Artificial Reality was the main BBS I frequented, and the source of my whole obsession with the goofy Purity Test thing. It had the most active message area out of all of them, due largely to a wildly eclectic user base with a high collective threshold for mutual abuse.

One of its access numbers is now some lady's residence, another is Success Styling Salon Inc's number. *sigh* So much for fitting legacies.

One of AR's members, Cardinal, once had on his web site:

Back before the Internet had become dirt-cheap and America Online was just another Communist plot, there were those of us who used to call BBSes and leave the ol' 2400 on redial for hours for a measly sixty minutes of connect time. I saved a few of the things that I found on such places; you can see some of them in The Box.

Unfortunately, his web site decided to disappear one day, and as such these important pieces of history were seemingly lost. Fortunately, praise deity, Google's cache had these priceless pieces of literature still on file, and I was able to rescue them and restore them to their original monospaced, 80-column glory. So without further ado, I present the aptly-titled:

 *  Thu  5-Jan-95  1:42a  One of Jason's Lists
 *  Fri 13-Jan-95  3:59a  Another of Jason's Lists
 *  Wed 20-Sep-95  1:10a  Yet Another of Jason's Lists

These represent surviving relics of what is, in a very real sense, ancient history (They're seven years old now! Average net dweeb in 2002: "The ol' 2400 what?"). And Jason, if you actually read this some day, I'd like to take this time to apologize for blatantly stealing the "how to spell <x> when you're tired" bit so long ago. :-)

Additionally, Hal9000 produced a few more amusing pieces from his own archives that are even older than Denim's lists. In the first two, Wesley Crusher gives a long, bizarre description of his own private Idaho, and Amadeus starts the customary bi-monthly flame war. In the third, a young-teenaged me makes a painful attempt at witty writing (hey, this shit takes practice, alright?)

Additionally (again), Xenomorph's packrat nature is responsible for preserving the [in]famous Yellow Ping Pong Ball joke. Read at your own risk, 'cause god knows what this thing is likely to do.

 *  Fri 16-Sep-94 10:16p  What is needed for a better world
 *  Sat 17-Sep-94  6:14p  Amadeus' response to Wesley
 *  Thu 22-Dec-94  1:19p  Official Rules of Mr. D's LoI
 *    (sometime in 1995)  Yellow Ping Pong Balls

A_Reality.displayme - April 4, 1994 (text version)