[vcf-midatlantic] The good old days of user groups.

[Mike Loewen]

On Mon, 24 Aug 2020, Ethan O'Toole via vcf-midatlantic wrote:

>>  As someone who did grow up with them, I can tell you that this is
>>  absolutely the case.  The Internet is presented to people as a "you can
>>  GET this, you can GET that!"  "Get get get!"  ...not "participate", not
>
> Oh no way. There were leaches on BBSes too. Heck, they had their own 
> protocol! LeachZModem. It would complete the entire transfer to disk then 
> tell the remote side that the xfer wasn't successful, back up... back up... 
> back up... abort. So user wouldn't get dinged for the download.

    I never heard of LeachZModem. On the Unix BBS I ran through the '90s, I 
enforced a file upload/download ratio. Leeches soon found themselves 
(automatically) unable to download until they uploaded something relevant. 
Users with favorable ratios got more daily online minutes.

> A big problem with the stand alone forums is the spam bots and stuff. But 
> many of them are still successful, although traffic is declining. I ain't 
> gonna lie...

    There are some newer platforms such as Discord, which are promoting 
real-time conversations. I belong to a TRS-80 Discord which has some of the 
most technically knowledgeable TRS-80 users around. Some of them even used to 
work for Tandy. The support and advance of the technology there is incredible. 
The ClassicCmp Discord is another good one, with many technical users and 
varied interests. Discord supports image and file uploads, as well.


Mike Loewen				mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology				http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/