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

[Ethan O'Toole]

>   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.

I remember sitting in the room over the garage with some geek friends in 
the late 90s. My BBS was up and running, and a local user was connected 
downloading some files. At that time I was probably running the beloved 
Telegard, which used external software to handle all the transfers. The 
Zmodem thing that was running would go full screen and had progress bars 
to show the total que transferred and the current file. We're sitting 
there talking about something and I notice out of the corner of my eye the 
transfer screen running. The files progressed to the end, then the bar 
would turn red. Then it would go to the next file... at the end, it would 
turn red again saying cancelled and move to the next file. Aghast, I 
cancelled the transfer, broke into sysop chat and scolded the user then 
hung up on him.

A year later we were friends, at some point he was a roomate for a year or 
two as well. Still see him on IRC from time to time. I think he might 
actually own an Atari Falcon 030 and an Amiga 1200 at this point.

Too funny. LeachZmodem WAS cool I'm not going to lie. Funny idea.

>   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.

Yep! The small local community gave way to the small global community.

We can all still be friends, even if you use leach Zmodem on my BBS. :-P

 			- Ethan