.______    __    __   __       __       _______ .___________. __ .__   __. 
|   _  \  |  |  |  | |  |     |  |     |   ____||           ||  ||  \ |  | 
|  |_)  | |  |  |  | |  |     |  |     |  |__   `---|  |----`|  ||   \|  | 
|   _  <  |  |  |  | |  |     |  |     |   __|      |  |     |  ||  . `  | 
|  |_)  | |  `--'  | |  `----.|  `----.|  |____     |  |     |  ||  |\   | 
|______/   \______/  |_______||_______||_______|    |__|     |__||__| \__| 
                                                                  
         
.______     ______        ___      .______       _______      _______.
|   _  \   /  __  \      /   \     |   _  \     |       \    /       |
|  |_)  | |  |  |  |    /  ^  \    |  |_)  |    |  .--.  |   |  (----`
|   _  <  |  |  |  |   /  /_\  \   |      /     |  |  |  |    \   \    
|  |_)  | |  `--'  |  /  _____  \  |  |\  \----.|  '--'  |   .  ---) |
|______/   \______/  /__/     \__\ | _| `._____||_______/    |_______/
                                                                  
    

"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea--massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it." -- spaf@cs.purdue.edu (1992)

Before the Internet came along and snowed everyone, computer users had Bulletin Board Systems. Hobbyists would hook their computers to a phone line and, with the appropriate software, allow others to dial in, upload and download files, play games, and exchange mail... often for free.

BBSing was a fine hobby, and if you can still find one, enjoy it. As for me, I've given up. I'm active in a couple of Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists, and that'll have to do.

At least my mail reader, Polarbar, supports taglines... one-line comments inserted at the end of a message. Think of them as bumper stickers. Here's my tagline file if you just need a bunch of good ones, or you can go search Taglines Galore and find ones which suit your own fancy.

And The 25 Commandments of BBSing are still worth following in Usenet and mailing lists. Most of them, anyway.