Classy interface: The FirstClass bulletin board system user interface can be customized in many ways. Here, SoftArc, the maker of the software, has arranged large text blocks and icons to easily guide the user through the system.

Bored with printing on paper? Try a bulletin board system

Sometimes the most dangerous thing is to get the right answer to the wrong question.

Putting a newspaper on-line is not a particularly tough technological challenge. Then again, neither was putting a newspaper on television (and we all remember how well videotext went). As videotext showed, there's risk in moving too fast. You can spend hundreds of thousands -- even millions -- of dollars, building a service that virtually no one is ready to buy. That may be a good idea if you are a big company and can afford to take the long view financially, but it won't cut it at most papers.

Move too slowly, and you risk becoming the Information Age successor to the buggy whip manufacturer at the dawn of the Age of Automobiles. Besides, there are valuable things to be gained immediately.

Newspapers now routinely sell their data once, then pack it away in libraries. Some pack it off to database vendors, but how many people do you know with Nexis accounts?

An on-line presence gives you at least the possibility of reselling some of that data. And there is a market for it -- it isn't altruism that drives database providers to cut deals to pay you for your data.

There is also the question of developing new skills. The ability to bang out deathless linear prose does not automatically mean you'll be able to do the same with hypertext. (Hypertext is computer software that allows you to move from idea to idea, rather than follow a story word-by-word.) Think back to the early days of television when stage directors simply plopped down a camera and aired their productions, and compare that with today's techniques and capabilities.

How, then, do you go on-line without going broke?

One way is to put up your own small bulletin board system. Bulletin board systems -- commonly referred to as BBS -- are designed to let users dial in over phone lines, chat with other users, upload and download files, send electronic mail, play interactive games -- the list goes on.

You can start a BBS with just about any old machine and modem. If you want to run a bigger system, of course, you'll need a slightly more elaborate setup. Even so, a small BBS can be an inexpensive way to probe the ether of cyberspace and develop your digital chops.

Herewith are reviews of a few popular BBS packages -- and some you've never heard of -- that might suit your needs. All PC reviews were conducted on a '486DX-2 66 MHz machine with 8 megabytes of RAM, a 1 gigabyte hard drive, a VLBus video accelerator and a VLBus hard-drive controller. The modem was a 14,400-bps fax/data unit running off a 16550 Uart.

Your mileage may vary.

DarkStar!
Let's start with the one that's the most fun. DarkStar! is an actual working multimedia BBS. (Other folks say they have multimedia BBS packages -- it's just that the multimedia part will ship Real Soon Now(TM).)

Like most of the advanced packages discussed here, you can log on the first time with any communications program -- but all you can do is download the special client software.

The client software is easy to install. In fact, it is so easy it is an embarrassment to the bigger companies that this little garage shareware operation has accomplished elegantly what they seem unable to accomplish at all -- build client software that tests the system and then configures itself properly.

Once you've installed the client software, users can dial into a DarkStar! system with full multimedia support. Again, the system is frankly an embarrassment to the America Onlines, Prodigys and CompuServes of the virtual world.

The system is beautiful, and fast. Sound and graphics are piped across live most of the time. DarkStar! automatically detects when a file is so large that it would cause a system slowdown, then moves it across compressed using a file transfer protocol (ZIP).

The bulletin board is about as easy to install as the client software. You pretty much start it up, and it tests your system. The version we tried -- 1.01c -- has a strong dislike for MS-DOS 6.2. Paragon recommends that you run the board on DOS 5.

So where's the fly in this ointment? This is a brilliant little piece of software from a cyber start up, forcing you to accept the fact that your brilliant software comes with start up support.

A fairly standard question: Why does DarkStar! hate DOS 6.2? (It's a known bug, as it turned out, which should be fixed in a subsequent revision.) It took a couple of days' worth of phone calls, which were finally returned by a nice guy who called from home after work.

Seems he does this -- support -- in his spare time.

It's a brilliant start up, but it is definitely a start up.

The Power BBS
This is a bulletin board designed to run on Microsoft Windows. Installation is fairly straightforward -- it took me an average of about 30 minutes to install it each time.

The question, of course, is why anyone would want to run a BBS on Windows? Most of the DOS BBSs are fairly close to being full operating systems -- once the computer is booted, they replace DOS and address the hardware directly.

Windows on DOS is not the world's most stable operating system. And the Power BBS runs OK, but it doesn't have a lot to recommend it. It's not as good as the other software reviewed here, never mind better.

If you already have a Windows machine and want an inexpensive, plain vanilla BBS, then The Power BBS may suit you. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

The Major BBS
If you are serious about bulletin boards, The Major BBS deserves a look.

A two-line version costs $259; you can expand up to 256 lines on a single Pentium machine. Since The Major BBS also offers network support -- including Netware -- you can keep on growing until ... well, suffice it to say that Microsoft uses The Major BBS.

The bulletin board is easy to install -- if you can type "A:\Install," you can get this puppy up and running. The software installs out of the box with both character and RIPscrip support. The whole process takes about two minutes with two disks, then another five minutes of waiting while the software configures itself.

The character-based support allows you to put up a straight-forward bulletin board system. But it's the RIPscrip implementation that really shines. RIPscrip allows the user to work with a mouse, instead of typing in commands. (RIP stands for Remote Imaging Protocol, not Raster Image Processor).

Unlike DarkStar!, The Major BBS adjusts to each user. If the user doesn't have or want RIPscrip, he or she can simply use it as a standard character-based BBS.

If the user has the RIPscrip client software -- RIPterm, included with the BBS so your users can download it -- The Major BBS automatically senses it, engages RIP support, and allows the user to log on and work the system with a mouse.

The Major BBS's two greatest strengths are its extensibility and its a proven track record as an industrial-strength app.

Extensibility: Like Quark XPress and Microsoft Office, Galacticomm, maker of The Major BBS, actively encourages third-party add-on packages. The result: a profusion of customization options.

These include some real possibilities for the newspaper industry, such as full Internet connectivity, on-line shopping, integrated voice mail for voice classifieds and databases that include photographs.

If you still can't find exactly what you want -- and you cut a mean swath with your C compiler -- you can simply pony up a few bucks to Galacticomm for the source code and write whatever it is that you want.

As to its stability, Galacticomm hardware and software has been purchased by some fairly major corporations -- AT&T, CitiBank, Microsoft -- and a couple of hefty newspapers: the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

As always, there is at least one fly in the ointment. In Galacticomm's case, it's the RIPterm client software shipped with the BBS. The BBS itself was a breeze to install, and just as easy to configure and use. Anyone who could realistically be a sysop -- anyone who pretty much can install their own software -- could get this thing up and running.

The client software, however, was somewhat problematic. I installed it on a half-dozen machines. It wouldn't run at all under OS/2, despite assurances from the company that it would. On four of the other five computers, it would run only after I set up the modem initialization string by hand.

Here's a typical string: AT&FB0X4&B1&H1&R2E0V1S11=55.

No, I'm not making that up. That's the initialization string for just one of the four modems that had to be customized. And it may be a little much to ask your average subscriber to deal with that kind of code before logging on to your system.

Bizarrely, host software set itself up just fine when installed on the same machine.

Final score: The client software locked one machine cold, ran without a hitch on a second, and had to be customized on four others.

FirstClass
One BBS is different from anything else in this review: SoftArc's First Class.

For starters, FirstClass uses a Macintosh as the host computer, and has a terrific mouse-driven interface.

Like DarkStar! and the RIPscrip support on The Major BBS, FirstClass requires special client software. Client software is available for Macs, Windows and command-line systems such as DOS or UNIX.

I didn't have the time or money to reconfigure a Macintosh as a comm server, but as a member of the steering committee for the National Institute of Advanced Reporting at Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis, I knew where one was running.

We set up a FirstClass server at NIAR at the beginning of the year. So far it's been a terrific -- but expensive -- system, according to Dean James Brown.

"It comes on two diskettes and takes five minutes to install," said Brown. "Of course, that's the simple version. It also has Internet connections, network and modem connections."

Such add-ons add complexity as well as features, Brown said.

NIAR's BBS has been used by an on-line class, students and the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Brown -- who ran PCBoard and Coconet BBSs before FirstClass -- has been impressed with the system's ease of use and flexibility. His BBS has between 150 and 200 users.

He's been less impressed with the price. BBS software is usually sold by the connection. The Major BBS, for example, supports two modems out of the box for $259. You can add modem support in groups of six at $249 per pack.

Each line will handle hundreds of users. On boards that encourage heavy on-line time -- real-time chat boards, for example -- one modem per 300 regular users is a good rule of thumb. On boards that encourage occasional use -- boards where users stop by for a few minutes once a week to see if there is new software to download, for example -- one modem per thousand users is practical.

So for $510, you can support somewhere between 2400 and 8000 users with The Major BBS. But SoftArc charges by the user -- 1000-user telecommunications licenses are $2495 each. If you intend to run a large operation, that can run into some serious money.

On top of that, the equipment for a big system is more expensive. SoftArc says you can put 100 connections on a FirstClass host. Galacticomm says you can put 256 on its host. In other words, you can put almost as many connections on six FirstClass hosts as you can on two machines running Major BBS.

"We've got a lot more money sunk into it than we did in PCBoard," said Brown.

On the other hand, that may look like money well spent after one of your customers gets through wrestling with RIPterm.

What it all means
If you like life out on the cutting edge, give DarkStar a look.

If you want a small, elegant system, definitely take a look at FirstClass.

If you are looking for something that will grow into an industrial-class on-line service, check out The Major BBS.

-- Christopher J. Feola

DarkStar! and The Power BBS are shareware programs. You can download them from many BBSs and on-line services, including CompuServe, where you can find them in the IBMBBS forum;
The Major BBS,
Galacticomm,
(800) 328-1128;
FirstClass,
SoftArc,
(416) 299-4723.

From THE COLE PAPERS, November 1994, Copyright (c) 1994, All Rights Reserved.