Drag-Net Systems

From: John Mehrtens
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 2:17 AM [Updated Saturday, January 20, 2007]
Subject: BBS Memories..

I'm the SysOp of Drag/NET BBS, an obscure BBS from Northern Rhode Island (1984-1993 in RI, 1994-1999 in NH, 2000- in MA) which had a great following. [Don Messier continued to run Drag/NET (RI) in Smithfield RI after I left for California in 1993]

Think of an old cult movie -- there are people still seeing the movie, no matter how bad it is to critics. The movie has an endearing quality to a certain group of people. They might've had a certain experience which brought them closer to the movie. Maybe it was because it was so zany. Drag/NET was a lot like that in its heyday.

Drag/NET started under the name "Prototype #2" using "Apple-Net" software, a message-only BBS, at 300 baud. After a brief name change to "The Exigency", it was christened in the summer of 1985 as "DragNet BBS." After a few years - and a short time under software written by Chuck Carpenter and Mike "Moon Roach" Deignan (it was called 'The Bathroom Wall' during this short period) - Drag/NET was brought up under TProBBS, an RPG BBS, hitting 2400 baud with a vengeance. Believe it or not, the message areas were very popular. It morphed to a PC running T.A.G. BBS at higher speeds, until the final years where it was run under Searchlight v5.1, Telnet only. 

In 1986 I decided that it would be great to have everyone on the BBS gather in one place for a picnic, party, whatever. A camping site at Lincoln Woods State Park in Lincoln, RI was rented for the day (I think it cost $2) and we had our first Drag/NET Fest.

Drag/NET was less of a traditional BBS and more of a community -- a physical community where people of many interests shared one thing in common -- the BBS -- and were friends outside of the "online" community. Most of us found some of our best friends through "the board."

This web site doesn't have much information about Drag/NET [yet!]; however, you might be interested in seeing my friend Arthur "Back Slash" Levesque's Drag/NET Memorabilia Page at http://DammitJa.net/dragnet/ for a little more insight.