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NULL mag Issue 08 07 Glance back in the past
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±±Glance Back At the Past±±
±±By Nodoka "NodoHana" Hanamura±±
±± It's around 2012 and i'm in highschool. Life is kinda on the rocks after ±±
±± my father died around 2011. My mother's health is slowly deterioriating ±±
±± after having numerous back surgeries, and kidney failure to boot. I'm ±±
±± a young person who was growing up with computers, mainly laptops, and I ±±
±± one night stumble upon a game created by a indie developer. After that ±±
±± night my eyes are opened wide to a part of the digital world that I had ±±
±± never seen before. ±±
±±±±
±±±±
±± A Love Story ±±
±± The game's not important, but what it showed me was. It puts you in the ±±
±± position of a guy (or girl) in the late 80s, early 90s, using a Amiga ±±
±± knockoff (Amie is what they called it I think.) It depicted the hottest ±±
±± times of BBSing, when dialing in meant waiting forever for files to ±±
±± be downloaded over a slow 56k modem. When warez, ANSI art and modtracker ±±
±± tunes were the in thing for anyone in the scene. When if you wanted to ±±
±± call a BBS like Agency or Droid, you either coughed up dough to Ma Bell ±±
±± et al, or you were well versed in phone phreaking. It showed me a whole ±±
±± new world of computers, and it had long since passed me by. ±±
±±±±
±±An Equivalent Deviant.±±
±± Suffice it to say, I was born in the 90s, well after the BBS scene died ±±
±± at the dawn of the Internet. My first internet experience was through ±±
±± websites like Newgrounds and the sort after having gotten an actual PC, ±±
±± and not being dependent on my mother's WebTV for a connection to the ±±
±± outside world. I miss those days personally, surfing the net, playing ±±
±± flash games. Eventually I'd learn about piracy (having started pirating ±±
±± shit back when I was around 13-14.), having used P2P sharing programs ±±
±± like Limewire, and later on, using torrents. I was born well after the ±±
±± concept of things like Circles of Trust having taken the back seat ±±
±± labelled Private Trackers - at least in the Torrent scene. Suffice it to ±±
±± say, maybe one of the reasons I have such an admiration for the BBSing ±±
±± Scene is because it feels familiar yet alien at the same time. I could ±±
±± Imagine myself doing the same exact thing, dialing into local BBSes and ±±
±± playing door games all night, downloading the latest shareware releases ±±
±± and eventually entering that circle of trust in the warez scene, had I ±±
±± proven myself, even as a minor. Even with the ANSI Art Scene, I love it. ±±
±± I'm not a particularly perfect artist, but what little art i've done so ±±
±± far gives me hope that I could try and do some decent art one day. ±±
±±±±
±±±±
±±Sucking out the Soul..±±
±± After having read NULL x006 when I had literally just waltzed into the ±±
±± FSXNet General discussion base and said hello for the first time from my ±±
±± own BBS, I remember clearly an article that xqtr posted about the modern ±±
±± net, and how Social Media was a fucking dumpster fire, and how it only ±±
±± helped contribute to the current state of BBSing in the post-internet ±±
±± age. I won't lie. I've mainly used Twitter and Discord as my methods of ±±
±± communicating with the outside world. Don't have much for friends in the ±±
±± real world (whatever the hell that is), as my High school years were ±±
±± spent fucking around on my laptop in between classes. I didn't socialize ±±
±± alot, and even then I have my regrets about it. Personally, I miss HS as ±±
±± much as I desire to relive a era I missed by a fucking country mile. ±±
±± ±±
±± So the web has always been my home, where I met people and socialized, ±±
±± made connections and what not. BBSing nowadays has become a hobby for me ±±
±± as I've set up my own board and manage the daily routine of checking the ±±
±± BBS twice, thrice a day for updates, making sure everything's working ±±
±± and seeing if MIS shat the bed and needs me to kick MUTIL into gear ±±
±± because it somehow fucked up polling DOVENET, or I realize i'm a goddamn ±±
±± mongoloid who had failed to set "TossFiles" to true in my inbound mail ±±
±± .ini for MUTIL. Occasionally greeting the new user or talking with users ±±
±± on FSXNET and DOVENET on a daily basis, it's started to become a part of ±±
±± my daily routine. ±±
±± ±±
±± As I look on at the world and how it is today, I personally wish I could ±±
±± relive the late 80s, early 90s and even the 2000s for myself. It'd be a ±±
±± bit agitating at first not having amenities like a smartphone or my ±±
±± gaming computer, but I feel it'd be a worthy experience. ±±
±±±±
±±±±
±± On the Precipice ±±
±± As xqtr put it best in his article " the future of bbsing " from NULL ±±
±± x007.... ±±
±± ''we are now in an era that many retro stuff, is on the surface ±±
±± again... just because the teenagers of the 70s-80s-90s are in their "no- ±±
±± -stalgia era" and us they/we pass by, so the retro-fashion will also di- ±±
±± -sappear and/or replaced by things that the teenagers of the present, ±±
±± will fill (read: feel) nostalgic about them in the future. :)'' ±±
±± ±±
±± I've personally noticed this myself. I feel that the big bang of this ±±
±± 'nostalgic revival' came with modern concepts such as synthwave/vaporwa- ±±
±± -ve entering the public purview as well as other things such as the rise ±±
±± in popularity of games like Hotline Miami, a game that popularizes the ±±
±± 80s, and with things that followed in its' footsteps. We're coming to a ±±
±± point in our society where we look back at, regardless of age, what past ±±
±± time periods in modern society were like and put our own spin on them. ±±
±± Synthwave and associated genres call back to the 80s and 90s when such ±±
±± synthetic tunes were used in music more proactively to set the mood for ±±
±± a song, and, for example, the infamous Resonance by HOME, or another so- ±±
±± -ng by him, which I listened to while writing this article, Hold - You ±±
±± get this feeling of nostalgia that washes over you, the feeling of years ±±
±± long gone, even if you never actually experienced them. As xqtr said af- ±±
±± -ter that initial quote, that as the nostalgia wave washes over the era ±±
±± of BBSing, it would take things like the game I had mentioned before, ±±
±± community outreach, getting young blood involved in the scene to give it ±±
±± at least a try. I have seen some of this, as on DOVENET, a supposed 14 ±±
±± year old connected from Underground BBS asking for help. It put a smile ±±
±± on my face knowing that as long as we keep the lights on, BBSing will ±±
±± stay alive. I don't know how long I'll be in the scene, but I know one ±±
±± thing. I'll make sure that I'll help keep the lights on for years to ±±
±± come.±±
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greetz to gamgee, avon and all the guys at FSXNET
COMNTNull x008 submission by Nodoka "NodoHana" Hanamura
SAUCE00glancebackatthepast ~NodoHana~
20191024ç@ P { IBM VGA25G 
