C64 usergroup from 40 years ago on BBS. Differences in user behavior between 1986 and 2024.

Hello everyone!

The C64 Snobsoft BBS logs every mailbox session into a system logbook, today just like 40 years ago. I managed to save and secure all the old system logbooks from 1986 from the old 5 1/4 inch C64 disks onto the PC. Now, I can compare user behavior from 1986 with that of today and draw my conclusions, which I discuss in the following video. But perhaps my conclusions are completely wrong. Please share your thoughts from your user or sysop perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VAvAYzy0B0

What I forgot to mention in the video: Nowadays, users often register as new users on Snobsoft — essentially as one-hit wonders, without ever showing up on the BBS again. This wasn't the case in 1986.

Also, it's certainly not negligible that today, many users who only know 'point-and-click' are simply overwhelmed by the cryptic command-line input, especially by today's standards. Add to that the one-minute inactivity timeout...

Why was there this timeout in BBS at all? Well, at least here, the telephone costs were very high back in the day™, so the connection was cut for the user's own protection, to prevent them from unknowingly staying on the line for a while.

If you want to take a look at Snobsoft yourself: telnet://snobsoft.de:6401 Everything else is in the description under the video.