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58. By the modem light’s red glare part 3 – Flashback, tracks from the past
And this is where our story of the Swedish BBS-era must end: with the story of the wander in the desert and how the boards made a small come back when we were all old enough to become nostalgic. I also want to thank Fabian Norlin, Sysop for “Fabbes BBS” for giving me statistics and a cool story to tell. It’s all in the show, and let’s get that started then!
The show
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon: Welcome to a wander in the desert and the third part in the three-part miniseries about the Swedish BBS-scene. It’s been quite a ride, but in 1997, the scene was dissolving as people found GeoCities and used Alta-Vista to “Google” for stuff, which was quite a trick as Google had not yet been founded. This is not about that – this is about us, the Sysops, wondering what the heck had happened.
00:40 Meztli Blue – Moonflower
02:48 DJ Daemon: In the previous episode I noted 1995 as the year that the Internet started taking over. A technology doing such a thing is called a “disruptive technology”. And it was. The demo scene started shifting to webpages, IRC-chats and FTP-servers and the Sysops were looking at diminishing returns. The Internet was everyone’s darling and the boards had faded into obscurity as they required you to know their numbers, deal with busy lines and sometimes pay long-distance fees. Most of the development of the software the boards were running, ceased as the focus was shifted to more viable communication-forms. But not all was lost, the Internet offered a solution for the Sysops: telnet
03:48 Bassie of Image – Gradually unfold….
10:39 DJ Daemon: Telnet, the much-maligned, non-encrypted form of direct communication that could use Internet for transport promised a place for the boards. The problem was that in the late 90s, very few people had access to broadband or any other always-on connections. Some people found refuge in the large University networks, where they could get a 24/7 connection for their BBS:es. Other found corporate networks and some actually had some of the earliest forms of broadband that could be bought. Fabbes BBS was one of those survivors, turning to telnet for aid.
11:27 Melcom – Doom
15:04 DJ Daemon: I wish I could give you some hard numbers on the decline… AAAAAAAAAND, I can! A huge thanks to Fabian Norlin, Sysop on Fabbes BBS, which I will talk about later in this show. I contacted him to get an interview, to which he kindly declined. But he did create a list over the logins per year on his BBS, beginning in the year 2000. At that year, nearly 42000 logins were registered. In 2001 it was down to 35000. 2002 marks a sharp drop-in activity with only 18000 logins. This is close to a cut in half. With some notable exceptions it dropped and was down to 944 in 2008. The end came on the 31st of May 2009, when the system crashed. Fabian dryly notes that Michael Jackson died on the 25th of June that year and was just as likely to be resurrected as the BBS. He was wrong.
16:23 Timelord – Disillusion
22:01 DJ Daemon: Let’s leave Fabbes for a moment and look at the Internet that was everywhere now. In 2000 we were vary buying stuff on the Internet, ten years later we bought expensive electronics on the Internet and today we buy pretty much everything over the net. In 2000 security was horrible and the hackers were amateurs, today our security wears army boots and the hackers drive tanks. In 2000 forums were where it was at, and today we look beyond Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit for the future of communication. In 2000 people on the Internet were joking about how bad the old people were at using computers. Today, Sweden has 109 years old blogger Dagny Carlsson. We love you, Dagny! She may be on hiatus due to bad health, but I hope she makes a comeback soon.
View all episodes
By Erik ZalitisAnd this is where our story of the Swedish BBS-era must end: with the story of the wander in the desert and how the boards made a small come back when we were all old enough to become nostalgic. I also want to thank Fabian Norlin, Sysop for “Fabbes BBS” for giving me statistics and a cool story to tell. It’s all in the show, and let’s get that started then!
The show
00:00 ericade.radio – Time for another episode of Flashback – Tracks from the past
00:06 DJ Daemon: Welcome to a wander in the desert and the third part in the three-part miniseries about the Swedish BBS-scene. It’s been quite a ride, but in 1997, the scene was dissolving as people found GeoCities and used Alta-Vista to “Google” for stuff, which was quite a trick as Google had not yet been founded. This is not about that – this is about us, the Sysops, wondering what the heck had happened.
00:40 Meztli Blue – Moonflower
02:48 DJ Daemon: In the previous episode I noted 1995 as the year that the Internet started taking over. A technology doing such a thing is called a “disruptive technology”. And it was. The demo scene started shifting to webpages, IRC-chats and FTP-servers and the Sysops were looking at diminishing returns. The Internet was everyone’s darling and the boards had faded into obscurity as they required you to know their numbers, deal with busy lines and sometimes pay long-distance fees. Most of the development of the software the boards were running, ceased as the focus was shifted to more viable communication-forms. But not all was lost, the Internet offered a solution for the Sysops: telnet
03:48 Bassie of Image – Gradually unfold….
10:39 DJ Daemon: Telnet, the much-maligned, non-encrypted form of direct communication that could use Internet for transport promised a place for the boards. The problem was that in the late 90s, very few people had access to broadband or any other always-on connections. Some people found refuge in the large University networks, where they could get a 24/7 connection for their BBS:es. Other found corporate networks and some actually had some of the earliest forms of broadband that could be bought. Fabbes BBS was one of those survivors, turning to telnet for aid.
11:27 Melcom – Doom
15:04 DJ Daemon: I wish I could give you some hard numbers on the decline… AAAAAAAAAND, I can! A huge thanks to Fabian Norlin, Sysop on Fabbes BBS, which I will talk about later in this show. I contacted him to get an interview, to which he kindly declined. But he did create a list over the logins per year on his BBS, beginning in the year 2000. At that year, nearly 42000 logins were registered. In 2001 it was down to 35000. 2002 marks a sharp drop-in activity with only 18000 logins. This is close to a cut in half. With some notable exceptions it dropped and was down to 944 in 2008. The end came on the 31st of May 2009, when the system crashed. Fabian dryly notes that Michael Jackson died on the 25th of June that year and was just as likely to be resurrected as the BBS. He was wrong.
16:23 Timelord – Disillusion
22:01 DJ Daemon: Let’s leave Fabbes for a moment and look at the Internet that was everywhere now. In 2000 we were vary buying stuff on the Internet, ten years later we bought expensive electronics on the Internet and today we buy pretty much everything over the net. In 2000 security was horrible and the hackers were amateurs, today our security wears army boots and the hackers drive tanks. In 2000 forums were where it was at, and today we look beyond Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit for the future of communication. In 2000 people on the Internet were joking about how bad the old people were at using computers. Today, Sweden has 109 years old blogger Dagny Carlsson. We love you, Dagny! She may be on hiatus due to bad health, but I hope she makes a comeback soon.