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1) Having been an avid Amiga user, for the most part I used an A1200 to log into BBS. Frankly, I'm not sure anymore what the name of the interactive terminal software was, but for point protocol connections (basically, downloading any new mail, forum, or newsgroup posts you were subscribed to for offline consumption) I used Microdot. Later on, on Windows machines it was CrossPoint. Again, I can't really remember the name of the interactive terminal software, but I think it was HyperTerminal. 2) Basically, via word-of-mouth from fellow local geeks. In the usual lingo, they wouldn't have been called servers at that time, though, but BBS (or "mailbox" in some places) 3) There were local hubs, but generally it was pretty fragmented and decentralised. To this day, I find it absolutely fascinating how local BBS regularly connected to regional hubs, which in turn connected to continental hubs, from which data then got exchanged with the rest of the world via the Internet and TCP/IP. An email from Europe to the US or a newsgroup post could still take a few hours to arrive at its destination. 4) In general, I want to say it used to be both kinder and more sophisticated than on most online sites and social media (figures ...) today, but to some extent that might be nostalgia talking. However, I particularly remember dedicated politics newsgroups where actual discourse about delicate and controversial subjects was possible - with people even agreeing with you, if your argument was conclusive - can you believe it? That doesn't mean it was all nice and civilised. Trolls and very vocal people with extreme positions existed at that time already. 5) Some things I remember: Amiga vs. ... (Atari, Mac, later on PC); the future of the Amiga; RISC chips Another fond memory that just came up is playing VGA Planets, which was a play-by-mail, multi-player turn-based strategy game. While technically you could actually play it via snailmail (what the cool kids used to call traditional physical delivery of letters at the time). the most common way of exchanging the data updates for each turn was via BBS. |
Might've been either NComm or Term. Another piece the puzzle I just remembered was compression utilities such as LHA (and later LZW).