Subj : The History of HobbyNet
To   : All
From : Mike Dippel
Date : Mon Sep 25 2023 08:12:50

Back in the late 80's, I had a subscription to Prodigy.  When it expired, I did some 
research and purchased the DOS version of Mustang's BBS software and ran 4 phone 
lines into my house.

My wife loved to write in Prodigy's Cross-Stitch echo, so I decided to make my own 
Prodigy and devote it to hobbies.

I lived in Broward county and found various other dialup systems that were willing to 
carry my feeds.  The feed went as far as south Dade county and as far north as Palm 
Beach county.

I even included a conference area devoted to Business Advertisers because I found that 
I could charge them to advertise, knowing that their ad would touch 3 nearby counties.  
I also found that I could charge my dial up users and give the paid ones a card that 
would give them a discount at any of the paid advertisers that I had on my system.  I 
called it the HobbyNet Discount Card.

Back then, BBS users expected everything to be free, and it was.  But the paid members 
got the discount bonus feature with my business advertisers.

That's my trip down memory lane.  I'm sure everyone has a great story that you could 
share.

Mike Dippel
 
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v7.0
 * Origin: The Hobby Line! BBS - hobbylinebbs.com (954:895/1)

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