That's where it started for me. That's where this 24/7, always on, connected lifestyle Hell started.
Picture it: San Francisco 1989
It was over a year between the time I got my first computer—giving up weekends at the beach—and the purchase of my first modem. A few of my cutting edge friends had already had them and seemed to enjoy the ready access to porn and chatting with complete strangers on the other end of the line that the early BBS system provided. Cost was an issue, but I threw caution to the wind (as I am wont to do) and picked up some no-name generic internal 2400 baud modem at one of the many weekend computer fairs that used to occur in the Bay Area at the time. And of course, once I discovered the easy acquisition of photos of naked men and steamy conversations with complete strangers, I started getting complaints from my friends that whenever they called me the line was busy, so that inevitably led to the installation of a second phone line so people could actually reach me. People used to call?
Anyone remember Procomm Plus? (Used as recently as 2012 at my first job in Denver, but sadly now completely gone.)
Anyhow…
It was so easy to rack up charges on that second line, let me tell you. Several of the "good" porn BBSes were out of state, and—unlike the dial-anywhere-for-the-same-price world we live in today—there was this little thing called "long distance" that you paid a premium for.
As for the chatting BBS world, in their heyday San Francisco was chock full of choices. I only remember the names of two, although I'm sure had accounts on nearly all of them at one point. Those two were Jox and The Station House. (I suppose I could go through my journals from the 90s and suss the names out, but nobody got time for that.)*
Many deep and abiding friendships sprung from those BBSes, several of which remain to this day. And were these BBS relationships incestuous? Oh, most certainly. It was a running joke that everyone on Station House would eventually sleep with everyone else.
Then along came AOHell and the chat rooms.
Again, a lot of nights wasted downloading questionable files and chatting with equally questionable strangers, but also spawning a few more enduring friendships and more than one cross-country flight to meet some man who had piqued my curiosity on the other end of the data connection. (You know who you are.)
One of those special friendships sprung from my initial forays into the online world. As recounted in my journal from 1995:
I had quite a shock last week when I opened THE SENTINEL:
I hadn't spoken with Michael Nelson since shortly before my ill-fated relocation. At that time, sometime during August, he seemed distant and uncommunicative. I remember him being almost angry with me for calling. I haven't called him back because I sensed that something was terribly wrong. The funny thing is, all the years that I knew Michael, not once did he ever admit to having AIDS. Sure, he had his bouts with bizarre infections and whatnot, and on some level I knew that's what the problem was, but I never broached the subject with him, feeling that he really didn't want to discuss it.
I met Michael on-line in 1989. It was on a tacky little BBS called JOX. I don't remember what my handle was at the time, but he was FIRESTARTER. JOX was a pretty boring place until Michael showed up and we connected. I don't remember exactly how it all started, but I think someone made an innocuous little remark about "wanting to get off this rock", and from there it snowballed. Michael and I leapt in, spinning tales of lascivious interstellar activities at Abraxan Laundromats, accosting three-penised cruiser stewards and, of course, the ever-popular story of the "strapless blue-sequined evening gown" borrowed by one of us from the other which had been returned quite soiled and unwearable. As time drew on, JOX eventually folded, and Michael and I lost touch with each other. He reappeared on THE STATION HOUSE as FIRESTAR a year or so later, and our friendship was rekindled. In addition, after many long years, we finally met face to face. There was no lust between us; only a genuine friendship and fondness for the bizarre. Our on-line conversations inevitably returned to the fact that we'd been "stranded" on Earth due to one or both of us screwing up some piece of navigational equipment. Michael had been in charge of stashing the ship somewhere that it wouldn't be discovered, and I had to come up with a plausible explanation for what we'd been doing here in the first place, if—and this was quite unlikely—the rescue ship ever arrived. We knew in our hearts, however, that we were stuck here, with only our wits and intelligence to get us home. It looks like Michael finally succeeded, without, I might add, telling me where he'd hidden the damn spaceship!
Though we saw each other only infrequently, I shall sorely miss him. When is this madness going to stop?
I doubt that the Mark who existed in 1988—or even years later when he wrote those words—could have anticipated the insidious way this once newfound and initially rather innocent online connectedness would infiltrate and consume our lives. Sitting here in 2021, cursing out the fact that our "smart" appliances still can't figure out when we're home or away and reminding myself that we are still in the infancy of this revolution, I fully expect future historians to view the arrival of the Internet as we do the Industrial Revolution; something that seemingly sprang out of nowhere and fundamentally changed society.
*Curiosity got the better of me and I plummeted down the black hole that are my journals. A few names that popped up were Eye Contact, Folsom Street BBS, Fog City BBS, Boys Town and The Bear Cave, but I still could find no reference to Station House's main competitor. Too many instances of "so-and-so who I met from the BBS." Ugh.