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samstave

Get off my lawn!

But what newbies will bever know the heck of: dip switch settings for IRQ for modems.

Thats what literally got me into computers...

In order to dial up BBSs and play tthe Pit and dl warez.

—-

Ive told this story before, but in about 1992? Or so - i got grounded for a month because i had been calling in long distance to a bbs in san jose to play the pit - and racked up a long distance bill of $926 - my dad was livid.

He yelled at me and said “why are you wasting all this time with computers! Its never going to do anything for you!”

Years later after i became successful with yee olde computerz! He apologized to me and said “im sorry i yelled at you for that time you cost me all that money in long distance charges.”

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"Years later after i became successful with yee olde computerz! He apologized to me and said “im sorry i yelled at you for that time you cost me all that money in long distance charges.”"

At which point you lit up your Havana Muy Gordo with a $1000 bill and said, "Don't sweat it?"

> Ive told this story before, but in about 1992? Or so - i got grounded for a month because i had been calling in long distance to a bbs in san jose to play the pit - and racked up a long distance bill of $926 - my dad was livid.

I had this problem until I discovered a bug in a Major BBS door game (TradeWars 2002) that let me have unlimited BBS credits. No more charges on my moms phone bill and even was able to trade those for other things in real life. Early bitcoin in a way. Looking back on it, my need to get online overrode my ethics regarding either my moms bank account or the sysops running the BBS. Oh well.

Same here, except it was San Jose to San Jose. However still had a bill because I was in Zone 1 and the BBS was in Zone 3 (phone book tells you which zone) So.. charges. Dad wasn't mad, I think he realized I was going to get a job in the field.

You up-dadded me!!!

I also got yelled at by my dad for racking up long distance charges in 1991 or 92 but in my case it was only about $150 for calling the Sierra BBS to download stuff for King's Quest games or something :)

Wonderful!

Were you also calling into PCLink?

I used to have a challenge with my best friend at the time:

We used to call 411 and challenge to whom could keep the 411 operator on the phone longest.

Similar but earlier story... staying up late at night or waking up early before school to login to BBS's. First with a Practical Peripherals modem that my dad acquired to dial into his business (which still used teletype). I got myself a Hayes 2400[1] and convinced my dad to get the fixed calling within your area code which I mostly paid for with my part-time work. I tried to stay within my LATA which included Sherwood Forest, Camelot, some others with doors and FIDO that can't recall. And then I made a mistake and on the advice of another BBS'er tried one in what I thought was a neighboring LATA. It was great! Active! Doors! gFiles! Warez! But was actually zones away in Texas. I had a good old time until the bill came. My Dad was purple he was so angry and I worked a lot of odd jobs to pay that off.

. .

[1] somehow just before college I got a used USR Courier HST. Then I sent it in with what was probably all of my hard earned beer money for upgrade to a Courier v.Everything... I still have that one, found it while moving https://v.gd/gF83mM)

> But what newbies will bever know the heck of: dip switch settings for IRQ for modems.

And dip switches to set hard drives to primary/secondary. Get that wrong and your machine didn’t boot.

those were jumpers :)

And making sure ATM0(?) was sent so that the modem was quiet...

I've told the exact same story. Weird.

Also $926?

Doubtful - I was calling from Tahoe City California to San Jose California...

And it was a summer month long binge on PCLink and BBSs...

(I later convinced my highschool to install a CAD network on which we installed a BBS Called Heaven and Hell and ran a warez site from there....

Fun times.

EDIT: Oh -- and it was run on an EverexStep Cube machine... I think it was a 386?

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