My dad had some bills of 5 grand he told me but he was dialing out from a remote location in northern Manitoba that had only microwave said made huge difference when he went from 500 baud to 5000
On May 19, 2017 2:40 PM, "jim stephens via cctalk" <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > On 5/19/2017 3:23 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > >> On 18 May 2017 at 17:16, allison via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> >> wrote: >> >>> All a DOS BBS was was a user interface that provided security by >>> requiring >>> user/password >>> and limiting the commands usable. The easy was to do that was a version >>> of >>> the CMD module >>> rewritten to not have things like RMDIR and DEL. >>> >> >> I was never into the BBS scene, because outside North America, local >> phone calls cost money. So you paid for every minute you were online >> -- quite a lot. >> > I have news for you. (maybe) From 1976 until it petered out, the phone > time cost a lot too. $200 or more a month at times. > > Also a stupid charge for local calls where the PUC's didn't stand up to > the Bell system or successors and call bullshit to the charges. Calling > across a few blocks could cost a lot and you wouldn't know it unless you > were a phone nut due to zone usage metering. > > Only with competition in the mid 80s did US long distance start to fall, > and now with the internet and voice over IP have the need to pay for most > such long distance gone away for small users. > > I put in a couple of T1 based systems for large offices though as recently > as 7 years ago, and commercially the POTS or digital carrier phone numbers > carry a huge toll. > thanks > Jim > >> I used (and still use) CIX (www.cix.co.uk) which was a sort of UK >> version of BIX, and used offline readers -- you dial up, it sends your >> comments, zips & grabs all your messages, and disconnects, as fast as >> possible to keep the phone bill down. >> >> But AIUI later-era DOS BBSes often used DESQview to allow multiple >> multitasking user sessions, and the BBS sysops were often early >> adopters of OS/2 2. >> >> So DOS <> no multitasking... >> >> >> >> >