I was a member of several of the Atari boards, mainly in the MD/DC area. Can't remember much except that only one message/post was displayed on screen at a time, like reading a letter, and that I could download all kinds of games that I had never even heard of. It was a dream come true. kek
That does sound familiar, but I was only 10 or 11 at the time, so it's a bit fuzzy. The ones I know for sure are Wizardry BBS, I think that was in California, and Graveyard in DC. Somehow I can still remember the number for Graveyard. Seems like a million years ago…
>I used to call bulletin boards all over the continent but that could get pretty expensive
I got in big trouble more than a few times over that. The worst for me was when I started using Compuserve, which was not only long distance, but they charged an outrageous amount per minute. Dad blew his stack often back then. kek