[Solved] Seeking a name, from the mists of the past (lemmy.one)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

In the Silicon Valley / San Jose / Bay area, there was a BBS that had a hierarchical message board, Replies were ordered under posts or other replies. In the 80's this was an unusual feature of a bulletin system. The BBS was named for a character from some story. It was a hard to pronounce word/name starting with the letter 'P', and we mostly referred to the BBS as 'Pretzel' as that was a close approximation to the original word. Anyone know which BBS I am talking about?

top 10 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

Was it Pyrzqxgl, by chance? Even if not, it's probably on the list I got it from.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Yep! Thanks! You get the prize for the quickest answer and Steven gets the prize for Most complete. No, there are no actual prizes except getting to claim the title "Sleuth Extraordinaire"

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

By the way, does anyone remember "Abort Retry Ignore BBS" a Fidonet node in the 408 area code? That was me!

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Oh god, I remember running my BBS. Thousands of lines of batch code I wrote, several doors I wrote in Turbo Pascal, just spent so much damned time on that crap. Ended up running four lines, connected to FIDONet and then UseNet before I finally got too busy with my IT outsourcing business to spend any more time on it and retired it.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Is it PernMUSH?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

That was not it, but I think I was there too.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Plover-net perhaps?

Do you remember the area code?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

408 or 415 I think (Being San Jose / Sunnyvale / Santa Clara and San Francisco and Peninsula) it was not a toll call from my home in the 408 area code.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Got it. From this list: http://bbslist.textfiles.com/408/oldschool.html

408-336-3134 Ben Lomond, CA Pyrzqxgl (1986-1987) Tané Tachyon Pyrzqxgl tree-structured discussion BBS software

I can see why you called it pretzel

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

WOW Thank You sooo much!! I tried all kinds of searches and even tried to employ chatgpt to try to guess the word.

this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024

25 points (100.0% liked)

retrocomputing

3866 readers

106 users here now

Discussions on vintage and retrocomputing

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]