• Internally designed for Multinode Support
• Enhanced QWK Offline Mail support
• Bluewave Door support
• MultiBBS Chat Facility
• UUCP/SLIP/Internet capabilities
• Real-Time Multiwindow Chat Facility
• Message-File Attaching/Receipting
• Downloading by Offline File Tagging
• User-definable File Listing
• Online Shopping
• Automatic Credit-Card Verification
• Online Graphic Engines (RIP Support)
• FaxBack Support
• Hypertext User Help System
• Enhanced CD-ROM Support
• Bi-Level Organisational Structure for Messages and Files
• Simplfied File Tagging by cursor/number
• Capable of running Online Games
• Flexible Configuration Language

The hot topic of many of the stands was how an Internet service is being incorporated into BBS Systems - including ftp file transfers and Gopher services - without costly UNIX connections, as well as an increasing use of DOS-based RIP (Remote Imaging Protocol) interfaces. It is much cheaper for a BBS in the United States to gain an Internet connection and many are making the most of the opportunity. As you all know BBSs and shareware go hand-in-hand. This year, ONE BBSCON hosted Ziff Davis Interactive Summer Shareware Seminar, featuring sessions for software developers covering shareware marketing, distrubution and business opportunities.

Along with our investigations into BBS packages, we talked to some people well known in the communications industry; Phil Katz, author of PKZip, Ward Christensen, author of Xmodem and sysop of the worlds first BBS, John Dvorak, of PC Magazine, Dave Hughes of Old Colorado City Communications, Mark "Sparky" Herring, developer of the QWK offline mail system, David Hamel, President and author of Boxer Software and Richard Blackburn of SemWare Corporation which develops and distributes QEdit.

Dennis Hayes, whom most of you would know from his presentation at Clunies Ross House earlier this year, invited us to tour the facility in Norcross, GA and this gave us a terrific insight into the development of their modems optimised for individual countries worldwide. ONE BBSCON also featured three award ceremonies, including Boardwatch Magazine's Readers' Choice Awards, the Dvorak Awards for Excellence in PC Communications and Ziff Davis Interactive/PC Magazine Shareware Awards.

Hardware and software prices in the USA are remarkable compared to what we pay in Australia. To give you an example, single speed Mitsumi CD-ROM drives sell for $US59.00, Double speed NEC CD-ROM drives for $US179.00 and US Robotics were selling a T-Shirt for $US199.00. With it you received a V.Everything modem, free, but this was certainly a show-only special to encourage sysops to get 28,800 bps modems onto their bulletin board systems.

Another company we talked to was Planet Connect, which for a $US30.00 monthly fee will supply BBSs with up to 50 MB per day of shareware and messages via satellite dish. This is not yet available in Australia - but hopefully it's not far away. Currently new shareware programs are sent to Australia using backup tapes, before being transferred around Australia via Fidonet's Filebone distribution System.

In addition to the exhibition there were 145 seminars covering every imaginable topic related to computer communication systems areas. Allan and I made the most of these opportunities. It was not possible to attend them all but we purchased session tapes that will be played at SIG meetings and training sessions in the future. Some of the more interesting tapes we brought back cover topics including QWK Mail, Internet 101, V.34 Modem Standard, Intro to RIP Graphics, OS/2 BBSs, Telix for DOS & Windows and Lora BBS Software from Dial-up to OS/2 and the Internet. Other topics covered include QmodemPro for DOS, Building Distributed Networks with FirstClass, Searching and retrieving Information on the Internet, Online with OS/2, Satellite Communications 
for Bulletin Board Systems, How it Began - The first BBS, Digital Velocity - ISDN Advantage for BBS, Zmodem - File Transfer for the Millennium and many more.

On the QWK topic, Sparky Herring who created the QWK Offline Mail Reader format, used throughout the world, described his QWK II specifications for offline mail readers. Developed to handle RFC-822 style Internet messages, newsgroups, MIME and other extensions for the future including graphics, sound and video, QWK II is flexible and will handle message size and numbers of almost infinite length. Mark's company, Sparkware has sold more than 21,000 copies of his offline mail reader. The original QWK Mail reader was designed when a friend of his moved interstate and wanted still to be able to read mail from his BBS and minimise the high long-distance phone charges. It took Mark about two days to write the original program and he was amazed at how quickly it became a universal standard.

There was a presentation from deltaComm Development Inc. outlining Telix v1.1 for Windows and Telix v3.5 for DOS. The new version, which was shown to surprised crowds at ONE BBSCON, including fully integrated mouse support, Interrupt 14 network communications, and enhanced multilingual support. Working in conjunction with its European distributor it has managed in a few short weeks to produce a new version of Telix for DOS that contained several of the most commonly requested features. Many users had asked if they planned to continue development on the DOS platform, and the answer was an emphatic Yes. Jeff Woods, President of deltaComm, noted that although registered copies of Telix v3.50 for DOS will be available in a shelf-ready, shrink wrapped package, to be marketed to dealers and distributors for retail outlets, there would continue to be a shareware version of Telix available on Bulletin Boards. Development will continue on Telix for DOS concurrently with Telix for Windows, re-establishing Telix for DOS as deltaComm's flagship product. Features that have been confirmed as definitely being included in the 1995 release of Telix v4.0 for DOS are send and receive fax, a re-worked phonebook with additional features and device driven format similar to Telix for Windows and context-sensitive help. Other features are also planned.

We found it interesting (mind boggling might be a better description) talking to the guys from Exec-PC, the world's largest BBS. Some of the Exec-PC statistics are extraordinary: The largest online shareware collection (over a million files, plus 60 CD-ROM collections), a horde of online games and information services, one of largest adult areas in existence, full Internet access including ftp, Telnet, irc, Worldwide Web, Gopher, Archie, Email, Newsgroups and more. Running with 280 phone lines, each with its own dedicated CPU. Since 1983, they have logged nearly nine million calls, from 50 countries across the globe. It takes a team of 30 people employed full-time to maintain the system. The BBS software it uses was custom designed.

We spent a few evenings with executive members of the Atlanta PC Users Group. Their group is much smaller than ours, however they provide some excellent services for their members. We have brought back copies of their New Member's Disk (easy to use and very well presented). Bob McDearmid, the past president and Sysop has written a 132 page book - Titled "Atlanta PC Users Group, BBS & Shareware, Tips and Tricks", much of which we can use or adapt to suit our local requirements.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Bob McDearmid, Bob Bloom (President) and Mark Prichard (Sysop)
for their gracious hospitality and taking the time to introduce us to the sights of Atlanta.

As we have so many registered users of the Blue Wave offline mail reader it was essential that the package we chose fully supported a Blue Wave Mail Door. The decision we reached in Atlanta was to go with Lora BBS. We had a long discussion with Marco Maccaferri, the author, from Bologna, Italy, who started the Lora BBS system in 1988. He has now teamed up with "The Cursor Cowboy" Dave Hughes of Colorado to further improve Lora BBS and its Internet capabilities. It will more than meet our requirements. Dave and his son David Jr. have chosen Lora to be the core of their powerful, but low starter-cost "HICom" community, school, business, or foreign language systems which span dialup and LAN Fidonet, UUCP UseNet, and full TCP/IP Internet and RIP. This system is simply a means by which a BBS can be set up in a school, for example, giving the students and teachers direct real-time access to the Internet and BBS world so that it can be used as a teaching and information resource tool.

Importantly, much of the work that has gone into the current Maximus setup will be able to be utilised in Lora BBS. We expect Lora BBS to support at least 50 lines on a single box. We plan on setting up a system with two boxes for a possible 48-line BBS, 2 UNIX boxes for a 16-line Internet SLIP service (currently we have an 8-line Internet service for members), all handled by a 64-port terminal server linked using OS/2 LAN Server IV, and IBM TCP/IP for OS/2.

Development and testing is starting now on the new system, with the expectation of changing over to a 32-line Lora BBS system around Christmas. One thing we have learnt over the last 12 months is that is not possible to rush a complex setup such as the one mentioned. We would like to be able to move sooner, but we are being realistic to avoid any hiccups when it is made available to the general BBS membership.

Reprinted from the November 1994 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia