The DLX scene, at least in greater LA, was a bit wild.

Along with Linzie's Motherboard, BaudTown pretty much led things off as far as
I knew, becoming a social scene somewhat like CB radio at its "good-buddy"
height ('76-'78 ...yeah, I was in on that), with weekly user-meets. Free
accounts were available (stocking the social pool, i suppose -- DLX was
multiline and live chat was its strong suit, a precursor to IRC, but live chat
only worked if you had someone to chat with), but the dreaded Bump Monster kept
things lively for the low-paid and no-paid accounts, bumping people off
whenever new people logged on. After Fred, the sysop, died, his lady Linda
tried to keep things running, but its scene tilted as upper staff got to play
favorites. I logged onto the board 1989-93.

The distributed e-zine "the Underground Informer" started out on BaudTown as
the BTUI, weekly nonsense and in-jokes with occasional literary pretensions.
When BaudTown staff took exception to some of its content, it went independent,
and that's when the name-change occurred. I think at its height it might have
been distributed to a dozen BBSes. My byline showed up in it a few times.

Another DLX board, Dreamscape, I think in North Hollywood, had a more stable
clientele. Other San Fernando Valley and nearby DLX boards were BeeLine and
Sourcexchange.

Green Dragon Tavern BBS, in Palos Verdes, catered mainly to the Santa Clarita
and Antelope Valley areas (Canyon Country, Palmdale), and served a dual
purpose. The sysop, Pete, was interested in the State Citizens movement, and in
fact named the board after the place in Boston where the Boston Tea Party was
planned by Samual Adams and his cronies. I was active on that board '92-'94. In
fact, I was busy writing an auxiliary program to DLX, the Cookie-Monster, CKM,
to do instant account validations and bump-monster functions, when Gillman
released DLX into public domain in '94. Prior to that time, DLX was an
expensive program, something like $800 for 16 lines IIRC, and Pete saw
moneymaking opportunities for such a program. Once DLX was PD and unsupported,
of course, the price the market would bear for such a program plummeted, and
GDT itself closed some months later. I'm in the Boston area now, have been
since mid-94, and have no idea what Pete's up to now.

The other DLX BBS local to AV was Stepping Stone Hotel, sometimes nicknamed
"Revolving Beds Motel". That one had its share of relatively staid callers, but
it also served as the online hub for the Antelope Valley B&D scene.

Part of what hastened the demise of SoCal BBSing, IIRC, was PacBell's change of
policy to not allow multiple piggyback forwarding. Before then, it was possible
to recruit callers in outlying areas, put an extra phone line in their home
with forwarding set on, and chain forwarding hops, so that several people 100
miles away could call into the board at a time through a given forwarding node,
while only being charged for a local call. This made wide-area coverage
affordable for a multiline BBS. I was hearing about this change in policy when
I was on GDT's staff, in '94, from LASBBS (?), the sysops' association of
greater Los Angeles; I presume it in fact was enacted.

cr
Stormbringer