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Good morning! Welcome back to the ValorosoIT channel, the channel dedicated to vintage computers.
I'm at Varese RetroComputing 2024 together with Michel Mammoliti of ESoCoP. Furthermore, you have already been on my channel @ValorosoIT last year, in the previous edition of Varese RetroComputing. But this year the topic is different: in fact, you will talk to us about BBS.
Exact! So, here we have a simulation of how BBSs worked which, if you like, were the version of the Internet before the Internet itself existed. Therefore, in a period of time between the end of the '70s and the first half of the '90s, those who wanted to offer a service to the public for sharing information, articles, messaging (a bit like how email works today, if you like), sharing files, programs, etc., practically set up this system at home to make this content available to the public.
So, what was this person doing? He had his computer, he connected it to a modem, which was obviously connected to the telephone line, he installed a software suite that made these contents available.
So this is the server?
This is the server, exactly! This here is the BBS server.
Ok, the BBS server.
Here, on this side, however, we have a client that can belong to a person who lives 20, 30, 40 km away and, in the middle, we have what is obviously simulated here: the old SIP telephone line, the old analogue line.
You also put an oscilloscope, I see.
The oscilloscope? Yes, it's because it's nice to look at, actually. Obviously it's not like there were oscilloscopes around that showed the telephone line signals, but for our demonstration at least let's also show what type of electrical signals traveled on the telephone wires.
Okay. Here we have the two modems: the client one and the server one. Here we have also placed a bell to make it clear when the ring arrives at the server and now we proceed to see this whole system in operation.
Ok fine. On the server we can see the software that powers our BBS already downloaded and running, which in this case is Maximus in version 3.01. Now we move to our client.
Okay. We dial the number, we give the modem the command to dial the number.
The famous ATDT.
ATDT: AT Dial Tone.
Exactly, because in Italy it was perhaps ATDP, if I'm not mistaken.
AT Dial Pulse.
Not only in Italy, but also in other countries, because before tones, before tone dialing, telephone number dialing worked in pulses. The old rotary telephones, for obvious reasons, could not work with touch tone because they sent trains of pulses on the line and that was all they were capable of doing.
So let's give the command.
So 31 will be the extension that is then called.
Ah, that sounds right!
Here we see: now the handshake is happening.
It used to be the carrier, right?
That's right, the handshake is happening between the two modems. They're basically agreeing on how to communicate with each other, what protocols to use, etc., speed and so on.
The connection is now established.
In fact the modems went silent.
The screen has changed on the server because it has accepted the call from the client and now we have to authenticate here.
We then move to the other computer, which is the client.
In fact, now the BBS manager has decided to also include welcome and instructional messages, which we will see shortly.
So we log in, confirm that it's me, enter the password.
Voilà!
Ah, ok, off to the BBS.
BBS has started. I want to underline that this BBS, what you see here, is not something that was created specifically for this event. This BBS really existed in the 90s and it belongs to Mr. Sergio Gervasini, who is here next to us, even if he is busy at the moment, and you interviewed him just now.
So we have practically brought this creation of his back to life which, in the 90s, actually traveled on Italian telephone lines and now we can see it here in operation.
Okay, so let's do Enter.
Here are more instructions.
Now we're not here to read everything.
Let's do Enter again.
There are already various bulletins here, various possibilities to choose from.
If we do Enter again, at this point... we don't look at the mail because we don't have any messages anyway.
Private.
It's private, private mail!
That's right, messages that other users left for me, and I could read them from there. Let's find out, if not, who knows what happened in the 90s. Oh, indeed. We keep certain drawers closed!
Among other things, it is the first time I have also seen this BBS, so I don't know what was inside, I wouldn't want to expose lists... So, I would like to show you the list of users, also, to show you how many users this BBS had. The problem is that we risk running into privacy considerations a bit, because there are names and surnames. At most we can only say the number, if you remember it.
So, I don't know the number, but I know that it takes two minutes to continuously view the entire page of users. Whistle, there are some!
So practically half of Lombardy was connected to that computer, to this BBS. This modem is 28.8, so evidently the communication is at 28.8. This one here is at 56K.
Let's say it's a bit out of period, because it's already from the second half of the 90s. Okay. But that's what we had. Obviously the bottleneck is here, because 28.8K is lower than 56K. In fact, it is he who establishes the transmission speed. In computing, the transmission speed between two or more elements is always given by the slower one, because obviously the slower one cannot adapt to the faster ones, while the faster ones can adapt to the slower one.
At this point we interrupt our connection, say Goodbye. Exit. Disconnect. We say yes, we say yes, and that's it. Then Sergio, as a good Milanese, greets us with a proverb and that's it.
Now our session on the BBS is over.
Here, however, the initial screen is back. The line has been closed, so now the oscilloscope is capturing the 50Hz that's going around in the air, from the lamps, from the transformers and everything. Because basically now it's as if the probe is in the air, because the line is disconnected.
The server returned to the listening mode screen, waiting for incoming calls. It's really representative of what used to happen. In fact, the server, the client and the telephone line with the switchboard in between... Then you made the call to number 31 to go and call that modem there, exactly.
Let's say that the general concept is still the same today. In the sense that we have servers, we have a line, a telecommunications infrastructure. Now they are fiber optic lines or, respectively, radio links, etc., etc. And we have clients contacting these servers. The protocols have changed, the methods of communication have changed, but the basic concept is still the same.
What has changed is the way content is served. On BBSs we have a purely textual or direct exchange of files, programs and so on. Today everything is very graphic, with audio, with video. With also a higher level of interaction than what a BBS could provide. But, all in all, I repeat, the basic concepts are always the same.
On the BBS I saw that there was also the possibility of downloading files.
Yes, the BBS at the time was one of the favorite vehicles for the diffusion of pirated software. On the other hand, there were two methods: either diskettes or BBSs. It's not that there was anything else, that was it.
In my memory we had a BBS here in Tradate. Every now and then we connected. But the bulk of the exchange took place with diskettes. Years have passed anyway, so they can't incriminate me anymore.
Maybe those software houses don't even exist anymore.
So, with the disks, you contacted the other user and said: I have this, you have that, and then you exchanged them via post.
In fact, it was also nice that, at the time, the various system operators (SysOp) published their telephone numbers in the newspapers. So, if you were interested in a certain BBS, maybe they also put the content type, you called it and you had access to all these resources.
Then, among other things, to download a program it didn't really take two minutes, because we are talking about 28.8K. Which isn't bytes, it's bits. Baud.
Exact.
Yes, because then there is the whole transmission system, etc. I won't go into it now, but it means that you download, I don't know, at 2 KB per second.
Yes, 2 KB per second if that suits you, if the line is not disturbed. Otherwise even less.
Exact. So even if it was a game worth, I don't know, 100K, 200K...
Yes, it took you minutes to download. Downloading a 2-3 MB file took half an hour.
Maybe even yes, maybe you let him go at night, back in the days when maybe you even had to pay for phone calls.
Oh yes, and therefore, for those who were young in the 90s, still at home with their parents, they heard the scolding from mum and dad.
What is this 600,000 lire bill?
So, I never got that far, but...
Me neither, but I've heard people tell me: Eh, when I too used to go on the BBS, then I'd get bills for 600,000 lire and I'd hear them from my parents!
Well, it wasn't as simple as today, with the internet.
No, I would say not at all.
Thank you very much then for this explanation. It was a pleasure. My pleasure!
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