Creator of CBBS and XMODEM has logged off

[tingo]

Since nobody else has posted this already: https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/15/ward_christensen_obit/

 

[ralphbsz]

Very sad. A giant of early public domain software. From a time before politics and egos entered hobbyist computing: if you wrote some good code, you contributed it somewhere, and it got passed around and used by lots of people.

 

[Crivens]

I used a BBS to spread the first software i wrote and found useful. Hope he got sent off with the 21 dialup salute.

(For the youngsters, you could hear the modem talking while connecting and syncing, and even hear what make/model was the other side).

 

[meaw229a]

Wow I remember the time very well In the late 1980 years I was using BBS systems. At the time I had a Atari ST computer and wrote my own
BBS software on it. The BBS also had xmodem implemented. People could send emails to each other and the system had different discussion
threads like this FreeBSD forums. Only a very early version of it without internet at the time. Only dial up but speed did not matter it was just magic.
The hardware interface was done by Hacker Hans from Cologne to pick up the phone when a call came in.
That was real adventure when the call was coming in and a little motor picked the phone up connected to the acoustic coupler.

 

[Bucky]

Sad to hear this. Ward sent me a copy of CBBS & XMODEM on an 8" floppy disk in the early 1980s.

 

[recluce]

I was one of those guys that ran a BBS back in the day (late 80s to early 90s). In lived in Germany at the time and used an "illegal" modem from the US (that was not approved for use on the German telephone network).

Sorry to hear that one of the pioneers of the BBS universe has left us.

 

[LibreQuest]

That was real adventure when the call was coming in and a little motor picked the phone up connected to the acoustic coupler.

What?! That's incredible. I've not heard of this.

 

[hasbeen]

What?! That's incredible. I've not heard of this.

I bet you never heard, read or new this:

"As the volume of FidoNet Mail increased and newsgroups from the early days of the Internet became available, satellite data downstream services became viable for larger systems. The satellite service provided access to FidoNet and Usenet newsgroups in large volumes at a reasonable fee. By connecting a small dish and receiver, a constant downstream of thousands of FidoNet and Usenet newsgroups could be received. The local BBS only needed to upload new outgoing messages via the modem network back to the satellite service. This method drastically reduced phone data transfers while dramatically increasing the number of message forums."

Source:

Bulletin board system - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I think that only Compuserver, Prodigy and AOL BBS(s) could afford those satellite services. Then, x.com is just another BBS that Elon Musk purchased from twitter.com for $40 Billions so he can have "root" level access on his X BBS

 

[LibreQuest]

I bet you never heard, read or new this:

"As the volume of FidoNet Mail increased and newsgroups from the early days of the Internet became available, satellite data downstream services became viable for larger systems. The satellite service provided access to FidoNet and Usenet newsgroups in large volumes at a reasonable fee. By connecting a small dish and receiver, a constant downstream of thousands of FidoNet and Usenet newsgroups could be received. The local BBS only needed to upload new outgoing messages via the modem network back to the satellite service. This method drastically reduced phone data transfers while dramatically increasing the number of message forums."

Source:

Bulletin board system - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I think that only Compuserver, Prodigy and AOL BBS(s) could afford those satellite services. Then, x.com is just another BBS that Elon Musk purchased from twitter.com for $40 Billions so he can have "root" level access on his X BBS

Similarly, to an older way of computing, I view most of the Google offerings as nothing more than mainframe terminal relationships.