RedZone, the BBS
For those of you who don't know what a BBS is, I can tell you that it is in general a message forum where people meet, write and debate about their opinions. You could compare this to the news group found on the Internet, but this is in a much more closed environment. BBS' were very popular from the beginning of the 90'th to the middle of the decade, until Internet came and wiped the BBS scene almost away. I just have a feeling that the BBS scene is coming slowly back when people are fed up with the commercialism and garbage you will find on the Internet...
I ran my own BBS, RedZone, from 1996 until 1999. I used the best BBS software available, BBBS, under OS/2 Warp and later Linux Red Hat 5.2. I have to say that RedZone was one of the most popular BBS in the region of Turku :-)
Here you can see the history of RedZone:
| 20.6.1996 | RedZone opens as a public night BBS |
| 29.7.1996 | RedZone becomes a registered BBS |
| July 1996 | RedZone became member of AmbiNet (first net in RZ). |
| July 1996 | RedZone got an own phoneline and became a 24h BBS |
| October 1996 | BBBS/D -> BBBS/2 |
| November 1996 | RedZone gets an own server (AMD 586 / 16MB RAM / 2,54 GB HDD) |
| 26.12.1996 | RedZone and HeTo starts Edison Net |
| May 1997 | RedZone server: 16Mb RAM -> 32Mb RAM |
| 20.6.1997 | RedZone celebrates 1st anniversery (Timelimit -> 60 minutes) |
| July 1997 | RedZone became Simka site for BBBS |
| 5.9.1997 | Free email to all users in RedZone |
| 7.10.1997 | RedZone server: FAT -> HPFS |
| 21.1.1998 | RedZone's node 2 opened for remote use. |
| 23.2.1998 | RedZone server: Added IBM 4,5 GB SCSI harddrive |
| 4.5.1998 | RedZone server: CommBridge external v.34+ to node 1. |
| 15.6.1998 | RedZone Server II: AMD-K6 233MHz, 64 SDRAM DIMM, QDI Main Board |
| 20.06.1998 | RedZone celebrates 2nd anniversery |
| 16.09.1998 | RedZone moves to a new number; 02 - 239 0xxx |
| 17.11.1998 | RedZone runs on Linux Red Hat 5.2 using BBBS/LiI |
| 04.12.1998 | RedZone is the first BBS in the 02-region to abolish all limits |
I also have some screenshots from the old RedZone BBS:
| RedZone login screen | RedZone's file system | Bulletins in RedZone | The famous RedZone's cWho | |
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RedZone has now opened again to serve everyone who's interested in good old BBSs with great conversations. Please, pay me a visit!
Visit RedZone @ bbs.sviitti.com!
HardwareProgrammingRedZone, The BBS
