But that was OK! Because BBS's worked like Usenet. You logged in, checked your messages, and logged out. A lot of multi-line BBS's had lines dedicated to downloads and lines dedicated to interactive use.
I am having a weird time-travel moment remembering Telix continuously trying to redial through busy signals to BBS's to play my next turn on some door game while I listened to Smiths songs on FM radio and soldered crystals into Radio Shack touchpads so I could get free calls from pay phones.
Let's see how many of those concepts the median HN user remembers. :)
Telix but not Telemate? ISTR the scripting language for Telemate was really nice and I definitely built something pretty sophisticated for x25 NUA scanning.
Payphone hacking was not much of a thing in Brazil but I spent days on Bluebeep on international R2 connections. It is amazing to think how hard you had to work to be able to call abroad. The scarcity in everything made for a lot of fun.
Toneloc was also something I recall from the era that was outstanding. It is a pity I never printed out the full exchange scans I had, as they were beautiful.
I am having a weird time-travel moment remembering Telix continuously trying to redial through busy signals to BBS's to play my next turn on some door game while I listened to Smiths songs on FM radio and soldered crystals into Radio Shack touchpads so I could get free calls from pay phones.
Let's see how many of those concepts the median HN user remembers. :)