BBS software for the PDP 11

[jim stephens]

On 5/19/2017 3:23 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
> On 18 May 2017 at 17:16, allison via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>> All a DOS BBS was  was a user interface that provided security by requiring
>> user/password
>> and limiting the commands usable.  The easy was to do that was a version of
>> the CMD module
>> rewritten to not have things like RMDIR and DEL.
>
> I was never into the BBS scene, because outside North America, local
> phone calls cost money. So you paid for every minute you were online
> -- quite a lot.
I have news for you. (maybe) From 1976 until it petered out, the phone 
time cost a lot too.  $200 or more a month at times.

Also a stupid charge for local calls where the PUC's didn't stand up to 
the Bell system or successors and call bullshit to the charges. Calling 
across a few blocks could cost a lot and you wouldn't know it unless you 
were a phone nut due to zone usage metering.

Only with competition in the mid 80s did US long distance start to fall, 
and now with the internet and voice over IP have the need to pay for 
most such long distance gone away for small users.

I put in a couple of T1 based systems for large offices though as 
recently as 7 years ago, and commercially the POTS or digital carrier 
phone numbers carry a huge toll.
thanks
Jim
> I used (and still use) CIX (www.cix.co.uk) which was a sort of UK
> version of BIX, and used offline readers -- you dial up, it sends your
> comments, zips & grabs all your messages, and disconnects, as fast as
> possible to keep the phone bill down.
>
> But AIUI later-era DOS BBSes often used DESQview to allow multiple
> multitasking user sessions, and the BBS sysops were often early
> adopters of OS/2 2.
>
> So DOS <> no multitasking...
>
>
>