Comments on: The Rising Sun BBS

By: Fred

Fred — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:54:43 +0000

Wow, you are the people responsible for me wasting half of my youth. How many hours did I spend playing Polecon, and trying to find ways to buffer overflow Logicomm’s profile page to get free credits? It is with regret that I had no idea what any of you were talking about at the time, because I was 11. Much later, I remember spending hours on the Atlanta Penitentiary playing the ridiculous Transformer’s RPG– together with.. what was his name? Completely hilarious guy, who would get drunk and ramble on the BBS; later on he organized a massive protest against the shutting down of Mr Toad’s Wild Ride. I lost touch with him a while ago; I think in his last response to me he wrote, “do you email me randomly just to remind me how old I am now?”

I only remember JediKnight was my nemesis on 3057557172. I’d love to figure out what source code the game that was on there tapped into, for old time’s sake.

By: Donica aka "Croupier"and the "Happy Hacker"

Donica aka "Croupier"and the "Happy Hacker" — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 17:50:20 +0000

Talk about sparking memories.We were way ahead of the times. Remember, you when had to know how to use a computer in order to go online? Laugh, those were the days of playing POLECON, MUDs and chat boards. I remember 1200 baud was fast but 2400 half duplex was blazing. I could go on and on…but you know.

By: Todd Nochomson

Todd Nochomson — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:41:38 +0000

…a.k.a. “The Snake”.

By: Todd Nochomson

Todd Nochomson — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:40:40 +0000

Toby, thanks for telling me about this blog entry. I had read part of this somewhere before, but it’s always good to see other people that actually remember those times. It was a lifetime ago. I’ll always remember my first…computer experience, that is.

By: The Tin Can

The Tin Can — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 07:32:53 +0000

Great memories! I look forward to reading through those files.

473-6348 is forever etched in my mind. I regret that I never met Rick in person (and still haven’t met Alan). At least, I don’t think I did. I remember going to one CoF gathering, which was (I think?) at the Bahia Mar (???) and I think Wayne was there, but honestly I can’t remember much else (this was 25 years ago, cut me some slack

I also wonder what happened to some of the other South Florida BBS personalities — like Lee Casler and others from the “Emerald Cavern” BBS, MaryAnn and Alan Page (“The Cable Box”), etc.

By: Toby Srebnik

Toby Srebnik — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 06:16:35 +0000

What a great trip down memory lane. Gosh I was young!

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 02:57:57 +0000

Rick was a character. He and Alan were like older brothers to me. They genuinely cared about people, had fun using the technology to enable communication with people. They were always so enthused about new things we’d add to the software. I never had a conversation with them which didn’t put a smile on my face no matter what was going on. After my dad passed away, they were there – not that I had expected anything different – but they were amazingly supportive of me and my mom. Just two really great and caring people.

I recall the “Vane Ving.” Another favorite was when he’d have an issue with someone (which he was generally over within 20 minutes of having it), he’d refer to them as “the enema.” His other online persona with “Basura Blanco” was a riot too. I will have to re-read some of the stuff on the bbs captures at some point. There are a ton of people I haven’t heard from in years – Dream Weaver or KK (Kathleen Kennedy) in years either.

I don’t know if you know/remember, but Rick and Alan had some really nice salt water aquariums. They’d drive down to Key Largo or the 18 mile stretch on the way there sometimes and fill up big trash cans full of salt water there to change the water in the tanks. It always seemed like a huge hassle, but the tanks and fish were really great.

There are a few people from the boards who are friends with me on Facebook – Ken A, Tom S etc. Feel free to look me up (http://www.facebook.com/chfriley ). I think I still have copies of all the files sections from the boards on disk somewhere too. I know there were tons of “cheats” and stuff for games there…not sure if it is worthwhile digging them out.

I know this was kind of disjointed, but what the heck.

By: Wayne Wing (Jedi Knight)

Wayne Wing (Jedi Knight) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 02:23:32 +0000

I always loved talking to Rick and Alan… Rick always used to say, “Vane Ving” how are you… on the phone. I got the news that Alan passed away from Toby when I was in the Navy, it was shocking and sad to say the least (I was in San Diego at the time.)

I miss the conversations and the great fun we all had on the boards.

By: lady cameron

lady cameron — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:44:31 +0000

i remember going to my first pride fest the summer of 89 with alan, rick, tinkerer, noel, greywitch, aldebaran (can’t remember his nick on the bbs), lana fox (has anyone heard from her)? some great memories from back then. will pass this link along to greywitch, aldebaran/elowan, tale weaver, and a coupla others. i miss the old BBS days, particularly the rising sun tremendously. there were always intelligent conversations and open minded people to be found on the subs!

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 22:28:09 +0000

p.s. The link has some captures of the BBS – I had copies of all or most of the messages for a number of years on some old floppies. Amazing fun…