The Rust Belt BBS is online and hosted from Rochester, New York where it's been burning in since March of 2019. We're running the latest version of Mystic BBS and have attempted some changes to eliminate that 'fresh out of the box' look. We have a couple of FTN networks available and adding a few new networks over time. The Rust Belt BBS won't operate as a hub for existing networks but we're in the process of creating a new FTN and IBBS network called ROCnet.

The idea of the Rust Belt BBS was born on Christmas day, 2018. While my wife celebrated the holiday with the visit of family members, I was toiling away on Facebook, looking for fan pages dedicated to Proboard. After a few hours, I was connected to several BBS related Facebook groups and on my way to installing Mystic BBS for the first time. It's been almost 20 years since I've even thought about the BBS... Here I go again!

My wife and I spent our last holiday season at our Mesa, Arizona house; we sold the house in February 2019. We were headed to Rochester New York where we had purchased a house a year earlier. Rochester sits right in the middle, almost, of what would be dubbed 'the rust belt', a name given to the region due to the decline of the manufacturing industry. In the wake of this deindustrialization was economic decline and urban decay that would go on for decades. What do I see when I look out over the landscape of Rochester? I see a diamond in the rough. I see something beautiful and with great potential. The Rust Belt BBS is born and taking its first steps in 2020.

Like most BBSes online today, we will have all the fan-favorite door games and FTN style message networks, but I'm hoping to bring something new to this nostalgic BBS renaissance.