https://hackaday.com/2025/11/12/join-the-the-newest-social-network-and-party-like-its-1987/
Algorithms? Datamining? Brainrot? You don't need those things to have a social network. As we knew back in the BBS days, long before anyone coined the phrase "social network", all you need is a place for people to make text posts. [euklides] is providing just such a place, at cyberspace.online.
It's a great mix of old and new — the IRC inspired chatrooms, e-mail inspired DMs ("cybermail") make it feel like the good old days, while a sprinkling of more modern concepts such as friends lists, a real-time feed, and even the late-lamented "poke" feature (from before Facebook took over the world) provide some welcome conveniences.
The pursuit of retro goes further through the themed web interface, as well. Sure, there's light mode and dark mode, but that's de rigueur. Threads might not offer a blue-and-white Commodore 64 theme, and you'd have little luck getting Bluesky to mimic the soothing amber glow of a VT-230, but Cyberspace offers that and more.
It's also niche enough that there's nobody here but us chickens. That is, it looks like a site for geeks, nerds, tech enthusiasts — whatever you want to call us — it might just be via "security by obscurity", but Cyberspace doesn't seem likely to attract quite the same Eternal September the rest of the internet is drowning under.
In the Reddit thread where the project was announced, there's talk of a CLI tool under development. In Rust, because that's just what all the cool kids are using these days it seems. A text-based interface, be it under DOS or something POSIX-compliant, seems like it would be the perfect fit for this delightful throwback site.
If nobody will join your homebuilt BBS, this might be the next best thing. For those of you who wonder where the hack is: this is a one-man show. If making your own social network in a cave with a box of scraps doesn't count as a hack, what does?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 22, @07:12AM
Wah this written by a techno-parrot trained on USENET posts?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 22, @07:13AM (2 children)
As awesome as it would be to boot up FreeDOS and use some BBS throwback software, choosing to write the program in Rust precludes that from happening.
(Score: 4, Funny) by turgid on Saturday November 22, @09:41AM
Yeah but you could rewrite DOS in Rust then it would never crash or leak memory or anything.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday November 22, @02:37PM
Genuine naive question: why couldn't it be written in Rust?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by namefags_are_jerks on Saturday November 22, @08:27AM
Nothing promoted on Hackaday counts as a Hack.
You can still install Usenet/INN today, and it uses a programming language that'll still compile and build 30 years from now.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jb on Saturday November 22, @10:14AM (3 children)
If you want a genuine 20th century "social" computing experience, IRC is still alive and well; as is net news.
Shoehorning the thing into a web browser seems to defeat the purpose...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 22, @02:29PM (2 children)
IMO "All the things" are better shoehorned into a browser these days. When it's on a browser it's on all my computers (Linux, 'doze, Mac) as well as Android and iOS phones and tablets. It's the best cross-platform delivery system available, no software installation procedures for the users to do, and it's inherently remotely accessible.
"it might just be via "security by obscurity", but Cyberspace doesn't seem likely to attract quite the same Eternal September the rest of the internet is drowning under."
That will be an interesting test of "social management" - something that the green site and here kinda sorta implemented with comment rating, then Digg and later Reddit took to new levels with up/down votes (Oh, noes, Facebook doesn't like downvotes, they're mean...)
So - can the community organize and police itself sufficiently to keep "niche corners" both cozy and also aware of larger trends they "like" without getting polluted with political bots, commercial ads, and the general dreck of people who go to the internet to vent anonymously things they're repressed from saying in real life? It seems to take 5-10 years of popularity before a big social site is really tested enough to know if it's going to soldier on in some form, or descend into irrelevance.
SN seems to manage through a lot of security by obscurity, keeping the site small and manageable by the volunteers who admin it with a light tough. Thanks again to everyone who makes SN possible.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23, @01:20AM
> Thanks again to everyone who makes SN possible.
Yes!!!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Sunday November 23, @08:24AM
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 5, Informative) by looorg on Saturday November 22, @11:32AM (3 children)
Did these people even use a proper BBS back in the day?
Clearly someone isn't old enough to have been there at the time. All those existed back in the BBS days to, in some way shape and form. Certainly on multi-node boards. There was also IRC-inspired "chatrooms" and "e-mail inspired direct mail" or messaging.
The C64 theme isn't blue and white. It's blue and a lighter blue. Also BBS programs back on the c64 tended to go with a a black background. For readability and not wanting the users eyes to spontaneously start bleeding.
That said I would rather use IRC or a BBS, but I guess with telnet access since modems are not so much a thing anymore, then to use Discus or whatever other atrocity is out there.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HeadlineEditor on Saturday November 22, @12:55PM (1 child)
No they really didn't. And there's no such thing as a VT-230. There was a VT220, however, but it was almost certainly connected to a VAX or PDP-11, so you probably weren't dialing into your local BBS with it.
I miss the old BBS days. Now everybody get off my lawn!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Saturday November 22, @06:38PM
I regularly logged in to my own BBS (at my home) with a VT220 connected to my PDP11/60 (at my workplace), or a VAX11/780 (at another employer).
Why the hell doesn't Slashdot support taglines? (These were like extended signatures, but you kept a file of them and could chose one appropriate to your
posting, or allow the system to choose one at random. If you liked someone else's, you could press A (maybe ctrl-A) to "adopt" it - add it to your file.
eg:
--
My lawn is smaller than yours!
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 22, @02:32PM
>The C64 theme isn't blue and white.
I wrote and ran an Atari 800 based BBS for about 2 years around 1984-5. It was called "Memo Pad" and it was themed like the default screen seen when booting the computer without a cartridge installed. White text on a blue background.
Log on to "Memo Pad" from your C64 and get the Atari 800 experience, at 1200 baud (120 characters per second), if you're lucky enough to have a "new" modem.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by spiraldancing on Saturday November 22, @02:36PM (1 child)
What the hell is wrong with people?!?
This "retro, 1987" website is dependent upon half-a-dozen Google APIs and services and such ... firestore, identitytoolkit, fonts, gstatic, tagmanager, and of course google.com.
This is not how to make an old-school, 20th-century-style website.
Lets go exploring.
(Score: 2) by cereal_burpist on Thursday December 04, @05:17AM
https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ [motherfuckingwebsite.com]