Starship Junkyard Memorial

Logging in

These logos were cycled after each login. (I think it was sequential, rather than random.)

Logo #1

Logo #2

In the internet age, I stopped the rotation and kept this one (my favourite, also quick to load).

Logo #3

Logo #4

Logo #5

Logo #6

Logo #7

Logo #8

Logo #9

Logo #10

Logo #11

Logo #12

Logo #13

Security screen if you have level 5

Security screen if you have level 30

Security screen if you have level 100

Security screen if you have level 500

Security screen if you have level 1000

Last callers list (so you can see why it was engaged 24/7 yesterday)

Random insult

This was generated by some command line program and piped to a file for BBS viewing.

Mail Check

Ezycom's biggest drawcard for me was messages to "All" were actually shown to everyone during mail scan. It made for a great forum-like experience, as conversations drew in everyone. It also meant that if I had a system announcement, I couldn't use a message to "All" as it wauld be lost in the noise.

New File Scan

This was arrow-key driven (not shown)

Go to main menu
Account creation

Account Creation

Do not type "new"

Ezycom required you to log in with your name/alias even if you were a new user. People who were used to creating accounts on other systems would invariably ignore the "do not type new" message, and log in as user "New". Ezycom had options for guest accounts (no password) and custom top menus, so this was set up to bounce them back to the login screen and try again. This was done via dropping to a door, which actually just called the BBS batch file again as if we were dropping from RemoteAccess again.

Main menu

This is the main menu as it was in 2007. I don't seem to have any earlier versions saved.

Go to stats menu
Go to information menu
Go to online games menu
Go to divide by zero
Go to files menu
Go to messages menu
See who's online / go to multiline chat / page sysop
Get outta here
Misc unsorted files
View old news pages / announcements
See ads for SJ and other BBS's

Information

Ashen AKA Squik AKA Daz AKA The Blue Sock - built all of this area

Legends

Lamers

(Have removed the obvious defamation)

How it all started

Global Keys

Rules and Regulations

The life and times of Starship Junkyard

Disk space free on the server

What CPUs Starship Junkyard runs on

The Sysops - Who are they?

Access levesl and what they mean

Door game usage graph

Go to main menu

Message menu

Go to main menu

File menu

area_ank.png

Like any BBS software, Ezycom could generate an area listing for you, but there was no dynamic filtering other than to hide what the current user didn't have access to. To make the sub BBS's work, a custom area listing was required.

Go to main menu

Online Games

BRE was my favourite; LORD was everyone else's favourite.

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Play Nethack

Nethack scores

Go to main menu

Miscellaneous

Change Settings

Massive Huge Menu

Every option on one screen. I made this for one or two users on slow modems who didn't want to navigate menus. This was the "no ANSI" option.

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muscores.png

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qwkmenu.png

QWK was almost entirely unused post 1994. I used to use it when I was on a 2400 modem, and it was delightful. Unfortunately, for fast-moving conversations as SJ was known for, using QWK meant your punchline reached everyone many days late.

riddle.png

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Sysop Menu

Can't remember if this was the real sysop menu or the fake sysop menu. There was a fake one that I spread rumours about to see who would bite.

Time Bank

Times were fairly generous for most users, but one or two used to deposit stupid amounts to see how high it would go. I think Ezycom would top it out at 65000 minutes.

Greeting for users slower than 2400

Jokes on them (or me). The ANSI would have taken an age to display on a 1200 or 300 connection.

Greeting for blacklisted users

Quick stats screen

Not sure if ever put in to use.

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Statistics

I love statistics

Today's callers

Yesterday's callers

Connection speed -> Uploads correlation

Top upload speeds

Carrier droppers

Dropping carrier was seen by some as a horrendous thing, but to me it just meant you had a terrible phone line.

Longest Session Time

Ages of users

Usage graph per hour of the day

Best Callers (highest call count)

Top 10 Downloaders (Files)

Top 10 Downloaders (KB)

Multiline chat / Yell for Sysop

In the location field, "+" and "*" signified certain status. Of course, anyone could just edit their own location and make it look like they were something.

Go to online chat

EzyChat was very slow to load in a multitasker (it was very conservative), so I made sure people really wanted to do this.

Page sysop for 1 on 1 chat

(Removed my mobile phone number from this) I was so proud to own a mobile phone, that I gave my number out to everyone.

Go to main menu

Sub BBS's: Divide by Zero and Aura

The idea of the sub BBS was to provide a separate, more civilised space, discussion and filebase for specific interests.
As SJ grew in size, it became very noisy and hard to find specialist areas.
Divide by Zero was for programming interests.
The original design was for each sub BBS to run a separate instance of BBS software, allowing me to experiment with cooler software. However I soon found that maintaining multiple installations was hard work, and they didn't always play nicely with eachother.

Aura

Aura was for music discussion, but was never launched.

auramid1.png

auramidi.png

Ads for SJ and other BBS's

starship-big.jpg

opiate.png

chillead.png

ashen.png

News screens / Announcements

These were displayed to all users at each login. Any announcement in a message to "All" would be lost in the noise of general conversation.

newnodes.png

I was pleased as hell when Telstra agreed to install two additional phone lines - even telling me what the new numbers would be. Then very disappointed when their contractor arrived and refused to do the work, due to problems outside and inside our property. In retrospect, it really was a good thing.

news1.png

news2.png

I recall this either didn't go ahead, or it did but then Mike had to shut it off soon after anyway.

news2_bak.png

news2_txt.png

news3.png

mICQ was the bomb, at a time when ICQ was still the bomb.

news3_bak.png

fileoff.png

please.png

I was a broke student and had this $50/month expense. I begged often. It was unsightly.

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horonot.png

Log off

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