Multi-node BBS'

[Jason Howe]

I just spoke with a guy who wrote and ran a popular BBS in the mid-late 
80's at Drew University, the Drew Underground.

The software was the 2am BBS, it ran initially on some number of Epson 
QX-16's, multiplexed to a single hard drive.  He had the following to 
say about it:


"Yes, I was the one that purchased and set it up sometime around 1985/6. 
It was a 70mb hard drive with an 8-port multiplexer sold by Bi-Tech. 
Came with a bunch of device drivers that required you to change some 
system settings to avoid disk caching in DOS, which could cause file 
corruption. We had to code a file locking system to prevent overwrites. 
Record locking became an OS feature later.

I think this ad is for the right device:
https://books.google.com/books?id=7wCiNAUEuAMC&pg=RA3-PA184&lpg=RA3-PA184&dq=bi-tech+multiplexer&source=bl&ots=uEC4FTUuuY&sig=QeODyBX--AtYVxaMuY0U5zbldQU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fmjjVLWzIIHagwSLtIPgCg&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=bi-tech%20multiplexer&f=false
"

Thought it an interesting data point to add to the conversation.

--Jason



On 02/17/2015 08:15 AM, John Many Jars wrote:
> The BBS The Garden of Eden in Phoenix ran on some weird custom software.
> It was dual line, on Apple ][ machines, connected together by serial cable
> I think...