My hobby for the last 20 years had been computing and
communicating online. And I started
doc's place
online as a community bulletin board service providing automotive
advice to modem savvy consumers in 1990.
Back in those days all we had were old dos systems and
dial up modems. The system on the left ran D'Bridge mailer processing
echomail and netmail messages downloaded from a new mini satellite dish.
It was a slow 12 hour feed that was repeated incase some packets were
lost. The replies still had to be uploaded by modem. The BBS is on the
right.
This photo was taken at one of our sysops meetings.
We got together once a month to exchange information and have a good
time. This was Pinellas Net 3603 the local
Fidonet Network that about 90 of us belonged to.
All our computers were configured to dial up
another's using a program called a mailer. I ran D'Bridge while many ran
a program called Front Door. These mailers sent/picked up everyone's messages/files.
When a human caller logged off the bbs, the mail tosser scanned the
database and any new messages left were packed up and immediately sent to
the other systems within the local calling area. a weekly file
called the nodelist was a huge ascii text file containing the node number,
system name, sysops name, city, state, area code & phone number, along
with identifying flags for mailer type and modem speed, an electronic
phone book for computers. (see partial sample below).
One member in each net
wore the NEC hat (network echomail coordinator) and collected all this mail and sent it to a regional hub during
zone mail hour
when long distance tolls were the lowest. Each state had a regional hub, who connected to a
national hub, who distributed it during ZMH (zone mail hour) every night. During this
hourly window each night, no human callers were allowed until the mail
was sent on its journey. Once everything was exchanged within the
United States/Canada (zone 1) The national hub called over seas and made
that exchange of echomail messages. There were 6 zones world wide.
Echomail as it was called back then was copying
messages on to each Fidonet members computer bulletin boards world wide. A
message could go round the world in 24 hours back then. Echomail was the
predecessor of threaded discussion boards we use today.
The 3 foot satellite dish was gaining
popularity in 1994 and several of us "droolers" chipped in and
bought one. It enabled us to receive all the days Fidonet echomail and
shareware computer files (games, applications, etc) from a service
called Planet Connect. It was slow and took about 12 hours to receive
the days feed, but was repeated a second time if we did miss a few files
the 1st transmission. It was also only a 1 way feed so any message
replies had to be uploaded by modem, usually during ZMH (zone mail hour)
late at night when long distance rates were the lowest.
Things went fine for a few months until someone
snitched me out to the city of St Petersburg's building codes division.
They wanted a permit for it's installation on my roof. I later found out
they wanted a structural engineer to certify it's installation would
withstand 115 MPH winds. Calling around I found one that would do it for
250.00, but he wanted the trusses on the roof beefed up before he would
put his seal on the permit.
That was enough of the city's BS! I was in the car
business at the time and bought this old Datsun F-10 with cold air for
$100.00 and put a 30 day temporary tag on it so it would be street
legal. We parked it in front of my house and took the dish off the roof,
drilled a few holes in the cars roof and mounted the dish on it.
One of the net's members Jacob Eagle Eyes not pictured
put the lettering on the dish. Pictured are Bob Tarallo (computer vision
bbs, left) Me standing next to him, and Jortis Webb (bubbas basement bbs,
in the rear).
Then a day later here came the codes inspector saying
that car was an accessory structure. I told him it was a legally
licensed and street legal motor vehicle and if he wanted to, go ahead
and cite me. I would unplug the cable and drive it down to city hall and
park it right out in front of the place! He then just turned and walked
away, but called me 2 days later and said put it back on the roof.. LOL!
Dial up bbs's were folding left and right, and the old
net 3603 finally died around 1997 and the NEC and I were the only ones left. I
had earlier did a final upgrade of my bbs software Wildcat V4 to
the newest version called Wildcat V5. It was a true 32 bit software
package that ran under Windows 95, but wouldn't run one day without
crashing. I then loaded it on a Windows NT4 Server machine and found the
combination
to be rock solid, other than that occasional NT blue screen of death!
Still running 3 dial up lines with maybe 3 callers
each day, I connected it to the internet in 1998 using a dual channel isdn
connection. Wow 128k was smoking fast - compared to 56k dial up! I could connect
to the bbs from work with a
modem and use it as a gateway to surf the net, but otherwise the
system got very little use.
Then I came up with the idea of having an internet
bbs, why not? I had all the equipment and an internet connection. And
came up with an idea for this
bbs advertisement and to this day the bbs lives on with an average of
100 old time bbs die hard callers daily.
We sysops (system operators) were the pioneers of
personal messaging as you know it today.
In 2009 Doc's Place BBS Online lives on,
running on a cable net connection in my home. It is
running under Windows 2000 Professional (Win NT5), and has ran unattended for well over a month without a reboot.
Hardware is a dedicated Intel P4, 2.6 with 2 gigs of ram. Net access is
provided by Verizon FIOS fiber optic internet.
You can check it out here
with your web browser
or you can telnet in and see the
bbs like the old timers did with a terminal program. To log in for a look
around without registering, use the username and password GUEST.
