The Tower of Babble =================== "The BBS started on a Franklin ACE 500 (Apple compatible) around 1991 and almost entirely existed in the ACE's memory, except for things that needed to be saved. I was inspired by Scotty Klement (Far East Network aka F.E.N.) and Rick (The Keep). Scotty agreed to be my co-sysop. Later, I took on underage Brian Brechlin to keep up with things like user sign-up. T.O.B., in its heyday, was more able to produce messages in one day than multi-liner ODS, despite having only one line. The system switched to an Apple IIe a year or so later which was donated by Gary Wallschlager. Later, Glenn got his own Apple IIe and beefed it up with a hard drive, extra floppies (both types). Over the 5 or so years it was running the BBS existed on donations and Glenn's salary. T.O.B. was most famous for its message forums but also offered a library of Apple software, various online games, a jukebox (courtesy of Rick), and there were certain users who volunteered to offer counselling to other users who sought help. Sadly, this counselling service sometimes was confused with a T.O.B. game that pretended to be a shrink and would give crazy advice. It was clear that the software was out of date as the few overseas users disappeared as quickly as they arrived. There were some very dedicated users that helped by being ForumOps, such as Jim, manager of Aquatics Unltd. Facing infrequent visits by users and few messages Glenn finally pulled the plug in 1995. It was a bit tough to do that because it'd been his lifeblood, but there seemed little point in continuing." - Glenn A McGrew II Phone : 414-672-5973 Place : Milwaukee, WI Years : 1991 - 1998 Sysop : Glenn A. McGrew II, Scott Klement, Brian Brechlin Software: GBBS 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------ gopher://hp84.com/ | https://ge97.com/ .