Why use a old school Bulletin Board System (BBS) like Bufkin Ridge Ranch BBS

  • Yes it is old school, but just like this web page there are no flashing ads, no heavy loading of your browser. Your mind and eyes are free to look and read what is on the screen. As in reading a book playing games and reading messages on a BBS makes you use your mind.
  • A BBS system does not care what version your web browser is or what operating system you are running. You do not need the fastest and most up todate computer to use a BBS. All you needed to be able to run is a telnet client or use our web telnet page link on the right side. Even the oldest and slowest computer can run it. See the right hand side for a list of telnet clients that you can use.
  • One of the largest and longest running BBS is in Taiwan. It was started as a way for people in china to speak freely. It has millions of registered users and mainly because it is out of china's goverment control. Old school BBS's that offer only telnet or dailup access is harder for outside sites to log and track. Places like facebook, and twitter are all web accessed and any web crawler can index the content. So even private message and things that you write are really not private.


What are our goals for users of Bufkin Ridge Ranch BBS

  • We want to provide a safe and family place on the internet for all people to feel welcome.
  • Our message areas are based around country living. Send messages to others about all things to do with country living.
  • Will be adding lots of games so that you can spend lots of time playing them.


History of Bufkin Ridge Ranch BBS

  • 1992 First started up with one phone line. Was using a 386 computer, 40 meg hard drive, runing on dos. The BBS software was Wildcat! 3.0
  • 1994 Switch to windows nt 3.1 moved up to 3 phone lines for callers. Upgraded to Wildcat! 4.0 and had two 6 changer CD-rom drives for files. We had many door games that was all registured. The most played game on the system was Food Fight! after every month we would reset the game and the winner got a prize and we would have a meeting for all the users to come to. The system was making 4 calls a day to a service call holonet which was a gateway to the internet. This gave all the systems users internet email. And we was the first board to offer internet email in southern indiana.
  • 1997 Had switch to Windows NT 4.0 and was running Winserver by Mustang. It was the windows version of wildcat! The board was on the internet full time over an ISDN line. We had 7 phone lines that our users could call in on. These was all sit up on a roll over so that it will help in stopping the busy signal and users only needed to enter one number to connect.
  • 1999 By now the system was running on 5 different servers to keep the system speed fast and the load on the servers low. We had 3 6 disk CD-rom changers for the files on the system, many door games, a usenet news server, web server, ftp server, telnet and modem server. We was also pulling messages from other message networks at the time. We was also starting to see a hurt on the system in needing to keep up with the big busnesses that was starting to get into the internet service (ISP). Being from an area that had a small local calling area. Plus the cost of phone line switching keeped it hard for me to make my local calling area bigger.
  • 2002 Took the system offline. With personal changes in my life and also just covering the cost of keeping the system running I had to tell my users that I was taking it down. For those that would like to know the cost of running a small internet ISP back then. Each phone line was costing me $50.00 per mounth. I had 7 of those and needed to move up to 10 or more I had one ISDN line that was $90.00 per month and my internet connection was $120.00 per month. I needed to move up to a single T1 line at the time was 1200.00 per month with an internet connection cost of $1200.00 per month.

    I have been so thankful for those years that I was running the system. I never had any computer classes when I was in school so everything I did I have to learn on my own. My wife and I was the only ones that people would get hold of when they called for support. I remember many nights standing in our bedroom at 2am or later trying to help someone with their connection problems. Most of that had to be from memory as I did not have a computer in the house at the time.
  • 2015 Bringing the board back online as a telnet only system.



How to Connect

Protocol:
Clients:

Current Games

  • Doors
    • Just starting to add the games
      • Trade Wars V098
      • Trade Wars V309
      • ARROWBRIDGE II
      • Door Mud
      • Barren Realms Elite
      • Falcon's Honor
      • Food Fite
      • Galactic Overlord
      • Mines of Gorr
      • OPERATION: OVERKILL ][
      • The Arcadian Legends
      • Many more to be added soon......

More BBS information and links


Contact

  • Sysop