Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!burl!codas!killer!usl!usl-pc!jpdres10 From: jpdres10@usl-pc.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: The future of simple BBS boards... Message-ID: <246@usl-pc.UUCP> Date: Mon, 9-Nov-87 13:14:23 EST Article-I.D.: usl-pc.246 Posted: Mon Nov 9 13:14:23 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 15-Nov-87 12:31:21 EST References: <4942@ncoast.UUCP> Organization: Univ. of Southwestern La., Lafayette Lines: 71 Keywords: BBS future software complex Summary: Are BBS boards getting too complex? In message <4942@ncoast.UUCP>, robertd@ncoast.UUCP (Rob DeMarco) says: > The Future of BBS Software > --- ------ -- --- -------- > BBSs seem to be getting much >bigger, more complex,and more and more >impersonal by the year. Remember those >mom-and-pop BBSs several years ago? Software is getting more complex, true. However, it's also getting more powerful. "impersonal" usually is a measure of the sysop's touch. Many sysops today care mostly about how many "warez" they can get out of their BBS, especially the IBM PC people with their Fido and RBBS clones and huge hard drives (RBBS has about 7 different ways to download a program -- but only ONE way to read messages). However, if you look around, you can still find BBS's run by humans, for humans... for example, I am a user on a BBS called "BioFeedback" in Houston, which is run by a 40 year old housewife using a C-NET clone, and THAT board certainly isn't "impersonal".... > What we need is a return to >fundamentals when talking about BBS >boards. So that humans set the >standards for the path of the BBS. Not >impersonal machines. Do you have any suggestions, or are you just going to moan and groan and gripe and b*tch? Here's where I think the BBS market is going to go: User friendliness. Think about it. It really is a shame that current BBS's, in order to be powerful, must be cryptic. Your average new user is as mystified by your typical BBS, as he'd be if put at the "login:" prompt of a Unix system. There is only one solution for this problem: Screen management. A good example are the "vn" and "gnews" interfaces for the netnews system, which basically give you a listing of title-author pairs, and let you move the cursor around to which bulletins you want to read. Instead of adding a complete Teco-like line editor, a simple full-screen editor would make entering bulletins much easier, even if it's simpler than MicroEmacs or VI (since we're talking about 50-100 line bulletins, not huge programs). Considering that almost every terminal program nowadays emulates some kind of smart or semi-smart terminal, I see very few problems with this approach. If all else fails, the BBS can have a line-mode that allows the user to download a suitable terminal program, so the excuse that users won't have the right terminal program is a crock, too. Another thing that I think is necessary: USENET-style bulletin networking. The limit on a popular BBS is the number of people who can squeeze through on a single telephone line. There's a couple of ways to remove this bottleneck: a) Buy a multi-user/multi-processing computer, and add telephone lines. Too expensive for most people, though... for a three-line BBS, we're talking about $300 for installation fees, and $45/month for the phone line, not to mention the IBM AT or other similiarly powerful computer with large hard drive that'd be necessary. b) A distributed phone-type network a' la' a mini-USENET, where several BBS's can share bulletins. This basically is like having a multi-user BBS, with the advantage that the costs are shared among a number of people, without the hassles of charging a fee (which will repel many people -- when there's hundreds or thousands of BBS's available, sending a couple of bucks to each one so that you can decide which ones you want to use, is out of the question). -- Eric Green elg@usl.CSNET from BEYOND nowhere: {ihnp4,cbosgd}!killer!elg, P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509 {ut-sally,killer}!usl!elg "there's someone in my head, but it's not me..."