bsherman@pro-exchange.cts.COM (Bob Sherman) (06/28/88)
It all began about eight years ago, when a fellow named Bob purchased a modem and discovered there was not much around south Florida to use it for. The idea of setting up a BBS came to mind, but being a computer nut himself, he did not want to give up the use of his own computer to run the BBS on. Bob mentioned his idea to Tom, a young man trying to make a living by selling and fixing Apple computers in his south Dade apartment. Tom and his new bride May liked the idea, but did not have much time to devote to the programming of such a venture. A deal was struck, Tom always had extra computers hanging around, and Bob could program and operate the BBS by phone, remotely from his north Dade home.. In June of 1981 the idea was put together, along with several weeks of testing and hoping it would work as it was supposed to. On July 4, 1981 the system went public with the name of Miami's Big Apple, and the fellows spread the word to some of their friends, giving out the phone number, and waiting for the calls. Their friends told other people and it was happening, Miami's Big Apple was born. As time went on, Bob procured a second Apple computer and offered to move the set-up to his north Dade home, thus eliminating the midnight panic calls to Tom such as "the system has crashed, please get up and re-boot it". Since then, the system has received about 84,000 calls from all over the world, from the famous, and the not so famous, and has grown much larger in size and scope. So as we celebrate our seventh anniversary and begin our eighth year of service to the computer community, I would like to thank Tom Romkey and his wife May, who walked the floor many a night while the new baby resided at their apartment (Tom no longer sells computers from his home, he now owns Personal Computer Store on South Dixie Highway), and my wife Carol, who has many a time seen her husband glued to the Big Apple keyboard in an attempt to keep the system online 365 days a year, when she had other thoughts in mind, and to my son Roby, who has spent hours on end helping with the programming on the system, as well as keeping it running during the times I have been racking up hundreds of thousands of miles traveling about the hemisphere on business. I would also like to thank the folks that call the system, for making us the oldest, most often called system in the entire southeastern United States, and perhaps the oldest in the country. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MIAMI'S BIG APPLE - 305-948-8000 UUCP: crash!pro-exchange!bsherman ARPA: crash!pro-exchange!bsherman@nosc.mil INET: bsherman@pro-exchange.cts.com
SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) (06/30/88)
>I would also like to thank the folks that call the system, for making us >the oldest, most often called system in the entire southeastern United >States, and perhaps the oldest in the country. > >HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MIAMI'S BIG APPLE - 305-948-8000 > >UUCP: crash!pro-exchange!bsherman >ARPA: crash!pro-exchange!bsherman@nosc.mil >INET: bsherman@pro-exchange.cts.com Happy Birthday! You may indeed be the oldest BBS in the Southeast, but the OLDEST BBS is almost certainly CBBS in Chicago. The following is about 18 months old, but I'd risk a small wager that the number remains active... -------------------------Forwarded Message-------------------------------- If your modem calls (Chicago) (312)-545-8086 You get the World's oldest BBS. Here's an edited version of what I got - ** WELCOME TO WARD AND RANDY'S CBBS(R) ** (COMPUTERIZED BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEM (R)) ** (In operation since 2/16/78) You are caller 162361; next msg =34285; 462 active msgs. 6/9: New Chi. BBS list msgs 16-19 Prev. call 06/04/86 @ 07:11, next msg was 33612 The system has only three major functions: --> Entering messages --> Retrieving message summaries --> Retrieving messages It was conceived, financed, and is run by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess for message communication between computer hobbyists. Typical message subjects include: 'something for sale', 'need help with something', 'club meeting notice', etc. Feel free to leave a message on any hobbyist computer related subject. Commercial 'ads' ARE permitted, providing they are hobbyist related. The hardware consists of: North Star Horizon S-100 mainframe w/4MHz Z-80, 64K RAM, 5M hard disk, HS4IO serial board 2400 baud modem (rotating ARK (Paradyne) and Courier (USRobotics)) Scitronics clock board - Appropriate CBBS SUBJECTS: C, assembler, AI, programming techniques, communications, etc. No non-computer related topics, please. - Specifically the CP/M, MS-DOS/PC-DOS, and UNIX operating systems. Computer interfaceable music synthesizer msgs welcome. - Commercial msgs in above areas welcome - Pers. msgs between hobbyists/hams OK - PLEASE avoid frivolous msgs - Messages using fictitious names, ****'s, ----'s, centering, or other space/time wasters, or inappropriate subjects ARE DELETED. - Use lower case if you have it, PLEASE. (Caps for EMPHASIS). - Please don't leave #'s/passwords for NON-PUBLIC systems, or offer to trade such passwords. - Please don't offer to buy/sell/trade COPIES of licensed software you have purchased for a single user. --------------------- Disclaimer: --- My employer isn't responsible for my mistakes AND vice-versa! (subject to change without notice; void where prohibited) ARPA: sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu Murphy A. Sewall BITNET: SEWALL@UCONNVM School of Business Admin. UUCP: {rutgers psuvax1 ucbvax & in Europe - mcvax} Univ. of Connecticut !UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL "It might help if we ran the MBA's out of Washington." - Adm Grace Hopper
bsherman@pro-exchange.cts.COM (Bob Sherman) (07/02/88)
Thanks for your congrats message on the beginning of our Eigth year of online bbsing for Miami's Big Apple.. You may well be right on the Chicago system being older than we are, as I am not as familiar with the entire country as I am with the southeast..where I know we are the oldest.. If in fact there are older systems, they too deserve a message of congrats. as it sure is not an easy task over such a long period of time.. By the way, you might find it of interest to know that from time to time, your Vaporware report appears as a feature in our usergroup section for which I would like to publicly thank you.. If you would like to give Big Apple a visit, give a call to 305-948-8000.. It is rather limited for non members however.. UUCP: crash!pro-exchange!bsherman ARPA: crash!pro-exchange!bsherman@nosc.mil INET: bsherman@pro-exchange.cts.com