The following story is from the Chicago Tribune's Tempo section
of March 16, 1989.
(The previous version was identical, but some telephone callers complained that without carriage returns at the end of every line, they couldn't print it. This corrects that problem. I hope. I am new at BBSing. ─Clarence Petersen)
GOING ONLINE
Be it for gabbing or gobbling facts, computer bulletin board
systems have taken wing
By Clarence Petersen
It is late evening. His children are asleep and his wife is
upstairs reading. In the basement the Nightly Nerd is hunched
over a computer keyboard, his face alight with greed as he
strikes the ``Alt'' and ``D'' keys, his passport to riches.
The Alt-D combination calls up the dialing directory from the
software he uses to connect his computer with a distant computer
by telephone line.
Finding the desired number, he strikes the ``Return'' key and
hears a quick succession of beeps representing touch-tone
signals, then a series of buzzes, signaling that the phone is
ringing at the other end of the line.
He hears a click, and a message appears on his computer
screen:
``Clearwater BBS established Nov. 12, 1987
``This BBS is dedicated to Wastewater Treatment Plant
Operators who have served and are serving toward the protection
of our environment, especially those who have given their lives
in the performance of this work.''
The Nightly Nerd mutters a profanity and strikes the ``Alt''
and ``H'' keys to hang up. It is bad manners to hang up so
abruptly, but the Nightly Nerd is frustrated. He's looking for
games; he has not the slightest interest in waste-water
treatment. He strikes Alt-D again, removes the number from his
telephone book and dials another.
What is this man doing?
He's one of heaven knows how many Americans who have
discovered the world of computer bulletin boards systems, or
BBSes, a world that comes alive in the evening and on weekends,
when the long-distance telephone rates go down.
To some, this world is nerd heaven: a place for introverts to
meet electronically, to exchange ideas, to make friends without
showing their faces, without ever exchanging a spoken word.
To others it is a valuable, if loosely woven, network of
information resources relating not only to computers but to just
about any topic from A to Zen.
To many others it is a way to get something for nothing. Any
of hundreds of free and bargain-priced computer
programs─everything from word-processing, data-base and personal
and business accounting software to computer games hacked out by
talented adolescents─can be ``downloaded'' (transferred from the
BBS to their own computers) for the price of a telephone call.
That's what the Nightly Nerd is looking for─a new game. He and
his children are tired of the 20-odd games he's already collected
from computer bulletin board systems in this, his first month on-
line.
Inhabitants of this world call themselves ``BBSers.'' They
have three things in common: a personal computer, a telephone
line and a modem. The last is a device that converts computer
language to telephone signals and vice versa. The modem makes it
possible to transmit computer data by telephone.
A computer bulletin board system is, in part, the electronic
equivalent of a corkboard bulletin board. But instead of being
found on a wall in the town hall, college dormitory or
supermarket, a BBS resides in a computer equipped with a program
that automatically answers telephone calls, accepts, stores and
delivers electronic messages and software.
Another thing the BBSers have in common is time; at least the
addicts do.
``A few of us have been trying to break our three-hour-a-day
Bullroar habit,'' said Judy Getts, 29, of Milwaukee, explaining
why a message sent to her via BBS had remained unanswered
overnight.
Bullroar, an electronic meeting place, is part of the Exec-PC
BBS in Shorewood, Wis., a Milwaukee suburb. Exec-PC is the
nation's largest computer bulletin board system. Exec-PC's
proprietor, Bob Mahoney, 36, describes Bullroar as an on-line
version of ``a gang of people who are always hanging around the
water cooler.''
Many in the Bullroar group check in every night, chatting back
and forth as if by Citizens Band radio. But instead of talking,
they type what they have to say on their computer keyboards and
read what others have to say on their computer screens.
``In this group,'' said Getts, ``every type of human drama has
unfolded, from love affairs to political organizing to
tribalistic bloodletting. So it's a typical human hangout─only in
digital form.''
Getts, a writer for the computer magazine PC World, went on to
describe herself as ``archetypically nerdish─not very social, not
very talkative. So I feel a lot more at ease socially here than
at a party or a bar.''
But the Bullroar party is anything but private. Any Exec-PC
subscriber can read months of messages, in the course of which
they will learn that Getts and BBSer Christopher Otto had a brief
romance that, as Otto says, ``became something of a spectator
sport'' for their Bullroar friends.
Still, Getts and Otto don't have to worry that the
eavesdroppers would recognize them on the street. Most of the
Bullroar regulars wouldn't recognize them either.
Mahoney, who has a bachelor's degree in computer science as
well as an MBA, was a computer consultant to such corporate
giants as Shell Oil and General Dynamics when he founded Exec-PC
in 1983. At the time, Exec-PC was devoted entirely to business
applications of personal computers.
As Exec-PC became well-known (more than 1.5 million callers
have logged on in six years), Mahoney began charging fees to
subscribers to pay for upgrades: more computers, more modems,
more telephone lines. At one point the telephone company sent an
investigator to Mahoney's home, suspecting him of running a call-
girl operation or an off-track betting service. When subscription
fees (currently $60 a year) began coming in at the rate of $400 a
day and Mahoney had time to sleep only three or four hours a
night, he quit his consulting job.
``It's the dream come true, where your hobby gets so big you
can live off it,'' says Mahoney. Today Exec-PC consists of a
network of seven high-speed 80386 computers with a total memory
storage of more than 3.7 gigabytes (3.7 billion bytes)─123,000
times the memory of a standard personal computer with a 30-
megabyte hard disk. Seventy-five callers can log onto Exec-PC
(414-964-5160) at once. Subscribers from all over the nation and
from two dozen countries log on routinely to see what's new among
Exec-PC's collection of more than 25,000 archived files, many of
which contain 5 to 30 individual files.
As Exec-PC got out of hand, Mahoney persuaded his wife,
Tracey, to give up her career as an interior designer to help him
run the system.
``We're still in the basement,'' he says, ``my wife, me and
the dog, Jesse, who probably thinks we've gone to jail and she's
gone with us. I'm the proprietor. My wife is the organizer and
record keeper. Jesse makes the biggest decisions, like should the
meter reader be allowed in the house?''
As the proprietor of Exec-PC, Mahoney is known as the
``sysop.'' Pronounced SIS-op, it is short for system operator.
Every BBS has one and the vast majority are men. But Mahoney is
widely believed to be the nation's only sysop to run a profitable
system. ``It's paying our bills,'' he says, ``but you have to
consider that I'm working the hours you'd work with two and a
half fulltime jobs.''
Though it started as business-computing BBS, Exec-PC now has
``conferences,'' as special-interest areas of a BBS are known,
devoted to automobiles, electronics, ham radio, investment,
medicine, psychology and writing. Its files have come to include
thousands of games, joke collections and graphic images.
Bulletin Boards come in all sizes and degrees of complexity.
At the opposite extreme from Mahoney is Bob Cutter's Flexi-Board
BBS in Arlington, Mass., which operates on a Timex/Sinclair mini-
computer, with a tape recorder for memory storage. There one
learns that an astonishing number of Americans remain dedicated
to the long-discontinued $99 Timexes, trading software, buying
and selling parts and celebrating their beloved machine.
A computer bulletin board system is operated by a program that
directs the computer's modem, or modems, to answer telephone
calls even when the sysop is not in attendance. It asks each
caller for a name and password. It usually permits new callers to
browse through the BBS to see what it has to offer and what the
sysop expects of participants.
If a caller decides to register, thus to gain access to the
BBS's conferences and libraries of software, the program also
asks for an address, on-line telephone number and daytime ``voice
phone'' number. Some sysops require registration by mail. If
there's a subscription fee, it often can be charged through
MasterCard or Visa.
No less than the software libraries, the conferences are what
distinguish one BBS from another. These are where the experts
are, ready to help novices with computer problems.
In a ``chat,'' callers take turns typing and reading. Reading
a chat response can be an eerie experience. The words appear on
the computer screen letter by letter, as if typed by a ghost.
Here a novice asks an expert for help:
``I can't get used to reading the standard ibm text characters.
Is there any software to produce large, readable sans-serif
screen fonts?''
``It depends. What kind of graphics are you running?''
``A paradise 350 ega color graphics card and a sony multisync
monitor.''
``Try downloading a program called either egafont.zip or
egafnt25.zip, which i believe is on this bbs. if it's not still
here, i will upload it for you.''
``Thanks. I'll let you know how it turns out.''
An evening's browsing among BBSes nationwide turned up
conferences devoted to astrophysics, agriculture, business,
comedy, eating disorders, games, geology, international
economics, Japanese culture, job opportunities, literature,
