all of those links were excellent.

teh |\/|@|) |-|@X0R 1s |\/|3.

a lot of what people think started on the internet - emoticons, TTYL, LOL, etc, actually started way before it became popular. I was using stuff like that way back in the BBS days of the late 80's, early 90's.

Speaking of which. . . .Anyone actually REMEMBER BBS's?

... Isn't BBS just another word for forum...?

nope. BBS meant bulletin board system. It would have a forum, usually a file section, ASCII/ANSI art all over the place, often times had several games the users could play.

This was in the days where you'd dial up each BBS individually because they were on non-internet-connected computers at people's houses. Usually only 1 user at a time too.

There was even a fledgling version of the internet that was used to exchange messages with systems worldwide - it was called Fidonet, and its still in existance and limited useage today.

You have just taken me back to my parents basement in the '80's connecting to shady BBS's on a C64 via a 300 baud modem. I could have never imagined the internet as it exists today. I shudder to think what we will be using in the next 20 years.

Yeah, I had a 2400 baud modem back in the BBS days on my 286 with a monochrome (amber) monitor. Those were the days...