neuros Title

What was the Tornado BBS

*English translation done by 64KBBS with the help of Altavista Babelfish. I cleared up the translation to make it more readable, but there may be some mistakes in the history.*

The Tornado BBS was a private shareware, demo scene and music scene mailbox, which was online from 1995 to 1998 in Filderstadt, Germany, and was involved with genuine activities. At first equipped with one modem, the mailbox had 2,400 bpses available. In its "largest phase" the mailbox ran 24 hours a day on two similar modems (28.8 and 33,6 kbps) and an ISDN entrance with 64kbps. The telecommunications mailbox offered numerous dial up mail and file nets - the most well-known of these being FidoNet, which still exists to this day. Over these nets, users could send mail and files across the world, similiar to the way the Internet works but with a delay of approx 1-2 days. The nets were a hierarchy of systems that communicated approx two times each day to exchange data.

The purpose and use of the mailbox was for fun and the discussion of technical challenges. Users communicated with the callers in real time over chat and mail, exchanging software, texts, diagrams, and so on. The demo scene provided music, graphics, and programming discussion. People shared their knowledge in assembler programming, painting, and 3D effects (before 3D hardware), which needed a due measure of efficient programming skills at the time.

The atmosphere was one of friendship. Most users of the BBS knew each other well (on-line), as there were not as many visitors as a web site gets, providing cozy and friendly communications. There was even a user meeting where about 15 users of the Tornado BBS met in Stuttgart in order to meet people who one had only known via chat. With a caller number of 5-20 users per week, that was at that time considerable.

But the Internet became ever more competition and also my work for the box became ever less, so that it was only a question of time until everything fell asleep. In February 1998, then, the switch was turned off. It was an exciting time for new people and new PC owners to have become acquainted with.

I would like to thank you therefore also in the name of the Co-Sysops who helped me, and to all the users for the many calls and thousands of minutes of chats (the best things were so simple), since without the users the mailbox would have been only a short plaything.

FlyingCondor OF Babylon (Sysop of the Tornado BBS)

Desire a little text mode BBS feeling?

Here are a few screen shots of some ANSI menus of the Tornado BBS. They give a feeling for the text mode of a terminal program. The showcasing of the chats etc. is naturally not available...:-(

< simply click the thumbnail to increase size! >

tornabbs_small

Tornado advertising screen

filearea_small

Selection of the file AREA

goodmuz_small

recommended music pieces

stats_small

Statistics of the BBS

welcome_small

Screen after the Login

files_small

The file menu for D/L

keyfact_small

Key Factory Dist Site

tornado2_small

Welcome screen

bank_small

User account bank

games_small

On-line Games of the BBS

sildrodist_small

Silicone record Dist Site

seeya_small

Screen for the log off

dactylus_small

Dactylus Game

userstat_small

User statistics

boards_small

Recommended boards

goodbye_small

Screen for the log off

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