I have that kinda relates to that mentality, so to speak. My sign off is always an old Dylan Thomas poem. So I'm gonna do it now. Do this now. This is DJ Daemon and Hvrankel, leading you into that good night is the last song for the program.Absolutely, absolutely.speaker-0

We didn't start the retro fire But we'll keep it burning