I don't know if I... I might have asked a variation of this, but is there something
with the Atari where you saw something else and you might have said, I really
wish my Atari could do that. I really wish my Atari had that ability. Yeah, there
there was. I mean, I was jealous of Telegard because it had a lot more power,
especially back when I was running the system called Mitchtron, which was
absolutely un-customizable. You couldn't change it if you tried. So I was jealous
of that, and later on there was a technology that emerged for the ST that
was the most amazing thing on earth. It basically let you run cartoons on your
computer, like, kind of really elaborate animations that looked good as your
BBS system. But I didn't have enough hard drive space or memory to run that, so that
didn't come to pass. You know, did you get, I mean, during your BBS days, did you get
up past 1,200? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. All right. I mean, don't insult me. I got all the way
to 24. But I was always 3 lowercase o, lowercase o, slash 12 lowercase o, lowercase o,
slash 24 lowercase o, lowercase o, because I remembered the early days when I
wasn't allowed on to some boards, because I didn't have high enough baud rate.
Do you understand their position, or do you think they were just being dumb?
No, they were jerks, because it was all about wares to them, whereas to me it was
about character. And you always ran it on its own line, right? Or did you
actually do it part-time? Yeah. No, I always had my own line for both my boards.
Did you ever deal with a part-time BBS? Yes, but usually not for long. You know, it
only takes a few calls to someone's mother in the middle of the night before you
give up. You realize you can't keep track of their schedule.
Coming back to that last question, I can remember that when I was calling other
people's boards before I ever developed my own board, some of them had themes, and
I was pretty impressed by that. Like, one of the BBS that I called was called the
Stupid BBS, and it was run by a sysop named Weird Al, and everything on the
board had something to do with Weird Al, or a Weird Al song, or UHF, and then
there was another one called The Wall of Rock, and everything on there had
something to do with Pink Floyd, and I was like, this is pretty awesome. So my friends
and I all, on our BBSes, we always had themes, but we rotated ours every week,
and we would usually, on all of our boards, like six or seven different boards,
we'd run the same theme at the same time. So for example, we'd have Depressed Week
on the BBSes, and then Apathy Week, and then, you know, Terror Week, and we would
just basically recustomize everything on a BBS that's customizable to fit the
theme. Did that work out for you? I mean, was that something... It amused us greatly,
yes. But, I mean, do you think the users appreciated your work? Ah, the users.
Can I ask you what your parents thought about you needing to get your online
instead of a BBS, or being involved at all? Did they pay for that? I mean, it must have
cost a bunch to get it installed. No, I paid for it. Yeah? Yeah, so they didn't have a K.
But they had no compunctions about you being in that community like they do
with girls? They were concerned once they found out that I was occasionally
dabbled in freeking. But other than that, they didn't care.
The... I mean, did you learn to drive at a regular time? I mean, 16 and everything?
No, later. Later? Yeah, like 18 or 19. So I mean, did you... I mean, do you think you
were living, as they might say, unbalanced because of it? I mean, did you not do
other things because of BBSes, or did you get to do things that you wouldn't have
done without BBSes? Oh, I definitely did things I wouldn't have done without BBSes.
Like, most people in my suburb never went to the city, whereas I went all the
time, because that's where I met the other losers. So I got to like city
living. And that was also where I met my first friends that had cars, because unlike
most people my age, I had friends who were over 20. And I mean, yeah, I would
say it created more opportunities than it prevented. I don't think it retarded my
growth socially. It just maybe pushed it in a weird direction. So you wouldn't
change it, say? Oh no, no, definitely not. You know, if you had to explain to somebody who
had never been on a BBS, what the draw of them was, what would you say was the draw?
I guess the opportunity to talk with a bunch of people who you would probably
never have any reason to talk to in a regular situation. Like people separated
from you by several generations, people from neighborhoods you would never
otherwise go into, cities you've never been to, people way richer or poorer than
you. Basically, instead of all your friends being from your class in high
school, you could be friends with anyone in your area code who had access to a
computer or a side area code if you're ambitious. For me, the appeal was, I
thought the most amazing thing was that you were yourself. The school that I went
to from nursery school through senior year of high school was a private school
that was about a hundred people in each class. And by the time I graduated, I had
known about 50 of those people since I was 3. So their opinions of me when I was
3 were the opinions they had of me when I was 18. And when I was 14, realizing
that I could enter an environment where I wasn't prejudged and where I wasn't
going to be judged on being a girl or what I was wearing or, you know, if I was
fat or anything that we make snap judgments about every five seconds when
we decide whether or not we're going to talk to someone or ignore them out in the
real world if we're at work or whatever, those things were all gone. I mean, I
think that I am so comfortable with myself now because I was given an
environment where it was completely safe to be myself and not have to run that
obstacle course that you run, especially as a teenager. And to me, meeting a bunch
of people when I was 14 that thought I was awesome when I had been going to
school with a bunch of people that thought I was lame, you know, it was
probably the most important thing that happened to me in terms of who I became,
in terms of, you know, validating the stuff in me that that was natural and
that I thought was good. You know, finding people that thought I was funny or
worth talking to you was a pretty big difference.
So for you, BBS's were a positive experience?
Well, yeah, of course. Are you interviewing any people that have a different take on that?
Um, I've interviewed people and asked them what I consider to be softball questions
that have elicited unusual answers.
There were some people I met at BBS meets and stuff like that and once I'd met them,
we weren't as close as we'd been before. For example, one of my closest ups, who
naturally, I had made a closest up because she was a girl and as it turned
out, he was a guy. I didn't like him as much after that.
The romance just didn't fly like you had hoped it was. You tried to make it work, it just didn't work.
I don't think I'd really been romantically attracted, but I had thought the idea of
communicating with a girl was pretty radical.
I seem to remember that the way it went was I would be signing up and I would enter that I was female
and then suddenly I'd be in chat mode.
I don't have that chat mode.
The syshop is breaking into chat.
Type F again. That turns me on.
You didn't miss type, did you?
My mom was of course, she's very protective, but she was quite suspicious of me being involved in these things.
She didn't mind me being online or anything, but she was worried about when it came down to real life people meeting me.
Of course, she was convinced that if somebody found out my name and address, they were probably an axe murderer.
That's true, actually.
Yeah, I know. So when it came time to first start meeting people, I was 14, I didn't have a car.
They all lived at least 40 miles away.
And I said, Mom, Dad, can I have a ride to the suburbs? I want to meet some friends.
And in order to even go, she made me type up a list of everyone who was going to be in attendance,
their name, their full name, their age, their phone number, their address, and what their occupation was.
Presumably in case she needed to give all those bits of information to the authorities when I didn't turn up.
One of my friends was a filmmaker at the time. He's working in Hollywood now.
I said, Oh, you know, my friend Eric makes movies. What kind of movies?
So it was a struggle. But once she met them and realized that they were sort of the opposite of...
Not that they weren't interested in girls, but they were hardly creepy old men.
They were more like developmentally retarded young boys. She wasn't scared anymore.
Just sad you had to get this 40 miles away as opposed to...
Well, yeah, but that was how it ended up being. But because of that, I mean, yeah, you had to come to the city.
That's great. I had to go to the suburbs.
I got, well, let's go to the mall. Not too good.
But I also did meet up with a lot of people who drove and a lot of people who knew a lot of places.
And I had a much more active social life, I think, than I would have if I hadn't met those people.
I know that. Some of it was really lame, but it's fun.
My friends and I always referred to ourselves as geeks, and we referred to the act of using BBSs as geeking.
But in spite of that, I think we thought we were cooler than everyone, you know, in our own way.
It never mutated into G-E-Q-I-N-G, did it?
No.
Excellent. Just being short. I won't have to erase the tape and shoot you.
Well, because you know how things are. You can watch something slowly mutate along the different groups until eventually it's...
Like, for instance, the whole recent Juarez thing, which a lot of people think is...
I actually had a guy tell me that Juarez was a reference to an 18th century Spanish pirate, which was where they had gotten it from.
I was like, okay. That's incredible.
That's really good.
And you're like, I don't even want to really burst that mythology. That's really good. That's a good one.
And that'll be the one that's the best of course.
No, it's true, actually. He was famous for his UL, the L ratio.
Yeah, that's right. His ratio with four R's. R-R-R ratio.
Did you... I mean, you ever heard of Leech Z-Modem?
Z-Modem? No. Leech was just an online game for us.
But in the old days, they had to do it the old-fashioned way and call you at your house and threaten you.
Ask more questions.
Okay, fine.
Sorry. I'm getting excited again and we're probably only going to do this tape.
I don't have a problem with a five minute third tape. Don't worry about that.
Like I told him, these tapes cost me five bucks for an hour. So we can blow a Lincoln on it.
Or five loonies.
In terms of the user community that you were a part of, were there any highlights that you can think of?
That were things where stuff was happening and you look back and you say, well, that was a really good...
Like in other words, you might have a certain... There might be a peak, you might say, or some event where you're like,
and we had this event, we normally never did this, and this was incredible.
Is there anything like that that you can think of or any sort of a contest or an interbord war or just any kind of highlight?
I can think of a thousand stories that answer that question. You want to go first?
I can't think of any golden age, so you shoot.
Well, we had golden ages. I mean, we had what we called the golden age of text files,
which was back when text files were the best thing that you could possibly have on PBS.
Like, they were better than wares, and they were better than messages, certainly, or games.
But there was a time when people were just competing to see how many text files they could have, and of what quality.
And we were all writing stories and other silliness like crazy,
and everyone would try and upload at least a story a day to some boards, including mine.
And that was a really great time. That was when I started thinking of myself as a writer,
and I think a lot of the other people I knew the same thing.
Did you keep any of them?
Yeah, yeah. I have hundreds of them.
And did you... obviously we have to phrase and answer carefully, but do you continue to use those skills?
Yeah, yeah. I still make zines. One of the zines I publish is called Yip, and I'm a writer slash editor as my job.
And you would say, I mean, was it a case that the BBS fomented this for you? I mean, it sounds like it did.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, communication for me is writing.
And I'm basically translating things into words in order to speak,
but I think I usually see the ASCII in the air and then pronounce it.
Do you find that people... you know, nowadays, when you talk and deal with people who are online
or come to your websites and so on, I mean, ostensibly you talk to some amount with people
who are of a more recent vintage online. Do you find them worse off for having not gone through BBSes first or better off?
They're worse off, yeah. They have my sympathy because they missed out on something that was really good
and something I don't really understand why it ended.
It was a different experience back when everyone was in the same area code and nobody was...
I mean, broadly speaking, nobody was in it for the money. Everyone was in it because they loved it.
And everyone was figuring it out at the same time, I think.
Yeah, basically, I mean, if you called the BBS, it was hard to deny that you were doing it
for the purpose of making friends, whereas I think a relatively small percentage of internet users
would say that's the main reason they use the internet.
I mean, they would say it's to communicate with friends or relatives or to do business or
to find out about products they can buy and stuff like that.
But not many people would say, yeah, I want to make friends.
Also, to download more porn in one evening than the total size of all communication on BBS is an 84.
Yeah, but this modern porn, it's crap. It doesn't match up to the old ASCII stuff.
That was...
Like the ASCII boobs?
The ASCII boobs are awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah, actually, I have a number of... I was actually busted when I was 12 for selling ASCII
pornography in my school.
Wow, what a thing to go to prison for.
That was a great time.
Was it yours?
No, I was actually a reseller.
You had ASCII children, is it?
No, no, no. It was digitized Playboy.
Oh, times were good. Well, that's the thing. I mean, at the time, one of the things that you
notice is there's stuff there that's... One thing which I'm trying to pull out of people,
which is a bit of a pain, is the difference in what represented precious currency back then
compared to now.
I think I achieved co-sys op status on a lot of boards by just writing good messages and
uploading good stories. That made me a desirable user in some quarters, which was strange.
Probably would never happen now.
A particularly good writer that earns you credit, that earns you space in a place.
And a place that says, you are so good at writing, we want you to help run it.
But even beyond that, I've wanted to get on tape people's opinions of things like hardware
conflict, this versus that.
I had a base devoted to it on my BDS, which I personally didn't read.
And it's funny, because now everyone I talk to, every single person pretty much goes,
eh, it was just a bunch of crap. And it's so sad. It's like interviewing a bunch of World War II
veterans all going, eh, we shouldn't have had that battle. You want to tell me about it? Eh, no.
Germans weren't so bad.
Germans in the left, we've really come to terms since then. It's okay. You don't get any details.
You don't get any of the... I actually had a guy who I interviewed who was...
They were on a quest to destroy the local de-dial. They were against the de-dial.
And on camera, one of them mentioned to the other, how he's like, yeah, I never really
mentioned this, but I kind of went to one of the gatherings at one point to meet this girl.
What? You traitor! And it's just a beautiful little moment.
I asked him why he took his BBS down, and that was because his girlfriend wanted to call him
at night, and he couldn't use the main one. And he just went, girlfriend, BBS.
And that was the end of his BBS.
Why didn't you just get her a modem?
Well, I don't think that they... I don't think she related to the modem at all.
Yeah, that's right.
Weird.
Weird.
She didn't like it, sorry. Don't like your motorcycle? And you sell the motorcycle instead
of buying her a helmet? I like this, because she can type really fast, and then later on,
I noticed she was pretty. So, she's pretty good.
Yeah, that's right. What are your measurements? 70, 80 words per minute?
Do you see anything online on the web at this point that parkens you back to BBSes?
Pyroto?
Pyroto was the big hope. I mean, Pyroto was probably my best experience in all of BBSing.
It was totally addictive and wonderful. And when I saw that that was coming back to the web,
I was like, good, I'll quit my job, spend my days playing Pyroto.
But it turned out to not be as good as it used to be.
Yeah. It's not the same on the web.
Tim contends that, of course, or contests that, I should say, about its quality now versus then.
He has an impression, as he put it, he thought that a golden age
for people represents the first six months they were online.
No.
Oh, no, probably not.
I would.
I would like to delete any record of that that may exist.
Yeah, we'll just hurl that comment of Tim.
No. The first BBS I called was called Cybersquid. That was the first one I logged into successfully.
At that time, I was the stupidest person on Earth.
And they happened to have a very complete archive on that BBS.
So later on, when I was sort of the senior user on the BBS,
everyone really liked to occasionally quote my first message back to me.
Hello. How does this work? All caps.
Oh, so you actually could, I mean, ostensibly,
you could actually recall and deal with your first message.
Oh, yeah. I remember my first message clearly.
I was like, I don't know how this thing works, but my sisters and I are going to get some pizza.
I mean, these words were tossed back at my face on many occasions.
I read that at one of my speeches, I read a message.
When you answer the trivia question correctly,
you got to write a message that all the users could see.
And I wrote a message and I still, I just, and I read it out loud, this thing,
and I read it, and at the end, I just said, and that was me when I was 13.
You can just imagine, you got me credit cards, that bold, idiotic approach of just,
I just need a number and then I can order anything I want.
And it was like a bunch of that, in that thing.
I can do anything I want to. I'm smart. You all suck.
You all suck. And that just comes from growing up while being online, PBS,
and you see the maturity level increases.
So for you, there's not really a thing that you look at now that reminds you of PBS.
The closest thing would be a mailing list.
But yeah, a mailing list is a lot different. They're usually a huge geographic variety,
and like the chances of everyone on the mailing list getting together are usually pretty slim.
Regional newsgroups maybe, but they're all divided by topic.
So you don't get that different glimpses of people's personalities
as they post to the music board or the general board or whatever.
You just know that, you know, they eat out or they fix computers or whatever.
And usually the medium doesn't have any personality of its own.
It's only the people who are there.
Whereas with PBS, you are at the BBS, effectively.
It sounds to me like you have a belief that the environment that people interact in
should play a part in the conversations.
That sounds like a...
Yeah, I would say that.
I'm hearing it from you that it's not just a matter of that there should be a BBS where
people post on.
There should be a BBS, and the BBS software itself should take an active role in getting people...
Well, I don't only miss the people.
The people are still around.
I'm still friends with the majority of them.
But I miss BBSing, which you can't do anymore, really.
I mean, you can tell that to PBSes, but that's pretty pathetic.
So you don't buy into the telnet BBSes?
No, I don't think so.
I don't think they're anything like BBSes were.
They're usually very sparsely populated by people who live in different countries.
It's not the same thing.
You don't appreciate something if you never get a busy signal.
That's true.
I think that was one of the biggest downsides of Pyroto when it went to the web.
You could always get on.
That sucked.
Part of the thing with Pyroto, when me and my friends were making a big move on Pyroto,
we'd be like, okay, I'm going to log off in one minute.
You have to get ready to autodial in ten, nine, and then stay on for exactly three hours.
That's when I can call again.
Okay, so for you, the lack of convenience was part of the quality.
Oh, yeah.
When there's a limitless supply of Pyroto, then it doesn't seem quite as precious.
But when you are only allowed one call every 12 hours and you're not even sure if you can
get through, and if there's some line noise and you accidentally get hung up on your idle lock,
it makes it pretty sweet while you're there.
So for you, it sounds like Pyroto would have been between a rock and a hard place
to maintain you as a user because they couldn't stay with BBSs.
It sounds like there would have been inherent flaws in the web setup.
Is there a way they could have done it in a way that you would have liked?
Yes.
I won't ask you to give out a full critique.
Okay, so there is something.
It's not just a, I mean, it's new and I don't like it and I can't tell you why.
Oh, no, no, no.
It's pretty easy to quantify.
They could have just said, you know, you can only call once every 24 hours or something like that.
But they didn't.
They, you can pretty much stay online all day with WebPyroto.
You have to just keep, just keep delivering, get your pill.
Yeah, the, I mean, the crucial difference between Pyroto then and WebPyroto now and
BBSs versus websites is it became about banner ads instead of a social experiment.
Oh, so you, it sounds like for you, like the thing that doesn't get, I mean, I look back
on BBSs and I remember pay BBSs.
I remember BBSs with ads on them.
I remember.
Ads?
Sure.
That's how I think of diversidiles actually.
Diversidiles always used to have ads as I, as I use them.
Ads for what?
Whatever, the, the, the thing, the, the diversidile itself, local vendors,
software that was being sold.
Whoa.
Yeah.
See the diversidile?
We interrupt your chat to tell you this and you would go, buh.
No, that would, that would make sense.
I guess if it was a real name board, but the details I called were purely social and there
was no, there was no advertising of any kind.
There was, it wasn't about being on a computer.
It was about talking to people.
The slush ends were all song lyrics or what someone was wearing or some really incredibly
pithy thought that some nine year old had that day.
I don't remember ever seeing an ad except for a BBS or a hacking group.
Now, did you, um, when, when, when, now there was a period of time from like late 89 onward
when BBS software starts getting four color ads in newspapers and starts getting boxes
and starts selling for 500 or a thousand dollars.
Granted, there are hundreds of free ones, but I'm saying there's a sudden attempt to
make it pay, to make it legitimate, to make it, uh, an industry.
I mean, did you, were you cognizant of that or was that just something happening off in
the distance?
That was not on my radar personally.
Uh, it was a huge deal when red rider became white night.
That was when everyone sort of decided whether or not they were going with the,
with the sellout or, or the Indy or whatever.
Whether they're going to show up at Watson's house with a sock full of sand.
Yeah.
I mean, why, why are we going to pay all this money for something we've been enjoying
that was fine for years?
And why do you think it's so great?
And I don't know, everyone switched to Z term, which was way better.
So for you, you didn't buy in, you didn't think this was.
I think I tried it, but it was no big deal.
What was happening in the compression area was a little more interesting actually.
And to some extent with, uh, what was it called?
Point software and, uh, Fido net clients for the Mac that was getting commercialized as
well.
Uh, there were two kinds, I think, and that started out as free stuff.
But then, then it became something that they actually tried to market as, uh, point software
for Fido net, which, wow, there was no market there.
Um, yeah, so I'm thinking of, I mean, were you, you were a part of Fido net?
I was the moderator of echo Mac when I was 15.
And you were not, I think.
You used Fido net.
I didn't help run it.
I was there and that was a real experience because here I was 15 and here were these
people, adults, supposedly calling me to complain about their personal relationships with one
another on the, on the news group, which had nothing to do with posts about, you know,
the new version of columns or whatever we were talking about.
Uh, but I had, I had to manage this couple of sorts that one of them was in DC, one was
in Palo Alto.
They were grownups.
They had apparently gone together at some point and had sex and now we're antagonizing
one another across the news group.
And here I am.
I'm a freshman in high school and they're calling me on the phone.
You've got to, you've got to make him stop.
You got to ban him from the group.
You got to do this.
You got to do that.
Real drama.
Um, and I think that even the stuff that is supposed to be computer-based, you know,
we're all people, so it all comes back down to the dynamics and the relationships.
But that's why we went to.
Now it had just been about, you know, bits and bytes.
I don't think anybody, I don't think it would have captured anyone's heart.
You didn't, uh, I mean, you didn't run a BBS, so you were a moderator on someone else's
BBS, right?
I was a point actually.
No, you were a point.
Okay.
I was a point.
Yep.
I count that as being a BBS, just a very quiet one.
All right.
I mean, all I did was receive and send FidoNet messages, but.
Well, that's something because getting out of the FidoNet for some people is a huge
pain in the ass.
Yeah.
And you have to, you know, convince your, some, no, the way it is now or the way it
was for a long time was you had to convince the hub to give you a number.
Right.
And some of them were not so nice about it.
I guess it wasn't that popular.
I think I was point two or point three, and I don't think there were many more than me.
That net?
Okay.
Yep.
Um, now what year is this that you're a?
Uh, 1989, 1990.
Okay.
So you're, you're coming right off the tail end of the International FidoNet
Association, the FNA, um, and, uh, things are still pretty jumping actually on FidoNet.
Oh, yeah.
Plenty going on.
So for you, I mean, you liked FidoNet?
I mean, did you, did you, I mean, ostensibly you stumbled upon it at some point.
Sure. It was, uh, the way it tended to work on the couple of boards that I called that
had it would be, you know, you got the regular news groups and then there are the FidoNet
news groups or the message boards rather.
Yeah.
And in Toronto, there were also the IP net groups.
I mean, you, you alternate.
I don't know what's going on.
You're, um, that's interesting to me because I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm speaking to Tom Jennings
and, um, you know, Mr. Mr. Madrigal and I just ended up speaking to Fido news editor
number 11 and I'm going to be speaking to Mr. Baker and Pozar and a bunch of people
who are FidoNet architects.
And I'm always interested what people's, what your reaction is when you first stumble
upon FidoNet.
That is to say, you're like, there's a what?
Like when you see the door out.
Well, just when you, just when you, just however, I mean, you, you go, there's a what?
With what?
Where?
Doing what?
Yeah, because most people are like, it's a BBS, it's a BBS.
Oh, there's 30,000 BBSs.
Not only it's a BBS, it's a BBS, but why is my BBS busy?
Oh, because it pulls for news every four hours.
What?
The BBS is calling another BBS?
Whoa.
Yeah, I mean, I thought it was cool.
Um, obviously it didn't have the appeal of the fact that you might have a lot more in
common with the people because they're regional, but I just thought, oh, more topics.
This is great.
One of the, um, one of the, the FidoNet news editor who I interviewed told me that for
him, one of the draws was, um, what's his name?
Might've been actually the other guy.
I interviewed 11 FidoNet people in one weekend in a category.
But one of the ones, one of the ones they told me about, they loved about FidoNet was
that you post something and the first people who responded would be near you.
Right.
The next people who responded to you would be sort of near you.
And eventually people from around the world are going, yeah, I have this to say.
So you had this very weird geographical wave feel to it because it would have, you know,
locals would say something and then you'd get this wave of other folks.
I'll tell you when I really felt cool was when it got back to me or I got an email,
I guess, from a guy, uh, in Minneapolis who,
now my father's, he had me at, at, at a later age, so he's, he had me when he was 44.
So he had already done quite a bit with life.
So here I am 15 and I'm moderating this group.
I'm in charge of all these people basically.
And, uh, this guy writes me, he says, I noticed, you know, that your name is, is such and such.
Um, is this your dad?
And I said, yeah.
And he said, oh yeah, my, your dad was, uh, I was his first graduate student.
I was his first graduate student. So my dad's very first graduate student, who's like 55,
he's under me on this new scoop. I'm 15.
That's pretty mind blowing.
Forever subjugated to your family.
Yeah.
Be sure to fill them out, you know?
Yeah.
Just block all his posts.
Yeah. Dad said you were a bit of a sucker.
I'm out of here now.
Um, and, uh, no, there, there are actually other nets that existed.
I don't know if you dealt with any, did you deal with any?
I'm, if you spit them out, I'll be able to ping you back.
Ice net, there was, um, what were four net, there was rhyme, there was, um, um,
um, there was a number of subnets, there was Nirvana net, there was, um,
there's all these ones. I just wanted to see if there were any that you bumped into.
Did you?
Ice net sounds familiar. I didn't really care for the, the nets that much.
Yes, they had more topics and some of those topics were interesting, but
I wasn't all that interested in people I would never meet.
So they have a real strong geographical sense from you, is what you're saying.
I guess so. I don't know, it seems strange. I mean, I feel petty or something, but, um.
There is no pettiness.
But I was, I certainly liked the idea of talking to people across town more than,
I mean, no, no, that's not even true because I thought it was really cool and really easy.
When you could talk to somebody in the United States, especially if you could pull it off for free.
Whew. But that had novelty value. Your friends or online friends were more interesting as a general rule.
The news in the United States with the bad news is they're in Buffalo.
Buffalo was exotic. Did you ever, did you ever do any cross country, like other, besides the United States,
any European or that you remember with Fidos or was it just, you know.
I don't remember anything like that. Like, you know, there were definitely cross country people,
but not, I don't remember people in other countries. There may have been, but I don't really.
I don't remember people in other countries. There may have been, but I don't really.
I remember it making an impression on me.
In terms of other outreaches, I think I called a long-distance BBS once.
I think I probably called Penn and Teller's BBS.
Yeah, it wasn't that good.
No, it's not.
And I laughed.
It's great to call Penn and Teller's BBS, except A, Penn and Teller aren't there.
And B, it's not exactly, it just was like, okay.
Yeah, here's a funny board. Okay. Not that funny. Bye.
Magic mofos, or I think what it would be. The mofo or the mofo BBS or something.
I don't even remember. I just remember that it sort of sucked.
I always think about interviewing them about it. And then A, they probably would say no.
And B, I don't think they actually ran it. The impression I get is like, for instance, Penn's,
like Teller's website is run by an assistant. You know what I mean?
Probably.
The impression they ever really, not like, you know, like Jerry Purnell,
who you knew actually would do his own stuff, or those other guys were like that.
Or Will Wheaton, who runs his website. He really runs his website, you can tell.
It's not just like William Shatner's website, which is obviously run by a team.
And that's a major deal.
Or Gandalf. What's his name?
Ian McKellen.
Ian McKellen's webpage is so bad. You know, he's doing it.
He didn't come up with that alias.
It's terrible. Yeah.
The guy, the only guy that's still using Gandalf, Serene McKellen.
Oh, I think a lot of people are still using Gandalf.
That's the best part. It's about how people are A, still using old handles,
and B, think they're the first.
Nobody would think they use Inspector Gadget.
Oh, your name is Lieutenant Commander Data.
Yeah, but these days they'll sign up to Hotmail or something.
Exactly.
Welcome. We suggest you use the handle Iceman8966.
That's the best part. The best part is the number.
Because the number is just that way of saying, you know,
you are so not unique, we had to number you to make you fit in with the others.
Yeah, I think that's what Microsoft is up to there.
Please do not think you're special.
I don't know. What else? Is there anything?
I've been hitting you, like, you know, just random sucker punches
all up and down your timeline. I haven't really...
I took you away from your linearity.
Is there something that's brewing or that comes to your mind?
At some point along the way, I was thinking of telling you about
some of the colonizing efforts where we tried to spread our particular take on BBSs.
Sometimes through places that didn't really want it, like boards that were really PD
or boards that were really pirate, and to adult BBSs, which in Toronto at least,
or in my experience at least, were a later phenomenon.
They weren't there when I started, and they came, unfortunately.
But we not only tried to convert any board that showed any sign
of having a touch of silliness or absurdity to it,
we would also go to boards that we thought were too normal.
Like, everyone there, including the Sysop, was too normal,
and we engaged in an activity that we called Viking, which basically,
we would try and overrun the board with our personality.
Like, we would have a few dozen people, and we'd just go in,
and we'd start talking to all the regulars, and, you know,
they'd be, like, talking about, I don't know, whatever.
Protocols or, I don't know, packets or something.
Or wares, and we'd just reply something totally out of left field
or something like that, and really engage them.
And we were doing it sincerely, we weren't just doing it to make fun of them,
but it was often pretty unwelcome.
What, I mean, the corollary to that for details was called twitting.
Somebody that was sort of a garbage user was called a twit.
What garbage user?
Well, I know you weren't trying to annoy,
but you may have been perceived as that.
But the people that were really sort of not really,
you didn't really want them, and they called up to,
I don't know why they even called, sometimes they called to antagonize,
but other times they were just dumb.
They were twits.
I really like the sort of real social hierarchy on the D-dials,
especially because there was commerce involved.
As you were divided into subs, people who have a subscription,
that is a hard bracket, and could stay on for an hour or whatever,
and nones, and they were just called nones,
which makes them sound, like, untouchable or something.
They had nine minutes unless they had a friend online with a co,
which is a pointy bracket.
If you have your co on, you don't have to enter it,
so you don't have to show that you're a co,
but you sort of put on your cloak of co-ness,
and then you can start fucking with shit.
But the best twit that I remember was a guy who called both Chicago D-dials,
and his name was Ressler, lowercase,
and he never talked on the public channel to anyone,
but he would log on, and within about a minute,
every single person would have gotten a private message that said,
do you like to wrestle?
That's about all he had to say.
And to this day, I don't know how many people were Ressler,
but I think there was at least one genuine Ressler,
and everyone hated him because they thought he was annoying.
He took up a line.
I mean, it's a big deal to be taking up a line if you're a waste of space.
If you've got a six-line board, you've got people that want to come in,
and you can't see for hours.
So one time, I engaged Ressler in a pretty lengthy conversation
beyond just whether I liked to wrestle,
and I arranged to meet him,
and because I had taken this interest in all these people in the suburbs,
I had actually called Illinois Bell and ordered all the suburban phone books,
and I asked him what suburb he lived in,
and so I went and I found the phone book for that part of the city
and looked up the address of a Dunkin' Donuts,
and I told him that that was my house.
Like, I just gave that address as my address,
and I said, oh, go there on this day. We'll meet up,
and I kind of wanted to go,
but that wasn't really what I was up to.
So the next time I saw him online,
I found out he actually went because he says,
where were you? I waited at the Dunkin' Donuts,
and then it just hit me, oh, my God, maybe Ressler's really a real guy.
He's not just, like, the best joke there ever was.
I felt pretty bad, but I honestly thought he was
one of the many villains that we already knew.
Just, I mean, it's a pretty easy schtick.
It's not too complicated, so I thought it was going to be, like,
five big guys that would beat me up when I got there,
so I didn't go, and then I thought maybe, wow,
maybe it is just this really, really pathetic little guy
who just likes to wrestle.
Who likes to know if other people like to wrestle?
Yeah, well, he was named Ressler.
Well, maybe that's because he knew that's what, I mean,
when you dress up as a cheese to attract mice,
you don't really want to be a cheese.
You just know that's what gets mice.
So maybe he was just being Ressler
because that's who wrestlers talk to.
Wrestlers talk to wrestlers.
No, that's totally true.
Maybe he just wanted a guide.
He wanted to enter the world of wrestling,
and he didn't know where to start,
but a wrestler would show him.
No.
I mean, I didn't frequent places where,
I mean, I wasn't going out for wearers.
Like, actually, one of the real name boards
that I was on for years,
I had no idea they had an elite section.
I had no idea, and boy was I surprised
because they talked a good talk on the main boards,
a good talk about how bad piracy was,
and then one day Chuck just says,
you know what, I've given you more access.
Boy was I surprised to find I could get any program
I wanted on this board that I already had been
in good standing on for years.
It really blew me away, but I think maybe
because I had acted like I wasn't interested
and like I kind of was a goody-goody or something,
I didn't have anything to do with that.
But, you know, I knew people that,
eventually later in high school did meet people
like in classes that, you know,
claimed to call Ripco and have card numbers
and stuff like that, but I could tell by,
you know, what jerks they were
that it wasn't a place I wanted to be.
And I didn't really believe in stealing
from people's credit cards.
Well, yeah, it's kind of a tough one to pull.
Yeah.
When that first number goes by and you're like,
oh, what are you thinking? Oh, it's so bad.
It's like the first time to her
when she was up at the party.
Oh, no, I'm going outside. I've got to go outside.
You know, you're just like, okay,
there's a threshold being crossed
and I'm not going there and I'll be over here
selling threshold T-shirts because I'm not going in.
Back in the day before they came up with the,
these are only for your backup rationalization,
which I love.
Oh, no.
Oh, you have those?
Me and my friends were using that from the very start.
And every time we gave each other something,
now, you know, buy this if you like it.
Right.
And absolutely say yes.
Wow.
But, you know, we did that.
Now it's a game. I don't think we ever bought one.
Right.
Yeah, there's a, there's a,
well, now there's a really interesting
complicated series of, of, of,
ah, ah, ah, ah.
That level of legal,
what do you call it,
legal trickery that kids who don't,
who barely understand the concept of,
oh, say, the Bill of Rights or
basic habeas corpus or anything like that
will pull out this 18 paragraph thing
that they think protects them.
You know, that, that, that,
I've seen that in the early 80s.
They do that.
You are aware you cannot be a member of law enforcement.
And that being on here,
if you're not a member of law enforcement,
automatically...
I believe the popular phrasing was,
are you a cop?
Why?
Plus, plus, plus A-T-H.
Are you a fed?
Are you a fed?
Are you a cop?
Are you a fed?
Yeah, that, that actually protected you completely.
You could never be prosecuted if you had that on your safe.
Is it before or after MRF?
Like, hmm,
I don't know about that one.
Cause, cause, cause that's a,
like, I could imagine the programming.
It says, well, he's a cop,
but it's a chick.
Come on!
Woohoo!
Police woman!
That's kind of hot, yeah.
Dude, she's got a gun.
I, I did call a board.
There was one Yip BBS called Stellar Systems
that was shut down by the RCMP.
And the guy who ran it,
Death Warden, you know,
I considered him a good friend,
but I never had his phone number.
And that was in the days before email.
So that was it.
Never heard from him again.
If you lost your modem, you lost all your friends.
That was true with some girls I liked too.
Like, their parents would get angry at them.
They would confiscate their modem,
and their relationship just sort of waited
until they managed to sneak the modem back.
The Montagues have taken away her own modem.
Oh no, she's a Montague.
She's a Montague when she's not elite.
Yeah, my parents would never let me go out with anyone
who didn't have one-day-old wares.
That's right.
Anyway, that's pretty much it for this tape.
We're down under 30 seconds.
Now, do we want to go to the third tape,
or where do you feel?
I think we've got a little more.
Okay.
We'll do that.
Sure.
I'm not bored.
Yeah, I'm not bored either.
I've got a little more for you.
I'm not bored.
I'm not tired.
I'm not sitting there trying to drag stuff out again.
Would you like a drink?
Nah.
Okay.
We've got a couple more funny anecdotes.