Today I came across a really cool textfile that I wrote near the beginning of my BBSing days. What’s amazing to me is that it gives a date for when I began BBSing, and even explains how I got started (a story I had forgotten).

Based on evidence within the textfile, I believe it was written in 1993 — definitely after March and probably before May of that year.

In the textfile, I say that I was “about 8” when we got our first Atari 800 computer, and I later say of myself (in the third person) “He has been an Atari user for 5 years.” That makes me 13 at the time of writing, and I would have turned 13 in October 1992.

One other date-able detail: I mention writer Tim Holt declaring that “Atari is dead” in a “recent” article. A search of the Internet Archive shows that Holt’s article was published in the March 1993 issue of Atari Interface Magazine, and the phrase I quoted was the article’s provocative headline and lead sentence.

Given all this, I am fairly certain that when the textfile says that I began BBSing on “May 7,” the year was 1992.

In the future I’ll look at my own history with textfiles in more depth, but for now, computer historian Jason Scott explains them pretty well:

bq. “Simply put, they were textfiles of any sort, written to explain in detail an important new computer discovery, a great new concept, or an old piece of knowledge that needed to be passed on. It included stories, poems, songs, ramblings, and long treatises on theories that the writer couldn’t possibly have known. They were full of bravado, of half-truths, of promises, and occasionally, of brilliance that shines to this day.”

This particular textfile was obviously meant to be distributed on BBSes in their G-files sections, but I don’t remember ever distributing this particular one. (I did distribute other textfiles that I wrote, like my SRE Text Series and Politics Online Magazine.)

Without further ado, here is the textfile. The only alterations I have made to this file were to add hard-wrapped line breaks in order to make it readable (the original had only one line break per paragraph).

             Why I love My ATARI Computer (And even Atari Corp!)

=========================== Josh Renaud =====================================





  Atari. A simple Japanese name. Interestingly enough, it means 'Stalemate'. 

I own an Atari. Four, actually. I have two Atari 800s, one Atari 130XE, and an

Atari 520ST. For five years, I have grown up on Atari equipment, games, and

BASIC. My first home computer was an Atari 800. I learned to program in BASIC

in about one week. I was about 8 years old at the time. Not too long after, my

uncle sent my dad a 520ST with lots of games and stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed

it. I knew Nintendo was what all the other guys had, but I loved my Atari. I

played Time Bandit, Megaroids, Sun Dog, and lots of others. After two years, 

I got an Atari 130XE. It had everything! 128k, oodles of disks, a double-density

drive with the US Doubler, BASIC XE, and AtariWriter (+). It was a joy! I had

it hooked up to my TV downstairs, and everyhting! There was a BBS program

called OASIS that apparently my cousin had set up. Back then I didn't know

what a BBS was, but writing messages to myself was fun! Then I joined 

ACE-St.Louis. I stayed on with my dad for a year, before we dropped out due 

to financial troubles. But I cointinued to program and experiment on ym 

XE computer. (Totally forgetting the ST all the while.)



  Then on a visit to my cousin's, he gave me a cheap 300 baud modem. I hooked

it up. I couldn't find  a  program that worked with it, though. It was around

this time I joined ACE again. Terry Shoemaker, the Editor and local SysOp of

Gateway City BBS, helped me out, and on May 7th, I logged onto my very first

BBS. From that time on, I became aware of the outside situation. Atari's

financial troubles. Competition from Mac, IBM, and Amiga. It all dawned on me.

But all this depressing news actually revived me! I got onto the C-Net 8-bit

sub and posted! I was going! I even had an article published in the ACE

Newsletter. In that same newsletter I read about the Falcon/030 computer.

This, I thought, would bring Atari back!



  Well now it has been released (Or at least that's what I hear from Bob

Brodie)  Will it help Atari? I hope so. I love Atari so much, I cxan't see it

die. In a recent article by Tim Holt in AIM, he states that Atari is dead. 

I don't think it is. I think that in the midst of all it's troubles. It's

pulling out of North America (A saddening prospect), all the pressures, that

the Atari Computer is doing much better. Shareware, PD, games, WPs, all kinds

of stuff! A new magazinem Atari Classics, is out. The 8-bit had never been

better! But noone buys 8-bits anymore. how will the Falcon do? Will it lift

Atari out of the sand? Will the new 64-bit Jagaur game system help Atari? 

I can't answer any of these questions. I can say, though, that Atari is alive! 

I just hope it doesn't end the way it was named....... 

In a stalemate...............





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Josh Renaud is a user on X-Net and C-Net. He calls Flash and Gateway City BBSs

He can be reached on those places. He has been an Atari user for 5 years...

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Please reprint as you feel necessary!!