Dial-up BBS culture in the 1990s

I got my first computer  when I was probably around 6-8 years old.
However,  I did not get my first modem until I was in high school.   A
computer without a modem or a network connection  of some sort is just
an island. Things got very, very interesting  shortly after getting my
hands on that first modem. 

As I would soon find out, people had been very busy building extensive
computer networks by hooking up computers  with modems  to the regular
telephone  system aka the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).
One of these  computer  networks  was in reality  lots of small  local
networks.  These were the Bulletin Board Systems, or BBS's for short.
And just like most networks, there were a lot more "clients" (BBS'ers)
than there were "servers" (BBS's). 

Local BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems) aka "the servers"  were typically
hobbyist  systems made up of an extra phone  line at someone's  house,
plus a dedicated computer (with modem) running the BBS software and on
stand-by 24/7 to answer the phone and connect a caller to the BBS.

Because  most BBS's  were run by regular  folk and were not commercial
enterprises,  they tended to only have a single phone  line associated
with the ("one line that you could call into").  Therefore,  trying to
call into most BBS's while someone else was already on resulted in the
dreaded  BUSY signal. The more popular the BBS, the more likely it was
to be busy. 

BBS's tended  to form local clusters ("local BBS scenes")  because  it
used to cost extra money to make a phone call to a non-local  number.
And because  a lot of the extra billing was typically associated  with
calling  outside  of one's own Area Code, local BBS scenes  tended  to
cluster  around  each Area Code.  (In some Area Codes,  it could  cost
extra money to make a call *within*  the Area Code if the call  was to
someone far away enough, thus creating  multiple BBS scenes within one
Area Code.   This was fairly  true,  for instance,  of the Tampa  Bay,
Florida -- Pinellas County / Hillsborough County -- BBS scenes.) 

Of course  all of this local flavor and its tight-knit  nature  and of
knowing  that you could  always  meet up and hang out with the  people
that you were BBS'ing  with died with the advent  of the Internet  and
all of its seemingly  infinite nature.  I was there for it and watched
it happen with my own eyes.  This has stuck with me as a prime example
of more not always being better. 

I ran a BBS in high school from my bedroom, paying for the extra phone
line with wages earned bagging groceries  at the local grocery store.
It was a surreal  experience  to be lying in bed trying to go to sleep
and  hearing  one person  after another  calling  into your BBS.   The
phone's  ringer would most likely be off but you could still  hear the
modem relays make their distinct clicks  and hear the computer's  hard
drive become much more active as someone used the BBS. 

What did people do on BBS's?  Mostly we participated in message forums
and downloaded  files made available  either by the person running the
BBS ("the SysOp") or more commonly uploaded by other callers.

I also got introduced to the "elite BBS scene" ("warez", hacking, etc)
by  some kids in high school  and eventually  got very deep into  that
scene,  which would ultimately  lead to my getting really into hacking
the phone system. I think I'll write about those separately.  Same for
writing  about commercial  computer networks  of the time like Telenet
and Tymnet.  I should probably  also write about the distinct  "warez"
sub-culture, "distros", "couriers", etc. 

CREATED 2020-04-04