I miss a lot of things about the 1980's and the 1990's and those two decades will always hold a special place in my heart for me. It was then that I got my first actual desktop computer, a Tandy computer and when my desire to get a degree in Computer Science began to form. My first desktop computer only supported 16 colors, but that was the maximum number of colors that graphics cards supported back then. I played so many games on that computer too; Commander Keen and the King's Quest series come to mind and are probably my two favorite old-school PC games ever. Space Quest, Maniac Mansion, Jill of the Jungle, The Secret of Monkey's Island, The Colonel's Bequest, Wizard's Doom, and Loom are several others which I will never forget and which I had been so addicted to back then.

Graphic cards kept getting better and better as time went on, of course, and eventually they supported 256 colors or more and video games like Doom were released. Doom is of particular note because it was not only the first 3D game that I had ever played but was also the first network based game that I ever played. In fact, the first time I played it, I played it with my sister's boyfriend at the time; his name was Jason. He put his version of the game into server mode and I dialed into his machine at his house via my modem. Man, the days of dialup and 2400 and under baud modems and the like. Hehehe.

Anyhow, this was all still before the Internet had come into American households. In fact, we were still dialing into BBSes back then. Let me explain what a BBS is since even a lot of American kids these days do not even know what one is since it predates the Internet as we know it and their births. Hehehe. Anyhow, BBS stands for Bulletin Board System. People around the United States would host these BBSes on their computers and you would dial into them with your computer via a modem. A few of the guys my sister dated have all hosted BBSes before.

Some of these systems only supported one line which meant that only one person could dial into the BBS at a time. Others supported multiple lines so a number of people could be on one the BBS simultaneously. These BBSes stored photos, applications, and other content that you could download to your computer. They also had chat rooms that you could go into to chat with other people who were currently logged in and some even had text based video games on them that you could play. Remember, this is all before the Internet so it really was not like viewing a webpage in a web browser today as everything was text based.

Anyhow, I really miss those days. It was really fun to log into one of these BBSes and play around. I even had my first experience with BBSes on my first computer. I remember my father being a little afraid of the BBS actually. It is kind of funny to think about it now but both he and I had never been on one before and when I dialed into the BBS, the sysop (short for system operator -- a.k.a. the person who runs the BBS) had brought us into chat and had started talking to us. My dad was all alarmed and asking who was typing and was worried that something bad would happen to the computer or whether something bad was already going on with it, etc. Hehehehehe Too funny, huh?

Apparently, there are still some people out there in the United States that run these BBSes even though the BBS has been supplanted by the Internet. And supposedly you can actually even access these BBSes through a web browser instead of needing to dial in with a modem. I haven't tried it yet but I should sometime soon. If anything, to relive memory lane a little bit. How nostalgic would that be, huh?

The following are links to screenshots of the various games mentioned in this discussion:

Commander Keen: http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/9180/0000002399.1920x1080.jpg?t=1342291154

Maniac Mansion: http://www.abandonia.com/files/games/300/Maniac%20Mansion%20Deluxe_8.png

King's Quest: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8498/8365386620_088c5d0f47_b.jpg