Lostgallifreyan wrote:
MotoFox confucius-
wrote
in
:
Didn't stop me from pulling out the video board (had an old 16-bit
Hercules ISA video board kicking around that worked well enough),
sticking
98 on that box and using the SCSI to host a dial-up BBS for almost 10
years, tho...
Before I had a computer, I think. 
I never got to see a BBS. Although I
guess I'm using its direct decendent right now.. I'm not sure how Usenet
relates to BBS, exactly though, if at all. Maybe just a similar use,
rather
than method?
As I recall, some of the BBS services were used to get updated program
files, or for some add-ons for the program, and were often hosted by the
manufacturers. But in addition to these, there were some that were
analogous to newsgroups for customers to participate in, with posts relating
to hardware and software issues. And I seem to recall using Procomm for
this.
These were (as I recall) pretty much DOS-based services, with basic text
screens (character displays only, limited to the basic ASCII set, like in
DOS), although I think some later programs allowed you to run it in a DOS
window, like Procomm Plus. But my memory may be off.
One might say, in a sense, that BBS was a forerunner to Usenet.
You don't know what you were missing. :-) I guess it seems primitive by
today's standards.