On Fri, 1 Jan 1999, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
> It was thus said that the Great Noel Fields once stated:
> >
> > BBS' are still out there :) I run a 10 line one myself still! :)
>
> Interesting. And here I thought the days of BBSes were past [1]. What
> does your BBS provide that keeps enough people calling it? Once you have
> SMTP (email), FTP (file transfers), a private NNTP server (usenet or
> bulletin boards), HTTP (web, combining FTP and NNTP with varrying degress of
> success), IRC (chat mode) and MUDs (multi-user dungeons or multi-player
> adventure games), what does a BBS provide that all that doesn't?
>
> Not to put down BBSes, but I can't see what they would be good for
> anymore.
>
> -spc (Donning asbestos undies 8-)
No need for that, I think.
BBSes are, IMHO, a dying breed. However, they do still fulfill a niche
that the 'net does not. There are significant numbers of people who are
vastly inexperienced with use of computers, yet, they would like to get
on-line and, not incidentally, get some help. These folks are capable of
using - though intimidated by - a simple Telix (or such) DOS based
program to call up a local BBS, but windoze and Netscape are well beyond
their abilities. There is help to be found on most BBSes and it is
typically local so their may even be the possibility of on-site person to
person assistance.
There is also the local marketing aspect that the 'net can offer, but does
not do well. To my knowledge, there is not really any such thing as a
San Diego (or any other city) news group that contains only ads from that
city or immediate area. For some things, that narrow market can be a
real advantage.
- don
> [1] I stopped calling BBSes in 1991 when I got onto the Internet pretty
> much full time. When the Internet hit mainstream in 1993-94, I saw
> the handwriting on the wall for BBSes.
>
>
donm_at_cts.com
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Don Maslin - Keeper of the Dina-SIG CP/M System Disk Archives
Chairman, Dina-SIG of the San Diego Computer Society
Clinging tenaciously to the trailing edge of technology.
Sysop - Elephant's Graveyard (CP/M) Z-Node 9 - 619-454-8412
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*
see old system support at
http://www.psyber.com/~tcj
visit the "Unofficial" CP/M Web site at
http://devili.iki.fi/cpm
with Mirror at
http://www.mathcs.emory.edu/~cfs/cpm
Received on Fri Jan 01 1999 - 17:24:13 GMT