chrpike

"This was absolutely great for single-node home BBSes where the operator's personality oozed through every text and menu graphic, and Sysops were quite proud to have any user browse their creation. You really could develop friendships with the system operators that way."

I can vouch for you. I was the SysOp of my city's first BBS back in 1991. I lived in northeast Brazil and I called my system Jampa BBS. At that time it ran the software Remote Access (RA) along with a Frontend which I don't remember the exact name atm. The frontend allowed RA to exchange messages and information with other BBSs from the same network, which I used FidoNet at the time. Later, along with a group of other brazilian BBSs we founded another network called RBT (Brazilian Telecommunications Network), and back in 1994 we were able to send and receive emails to and from the Internet using a software developed by a fellow SysOp from Time Tunnel BBS. What you said is correct, the users could develop good friendships with the SysOps, some of those users are my friends up to today. Good times back in the 90's.

Edit: some spelling and grammar.

EXACTLY. FrontDoor indeed. And I remember every 2 am the BBS server received phone calls from other servers and dialed as well in order to exchange messages. At that time an email could take 1 to 3 days to reach its recipient. Even though, considerably faster and cheaper than postal mail. ;-)