Podcast episode profile for 56. By the modem light's red glare part 2
ericade.radio knows the chiptune and demoscene! We're the radio station playing all the best tunes from the most prominent, promising or trending artists in the scene. We also know about the artists and songs as well.
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Flashback, tracks from the past
We have covered the demo scene since 2020, and play all the great chip tune music as well. Join us to hear tracked music combined with commentary from the geek-of-all-trades: DJ Daemon. He was once known once a Daemon in the Amigaworld, and brings you stories about Amiga, retrocomputing, C64, demos, the demo scene and all things nerdy in the retro world.
We play tracker music composed on Protracker, Screamtracker, Fasttracker and Impulsetracker. It's music composed on Amiga and the retro-PC. Genres such as Chiptune, Synthwave and Retro electro.
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56. By the modem light's red glare part 2
Flashback, tracks from the past
🎧 Playlist
- 00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
- 00:06 DJ Daemon: Start up your terminal programs and let’s dial into an episode about the sunset era of the bulletin board systems. In episode 50, we covered the BBS-scene from the late 70s to the early 90s. If you didn’t know anything about what was in store back in 1990, it was easy to believe the age of the boards would last forever. It would not!
- 00:33 Necros of PM – “Click”
- 03:41 DJ Daemon: In early 90s, everything got faster, cheaper and better. The system operators were almost gods in their owning of expensive hardware and hard to setup software. And now, any dude with a 386, Amiga or Atari could create a board for themselves. And rule over the debating forums and file areas. A frustrated, but unknown Sysop wrote this in 1995: “The Modem scene is FAR TOO BIG. Face it, how many boards have you ever heard of? Too many! And it’s still just a “fart in space” of all the boards that have ever and does still exist. Did you know that 60% of all the boards closes down within a month due to user inactivity? EVERYBODY with a modem has come up with the dream of starting an own board, letting people call to yourself, gettin’ free warez instead of big phone bills. Cute, but few’s succeeding. ” If we ignore the bad grammar and that fart of a Swedish colloquialism that no one really understands outside our country, that’s a brutal take down of the scene don’t you think?
- 05:07 ArchAngel – Archons of light
- 07:58 DJ Daemon: I don’t think that elitist nonsense is good for anything except the feeling of being superior and the creation of a camaraderie that just made the scene look like a king of the hill scenario. With the possibility of anyone getting to cut their teeth as a sysop, this was the advent of BBS:es as a true hobbyist network. I started my own BBS on the 18th of October 1993, running on an Amiga 500. But we’ve discussed that in an earlier episode of this podcast. It was a great way of learning computers, script-based programming, social media before they even existed and just how much of a diplomat you had to be. I will share a few memories never told on this podcast before, but we must then continue into the sunset of the modem era.
- 09:03 Cooth – The Misty Lake
- 13:27 DJ Daemon: Even if it was easy to setup a typical board compared to the 80s, there were still a number of hurdles to overcome. I wrote a lot of commands in Arexx, the Amiga flavor of IBM Rexx. It was an easy language to learn, and I had a good reference manual. So, I often got questions from people asking me how to fix problems or build functions. This was very fun and sharing the code and the knowledge was what we did. And others could show you ways to improve your own crappy code. Then there was Peter… The name is his own because way should we protect the guilty? He didn’t ask people to help him, he tried to make the write the whole script that he wanted for his board. And once he offered to pay another sysop to build a script, then refused to pay. Quite a character and he had to flee the scene after the other sysops running him out on a metaphorical rail with tar and feather. Let’s hope it was metaphorical.
- 14:45 Purple Motion – Sundance
- 17:37 DJ Daemon: I wrote a joke-full text with several characters, I mean the users, typically found on a BBS. It was called “Så du vill bli Sysop” and I probably over exaggerated quite a bit. But not as much as you are though. So, there we were. BBS:es fed the sysops feeling of self-worth. So, it’s not that weird that most of the other users on any board were themselves sysops. And we had people from various background. There were few women, my girlfriend was the only one on my board. Let’s look at who they were, but the music must flow.
- 18:25 Unreal of Pulse – Fountain of sighs
- 23:11 DJ Daemon: Who was the typical user on my BBS? It’s the only one I can talk about, as I don’t know about the users on the other boards, even the ones I visited. Most of them lived in Stockholm, Sweden. The user was, as I noted before, almost guaranteed to be a male and the age was between 15-25 where the most common age was between 16-19. I was 18 when I started the BBS. He was commonly either far left or mildly right-wing. There were quite a few near or real communists. The debates between them and the right wingers were fierce. I guess the silent majority was not too into politics or centrist. But when you’re young, you may have a bit of political fire in your belly.
- 24:16 Necros and Basehead – Search for the lost riff
- 28:31 DJ Daemon: Back to the typical BBS-user on my BBS. Religion was not a thing really a thing for them. There could sometimes be some mild homophobia, but the user base was large enough for intolerants to get some serious criticism for writing such things. By today’s standards, a lot of things could be said that might not fly today. But racism and more overt intolerances were shunned and got fierce response. I would say people were generally quite accepting, but in their youth a bit radical at time.
- 29:18 MiKeY MusiC – After Life
- 35:08 DJ Daemon: Computer nerdery was rampant. PC-dudes against Amigaites. We discussed all the technology whether we knew about it or not. One discussion was about CPU speed, and someone claimed that “PC MHz” and “Amiga MHz” were not the same thing. This kinda how silly those debates could be when they did not work. Windows 95 was a hotly debated topic and so was the future of the Amiga after Commodore went under. Music tastes were generally NOT mainstream at all. Punk, heavy techno, some hip-hop and many of the synthases were admired. My own taste in Beatles was a bit laughable back then and Eurotechno was out in the cold.
- 36:10 ArchAngel – Essence of Life
- 39:10 DJ Daemon: I must not forget that Fidonet was a thing. It was a hobbyist USENET with many thousands of BBS-es participating. Maybe some would like to call it a precursor to Internet, but I don’t think that’s correct. Fidonet mostly used phonelines and a hierarchic structure. My BBS was 2:201/370.0. It lived in the large mesh of the Fidonet and acted as something known as a node. It sent and received messages to and from the Fidonet to a Hub that relayed it even further. Fidonet’s email-like service was called echomail. And typically, you had to wait three days from sending a message before getting an answer. A typical node only dialed to its hub once per day. Fidonet still exists today, but it’s only a shadow of its past.
- 40:16 Acumen – Dozen Doves Divided
- 43:13 DJ Daemon: Back on the rail to the end station of this program. Why did the BBS-era end? The modems got faster, and we went from 2400 to 14400 and in 1995, 28800 was becoming a thing. But in the background, Internet was coming of age. In 1994, some newspapers here in Sweden opened sites that gave you the feeling of a souped-up tele-text-page, that you had on modern TVs. On the 5th of February 1994, our Swedish then prime-minister, Carl Bildt sent an email to the then president of the United States, Bill Clinton. Two days later, Mr. Bildt spoke about the Internet in an address to mainly Ericsson managers in Kista. Internet access was yet too expensive, but in 1995, it started taking off.
- 44:26 Mb. Badliz – Prelude to war
- 49:44 DJ Daemon: In 1996, the Internet was everywhere, and I saw the userbase of my BBS dwindle. There was a sharp dive between spring and autumn of 1996. This had many reasons: i was tying the lines up a lot when using the Internet on my new PC, my girlfriend left and … Yeah… The Internet. Sites on the Internet generally talks about 1995 as the true nadir of the boards. And maybe it’s so. Next episode of this three-part story about the history of BBS-es, we will talk about the desert wandering years between 1997-2015 and the reignition of the boards.
- 50:39 Lizardking – Age of Legends
- 53:56 DJ Daemon: Outro
- 54:43 Purple Motion – Astraying Voyages
- 58:54 ericade.radio – Best enjoyed in the glow of your modem’s lights
- 59:01 AaRD – Hour of Truth
🎤 Production Notes
I wanted to create a special series about the BBS-scene a long time. And I wanted to tell it from my own memories or from other BBS-sysops in Sweden. This was realized in the autumn of 2021 in a three part miniseries. The first part is about the early days until the early 90s. The second covers the 90s until the sunset era. The third talks about the desert wandering years until today.Colophone:"By the rockets red glare" is a stanza from the National Anthem of the United States of America.
📝 Transcript
Time for another episode of Flashback. up your terminal programs and let's dial into an episode about the sunset era of the bulletin board systems. In episode 50 we covered the BBS scene from the late 70s to the early 90s. If you didn't know anything about what was in store in 1990It was easy to believe that the age of the boards would last forever. It certainly would not.
Necros of PM and the song is called Click. In the early 90s everything got faster, cheaper and better. The system operators were almost gods in their owning of expensive hardware and hard to set up software. And now any dude with a 386, Amiga or Atari could create a board for themselves. And they could rule over the debating forums and the file areas.A frustrated but unknown sysop wrote this in 1995. The modem scene is far too big. Face it, how many boards have you ever heard of? Too many. And that's still just a farting space of all boards that have ever and does still exist. Did you know that 60 % of all boards closes down within a month due to user inactivity?Everybody with a modem has come up with the dream of starting their own board, letting people call yourself, getting freewares instead of big phone bills. Cute, but few succeeding. Okay, if we ignore the bad grammar and that fart of a Swedish colloquialism that no one really understands outside our country, that is a brutal takedown of the scene, don't you think?
ARKANGEL, Archons of Light I don't think that elitist nonsense is good for anything except the feeling of being superior and the creation of a camaraderie that just made the scene look like a King of the Hill scenario. With the possibility of anyone getting to cut their teeth as a sysop, this was the advent of BBSs as a true hobbyist network.I started my own BBS on the 18th of October 1993 running on an Amiga 500. But we discussed that in an earlier episode of this podcast. It was a great way to learn computers, script based programming, social media before they even existed and just how much of a diplomat you had to be. I will share a few memories never told on this podcast before.But we must then continue into the sunset of the modem era.
and the misty lake. Time for the first story. Even if it was easy to set up a typical board compared to the 80s, there were still a number of hurdles to overcome. I wrote a lot of commands in A-Rex, the Amiga flavor of IBM-Rex. It was an easy language to learn and I had a good reference manual.So I often got questions from people asking me how to fix problems or build functions. This was very fun and sharing the code and the knowledge was what we did. And others would show you ways to improve your own crappy code. Then there was Peter. The name is his own because why should we protect the guilty? He didn't ask people to help him.He tried to make you write the whole script that he wanted for his board. And once he offered to pay another sysop to build a script, and then refused to pay. Quite a character and he had to flee the scene after the other sysops were running him out on a metaphorical rail with tar and feather. Let's hope it was metaphorical.
Purple Motion Sundance I wrote a jokeful text with several characters, I mean the users, typically found on a BBS. It was called So Du Would Be Sysop and I probably over exaggerated quite a bit. But not as much as you might think. So there we are. BBS has fed the sysop's feeling of self worth.So it's not that weird that most of the other users on any board were sysops themselves. And we had people from various backgrounds. There were few women. My girlfriend was the only one on my board. So let's take a look who they were. But the music, it must flow.
fountain of size. Who was the typical user on my BBS? It's the only BBS I can talk about as I don't know about the users on other boards, even the ones I visited. Most of them lived in Stockholm, Sweden. The user was, as I noted before, almost guaranteed to be male and the age was between 15 and 25.where the most common age was between 16 and 19. I was myself 18 when I started the DDS. He was commonly either far left or mildly right wing. There were quite a few near or real communists. The debates between them and the right wingers were fierce. I guess the silent majority was not into politics or centrist. But when you're young,You may have a bit of a political fire in your belly.
Necros and Basshead, they seemed to be searching for the lost riff and I think they found it. Back to the typical BBS user on my BBS. Religion was not really a thing for them. There could be, well sometimes, some mild homophobia, but the user base was large enough that the intolerant got some serious criticism for writing such things.By today's a lot of things could be said that might not fly today, but racism and more overt intolerances were shunned and got fierce response. I would say people were generally quite accepting, but hindered youth a bit radical at times.
Mikey Music Afterlife Computer nerdery was rampant. PC dudes against Amigaites. Sounds like good headlines, right? We discussed all the technology, whether we knew about them or not. One discussion was about CPU speed, and someone claimed that PC MHz and Amiga MHz, they were not the same thing.This is kinda how silly those debates could be when they did not work. Windows 95 was a hotly debated topic and so was the future of the Amiga after Commodore went under. Music tastes. They were generally not mainstream at all. Punk, heavy techno, some hip-hop and many of the synth-bands were admired. My own taste in Beatles.It was a bit laughable back then and Eurotecno was out in the cold.
Archangel is back and this time it's essence of life. I must not forget that Fidonet was a thing. It was a hobbyist use-net with many thousands of BBS's participating. Maybe some would like to call it a precursor to internet, but I don't think that's correct. Fidonet mostly used phone lines and a hierarchic structure.MyBBS was known to the world as 2.201.370.0. It lived in the large mesh of the FidoNet and acted as something known as a node. It sent and received messages to and from the FidoNet to a hub that related even further. FidoNet's email-like service was known as EchoMail.And typically you had to wait three days from sending a message before getting an answer. A typical node only dialed to its hub once per day. Findernet still exists today, but it's only a shadow of its past.
Dozen doves divided. Let's hope they didn't do that with a knife. I don't like animal cruelty. Back on the rail to the end station of this program. The question is, why did the BBS era end? The modems got faster and we went from 2,400 to 14,400 and then in 1995 28,800 was becoming a thing.But in the background, internet was coming of age. In 1994, some newspapers here in Sweden opened sites that gave you the feeling of a souped up teletext page. Yeah, you know, the ones you had on TVs back in the day. On the 5th of February 1994, our then Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt sent an email to the then President of the United States Bill Clinton.Two days later Mr. Bilt spoke about the internet in an address to mainly Ericsson managers in Kista. Internet access was yet too expensive, but in 1995 it started taking off.
MB Badly's Prelude to War In 1996 the internet was everywhere and I saw the user base of my BBS Dwindle. There was a sharp dive between the spring and autumn of 1996. This had many reasons. I was tying up the lines a lot when I was using the internet on my new PC. My girlfriend left me.And of course, the internet. Sites on the internet generally talks about 1995 as the true nadir of the boards, and maybe it was so. Next episode of this three part story about the history of BBSs, well, then we will talk about the desert wandering years between 1997 and 2015, and then the re-ignition of the boards.
Lizard King, Age of Legends. The third and final episode in this set of episodes about the BBS era. It will come out in a few weeks from now. But remember, the next episode of Flashback, Tracks from the Past, will be out next Saturday at 9 PM CET on the radio station and a few hours later on your podcast player.My name is DJ Demon and I thank you for listening. Leading you into the good night, that would be purple motion and astraying voyages. And final song will be A.A.R.D. Hour of Truth.
The Ericade Radio Network. Best enjoyed in the glow of your modem's light
Play History
- 🕘 2026-06-08 09:00:05
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- 🕘 2026-05-26 16:00:07
About the artist Flashback View all tracks ›
"Flashback, tracks from the past" is the current name of the podcast. Now with tracked music from nearly all platforms (including Amiga, Atari, PC). We also speak about the retro past, present the artists, talk about old games and review demo parties.
🎧 29,167 plays on ericade.radio
🎙 The people behind the podcast
He got his Commodore 64 in 1989 and his first Amiga in 1990. A huge fan of tracker music and have had a long standing dream to create a radio show playing that kind of music. In 2020, that dream came true and in december Amiga Flashback started as a podcast. It was later renamed Flashback, tracks from the past and here we are.
He is also an orga for Swedish demo party Edison and a total retro nerd.
He was actually a listener from the time of the first ericade-station in the 00s. He came back as a listener in 2020, when the station restarted. Later he voluntered to build the new website of the station and also joined as a cohost of the podcast. He runs his own site called the Retro spirit.
Fellow retro geek and creator of great music on his daw.
He describes himself like this: "Pure 8-bit chiptunes! All Tekmann music are solely made on Gameboy units modded to perfection... No computer producing just pure chiptune bliss ;)".
A true retro geek and sysop from the 90s. He lives with his family in Sweden and enjoys sharing his passion for retro computing and music. He is sysop for Swedish BBS "This old cabin".
Created a report about Impulsetracker for us in 2022. Also voiced our messages for christmas 2022 in co-operation with the Retro spirit.
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The home of retro computing and retro gaming music. Streaming 24/7 with shows and podcasts about retro computing, retro gaming, demo scene and all things nerdy in the retro world.