BBS Directory Information (Jason Scott)
AmiExpress at Wikipedia
AmiExpress was written from scratch by Michael Thomas under the company name of Synthetic Technologies. Modelled on the popular PC bulletin board system PCBoard (Wikipedia), Michael worked on AmiExpress for two years before selling the code to Joseph Hodge, the last known developer. A Usenet post by Joseph stated that both programming on /X and the company (LightSpeed Technologies Inc.) were to be dissolved, with plans for a new board system: Millenium BBS. Unfortunately this never surfaced.
For all the newbies on the net, your ISP is not the beginning and end of all data communication. Exactly how far back this goes, I'm not willing to study - but I know I came into the game around 1993. A lot of users started in the mid-80's, on crawling baud rates and large phone bills. There were ways around the financial side of BBS'ing, but that's not the topic here.
In the beginning I didn't really go looking for a BBS - I had known a guy that wrote music modules (a fave hobby of mine) and wanted my guitar echo pedal. He'd trade anything he had that I was interested in - that trade became a USRobotics 14.4k modem and a disk containing NComm 2 which also had a database of a few BBS's. At that point I hadn't realised I'd sold my soul to the devil.
I can't really remember many names, but most BBS's were running MAX's software - it was only when I chanced upon Digital Candy that I found out of others; Permanent Vacation, Cryogenics, Havok and Comfortably Numb - to name a few. DC was most likely the biggest of the UK BBS's with a 6-node ringdown: You called a single number and they placed you on one of the 6 nodes.
After a few weeks of nosing around - and attempting to configure MAX's BBS - I eventually got myself a copy of AmiExpress. From my point of view it was easy and fun to setup. DC held a vast library of /X doors: programs that would create lastcallers/user listings/etc. Unfortunately during my time of uploading/downloading I amassed large phone bills that eventually led to my disconnection. Memory fails me, but I believe this actually happened twice.
In later versions (v3.xx + above?) everything about AmiExpress was configured using icon tooltypes. Personally I loved this, heard a few people complain but it was much easier to just open an LHA door file and simply copy icons over. I guess the biggest problem was always the modem settings, but that exists on any system you try to set up. Plus you could configure /X entirely with one icon containing all instruction - haven't tried this myself but may attempt to put one together in the future.
AmiExpress at Wikipedia
AmiExpress was written from scratch by Michael Thomas under the company name of Synthetic Technologies. Modelled on the popular PC bulletin board system PCBoard (Wikipedia), Michael worked on AmiExpress for two years before selling the code to Joseph Hodge, the last known developer. A Usenet post by Joseph stated that both programming on /X and the company (LightSpeed Technologies Inc.) were to be dissolved, with plans for a new board system: Millenium BBS. Unfortunately this never surfaced.
For all the newbies on the net, your ISP is not the beginning and end of all data communication. Exactly how far back this goes, I'm not willing to study - but I know I came into the game around 1993. A lot of users started in the mid-80's, on crawling baud rates and large phone bills. There were ways around the financial side of BBS'ing, but that's not the topic here.
In the beginning I didn't really go looking for a BBS - I had known a guy that wrote music modules (a fave hobby of mine) and wanted my guitar echo pedal. He'd trade anything he had that I was interested in - that trade became a USRobotics 14.4k modem and a disk containing NComm 2 which also had a database of a few BBS's. At that point I hadn't realised I'd sold my soul to the devil.
I can't really remember many names, but most BBS's were running MAX's software - it was only when I chanced upon Digital Candy that I found out of others; Permanent Vacation, Cryogenics, Havok and Comfortably Numb - to name a few. DC was most likely the biggest of the UK BBS's with a 6-node ringdown: You called a single number and they placed you on one of the 6 nodes.
After a few weeks of nosing around - and attempting to configure MAX's BBS - I eventually got myself a copy of AmiExpress. From my point of view it was easy and fun to setup. DC held a vast library of /X doors: programs that would create lastcallers/user listings/etc. Unfortunately during my time of uploading/downloading I amassed large phone bills that eventually led to my disconnection. Memory fails me, but I believe this actually happened twice.
In later versions (v3.xx + above?) everything about AmiExpress was configured using icon tooltypes. Personally I loved this, heard a few people complain but it was much easier to just open an LHA door file and simply copy icons over. I guess the biggest problem was always the modem settings, but that exists on any system you try to set up. Plus you could configure /X entirely with one icon containing all instruction - haven't tried this myself but may attempt to put one together in the future.