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Online bulletin board inventor Randy Suess dies at 74
It's a sad week if you've ever posted on a social network or an internet forum. Randy Suess, the creator of the software for first online public bulletin board, died on December 10th at the age of 74. He and Ward Christensen built the Computer Bulletin Board System (CBBS) in 1978 to give users a central place to float ideas, post notices and otherwise coordinate without meeting in person. Of course, it wasn't nearly as sophisticated as the giant internet services you see today -- CBBS revolved around a customized personal computer that required a dial-up modem to access.
Back in the BBS days: how-to helps newbs navigate to a pre-internet playground
The web has an origin story, one that predates any cozy trip in the wayback machine. That's because where we're going, there is no internet -- at least, not as you now know it -- only Bulletin Board Systems. And to help guide curious digital natives on this journey back to the time tech forgot, a programmer by the handle of Proppelerpowered has whipped up a how-to that leverages nothing more than a microcontroller-based microcomputer and BASIC knowledge. The brief step-by-step, listed over on Instructables, requires intrepid geeks to build a Pocket Mini computer, which purportedly takes only "an evening," after which they'll have to tinker with some low-level coding to complete the connection setup, hitch a ride online via PC and then link up with any number of active BBSs around the world. For the purposes of this beginner guide, you'll have instructions for access to a Canada-based Commodore 64 clearly laid out. But the more adept are encouraged to swap out the standard setup for an ANSI terminal and wade into serious retro-gaming waters (Trade Wars, anyone?). Hit up the source below to peek the blow-by-blow and see if this hack's made for you.
BBS version of Google takes you back in time, won't hog your phone line
If the third digit of your birth year is a nine (or heck, a zero), you'll likely never have experienced the true agony joy that was BBS or Bulletin Board Systems. Well, thanks to nostalgic developer Norbert Landsteiner, you can take a glimpse at how your dad got online with an HTML / JavaScript emulation BBS Google. Likewise, more seasoned travelers of the internet can take a trip down memory lane and see what Mountain View's search engine might have looked like "back in the day." All the details are there, right down to the familiar modem tones and ASCII graphics, it's even somewhat functional (when the API isn't over its limit.) So, want to appreciate that browser you complain about on twitter all the time over your LTE connection? Tab on down to the source link for a lesson in gratitude.
Dream a little dream of Allods Online's patch 1.1.02
Patch 1.1 was a contentious period in the life of Allods Online, but the dev team is hoping to get past the controversy with the impressive improvements of patch 1.1.02. Although those excessive decimal points may not instill your heart with awe, the patch is quite beefy indeed. At the cornerstone of this update is a new zone, the Dream Factory. Meant for level 22 Imperial players, the Dream Factory will shed some light on Yasker's war against the League. Also included in the update is a bevy of new social options, including a calendar and a bulletin board system. The bulletin board offers three helpful features: guild announcements, general announcements and a looking-for-group tool. Most of the classes were on the business end of a major tune-up, and as a result, affected classes have had their talents and rubies reset. The patch notes list extensive changes for classes such as the warrior, although scouts are left with this maddeningly vague statement: "Significantly changed all spells and abilities." It's a new minigame: figure out what "significant changes" have been made to your class! You can read the full patch notes over at Allods Online.
The Game Archaeologist and the SysOp's Sinister Stratagem
When you think of MMORPGs, I wouldn't blame you if your mind stayed rooted firmly in the past decade or so, perhaps taking a brief vacation to 1997 before returning to today's 3-D polygonal glory. But it's not like people just woke up in the late 90's, looked at each other, and said, "Hmm. Online multiplayer RPGs. Let's make it happen!" On the contrary, history had been building up to that moment for quite some time. Tabletop RPGs and computer MUDs (multi-user dungeons) were both important ancestors of modern MMOs, just as was a mostly forgotten piece of software lore: the bulletin board system, also known as the BBS. In layman's terms, BBSes were like pocket internets -- host computers that allowed anyone to dial up and use special programs remotely. While BBSes weren't (initially) tied together like the world wide web, they featured a lot of the elements that would make the WWW so popular, such as email, forums, and, yes, online games. Today's special one-shot Game Archaeologist will take a brief look at the history of the BBS, as well as a couple of its games that could be considered "MORPGs" (like the renowned website, the "Massively" part would be a while in coming). Dial up, gentle readers, and make your hissing modem noises!
