BBS Nostalgia

I just recently re-watched the documentary on BBS era computing called “BBS: The Documentary”.

You can watch the series on youtube here:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgE-9Sxs2IBVgJkY-1ZMj0tIFxsJ-vOkv

I found this movie to be a great summary of what it was like when I was growing up using a computer, before the Internet became popular.

It turns out there are still a great number of BBS’s running to this day.  You can connect to them via the telnet protocol.  An excellent telnet client for visiting BBS’s in “SyncTERM”, which is available here.

Once you have a client, you just need to get an address of a BBS.  There are various websites that have BBS listings, a good one is BBSlink, which is here.

It’s great to be able to log into these systems and play many of the games from the 80’s+90’s that I wasted countless hours on as a kid!  I have started to create some project pages (linked to from the top) which have some ANSI images from various BBS’s and programs I wrote back in the day.

I’m sure i’ll be posting a lot more about BBS’s in the future.

 

Top 10 Christmas Movies

In the Christmas season we tend to binge watch our favorite Christmas movies.  We love these movies so much their viewing tends to spill over into the rest of the winter.

Here’s our top 10 Christmas movies that we are currently watching:

1. A Christmas Story

My all time favorite Christmas movie.  I remember watching this movie when I was a kid, and one year I actually got a BB Gun for Christmas!

2. Home Alone

This year it seems that this movie is #1 with the family.  The finale scene rocks.

3. The Santa Clause

Another favorite for the kids.  Supposedly #3 is better than #1, but #1 is the staple in our house.

4. Polar Express

We may have almost worn out this movie.  The kids love it.

5. Christmas Vacation

I love the griswalds!

6. Elf

This one is a classic that the whole family enjoys.  Michele’s top Christmas movie, but probably somewhere in my personal top 5.

7. It’s a Wonderful Life

One of my favorites.  The kids aren’t too into this one, but I love it!

8. Miracle on 34th Street

I used to watch this one when I was a kid.  The kids aren’t too into it, but it’s a must watch for me each year.

9. How the Grinch Stole Christmas

The Jim Carrey version is a classic, but we also watch the original animated version.

10. Bad Santa

We actually don’t own this one yet, but I remember watching it a couple years ago and remember it being frekkin hilarious!  Definitely top on my list of movies to purchase.