On 06/28/18, Grant Edwards pondered and said... GE> OK, I've got to ask... GE> Why are there still BBSes? GE> GE> Who even has a modem these days? [OK, I'll admit my 11 year old GE> Thinkpad T500 has a built-in POTS modem, but it's never been used.]
Hi Grant. How long do you have? :) Most BBS are connected using the internet these days and mostly run for fun, nostalgic and curiosity reasons by former and new sysops. Most systems don't enjoy the caller numbers of the heyday 1990s but rather are largely used by the sysop to engage in message networks and the BBS community that exists in 2018. I was a former sysop in my 20s in the 1990s and got back in to it around 2013. What I have found is that the scene is again growing, mostly due to nostalgia, but also out of a desire to escape big-brother social media e.g Facebook. People also like the simple UI for reading messages etc. As to the how... well, messages / files etc. are now largely sent via the internet not POTS (plain old telephone) and BinkP is a popular protocol using port 24554. BBS software is still under active development by a few authors who have kept their offerings in step with 2018. So I use Mystic BBS (mysticbbs.com) and you will see it offers a bunch of services and runs on Linux, Windows, Raspberry Pi. I also run a message network called fsxNet (fun, simple, experimental network) that has nodes in USA, New Zealand, Europe, Asia etc. you can find out more by heading to bbs.nz or download an infopack at bbs.nz/fsxnet.zip. Lastly info about setting up Mystic can be found on a YouTube channel I set up called Mystic Guy (there ends the sales pitch :)) Other developers of BBS software active in 2018 include Synchronet BBS, now offerings including Magicka BBS, Enigma1/2 BBS... and WWIV is still about too. Hope that helps, perhaps intrigues you further. I'm happy to answer any questions and/or offer support to folks interested in this stuff. Python is being added to Mystic as a scripting tool by the author at the moment so this newsgroup / mail list is of interest to a bunch of folks :) Best, Paul -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
