Zak -
Wasn't sure what I wanted to submit for this, but as I was digging through
my old computer I found a stack of newsletters from a BBS network I belonged
to back in the early 1990s. I dug out a few representative articles (which
I wrote) and added some explanatory text. The whole idea is one I'd like to
look at more closely in the future - the way BBSes died out as the Internet
took over. Even a little bit depressing.
Hopefully I'll be able to stop by tonight - we'll see how the mobs behave.
Best,
Will
Y2K Time Capsule:
The year was 1994, and I was in ninth grade. The Internet was about a year
away from becoming a major consumer success: most online teenagers got there
via hobbyist Bulletin Board Systems, and that was my approach too. BBSes were
a fascinating phenomenon during the 1980s and early 1990s, made even more
so by the utter rapidity with which they disappeared after the introduction of
$19.99 a month Internet access. The System Operators, myself included, were
still willing to play, but the user community vanished. My own system,
Data Express, was online from August 4th, 1992 through January 25th, 1995, when
I finally called it quits.
During much of 1994, I was involved with IceNEWS, the newsletter of the IceNET
BBS network, eventually ending up as editor. The newsletter collapsed along
with the rest of the network in early 1995, as the number of member systems
dropped from a high of over 700 in late 1993 to a few dozen today. Still, I had
a lot of fun with IceNEWS, particularly because I got to carry on about things
that would usually be ignored coming from a ninth grader. So, as both evidence
of a stage of my life and as an (admittedly narrow) view into the twilight
of the BBSing world. The pieces below include a few speculations on the future
of computing (short term projections that were maybe 70% accurate) and some other
musings. Bear in mind that I was a ninth grader: I have since dramatically
reduced my fondness for cliches. But it's fun stuff.
If anyone wants to talk about the end of the BBS community, please let me know.
Email addresses change, but University Alumni Offices are eternal, so just call
them and ask where to find William Crawford, class of 2001 (william.crawford@yale.edu
for now). Even in the case of Y2K calamity, I don't think they'll lose track.
June, 1994:
๒ภ
า Will Crawford On: The Future of Computing า Will (1@6754)
ห็
Every few months, people get together and try to figure out what the
computing scene will look like five, ten, or fifteen years down the line.
Often these are wild guesses, flagrantly optimistic or too narrow-sighted and
pessimistic. A committee under President Johnson was told to come up with an
idea of what computing would be like in the year 2000. Everything they
predicted had occured by the mid 1970s. Arthur C. Clarke, a science visionary
if there ever was one, overshot the direction of AI (in 2001) and understated
it as well (in some of his novels, he predicted that punch cards would still
prevail in 100 years).
The mid 1990s is certainly a turbulent time, with platforms, chips, and
operating systems all jostling for a top position, and nobody is really quite
sure what will come out on top in the end. However, computer technology is
begining to settle into a pattern and trends appear which make long range
predictions easier. While things are still murky, many technological
developments of the next five to ten years can be seen through the haze.
Hard disk capacities will double, triple, and finally increase by up to
50 times over the next five years, with no real change in cost. Two new
technologies will make this possible. The first involves using DAC chips
(Digital Audio Converter, more on them later) to filter data "noise" from the
hard disk. This will allow information to be packed much more tightly on the
disk platter without additional miniaturization costs. The second scheme,
which may bear even more potential, involves changing the orientation of the
recording medium on the disk platter to allow a much tighter density of
information.
Crystal Lattice memory may also come into its own for storage, pehaps by
the year 2000, perhaps later. This involves using a laser to store data in
"cells" a few dozen atoms across in pieces of special crystal. While current
working models only store a few dozen bits of memory, this technology has the
potential to cram terrabytes of memory into a recording media not much larger
than a marble.
The chip wars will continue for a few more years, the eventual winner
still indeterminite. IBM, and Apple especially, are betting the farm on the
success of the PowerPC RISC chip. Intel has a lot to lose if PowerPC catches
on, so they'll continue to step up R&D and solve the cooling problems of the
latest generations of Pentiums and above (Intel recently demoed a Pentium DX4.
While capable of hundreds of MIPS, the machine needed liquid cooling).
Machines using liquid nitrogen cooling might become popular if the chips can't
be made to run at a lower temperature.
If IBM and Motorolla can release the PowerPC 620 chip on schedule, and
announce even more advanced versions, they have a good chance of prevailing.
Rumors are that IBM plans to incorporate some 486 compatible circuits onto the
next generation of PowerPC, helping end the copmatibilty problems. The other
RISC manufactures, such as MIPS (makers of the R4000 chip used in Silicon
Graphics workstations, among other strong RISC machines) aren't going to toss
in the towel, so there's still the possibility of a "Dark Horse" canidate.
Who wins the chip war really depends on who wins the Operating System
War. Which chip is "in" use might become quite irrelevant if Microsoft and/or
IBM get the multi-platform versions of Windows NT and OS/2 out the door on
time. Part of Microsoft's master plan includes versions of Windows NT, which
should be able -- with minimal effort -- to run all Windows NT apps, period,
making proccessor type irrelevant. If they can improve the emulation of 80x86
programs, they might manage to do just that. If IBM wins big with OS/2, then
the PowerPC will have a definite advantage. Of course, the product under
development by the IBM/Apple join venture Talligent may change all of that.
Audio subsystems will become standard equipment on almost all new
machines, perhaps to the level of common motherboard interfaces. The DAC chips
that are becoming very popular allow customized data proccessing that allows
the sound elements to be turned to various uses. Soft modems, such as those
found on the AV Macintoshes and available from a few PC vendors, will become
increasingly popular because they can easily be upgraded with software and
double as an audio system. They'll gradually replace conventional modems. With
the advent of enhanced telecommunications environments (the so-called
Information Superhighway), the picture might change again, with direct ISDN
links replacing modems in many applications.
There's a lot going on in the PC world, and the next few years and months
are going to be very interesting.
August, 1994:
๒ภา BBSers Bad Rap า Will Crawford (1@6754)
ห็
The reputation of the BBSing public (between 15 and 30 million people,
depending on who's estimates you decide to listen to and whether the major
online services are factored into the equation), never good to begin with, is
going downhill fast. As recently as a few short months ago, mention of a
computer bulletin board service to a non-user would probably earn you nothing
more than a blank look, or a polite inquiry. Now, more often then not, the
recipient will shy away, or offer the dreaded comment "You're a hacker, then?"
In reality, the "hacker" (and related "k00l hackerz d00dz") stigmata has
been with us since the dawn of BBSing. What has accelerated the decline of the
general image of BBS users, are the recent (and not so recent) cases of
pederests who've been stalking their victims over computer networks
(ironically, this mainly takes place on large systems, such as Compuserve, the
Internet, or large multi line systems such as Boston's Channel One). While
I've only seen a few cases of this actually having occurred (going by the news
reports and newspaper articles, there have only been a handful of arrests for
this - maybe a dozen culprits), the media and public opinion in general have
had the effect of simply blowing the entire issue far out of proportion.
The Boston Herald (a local newspaper with a high circulation, and news
content that waffles between respectability and the New York Post) published
an article on BBS pederests a few months ago, with the lead in on the cover of
their high circulation Sunday issue. The article was written with a "let's
sell newspapers" slant - by someone who was interested in inflating the
problem to a sensationalistic degree. The article gave "advice" to people,
especially kids, on avoiding the "high" risk of this activity on BBSes. The
article encouraged people, among other things, to never divulge real
information on age or address to BBSes that you called.
Of course, being a Sysop myself, I felt the immediate backlash of this
irresponsible journalism almost immediately. When I was validating a set of
new user accounts the next night, I encountered several with blank address
fields and ages that certainly did not correlate with the writing style of the
validation emails that were sent along with them. Over the course of the next
week, more than one validation email contained the phrase "I can't give you my
name or age because my parents told me not to." While things seem to have
dropped back to normal (and user honesty) more than one other area sysop had
the same experience.
Renewed interest in file pirating activity by both the law enforcement
agencies and the general public have increase image-degradation on that front
as well. To most non-BBSers, the image of a BBS user or sysop has been shaped
by the nightly news, "Dateline NBC," and the tabloids such as the
aforementioned Boston Herald. From their point of view (that is, the media)
this makes sense - they sell a lot of advertising with "reports" on those
awful BBSers and doing a good segment or an article on the huge number of
strictly up-and-up BBSes just wouldn't be cost effective. However, it's shaped
a public conception of an underworld full of hackers who spend their time
breaking into corporate computer systems and pirates who can't spell and spend
their time downloading commercial software and heavily pornographic images.
Even though almost every BBS operates on strictly legal ground (of
course, estimates on the number of BBS systems participating in illegal
activities are obviously inaccurate, and - depending a lot on who you talk to
- recent numbers are considerably lower than earlier estimates), and there is
a seeming average of one pederest to between one and two million BBSers, this
image degradation continues. What needs to be done?
The entire "underground civilization" of BBSes and BBS users needs to be
brought more into the open. Popular conceptions are out of line with reality
and the media, which is responsible for this, needs to bring itself into check
and provide a more equal level of coverage. It's amazing what a few positive
spots on a TV network newsmagazine or a well placed article in a popular
magazine of newspaper can do to public opinion. The "Living" section of your
local newspaper may be the place to start. BBSing needs to be accepted as
acceptable.
September, 1994:
๒ภ
า The Upper Registers - "Changing of the Guard" า by Will 1@6754
ห็
Since our last issue, we've had a reorganization at IceNEWS. Deacon
Blues, 2@7653, our previous Editor in Chief, was forced to resign his post in
order to follow his career. Deacon Blues was probably the main driving force
behind the reorganization of IceNEWS, and, more than anyone else, should be
credited with it's current success.
Over the last eight months, with Deacon at the helm, IceNEWS grew into
what it is today - a very successful publication, and the winner of the 1994
WWIVcon award for Best Electronic News. With Deacon gone, I now have the
difficult task of filling his shoes in the months ahead.
At the same time, we also lost Spelunker 1@7653, a valued staff member
from the beginning. While you never saw him in print, his impact was obvious
on every issue. Spelunker was the person who put heaps of raw text together
each month, and turned it into a cohesive, readable issue.
IceNEWS will carry on as before, but we'll all miss the denizens of The
Cavern.------
In the future, I'll be moving my regular technology rant into this area.
Three strange things happened this last month, all of which I was
expecting to happen sooner or later, but with the emphasis on later. First
off, IBM posted a large second quarter profit. Second off, my mother called to
report that she had killed a certain persistent woodchuck which I had been
hearing stories about for the past three years. Third, I went to MacWorld, the
largest single assemblage of Macintosh users (and fanatics) on the East Coast,
and probably anywhere else, with the possible exception of the Apple corporate
headquarters.
Since I'm not a Macintosh enthusiast, I was generally provided a cold
shoulder from the other show goers (of course, this was partly due to the IBM
shirt I was wearing). Still, I was able to see how the other side lives, and
also see where the Macintosh platform is heading.
IBM and Macintosh are generally regarded as the only two major platforms,
roughly equal in most ways. Other computing environments, such as the wide
variety of UNIX based systems, and the Amiga platform, are almost always
classified as permanent niche players, and this is just about correct. The
main, bipolar, view of this situation is, at best, lopsided. The actual fact
is that IBM type computers outnumber the Macintosh by a factor of nine to one.
In the most recent available sales figures, both Compaq and IBM sold hundreds
of thousands more PCs apiece than Apple sold Macintoshes. With the rest of the
PC industry factored into the equation, the disparity becomes obvious.
Macintosh ads aside, the installed base and level of available software for
the IBM platform simply dwarfs anything else currently available.
It was obvious to the people at MacWorld, as well. In my conversations
with show regulars, I learned that the general attitude was much darker this
year than in any ones previous. The general impression was also that
attendance had dropped significantly (elbowing my way through the crowds, I
found this hard to believe). The prognosis for the future of the company and
the platform was not as cheery as it was this time last year, when Apple was
triumphantly rolling out the Newton PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), destined
to fizzle when it hit the general marketplace.
Apple itself seems to share the same views. One Apple analyst stated that
Apple had approximately sixty days to find a strategic and manufacturing
partner, or be left to languish in niche markets, such as Desktop Publishing
and Image Editing, where the Macintosh already has a strong, if not
unassailable, foothold. Apple has not managed to crack the business market
beyond the art department, which might turn out to be the company's undoing.
As of this writing, two weeks after the convention itself, Apple has yet to
find a manufacturing partner, or a licensee for it's Macintosh Operating
System. After holding the platform proprietary for so long, Apple, in finally
offering to make the OS available, is being rebuffed. Thanks to the boom in
Microsoft Windows (and, to a lesser extent, OS/2) systems, there simply isn't
any positive benefit to taking the time to license and adapt the Macintosh
Operating System.
While all the goodies were in the Apple Pavilion outside the World Trade
Center, Apple was lacking a knockout product. The two centerpieces of this
area of the show were Apple's new e-World online service, and the first major
upgrade of the Macintosh Operating System in three years - System 7.5. The
Newton, last year's centerpiece, was relegated to a corner where an Apple
representative was giving a hands on demonstration. While both of these
products fill a need, and System 7.5 provides some potentially attractive new
features, this will not be enough to catapult the Macintosh into the office,
where Apple needs it to be.----------
It's back to school this month for a lot of our readers. BBSing and
telecommunications are playing a rapidly increasing role in the operation and
expansion of the education system in the United States. Schools, and even
subsections of schools, such as a school newspaper or computer club, have been
putting up BBSes at an astonishing rate. Two issues ago, we ran an article by
Chris, one of our Contributing Editors, on running a WWIV BBS in a school
environment. Now, we'd like to know what else people are doing with
Telecommunications in the education environment. If you'd like to contribute
something on the subject, send us an email (the addresses are on the
masthead). We'd like to go into detail on the subject in the October issue.
Well, that wraps up my take for this issue. We've got some great stuff
coming up - and now, I give you the September, 1994 IceNEWS!
And finally, November:
๒ภ
า The Upper Registers - "Warp Speed Now" า by Will 1@6754
ห็
On October 11th, I had the good fortune to be able to attend the
official IBM announcement and launch of the latest version of the OS/2
Operating System, version 3.0, also known as Warp. The announcement took
place at the IBM Corporate Headquarters in New York State, but was
beamed by satellite to over a hundred cities in the US, and as far away
as Australia. Some highlights -
The Operating System itself was amazing. IBM has an amazing product
here, and all that they need to do is market it. On the surface, Warp
(now the official name of the product, a last minute change from 'v3'
ordered by IBM Chairman Lou Gerstner himself) looks a lot like the
OS/2 2.11. In fact, the only really noticeable difference is a launchpad
from which you can launch frequently used applications. The launchpad
allows you to have a set of "Drawers" beneath the icon you're using.
During the demo that took place at the announcement, they had Lotus
1-2-3 for OS/2 sitting on the launchpad, and the rest of the Smartsuite
for OS/2 programs in a drawer beneath it, hidden from view until you
click on the handle. This is an amazing way to keep frequently used
files available.
Performance is way up. I saw Warp running on a 486sx-33 machine
with four megabytes of RAM. While it wasn't lightning, it was fast. I fully
expect to be able to run Warp on my four megabyte laptop without any
difficulty. On an eight or sixteen megabyte dx2, the result is pure
speed. There are also a lot of little tweaks. The settings dialog has
been moved to its own place on the pop up menus for an object. You can
now assign different settings priority (so that my OS/2 .MOD Player
doesn't steal too many cycles from the BBS). Multimedia support, robust
to begin with in 2.1, has been fully integrated (previously you needed
to install it separately) into the installer, and support for a large
number of additional sound cards and CD-ROMs (including some non-SCSI
CD-ROM drives, and most major Sound/CD combinations). The movie player
will now play MPEG and FLI files as well as AVI.
IBM has dropped the applets it previously shipped with OS/2 2.x
(which, while powerful, were a bit too much or too little for many) in
favor of the Bonus Pack containing IBM Works. This includes full
featured word processor, spreadsheet, and database products, as well as
Internet support (we'll get to that in a minute). The applets support
complete DDE between them, and a common "address book". Drop an adress
into the PIM, and you schedule an appointment. Drag a spreadsheet into a
word processor document. It's a level of flexibility I'd never seen
before. If the link makes logical sense, you can do it. A friend of mine
was able to get an early copy of the program, and claims to have already
begun to do most of his work using the applications shipped with OS/2.
>From someone who has some of the most advanced software extant floating
around his computers, this is high praise indeed. He's ecstatic.
The last big addition to Warp is Internet SLIP/PPP support.
Without going into too much detail, it's one button Internet. World Wide
Web, FTP, Gopher, Mail, and News clients are all included, with a Mosaic
interface due out next year (no word on pricing). You default connecting
through the IBM provider Advantis, but the software will work with any
SLIP/PPP connection. I'm planning on swapping my own Internet access to
the Boston based Internet Access Company as soon as I have the final
version of Warp installed.
Moving back, the announcement itself was spectacular. A real
sight and sound extravaganza. Leonard Nimoy did a very funny (pre taped)
introduction, with lots of jabs at how Windows makes you waste time.
They had Kate Mulgrew (the star of the latest Star Trek spinoff) on hand
to help emphasize the Trek connection. All told, it was a major event.
My conclusion - Warp is going to rock the industry. This is an
amazing piece of software. Everything Windows 95 promises, and much
more, now, instead of in the nebulous future. While availability was
pushed back a week due to the discovery of a minor bug (copies should be
hitting the stores as you read this), Warp has a serious jump on the
competition. IBM should even be able to market it, since they've hired
some of the marketing people who sold Windows 3.0 to the public a few
years ago. Imagine what these people will do when they don't have to
exaggerate the merits of the product!