Dial Up Directory

by Frank l. Derfler. Jr.

the telecommunications column from the April 1980 issue of Kilobaud Microcomputing Magazine, pages 80-82..

The people who bring you Computer Bulletin Board Services are a diverse lot. Their motivations range from purely mercenary to ultimately humanitarian. Some feel a strong responsibility for the material that is disseminated over their systems. Others believe in a “free press” and allow an uncensored flow of data to pass through their disks. The CBBS concept seems to be a spin-off of the commercial computer mail schemes, but it is much different in implementation. This month we will talk about these ideas and others with the two men who can truly be called the fathers of CBBS, Ward Christensen and Randy Suess.

I talked to Ward and Randy during a trip to Chicago. I went to Randy's home, which also houses the Chicago CBBS. We edged our way into Randy's basement, and while the system's disks clicked and whirled, Ward's disembodied voice joined us over a speakerphone from his home south of the city.

Microcomputing: Your own article in the November 1978 Byte gave an excellent technical description of the Chicago-style CBBS. What about the personal side? What were your goals and motivations in establishing the first of what has grown to be a series of systems'?

Ward: My motivation arrived on the morning of January 16, 1978, coincidentally with the great Chicago snowstorm. I got up to find that my alley was impassable and started to think about more sedentary things.

Randy(pictured): We had previously both developed remote terminal operation for our systems so that we could use them when we were away from home. We started leaving messages for each other, and the idea grew.

Ward: Also, we e had a regular physical bulletin board for our computer club, and computerizing it was an obvious move.

Microcomputing: Were you motivated by the mailbox services available on the ARPA net, PLATO or other commercial systems?

Ward: Honestly, I didn't know they existed at the time. I understand that we have reinvented the wheel by using some similar control codes, but I didn't know about them then. We started out with five functions. We made new version changes almost weekly in the beginning, but the system has stayed pretty simple.

CBBS as it operated in 1980

Randy: We used our own equipment, too. Eventually though, we had to dedicate a system so that we could provide full-time service. Now several manufacturers have donated equipment for use and evaluation. (CBBS circa 1980 pictured) We have used every one of the S-100 modem boards available.

Microcomputing: Any comments about modem boards?

Randy: All of the manufacturers have been great. D.C. Hayes has been responsive to comments and recently helped the Dallas CBBS out with a problem. We are now running the Potomac Micro-Magic and are very happy with it.

Microcomputing: Is your user population still growing?

Ward: We started out using a Teletype for logging, and Randy used to send me hundreds of feet of paper at a time. Now we log on a separate disk. We have had over 11,000 users and are getting ten to 15 new folks calling in a day.

Microcomputing: Well, I can testify that you have the busiest phone number of any system.

Randy: The average caller stays on about 20 minutes, but expert users can get in and out in about five minutes. Our peak traffic loads are from 9 PM until early morning. We placed the system in a central Chicago location to cut down on the toll costs for our users, but it doesn't seem to matter. We get calls from across the country.

Microcomputing: What is your longest-distance user?

Randy: You have called from Hawaii, Frank, but we have had people log in from Australia. We have some European users too.

Microcomputing: Well, a call to a busy CBBS is a quick way for people out of the country to get a feel for the latest microcomputing news and developments. With all of those diverse users, do you often have to play the role of policeman and censor the material?

Ward: Surprisingly, not often. It is easy to do, but we don't delete things very often. Trash on a system is self-perpetuating. If you catch it early, it doesn't grow. As you may have noted if you read the system sign-on, we try to keep the notices to computer-related subjects, so in that way we can exercise some discretion.

Randy: Cars for sale and computer dating don't really meet our definition of computer-related.

Microcomputing: How about some systems such as Boston, which has game players, or Beaverton, which has movie reviews?

Randy: That's great for them. They should get into chess or cars or anything else they want. We do understand that some people have gotten pretty good computer-related jobs through our system, and we are happy about that. We just want to keep the Chicago CBBS computer-related, so if we have to pack a disk, then car ads are the first to go.

Ward: We feel we have a responsibility as the first and probably the busiest system operating.

Microcomputing: Were you really the first?

Ward: The Kansas City Electronic Message System may have started at about the same time - I'm not really sure who got on first - but we continued to function.

Microcomputing: What other CBBSs around the country now use your software?

Ward: Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, Pasadena and Beaverton are operating. We have sold other copies, too.

Microcomputing: Are you really in the sales business?

Ward: Absolutely not! We had thought about giving the software away free, and then we thought about selling it for $25. But either way, we were afraid people would not value it and we would have no control over our creation. We settled on $50 as a fair price.

Randy: We have thousands and thousands of our own dollars in it, and it would take a lot of 50-dollar checks to turn a profit.

Microcomputing: What would it cost to start a CBBS right now?

Randy: You could easily do it for $2000. You do need a lot of disk space though. The Kansas City TRS-80 forum (816-xxx-xxxx) has some information on using a TRS-80 as a CBBS, I think, but their system is not derived from ours.

Ward: TRS-80 users have trouble with our system because they don't have the control codes that make the use of our system so easy.

Randy: TRS-80 users keep asking why we don't change our system for them. We recommend they ask the manufacturer why standard ASCII control codes were not included in their product.

Ward: They always want us to fix the bars they get on the screen. The bars represent parity errors and their manual tells them how to get rid of them, but they still keep asking.

Microcomputing: Are we entering an era such as we saw in amateur radio when the home-brew tinkerers resented the operators of ready-made “appliances”?

Randy: Sure, but we certainly do get tired of answering the same non-problems.

Microcomputing: How about the future? Telenet has announced some super-low night rates for data transmission. Do you see any linking of systems for transfer of general-interest messages?

Randy: That would get us into long-distance calling. We deliberately use a dial-in-only line that costs three dollars a month. Message transfers would require a lot of time and software.

Ward: We intend that this system remain free of cost to the user. Nationwide netting might become complicated and expensive. Also, we find that individuals already transfer interesting information from system to system, or they may at least leave references to messages of interest on other systems. The same thing is true of becoming multi-user. We are frequently asked why we don't provide more lines and go multi-user. The best answer we can give is that we are only in this for the fun of it. Big changes will come slowly.

Microcomputing: What little things are you looking at?

Ward: Oh, a lot of housekeeping things. We need to keep our message numbers straight even after we pack a disk. Message number 110 should always remain number 110 and not suddenly become 29. Also, supporting 110 baud may he a time-wasting service. We also are considering a function that would allow swapping complete programs.

Microcomputing: Wouldn't program swapping be more easily done by direct person-to-person data calls, perhaps arranged on the cbbs?

Ward: Sure, and it would be easier on our disk space too.

Microcomputing Any final comments?

Randy: This is just our hobby, but we do feel some responsibility to our users. We will keep on trying to enhance the system and respond to needs for new functions.

Ward: Amen, and tell your readers to conserve disk space.

Comments?

If you are a bulletin-service owner or user and have comments or items to discuss, let me know. Also let me know if you are interested in receiving direct data calls and briefly describe your interests, equipment capabilities and available times. We will make you part of the Dial-up Directory. Either drop me a line (ancient address deleted) or leave a message for me on the Atlanta system (404-xxx-xxxx).

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Randy Sues's current project & web address is: http://www.chinet.com/