This little chunk of cyberspace is the home of Doc the good internet doctor. It’s also a good-sized web archive of Doc, AKA FidoSysop, adventures in cyberspace dating back to the dial-up computer BBS days. Fidonet is a global communications network operated by hobbyists on personal computers transferring early ‘echomail and netmail‘ around the world on dial-up modems. BBS Calls were down to 2-3 daily. I would have left it up regardless of its lack of usage. I started Doc’s Place BBS in 1991 on an old IBM clone 286/12 with a 1200 baud modem. It was regularly updated as new software was available. Its last update was in 1998 with Wildcat 5 with the internet connect pack became available.
Here are a few speed and performance tips for those of you who are running WordPress
I’m a hobbyist webmaster still learning new tech tricks and fascinating time-saving shortcuts every day. At age 13, I was fascinated with TV and Radio and hung around a local TV shop after school learning everything I could. When the Internet was opened to the general public in the mid-’90s it took me back to my TV days and I started learning all there was to know about this new digital electronic frontier. I’m exceptional at what I do on the net. Search engine optimization (SEO) and keyword article writing is a must-know specialty to get a website or blog well-indexed in search. Other specialties are WordPress, CloudFlare setup, and performance tweaking. Have a c question? Leave a comment below. 😎
When most dial-up BBSes had folded after the Internet’s public release, Doc spammed the Fidonet backbone in 1998 with a single bbs advertisement. That ad and a dual-channel ISDN net connection breathed new life into Doc’s Place BBS, which received hundreds of calls from all over the world in 1998.
But 23 years later advancements in technology have left Fidonet in the dark ages to die a slow miserable death. Here is a narrated screen video tour Doc produced in 2016 showing the site’s Telnet access features. The internet menu allowed outgoing telnet connections to anywhere. Doc’s place bbs also featured a GUI the Wildcat Navigator which allowed web surfing when dialing into the system via modem. Wildcat version 5 was the most advanced bbs software ever developed!
Here is a screenshot of Doc’s Place BBS Telnet Main Menu as featured in the above video. It was simple and easy and also a fun learning experience back in the MS-DOS days before the Internet was rolled out to the public in the mid-90s. I long for those days today as the tech world is quickly advancing. Machines could possibly take over the net and our lives. Reminds me of the movies The Net and iRobot .
Sadly after Love em and Dump em Debbie dumped the good Internet doctor for another person the BBS is no more. I was living with her in her house when she gave me two weeks to get out. A few days later at church, I had a fall that should have killed me, but I survived with two broken ribs and damage to my left leg, I spent 28 days in rehab. Unfortunately for me while in rehab they (family members) sold all my mechanics tools, many of which I’ve owned for 40+ years. They told the sheriff the items were theirs. The deputy told me IF I had receipts I could go to small claims court, and file suit for a judgment. So I lost everything but my car and three trash bags with my clothes. But as Doc often says, Don’t Get Mad – Get Even! 😎
Are you new to the webmaster scene? I’ve been studying the Internet since it was rolled out to the public in the mid-90s. Technology is fast changing and can be a challenge to keep up with. I use WordPress for my websites and can migrate a good-sized site in under an hour with a shortcut I developed. It’s as easy as zipping up and exporting WordPress files. Next export your database and save it to disk. Next is to modify the URLs in the database. I use Sublime Text Editor to import a database. Look up top under find and search for the previous site’s URL then replace the old URL with the new. When the process is finished to your lower right select Replace All URLs. Then save the database. Databases can become huge with post-revisions and caches. I use Jordy Meows Database Cleaner every now and then to clean out the accumulated junk. Have any questions comment below! 😎
