Msg: 2506 *Conference*
04-28-92 19:21:45
From: RICHARD HANSON
To : LEX JENKINS
Subj: REPLY TO MSG #2475 (BBS NETWORKS)
Oh my!!! Abacus indeed. Yes, those were the beginning days. My sales and educational company at that time was called Abacus Computer Education, with the online computers called Abacus Online: Featuring Club 100, and Abacus Warehouse. In those days I had two TRS-80 Model III and IV computers online via Newdos80 and TBBS single line. I used 4, 180 floppy disk drives on each system. There was so little bytes room on the drives that I had to split the activites between two BBSes. The Model III contained the message base, technical stuff, and items for sale, while the Model IV contained the entire library--much smaller then today, of course. Wow, those were the days then the computer would crash just about every day. "Normal" maintenance included rebuilding file allocation tables. I always hated taking vacations, or spending anymore than a day away from home, knowing that the BBSes would be down when I returned. Life bacame soooooo much easier after Phil Becker, author of TBBS, wrote the MS-DOS version of TBBS and I used it on my first DOS computer in 1976. At last, no more crashes. I just could not believe that a computer could actually run for more than a day or two without a crash. And now I run these things for weeks without doing "any" disk maintenance AT ALL!!! Not even a routine backup. In fact, this computer, the one you are on right now, except for the hard disk and the monitor, and a few power supplies... are you ready for this?... is the "original" MS-DOS clone XT, 8mhz, 640K, 2, 360K floppy computer I placed online in 1976. The old, original 20MB Western Digital hard drive finally gave up in 1989. I placed a 40MB drive in it place only because the 40s were the same price as the 20s at that time. I've got tons of stories about the BBS but will hold off since Paula just said that dinner is ready.... bye for now! -Rick-