Ten years BBCBBS

• What is BBCBBS
• Introduction
• Conclusions after one year BBCBBS (16-12-1986)
• Three years BBCBBS (16-12-1988)
• Six years BBCBBS (16-12-1991)
• From BBS-operator to network operator

On December, 16th. 1985 this BBS was online for the first time. In those days a bulletin board was something modern. Nowadays, it is not. We now all use the Internet, don't we?

After ten years of BBCBBS it is time to look back.

Introduction

In England and Germany there were quite a few BBS's already. For a good impression we would also have to look into those. And so we did, calling internationally at the expense of the university!

I was assigned two experienced 'hackers' as my guides: Onno Tijdgat and Ton de Regt. We didn't find much dangerous information (unfortanately?).

But my appetite for bulletin board systems had been wetted! I was stil working on the report about our investigation when I bought my very first modem. And one thing was clear to me from te beginning: I wanted to run my own BBS and I wanted to become a SYSOP myself.

During my years as a SYSOP, I wrote down my experiences in some 'editorials'. I recently translated some of these into English, so that everybody can read them now.

Conclusions after one year BBCBBS (16-12-1986)

On December 16th. 1985 everything was ready. I had written some software and I had built an auto answer facility into my modem. That evening I went on-line for the first time. The system worked at a speed of 300 baud. In the first weeks there were some pioneers who immediately started to use the system. Tim Rocholl, Edwin Dorré, Peter Kwakkelstein, Gert van Heck... They came to my system when almost nothing worked yet and there were hardly any files in the download.

They helped me by calling again and again. They filled my download. They tested commands. Etc...

On April 1st. 1986 most of the problems had been dealt with and my BBS went on-line for 24 hours per day. Starting from that moment I could no longer use my own phone. That was not nice for my friends and relatives...

What are my conclusions after running BBCBBS for a year?

First of all: this is a very time-consuming hobby. Every day there are messages to be answered. The download has to be kept clean. Sometimes an error in the software must be removed. Then again I have to look for the answer to a technical question from one of the users.

Second: I am having a great time. Thanks to the BBS I have now friends all over the country! People I have never seen, never even talked to on the phone.

And that is the third point: The users. Users can make or break a BBS. If nobody calls, nothing happens. If nobody makes a contribution, the system will get boring.

Fortunately many BBC-people seem to have been made out of the right kind of silicon: They leave interesting messages. They upload nice software. Sometimes they are so generous that my single floppy disk system gets overloaded.

Therefore: Many thanks to all loyal users. Their contributions have made the first year of BBCBBS a success!

Three years of BBCBBS (16-12-1988)

Yes, it is BBCBBS's birthday again! On December, 16th. 1988 BBCBBS has existed for 3 years. Three years 24 hours online is a moment to pauze and ponder. In those three years, there were some 15000 calls.

Who are those people who keep on calling BBCBBS? The results of my inquiery tell something about that: As expected, almost all of them use Acorn equipment. Half of them use the computer to write software. Most of the other half mainly use it for text editing.

The users were also asked what they liked most in a BBS. More than half of them replied: 'messages'.

From these results we can conclude that the population of BBCBBS mainly consists of programming freaks who use the BBS for asking questions about programming the Acorn machines and answering questions from others.

AThere is a group of users who keep on calling the BBS on a regular basis. Many of these users have been on the system almost from the beginning, three years ago.

I think BBCBBS still provides in a need. There are people in the Netherlands who can find here exactly what they are looking for.

The echomail experiment has shown that we form a select group together. When we were connected to a network of IBM-compatible systems, there was no real exchange of information.
Messages from BBCBBS went into the network, but probably nobody read them: There were no replies.
Messages from the 512-network came to BBCBBS and some of them were interesting to read, but the IBM-compatible world is quite different from ours. Again, no replies.

For 1989 I have a new idea in mind: A national network 'Aconet' in which I want to unite as many Acorn-BBS's as I can. Hopefully, echomail in a network like that will lead to a fruitful discussion. The first step in this initiative will be writing an echomail program for the Acorn Archimedes.

I intend to make BBCBBS the connection between Aconet and the 512-net, so that our link to the 'IBM Compatible World' will also continue to exist. More on this subject soon on this BBS...

We all start a new year of computing and communicating. Remember, a BBS is as good as it's users. Please make a contribution to the system if you can.
I know I don't need to ask. This year I got many nice messages and lots of good uploads from you, thank you!
And... As long as you keep calling, BBCBBS will continue to answer the phone!

Six years of BBCBBS (16-12-91)

This BBS opened on December, 16th. 1985. Like every year I celebrate the BBS's birthday with an 'editorial'. Some years it was difficult to think of something to write about. The BBS simply went on and on for years, and Aconet grew steadily. But the past year was not without events.

1991 Was a bad year for this BBS. By the end of 1990, BBCBBS was still the spider in Aconet's web. But half-way February the disaster happened: A DELETE-command. And no working backup available! There you have it again, it can't be said often enough:

MAKE BACKUPS OF EVERYTHING THAT IS IRREPLACABLE!

Suddenly all of Aconet was out of mail. Fortunately the other nodes have found a work-around by now, so they can function without BBCBBS.

For the largest part of this year BBCBBS has been off-line. It has taken many months to get everything running again. The largest problems seem to have been solved now...

If the users will find their way back to BBCBBS, 1992 can be a good BBS-year again. My hopes are high, because even during the months that the BBS was off-line there were still quite a few calls to the BBS-line. A BBS doesn't vanish that easily!

What are the plans for 1992? I can now get back to work on the perfect BBS. I have always preferred quality over quantity. In the beginning, when I had only a small BBC Computer available, I had no choice. I had very little space, so I had to choose for quality. Last year, when the network was growing and growing I had to choose for quantity: Pumping hundreds of messages back and forth between several HUBs and BBS's in our network. I found that I didn't have the time to read everything that went through my system, as I used to do.

As always, I very much appreciate all feedback from the users. What do you see as the perfect BBS? Let me know! What functionality do you miss? Let me know! What other functionality can you think of? Let me know!

From BBS-operator to network operator

Over time I got more and more busy. I only had the time to handle the Aconet administration and my BBS was really only a sort of personal mailbox. And it is still that way. There is very little to see on my BBS nowadays. Unless, of course, you are interested in some software for the good old BBC Computer...

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