@elrainia@lemmy.world describes working on internet infrastructure back in the 1990s. This was on one of those "drive by" AskLemmys where a new user posts a juicy question, then after a couple hours they delete the topic and their account. However, those posts and comments are still visible in Piefed, ex: https://piefed.social/post/1733969#comment_9969293
I love this story. Here is one of mine.
SCENE: The year is 1993, the hottest BBS door game is Usurper and the players on the local BBS are very, very competitive. How can I possibly do better? Well, the answer is obvious, I need to setup my own BBS with Usurper and figure out the exact perfect methodology within the game to become the stronger. So I do so, and I then write some text macros to handle some of the more tedious tasks I would do every single day when the turns reset. Eventually my character far outpaces everyone on the server with a wider gap every day and our group dominates the server. My team mates don't like that I am so much stronger and decide to boot me from the team, but fail to kill me. I then make a team of one and wipe them and every one else out every day for two weeks until they decide to reset the game. I have become the usurper.
woah that's pretty awesome, it's that old-school hacker spirit. I never heard of "door games" before, TIL about Usurper too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door_(bulletin_board_system)
https://www.gamebanshee.com/bbs/guides/usurper.php
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRMibRr6ZUM
I had an account on Cleveland Freenet back in the day but I never really used it for much.