What is the Online Gaming Service?

The Disc Master's Domain - Online Gaming Service is basically a telnet accessable system that consists of many online games. These games are also known as DOORS in the BBS (Bulletin Board System) world. Our service will allow members to enjoy many of these games for free!

What is a BBS (Bulletin Board System)?

Before the invention of the Internet, computer users around the globe would use their modems to dial into local BBS systems. BBS systems were like miniature internet servers. The best way to describe them is to compare them to todays internet. Each BBS would be like a single planet in the universe. The Internet would be the Universe! BBS'es were a lot of fun and great sources of information back in their day. A Typical BBS would consist of the following features and then some.

Message Boards or Forums - Self Contained forums where members of the BBS could post and repsond to messages. Similar to the many message boards or forums that you see on various internet websites.

Email Services - Were also part of the typical BBS, although unlike the internet today, these email services were available only through the BBS and to access your email on a specific BBS you had to dial in to the BBS to get to your email.

Doors - Doors were a very popular feature of BBSes. This was the area where users could play online games through the BBS. Today there are huge online games like Everquest and Ultima Online. Back in the days of the BBSes there was Lord of the Dragon and Tradewars, plus many many more. Most of these old DOOR games were multiplay capable as well.

File Areas - The File Area of a BBS was its most popular feature. Users could gain access to thousands of files that they could download and run locally on their PCs. Users were also able to Upload files to a BBS that the BBS had yet to offer on its system. Even way back then files could contain viri and so most BBSes had built in Virus Scanning of all uploaded files.

So, if you can imagine, before the internet, these BBSes were very powerful and lots of fun. There simply was no world wide internet at that time. A few of the bad sides to a BBS were as follows. BBSes ran over the standard phone line. There was no TCP/IP or network access back then. Most BBSes were single line systems. This means they had one phone line connected to them, which in turn only allowed one caller online at a time. This led to many users who would try to access their favorite BBS only to get a constant busy signal. There were a few BBS systems that were multi-line systems. Perhaps 2 or 3 or more access lines which would allow that many users to connect to the system at one time. This was quite expensive to the Sysops of the BBS as you needed one modem per phone line and the fact that the sysop had to pay multiple phone bills each month, one per line. So, a 3 line BBS would have a monthly bill for 3 phone lines. There was no use one phone line/number to allow more than one caller at a time. That simply didn't exist. The final downside was that modems back then were 14.4k at best and that was towards the end of the BBSes popularity. During their prime 300, 1200, or 2400 baud was the standard and that made for very slow connections.

Sadly, I've written more than I should have for this simple faq. If you wish to learn more about BBSes and the online communication world before the Internet, then try searching the web as I'm sure there is lots of information on this subject.

Whats up with these archaic graphics used by these games?

Those graphics are called ANSI (color) or ASCII (B/W) graphics. Back in the BBS days modems were rather slow so games like Unreal Tournament or Battlefield 1942 would have been impossible to play. ANSI and ASCII is basic text graphics and made for faster data flow which sped up gameplay and access. Due to this most but not all DOORs are in ANSI graphics.

What does Sysop mean?

Sysop is short for System Operator. The Sysop was the person who ran or owned the BBS. Its similar to todays network admins who are the administrators of todays modern servers.