Excaliber
=========

Also listed as: Excalibur BBS

"I was the SysOp of this BBS, which was a project started by my
dad and I together when I was in the 7th grade as a sort of
father-son project. We started with Wildcat software which we used
for a long time, briefly used Quick BBS, and finally ended up on
PC-BOARD as we evolved into more sophisticated things like
participating in FIDO-NET. We started at 1200 baud and one
computer, which I would have to take offline if I wanted to call
into another BBS because we had just the one. Eventually, we added
another line, had two PCs networked together with LANTASTIC, and
got a 16.8k US ROBOTICS modem with the special "FOR BBS USE ONLY -
NOT FOR RESALE" placard on it because of the special pricing
availble to SysOps.
"I remember being amazed at the whole FIDO next message
board/email system -- being able to send a message from the local
BBS, then watching as our system auto-dialed a system in Chicago
at night, which would then dial some other system, and eventually
the message would make its way to the intended recipient. An email
and a reply might take days to complete, but it was still
electronic and free, which was just the coolest thing ever. Little
did we know then what those early email-relay systems would evolve
into.
"We kept the BBS going even while I was in college, although from
'93-96 the whole BBS thing was really in its twilight. For a
number of years we won the prestigious (LOL) "Northwest Indiana's
Best BBS Award" - heck we may well have won that ever year such
voting actually took place -- at least 3 or 4 times anyway.
"I look back now and can't believe how much things have changed,
but since I got out of school I've been a technology entrepreneur,
I've started a number of internet related companies, raised
venture capital, did the dot-com thing, and here I am still at it
-- and I probably owe it all to running that BBS with my dad when
I was 13 years old. My first "real" business out of college was an
ISP in 1996, which was really nothing more than a more modern BBS,
with dial up modems and the whole bit.
"The funny thing is that you can't even talk about the BBS days to
people that didn't experience them first hand, because it all
seems so foreign - yet if you were there, the evolution to where
we are now is plain as day.
"Anyway, thanks for having this site - I stumbled onto it by
complete accident as I was checking a caller ID call I missed, and
somehow this came up. It really has brought back some memories."
"Now if I can just remember how to play Tradewars... Thanks
again." - Jeff

Phone   : 219-923-7611
Place   : Griffith, IN
Years   : 1988 - 1996
Sysop   : Jeff Ready
Software: PC-Board, PCBB, PCBoard, Wildcat!

Listed by telephone number, as they all were. A few of
these boards did reach the web: see recoveries-002.txt.
Source  : bbslist.textfiles.com, compiled by Jason Scott

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