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> and its BBS-like nature meant each server had its own culture and "cliques" and community

Kinda took that part for granted at the time; "social media" these days makes me miss what we had back then.

I was in an area that had one of the first cable internet connections and ran a "nintendo fan community" server that morphed into a "console fan community". It was not the largest but close; there was no jumping through ad clicks to access more "rare" areas of the server, only filled request. Don't remember what I called it. But I do remember a couple of the mods started dating; I want to say by the time life caught up with me and I shut it down they had got engaged (not 100 sure), I remember it got pretty serious thou. I didn't keep up with them and wish I had now that I am older and can appreciate things like that more.

> being Mac-only

I was an avid Hotline user at the time and connected via Windows. Was there third party clients? Vague memories...

Today I'm on Linux and just found out there's a FOSS Qt client updated just hours ago... https://github.com/tjohnman/Obsession

Hotline got official Windows clients after a year or so! I remember feeling a bit salty that our insular club suddenly had _intruders_ hahaha :) but yeah and around that time people started reverse-engineering the protocol (since it was plaintext) and a linux/BSD client "hx" was written. There are many unofficial clients: https://preterhuman.net/gethotlinekdx.php

Wow I didn't know Obsession was still being updated, that's awesome! thanks for letting me know lol

> I was an avid Hotline user at the time and connected via Windows. Was there third party clients? Vague memories...

I have a copy of all the official Hotline Windows releases in my archive somewhere. I don't know why, but finding the server software for Windows back when it released was so incredibly difficult. It felt like it was being gatekept.

Not that I remember. But there was a Mac clone called Carracho, and a little later there was a cross platform clone called KDX made by Haxial. Those were the days.

Wow this triggered some neural pathways I forgot I had.

I remember using both of those clients.

It was a life-defining piece of software for me too. As a teenager I found a server called “REALbasic Cafe” that inspired and helped me go from knowing next to nothing about programming to making my first money from shareware as a high school kid.

To this day I’m grateful I stumbled across the Hotline software and the server.

The REALbasic Cafe was huge for me, too. It was an amazingly positive community and I met so many awesome people. One of them sent me a link to this post! It's awesome to see other people still remember it, too.

I had an identical experience with the REALbasic Cafe as a kid, down to eventually selling a couple of shareware projects. I wonder if we were there at the same time.

The Café was my second home as a rural teenager into Macs and programming at a time when no other kids were. The 90s being what they were, my mom even let me fly solo to meet other Café members at the old MacHack conferences (in Dearborn, Michigan!).

I have nothing but fond memories of the 90s Mac community. It really was a special time and place. I hope my kids find their equivalent of these spaces.

Spent a ton of time on Hotline servers in the 90s. I wonder if any of them still exist. I'd dearly love to be able to pop back into my teen self and mess around on one.

Me too! I learn so much about coding from that server in high school, it was definitely a formative experience, learning to code with other teens all over the country.

I hung out there as well but I found REALbasic hard to understand at a young age. It just didn't align with my mental model. Later, I discovered Ruby and had great success.

Same here, Hotline was just at the perfect time to have an (embarrassingly?) massive impact on my path. Less so the piracy aspect of it (though that sure opened my eyes to some possibilities with technology). I don't know if I would have got into Linux at all (at least not at such a young age) if I hadn't fallen into Badmoon (a popular? server at the time) and seen people in the user list with hx icons. Badmoon had a bit of a bad rap for silly things some of the members did, but as a 10-13 year old living in the sticks, meeting such an eclectic group (hackers, skaters, techies, artists) was revolutionary.

so cool to hear how Hotline impacted you -- really cool.

Cheers -- thank you for shipping such amazing software at a time where the Mac was always "second class" or shunned from other communities. For once we had a seriously badass exclusive thing and it came at JUST the right time in my life. I have SO many stories, running my own servers, making friends, sharing my music and discovering new music from around the world (as I already mentioned), connecting me with people who influenced my career and interests...

Do you remember David Raufeisen ("FORTYoz")? I believe he created hx, if I recall correctly. It turned out he lived in the Vancouver area as well, and at the time I REALLY wanted to try Linux, BSD, whatever (and was asking for help on some HL server), and he gave me his personal phone number so I could call him and get help from him. It turned out neither of the two Macs I had were supported by ANY *nix variant (not even A/UX or anything), so I was out of luck, but I'll never forget his kind gesture, and my much-later realization of his significance in the HL community.

Java animated development environment. Strange days.

Wow, I totally forgot what it stood for - thanks for reminding me! I was just digging up the old snapshots of the site on archive.org . Were you involved in the project at all? I wonder if I still have any builds/files on any of my old MO disk backups from those days..!