I found this site because of my Husband. He would talk about something he had read on the cellar, and a few times he said he had posted something about me. He sent me the link so I could read what he said, and after lurking for several months I saw a subject I just had to respond to so I joined.

I think Alan said at one point that he found the cellar because of the IOTD.

Edit: Stupid typos

what the hell is a bbs? i'm confused, help.

I am taking a wild stab in the dark, but I think it stands for Binary Beta System.

I don't really know what it stands for, I am just guessing.

I opened a door which I thought led to a bathroom, and fell down these fucking stairs!

A BBS is a Bulletin Board System.

You younger folks are used to the Internet... more or less, every computer can talk to every other computer. Back in the olden days, however, most people with modems dialed up to specific computer systems, and those systems didn't talk to each other. For example, Compuserve was one of the earliest and biggest ones. You could chat, read message boards, and download files (the actual display of pictures was heavily limited by available technology). So you could dial up and use Compuserve, but that was it--Compuserve didn't interact with Delphi or Genie or any of the other online services.

A BBS was basically a smaller version of that. It was usually run by a single person (the "sysop") on a single computer. Many of them only had one telephone line, so only one person could dial in at once. Successful BBSs would usually end up with more lines, and some of them even made money. (Primarily, I'm guessing, the ones that let subscribers download naughty pictures.)

In the heyday of BBS culture (late 1980s, say, into the early 1990s), listings of BBSs in the Philadelphia metro area took several pages.

BBS = Bulletin Board System

In the olden days you'd use your modem to dial directly to the phone number of the remote computer. You'd connect to it and leave messages on it. Then other people would call the system with their modems, read your messages, and leave their own.

Most systems only had one phone line so when someone was on, you'd get a busy signal. The Cellar was revolutionary for its day because Scott and I developed it on Xenix - the first version of Unix for PCs - and so it had the native ability to support more than one modem, and thus, more than one user at a time. At its peak it had 7 phone lines dedicated to it.

Wasn't it a rather expensive way to have seven phone-lines? I mean were there no charges?

It was very expensive, but still only about 10% of the cost of my current setup.

so now it's very very very very very very very very very very expensive?

I enjoy the Cellar. Thanks for hosting it. Seriously.

Yup it is that expensive but to be fair, I have managed to recoup it through my business doings.

(Which I should be doings now instead of chatting)

There is a PayPal Icon at the bottom of the main page.:)

I stumbled on the Cellar, using the, ''more arse than class'' technique, when I typed the word ''image'' into Google .. looking for something completely different. Porn, probably ..

Without Google, I would have never discovered a whole new hidden underworld of freaks who inhabit the Internet BB's .. I hope I never meet any of you in the street .. :D

Actually.. I have met a fella, via a tractor BB, from NY state, who insisted on coming all the way to the most remote city in Australia to visit me in person .. he was a real nice guy, as was his lady, and we hit it off fabulously, for the whole 2 days he allowed here .. :)

I was amazed, he wasn't the classic, arrogant, brash, overburdened-with-money, know-it-all, American tourist we have been taught to recognise .. I was stunned to find, he was actually quite normal .. :D :D

Don't make the mistake of judging a whole group by one person.
Most of us are; :haha:

What, if I may ask, is a tractor BB? Is that a tractor beam that attracts the opposite sex, like in Star Trek? A farm implement? A Daisy BB gun?