Randy Suess, Computer Bulletin Board Inventor, Dies at 74

Randy Suess, a computer hobbyist who helped build the first online bulletin board, anticipating the rise of the internet, messaging apps and social media, died on Dec. 10 in Chicago. He was 74. From a report: His death, at a hospital, was confirmed by his daughter Karrie. In late January 1978, Mr. Suess (rhymes with "loose") was part of an early home computer club called the Chicago Area Computer Hobbyists' Exchange, or CACHE. He and another club member, an IBM engineer named Ward Christensen, had been discussing an idea for a new kind of computer messaging system, but hadn't had the time to explore it. Then a blizzard hit the Great Lakes region, covering Chicago in more than 40 inches of snow. As the city shut down, Mr. Christensen phoned Mr. Suess to say that they finally had enough time to build their new system. Mr. Christensen suggested that they get help from the other members of the club, but, as he recalled in an interview, Mr. Suess told him that that would be a mistake because others would just slow the project down.

At least tell folks what it was called

[willoughby]

It's not in the summary (?) but it was called CBBS - Computer Bulletin Board System. Back in whatever year after finding the phone number somewhere I put in a long distance call to CBBS No.1 in Chicago & left a "Hello, all" message just so I could say I did it. In all these years this is my first opportunity to do so.

Re:

[olsmeister]

Long distance charges were a bitch.

Re:

[Arthur, KBE]

That what 950 and Fuckin Hacker were for

BBS is still alive

[fluffythedestroyer]

bbs is when I had the most fun in my life. Still remember it. Hell BBS are still alive today in telnet form. You just have to search for it but its there and alive.

Ward Christensen invented xmodem

[rpresser]

I'm not sure if xmodem preceded or followed Kermit, but they were the first two file transfer programs available for BBSes.

Re:

[rossdee]

With Xmodem you had to transfer archives, since the file was padded out to the whole block. IOW executables wouldn't run.
Of course compressed archives (like .lzh .lha and .zip were the way to go anyway. Unpack the file to RAM: and read the .readme and find out where you had to copy the files. Sometimes you had to copy files to libs: or devs: or s:

Ah those were the days...

Re:

[OldMugwump]

XMODEM long preceded Kermit. XMODEM was designed for CP/M, which only tracked file lengths to the whole 128-byte disk block. It marked file endings with a ^Z.

Re:

[Aighearach]

You didn't have to transfer archives, that is silly. A lot of end-user computers used to access BBS systems didn't even have archive utilities installed, but people still downloaded stuff.

Why would an executable fail to run because it was padded?

On the Apple ][ it was completely normal to download exectuables with XMODEM.

those were the fondest memories

[onepoint]

Wow, BBS in NJ forever changed my life, and as I got older they
improve my knowledge outside of the library. I even became for a while
a fidonet node. NJ to London, I had a "free" dial up connection that I
could call london england. and for about 2 years I did that every Sunday
to Thursday about 10pm to 1am. just moving the mail back and forth.

While it's not a big deal, I would like to think that everyone in the system
brought forth the internet and the knowledge of mistakes to push it further.

Not the first computer bulletin board

[stevel]

Props to Suess for his developing BBS software that became widely used, but this was in no way "the first online bulletin board". I was using the PLATO IV NOTES app, used by thousands around the world, at least four years before Suess built his BBS.

Re:

[Aighearach]

XMODEM itself was already a couple years old, too.

But somebody tell Ivan that all English-speakers already know how to pronounce Suess.

Re:

[dgatwood]

Also, please tell the universities that somebody needs to give this guy an honorary doctorate posthumously. Just saying.

Re:

[Aighearach]

If there is one thing the world needs more of, it is Doctors Suess.

Re:

[Mr. Slippery]

Though I bow to your experience, not quite the same, I think. First, not called a "bulletin board"; second, not being used by people in their homes using diverse personal computers, but running on mainframes from one manufacturer in university and business setting.

The distinguishing feature of a BBS was that all you needed was terminal software (or heck, a terminal) and a modem. You didn't need the same type of computer as the people you were communicating with.

Telnet

[Teckla]

Probably the closest thing we have to BBS's these days is Telnet servers. Here's a great resource for accessing BBS-style systems via Telnet:

Telnet Servers [jumpjet.info]

Lots of MUDs, Talkers, games, etc. on that list. Enjoy!

Still telnet?

[antdude]

Not SSH? [sighs]

Who else remembers Citadel?

[Rick Schumann]

Post a comment if you remember/used Citadel BBS's.

Re:

[SylvesterTheCat]

I remember the name.
I might have used it once or twice, but I'm not sure.

Re:

[Rick Schumann]

You'd remember, it was unlike any other BBS software out there. 'Room based'; on connect you'd 'enter' through the 'Lobby', and from there, there were other 'rooms' you could enter for various discussions, which were all single-threaded streams of conversation. I think there might have been nested rooms but I don't remember if that's true or not. Depending on the version and how customized it was there might be simple games embedded, a dice-rolling function, and so on. Lent itself very well to having online

Re:

[McGruber]

I wasted much of Reagan's second term spending time on a couple of Citadel BBS systems in my hometown -- I think the first one was on CPM, then the sysop got a DOS machine and began running Citadel-86. Citadel's 1-character commands were really speedy over 1200-baud connections, which was crucial since the BBS limited your connection time (so that other users would have a chance to connect.)

I also remember when the various Citadel BBSes began relaying email and posts to one another by making long distan

Hmmm...

[Waffle Iron]

As the city shut down, Mr. Christensen phoned Mr. Suess to say that they finally had enough time to build their new system.

It's hard to collaborate on technical projects over the phone. I would have used something more suitable, like Slack or Microsoft Teams.

Re:

[john.r.strohm]

I can't tell if you are trolling or serious.

Did you miss the part about "1978"?

Have you noticed

[Chas]

...how everybody seems to be dead lately?

UseNet starts in 1980

[bobs666]

For anyone that had a local UseNet node, The BBS's where obsolete. wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

Cheers

[Minupla]

Taking a moment out of my chaotic Xmas eve to raise one to the man without whom my life would have taken a very different path. BBSing got me through my childhood and paved the way for my future career. It is sad that people like this pass without knowing all the lives they touched.

So, I wish thee low long distance bills, no call waiting drops and fast connect rates wherever you are now!

Past sysop of Panther's Lair, 1:153/190

BBS in the interenet age...

[sml7291]

I ran TBBS (Turbo Pascal BBS) on a Kaypro modified with two quad density 5.25 floppy drives giving me all of 1.4MB of storage (an almost infinite amount of space at the time). Started out with a 300 baud modem but before I stopped using the bulletin board I think I was all the way up to a 2400 baud. Loved that Kaypro and those Hayes modems.Good times indeed.

Anyway, I ran across these links some time back and they may be of some interest....

http://www.vintagecomputerbbsl... [vintagecom...bslist.com] - a bit dated now but perhaps hi

Re:

[parityshrimp]

For what it's worth, I spent 3 years working at a startup as my first job after getting a Master's, and the computer code that I wrote / worked on amounted to 1.4MB of text. Kind of amazing that much of 3 years of my working life would fit on a floppy. I also did some electronics design that I'm not counting, but still...