• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

Perfect tool for the Retrochallenge... the Prison Board BBS

DoctorClu

DoctorClu

Well-known member
Prison Board is still going strong with dialup and telnet access.

Ruben is a great and flexible sysop. He added more lines to accomodate the additional users.

You can find a variety of BBS games there, and a up to date BBS list for Atari and Commodore BBS's, and if other retro platforms would like to be added there, Ruben would be more than willing to add them. He allowed as little as 1200 baud for those wanting to get on with older computers.

So check out the Prison Board BBS!

Telnet://rdfig.net

972-329-0781

 
Temetka

Temetka

Well-known member
I'd love to sign up but:

I will not give out my name and address to Ruben no matter how cool a guy he seems to be. I never met they guy and as such do not see a reason to impart unneccessary information.

If he would allow wildcat to allow for unregistered members to gain access via some alternative method that would be awesome. Otherwise no matter how much I might miss old BBS games, I will have to pass.

 
DoctorClu

DoctorClu

Well-known member
Since others have brought up their concerns like they did here, I will give the answer Rueben gave to the question on EXACTLY what he was looking for to get access...

"I just want a real name, first and last. It is not too much to ask for

and I am the one also have trepidation as to what has happened in the

past. It is a matter of honor and trust. Yes, I ask for the phone info

and address. But I won't get my shorts in a bunch if I see "fake" info

like all 2's for the number or some address like Main St USA. I do not

even ask for email addresses. For those that are my customers that

information is located in my Quick Books Pro and that is for business

related mail, like sending the invoice, etc.

Everyone who logs in here has an email address. If I login as

Joe Shmuck the my email address will be Joe.Shmuck@rdfig.net. So that

is how I contact the users here. So tell them please real names, no

foul words or play on words. Give info like it asks from where, just

say from HOME. Nothing drastic and nothing that will affect the

sensibilities of others.

I keep a relatively clean and upright board. I have been in BBS'ing

since 1987 and running a BBS since 1991. You do not keep running a bbs

for that long if you are not an upright straight shooter.

I guess you can tell them all that. If they want more assurances they

can email me at rdfigsupport@rdfig.net or call my cell at 214-682-1129.

Just remind them I run a business to support this bbs and I will not do

anything to jeopardize my board or my business. "

So hopefully that helps elaeviate some worries.

 
II2II

II2II

Well-known member
I understand that board operators have to work to keep their system clean. Having reliable information helps to keep vegrants out, and probably improves the overall behaviour of people. However, we're not in 1990 anymore. Which is why some people are going to be concerned about disclosing any form of identifying information.

I bring up 1990 for a couple of reasons, neither reason has anything to do with the appropriateness of giving out identifying information back then (because it wasn't appropriate back then). One reason is that people are much more aware of what can be done with this information. These range from annoyances, such as being dumped into a marketing database, to criminal activity.

The second big reason is that a lot of this information hangs around for a hell of a long time. Almost everything that I did on BBSes 15 years ago is gone. The information was restricted to a BBS and it died with the BBS. Not that I did anything of interests (unless you are interested in OS/2 flame wars), but who knows how a potential employer will look at those uninteresting things. Switch over to the Internet and everything changes. All of a sudden those obscure postings on OS/2 and the Macintosh on Usenet are now public knowledge. Same with email archives for mailing lists. Keeping information is now the norm, as is placing it in a publicly accessible database. It may seem harmless enough, and in most cases it probably is. But it will help shape people's impressions of you.

So expecting real names, unless it is for very good reasons, just go to that place where little BSD daemons roam.

(Once upon a time I had Radio Shack ask me for my name, phone number, etc.. I told the guy, no. So he said, "but how are we going to inform you of all our great deals." I said, "exactly." Sometimes I just want to get something done, and not have a long term relationship. Particularly not with the marketing department.)

 
arfink

arfink

Well-known member
I can see why he'd want a real name. And that's how he can keep it clean- people know that what they do online is public. Plain and simple. However, I think in the case of a BBS, even one as big as Prison Board, probably would not be routinely checked by employers, unless they suspect you for something already and they track all your from-work internet activity to the Prison Board or any other BBS. Text-only conversation has a tendency to become so impersonal that it's very easy for someone to misconstrue what you say. Journalists have known this for decades. As I say, the power of the internet is that anyone can publish anything; the bane of the internet is that anyone can publish anything. And of course, anyone with the right tools can track everything you do too.

 
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