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[12/04/86] The History of BBS's And How They Came to be in The Hopeful State That They are in Now. As you may, or may not know, BBSs evolved from office, and school computers. Many people simultaneously dawned upon the fantastic idea that it would be great fun to be able to exchange information and ideas in an easy and relatively new fashion, using God's gift to man, the modem. Originally, office computers had BBS's to allow office people to communicate their ideas, and schools had BBS's because a bunch of egghead kids decided that it would piss the hell out of teachers to see them having fun instead of doing their programming homework; needless to say, they were right. It is from these simple beginnings that the USER evolved. Users, as the name wittily implies, are those who use BBS's. In days long since past, they were adult, mature computer owners who enjoyed intelligent conversation with other adult mature computer owners. You see, in humbler times, when 48k was enough for ANY application, computers cost lots of money. This brings us to the crux of our conversation: Kids couldn't afford them. Kid's parents didn't want to afford them (because G.I. Joe was ever so much cheaper), and so kids didn't have them. Now, on the other hand, a computer can be had for as little as 500 dollars, which is plenty cheaper than the complete Transformers collection of guns, trucks, lazer pistols, attack ships and the like. Armed with modems, and lists of thousands of interesting places to call, they began to dial havoc into unsuspecting systems everywhere. Much to their shock, the message bases were all filled with this stuffy drool about things like ADA and SNOBOL. Obviously, computer users weren't good at spelling. Intent on bringing some life to the rather dull party, Indiana Jones, a typical 13 year old with a truly original alias, decided to get some of his school buddies (all of whom were dweebs like himself) to log on as well. Now, as a result of this wonderful happening, systems became overpopulated with the likes of Jack the Dripper, Mike Hammer, The Equalizer, Eddy Murphy, and the Amazing Spiderman...to name just a few. All of them -- every last one doing exactly what his or her favorist Sysop requests: Posting Lots of messages. What the sysop didn't ask for is a bunch of meaningless pigeon shit to clutter up his disk space, which is all too precious to be wasted. mIKE: cALL ME IN 5 MINUTES!!!!!!!!!! oooPPPS!!!!!!HAD THE UPPER CASE ON!!!!!!!!BuT iM NOT TURNING IT OFFF JUST TO BUG U'z HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! AZ i WUZ SEYING.!!!! jIMMY: I HIT MY BRUTHER WITH DA FONE BECUZ HE WUZNT BEE'NG A K00L DUDE!!!!!!!!!!HAHAH!!!!!! U SHUDA SEEN HIM SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM!!!!!!!!!!!!HAHAHAHAH MY PARENTS EVEN LAFFED!!!!!!!HOHOHOHOHO LOTZA LARFS FOR ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tHE oNE, tHE oNLY The BEST IN THE WORLD. IT 'S ME THE BEST SUPERHERO IN THE WORLD S N U A P M ER YA!!! YOU HEARD GOOD!!!! THIS MESSAGE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY YOUR FAVORITE PERSON SUPERMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!YAYAY!!!!!!!!!!! Let's look this over bit by revolting bit. Firstly, "mike: call me in five minutes" is ridiculous, because as every sysop knows, Mike hasn't been on in weeks, and time will show that he won't be on for another week or two. Next, this silliness about upper case. Writers, lawyers and doctors write in lower case, and I'm sure you can too, that is, if you can find the [CAPS_LOCK] button (Inability to do so proves an obvious lack of intelligence). Notice also the absurd use of abbreviations and indecipherable contractions; all in a vain attempt to hide an obvious inability to spell and punctuate. I find it hard to believe that Superman, who's mother tongue is English cannot read or write in it. I would also like to know the proper english pronunciation of "YAYAYAYAHAHAHAHAYTAHHGATAJHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!!!". Could it be that this is the way these people were tought to speak? Doesn't say much for the parents. Maybe it's genetics... To make matters worse, these same children, egos inflated like balloons open "kiddie boards" so they can be just as cool as the next guy. It is reasonable to suspect that anything named "Cobra's Fortress of Terrible DOOM!" is a kiddie board, and should be avoided at all costs. As we should have realized from the start, kiddies should be barred access to mature conversation, and left to their own "mountains of death" where they can pester their own kind and leave all of us alone. But then again, we all have 20/20 hindsight, don't we? It's unbelievable that this policy hasn't been implemented universally on all intelligent systems yet. I'm trying to change all that. Any self respecting sysop should get these dip shit excuses for people off his board immediately, and give himself, and his REAL users some peace of mind. Some sysops find this to be in poor taste, so they set up "rules" to try and alleviate the situation. Be advised, though that this is only a temporary solution; it will ease the pain but not get rid of the infection. The only logical practice is true correction. Get them off, and get them off now. We don't want to see them any more, and we're sure you don't either. I hope that this SoftDoc clarifies some of the inherent problems in giving expensive toys to children, and allowing them free, irresponsible reign of smart and intelligent establishments (if you are reading this, the system you are on cares, and is obviously run by a being of higher understanding). Outa here, Thomas Ark. (have a snappy day!)