Captain
Bob Liddil
Copyright 1981 Bob Liddil
Here's Joe Sysop, hacking away at the keyboard of his magnificent, spectacular, colossal, better-than-any-other-in-the-world computerized bulletin board service (BBS). Bleary-eyed, I type away on my Electric Pencil, formulating files, allocating space and consecrating disk drives, all in the hopes that my board would soon be up and running.
So begins the saga of Aggravation-80, the first CBBS to ask the question, "Can I ever get this thing on-line??"
It began innocently enough. I bought myself a modem and a copy of Omniterm, an excellent Smart Terminal program, and then began dialing up semi-local CBBS's like the Forum-80 in Nashua, New Hampshire. At the time my phone bill was around thirty dollars a month. I was bitten by the bug.
Next, I visited Richard Taylor (at his new Programs Unlimited retail store) to check a program called Message-80. I received a program, loosely known as Connection-80, which is a carefully formulated BBS with a special electronic mail order section designed to curb hunger at my house through the sale of a few bits and pieces of software. Written by Richard Taylor (his talents know no boundaries) and Tom Vandestowe, of the Microperipheral Corporation. His imagination is vast and besides, his auto-answer modem was in stock. Now, I figured that my board had a fighting chance.
Arriving home from New York, I discovered that my new 40 track MPI B51 disk drive had arrived from Level IV. Since I'd had no trouble with the other MPI drives purchased from them, I expected none from this one. With my brand new, un-backed up BBS software in drives zero, one and two, and with the doors open for safety, I hooked up drive three. ZAP went the software.
I could've just spit.
I called Level IV on the phone and pitched a fit. It was the middle of the evening and I figured that the $%'&() drive had munched my disk in some sort of death throes of its own. I was wrong. It was the idiot installing the drive who'd caused the trouble, namely, me.
Chuck Chesseldine of Level IV listened to my piteous cries and then asked if I had Super Utility, a disk utility from Breeze Computing which no disk system user should be without. I said I did. Together, by long distance, we repaired my disk and un-munched my precious programs.
Meanwhile back at the board, we struggled for several hours to put Magazine-80, as we called it, on line.
Almost instantly a flood of well wishers began to sign on at a rate of about one per hour. The last of which was none other than the most illustrious and personable Larry Kelley, Sysop Extraordinare, and proprietor of * M 0 M * (Modem Over Manhattan), otherwise affectionately known as Maniacs On Modems. Larry left a most kind message of welcome and greetings, signed off and took the entire Bulletin Board back to Manhattan with him. I just sat there, staring in disbelief as three 514" Verbatim diskettes packed their little suitcases and went west in a cloud of shattered magnetic particles, waving bye-bye, as they departed.
Arrgghh! I felt like Charlie Brown at the kite-eating tree. My new BBS blinked "READY FOR CALL" three times and died.
But Joe Sysop never says die! Once again I redumped my shattered program, this time from a backup, which had been thoughtfully placed in reserve by my roommate and assistant Sysop, Jamie Tietjen. Again we were up and running. That was five o'clock on a Friday. At 6 PM someone up the road (rumor has it) (allegedly) took a pair of 36-inch bolt cutters to a long distance phone trunk.
For three days after that the phone ceased to exist...
Despite all the trials and tribulations, Aggravation-80, that crashing, frustrating, complicated collection of misfit hardware and software; became Magazine-80, a clean running, smooth and satisfying specialty Computer Bulletin Board Service with features the creative writing efforts of many New Hampshire area computerists.
Being a Sysop takes patience. It's not for the easily angered. It also takes (in most cases) a dedicated system and a dedicated phone line. The software involved is available in a variety of places.
Bill Abney's Forum-80 is very popular and seems to be the most widespread of the TRS-80 BBS programs. The rules are strict here, however, and the formats most rigid, except for the local features section, which seems always to include downloading. There are no f 66S involved for the software but I suspect that getting a Federal Grant for research on the mating habits of vegetarian Aardvarks is easier than getting licensed to operate one of these.
Richard Taylor's Message-80, the base program for my Connection-80, is inexpensive at around $150 and very flexible as to which modifications can be made to it. I concentrated the theme of my board around program reviews (which I have in the most abundance), short stories, poems, and a BBS edition of Captain Eighty. Richard's reaction to these modifications was an enthusiastic (but dignified) go for it!
Along the course of becoming a Sysop (and it is an honorto be declared such by those who already are), I have discovered a whole world of new personalities. It is not unlike that which CB radio used to be back in the sixties. Everyone is a friend and has a stake in the order of things.
It's an eerie feeling to sit passively by while someone from the other side of the country takes control of your computer, your brainchild, which you have nurtured through power failures and bouts of Shrayer's revenge. But it's all worth it when he's read your articles, downloaded the only public domain program in New Hampshire, and leaves a messager for you and everyone to see: "NICE BOARD, WELCOME". That's a true, pure, natural high.
Here's Joe Sysop, in the twenty-third hour of a marathon attempt to log on to every Bulletin Board in the country. There is a wrecker pulling into my driveway. It is painted in Bell Telephone colors. It's hooking up to my van. WAIT A MINUTE!!
My connection to ALOHA-8O in Honolulu is complete. I log on.
"Don't take my van!!" I cry in vain. "What's a three thousand dollar phone bill among friends?"
ALOHA-8O dumps me off for lack of a password.
The sun goes behind a cloud.
Somewhere a pair of bolt cutters lurks in the shadows.
It's going to be one of those days.®
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