retro computing – Dave Weatherwax

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.

New BBS Project Pages Posted!

I added a couple new pages w/ lots of screenshots of ANSI graphics from my BBS sysop days!

Click the links below to check them out!

https://rbg.zlh.mybluehost.me/selfblog/projects/bbs-days-1994-1996/tales-from-the-crypt-1994-1995/

https://rbg.zlh.mybluehost.me/selfblog/projects/bbs-days-1994-1996/ding-1995-1996/

You have died of dysentery!

For Christmas we got the boys a new card game called “The Oregon Trail Card Game”. It’s a relatively new card game that is based on the old PC game classic of the same name.

The game is set in 1848 and you are leading a covered wagon attempting to make it from Independence, Missouri to Wilamette Valley, Oregon along the Oregon trail. This game was pretty much a staple in elementary schools in the late eighties to early nineties. More info on the classic video game here.

The card game has a similar theme but is stripped down from the video game. There are ‘trail cards’, ‘supply cards’, and ‘calamity cards’. The game starts with a fixed set of supply cards, which turn out to be a scarce resource. As you play trail cards you are frequently instructed to pick up a calamity card. It always seems like something is going wrong on the trail! Usually someone is getting sick, the wagon is breaking down, people are starving, or your oxen are dying. Supply cards are used to remedy the situation.

Overall the family gives this game two thumbs up! The kids are going crazy over it. They love researching the various diseases that pop up in the game, like measles, cholera, etc. We use this as an opportune time to teach them about the benefits of vaccines. 🙂

One aspect that I really like about the game is that everyone is on the same team. You are all working together to make it to Oregon. If anyone on the team makes it there then everyone wins. The strategy is light enough that an 8 year old can play it, even though the box says 12+.

For downsides, the game could probably use a little additional strategy. There are no forks in the road. Also, it seems like forts and towns are few and far between.

If you have kids and enjoyed playing the video game as a kid then I highly recommend you pick up this card game. It’s a great way to spend an hour with them and offers plenty of opportunities to teach them about how easy we have it in the modern world.

Click below to purchase from Amazon:

New Project Pages!

I just created a couple new pages for some personal projects that I’ve worked on many years ago.

The first is the Lucid Inducer, which is a lucid dreaming induction device. I pretty much get mocked by anyone who sees this thing, but it actually works!

Also, I’ve been going through my VERY old project files, and came upon a treasure trove of personal coding projects from the 90’s. I posted one of them, Stewvoo, which is an ANSI art viewer from 1996!

You can find links to the project pages in the navigation bar at the top. I hope to fill out more projects I’ve worked on in the coming weeks.

Let me know if you find any of it interesting!