ANSI Days
Back in the early 1990’s I ran a BBS as a hobby. Those were the days of dot-matrix printers, VGA, CGA, EGA and monochromatic monitors and DOS. The software I used to run my BBS was Telegard 2.7. It had a Monty Python theme to it and I created all my own ANSI art. The name of my BBS was “the Flying Circus” and my sysop handle was “SpamClog”, which referred to a funny Monty Python skit. I even wrote a letter to Hormel and got permission to make mention of their product Spam, throughout my site. (I created a lovely can of SPAM using only colored ANSI.)
In those days, only one person at a time could connect to your BBS, which you ran off your computer. You connected by directly dialing a phone number over a phone line from your computer modem. Unlike the web of today, when someone was on your site, you were able to watch exactly what they were doing. My BBS offered original ANSI art and popular text based games such as Tradewars, the Pit, and one like Rogue. There was also a download section that offered shareware and gifs. It was a fun hobby and I really enjoyed the technical and creative aspects that came with running a BBS.
Time past and things changed. First came the release of DOS 6.22, then Windows 3.1 and then I took BBS offline. People were discovering the Internet and leaving BBS’s behind. My days as a BBS sysop were fun and will always have a special place in my memories… Back in the days of ANSI.
Note: The above image isn’t in ANSI but is actually ASCII. ANSI is the “colored” cousin of ASCII and isn’t really supported by Windows anymore.
Note 2: It’s been ages since I used TheDraw and created ANSI artwork. I also can’t seem to find a single one of my BBS backups on floppy disk. If I do, I’ll post them.
