From the September 1994 issue of Boardwatch: Verona, New Jersey since 03/83. Sysop: Mark Rapp. Using PCBoard 15.2 with 11 lines on MS-DOS 80486 with 5100 MB storage. Hayes at 28800 bps. No fee. PCBoard 15.x alpha site. NJ's preferred BBS for the professional 11 yrs running. HiSpeed lines for easy access. Gold mine of the best-quality, latest files, games, info. Many mail networks including Internet. Trial access provided. Major credit cards.
As of this writing (September 2001), a single attempt to call the system was made. Unfortunately, only endless rings were heard from the other end of the phone. It is possible that this system has finally retired." - Brian Bernstein
A noteworthy item about this system was that it featured special access areas for students and faculty of Drew University." - Brian Bernstein
"Yes, Ron's BBS was originally on a Zeus-4 and then various Commodore machines (mostly Amigas). I think he might have had the Unix clone (Xenix if I remember right) on a PC for a while. It also used C-Net software for a good portion of the time it was up. Ron's own code was mostly just on the Zeus and then (extensive) expansions on C-Net." - Conrad Dunkerson, in a message to Gerhard Bartsch (Der Strand BBS). Both good friends of Ron's..."
The following BBSes have been given some sort of comment, either by automatic
software that found deeper descriptions of a BBS, or mailed-in comments from
the System Operators. It is presented to give a better idea of the thoughts
behind some of the BBSes.
201-226-0623
The Hidden Stronghold
(1987-1992)Andy Young GBBS Pro
"The Hidden Stronghold was a GBBS Pro system for trading Apple ][ software. This system made good use of the ProTERM emulation setting on Apple terminal software. It was a good system." - Brian Bernstein
201-239-0001
Verona, NJ MicroSellar BBS
(1983-1996)Mark Rapp, Verona, New Jersey since 03/83 PCBoard
From the January 1996 issue of Boardwatch: PCBoard 15.x alpha site. NJ's preferred BBS for the Pro 12 yrs running. 20+ hi-speed 28.8K lines. Charter m ember BBS Direct provides local access #'s for easy access. Best quality latest files games info gold mine. Many mail networks including Internet. Trial acce ss provided. Major credit cards.
201-256-7499
West Paterson, NJ The AJAX (Extra Strength) BBS
(1990-1994)Alan Kobb Auntie BBS
"I ran Ajax from 1990 through 1994. For a time, Auntie was the only BBS in New Jersey with a dedicated Scuba Diver's section. Also covered computer hardware and software and adult discussions (more toward politics and religion than sex.) I eventually shut down the BBS when it started to take too much time to run it according to my own standards. (I insisted on checking each uploaded file and message.) The main reason for running the BBS was to meet people, make friends and learn. I did all of those. I used Auntie BBS Software written by Wes Meier of the Walnut Creek BBS in California. Auntie was unique in offering excellent Sysop control and logging, the best fully-threaded message base around, and doorway access." - Alan Kobb
201-327-7808
Allendale, NJ Eastern Alliance
(1983-1987)The Tracer Customized Tele-Cat ][ + Ascii Express
"Ran 202/212 AppleCat as well as USR 9600HST, Sider 20 Meg Hard Drive. Distro Point for PPG, Digital Gang and First Class for Apple Warez. Interactive gaming for credit and intergrated ASCII Express module to count download sectors won in gaming area." - James Wynen, "The Tracer"
201-327-8245
Ramsey, NJ Hotel California
(1982-1988)Curt Stapleton RBBS, Colossus, Wildcat!
"Started with an IBM PC, 640K and hayes smartmodem (300 baud). System upgrades over time: Quadram quadboard, Hercules graphics card, Peachtree 10MB hard disk, 1200 baud hayes smartmodem. 24/7 (except when I was playing games or my dad actually had to use it for work)." - Curt Stapleton
201-337-1327
Franklin Lakes, NJ FLEUG, Franklin Lakes ROS, The Data Exchange, The Data Exchange BBS
(1984-1995)John Dougherty RoboBoard
, RCPM, ROS (Remote Operating System), MBBS, Worldgroup
"The BBS originally started out as the FLEUG (Franklin Lakes Epson Users Group) running the RCPM (Remote C/PM) BBS. The BBS ran only at night (yes, I used the computer during the day) for users of the Epson QX-10 computer and also supported the Epson series of printers. The board originally started out running on two 360K floppy drives; the first drive held the BBS programs and message areas, and the second drive would hold the support programs, text files & utilities. The main problem I had with the RCPM software was the fact that people had direct access to your computer and its drives and user areas. When I decided to install a hard disk, I switched to the brand new ROS BBS software, since it handled the bulletin board operations without allowing users direct access to your hard drive areas. I changed to an MSDOS system about the same time as the ROS software author, so ROS was ported to the MSDOS operating system (about 1985~1986) and I continued to run that. ROS soon was able to handle two nodes running under a multitasking software (DoubleDOS, Desqview) so I installed another phone line, bought a newer computer and another modem and let the BBS to run 24 hours a day. I Switched to MBBS around February 1990, mainly because of the ability to run multi-node operation on a single computer. I had 10 nodes up and running when I finally shut the system down on April 1995. I saw the writing on the wall; there was really no need for local BBS systems when you have the World Wide Web available." - John Dougherty
201-376-0816
Northlink
(1985-2001)Bruce Travers C64
"North*link was (is?) a C64 based system that has been around since the mid-1980's. Run out of Springfield, NJ, it was never an extremely popular system. However, it stands as one of the longest running Commodore 8-bit based BBS systems in history. Even at the turn of the millennium, it was still running off of its antiquated 300/1200 baud modem.
201-376-6337
Dronefone
(1986-1990)Drone (Brian J. Bernstein) Compunet BBS
"Dronefone was an Apple //e based system with (originally) 2 floppy drives that eventually made it up to a 20MB Sider hard drive. From its beginning, it always ran custom software written by the Sysop. It averaged somewhere about 30-40 calls a day at its best, and was one of the first 2400 baud systems in the area. It was a member of "The BBS Triumverate", which included the systems "Middle Earth" (IBM based in Livingston) and "The Iron Castle" (C64/128 based in Florham Park). It should be noted that most of the content from this system has been archived and will one day be available on the web." - Brian Bernstein
201-377-8245
Drew Univ I, The Drew Underground
(1986-1989)Neil Clarke and Chris Gorman 2AM BBS
"The Drew Underground was a 2-line BBS system that was written and run by two computer science students at Drew University in Madison, NJ. The IBM PC based software was written in Pascal by the sysops, and was used by several BBS systems in the area. The two line ability was introduced when the system acquired a hard drive multiplexer for the pair of Zenith (?) PCs.
201-383-8684
Newton, NJ Second Portal
(1995-1997)Vinny Abello RemoteAccess
, Remote Access
"I started Second Portal as a hobby just to see how a BBS worked from the other side of things. I was totally hooked and loved maintaining it. Fidonet was a joy to be part of. Many of the things I learned about automation and system maintenance from Second Portal I apply today at my current job. Although it was a small BBS, we had a very large collection of door games enjoyed by many people. It's funny, but many people that used the board I later met inadvertently through some walk of life. I have even worked with a few of them and still work with one at my current job! :) The board was eventually shut down after I returned from a short lived attempt at college which I turned out not enjoying. I wanted my phone line for Internet access. Sorry guys! ;) I'm still into the same things, but now I'm a network engineering at Tellurian Networks working mainly with servers and routers and everything else you can possibly think of that an ISP has to do. I enjoy the latter more. I'm glad to have been part of some piece of the NJ BBS history! :)" - Vinny Abello
201-385-2821
Dumont, NJ The Board! II
(1995-1996)Gerry Ferra Galacticomm WorldGroup 1.01
From the January 1996 issue of Boardwatch: Since 10/95 Sysop: Gerry Ferra. Using Galacticomm WorldGroup 1.01 with 8 lines on MS-DOS 486 Pentium, with 12000MB storage Cardinal at 14400. Free trial period. Many different subscripition plans. NJ newest system with file areas with 2 CD-ROMs, many games, a cas ino, and lots of forums. Also we are a local area hub for Major.
201-398-2953
Sparta, NJUpside Down, Upside Down BBS, Upsidedown BBS P/W = Run
(1985-1988)Dan Eriksen Ascii Express, T-net, Cat-Fer
"Customized modem handshake to auto detect bell 103/202/212 modes for AE, Cat-Fer, or BBS. AppleCat Modem with 20meg siders, Hack/Phreak/Warez (only for Elite users) http://www.textfiles.com/100/ad.txt" - Dan Eriksen
201-428-3959
Parsippany, NJ The Party Zone
(1983-1984)Jeff Koyen
"I was 13 when I got my Atari 800; I started a BBS the next year, as soon as my parents gave me my own phone line. Soon enough, my friend and I were swapping warez and swiping phone codes so we could dial into west coast BBSes. I almost lost my virginity to an "older" woman (20s) who met me on another BBS (it's probably on your list). She took me to the mall and bought me floppy discs. I was too scared to go through with it. These days. they'd call her a predator. Ah, god bless the pre-internet days." - Jeff Koyzen
201-432-2535
Coliseum 3 Nodes
(1992)American Gladiator
Afl/Inc Member BBS
201-436-9732
Bayonne, NJ The Classic Gaming Network
(Present)Frostydasnowman WINS
"This bbs is only open Friday-Sunday starting at 5:00pm Eastern Time, and closing 10:00pm Sunday night. Includes everything retro...We are always working at making it better...It's currently work in progress. Please be patient with us. Thank you!" - Frostdasnowman
201-445-8152
Waldwick, NJ Salem's Lot
(1985-1994)Vindicator WWIV, Synchronet
"Originally started in 1985 with a Commodore 64 and running on the NATCO BBS System. It then grew up to a Commodore Amiga for a about a year before I moved it over to a PC Compatible system. Finally took it down when I went back to school in 94." - Vindicator
201-464-9251
Berkley Heights, NJWhat BBS?
(1986-1989)What Sibley Syntech BBS
"What BBS? was a unique system run out of New Providence, NJ by an omniscient being. The unique humor and writing abilities of the sysop made this system a quite enjoyable experience. The fact that it was run on a Commodore 64 didn't bother most people because the site's content was just too much fun. No online games or anything, just a fantastic group of creative energies contributing to the experience that was What BBS?" - Brian Bernstein
201-584-6308
ParaPet
(1995-1997)Pat Toner PCBoard
"There was a group of us who all ran BBS's who used to hang together every Saturday night, and it was in getting to know a few members of this group in the first place that I got interested in running a BBS and finally did. Mine was only a small BBS, but I still had 150 users and never advertised it anywhere! People found a lot by word-of-mouth. Other local sysops tended to know each other over the BBS chat, if not in person." - Pat Toner
201-586-9891
Rockaway, NJ The Dark End
(1992-1994)Dreadful Warrior (Mike Hetman) AmiExpress
"The Dark End was popular during its time for having distinctly 9 ongoing message boards with topics ranging from flirting to history to computers to simply arguing. In its early days, The Dark End was also an experiment in gothic ANSI art as skulls, swords and imagery of blood graced the system. In some ways, it was meant to be a virtual online horror show as even the SysOp claimed to roost in Lost Souls Cemetery. Although the BBS only ran on one phone line, there was no shortage of callers or files to download and the SysOp was often available to chat with users." - Mike Hetman
201-662-9274
Guttenburg, NJ The Dark House
(1994-1996)Dan Lopez Wildcat
"The Darkhouse had internet email, Usenet newsgroups. and tons of files to download, with over 4 cd's online. Some very popular Doors (Online games) such as Bordello. The BBS had 4 lines which were usually all busy throughout the day, and a nightly PPTP connection to download/upload the new messages and emails going out to the net. " - Dan Lopez
201-667-9717
Nutley, NJ Don Luby's Iron BBS and Fisherman's Paradise
Dead Ed
"The home of Northern New Jersey's most heartless war board, and functional HQ of it's least continent gang of thugs, the Sons of Ed Gelb (SOEG)." - D. Waldman
201-703-2500
Fair Lawn, NJ Mirage BBS, Realm of Mirage BBS
(1994-2004)Julia Howe, Julia Hiroko Howe (Iris or Cyr3n) MajorBBS, Worldgroup 3x (Major BBS)
"Realm Of Mirage BBS started out as a 8-node chat system in 1994 and quickly grew into an 80-node system after offering residential ISP services. The board was known as Mirage, Cyberwar BBS, Cyber Warrior, or Cyber Warrior ISP. Other staff involved as SysOps were Marian Montagnino, Vega, and MudOps Mike O'Brien and Stacey Pazana." - Julia Hiroko Howe
201-712-1507
Radio One!, Radio-One! BBS
(1990-1996)Mike Nappi Wildcat
"3 node system running OS2 and wildcat with one unix (BSD version) node. IN addition to the usual items on BBS, Offered UUCP store-forward gateway access to fidonet e-mail to internet e-mail by around 1993. Was named for BBC Radio-One, as in the Hendrix song Radio One." - Mike Nappi
201-729-7046
Sparta, NJCandlelight Online, Candlelight Online!, Remote Host
(1990-1996)John Schumacher MajorBBS
"Remote Host started in 1990 as a 2 line BBS in Cedar Knolls, moved to Sparta NJ and expanded to 6 lines. Remote Host was renamed to Candlelight Online in 1994 until the system went offline in 1996." - John Schumacher
201-743-2314
Bloomfield, NJ The Gamer's Exchange
(1989-1994)Mark J. Astarita Wildcat
"Wow, was it really that long ago. The years are right, actually I am not sure about the telephone number, but that is the one you have. I am an attorney, and started the BBS, for video game information in either 1988 or 1989. What a great time I had, figuring out the software and everything else that was required to run a multiline Wildcat board in the late 80s. I was an Echo coordinator in Fidonet - gee what was my address, I think, nah, I looked it up - my last address was 2605:156, here is the listing from 1992 - ,156,The_Gamers'_Exchange,Glen_Ridge_NJ,Mark_Astarita,1-201-509-7851,9600,CM,XX,HST,V32 I was around before that, this is my listing which started in 1991, I had the 743 number before that, but can't seem to find the details. Heck, its over 10 years ago. Anyway, I was in fidonet when the big split occurred in 107. Man, how important did we think that stuff was at the time. I helped start Globalnet in the 90s, and finally shut down the board in 1994 when I started a web site. Today that web site is SECLaw.com, one of the most active legal specific sites in the world. It was all about timing, too bad I didn't register business.com when I registered vgis.com in 1989! Good luck with your project!" - Mark Astarita
201-753-9758
ACGNJ BBS #2
(1983-1990)Kevin Tillbrook RBBS
"I used to run an RBBS system for the Amateur Computer Group of NJ (ACGNJ) for a number of years. It was run on a Zenith PC w/20 meg HD and later using DesqView for multi-tasking (which was way too slow on that hardware). I had a BBS running before that, but this is what I am noted for." - Kevin Tillbrook
201-765-0350
Florham Park, NJ Old Dirt Road
(1984-1991)Black Belt Hamster/ Jim Anderson Ivory Joe BBS derivatives
"This started as a message board but quickly evolved into an xchange. Averaged 0-2 days warez but also had very active message board- and lots of war boards. Ran on a c64 with 300-1200 baud, eventually went to 2400 on an SX-64 and ended on conversion to Amiga and lingering interest on continuing with the c64." - Jim Anderson (Blackbelt Hamster)
201-785-1830
Totowa, NJ The Meeting House
(1991)Bill Kreps Phoenix RCS 1.07
"The Meeting House was born out of my efforts in developing a fido<->uunet gateway for my employer (Res-Q - FidoNet Node 1:269/133) Not in your list. See http://www.mit.edu/afs/athena/reference/net-directory/maps/uucp.bak/u.usa.nj.3 Res-Q and the company that owned it are long gone. They were pleased with the system, but were not willing to let me put as much "personal" time into it as I wanted. I developed The Meeting House as a means to improve and refine my skills, and to accomodate users who had no interest in the company, but liked my board. The Meeting House ran on a 286-16 with 2Mb Ram and a 20Mb partition. I still have the entire BBS (not including downloads) archived on 2, 1.2Mb floppy disks (5.25" media) and could bring it back up tomorrow if I really thought it would serve a purpose. Hmmm.....? Nah......." - Bill Kreps
201-785-1990
West Paterson, NJ The Final Level
(1988-1994)High Voltage Digi-Net (GBBS Clone)
"This was my bbs which supported Apple //gs, then had a short span of time on the Amiga, and finaly died off in 94. I had the phone number up until 1996, when I moved. Nuff Said.." - High Voltage
201-797-3319
Elmwood Park, NJ Bermuda TRiangle, Red Alert
(1995-1997)[dev] Pcboard
"ASBEST CREW HEADQUARTERS" - Dev
201-818-4894
Allendale, NJ The UnderGround Oasis - TUGO
(1991-1994)Mister Twister SPeCTRuM, Extreme, Prodoor, PCBoard
"BBS started off small with 1 node and a few local lamers. Ended up with 3 nodes, 500 megs incoming per week, plenty of great ansis from iCE, GRiM, etc. Member board and even WHQ to countless groups -- over 90% LD callers with most heavy users coming from Germany! Eventually the Internet took over my life and I closed it down. I still have all my ansis and a zip of the BBS itself. :)" - Mister Twister
201-822-0527
The Iron Castle
(1987-1989)Iron Knight C-Net
"A member of "The BBS Triumverate", this Commodore 64 (later C128) based system featured good discussion and story boards, and some public domain Commodore 64/128 file transfers. A typical assortment of doors were available." - Brian Bernstein
201-822-8325
Madison, NJ The Wolfpack, Wolfpack
(1985)Gerhard Bartsch FidoNet
"This was the inital incarnation of my BBS and was run on my new IBM-PC with dual 360k floppy drives, which replaced the old TRS-80 Mod I. Der Strand superceeded The Wolfpack, but was based out of Washington DC for a short while when I was in the USAF. Eventually it ran on an IBM clone with a i486 processor and a 1 or 2GB drive, and the wonderous US Robotics 9600HST modem!" - Gerhard Bartsch
201-835-9316
Pompton Plains, NJ Metal Madness BBS
(1986-1988)Chris Mekelburg Commodore CNET
"This was a BBS I ran while in High School. Based around Heavy Metal Music. I called myself Slayer. Good Times were had. Thanks!" - Chris Mekelburg
201-863-5253
Union City, NJ Beacon Street Studios, BEACON STUDIOS 9, BEACON STUDIOS BBS
(1993-1996)Conrad Koblack, Conrad & Scott, Union City, New Jersey since 01/93 MajorBBS
From the September 1994 issue of Boardwatch: Union City, New Jersey since 01/93. Sysop: Conrad & Scott. Using Major BBS 6.11 with 15 lines on MS-DOS 80486 with 15090 MB storage. Supra at 14400 bps. $.50 Hourly fee. NJ's largest database of downloadable files with 20 CDs on-line. Free downloads for new users with 60 min. allowed daily. Two National Chat hookups every night. InterNet, UseNet, FidoNet, MajorNet, WorldLink and ChatLink.
201-864-1680
Union City, NJ Chat Shack
(1992-1995)Vic Guzzetta Galaticomm Major BBS
"Best guess on the timespan. I'm going with the phone number you have. This BBS had about 8 lines. Although it probably had other common BBS features, it was primarily dedicated to chatting. They did charge for access, but the price was quite reasonable -- $15 bought a large number of "credits", for lots of chatting. I was an occasional chatter, so the $15 lasted several months. The members were quite friendly, even to occasional folks like me. From time to time they'd use one of their lines to crosslink with another BBS. Usually this was one evening every week or two, so there was a lot of anticipation and excitement when it did happen. One of their frequent linkups was with Chat Chalet in Marlboro. That board had a similarly friendly group. I still remember this guy "Sarge" -- quite a character, quite friendly too. Ah, memories... geez that was over 10 years ago, and at 2400 baud (I'm sure the board supported faster, but that's all I had)." - Tom Strano
201-869-8385
North Bergen, NJ Central Control!
(1986-1989)Deeply Shrouded Diversi-Dial/D-Dial
"CC was one of the first multi-line systems I ran. The phone company sent a representative over to my house to find out why in God's green earth I needed 7 telephone lines in addition to the 2 the house already had. I was told I took up the wiring for the entire block. The lines are still there, but the hardware is long gone. I can still remember the day my system went up, and how fun it was to link around the country to other ddials. I also recall the day my system went offline. 30 seconds before I pulled the switch, the girl I loved logged in. The lines were disconnected the next day. I've made one or two very good friends from my ddial days and many many people who didn't like me or my system at all. I miss running the system. Perhaps I may put it back online one day when I'm much older and greyer." - Deeply Shrouded
201-935-1485
Lyndhurst, NJ HUB 500 EchoMail Coord, Star BBS Network, Starship 2, Starship II, Starship II
, Starship ][ BBS, The Galileo 7, The Starship ][ BBS
(1980-1997)Peter Buonomo, Philip J Buonom, Phil Buonomo, Philip J Buonomo, Rutherford, New Jersey since 07/80 TBBS
From the September 1994 issue of Boardwatch: Rutherford, New Jersey since 07/80. Sysop: Philip J Buonomo. Using TBBS 2.3 with 32 lines on MS-DOS 80486 with 10000 MB storage. All v.32bis Supportd at 19200 bps. $$0-75 No fee req fee. Operating for 14+ years, Starship is one of the longest running, most successful bbs systems EVER! FREE public access, Adult & non-adult topics, chat, files, games, & data-bases. USR, Hayes, Telebit, v.32bis 19.2 kbaud modems online, full internet access!
201-992-0834
Livingston, NJ Dragon's Weyr, Dragon's Weyr BBS, Dragon'sWeyr, Dragron's Weyr, The Dragon's Weyr
(1984-1993)Ron Stanions, Sauron DragonSoft, DragonSoft / C-Net
"The Dragon's Weyr was a system that ran out of Livingston, NJ on IBM PC hardware. DragonSoft was custom software written by the Sysop, and featured a custom scripting language called AutoScript. The theme of the site was based on Dragon mythology and computers." - Brian J. Bernstein
201-992-9893
Livingston, NJ BMBBS The Hospital, General Hospital, The Hospital
(1984-1989)Byte Master BMBBS
"The Hospital was the home base for BMBBS software. Based out of Livingston, NJ, this was an IBM PC based system (originally Apple ][)." - Brian Bernstein
202-327-5725
Allendale, NJ The Eastern Alliance
(1983-1987)James Wynen Cat-term 2.0
"Ran 202/212 AppleCat as well as USR 9600HST, 20 Meg Hard Drive. Distro Point for PPG, Hit-Man & other Apple Warez. Interactive gaming for credit and intergrated ASCII Express module to count download sectors won in gaming area." - James Wynen, "The Tracer"
202-561-9026
Bolling Airforce Base, Washington, DC Mount Olympus, Mt Olympus
(1988-1989)Jeff Hellige QuickBBS
"It was actually run out of my co-sysop's townhouse, as I did all the development on a Tandy 1000HX and it didn't have a hard disk. The BBS itself ran happily off of the HX's dual floppy setup though and that is how it was tested. My cosysop's name was Mike, though I'm afraid I don't remember his last name. It was taken offline when he had a hard disk crash. Until I found your list, I no longer remembered the phone number that was used and browsing the lists for the 301/202/703 area codes brings back a lot of memories. I'm currently in the process of resurrecting Mount Olympus as a Telnet BBS, still using QuickBBS. It is already functional on my local network using NetFOSS. I currently have screenshots from one of my backups put up on my webpage at http://www.cchaven.com. Thanks for the memories. Take care." - Jeff Hellige
202-686-0059
Washington, DC Dragon One
(1982-1985)Beltway Hacker Self Written and Fido
"One of the first Fido systems on the East Coast.. Originator of multiple interface selection. Run on an IBM PC Jr with outrigged 640K board and 2 5meg hard drives. Eventually 2 phone lines and user chat." - Beltway Hacker
202-966-4875
Washington, DC Ritual De Lo Habitual
(1993-1994)Perry Navarro WWIV
"I was the sysop, and also the network admin for AtomicNET, which was a decently sized WWIV-based network in the 202/301/703 area. As well as a few nodes in California and Seattle." - Perry Navarro
203-225-5482
New Britain, CTPurgatory Node 1
(1992)Brain Dead
Nemesis Member BBS
203-226-3565
Weston, CT LimeLight WDE, The Fine Blue Line, World Domination Enterprises, WDE
(1985-1990)Ron Sansone, Wylie Swanson SuperBBS, QuickBBS, Fido, etc
"after the c64 came a new phone line and new PC - this was run on a toshiba notebook with an external worm drive for the most part, later adding two 512mb scsi drives and a few cd-roms! software and name changed a few times. for most of '90/'91 the phone # forwarded to the LimeLight BBS in Wilton. " - Ron Sansone
203-227-0717
Westport, CT PIRATES NEST
(1982-1983)David Katz
"Can't remember the software.. it was Basic Based running on an Apple ][+ with 2 floppys and a 300 baud modem.. man, those were the days.. then I moved to Florida and started another years later..." - David Katz
203-235-9332
Meriden, CT Cool Coco BBS
(1983-1986)Not telling Custom drivers - Chaos OS for CoCo
"Cool CoCo was one of the first BBS systems operating in Connecticut in 1983. We had at least three of them running in the Meriden - Wallingford area. Using hacked sprint long distance numbers the BBS was also capable of dialing out to establish "secure" connections. We tried to sell stuff like disks & software on the BBS. It seemed that everyone that we knew was able to make, break, and copy software. Pirates didn~Rt need to buy software. The BBS was run on a slightly modified RS Color Computer. One with 128 KB memory, 3 disk drives with custom hardware interrupts. The software used was called Chaos. It was an OS that Skolnik developed and tried to sell. He was a kid genius who spoke machine code as fluently as English. The hijinks that went on in that era were a hoot. Many users made attempts at crashing the system. One time a ~Sspecial~T code was sent to BBS. A code that reformatted the drive and repetitively slammed the read/write head against the sides of the unit. Not a very nice thing to do. Most memorable moment was a loud knock on the door from an FBI agent who was investigating a bank robbery. My BBS & name was posted on a Danbury BBS that was somehow involved in the crime. Considering the mass of hacked printed sprint numbers on hand the FBI encounter was nerve rattling. Another more jaded memory was the quantity of pornography that was being distributed on the Computer Bulletin Board systems." - Anonymous
203-259-2292
Fairfield, CTLost Horizon BBS
(1987-1989)Adam Freedman Red Ryder Host
"I ran this on a Mac+ with a 2400 External Modem. Those were the days." - Adam Freedman
203-264-0394
Southbury, CTThaumaturgy
(1992)Alice Cooper
T.R.F. Member BBS
203-266-5921
Bethlehem, CT Empire
(1994-1997)Mike Eyre TAG
"Someone I was talking to on the phone from way back in the day pointed me to this list, and like a lot of other comments I see on here, it's a trip from the past. Some of my best memories ever were from this time. I ran TAG for my software, and had it in my room just out of high school and did a few years of it while in college. Just a little single line setup, but it was popular because of my "status" online, and some affiliations with some other known hacker and pirate software boards in the area. If you needed it, I could probably get it. I ran mostly 14.4 bps on a Zoom modem (remember those?), and I would frequently chat with people on the board. Those were good times, for certain. Just one correction, as noted above, I was in Bethlehem, CT not Southbury. And it's still second nature to me now to have area codes and prefixes memorized simply from my BBS days. To this day, my best friends are people I knew and met from the boards. Funny how some things stick with you.." - Mike Eyre
203-269-8313
Wallingford, CT The After Board, The Vampire Connection Bbs, Vampire Connx
(1990-2000)John Melillo, John P. Melillo, John P. Melillo aka The Vampire Lestat Telegard
, Renegade, Renegard, Telegard & Renegade
"In it's time, TVC was the busiest single line bbs in the entire state of Connecticut. At it's peak, it averaged almost 50 calls a day and almost 1000 minutes(out of 1440 possible) usage per day. (This doesn't count MY local time being logged on). I still have my bbs zipped up, as it was at the end. With my sysop logs intact from the entire run. My proudest thing about my bbs other the huge popularity it had was in the 9 years I ran the board, it was NEVER down for more than 8 consecutive hours. This includes my moving 3 times during that run. Ohhh. how we tried to one up one another. My bbs featured a little of everything, and that's why it was so good. Adult files, "elite" files, new shareware, and yes TEXTFILES, active local message bases, fidonet, kinknet, and my specialty was door games. Most bbs's had 5-10 online games, I scoured the Earth, and had 340+ at my peak." - John Melillo former aka ------------> The Vampire Lestat
203-271-2094
Cheshire, Ct GENSIUS, GENSIUS BBS
(1994-1996)Hawke, Paladine, Apocalypse MajorBBS
"Wow, first of all let me start off with thanking you for this list, just reading through it has brought back some great memories! We used to run Majorbbs with a 32 line license, though we only had 8 data lines and one voice line in the office. We had the primary line set as a hunt group (rollover) so as long as there was an open line, everyone got in. In the first 2 months of being open we had 450 active users. We also had a Nakamichi 6 disc changer loaded with shareware, adult, and more files than I care to remember. We had another line in West Haven and one more in New Britain that were forwarded to the main number, so instead of multiple nodes, we effectively made ourselves local to a large portion of the state. 8 line teleconferencing, and later on we subsribed to a national majorbbs link wich gave us internet email, usenet, and about 200 boards to teleconference with. I haven't been able to remember the name of the service for about 4 years now, and can't get ahold of the other sysops, as time seperates people. We ended up closing shop when people didn't feel like paying for service, and we didn't feel like paying for 11 phone lines and the service. The bills piled up like the national library of congress. The final blow came when we attempted to go from Majorbbs to Worldgroup, and the whole system crashed. We couldn't access the backed up system that was on tape because someone password protected it and forgot the password, and we just threw in the towel. I can honestly say that we were in the right place but the wrong time, because we had a lot of active users, but internet access was just becoming available, and we couldn't afford to provide it. Those were the happiest days of my life then, reliving them through this list has made me weepy for ancient technology, long nights, and caffeine. Keep up the good work!"
203-289-2442
East Hartford, CT Hard Core Cafe, Loaded Deck
(1985-1991)Starquest & Billy "The Other Sysop" Blaze BBS Express, BBS Express Professional
"It was run on an Atari 800XL. Some users refused to believe it because it ran faster than the IBM boards at the time, plus it had ANSI support and 80 column menus. It was one of the few boards that didn't believe in rules and real names. If you didn't use a handle, you got deleted. And I know I ticked off a few other sysops in the area and across the network... ]:->" - Billy Blaze
203-299-3251
Piper'S Pit
(1992)Rowdy Roddy Piper
Prisoners Member BBS
203-345-8530
Middletown, CTDark Knight BBS
(1990-1994)Tony Torello
"Elite board that ran 7pm - 7 am only on a 386dx40 and Supra 14.4. We branded this BBS number onto more VPIC .gifs than you could count. Renegade board with a warez/phreak/hack element - The Bat Cave" - Batman (Tony Torello)
203-355-5162
New Milford, CTCryptic Den
(1992)Crypt Roamer
Fantasy Member BBS
203-365-0511
Bridgeport, CTPleasure Palace ]I[
(1992-1997)Nancy Vaine Maximus
"I have no idea what possessed you to take on this project, but thank you. Looking through these pages and considering the work you've obviously done reminds me of the reasons why I put up the BBS in the first place: the online community I found at the time was so close, friendly, and eager to help that I felt I wanted to give back a little bit of all the kindness that was offered to me. Thank you." - Nancy Vaine
203-375-4419
Stratford, CT Arrakis ][
(1993-1995)Sirun-Z Renegade
"Ran this bbs, for a few years for my friends, at one time actually had 2 lines, got into it as a co-sysop on Starfleet HQ (which ran for about 4 years 91-95), an co-sysop as Warlocks Den, ahh the good days where you had to do more then just click to get online =) Started out on an atari 800xl with a 300 baud modem.. =)" - Sirun-Z
203-444-7607
New London, CTDungeon Of Who, Line Noise BBS, LineNoise BBS
(1991-1994)Don Beck, Dondog
, Don Dog
Paragon
Paradise Member BBS Paradise Member BBS
203-468-2012
North Branford, CT The A-Zone BBS
(1994-1996)Bruce Pantani RoboBBS
"This site ran RoboBBS and supported the graphical RoboTerm client. It also had a large CD-Rom changer archive and featured internet email for users at (If I recall correctly) a-zonebbs.com." - Bruce Pantani
203-496-8666
Torrington, CTConn-Quest
, Conn-Quest BBS
(1989-1994)David Pfeffer, Dave Pfeffer PCBoard, PC-Board
"I was googling and was amazed to find this, how cool. I ran this :) Though it was in New Hartford, we just had the Torrington phone exchange. I don't remember what years I ran it, it was a long time ago. I now run a crappy website called www.neutralzone.tk - keep up the good work, I loved those old times :)" - Sysop of Conn-Quest
203-661-2967
Grid,a. -1279, The Grid, The Grid BBS
(1988-1994)Doug Fields Magpie
, Magpie Xenix
Domain Name was admiral.uucp. Had UNIX shell access with Usenet and E-mail.
203-740-2491
Danbury, CTThe African Dream
(1989-1991)Andy Shakinovsky Maximus, BinkleyTerm
"Hardware at the time of closing: IBM PC XT clone running at 10mhz, 640k of RAM, 20 meg hard drive, 2400 baud external USRobotics Courier modem (bought for $100 from Randy Devaux, the sysop of Star Trek (bbs:203-775-6198) to replace the 1200 baud generic modem that was flaking out). Up and running day and night in my bedroom while I was in high-school until I left home." - Andy Shakinovsky
203-746-0595
New Fairfield, CT Bohemia
(1986-1987)Dave Faris All American BBS
"Bohemia was a Commodore 64 warez board. The software, message board and download files were all stored on a single 1541 floppy drive." - Dave Faris
203-754-9576
Waterbury, CT Info-Net, Micro-Net
(1980-1999)Karl Ramonas custom
"Hi, I was just browsing the internet, and came accross your site. I am Karl Ramonas, the founder of micro-net. Actually, I began in 1980 as spectra-board. I am a developer, and i developed all the software myself, the BBS later became info-net, then micro-net micronet is actually still in existance (www.micro-net.com) , once the internet came about, i became an internet ISP, and in 1999 sold to a public company during the internet boom. i know alot of history about the early days in connecticut, i was actually one of the first 2 bbs's in connecticut, the other was called cool-coco, run by someone named cliff skolnick (also a developer)." - Karl Ramonas
203-795-6837
Orange, CT B.O.M.C., B.O.M.C.(Bored of the Month Club)
(1985-1989)Ellen Snyder Opus, Fidonet
"This board originally went under various names such as Fido High School, and Fido Mansion, but I finally changed it to Bored of the Month Club. It orignally ran on a Columbia PC Clone, an 8088 with a 20 meg hard drive and a 1200 baud U.S. Robotics modem." - Ellen Snyder
203-799-6099
Orange, CT Gold Barr BBS
(1985-1988)Gary Barr PC Board
"I ran a PC Board BBS with forums, doors, downloads on a Radio Shack Tandy 1000 [8086] with a 20 meg hard drive." - Gary Barr
203-826-2745
New Britain, CTPurgatory Node 2
(1992)Brain Dead
Nemesis Member BBS
203-826-7567
New Britain, CTPurgatory Node 3
(1992)Brain Dead
Nemesis Member BBS
203-826-7577
New Britain, CTPurgatory Node 4
(1992)Brain Dead
Nemesis Member BBS
203-848-3393
Montville, CT Dox Domus, Horus BBS
(1991-1992)Jacob Altovito, Pat Trainor, The Z
Independent Member BBS
203-848-8783
Oakdale, CT WinTower
(1985-1991)Steve Engratt ARB BBS (C64)
"Ran on a 1541, 1571 and two 1581 drives - a boatload of storage at the time." - Steve Engratt
203-866-2464
Norwalk, CT Milliways
(1989-1995)Ralph Kramden & The Lunatic GBBS Pro
"We started Milliways as an easy way to leave messages for my parents when I went away to college, but it quickly became MUCH more than that. In fact, it got to the point where it was so busy that I had trouble logging in myself! We ran on an Apple //c with an external 800k 3.5" drive and a USRobotics Courier 2400 modem. The board ran strong until we had a winter day in 1995 with multiple power outages that killed the power supply for the //c. I was planning to move to Texas shortly thereafter and, alas, Milliways saw its last caller. I did give the software (which included a lot of customizations by both myself and The Shadow, who ran Treasure Vault ][) to a fellow who said he would run the BBS on his machine, but I'm not sure what happened after that. Great, great times. --Ralph Kramden (boy -- THERE's a handle/signoff I haven't typed in a LONG time!)"
203-874-2685
Milford, CT The Dark Knight BBS
(1985-1987)Gordon Murray, Bill Murray CNET
"24/7 bbs running on a C64, 1200/2400 BPS Hayes then Supra, (3)1541 drives complete with fan running so they would not over-heat. A elite BBS running warez, online games, chat rooms etc.. I wish I had the opening page file still. It was a nice picture of the batman logo above a building done by a friend of mine that was brilliant for a ansi graphic." - Gordon Murray
203-875-4132
Vernon, CT Vernon IBM RBBS
(1984-1986)Bruce Walton RBBS
"Running the BBS was a blast. I was one of the few BBSes in my part of the state which meant I received a good variety of users. Configuring the computer to run the BBS was an adventure since it was an original IBM PC with 512K and two floppy drives." - Bruce Walton
203-877-2864
Milford, CT Tom Sawyer's Island
(1994)Jim Santa Barbara, Today's Tom Sawyer (Jim Santa Barbara) Virtual BBS (VBBS)
"I was the SysOp of Tom Sawyer's Island BBS in 1994 (203-877-2864). It's pretty amazing to see that a listing for it still exists in some form on the Internet. I ran Virtual BBS (VBBS) and I got a lot of help from another SysOp in town (David Bell). In the late '80s / early '90s, I had run a Commodore 64 1200 Baud BBS called Highpoint on Color64 software, I believe on the same phone line as the later BBS. Good times! Thanks for bringing back a memory for me." - Jim Santa Barbara
203-878-2367
Milford, CT The Hour Glass
(1993-1998)Michael Vignola VBBS (OS/2)
"The current entry is correct, according to my knowledge, but I'd like to add that a second line existed at 878-4276. Originally it was a 14.4k, trailing the primary's 19.2k V.everything. I guess that could give a timeframe for its introduction. Michael (sysop) mentioned to me how he had to sweet talk the phone company into getting him another line (he was up to 5 or 6 at the time.. what the others were for I do not know)." - Unknown
203-888-7952
Seymour, CT BULET-80 OF SEYMOUR, BULLET-80 Seymour, CT
(1980-1985)JIM PETZOLD BULLET-80
"I STARTED THIS BBS ON AN OLD TRS80 MOD 1 WITH A HOMEMADE EXPANSION INTERFACE. I STILL HAVE THE SYYSTEM & MAY TRT TO GET IT UP AGAIN SOME DAY FOR KICKS!" - Jim Petzold
203-888-9370
Oxford, Ct Airshow, Airshow BBS, The AirShow
(1991)Carol Rex Spitfire
"AirShow was restarted in Ocala, Florida in 1993 and had a final landing in 1998." - Carol Rex,
203-931-4389
West Haven, CT