Inspired by some conversation with krj.

We were talking about the fact that Grex has changed somewhat because 
the landscape of conferencing has moved quite beyond bbs, or rather, 
there are a lot of alternatives on the 'Net now.

Myself, I came to find out about M-Net and Grex when I was connected 
via dialup to the local library's OPEC system.  I started out at M-Net 
but later decided to make my home at Grex.  It's been nice to come to 
a place where I've gotten to know a lot of people.  I've enjoyed the 
sense of community that I haven't found in a lot of places, and it was 
beautiful to see it for real when I visited Ann Arbor.

Sure, I've found some real camaderie on some e-mail lists, but it's 
not quite the same since they don't have the scope.

We had a cool local bbs in Kennewick called Crystalline Dreams in 
about 1993 or so, but it folded long before I could hook up.  Most 
people I talked to (friends and such) really liked it.  There was talk 
about charging a $5/month membership, but it still folded for lack of 
funding (I think) even though those I talked to were more than willing 
to pay.

14 responses total.

for example, Grex membership seems to be aging a bit.. Ken was saying 
we aren't getting the high schoolers we used to when Gopher and such 
was more the dominant force.

It's probably a matter of social interaction, and has been brewing since
Mosaic was available to the average user.

For instance, I came to M-Net after I noticed ajd's little brother downloading
the passwd file on a winter evening in 1993. I glanced, asked "What's that?"
and he gave me the old 996-4644 number. Since it was one of the few BBS's that
was a local call from South Lyon, I stuck around. My Pipeline charges were
pretty hefty due to the hours I'd spend on Foothills, so I thought Party was
a decent free alternative. It would be another year or two before I ventured
in to BBS.

Anyway, after I had been on for a while, I'd tell my friends about it when
they got computers. So users like robman, shitfacd, and a few others knew
about M-Net from another M-Netter (me). As far as Grex goes, I hadn't heard
of it until balance mentioned it at an M-Net party around 1994. Again...a user
brought another user.

Although I don't discount that unlimited internet access and web-based BBS's
have played a role in the changing BBS landscape, I think the local shift has
a lot more to do with the lack of offline interaction (at least, in M-Net's
case). Back in high school, I'd "sell" M-Net to my friends by saying "Hang
out for a couple weeks, and your bound to get invited to a party."

It took you a YEAR OR TWO?

Yeah. Frankly, I wasn't interested in M-Net's BBS. I was active on FidoNet
and local Renegade-based BBS's, so I didn't have the inclination to get
involved with the one on M-Net, until the PC BBS's started dying out.

It is true that back in the day, I used to socialize more with online 
folks (Mnetters, grexers, whatever). Now I almost never do. 

gee...

Well, I guess when I think of "socializing with Mnetters/grexers" I 
mean socializing with people I know only from here who really arent 
people I have real relationships with. There are online people who are 
my friends who I socialize with but that is different. If most of my 
contact with a person is offline (phone, face to face, etc) then I dont 
really think of them as an online friend even if that is where I met 
them. 

resp:2  That makes sense.  I got online slightly before Mosaic, and 
then Netscape, was made available in 1994.  LEXUS/NEXUS was still a 
pretty big thing, and although I was hearing about Gopher, it really 
didn't seem to be worth much notice even at that time.

I remember, too, that commercial ISPs weren't really big.  I think 
Prodigy was still the big boy in town, and it was slightly before 
CompuServe and AOL started getting bigger.  I never would have thought 
that AOL would pick up such speed as to blow the other two completely 
away, nor did I expect Microsoft's MSN to be as widespread as it is 
now (silly naive me, I didn't realize Microsoft's trick is in bundled 
packaging in non-custom desktop sales).

I know next to nothing about old bbs systems because I really didn't 
know about them, as I said; wasn't online then.  But the fact that M-
Net and Grex still remain and still have some sense of offline as well 
as online community basis is impressive to me.  Granted, much of the 
core users live in the Midwest near Michigan, but it's still.. well.. 
homey.  Comfortable.

Hard to believe that's been lost, but I guess not many other folks are 
as interested in maintaining independent system servers.

re: 8 

You're a little bit off on ISP's. CompuServe had always been huge. Always.
They had net access long before Prodigy did, although getting around was a
bit weird. As I recall, you couldn't telnet or gopher anywhere without jumping
through a lot of WinCIM hoops. 

Prodigy's popularity had a lot more to do with their marketing. For years,
you couldn't walk through a Sears store without seeing a Prodigy ad of some
sort. It was also dirt cheap to buy a Prodigy starter kit, because it included
a 9600 baud Hayes modem for only $40. Their interface was pretty advanced,
considering the other alternatives and their pricing was reasonable. If AOL
hadn't caught up as quickly as they did by producing a client that was
absolutely gorgeous by any definition at the time, Prodigy may well have
become the leading online service.

As far as MSN goes, it never took off under Windows 95. They had a million
or so people join when Windows 95 was release, and most of them promptly left
when their free time was up -- myself included. The MSN client was a steaming
pile of WinCIM with some nice stock art thrown in. It lacked the streamlined
interface of AOL, and the raw net access of Netcom. MSN was basically a
bastardized middle ground. It's important to note that this was before Bill
Gates was fully convinced that the internet was going to be even remotely as
huge as it ended up being. There were LOADS of us beta testing MSN who would
keep saying "Yeah, it works okay...but you should really try and make it more
AOL-ish, or kill off the useless services and become a real ISP.

As much as I try not to hold Bill Gates directly responsible for things, I
think the initial failure of MSN (and Microsoft Bob) has a lot to do with bad
judgement calls he made.

Anyway, MSN started picking up momentum when they shifted towards becoming
a real ISP (which they are now). They also pioneered and remain the only
company offering absurd instant rebates if you commit to service for a certain
amount of time. It's actually not too bad of a deal, when you look at it. If
you live somewhere where you know you won't get (or want) a high speed
connection, and you're not in love with AOL, it makes sense to switch to MSN.
They give you an interface that still holds your hand (MSN Explorer), a
guarantee that they won't raise your monthly charges, and $200 to spend
however you want at Best Buy, for signing a two-year commitment.

I miss gopher. :(

That certainly is true, which is why I'm not terribly fond of MSN 
Explorer.  My bundled package took the $200 off the computer purchase.

You don't have to use MSN Explorer, you know. You can set up Dial-Up
Networking, and use Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.

I know.

The decline of face-to-face socializing I think is a factor.  We do 
have a Grexwalk every week.  But the set of people who show up for that 
isn't exactly a representative set of Grexers.  Many rarely use Grex.  
Me, krj, and aruba are about the only regular walkers who regularly 
BBS, and krj is the only one that regularly uses party.  When we get 
new walkers, they usually aren't Grexers.  The last few have been 
people who saw the Observer ad but never logged onto the system.  So 
the Grexwalk is only just barely a Grex event.  GNOs are gone.  Bowling 
is up though.  About the only big general Grex social event is the 
annual birthday picnic.  It's different than when M-Net had monthly 
Picofests (restaurant dinners that sometimes had 40 or so people show 
up) followed by big post-picofest parties (PPPs) at some random 
M-Netter's home.  Plus happy hours every friday, and sunday brunches.

Of course, now I'm a father of two and both less interested and less 
able to socialize.

Also, I think there is a baton passing problem.  Most especially on 
staff.  The same old people are still staffers.  Except many have other 
interests or distractions that prevent them from doing much of 
anything.  But instead of resigning and letting someone younger and 
more energetic take over the job, we cling to it.  So we don't do 
anything and we won't let anyone else do anything either.  We want to 
freeze the system the way it was in the good old days, but that 
prevents it from changing with the times.

On the other hand, I can think of anything useful it would change into 
if it could change with the times.  Slashdot?  Every available niche is 
already filled by something, except there seems to be little 
competition for the niche of good old-fashioned conferencing system.

But certainly there are a lot of design changes to Backtalk/Picospan 
that could make Grex much more accessible to more people that I just
haven't got around to yet.

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- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss