       _               _                      _____      ___    ___  __
      /_\   _ __ ___  (_)  __ _   __ _       / _  /     / __\  / __\/ _\
     //_\\ | '_ ` _ \ | | / _` | / _` | _____\// /     /__\// /__\//\ \
    /  _  \| | | | | || || (_| || (_| ||_____|/ //\   / \/  \/ \/  \_\ \
    \_/ \_/|_| |_| |_||_| \__, | \__,_|      /____/   \_____/\_____/\__/
                          |___/

The History of Amiga-Z BBS

The Amiga-Z BBS was run on nothing more then an Amiga 500 with a Bodega Bay expansion chasis from, California Expansion Systems, 6 megs of Ram, CNet BBS 3.05 and AmigaOS 3.1 running at 7MHz

The Amiga-Z BBS started out as nothing more then a seat of the pants idea. I had run a lot of BBSes and even been Co-SysOp of a sucsessful BBS about 5 years prior, but I had always wanted to run my own. I had tried back when I started calling BBSes back in the mid and late 80's, but nothing really took off. Then in late 1994, after a long time of not calling, much less thinking about a BBS, I started calling some of the local boards. I got hooked again and starting thinking about setting one up again, there was at least 6 running the area at that time. And for this area, that's a lot! So, I started planning one, got the software and putting stuff together for a BBS, but didn't have any plans on putting it up right away. After one or two of the boards went down for one reason or another, I decided to put Amiga-Z up. I called the other local boards, posted a couple of ads and the number and the date it would be online.

After a few weeks, I had everything ready to go and wanted to test the BBS and work out any kinks. So I setup accounts for a few people I knew, and asked them to call in for a month, and start using the BBS features. Things ran pretty smooth, and then a local BBS I didn't know about, posted my number and I started to get callers on a regular basis, almost a full month before I was ready to make the BBS public. So I figured now was as good a time as any to make it public. I posted ads on local BBSes and on FidoNet and the BBS went live in February of 1995.

The current Amiga-Z BBS is running on a 266MHz PC with 96M Ram & 4.2 Gig HD running WinUAE.

Amiga-Z was one of 2 Amiga based BBSes in the area. From 1995 to 1997, it had a steady stream of callers and offered FidoNet access, online games, such as Wheel of Fortune, Murder Motel, Trade Wars and many others. And even offered a casino where users could use their download credits and calling time to make bets. We also offered a large selection of Chili recipies and access to Aminet CDs for our Amiga users and also, PC files, including the original DOOM, Internet Explorer v3, and Castle Wolfenstein.

Amiga-Z BBS was also, the only BBS to have information on the startup of a local ISP (The one that hosts this website), and announcements when it went online. In February 1996, I got internet access and started exploring the internet. I was then able to download new software every day from Aminet, and fill my hard drive very quickly.

Then, in early 1997, Amiga-Z BBS went offline when the control card in the Bodega Bay burnt out. This also damaged the memory card and SCSI controller and effectivly killed the BBS. I had no funds to repleace the hardware at the time and Commodore was on ther verge of closing up. So I decided that I would keep the BBS going online and would someday, bring the BBS back. But, after the fall off of BBSes and people migrating to the internet, I decided not to work on bringing the BBS back and just keep the webpage up for personal nostoliga and to offer information on the Amiga as well as some basic service to the Amiga community.

But now, the BBS has moved to the internet, with many of them now accessable via telnet access, offering the same services they had when they were just dialups. Many BBSes still offer dialup on top of having telnet access to them. Some have even evolved into full blown ISPs, offering much more then the basic BBS could.

Now with the rebirth of the Amiga, the time has come for Amiga based BBSes to come back. Hence this website, and the new Amiga-Z BBS. I still have the software, the computers and much of the info and files that originally were offered. So with some tweaking and updating, the Amiga-Z BBS will be better then ever. Now I only need to brush up on my Arexx. ;)

The new Amiga-Z BBS will be run on a Windows based machine using WinUAE. I plan on getting a new AmigaOne when Amiga OS4 is released, and move the files to that. The windows machine is a P266MHz, with 96 megs of ram and a 4.2Gig HD. The BBS will have 3.1G available to it and additional HDs are on the ready to expand it.

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