Before joining Mastodon had you participated or were active on BBS (dial-up) or forums (vBulletin style) in the past?
Boosts are appreciated for better sample sizes.
@binarytango I used to run a BBS in the 80s to early 90s.
@binarytango@mstdn.social BBS =/= dial-up .
i've had dial-up but not BBSs
@binarytango too young for dial-up BBSes (though I've played with telnet/SSH reincarnations), definitely very active on various online forums (anyone still running phpBB? :P)
@jonas @binarytango i think my native country's local Tolkien Society still uses phpBB, I gotta admit I haven't been to their fora since the pandemic
@binarytango I found out about mastodon via gopher instead of the other way around ... and i'm sure i'm not alone in that.
@binarytango I'm definitely too young for dial-up and BBS, never really participated in any forums or mailing lists
@binarytango I'm feeling old... 🥺
@binarytango@mstdn.social yes (for Misskey, fedi isn't just Mastodon 😉), but not as much as other people. Most of my time was on IRC, Tumblr, GBATemp forums and Twitter
@binarytango There should be an "I don't remember" option. I do remember dialing up to a forum once, I think, but I don't think I ever posted anything.
Does Usenet via Bitnet (pre-internet) count?
Ha, @binarytango, yes ;)💚
Memories of BBS times... At that time (early 90s) also had a BBS (dial-up) with Z-Netz (on an Commodore #Amiga A3000T with 3 modems on 3 analog lines, running "Phobos" by Ulrich Simon: http://www.ulrich-simon.de/projekte/phobos/index.htm )
(Now some children are in same age as I was back then, lol ;)
I didn't know vBulletin but I went on a lot of phpBB forums
@binarytango In addition, I was very active on Identica while it was StatusNet before it became pump.io. The community, groups, and engagement there was phenomenal.
Why Evan changed directions, I'll never understand. If it stayed with the StatusNet codebase, no doubt it would be a serious Twitter (and Mastodon!) competitor.
Granted, Identica spam was a problem which he never got the upperhand on. Aside from that however, it was fantastic.
@binarytango If you mean with a 1200/75 modem around 1986 then definitely yes 😎
@binarytango does somethingawful forums count?
@binarytango oh man vBulletin was the shit. Also lurking in IRC rooms :)
@binarytango Oh, then my vote ought to have been yes, because I was active on USENET for years.
@binarytango It was before my time, but gosh I've always wanted to try one
@binarytango I was on the internet during the dial-up era, but I was also about 6-8 years old and I mostly frequented academic and educational sites. (Before you ask: yes, I was a precocious kid who learned to read on his own, very early. Now I'm just a precocious adult with a mathematics doctorate and crippling impostor syndrome. 🙃 )
I also wasn't allowed to use chatrooms until I was an adult. I used IRC when I was young once in the mid-2000's, then returned to it around 2017 before joining Discord in late 2018 when I realized everyone was there, and joining Matrix as well some time after that.
@binarytango beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beee boooo bawwww baaa beee *crackle* chahahahaha beep CHAHAHAHAA
CONNECT 9600
@djsumdog @binarytango a naked 9600 – no v42bis or nothing? 😱
Have been running a 2-line BBS, was FidoNet hub and host. Looong ago, those were the (wild) days… Started with CONNECT 2400 as user, went up to 28k8, ZX 19k2 on the other line, plus 64k (ISDN) – and finally Fido via IP was introduced…
FidoNet was the first thing to come to mind when I joined Mastedon a few days ago. @djsumdog @binarytango @IzzyOnDroid
@DaOp1435 Heh, now you mention it: Wasn't Fido a federated network of BBSes? And couldn't you use the same protocol to exchange files via file networks (I remember I participated in at least one of those, OS2Net)? And weren't there other networks connected, too (GerNet, Kesher, …)? Funny how life goes on 
@djsumdog @binarytango
@binarytango I was just thinking that Mastodon instances reminded me of FIDO times 😂
@binarytango what about Packet Radio over CB-Radio?
We also had mailboxes and message boards Back then.
@binarytango @lmorchard I was just thinking about how the Fediverse reminds me of the old days of dial-up BBSs. How they were similar due to the underlying technology being shared but each board felt different and had its own ecosystem. It’s like the Eighties dial-up world with a global interconnected feel.
@binarytango Related for those interested: https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=nO5vjmDFZaI
Original was in split parts... And some alternate sources below:
https://archive.org/details/BBS.The.Documentary/
https://sepiasearch.org/
A PeerTube Searcher if you ever need PeerTube links - also has link to BBS Documentary if you search
Other link:
https://invidious.weblibre.org/watch?v=nO5vjmDFZaI
People on screen at beginning are worth reading about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Suess
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Christensen
and lots of others worth looking up... kinda cool or cool scary and nostalgic / honest / raw computing and more organic people etc!
@binarytango MOO MUSH MUD and Gopher
@Heurism @binarytango I heard of a #mud that implemented a "clue bit". If your vote but was set, you "had a clue." That let you do two things - 1) see if others had a clue or not, and 2) set or unset others' clue bits.
They gave clues to some users. Since it was a noncombat mud, folks would get mad and take someone else's clue. They'd have to find a friend with a clue to reset them, then go hunting the first person.
Most of the mud, literally and figuratively had no clue what was going on.
@binarytango I used BBSes as a kid and really wanted to run one. I helped run a phpBB forum for years.
@binarytango Next dig into the results & find out how many yesses ran a BBS ;)
@binarytango I was a FidoNet sysop for a few years.
@binarytango@mstdn.social BBSs back in the 80s through the early 00s, early web forums (I also remember web rings and the days when websites had guestbooks), and usenet via dialup.
@LilFluff @binarytango phpBB in the 00s, phpBB in the 20s! 🤘
@binarytango I've been on many forums over the years. Mostly related to various video games.
@binarytango I was something called a "file courier" back in the day on BBSes. Have to keep up those upload/download ratio high, just in case!
@binarytango @cmherndon79 what group(s) did you run with?
@coolpowers @binarytango I was just an independent. I had access to boards that got things first and I'd distribute those to smaller board in my area code.
@binarytango Forums for sure.
@binarytango like, 30 years ago? Yes.
@binarytango I mean, like, 20+ years ago, yes…
@binarytango I definitely still remember my early days dialing into my local BBS to play Trade Wars and Legend of the Red Dragon.
@binarytango never went on a bbs but i still use forums to this day
@binarytango
Not rich enough to dial at BBS era. I saw friends doing it.
When dad could afford retrieving emails with a V90, I was already on IRC, then forums thanks to public computers at university.
@binarytango BBS was before my time, but I used to mess with PHPBB all the time when I was younger.
@binarytango@mstdn.social yeah! i was kinda active on some BBSes, as i was curious what they were. I remember finding one centered around scary stories, although I can't remember the name.
@tomxcd @binarytango oh, scary stories bbs sounds like fun. I tried to search for it just now, but couldn't find such bbs. :c
@binarytango Nope, too young for BBSes, probably could've been on forums if our parents hadn't kept us so isolated, but, yeah, so this place is the first.
@binarytango BBS no, forums yes, and I *think* some of them were probably vBulletin (so I voted yes) but I'm not 100% sure.
@binarytango Dialup BBSes in the 80s to early 90s, Usenet in the mid-90s, many mailing lists and web forums over the years. Still fond of small to midsize online communities of all sorts.
@binarytango .what's the boosting button?
@binarytango many fourms. No bbs.
A general-purpose Mastodon server with a 1000 character limit.
Seems mstdn.social is struggling, poor Stux :(
But to answer some replies, pretty much asking if you were ever active on BBSes, web boards powered by phpBB or vBulletin, usenet/newsgroups, etc.