Newsgroups: bit.listserv.pacs-l
Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 08:09:00 CDT
From:         Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
Subject:      Report on BBS Conference, Pt. 2 of 2

From: Steve Cisler <sac@apple.com>
Subject: Report on BBS Conference 8/13-16, Pt. 2 of 2

Part 2 of 2
At Play in the Field of the Boards: Report on ONE BBSCON

copyright 1992 by Steve Cisler, Apple Library. All or part of this document
may be redistributed free of charge in electronic format (disk, CD-ROM,
online) by any party. Print re-distribution is allowed for personal use as
well as  non-profit. educational and government newsletters and
journals. Please send email to the author when you do reprint or repost
or quote from this report. Internet: sac@apple.com

Denver, Colorado: August 13-16, 1992.


A Few of the One Hundred + Panels and Presentations

I attended the Electronic Frontier Foundation program which filled up
with an overflow from the Legal track where Lance Rose addressed many
questions about the rights and responsibilities of sysops in an increasingly
litigious and regulated environment. Shari Steel, a lawyer in  the EFF
Washington office, explained their activities and then answered
questions which revealed the strong anti-Washington, anti-lawyer, anti
regulation sentiments in the audience. It is evident that many sysops
value the control they believe they have when they set up and run a
bulletin board. Hearing about the FCC and Congressional efforts to change
'their' world made some people angry and made others want to organize.
Steel handled their questions honestly and admitted when she did not
have clear cut answers.

Midway through the conference a group of software developers decided to
organize to try and learn about existing standards before setting ones that
would benefit their own developers and users. The three main areas
include interface, messaging and document structure, and graphics.
Surprisingly, some did not want to give up the diversity that is so evident
in the many interfaces and message protocols, but most agreed to try and
set an agenda via electronic mail and plan for other actions at the next
conference.  The Internet Engineering Task Force use of RFCs (Request for
Comment) was held up as a model they would emulate. Few had patience
and resources to set up a very slow-moving mechanism such as the ISO
committees.

Jim Warren moderated the panel on electronic democracy where most
members were excited about the power of the tools. Gary Stryker of
Galacticom proposed a system called SuperDemocracy which would
include continuous electronic voting on issues in a hierarchy by
geographical region.  Shari Steel reminded the group how many did not
have computers or modems, and that electronic democracy would
exclude many potential voters. Gary Nakarado, a PUC commissioner in
Colorado started a BBS to learn more about the medium and to be in
touch with the interesting people in his community. Unfortunately, they
have not been logging in. PUC activities attract very little attention and
he has very few calls and questions from the general public. He is
interested in having more input on issues such as ISDN service, BBSes,
and other issues affecting Colorado utility users.

Bernard Aboba, author of BBSes and Beyond , talked about the software
for connecting Macs to the global mail networks (RIME, Fido, Internet,
uucp) and it was evident that the Mac is a terrific front end for many
systems, but as a server it needs more power and more tools from third
parties. Developers from ResNova 714 840 6082 showed how their Mac
BBS software could fill the gaps, as did a rep. from SoftArc 416 299 4723.
SoftArc's FirstClass server and client software looked very powerful and
full of features that would allow a FirstClass BBS to serve many
concurrent users on LAN, dialup and TCP/IP access.  All of the
companies are quite small, and the wish lists of new features grows faster
than the staff to work on them, but I was amazed at the power and
sophistication of the DOS and Mac BBS systems. Event Horizons, the BBS
vending adult GIF images south of Portland, Oregon, has a  64 line  80486
system running on TBBS! Other systems running multiple cpus have a
hundred or more lines coming in. Clearly, these are not basement run,
part time operations.

Diversity
One morning I went down to comb the literature tables and read the cork
bulletin board where a variety of fascinating notes had been posted. They
will give you a sense of the diversity in this community:

-Monterey Gaming System 408 655 5555 (free)

-Black Cat Information Service in Rochester NY 716 262 3680 (Visa/MC
accepted!) Games, Society for Creative Anachronism files and Adult Info

-the Zoo...an electric safari. your tour guide: Chuck 2. 312 907 1831 to 1839.

-The OU BBS, University of Oklahoma (telnet oubbs,telecom.uoknor.edu)

-Power Windows! BBS (also for OS/2 users) Huntsville, AL 205 881 8619

-The Invention Factory, (NY, NY) 212 274 8110

-The Online Diver (Brooklyn Center, MN) 566 5267 No area code must
indicate that it's for local Minnesota divers primarily.

-Nautilus Commercial Data System with 250,000 public domain files, 200
incoming data lines (!), 28 gigabytes of storage, satellite weather images,
hourly news updates, games, dBase templates, GIF images---all out of Iola,
Kansas  316 365 7631.

-Infinity Complex "a wickedly addictive Science Fiction game for MAJOR
BBS systems. Infinity Complex puts your users in a bizarre arena of the
future, where they must battle for their very lives...and use up a lot of
online hours in the process!" 403 476 8369 (voice)

-an ad for the first annual Puget Sound (WA) BBS convention (no phone
contact)

-ads for serial port boards, new BBS software, consulting services, and
calls for source code for data compression.

-BAWIT Bay Area Women in Telecom for working women in
telecommunications in the San Francisco area. Contact
bawitrequest@igc.apc.org.

-Make your own custom CD-ROM for $199. Up to 640 mb. ISO 9660. 800 762.

Internet and NREN There was a lot of interest in Internet/NREN issues,
but only a few people knew much about them. The panels on Internet
connectivity, legislation, and interfaces drew good sized crowds but
needed more basic information in a standard presentation format before
having Q&A. BBSes can be a good interface for people going on to the
Internet. It provides a way of formatting and filtering the anarchy of the
Internet, even as it offers occasion for excess control of what a caller can
see and use. I spent more time showing resources using Mac-based
interfaces than talking about the intricacies of the growth of NREN in my
session which was included in the small Macintosh track rather than the
larger Internet track. I also participated in a graphics discussion where the
panelists discussed GIF (the CompuServe standard so popular on BBSes
and the Internet), NAPLPS (which is good for multi-lingual
communications and small vector-based images), JPEG (the compression
du jour that may displace GIF and the one that the Smithsonian and
Apple are touting for Project Chapman), and FIF (fractal image format
which is a more efficient proprietary algorithm than JPEG but which takes
a long time to compress).

Summary The  BBS world is changing, growing, exploding. Jack Rickard
has provided good coverage in his magazine, and his conference was a big
success and and a very good value considering the amount of fine food
that was included with the conference activities. If you are not in the BBS
world, and even if you are, it's hard to be aware of the activity because  it
is so distributed. This conference helped immensely. I think that Rickard
will have to face a problem of success: will he continue to be the lively
and opinionated journalist when his magazine and his conference
become the focus of the whole industry and a possible industry
association? He may have to defend actions when he should be exposing
them, but that is looking a couple of years ahead. Right now, there is no
way to go but up and out because of the growing interest in this medium
of information dissemination and of personal communication. A BBS
provides both sysops and users an enormous amount of leverage, and the
library world should take notice more than it does. One prominent public
librarian who is quite involved in electronic dissemination of
information remarked to me a few years ago that it would be great if
BBSes just went away. I have heard other dismissive or even snobbish
comments about BBSes, but the four librarians whom I met at ONE
BBSCON all realized this is foolish. It's not the only tool to use, but it can
be a very important one.

Contacts mentioned in the text: people and products

Gary Nakarado, Colorado Public Utilities commissioner
<nakarado@well.sf.ca.us> 303 526 5505 is his BBS number.
NAPLPS: North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax. Dave
Hughes <dave@oldcolo.com or dave@well.sf.ca.us>
Fractal compression: Fracterm, Inc. in Richmond, BC 800-676-3111
GIF: CompuServe Art Gallery and various browsers at ftp sites
JPEG: mail jpeg-info@uunet.uu.net or contact sac@apple.com
Boardwatch Magazine: 303 973 6038 or jack.rickard@boardwatch.com
TBBS software: eSoft 303 699 6565
SuperDemocracy Foundation: 305 583 5990
Bernard Aboba: BMUG, Inc., 510 547 0345
Jim Warren (electronic democracy): jwarren@well.sf.ca.us
Electronic Frontier Foundation: eff@eff.org
Lance Rose (legal issues):  author of Syslaw a legal guide to the rights and
responsibilities of sysops.
Laurence H. Tribe, "The Constitution in Cyberspace" anonymous ftp from
ftp.apple.com in the /ftp/alug/rights directory 49 kb.

End of part 2 of 2
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