125 lines
5.5 KiB
Plaintext
125 lines
5.5 KiB
Plaintext
[12/04/86]
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The History of BBS's
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And How They Came to be in
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The Hopeful State That They are in Now.
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As you may, or may not know, BBSs evolved from office, and school
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computers. Many people simultaneously dawned upon the fantastic idea that it
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would be great fun to be able to exchange information and ideas in an easy and
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relatively new fashion, using God's gift to man, the modem. Originally,
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office computers had BBS's to allow office people to communicate their ideas,
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and schools had BBS's because a bunch of egghead kids decided that it would
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piss the hell out of teachers to see them having fun instead of doing their
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programming homework; needless to say, they were right.
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It is from these simple beginnings that the USER evolved. Users, as the
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name wittily implies, are those who use BBS's. In days long since past, they
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were adult, mature computer owners who enjoyed intelligent conversation with
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other adult mature computer owners. You see, in humbler times, when 48k was
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enough for ANY application, computers cost lots of money. This brings us to
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the crux of our conversation: Kids couldn't afford them. Kid's parents
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didn't want to afford them (because G.I. Joe was ever so much cheaper), and so
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kids didn't have them. Now, on the other hand, a computer can be had for as
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little as 500 dollars, which is plenty cheaper than the complete Transformers
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collection of guns, trucks, lazer pistols, attack ships and the like.
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Armed with modems, and lists of thousands of interesting places to call,
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they began to dial havoc into unsuspecting systems everywhere. Much to their
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shock, the message bases were all filled with this stuffy drool about things
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like ADA and SNOBOL. Obviously, computer users weren't good at spelling.
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Intent on bringing some life to the rather dull party, Indiana Jones, a
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typical 13 year old with a truly original alias, decided to get some of his
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school buddies (all of whom were dweebs like himself) to log on as well.
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Now, as a result of this wonderful happening, systems became overpopulated
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with the likes of Jack the Dripper, Mike Hammer, The Equalizer, Eddy Murphy,
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and the Amazing Spiderman...to name just a few. All of them -- every last one
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doing exactly what his or her favorist Sysop requests: Posting Lots of
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messages. What the sysop didn't ask for is a bunch of meaningless pigeon shit
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to clutter up his disk space, which is all too precious to be wasted.
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mIKE: cALL ME IN 5 MINUTES!!!!!!!!!!
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oooPPPS!!!!!!HAD THE UPPER CASE ON!!!!!!!!BuT iM NOT TURNING IT
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OFFF JUST TO BUG U'z HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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AZ i WUZ SEYING.!!!!
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jIMMY: I HIT MY BRUTHER WITH DA FONE BECUZ HE WUZNT BEE'NG A
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K00L DUDE!!!!!!!!!!HAHAH!!!!!! U SHUDA SEEN HIM
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SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM!!!!!!!!!!!!HAHAHAHAH MY PARENTS EVEN
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LAFFED!!!!!!!HOHOHOHOHO LOTZA LARFS FOR ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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tHE oNE, tHE oNLY
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The BEST IN THE WORLD.
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IT
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'S
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ME
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THE BEST SUPERHERO IN THE WORLD
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S N
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U A
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P M
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ER
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YA!!! YOU HEARD GOOD!!!! THIS MESSAGE
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WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY
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YOUR FAVORITE PERSON
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SUPERMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!YAYAY!!!!!!!!!!!
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Let's look this over bit by revolting bit. Firstly, "mike: call me in
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five minutes" is ridiculous, because as every sysop knows, Mike hasn't been on
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in weeks, and time will show that he won't be on for another week or two.
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Next, this silliness about upper case. Writers, lawyers and doctors write in
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lower case, and I'm sure you can too, that is, if you can find the [CAPS_LOCK]
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button (Inability to do so proves an obvious lack of intelligence). Notice
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also the absurd use of abbreviations and indecipherable contractions; all in a
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vain attempt to hide an obvious inability to spell and punctuate. I find it
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hard to believe that Superman, who's mother tongue is English cannot read or
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write in it. I would also like to know the proper english pronunciation of
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"YAYAYAYAHAHAHAHAYTAHHGATAJHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!!!". Could it be that this is the
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way these people were tought to speak? Doesn't say much for the parents.
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Maybe it's genetics...
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To make matters worse, these same children, egos inflated like balloons
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open "kiddie boards" so they can be just as cool as the next guy. It is
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reasonable to suspect that anything named "Cobra's Fortress of Terrible DOOM!"
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is a kiddie board, and should be avoided at all costs.
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As we should have realized from the start, kiddies should be barred
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access to mature conversation, and left to their own "mountains of death"
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where they can pester their own kind and leave all of us alone. But then
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again, we all have 20/20 hindsight, don't we? It's unbelievable that this
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policy hasn't been implemented universally on all intelligent systems yet.
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I'm trying to change all that. Any self respecting sysop should get these dip
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shit excuses for people off his board immediately, and give himself, and his
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REAL users some peace of mind. Some sysops find this to be in poor taste, so
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they set up "rules" to try and alleviate the situation. Be advised, though
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that this is only a temporary solution; it will ease the pain but not get rid
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of the infection. The only logical practice is true correction. Get them
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off, and get them off now. We don't want to see them any more, and we're sure
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you don't either.
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I hope that this SoftDoc clarifies some of the inherent problems in
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giving expensive toys to children, and allowing them free, irresponsible reign
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of smart and intelligent establishments (if you are reading this, the system
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you are on cares, and is obviously run by a being of higher understanding).
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Outa here,
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Thomas Ark.
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(have a snappy day!)
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