THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO BULLETIN BOARDS by ALDO CELLA Edited For IBM'S by Douglas A. Brown HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO BULLETIN BOARDS Page 1 IBM INTRODUCTION BY Douglas A. Brown Greeting my friends.. I found THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO BULLETIN BOARDS, and downloaded it. I started to read it and POW it hit me, This is great! But it was in Apple format with allot of Null characters in it.. I knew that there were allot of people out there that would enjoy this as much as I did, so I took it upon myself to do some work on it and put it in a format everyone could read and put it back into publication. If you like THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO BULLETIN BOARDS please let Aldo Cella know, you can reach him at The Zoo. Well fasten your seatbelts hear we go... * INTRODUCTION * Listening to Douglas Adams the other day while he was answering a question as to how he came up with the name for his book the HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, I happened to notice him mentioning that he acquired the name from an informally- written traveler's guide to places around England, who's title began with "THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO...". This phrase, then which Douglas had made famous, should, whenever used in a title, say something special about the literary work so titled. It should place the idea in the reader's mind that this -- THIS is not going to be some dull mass of idiocy pretending to be useful. THIS is going to be something with TASTE! The following, then, has been created not to simply show one how to get along and survive in the electronic universe, but how to do so with minimal effort and maximum STYLE. After all, isn't STYLE getting a bit rare lately? ON WITH IT! * Finding A New System * At times you may find yourself looking around for a new board to call, and may be unable to find anyone to recommend one. In this case, you can only rely on a quick judgment by the names of the boards you see on all the board lists. You may think this is an inaccurate judgment, but it's not that far off the mean. The name of the system tells a lot about the personality, maturity, and STYLE of the sysop. So, if you happen to run across a board whose name contains excessive profanity, etc., you can be fairly sure that it's probably run by some little 12 year- old brat with delusions of grandeur. THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO BULLETIN BOARDS Page 2 * LOGGING ONTO A NEW SYSTEM * Once you've picked your way through a list, or gotten a recommendation from someone you know, watch carefully how things look when you first enter a board. Any intelligent sysop will know that your first impression of a system will be a complete by the time you get through to the main menu. If anything at all during this time seems distasteful or definitely un-STYLISH, leave and don't bother calling back. The appearance and flavor of a board is a direct reflection of the sysops's personality. So, if the guy running the board you're on is a sex-crazed 13 year-old who listens to heavy metal 18 hours out of the day, you'll be able to tell. ** Corollary: The only callers you'll find on a board run by sex-crazed, 13 year-old heavy metal fan are other sex-crazed, 13 year-old heavy metal fans. * LOGGING ON TO A NEW SYSTEM PART II * For some utterly incomprehensible reason, some sysops have the notion that if they make their system SEEM very busy and successful, it will be. This, in itself, is really irritating when logging on to one of these boards and not being able get to the main menu because the system disconnects just after validation info, saying something to the effect of "GO AWAY AND DON'T BOTHER US NOW. WAIT 'TELL LATER TO SEE IF YOU'VE BEEN ALLOWED THE MOST HIGH HONOR OF ENTERING THIS SYSTEM." Don't bother calling back. 99% of the time, these places have nothing useful and are only full of elitists. Oh, and yes - feel free to equate "elitist" with "loser" anytime you like. ** Corollary: There's a rather large difference between "elitist" and ELITE. Data Elite is one of the exceptions to this rule. * VALIDATION * Most all boards will require that you leave a phone number at which you can be contacted. Whenever you have to give your phone number, always make sure that you also leave a time of day at which you may be reached at that number. And while you're at it, leave your real name. Why? Consider this: [ Simulation ] ( Phone Rings at 1:30 AM ) Parent: Hello? HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO BULLETIN BOARDS Page 3 Caller: Hi, is THOR, PRINT OF AASGARD there? This is THE MANIAC, calling to validate him for access to THE INSANE ASYLUM. ( Parent hangs up, makes a quick phone call ) Parent: Hello, Police Department? [ End of Simulation ] ( As well as your livelihood) ..Need I say more? * CALLING BACK LATTER * Most of the time, once you leave valid information, it'll only be about 24 hours before you're valid. If you happen to call back after 24 hours and you aren't valid, somethings wrong. At your own desecration, you may call back once or twice more. If you don't get any response after that, you probably aren't going to get one at all, so forget it and try some other place. ** Exception: Tardis BBS in Des Moines, Iowa will take a while to validate your information, but it is worth it. * CALL BACK LATTER II * Once you have been validated, it's a good idea to go through and look at every bit of the system you can get to. By doing this, you will determine right away if it's worth your while to call back regularly. It'll be fairly simple to tell what kind of callers the board gets. One of the main things to look for is PERPETUAL RAG SYNDROME. This is a serious affliction, caused by the collective immaturity of a boards callers. The most visible symptom is a message base full of profanity, insults, and other miscellaneous ragging. In critical cases of P.R.S., the sysop will even be in the middle of it all, throwing around insults and threats and making a real ass of himself. Boards with PERPETUAL RAG SYNDROME have not long live, so if you find one, don't waste your time on it. ** Corollary: Boards with real STYLE will NEVER suffer from P.R.S. * POSTING MESSAGES * Considering that you have found a system and do call it regularly, it would be a advisable to endeavor to post at least one message each time you call. This will help the system much HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO BULLETIN BOARDS Page 4 more than it seems to. The only guidelines this guide can HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO BULLETIN BOARDS Page 4 provide for posting are simply these: Make sure you post something worth reading, make sure you post it in the appropriate section, and above all, do not - DO NOT - post anything that would start the dreaded PERPETUAL RAG SYNDROME. * WARES LINES * In case the system you have found isn't a BBS - perhaps it's and AE or a CF - here is a translated version of the pervious entry: Make sure you UPLOAD when you can, make sure you something worth downloading, and above all, do not - DO NOT - upload anything that might start the dreaded PGS. That's PERPETUAL GARBAGE SYNDROME, wherein one piece of garbage that gets uploaded causes OTHER pieces of garbage to get uploaded, and in a short amount of time, there's so much garbage that no room is left for anything decent. ** Corollary: Warns lines with real STYLE will never suffer from this sort of thing, either. * FORUM * On most good systems there will be some sort of command for the user to talk or leave a comment to the sysop. This is the most powerful command on the boards and that is why I am going to discuss it. Through the Chat mode you can make friends with the sysop, give advice to make the system better, or just rap with the sysop. My suggestions to you is when you log on to a new board is to leave a comment for the sysop and tell him that you are a new user, and leave some information about yourself. This will give the sysop a feeling about you as a user. * THE END * This concludes the HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO BULLETIN BOARDS. For those readers as yet unfamiliar with BBS's and other similar systems, it should provide some insight as to how to get off to a good start. TASTE and STYLE are the same everywhere, you know, and even though they seem to be more and more scarce these days, you can't get along without them. Good Computing... THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO BULLETIN BOARDS Page 5 * List of Good Des Moines Area IBM Bulletin Boards * NAME PHONE MAX_BAUD =========================================================== AST Turbo Byte (515)981-0036 2400 Buffalo Creek (515)225-8496 9600 Fog Line BBS (515)964-7937 1200 ICUL PC Cupboard (515)279-1713 9600 The Pioneer legal BBS (515)270-3724 2400 PC Bulletin Board (515)223-0328 9600 Sires Cybenetics (515)964-7937 2400 =========================================================== This is my list of good Des Moines Area BBS. They all follow the points that were listed above. I really like The Pioneer Legal BBS and AST Turbo Byte myself you can give them a try and make your own choices. Well Good BBSing.