58. By the modem light's red glare part 3

🎧 00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past

Erik Zalitis 00:01.23 Time for another episode of Flashback. Tracks from the past. Welcome to a wonder in the desert and the third part of the three part mini-series about the Swedish BBS scene. It's been quite a ride, but in 1997 the scene was dissolving as people found Geocities and used Alta Vista to Google for stuff. Which is quite a trick.as Google had not yet been founded. This is not about that. This is about us, the SysOps, wondering what the heck just happened.

🎧 00:06 DJ Daemon: Welcome to a wander in the desert and the third part in the three-part miniseries about the Swedish BBS-scene. It’s been quite a ride, but in 1997, the scene was dissolving as people found GeoCities and used Alta-Vista to “Google” for stuff, which was quite a trick as Google had not yet b…

🎧 00:40 Meztli Blue – Moonflower

🎧 02:48 DJ Daemon: In the previous episode I noted 1995 as the year that the Internet started taking over. A technology doing such a thing is called a “disruptive technology”. And it was. The demo scene started shifting to webpages, IRC-chats and FTP-servers and the Sysops were looking at diminishing return…

Erik Zalitis 02:49.102 Mestly blue moonflower. In the previous episode, I noted 1995 as the year the internet started taking over. A technology doing such a thing is called a disruptive technology, and it was. The demo scene started shifting to webpages, IRC chats, and FTP servers, and the sysops were looking at diminishing returns.The internet was everyone's darling and the boards had faded into obscurity as they required you to know their numbers, deal with busy lines and sometimes pay long distance fees. Most of the development of the software the boards were running ceased to be as focus were shifted to more viable communication forms. But not all was lost. The internet offered a solution for the sysops.Hell net.

🎧 03:48 Bassie of Image – Gradually unfold….

🎧 10:39 DJ Daemon: Telnet, the much-maligned, non-encrypted form of direct communication that could use Internet for transport promised a place for the boards. The problem was that in the late 90s, very few people had access to broadband or any other always-on connections. Some people found refuge in the la…

Erik Zalitis 10:39.31 The spacy of image gradually unfolds. Telnet, the much maligned, non-encrypted form of direct communication that could use internet for transport, it promised a place for the boards. The problem was that in the late 90s very few people had access to broadband or any other always-on connection.Some people found refuge in the large university networks where they could get 24-7 connections for their BBSs. Other found corporate networks and some actually had some of the earliest form of broadband that could be bought. Fabbes BBS was one of those survivors turning to Telnet for aid.

🎧 11:27 Melcom – Doom

🎧 15:04 DJ Daemon: I wish I could give you some hard numbers on the decline… AAAAAAAAAND, I can! A huge thanks to Fabian Norlin, Sysop on Fabbes BBS, which I will talk about later in this show. I contacted him to get an interview, to which he kindly declined. But he did create a list over the logins per yea…

Erik Zalitis 15:05.09 Malcolm do.I wish I could give you some hard numbers on the decline. And I can! Yeah! A huge thanks to Fabian Norlin, Sysup on Fabbes BBS, which I will talk about later in this show. I contacted him to get an interview. He kindly declined, but he did create a list of the logins per year on his BBS, beginning in year 2000.At that year, nearly 42 000 logins were registered. In 2001 it was down to 35 000. 2002 marks a sharp drop in activity with only 18 000 logins. This is close to a cut in half. With some notable exceptions it dropped and was down to 944 in 2008.The end came on the 31st of May 2009 when the system crashed. Fabian Dryley notes that Michael Jackson died on the 25th of June that year and was just as likely as to be resurrected as the BBS. Well, he was wrong.

🎧 16:23 Timelord – Disillusion

🎧 22:01 DJ Daemon: Let’s leave Fabbes for a moment and look at the Internet that was everywhere now. In 2000 we were vary buying stuff on the Internet, ten years later we bought expensive electronics on the Internet and today we buy pretty much everything over the net. In 2000 security was horrible and the…

Erik Zalitis 22:02.35 Time Lord, disillusion. Let's leave Fabis for a moment and look at the internet that was everywhere now. In 2000 we were wary buying stuff on the internet. 10 years later we bought expensive electronics on the internet and today we buy pretty much everything of the net. In 2000 the security was horrible and the hackers were amateurs.Today our security wears army boots and hackers drive tanks. In 2000, forums were where it was at. And today we look beyond Facebook, Twitter and Reddit for the future of communication. In 2000, people on the internet were joking about how bad old people were at using computers. Today, Sweden has 109 years old blogger, Daniel Karlsson.We love you Dagny. She may be on hiatus due to bad health, but I hope she makes a comeback soon.

🎧 23:08 Mr Potatis – Gurk invasionen

🎧 26:10 DJ Daemon: So, Fabbes BBS, then. I must talk more about it, as it’s one of the few well documented boards and still operating to this day. It’s almost entirely in Swedish and runs the Amiga-based software Nikom. Same as my own board did and does. Started in 1993, same year as mine, it was resurrecte…

Erik Zalitis 26:10.414 Swedish tune Gurk invasion Mr. Potatoes is the artist. So back to Fabbes BBS then. I must talk more about it as it's one of the few well documented boards that still operating to this day. It's almost entirely in Swedish and runs the Amiga based software Nikon. Same as my own board did and does.started in 1993, the same year as mine, it was resurrected in 2014. It recovered to close what it was in the mid 2000s. But numbers of logins quickly dropped again and was down to a mere 338 in 2016. After that, Fabian is unable to find reliable statistics. But why did it matter that it came back?I would say because 2014 to 2017 saw the big return of the boards.

🎧 27:16 Craig Stern – A Cave of Faeries

🎧 32:32 DJ Daemon: I came back to all things Amiga, it now being retro, in 2017. It was a friend of mine, Sad of Padua, who got me back into it. We went to Datastorm 2017 in Gothenburg, and I dug up my Amiga 500 from my cellar. Later that fall I started telnetting to BBS:es such as DeltaCity, Retrobasen, Th…

Erik Zalitis 32:33.918 Craigstern, a cave of fairies. I came back to All Things Amiga, it now being retro, in 2017. It was a friend of mine, sad, of the group Padoa, who got me back into it. We went to Datastorm 2017 in Gothenburg, and I dug up my Amiga 500 from my cellar.Later that fall I started telnetting to BBS's such as Delta City, Retro Basen, this old cabin and of course Faddes. Retro was hitting hard in Sweden as as old men and some women were now becoming nostalgic. The whole retro scene, demo scene saw a resurgence while in usage of old stuff.New hardware for old Amigas, Atari's and PC's made it possible to start the old machines up again and it was going from a small stream to a big flood of cool stuff you could buy. The BBS's had to come back and they did.

🎧 33:38 Larph – Ohi e oob zih gobzi

🎧 38:47 DJ Daemon: Getting old technology working can be a challenge and it’s almost certain to be quite expensive. So, most of us opted to restart our BBS:es on virtual hardware. I started my BBS, the ERICADE Network back up in 2018 on FS-UAE. Today it runs WinUAE and it is many times more reliable than th…

Erik Zalitis 38:47.47 and the song is called Ohi-i-ob-si-gabsi. I wonder if that's encrypted. Getting all technology working can be quite a challenge and it's almost certain to be expensive. So most of us opted to restart our BBSs on virtual hardware. I started my BBS, The Arcade Network, back up in 2018 on FSUAE.Today it runs WinUAAE and it is many times more reliable than the old real hardware ever were. Some boards have rejoined FidoNet and other hobbyist networks. A lot of this was for the joy of working with technical challenges rather than getting lots of activity. We could share technical advice, cool stories and software with each other andIt was fun to get everything running yet again!

🎧 39:50 Gopher – A Time Before

🎧 44:27 DJ Daemon: In 2015, Niklas Lindholm were able to get the source code of his old BBS-software Nikom back from Thomas Kärki. And he started development of it again. This time, he fixed the Y2K-problem, added support for modern standards such as UTF-8 and removed timeout limits that no longer made sens…

Erik Zalitis 44:27.214 A time before. In 2015, Niklas Lindholm were able to get the source code of his old BBS software Nikon back from Thomas Kärke. And he started the development of it again. This time he fixed the Y2K problem, added support for modern standards such as UTF-8 and removed a timeout limit that no longer made sense.This made it possible for Delta City, Retrobasan, Fabbes and the Aricade network and a few others to work on the internet in modern times. Nikon is now open source and can be found on GitHub.

🎧 45:13 Bouncing Musicbox – Happy life

🎧 49:31 DJ Daemon: Most of the new BBS:es started in 2014-15 and some kept coming online as late as this year, 2021. But today, the spark is out again and here in Sweden the activity is lower. Some BBS:es like DeltaCity is still very active, but others have faded into obscurity. It goes to say that the retr…

Erik Zalitis 49:32.078 music box and the song is called Happy Life. Most of the new BBS's they started in 2014 or 15 and some kept coming online as late as this year 2021. But today the spark is out again and here in Sweden the activity is lower. Some BBS's like Delta City is still very activeBut others have faded into obscurity. It goes to say that the retro hobby, or the illness, as we jokingly call it here, is slowly going out of style. But don't count it out. There are several forums, YouTube channels, podcasts, demo scene compos that refuse to let the hobby walk into that good night. But the VBSs right now feel like they are not likely to rebound.And that's okay. We can find many other ways to venerate our love of computers from the home computer era. The podcast does its part. This one, is.

🎧 50:42 Ghormak – In Vain

🎧 54:44 DJ Daemon: My closing words must be that it’s been a fantastic journey and one of the big hobbyist revolutions in modern times. Earlier, radio amateurs flocked to their radios and bridged great distances. Hobbyists are not gone at all, but maybe a bit harder to spot. We run our old BBS:es, Raspberry…

Erik Zalitis 54:44.174 Gormak in vain. My closing words must be that it has been a fantastic journey and one of the big hobbyist revolutions in modern times. Earlier radio amateurs flocked to their radios and bridged the great distances. Hobbyists are not gone at all, but maybe a bit harder to spot.We run our old BBS's, Raspberry Pi's, Mastodon instances and other things with a very big smile on our faces. And newer generations find streaming, vlogging, podcasts and chat on Twitch and Discord a fun way to learn how to master a truly noble concept, creating a free and open community.

🎧 55:33 Franz Koopa – Gares de la Tropopause

🎧 58:56 MC Dreamer – Dreams 1484

🎧 01:02:54 DJ Daemon: The hobbyist networks are in stark contrast to the streamlined communities where people become consumers of algorithm-selected content that make them angry and active in condemning other people, political views and what they see as orthodoxy. I end this with a quote by sci-fi writer Isaac…

Erik Zalitis 01:02:54.196 see dreamer dreams 1484 I know we are on overtime but keep listening a few more minutes the hobbyist networks are in stark contrast to the streamlined communities where people become consumers of algorithm selected content that make them angry and active in condemning other people political views and what they see as orthodoxyI end this with a quote by sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov. Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

🎧 01:03:41 Galgox – Bringing It Back

Erik Zalitis 01:07:13.518 Galgags bringing it back. And what have we brought back? Well, the BBS era for a few hours. And this is the last episode in the series. Thank you for listening. I'm DJ Demon and you just heard a good song and here comes one last one. Genetic Gemini Retrospective.And you can hear us next Saturday at 9 pm CET and of course on the podcast player of your choice. Remember at that hour website is erikade.radio

🎧 01:07:14 DJ Daemon: Thank you for listening.

🎧 01:07:53 Genetic Gemini – Retroperspektive361

🎧 01:11:00 ericade.radio – Best enjoyed in the glow of your modem’s lights

Erik Zalitis 01:11:01.23 ERICADE RADIO NETWORK Best enjoyed in the glow of your modem's light.