VISAR (Rueckgauer Systems Technical Support)
============================================

"VISAR (acronym for Virtual Information Storage and Retrieval) was
the online technical and customer support facility for Rueckgauer
Systems between 1983 and 1986. It ran on the company's proprietary
Virtual Services Exchange platform, which provided seamless
integration between the BBS and the internal network for
electronic mail, schedule, message boards, FAQs, file libraries
and transfers. This vastly simplified sysop tasks, as the BBS
appeared to be just another folder on the local network. It also
freed-up the modem connection typically used by a sysop dialing in
to do maintenance, or be present.
"Callers could use any conventional communication/terminal
program, such as Hayes Smartcom or Procomm+ for a standard TTY or
ANSI interface. Callers using Rueckgauer Systems' vxC comm program
in DOSMENU or DOSMENU/VS, or who were on Wang OIS or VS systems,
interacted with the site exactly as if it were part of their local
computer or internal network resources, using the DOSMENU user
interface (which was a clone of the Wang OIS interface).
Messages/discussion boards appeared as Wang or VSX mail or message
boards; file libraries appeared as folders on their computer or
shared from their server.
"VISAR was more like a modern-day website than the typical company
BBS of the day. The BBS provided clients direct interaction with
the internal project management, customer service and accounting
systems.
"VISAR's first host was an IBM XT running DOSMENU/VS 1.1 with 640K
and two external Hayes 2400 modems. The hardware was upgraded to
an IBM AT running DOSMENU/VS 2.0 in early 1985 with two 4-port
serial boards supporting 8 Hayes 2400 modems. The final host was
an IBM PS/2 Model 80 running DOSMENU/VS 5.2 with 8mb of memory, a
320mb drive, and two 16-port serial boards with a mix of 2400 and
9600 Hayes modems. The host was connected to the network at first
using a Davong ARCnet LAN; it was replaced with an IBM PC Network
LAN in 1985.
"The VISAR BBS was phased out during 1988 as Rueckgauer Systems
moved its support platform to CompuServe. It was shutdown on
October 28, 1988, coinciding with the company's relocation to
Boston. The DOSMENU/VS product line sold over 10K copies of the
Server product and over 40K copies of the Workstation and
standalone product between introduction in 1983 and
discontinuation in 1991."

Phone   : 203-327-4101
Place   : Stamford, CT
Years   : 1983 - 1988
Sysop   : Jeff Rueckgauer
Software: Virtual Services Exchange (VSX)

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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