It turned out I found this new hobby very rewarding! I
not only met many other people in my area with similar
interests, but I started to feel like I was really doing
something useful for the community too. Other friends of
mine became interested in running their own bulletin
board systems, and a couple of them even used my software
to do it. By 1989, I had upgraded my computer to the
faster Tandy Color Computer 3, and was able to do more
advanced things with the BBS. It was getting so many
phone calls by this time that the line was almost always
busy. At some point, I changed the name of my bulletin
board to the "File Cabinet" (which seemed fitting, since
the trend was moving towards actually offering a good
collection of downloadable programs and interesting text
files to people, as well as providing private messages
and public discussion forums).
Throughout the mid 1990's, my BBS thrived and went
through several major changes. I added still more phone
lines and eventually moved things to one of several
different software packages for IBM PC compatible
computers, when I finally retired the Tandy Color
Computer. People around town began regarding my bulletin
board as one of the bigger, better ones in town - and
employees at the smaller computer stores started
recognizing me when I came in. I started networking my
BBS with others that were part of "Fidonet", a message
exchange network. With Fido capabilities, people could
email anyone else on any other BBS in the world that was
part of Fido, and the recipient would get it within a
night or two. (This was pretty cool stuff before the
Internet became mainstream!)
Alas, the writing was on the wall that the era of the BBS
was coming to a close. By 1995-96, I watched more and
more people begin signing up for Internet service, and
they complained of the inconvenience of having to hang up
their modem and dial a different number every time they
wanted to use a BBS. I realized the only way the BBS
would survive at all was if it became a possible Internet
destination. It was still very costly, but I bit the
proverbial bullet and purchased a 128K ISDN circuit from
the phone company, and gave my BBS a full-time Internet
connection, as well as the 4 dial-in phone numbers it
had.
Interestingly, this put me in the situation of becoming
some people's ISP (Internet Service Provider). They were
able to call my BBS and get their own email address, and
use it while connected with my system. I also offered
them basic "ftp" capabilities, so they could send and
retrieve files from file servers on the Internet. All of
this was a great learning experience for me, but it was
also becoming expensive, (not to mention being a huge
drain on my free time!).