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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: 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!