Big Brother (BBS)

Hardy Fox making use of Frank Johnson.

***Big Brother*** was a Bulletin Board System created by Ralph Records in 1984. While it served as a way for the label to promote their artists, including The Residents, it also let their users post messages about whatever topic they pleased. The service was shut down in 1985.

## History

### Background

During the early days of the Internet, Bulletin Board Systems (also known as BBSs) were used as popular grass-roots method of text-only communication. In simple terms, a system operator would connect their computer to the Internet, and other users would then connect with the system operator to enter the board. In there, they could leave a message or browse through text files. All this would be done via phone lines, and it would require a modem and special software.

On February 1st 1984, Ralph Records decided to launch their own BBS, and as a tribute to the George Orwell novel *Nineteen Eighty-Four*, it was named "Big Brother". To run it, they used Frank Johnson, the Apple II computer owned by the label, wihch would have its memory upgraded with 2 floppy disc drives with data. Hardy Fox was its main operator, with maintenance assistance by programmer Thom Long.

The board would serve Ralph as a way to bring their geographically scattered clients closer to them. A portion of Big Brother would be focused on mail-orders, but there were sections for different posts made by members of the Ralph staff. These included a gossip section, an internal Top 10 of what music the staff liked at the time, reviews of various media, live coverage of television events, and even occasional chats with visitors. There were even plans to let users download pictures and music, but it is unknown if they came to fruition.

While only one person could call Big Brother at a time, those who connected to the board would use it to message between each other about a variety of topics. These would not necessarily be centered around Ralph, but would remain faithful to its identity, usually revolving around the esoteric and weird. All messages would remain uncensored.

### Closure

Big Brother was a big success, exceeding Ralph spectations, and even being featured in computer magazines of the time. With approximately 500 users, the show gained attention around the San Francisco area. People from other states would also connect to the BBS, but because of the high cost of long-distance calls, this was uncommon.

Because of this, Ralph briefly considered expanding the program further. But the plan always was to keep the BBS running only for 1984, maintaining its nod to the Orwell novel. And so, with the arrival of the year 1985, Big Brother was shut down without leaving a trace from its existence online.

## Legacy

Two decades after the closure of Big Brother, Hardy Fox would pay tribute to the BBS by taking on the pseudonym Big Brother, aka "BB" or Will Rothers, during his time as webmaster of the official Residents website and author of The Residents' BOG.

As Rothers, Fox wrote some details about the BBS in an entry of his Historical mini-blog The Last Word in February 2008.

## See also

* Will Rothers
* Official Residents Website
* BOG

## External links and references

* InfoWorld Magazine, Volume 6 Issue 16 (April 16th, 1984), Page 18
* InfoWorld Magazine, Volume 6 Issue 25 (June 18th, 1984), Pages 34-35
* PC Magazine, Volume 3 Issue 20 (October 16th, 1984), Pages 128-130
* "(The Legacy of) Big Brother", archived March 13th 2008 by archive.org

1. ↑ "They took a bold step for the times by attaching an old Apple IIcomputer with 64K of memory and 2 floppy disc drives that each held 400K of data to a phone line."
2. ↑ "This summer, said Fox, Ralph's Big Brother will be ready to download computer music and drawings into callers' computers."
3. ↑ "They now have approximately 500 users on a two-disk-drive-system and are considering expanding when the experiment is a year old."