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computerwhiz
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« on: January 21, 2006, 12:09:08 pm »

Greetings folks...

This is a long book about me and my BBS days, in the most chronological order as possible, but you may find this intersting, or you may find this boring.  If you get bored, feel free to read another thread Smiley

My name is Chris, aka, ComputerWhiz.  I am the system operator of Chris-Co BBS.  I have been around the BBS community since back in 1993, and I have run my BBS since 1996.  The first BBS I ever logged into was The Matrix BBS (in Birmingham, Alabama ran by Rocky Rawlings), back in 1993, at a baud of 2400.  At that point I started learning about BBS's, the ability to chat online, downloading files and games, and even playing online games.  I didn't play games online for a while, until some months later when I started logging into other BBS's around the town via dial-up.  The Matrix always costed money to login, and was charged per-hour basis, so I wasn't able to get on it that much except for when I got a free trial or I so happen to get some money to pay for a few hours of service.  That was my younger days when I couldn't work, was in high school, etc.  Mid-1994, I got my first job (I was 17), and not long after that, I got my own phone line (woot!  more BBSing, no interruptions because someone needs phone!)  Getting closer to my high school graduation time, I logged onto one BBS, called Shadows BBS, after being invited to it while chatting with the Sysop of it on The Matrix.  When I logged on there, he gave me a free day of trying out his Multiplayer Game Server (MPGS) on his 8-Node BBS, where he had it set up where you could play against up to 3 other people in DOOM II...  I got hooked, and later on played Hexen on there as well for a while.  Then they got a new server program called Game Connection (GC), in conjunction with SerIPX, in which you could play IPX games over the modem.  Everyone played Warcraft 2 (DOS) then.  I couldn't always play on it, because I had to pay, at one time it was like $1.00 an hour, but after they got GC, they got monthly and yearly rates.  I didn't go for any of those, but as I was graduating High School, they came up with a Summer Special rate.  I bought it, and played a lot over the summer.  After the summer ended, my time was up on it, and I didn't really want to pay monthly or yearly, not only that, but lots of members started leaving because at that point, the internet was starting to show its face.  I guess I started getting bored at that point, and for the longest time, I had wanted to set up my own BBS.  But my dad wouldn't ever allow it, especially before I got my own line, but he still didn't want me to after I got my line.  Finally around this point, I went and downloaded VBBS 6.14a (actually probably already had it downloaded and somewhat setup), but I started running it.  Of course for a while I had a nag at the login and other stuff.  My dad had found out I was running it, and for a little while, he would pick up the phone and make the people get line noise and disconnect anytime anyone would call.  After a while he finally gave up and figured out that I was determined that I was going to run one.  So sometime, I bought what I believe was going to be the VBBS 6.14a 4-node package, and I received in the mail diskettes for VBBS 7.00 10-node package by surprise.  I had thought 7.00 costed more (I paid $99.00 for it).  But I was happy...then after a couple days, I logged into Virtual ComTech International website (I think I paid The Matrix for internet access around this time), and there it was...  they had a new version, in fact, they even changed the name of it and almost totally revamped it...  Virtual Advanced!  I could upgrade to it for $25.  So I downloaded it and installed it, and back I was with a nag again with unregistered version.  I started the BBS over then instead of just overwriting VBBS.  So a week or two later, I spent $25 to get the registration upgrade.  Took me a week or so to get the registration key-file.  For about a week, My BBS users were capped, all call-back verified, to the max I could have of 50 users, so I had to tell anyone that tried to login new after that, that they had to wait until I get my registration key.  I was starting to get irritated because I couldn't get it, as I had to login to Roland DeGraaf's BBS, and was doing it via telnet, and everytime I tried, it would fail, and then it would delete itself, so everytime it failed, I would have to email Roland and tell him that I didn't successfully get it, so he had to set it up again so I can get it again...  after about 3 tries via telnet, I gave up and just called long distance (tried to avoid doing LD calls) and got it successfully...but after each time I fail, I would email him and usually would be the next day or something until it is ready for me again.  Anyway, I had finally got it, and was able to accept new users again.  I was still living in Birmingham, and I had at least 30 different people login each day.  I started going to ITT Technical Institute September 1997.  Then, in spring of 1998, I was running my BBS well, even though the internet was really starting to kick in, and I was losing few users here and there, but wasn't that bad.  But spring of 1998, it had been decided by my mom that she wanted to buy a double-wide...  that wasn't so bad...  but then the worse part... she wanted to put it in Riverside, Alabama.  That was long distance from all my users' calling area, Area Calling wasn't that popular yet.  So I was dreading and dreading and dreading the move...  It was basically like saying "Well, goodbye BBS"  So I started informing all my users that Chris-Co BBS is unfortunately going to be going ByeBye, not by choice, but not really either...told everyone it would still be there, but it would be long distant for anyone to call it, as it was relocating.  So we had moved, I got my phone line in my room as usual, got a new phone number.  I got a few people to call it.  But it went down from at least 20 calls a day to maybe 1-2 calls a day if I was lucky.  Well, at that point, it was decided that the BBS just wasn't going to work real well, so I kinda stopped running it for a while.  I started to get on the internet, got a new service provider, one called Zebra.Net, that I was getting for 16.95 a month.  I had a great connection with them, rarely ever got disconnected, so basically, it stayed connected 24/7 to the internet.  That practically blocked out any incoming callers, so I couldn't run my BBS.  But, a new idea had come to mind...well, it kinda came to mind back when I logged onto Virtual ComTech International via Telnet, but didn't know how easy it was...  But the idea was to figure out how I can telnet it.  I didn't know if it costed anything to do that besides my usual ISP costs.  But I did look into it.  I guess I did a search for it, and I think I came up with NetModem32.  So I gave it a try, and I did get it working, but I think it was flakey.  But I ran it a little bit, some of my old users had logged into it.  I ran it probably for a couple weeks, and then I was starting to get bored, because it just seemed like I was so limited on what I could do now.  I still wasn't getting the amount of logins I was hoping, so I got to where I started wanted to play Warcraft 2 again, after someone told me about Microsoft Internet Gaming Zone.  This is before Warcraft 2 Battlenet edition came out.  So I played it for a while until I got bored with it.  But as I was playing it, I had tended to turn off the BBS so it wouldn't boot me or switch windows on me in the middle of a game.  So it basically killed the BBS again.  Then a friend had gotten me into Diablo.  So I played that for a while.  It came around June 2000, I had gotten a new job (the one I have now), one where I repair Airbus Autoflight Systems (Flight Control Unit, Electronic Control Box, Slat/Flap Control Computer).  Not long after that, I was hearing about Diablo II had come out or was coming out, can't remember which, but a bunch of them were going to get it.  Few days later, about 3-4 people at work were playing Diablo II online, so I wanted to get in on it...so I went and bought Diablo II, and played it for about a year, and played the expansion for a little while after it came out.  That became an addiction, and for a while, the BBS scene didn't phase me...  it kinda just died out on me.  Then later I got burned out on Diablo II, and wanted to play something else (why didn't I think about working with the BBS again?)  Well, one guy at work, who I was playing Diablo II with, he had been playing this newer game for a while, but not Diablo II anymore.  He had told me about it when he first started playing it.  It was Dark Age of Camelot.  He told me it had a monthly fee, and I kinda had been waiting on another Blizzard game to come out, if it was going to be free to play as Diablo II was, that is.  So I was hesitant on playing a game you had to pay monthly fee for.  So it was about 6 months later or so, I think he got me convinced that I should try it...  I didn't think I would really like it for some reason...  but when he kept telling me that there are 1000's of people playing at once in the same world, I thought that was pretty awesome...  so I was convinced then and went and bought it.  Played it for a bit, and it took me a while to get used to the controls...but not long after that...  I was hooked...so hooked...I was addicted.  I didn't really play with him, but I enjoyed the game.  It was then after that, I was waiting for the game I said I wouldn't get if I had to pay monthly fees for it.  I waited and waited and waited...for World of Warcraft.  But while I waited, I played Dark Age of Camelot.  There were times in between where I would try and put my BBS back up again, but I would put it up...and neglect it.  It would sit there and run, but I would never mess with it...just look every once in a while to see if anyone logged in.  A couple times I had seen some old regular users login.  One of them went by "the Upward Spiral".  He used to login to my BBS all the time.  I even met him one time when I was working for UNiSTAR Computers in Birmingham when he came to the shop.  Anyway, it came around the time where I had Windows XP.  Well, tUS (the Upward Spiral) logged into my BBS on telnet, and paged me, and I went and chatted with him.  He told me that he was going to put The Final Frontier back up (one of the old BBS's in Birmingham, used to be owned and run by Capt. X and Capt. Z - Danny/Donny Collins, then later again by Capt. X and tUS).  Not only that, but he wanted me to try a program he was working on, he was in a beta stage of it...  I actually have log of the date he sent it to me - back on March 5, 2003, he had sent me va32 version 001a, which the next day, he sent it to me called vadv32.exe.  When he first sent it to me, I tried it out, and that is when I saw Virtual Advanced actually being revived.  Although, I still didn't totally bring my BBS back up, I saw a future for it again.  But as usual, I was addicted to playing the MMORPG.  I was still playing Dark Age of Camelot, until about December 2004.  It was then I heard about World of Warcraft finally releasing, so Dark Age of Camelot was no longer played by me.  My addiction went to World of Warcraft, and still I was not able to run a BBS due to my addiction to play the MMORPG.  But here recently, it had come to my realization that I had practically vanished from the whole BBS world, and now I may be trying to come back once again.  I have put Chris-Co BBS up again, using VADV32 to telnet it up to 10 nodes (tUS had passed it on down to Steve Winn a couple years ago, and Steve now keeps updating it and made other utilities for it in addition to it to keep VADV alive).  And now, as I save the best for last...  One of the doors I have always run on my BBS from the time I began Chris-Co BBS, was Operation: Overkill II.  Afraid to say, I had never registered the game, but always said I would one day.  So now I am putting it back up again, and here soon will purchase registration for the game if they are still accepting registrations, as well as other BBS doors.

Well that is my BBS life from the beginning of my BBS days, man how I grew, eh?

ComputerWhiz
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mindphaser
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« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2006, 03:01:44 pm »

*phew* I tried holding my breath for that entire post, but I couldn't.   :oops:  was a great story--glad to see you're having another go of the BBS!  One thing that might help is to post what domain you're using...that way people can check it out!  Far as I know Tarix isn't taking money for registrations but I'm sure he'd like donations for his awesome OOIS project [which essentially updates the OOII code and makes it run really smoooth]!

Good luck w/the BBS Smiley
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The-Mad-Dwarf
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« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2006, 12:34:51 pm »

I did a seach on his BBS and came up with  telnet://bbs.chris-co.org
 
  I dropped by and  checked out his current game. Its set on ZZexlia2 terrain, and is fairly new going by looking at the high score stats in the main complex. The highest  player on record is level 4.  I  noted the game runs real slow and somewhat stuttery on Cris's  system. The fight speed could race a snail across the screen and lose.  Smiley (no offense intended Chris)
 

    There are 4-5  systems out there running OOII at the speeds it was ment to run.   Unfortunately most of those systems run Vidland Mapset.  There simply is no challenge to those games. I do pop in and keep my hand in on em when I get too frustrated with the stutters and freezes on the OK board.  
 
  The Mad Dwarf
 
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Tarix
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« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2006, 12:44:04 pm »

Two thoughts.

OOII is free.  It's Dustin's game and I keep it alive for the love of it all.  No need for money as I have a job to pay the bills. Smiley

The new version will help the whole Vidland mapset problem.  It also has a more reasonable starting speed I believe.  I'll try and make a beta package since the BBS game seems to be running alright.

(Oh, and also I'm moving again.  The BBS will have some downtime I'm afraid.)
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