This BBS's History

I started to create The Dog House BBS sometime in 1995. I wanted it to be the best BBS in town for the day it opened, so I spent a lot of time picking the most popular doors, making sure I had plenty of message areas, joining echo-mail networks and inter-bbs leagues, loading up the file areas, getting shareware cds for the cd-rom door etc... At the same time dial-up Internet access was just getting started and very few people were on it yet. I was young and my parents didn't let me have a phone line until Christmas of 1995. I opened the BBS to the public Dec 27 1995 in the Midland/Penetang area in Ontario Canada. For two years it was a very popular BBS but sadly the Internet was growing in popularity and BBS's were dying. By November 1997 I was the last BBS in the local calling area. That month my family moved to Orillia, ON and I opened the BBS to this new area. There were still a few BBS's around but not that many. The Dog House BBS was a big hit in the Orillia area while it lasted, but by July 1998 I was again the last surviving BBS in the local calling area. When I had 1-2 calls per day (always the same user) I decided to call it quits. I backed the BBS up on tape and put it away on July 8 1998.

5 years later, shortly before the 5th year aniversary of The Dog House BBS shutting down for good I was feeling nostalgic and wanted to bring it back to life again. This time it would have a couple telnet nodes and possibly a dial-up node. I browsed around the net and tried out a bunch of telnet BBS's and couldn't find any ones that struck me as *REALLY* good like back in the good'ol days. I decided again that I wouldn't open my board until I made it the best I could because first impressions are important. I think if a user doesn't like the BBS the first time they call, they won't come back. Well here we are, the BBS has been opened to the public and I'm hoping for the best. I'd like to keep this BBS open for many years and just hope there are people out there who feel the same about BBS's as I do.