Barnyard BBS

Believe it or not, there was a time before the internet.  Barnyard and many other BBS (Bulletin Board) systems existed back them.  BBS's provided features similar to today's email, newsgroups, and web. 

Things were much different looking however.  Communications were much slower, and hardware was much simpler (in fact, many BBS systems ran on Commodore 64's or very slow PC's).  Because of these limitations, everything was text based. I do not exagerrate when I say that you could literally READ text as it was received.  To download a modern MP3 file would have taken 12-24 hours. 

Interconnecting systems was a lot harder back then.  Everything was done through phone calls between computers; so getting to the other side of the world was a bit more expensive than it is today.  A BBS was a lot more than just an information service though, they were a community entity.  Because everything was done over phone calls, people tended to be in the same geographic area.  Because of this, BBS's became places where friends could talk, share information, and play games against one another.  In many ways, BBS systems were much more social (less anonymous) than much of the internet is today.

Barnyard was a BBS system.  It was based out of Pottstown, in southeastern Pennsylvania.  It was one of many BBS's in the area, but it was one of the largest.

I started the Barnyard back in 1993.  I was still a kid at the time.  I put a lot of years into making the Barnyard into the best place that I could.  It offered things what were rare in those days, such as:

• Over 1 gigabyte of storage (remember, this was a long time ago)
• An interlinked gaming network (compete against other BBS's)
• An interlinked message system (conversations across multiple BBS's)
• An interlinked email system (email across multiple BBS's)
• Many interactive games available

Barnyard existed until mid 1999, when a tragic accident ended it once and for all.  The computer that was Barnyard was damaged, and the lights went dark.

However, all is not lost.  For that matter, very little is lost. 

I kept solid backups.

For anyone that remembers the Barnyard, welcome home.  For anyone that never visited back then, take a look through the archives to see what you missed.

The K-Mart Chronicles are a community-written story that pre-dates Barnyard.  A lot of the people involved in the Chronicles also took part in Barnyard, so I archived a copy of them along with the Barnyard backups.  For anyone who can remember Swirl's Thunderboard, you can get your copy of the Chronicles here.

The sounds that we all heard when dialing a BBS was that of the modem connecting and negotiating with the BBS's modem.  The rapid spread of broadband means that the younger generation may never hear its wonder.

I picked up an mp3 of the connection noise, so that we can all remember.

Once upon a time, there was a BBS called 'Charlie's Hangout'.  It was run by a fellow named Charlie Long, who threw possibly the greatest parties in the known universe.  Here are a few pictures from the winter 1997 party. 

Sorry they aren't any sharper, but it was a first generation digital camera. The little beast only captured at 320x200.

And we were thankful to have that. Up-hill. Both ways.

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