The BBS Documentary Library

CLICK HERE FOR AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BBS LIBRARY

PLEASE CLICK ON A TOPIC TO READ THE FULL ENTRY

CONCEPTS
EVENTS
THE MODEM TAX RUMORS
A rumor surfaced in the mid to late 1980's that the FCC would begin imposing a tax on phone lines being used by modems.

SERVICES
HAMRADIO
PC-PURSUIT
One of the great unsung heroes and forgotten aspects of the BBS world of the 80's and 90's. PC Pursuit was basically a service offering use of Sprint's packet network and multi-city modem banks to connect to BBSes from around the country for a much lower rate than calling those BBSes directly.

SATELLITES
A spike in traffic for BBSes in the early 1990s (from Usenet and the fidonet's Filebone) threatened to make the process of being a networked BBS a prohibitively expensive one. At that point, a solution presented itself: satellite feeds. For a short, exciting time, services and messages could be delivered to your BBS via a dish outside.

CONTROVERSY
EVENTS
WWIVWAR: WWIVNET, WWIVLINK, ICENET
WWIV (World War Four) bulletin board software had a networked component called WWIVnet, run by the author of WWIV, Wayne Bell. In the early 1990's, controversy erupted and a group split into a secondary, alternative network called WWIVlink. A lot of bad blood was brought up between proponents of the two semi-competing networks (it was possible to be on both) and it stands as an example of how a minor disagreement online could get completely out of hand.

BBSES OF EVIL AND FEAR
RACIST BBSES
Through the mid-1980's, a set of BBSes professed to speak for racist ideals and to spread literature for such groups. It provided interesting press, but proved, ultimately to be a tempest in a teapot.

LAWSUITS
ALCOR
In 1988, the Alcor Life Extension Foundation had its BBS and other electronic equipment seized in a raid of their headquarters following the freezing of Dora Kent in December 1987. ALCOR sued the FBI, had the case dismissed, and then sued the County and City of Riverside, California for compensation. This case was settled for $30,000.

SEA vs. PKWARE
In the late 1980s a fight broke out between System Enhancement Associates (SEA), maker of the ARC program, and PKWARE (Phil Katz Software) over the rights of a program named ARC (or PKARC). It quickly expanded into one of the largest controversies the BBS world ever saw.

THOMPSON V. PREDAINA (1988)
Thompson Vs. Predaina appears to be the only BBS-related lawsuit over the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986.

PERSONALITIES
THE MYSTERIOUS MR. ALESHE
John Richard was a beloved member and hub of the 1:282 Fidonet network in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota... until the day he disappeared, and an amazing secret story came to light.

RAIDS
CYBERSNARE
In September of 1995, a series of busts culminated an 8-month sting operation called "Operation Cybersnare". 20 computer systems were seized and six computer users were arrested.

STEVE JACKSON GAMES
COUNTRIES
BBS CULTURES
INDIA
ETYMOLOGY
WORDS
KRAD
The Phrase "K-Rad", first created in the early 1980s, has continued to find common use among the computer-savvy youth of today, even though its original history and age have been obscured.

WAREZ
MODEMS
HAYES
SYSOPPROGRAM
PROGRAMS
DOORS
BARREN REALMS ELITE (BRE)
DOPEWARS
In 1984, a programmer named John E. Dell created an economic demonstration program for his high school project. This would normally have been an uninteresting event, except he chose the theme of drug trading, and the program called "Dope Wars" was born. Through the next 20 years, the program has seen many versions and remained one of the most popular BBS doors.

LEGEND OF THE RED DRAGON (LORD)
Legend of the Red Dragon was created by Seth Robinson in 1989. Here is what his website says about it:
Question: What is LORD, LORD2 or TEOS? Answer: LORD stands for "Legend Of the Red Dragon" (yeah, I realize the T doesn't fit in, but would LOTRD really sound cool? No) and is an old BBS game I (Seth Robinson) created in 1989. It's been ported to several OS's and several BBS types including DOS, Worldgroup, Wildcat etc. BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) are what we had before we could get on the Internet. Now we no longer use them. The Internet is much better overall, but some people miss the atmosphere of using a small, local system where you can meet people.
The Legend of the Red Dragon has had no "splits" or "forks" to my knowledge, but has been passed from Seth to a company called "Metropolis Gameport", who are continuing work on the LORD program. The lead programmer is currently Michael Preslar, who is active on many fronts in the current BBS world.

PIMPWARS
The actual game "Pimpwars" has its start in 1990, and the author was Paul J. Martino. Paul supported the game for a good many years (until the late 1990's) at which point it has been taken over by other folks, who continue the development.
Phil is happy enough with his work on Pimpwars that he mentions it on his website as one of the programs he worked on in his past. (He has since started his own company, Ahpah Software.)
Current development of Pimpwars is being done by James Coyle of Mystic BBS fame, who is maintining DOS, Windows and Linux versions of the door. The version called "Pimpwars 32" is a version of Pimpwars to work with Windows; it is not a new game.
There is a web version of Pimpwars at PIMPWAR.COM which runs online multi-player games, sells pimpwar merchandise, and offers IRC chat channels to discuss the game.

TRADEWARS
FRONTENDS
BINKLEYTERM
As Dylan Smith describes it:
Programs like BinkleyTerm provided the 'front end' to many BBSes (and ended up launching the BBS software etc). Bink did some very important work for the BBS - it was responsible for doing the FidoNet stuff (Echomail, Netmail etc). which was a very big part of the BBS scene. BinkleyTerm and similar programs really deserve a mention because it's what made FidoNet possible.

GRAPHICS
ANSI
There is a graphics standard in DOS on IBM Computers called "ANSI", which was implemented in the early 1980's. It allowed a certain set of escape sequences to be included in files that would produce color and cursor movement on the screen, and was used to great benefit on DOS machines for some time, especially some BBS menus and welcome screens. Towards the early 1990's, an entire ANSI "Scene" rose up where people tried to outdo each other producing elaborate ANSI images and files.
What's the story of ANSI? What's its roots? Where did it go?

ATASCII
NAPLPS
NAPLPS (North American Presentation Layer Protocol Syntax) was a standard developed to allow the easy transmission of graphics and text information over modems. Similar in the ideas of what were called ANSI and RIP, this standard was designed to be accepted across many platforms and programs, but didn't seem to ultimately catch on outside of a few notable exceptions (the users of which might not have known they were using NAPLPS to communicate).

RIPSCRIPT
In 1993 Telegrafix created RIPscript or RIPscrip, which stood for "Remote Imaging Protocol". It was intended to be a vector-like graphics protocol that used ASCII files to describe lines and shapes to a client. This sort of approach (send descriptions of graphics, render them at the client side) had been done before, but a major push came with RIPscript and it followed onto the internet as a plug-in. Ultimately, the protocol did not catch on and was soon forgotten.

NETWORK
FOSSIL
FOSSIL is a standard for allowing serial communication for teleocmmunications programs on 808x processors. (The original DOS machines). It stands for "Fido/Opus/SEAdog Standard Interface Layer" and was created by a group of Fidonet folks to make their various Fido-related programs and derivatives work dependably on different machines. Standardization in the industry and advances in OSes have removed the need for this driver, but it stands as a fascinating example of sysops and programmers working together to increase the ease-of-use of their programs.

X10
Total of 2 Concepts.

CONCEPTS
	EVENTS
		THE MODEM TAX RUMORS A rumor surfaced in the mid to late 1980's that the FCC would begin imposing a tax on phone lines being used by modems.
	SERVICES
		HAMRADIO
		PC-PURSUIT One of the great unsung heroes and forgotten aspects of the BBS world of the 80's and 90's. PC Pursuit was basically a service offering use of Sprint's packet network and multi-city modem banks to connect to BBSes from around the country for a much lower rate than calling those BBSes directly.
		SATELLITES A spike in traffic for BBSes in the early 1990s (from Usenet and the fidonet's Filebone) threatened to make the process of being a networked BBS a prohibitively expensive one. At that point, a solution presented itself: satellite feeds. For a short, exciting time, services and messages could be delivered to your BBS via a dish outside.
CONTROVERSY
	EVENTS
		WWIVWAR: WWIVNET, WWIVLINK, ICENET WWIV (World War Four) bulletin board software had a networked component called WWIVnet, run by the author of WWIV, Wayne Bell. In the early 1990's, controversy erupted and a group split into a secondary, alternative network called WWIVlink. A lot of bad blood was brought up between proponents of the two semi-competing networks (it was possible to be on both) and it stands as an example of how a minor disagreement online could get completely out of hand.
	BBSES OF EVIL AND FEAR
		RACIST BBSES Through the mid-1980's, a set of BBSes professed to speak for racist ideals and to spread literature for such groups. It provided interesting press, but proved, ultimately to be a tempest in a teapot.
	LAWSUITS
		ALCOR In 1988, the Alcor Life Extension Foundation had its BBS and other electronic equipment seized in a raid of their headquarters following the freezing of Dora Kent in December 1987. ALCOR sued the FBI, had the case dismissed, and then sued the County and City of Riverside, California for compensation. This case was settled for $30,000.
		SEA vs. PKWARE In the late 1980s a fight broke out between System Enhancement Associates (SEA), maker of the ARC program, and PKWARE (Phil Katz Software) over the rights of a program named ARC (or PKARC). It quickly expanded into one of the largest controversies the BBS world ever saw.
		THOMPSON V. PREDAINA (1988) Thompson Vs. Predaina appears to be the only BBS-related lawsuit over the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986.
	PERSONALITIES
		THE MYSTERIOUS MR. ALESHE John Richard was a beloved member and hub of the 1:282 Fidonet network in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota... until the day he disappeared, and an amazing secret story came to light.
	RAIDS
		CYBERSNARE In September of 1995, a series of busts culminated an 8-month sting operation called "Operation Cybersnare". 20 computer systems were seized and six computer users were arrested.
		STEVE JACKSON GAMES
COUNTRIES
	BBS CULTURES
		INDIA
ETYMOLOGY
	WORDS
		KRAD The Phrase "K-Rad", first created in the early 1980s, has continued to find common use among the computer-savvy youth of today, even though its original history and age have been obscured.
		WAREZ
MODEMS
	HAYES
	SYSOPPROGRAM
PROGRAMS
	DOORS
		BARREN REALMS ELITE (BRE)
		DOPEWARS In 1984, a programmer named John E. Dell created an economic demonstration program for his high school project. This would normally have been an uninteresting event, except he chose the theme of drug trading, and the program called "Dope Wars" was born. Through the next 20 years, the program has seen many versions and remained one of the most popular BBS doors.
		LEGEND OF THE RED DRAGON (LORD) Legend of the Red Dragon was created by Seth Robinson in 1989. Here is what his website says about it: Question: What is LORD, LORD2 or TEOS? Answer: LORD stands for "Legend Of the Red Dragon" (yeah, I realize the T doesn't fit in, but would LOTRD really sound cool? No) and is an old BBS game I (Seth Robinson) created in 1989. It's been ported to several OS's and several BBS types including DOS, Worldgroup, Wildcat etc. BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) are what we had before we could get on the Internet. Now we no longer use them. The Internet is much better overall, but some people miss the atmosphere of using a small, local system where you can meet people. The Legend of the Red Dragon has had no "splits" or "forks" to my knowledge, but has been passed from Seth to a company called "Metropolis Gameport", who are continuing work on the LORD program. The lead programmer is currently Michael Preslar, who is active on many fronts in the current BBS world.
		PIMPWARS The actual game "Pimpwars" has its start in 1990, and the author was Paul J. Martino. Paul supported the game for a good many years (until the late 1990's) at which point it has been taken over by other folks, who continue the development. Phil is happy enough with his work on Pimpwars that he mentions it on his website as one of the programs he worked on in his past. (He has since started his own company, Ahpah Software.) Current development of Pimpwars is being done by James Coyle of Mystic BBS fame, who is maintining DOS, Windows and Linux versions of the door. The version called "Pimpwars 32" is a version of Pimpwars to work with Windows; it is not a new game. There is a web version of Pimpwars at PIMPWAR.COM which runs online multi-player games, sells pimpwar merchandise, and offers IRC chat channels to discuss the game.
		TRADEWARS
	FRONTENDS
		BINKLEYTERM As Dylan Smith describes it: Programs like BinkleyTerm provided the 'front end' to many BBSes (and ended up launching the BBS software etc). Bink did some very important work for the BBS - it was responsible for doing the FidoNet stuff (Echomail, Netmail etc). which was a very big part of the BBS scene. BinkleyTerm and similar programs really deserve a mention because it's what made FidoNet possible.
	GRAPHICS
		ANSI There is a graphics standard in DOS on IBM Computers called "ANSI", which was implemented in the early 1980's. It allowed a certain set of escape sequences to be included in files that would produce color and cursor movement on the screen, and was used to great benefit on DOS machines for some time, especially some BBS menus and welcome screens. Towards the early 1990's, an entire ANSI "Scene" rose up where people tried to outdo each other producing elaborate ANSI images and files. What's the story of ANSI? What's its roots? Where did it go?
		ATASCII
		NAPLPS NAPLPS (North American Presentation Layer Protocol Syntax) was a standard developed to allow the easy transmission of graphics and text information over modems. Similar in the ideas of what were called ANSI and RIP, this standard was designed to be accepted across many platforms and programs, but didn't seem to ultimately catch on outside of a few notable exceptions (the users of which might not have known they were using NAPLPS to communicate).
		RIPSCRIPT In 1993 Telegrafix created RIPscript or RIPscrip, which stood for "Remote Imaging Protocol". It was intended to be a vector-like graphics protocol that used ASCII files to describe lines and shapes to a client. This sort of approach (send descriptions of graphics, render them at the client side) had been done before, but a major push came with RIPscript and it followed onto the internet as a plug-in. Ultimately, the protocol did not catch on and was soon forgotten.
	NETWORK
		FOSSIL FOSSIL is a standard for allowing serial communication for teleocmmunications programs on 808x processors. (The original DOS machines). It stands for "Fido/Opus/SEAdog Standard Interface Layer" and was created by a group of Fidonet folks to make their various Fido-related programs and derivatives work dependably on different machines. Standardization in the industry and advances in OSes have removed the need for this driver, but it stands as a fascinating example of sysops and programmers working together to increase the ease-of-use of their programs.
		X10
Total of 2 Concepts.