BBS software for the PDP 11

[allison]

On 5/18/17 3:14 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
> On 05/18/2017 10:44 AM, geneb wrote:
>
>> Because.  That's why. :)
> Well, okay--but then let's be period-correct.  The PDP-11 dates from
> 1970, when, AFAIK, BBSes, if they existed, were far from what people
> think they were.
>
> I'm thinking of,say, Call Computer in Mountain View, frequented by the
> HCC people.   300 baud, usually acoustic coupler-type (in 1970, the
> implications of the Carterfone decision had just begun to set in.)
>
> Mostly a real bulletin board in the sense of posting group messages.
>
> That ran on what, an HP 3000?  And whatever happened to Alex?
>
> --Chuck
BBSs are really the thing from about 1978 to pre-internet (varied where 
you lived).
Examples of the big BBS are Source, Delphi, Well, STD(software tool and 
die), and
the big one Compuserve.  Small ones like Sage and those mentioned by 
inference
on the Walnutcreek CD are the more common small guys.

BBSs sorta were the big deal around 1980 to 19?? and the early ones were 
mostly '
Either Z80 or 6502 based with a few others of the era.  PCs were later 
and kept it
going.  They didn't offer speed but they were the platform of the day 
and during
the clone wars (Tandy, and others) offered cheaper hardware it moved there.

Never forget, BBS were about storage and cheap which at that time were 
mostly
opposed (disks weren't cheap!).  The amount of Ram and CPU were less 
important
considering what had to be done.  Often the modem and hard disk were as 
costly
as the basic system and we didn't exceed 2400 baud till '85or later.  
Most anything
could keep up with IO at under 4800 baud.



Allison