filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us (Bela Lubkin) (02/03/90)
In article <639@xdos.UUCP> Doug Merritt writes: >Seizing this opportunity for a favorite flame of mine: why is it that >all of these online services have user interfaces that absolutely SUCK??! >I know, all of you fans out there have gotten used to them and have >forgotten how much trouble they are...human beings are infinitely adaptable. >But we're in the 90's now, and most of them are using 60's style user >interfaces. [...] >And small scale BBS software...that's the worst. Absolutely primitive. >Kludgy. Hard to navigate. Extremely modal. Arbitrarily partitioned. >Minimal command sets. And every time some enterprising hacker writes >their own BBS software, they still seem to model the user interface on >what they're used to, which is the same old awful stuff. > >About eight years ago I was a regular on Big Tree (in the Santa Cruz >mountains), the only BBS I've ever seen that had a tolerable user interface. >(This is to say that it *is* possible to do it nicely even in a text-only >slow baud environment.) It had its problems, but the author/sysop cared >very deeply about user interface, and it showed. Most of these other >services/BBS's seem to have been deeply influenced by JCL. Stuart II (the BBS with the "Big Tree> " prompt that you're remembering) died a couple of years ago, but its descendents live on in Santa Cruz. See the BBS numbers in my .signature. There are also two commercial BBS packages loosely based on it: Magpie (shareware) for MS-DOS and UNIX; and one whose name I can't remember, for the Atari ST. However, XBBS and Pyrzqxgl are much closer in spirit and user interface to the original Stuart II. (Stuart II was actually based on Dave Winer's "Living BBS", which eventually went on to become ThinkTank -- so these BBSes are distantly related by descent to Living Videotext's "MORE" etc.) Note: followups directed to alt.bbs. Bela Lubkin * * // filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us CI$: 73047,1112 (slow) @ * * // belal@sco.com ...ucbvax!ucscc!{gorn!filbo,sco!belal} R Pentomino * \X/ Filbo @ Pyrzqxgl +1 408-476-4633, XBBS +1 408-476-4945